My Two Bank Robberies

When Carolyn and I were newlyweds we lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Macomb County, Michigan. She worked for a doctor and I was a methods analyst – an industrial engineer of sorts – for the National Bank of Detroit. We only had one car, so on those occasions when the bank observed a holiday that "normal people" didn't get, she drove the car to work and I was stuck at home in the apartment.

On one of those occasions I decided to go shopping at a grocery store located across 16-Mile Road from our apartment. I set out on foot for what would be my quarter-mile trek and came to a ditch on the south side of 16-mile. There I spied several small bags scattered in the grass. Upon inspection I saw they were bank bags, each ripped open. The bags had various bank names stamped on them, including the bank where I worked, NBD. Inside each were wads of checks, all of different stock. I do not recall if the checks were canceled. It seemed to me there had been a robbery and upon ripping the bags open and discovering nothing but checks, the robbers had thrown them out on the side of the road. Rather than going on to the store, I picked them up and took them back to our apartment.

The next morning, bank holiday over, I took the bags to work and immediately gave them to the bank authorities. Good deed done, I got down to work.

Later in the day I received a call saying some bank bigshot, probably a vice president (NBD handed out vice-presidencies like Bed, Bath and Beyond hands out 20% discount coupons) wanted to see me. "Wow," I thought, "they want to reward me for my good deed. They probably want to do a story on me in the corporate newspaper – complete with picture, of course.

So Steve the junior-executive hero trotted on down to the administrative offices ready to tell my story and accept whatever certificate of achievement they might have for me.

I entered the room to find a couple of guys in suits along with three bank security guards. They wanted to know all about my adventure. Where did you find the bags? Are you sure they were ripped when you found them? What were you doing crossing 16-mile, a busy four-lane thoroughfare, on foot – a dangerous proposition at best? And on… and on.

Holy cow! I was a suspect! The grilling went on, it seemed, endlessly as I tried to convince these goons I had nothing to do with the robbery and thought I was doing the right thing by bringing the bags in. I finally convinced them or maybe they just got tired of giving me the third-degree. They let me go and I went back to my cube farm, a bit shaken. There was no certificate of recognition, no story in the company newsletter and no picture of me shaking hands with the bank president.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Epilogue: Nothing more ever came of that incident. I never heard exactly what happened that led to the bags being on the side of the road; no newspaper story, no word from the bank, no nothing. Unrelated to that, however, I had yet another encounter with iniquity at NBD a few months later.

Someone robbed a savings and loan institution across the street from NBD. The police issued a sketch of the suspected robber. I was, at the time, working on a project in the bank's Safekeeping department. As I walked in for a meeting there I was greeted by the staff with, "Steve… It's you!" They said I was a dead-ringer for the guy in the police artist's sketch. They had it posted on their bulletin board and I went over to take a look. Sure enough, it was me. The likeness was so close I now regret not taking it down and keeping it. Of course, that might have aroused suspicion and I definitely wouldn't have wanted that, given my past experience with the bank's "rubber-hose squad."