As a life-long LSU homer, I can not let the 50th anniversary of "The Halloween Run" pass without making note of it.
I have before chronicled the ups and downs in the life of Billy Cannon. (You will want to go back and hit that link I just left...but most of the links don't work now...danged internet!).
Billy ran his way into the history books of College Football on Halloween Night, 1959. My Daddy & Granddaddy were in Death Valley that night to witness the whole thing. Even though I was already almost two months old...they didn't take me with 'em. Sigh.
The only video I can find is on The Facebook. Here is where that video is at! It seems that LSU is planning to honor Billy tonight before stomping the living crud out of Tulane.
As I said, I can't let this anniversary pass without acknowledging Billy, redemption, and "The Run."
Saturday, October 31, 2009
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Ah, yes, Billy Cannon. When I worked in the vault at the Louisiana Bank and Trust in Shreveport, we took great pride in catching counterfeit bills by hand. The ONLY counterfeit $100 bill that I missed and was caught by the automatic bill counter and counterfeit bill detector was a Billy Cannon counterfeit bill.
ReplyDeleteThey were works of art.
Cosmic: Evidently, even a work of art will still buy ya' accommodations at Angola!
ReplyDeleteWe had the FBI come to the bank to retrieve all the Billy Cannon 100s. Once the one got past me, our team all sat down with them and examined them. (I wasn't the only one to miss one, btw).
ReplyDeleteAfter some close inspection and some comparison of crispness and "crinkle" (Yes, you use fingers, eyes and ears and sometimes nose to detect counterfeits) we got to where we could spot the counterfeit in a stack of 100s. The FBI confiscated all of them (without replacing them, we took a loss and had to go back and see if we could get our money back from the stores that sent them to us, mostly 7/11s and grocery stores).
The reason they got past us is that they had been printed on remarkably good paper and with ink that dried leaving ridges, like the ink on a real bill. Back then to detect a counterfeit what you did was run your fingernail along the coat of Ben Franklin. Counterfeits usually felt flat, but a real bill has a set of ink ridges that you can feel with your fingernail. Also you can "snap" the bill and "feel" the difference between the rag paper of real money and the wood pulp paper of counterfeit money. Also you can hold them up to the light to see if there were red and blue threads barely visible within the bill.
On the Billy Cannon bills we had there were red and blue "threads" that turned out to be ink, not threads. Whoever did them knew what people like me were trained to look for.
Our counterfeit detector machine caught them because they lacked the proper magnetic ink.
These days there are even more counterfeit-combating things in your money.
Hmmm...interesting, Cosmic. I remember you telling me that you had first-hand knowledge, and had seen the Billy Cannon Franklins.
ReplyDeleteI've gotta go back and research actually who did the work. I know that he wasn't smart enough to pull it off himself. Well...I guess he didn't really pull it off.
But seriously, the guy has made the best of his failings. I think I can spot a fake when I see one. And, I think Billy is not a counterfeit (anymore).