After the Flag Has Been Folded by Karen Spears Zacharias Page B

business for thirty thousand dollars and a guarantee of a job, plus he could keep the money he’d already collected.
    By family standards, James was a man of means and a man of his word. I didn’t know all this as a kid, of course. I only knew that his boys, cousins Roger and Bill, had their own televisions in their bedrooms. I figured they must be rich.
    Yet, despite his seeming successes, on Monday, November 21, 1966—four short months after Daddy was buried—James took a gun and robbed a branch of Kingsport National Bank.
    Folks at the barbershop and around town were saying the robbermade off with thirty thousand dollars. But later news reports said the lone suspect had pocketed an estimated nine thousand dollars. According to the Kingsport Times-News , this was the first robbery of a Kingsport bank in modern history. It made headline news that very afternoon:
    Â 
    COLONIAL HEIGHTS BANK ROBBED: LONE GUNMAN FLED WITH $9,000 CASH
    A lone gunman quietly robbed the Colonial Heights Branch of the Kingsport National Bank of an estimated $9,000 in cash this morning and fled on foot. Two tellers didn’t see the gunman who went behind a teller’s cage, pulled a pistol with his right hand and scooped up a drawerful of bills with his left. Federal, state, county and Kingsport law enforcement officers converged on the scene within minutes of the holdup at 10:09 a.m. And began an immediate search of the area around the bank branch. First descriptions of the robber said he was in his late 30s, a white male, five-feet 10 inches, weighing about 170 pounds, having crew-cut hair and wearing a gray jacket, a blue work shirt and light trousers.
    The physical description alone was probably enough to tip off the local police. The menfolk on the Spears side of the family are creatures of habit. I never saw Pap in anything other than gray slacks, gray work shirt, and gray felt hat. His clothes were always clean and heavily starched. Pap was a trim and good-looking man, so he looked handsome in his outfit, but it never, ever changed. By the same token, James wore the same navy blue work shirt, light gray trousers, and jacket to match every single day. And he had kept his blondish red hair in a flattop buzz cut since he was old enough to pay for haircuts.
    The newspaper story humorously noted that the robbery occurred on the first day on the job for Colonial Heights bank president W. R. Teague. There was no word on whether Mr. Teague was amused.
    The bank teller, Mrs. Allison, stood next to an empty cash drawer and told everyone who would listen how the lone gunman walked into the bank shaking like a Gospel Mission drunk. A friendly soul, Mrs. Allison commented on the cold weather. The stranger mumbled a response. She went on about her business, writing out bank notices, and then stepping up to the teller window, she offered the fellow some help.
    Lifting a pistol with his right hand, and with a steady but urgent voice, the man demanded the teller’s cash. “I want your money,” he said. “I want every bit of it. This is no joke.”
    Mrs. Allison knew better than to question a gunman’s intention. His fingers were gripped around the trigger, and the barrel was pointed in her direction. “Come on around and he’p yourself,” she replied. As the bandit approached the cash drawer, Mrs. Allison didn’t bother trying to dissuade him in any way. She opened the drawer all the way and stepped back. “I didn’t want to be a dead hero,” she said.
    The man never took his eyes off her as he reached into the wooden drawer and with his left hand scooped up all the bills—$9,157 total—and shoved them into the neck of his shirt. A lone dollar bill flitted out. He didn’t stop to retrieve it. He issued a warning to Mrs. Allison: “Don’t move. Don’t try to follow me. Don’t stick your head out the door or I’ll blow it off!”
    Then the man walked out,