My friend, Chuck O'Connor, was a bank robber. He died March 16, 2000 at 91. Chuck didn't hide his past. He simply overcame it.
He watched his father murder his mother when he was six. As an orphan, he drifted into bad company in San Francisco, and even witnessed another murder. He was placed in a home for boys where he was horribly maltreated. At a still tender age, he fled to ride box cars.
In hobo camps along the rails, he fell in with a criminal element and began to learn the bank robbing/safe cracking craft. This led to his first prison experience. Released into the Navy, he later jumped ship and killed a man in an Australian brothel.
Escaping to America, he took up a life of crime that spanned several decades, the bulk of them spent in federal and state pens, including Alcatraz. Chuck knew some of the famous cons, Baby Face Nelson, Capone and several mafia figures. Along the way, he picked up a wicked heroin addiction.
In his seventies, heroin and booze led to serious attempts at suicide. All he had ever known was an unceasingly dreadful life and his misery was deepening. What could he do?
Grudgingly reaching for help, and after an enormous struggle, Chuck O'Connor became a clean and sober man. Not only did he overcome his own hopelessness, but, throughout his late seventies and eighties he dedicated the remainder of his life to helping the downtrodden in any way he could.
Audiences listened in gaping awe as this one time societal menace recounted the events of his life. Many sufferers found their own inspiration in this man's amazing awakening so very late in life. He was greatly admired. He founded a recovery home dedicated in his name. There's a good book and maybe a movie somewhere in all this.
At the end of his life, Chuck O'Connor discovered that he was a very different sort of human than he or anyone would ever have thought. His wife reports that he passed on very peacefully with a look of pleasant calm about him.
It's never too late folks.
Bob Knechtel
Your Go60 Caretaker
