Seymour

And today we are talking.

Finally, we are going to catch up with another artist or group that we both saw and met at Crossroads Acoustic Fest in Seymour, Indiana, back in April.

We're talking with Thunder and Rain.

So they're a new grass group led by Aaron Pete Lukes.

So tell me a little bit more about...

Was there a formal group or whatnot where you met Amelia and Laura? Because I saw Laura playing with Leah Blevins at a festival a couple of years ago.

And I didn't make the connection that it was her until I saw you guys up in Seymour, Indiana at the Crossroads Acoustic Fest.

Because I'm taking pictures of you guys there and I'm looking at Laura and I'm like, God damn.

It's in corn fields.

It's right next to Seymour, Indiana.

Do you guys know John Mellencamp, the singer, at all? You guys-

No.

Thank you for telling me because I don't know.

I thought it was down near Seymour, Indiana.

I thought it was right here.

Is it closer than you

Ladies and gentlemen, it's Jellicoe, Tennessee.

Fans introducing first wing at 222 and a half pounds from Seymour, Indiana, the hustler Rip Rogers.

His opponent on this hour of Smoky Mountain Wrestling from Reno, Nevada, 226 pounds, Reno Riggins!

All right, fans.

Well, there's

no doubt he is in great shape.

Now, he's come from Seymour, Indiana.

Now, here's a little trivia question for you people out there.

These men, who had fought across the Mediterranean, who had held the line above bomber formations over the most defended airspace in Europe, who had earned medal after medal in service to their country, came home and found that their country hadn't moved in April of 1945.

A group of Tuskegee pilots returning from training at Freeman Field in Seymour, Indiana, attempted to enter the officer's club on base.

They were commissioned officers of the United States Army Air Forces.

They had every right to walk through that door.

Kingston, New York is pretty much a hundred percent full of Kekchi people who So they have a very strong Quechua community in Kingston, New York.

Other communities like K'iche' in Providence, Rhode Island, or Seymour, Indiana is full of speakers of a language called Chu.

And I know this because I've been to all these places.

And as part of my job, especially in the beginning, when we were first getting started, most of our work was through programs that were supporting unaccompanied children.

and as for the sister's deadly oath she did no act in proof of the violent intentions imputed to her but instead subsequently became the wife of a respectable man and settled down to a useful life though a much more commonplace one than she had previously known john reno after serving fifteen years in the missouri penitentiary was released and is said to be at present living on the old farm Clint Reno, or Honest Reno, always stayed at the old homestead and has never been willing to speak of his brothers or of what happened to them.

Seymour, purged of the evil influences that corrupted it, has grown into a thriving and beautiful little city and is today one of the model towns of Indiana.

End of The Destruction of the Renos CHAPTER VI.

TRUE DETECTIVE STORIES FROM THE ARCHIVES OF THE PINKERTONS late in the afternoon of friday may fourth eighteen eighty eight two messengers left the american exchange national bank at the northeast corner of cedar street and broadway new york city and started down the busy thoroughfare for the office of the adams express company a few blocks distant they carried between them each holding one of the handles a valise made of canvas and leather in which had just been placed in the presence of the paying teller a package containing forty-one thousand dollars in green bags to be transmitted to the united states treasury in washington for redemption although the messengers edward s crawford and old dominie earle were among the bank's most trusted employees their honesty being considered above suspicion they were nevertheless followed at a short distance by bank detective macdougall an old-time police detective whose snow-white beard and ancient style of dress have long made him a personage of note on broadway detective macdougall followed the messengers not because he had any fear that they were planning a robbery but because it is an imperative rule of all great banking institutions that the transfer of large sums of money even for very short distances shall be watched over with the most scrupulous care each messenger is supposed to act as a check on his fellow while the detective walking in the rear is a check on both in such cases all three men are armed and would use their weapons without hesitation should an attack be made upon them the messengers walked on through the hurrying crowd keeping on the east sidewalk as far as wall street where they turned across and continued their way on the west sidewalk as far as the adams express company's building which stands at number fifty nine broadway having seen them safely inside the building the detective turned back to the bank where his services were required in other matters passing down the large rooms strewn with boxes and packages ready for shipment the two messengers turned to the right and ascended the winding stairs that in those days led to the money department on the second floor no one paid much attention to them as at this busy hour bank messengers were arriving and departing every few minutes still some of the clerks remembered afterward or thought they did that the old man earle ascended the stairs more slowly than his more active companion who went ahead carrying the valise alone both messengers however were present at the receiving window of the money department when the package was taken from the valise and handed to the clerk who gave a receipt for it in the usual form received from the american exchange bank one package marked as containing forty one thousand dollars for transfer to washington or at least so far as has ever been proved both messengers were present when the package was handed in the two messengers having performed their duty went away earle hurrying to the ferry to catch a train out into new jersey where he lived and crawford returning to the bank with the empty valise the valuable package had meantime been ranged behind the heavily wired grating along with dozens of others some of them containing much larger sums the clerks in the money department of the adams express company become so accustomed to handling gold silver and bank-notes fortunes done up in bags boxes or bundles that they think little more of this precious merchandise than they might of so much coal or bricks a quick glance a touch of the hand satisfies them that the seals the wrappings the labels the general appearance of the packages are correct and having entered them duly on the waybills and turned them over to the express messenger who is to forward them to their destination they think no more about them in this instance the forty one thousand dollar package after a brief delay was locked in one of the small portable safes a score of which are always lying about in readiness and was lowered to the basement where it was loaded on one of the company's wagons the waggon was then driven to jersey city guarded by the messenger in charge his assistant and the driver all three men being armed and was safely placed aboard the night express for washington it is the company's rule that the messenger who starts with a through safe travels with it to its destination though he has to make a journey of a thousand miles sometimes the destination of money under transfer is so remote that the service of several express companies is required and in that case the messenger of the adams company accompanies the money only to the point where it is delivered to the messenger of the next company and so on the next morning when the package from the american exchange bank was delivered in washington the experienced treasury clerk who received it perceived at once from the condition of the package that something was wrong employees of the treasury department seemed to gain a new sense and to be able to distinguish bank-notes from ordinary paper merely by the feel even when done up in bundles looking at the label mark of forty one thousand dollars the clerk shook his head and called the united states treasurer james w hyatt who also saw something suspicious in the package mr blanchard the washington agent of the adams express company was summoned and in his presence the package was opened it was found to contain nothing more valuable than slips of brown straw paper the coarse variety used by butchers in wrapping up meat neatly cut to the size of bank-notes the forty-one thousand dollars were missing it was evident that at some point between the bank and the treasury a bogus package had been substituted for the genuine one the question was where and by whom had the substitution been made the robbery was discovered at the treasury in washington on saturday morning the news was telegraphed to new york immediately and on saturday afternoon anxious councils were held by the officials of the american exchange bank and the adams express company inspector burns was notified the pinkerton agency was notified and urgent dispatches were sent to mr john huey president of the express company and to robert pinkerton who were both out of town that their presence was required immediately in new york meanwhile everyone who had had any connection with the stolen package the paying teller of the bank other bank clerks the messengers detective mcdougall the receiving clerks of the adams express company and the express messenger was closely examined where and how the forty-one thousand dollars had been stolen was important to learn not only in itself but also to fix responsibility for the sum lost as between the bank and the express company three theories were at once suggested the bogus package might have been substituted for the genuine one either at the bank between the bank and the express office or between the express office and the treasury the first assumption threw suspicion on some of the bank employees the second upon the two bank messengers the third upon some one in the service of the express company both the bank and the express company stoutly maintained the integrity of its own employees an examination of the bogus package disclosed some points of significance ordinarily when bank-notes are done up for shipment by an experienced clerk the bills are pressed together as tightly as possible in small bundles which are secured with elastic bands and then wrapped snugly in strong paper until the whole makes a package almost as hard as a board around this package the clerk knots strong twine melts a drop of sealing wax over each knot and stamps it with the bank's seal the finished package thus presents a neat and trim appearance but in the present instance the package received at the treasury was loosely and slovenly wrapped and the seals seemed to have been put on either in great haste or by an inexperienced hand moreover the label must have been cut from the stolen package and pasted on the other for the brown paper of a previous wrapping showed plainly in a margin running round the label the address on the package read forty one thousand dollars united states treasurer washington d c all this was printed except the figures forty one thousand even the dollar sign the figures were in the writing of mr watson the paying teller of the bank whose business it was to oversee the sending of the money His initials were also marked on the label with the date of the sending, so that on examining the label, Mr. Watson himself was positive that it was genuine.

John Mellencamp did not choose to be a cougar.

Born in Seymour, Indiana in 1951, he survived a pioneering risky surgery to correct spina bifida when he was just nine days old.

As a teenager, he fronted a soul band called Crepsoul at 14, eloped at 19, and graduated with an associate degree from Vincennes University in 1975.

When manager Tony DeFries signed him to a deal, DeFries insisted on renaming him Johnny Cougar for his 1976 debut album, The Chestnut Street Incident.

that I grew up in.

So Seymour, Indiana.

Yeah, you know it.

You know it.

Yes.

Yes, in Seymour, Indiana, to be exact.

Well, slap my thigh and call me Sally, Tom.

[laughs] Seymour is a pretty small place.

It's g- only got a population of around 21,000 today, so 1951, when he was born, it must have been pretty rural and remote.

And when I say remote, I mean, like, culturally remote, not physically remote, 'cause it's only about an hour to, like, Indianapolis or Cincinnati.

But I think that there was probably not a whole lot of really deep cultural events going on in Seymour, Indiana.

Hey, maybe I'm wrong.