Saturday, June 12, 2004

D. B. Cooper, Parachuter Nonpareil

Today while driving to a seminar about a local Type A" Life Care facility (not that I'm ready for such a set-up but I believe in preplanning, and they offered a free lunch!) out of the blue I thought of D. B. Cooper, that guy who jumped out of an airliner in 1971 with the $200K ransom he had collected. He became quite a cult hero. Many hoped he had gotten away with his crime--probably because it was such an impossible, daring act. People even wore tee shirts with slogans about D. B. and his boldness. I don't think I had one of those shirts. My tastes at the time ran more toward slogans like "Dracula Sucks," but I too thought D. B. was a cool dude.
D. B. appeared to be middle-aged in 1971, so if he actually made it out of the Washington woods, he'd probably be in his 80s now. Maybe he invested his ransom proceeds well and now lives in a Type A Life Care facility--playing Bridge and telling paratrooper tales and of survival in the wilderness, all of which the facility staff attributes to advanced senility. Go D. B.!

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