”..In between assignments as a disk jockey, he took a job as assistant manager at the Capital Theater. One evening, two men came to the bocx office, inquiring about a lost wallet. My father led them into an office and opened the safe. He searcfhed the box but discovered no wallets. He turned around to find one of the fellows pointing a gun at his head, the other a knife.

    Clearly, both assailants were terrified. The gunman’s hand shook as he ordered my father over to a chair, where his accomplice bound his hands behind his back. One of the marauders shoved a handkerchief in Dad’s mouth, a really dirty handkerchief...that really gut my father’s blood boiling. As the the bad boys turned and started to loot the safe, Dad slipped his binds and lunged at the man with the gun. All three spilled out of the office, crashing into the vast lobby. My father and the gunman wrestled on the carpet and struggled for the pistol. The guy with the knife bolted into the darkened theatre.

    “I was screaming for help” my father recounted years later “but Betty Hutton was singing so loud that nobody heard me. Eventually Dad managed to get hold of the pistol and trained it on his assailant. The police came and carted the ruffians off to jail. The newspaper called my father a hero but he always told me what he’d done was foolish. Nevertheless, I was proud of my old man.”

 

—  David Zucker, Feb. 2007 issue of

    “The Mental Health Advocate”