- Joined
- Jan 20, 2018
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- 5,693
When I was an apprentice, Fred bought a Kennedy toolbox full of machinist's tools from a listing in the newspaper classifieds (remember those?). The woman who was selling them said that they had belonged to her husband who had disappeared. He worked the graveyard shift at a local labelling machine manufacturer. One night he left for lunch and never came back.
Fred gave the machinists at the shop first pick of the contents of the box. He then sold me the box with the remaining tools, most notable a 2 in. Starrett mic, B&S precision square and 24 in. scale, along with the usual miscellany and debris.
About six months later there was an article in the local paper about the renovation of a restaurant which had burned. During the demolition, the charred body of a man was found in the crawl space above the ceiling. Our missing machinist had been found. He had apparently found that an hour was more than enough time for lunch and had been filling the extra time by burglarizing nearby businesses, then setting them ablaze to cover his tracks. On this final caper, he apparently saw that the police had responded to a silent alarm after he set the fire. He climbed up into the crawl space to hide and was overcome by smoke.
I later sold the box to one of our weldors, but I still have the dead man's tools.
Fred gave the machinists at the shop first pick of the contents of the box. He then sold me the box with the remaining tools, most notable a 2 in. Starrett mic, B&S precision square and 24 in. scale, along with the usual miscellany and debris.
About six months later there was an article in the local paper about the renovation of a restaurant which had burned. During the demolition, the charred body of a man was found in the crawl space above the ceiling. Our missing machinist had been found. He had apparently found that an hour was more than enough time for lunch and had been filling the extra time by burglarizing nearby businesses, then setting them ablaze to cover his tracks. On this final caper, he apparently saw that the police had responded to a silent alarm after he set the fire. He climbed up into the crawl space to hide and was overcome by smoke.
I later sold the box to one of our weldors, but I still have the dead man's tools.
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