Where’s Harry D. Holmes When You Need Him?

[Briar Lee]

I’m celebrating 41 years of wearing a suit, tie and hard soled shoes by retiring and wearing old man clothes like pocket T shirts, comfortable shorts, and slip in Sketcher’s every loving day.


And for the not princely sum of $21.50 delivered I ordered 6 more Hanes pocket Ts in assorted colors from eBay in the fat boy size, and I followed their path to my door.

On Thursday my iPhone said they’d arrived and I went to get my T shirts a bit later and they weren’t on the porch.

I thought, my wife or my son have picked them up and they are someplace in the house.

But both denied picking up my package.

So on Friday, when one of our two postmen walked by, I asked him about my T shirts, and he said to call the post mistress, and I called her, and when I read her the tracking number she laughed and said

Van, that’s a United Parcel Service tracking number, not ours.

I said the real post office used to deliver anything UPS the last mile.

She said they stopped that. They do all their own deliveries now. But, they take a photo of who they deliver it to.

So I looked up the local UPS store in Jefferson City and found it closed down last month, shut down tight, gone!

So I called their service number and a very smart, nice young artificial intelligence lady walked me thorough the process, and claimed that their driver had a lady named Penny sign for it.

But when I got online and requested a photo delivery picture of Penny—-there wasn’t any.

I’ve been robbed, of my T shirts!

I put in a claim, and it’s only $21.50, but where the hell is Harry D. Holmes when you really need him?

Xxxx

Lee Harvey Oswald's Postal Investigation​

The first official act taken by Holmes was to place a 24-hour security watch on Oswald's box. For days after the assassination, all mail delivered to Oswald was given directly to Holmes and the FBI. Fritz asked Holmes to sit in on the interview that would be taking place. This would end up being Oswald's final interview. Harry Holmes delved deep into questions pertaining to Oswald's access to the murder weapon, which he bough through the mail from Klein's Sporting Goods in Chicago.

When the interview was over, Holmes exited to his car. As the FBI was transporting Oswald, Jack Ruby, a prominent Dallas nightclub owner, pulled out a handgun and shot Lee Harvey Oswald point blank. Oswald was pronounced dead at 1:07 p.m. on November 24, 1963.

https://www.uspis.gov/history-spotlight-2023/harry-d-holmes#:~:text=Postal%20Inspectors'%20radar.-,Lee%20Harvey%20Oswald's%20Postal%20Investigation,p.m.%20on%20November%2024%2C%201963.
Xxxxx

I understand the gubbermint is in the middle of a trade war and they don’t have the money or time to solve all our problems.

But if I was a running the gubbermint, I’d require that Fed Ex and UPS and Amazon all have efficient, courteous and zealous postal inspectors like Harry D. Holmes, and real ones too, not AI generated.

It might protect all us senior citizens living on fixed incomes from predatory T shirt stealers named Penny, if there is a Penny, you know?

I ordered six more Hanes pocket T shirts but this time, I made double sure they were being shipped by the real, geniune, and original United States Postal Service and not some big corporate outfit, that will never know my name, doesn’t have a local office, uses computerized service employees, has no letter carriers who hand me my mail if I’m out in the yard, and take my photo to cover their asses, with me in my old man clothes, and not in my suit and tie.

 

[Richmond B. Funkenhouser]

Nothing like a good ole cigarette pocket shirt!

I haven't tried a pair of Slip-ins, but they sound like my kind of shoes.

Hopefully Harry Holsterman will get that sorted out for you.

 

[Briar Lee]

Nothing like a good ole cigarette pocket shirt!

I haven't tried a pair of Slip-ins, but they sound like my kind of shoes.

Hopefully Harry Holsterman will get that sorted out for you.

Why I was able, to go from a half mile South of Bug Tussle, to be a comfortable old lawyer with a lifetime of good memories, prosperous beyond any of my wildest hopes, in a $3.50 pocket T shirt, I owe to my parents, and my preachers, and my teachers who loved me and taught me about just what a miracle and blessing the United States Postal Service was, and still is today.

Anything Harry and Wilda Mae or Alva or Nona Fern Hosterman needed the rural route delivery carrier brought to their comfortable home in the wilds of Spout Spring Hollow from the Dunnegan Post Office, which is still in operation today.

Find USPS Locations | USPS

And when I hear somebody wonder if Lee Harvey Oswald might be a patsy, I know they weren’t raised up to know the true story of Harry D. Holmes.

Holmes nailed Oswald for postal fraud, caught him cold in less than 18 hours, traced his rifle and revolver both to Kline’s and proved Oswald paid for A. J Hidell’s post office box.

If Holmes was alive today I’d like to sic him on this mysterious T shirt thief “Penny”.

If I had a neighbor named Penny, it might explain it.

But if Penny was real, where’s her photo?

 

[pappymac]

Someday someone needs to publish a collection of @Briar Lee posts in book form. Sort of like "The Tao of Willie".
There is usually a good bit of wisdom and entertainment included in his posts.

 

[jguss]

a lady named Penny sign for it.

A textbook example of the infamous Bad Penny. We live in evil times.

 

[Briar Lee]

In a way I’m glad that UPS has, no postal inspectors.

When I meet my Master, I will not have to explain why because I played Judas, and for the sake of $21.50, caused another soul less fortunate to be arrested or lose their job, or both.

I am sure and certain that my Master sees every sparrow when it falls, and His wrath might well fall on me, for causing it, or cheering it.

I inherited 300 acres of land, and three rental homes, that others before me, sweated and paid for.

And about three years ago, a $450 check from the renter of one of my rental homes, the home my Daddy built my Mama in 1954, the one I could see Bug Tussle from, was late.

Those renters pay like a slot machine. They pay early. So about the middle of the month I called her, and she said she’d sent the check three days before the first, and she and my efficient front office assistant went into full bird dog mode trying to trace it.

And they were completely successful!

A grandson of a man named Tommy, had become a homeless drug addict and was sleeping in a tent hidden on my farm, on Elmer’s 60, in sight of what was once Bug Tussle.

He knew the renter mailed me a check each month, so he checked the mail box for it when the flag was up.

He stole the check, and altered it, and took it to a bank in Bolivar and cashed it.

And all I had to do, was sign a complaint form to prosecute him, to get my money.

I never cry around my employees or renters but that day I did.

My assistant asked what was wrong.

I said the fall of 1971 when I was 13, and my father had died and I was helpless, Tommy and his father and Russell Madison came and harvested all the fields, and sold the crops, and refused even gas money.

I’d as soon cut off my arm, than play Judas to Tommy’s grandson.

So o called Tommy and said to get his grandson off my place before my renter or somebody else shot him.

And my assistant and my renter , set up my rent payments on Pay Pal.

And when Tommy asked me what he owed, I said you paid all that and more in full, the fall of 1971.

About a year later at a cafe in Humansville the boy’s mother ran over to me and hugged me.

She said you saved my son. He’s married, has a job, he’s off drugs now.

I said I didn’t save your son.

Some ancestors of mine in Plum Grove Cemetery did.

I’m afraid of what they’d say to me someday, if I even thought about being the cause of his destruction.

This world would a better place be, if everybody’s Mama sang them to sleep using Tramp on the Street, for a lullaby.

 

[Briar Lee]

A textbook example of the infamous Bad Penny. We live in evil times.

I might have been the victim of a porch pirate.

2024 Package Theft Annual Report and Statistics

Porch pirates stole 58M packages worth $12B in 2024. Kentucky leads in theft rates. 1 in 4 Americans have been victims, with apartment dwellers hit hardest.

www.security.org

Our home is on a beautiful tree lined street, and the sidewalk is on my side of the street.

All hours of the day and night folks walk by.

A UPS driver is something of a hireling wage slave , he’s not an official agent of the greatest, most powerful and wealthy nation that the sun ever rose on, will have no postal employees pension, and when he’s up in years the company is very likely to toss him away like an old worn out shoe.

But he’s issued a camera and what if I was some soulless old selfish low down grouch who really bore down on him for my missing package he reported delivered to Penny with no photo?


If he couldn’t produce a Penny he’s likely to go home and tell the children Daddy’s out of a job, you know? And for $21.50 worth of pocket T shirts.


Odds are, there really is a Penny.

Is Penny a thief waking down the sidewalk and bats her eyelashes at the UPS man and says oh no, you can’t take my picture?

Or is Penny a housewife somewhere who the doorbell rang and she took the package without looking and said thank you and shut the door?

Even yet, my T shirts might wind up on my porch.

She’d be a rather large old Penny, to want them.

 

[didimauw]

I recently started buying the pocket tees lately, just so I can put my pipe in the pocket.

 

[Roach1]

I also have my daily attire. 4 Pairs of assorted maker blue dry fit shorts, 4 grey and 2 blue Landsend T- Shirts of varios age.Crocs on the feet year round. That's the summer but Winter changes to Fruit of the Loom sweatpants and Landsend long sleeves.

 

[lraisch]

I was told my mail order prescription was delivered to my mailbox, except it wasn't there. The pharmacy and USPS weren't a lot of help. Six weeks later, the neighbor who had it delivered to their mailbox finally brought it over.

Hopefully "Penny" finds out your T shirts don't fit and brings them to you.

 

[Briar Lee]

I looked up how old my seventh grade teacher Miss Charlotte was in 1970/71 and she was born in 1934, which would have put her then Taylor Swift’s age today, except Miss Charlotte was careful not to work out so much and get big thunder thighs.

She had been runner up Miss Missouri in her time and we all wondered what blind fool bribed judges denied her the crown.

She had tenure and her Korean War hero husband was the Superintendent of schools and my Daddy was President of the school board serving along with his church buddies who were also Hiland Diary Cooperative members in good standing, and Miss Charlotte was safe and insulated, from the Karens and the nut jobs who would surely get her fired today.

This sounds like somebody else who had Miss Charlotte for his seventh grade teacher, but back then all the seventh grade teachers taught the hillbillies the true legend of Harry D. Holmes—

——-

Harry Holmes and the JFK Assassination​

Harry Holmes' office was in the Terminal Annex Office Building, facing Dealey Plaza. Holmes and several other Inspectors were watching the presidential motorcade when they heard the ringing of gunshots in the air. According to Holmes, the scene was so chaotic that no one peered just across their building to see Oswald escaping. Instead, eyes were glued to the First Lady and the bloody scene below them.

Immediately, all federal agencies located in Dallas banded together to assist the FBI and secret Service. Holmes had previously worked with Captain Fritz of the Dallas PD and volunteered his services. As the manhunt ensued for Oswald, information trickled in to the Post Office Department about his local postal connections. It turned out that Oswald had a PO Box located in the Terminal Annex, and he had used it with the last few weeks.

Lee Harvey Oswald was on the Postal Inspectors' radar.

——-

33 little souls all leaned forward as Miss Charlotte had a chart of Deeley Plaza as she would teach us by Socratic method the Gospel According to Chief Justice Earl Warren of the Supreme Court of the United States of America’s Commission to determine how the Secret Service failed to protect the President and the Governor of Texas, and their lovely wives.


Even in 1970, not as many as later years, there were conspiracy theorists peddling books and movies and television shows for money from the gullible public claiming Oswald was a patsy and some kind of sinister conspiracy combined to murder the President.

But because of Harry D. Holmes, the last man to question Oswald, if Oswald had survived for trial no lawyer that ever lived could have saved Oswald from the electric chair.

And Harry Holmes lived until 1989.

Harry David Holmes (1905-1989) - Find a Grave...

www.findagrave.com

Harry D. Holmes was an elder of the Christian Church and dropped his wife off for the morning services, then he went to interview Oswald.

Had he neglected his post as Postal Inspector of Dallas Oswald would have been transferred while Jack Ruby was still waking up, at 10 am as announced.

For over 60 years every charlatan and huckster that ever sold some conspiracy theory for blood money, has to explain how a man with a lifelong reputation as white as snow, would somehow have to be involved as a co conspirator.

The True Legend of Harry David Holmes was also taught at church, as well.

Those old preachers weren’t nearly as pretty as Miss Charlotte but they had amazing gifts of oratory.

Plus, my father and the board always hired special music for the lecture.

There is a Record Book

I realize now it was all just brainwashing us to lead pure, blameless and upright lives.

But only one man ever accomplished that, and He was betrayed by one of us to His enemies, and nailed to a cross.