I grew up in a small town in MI. of about 5000 people.My family was typical of a lot of families in town.On my moms side her and my grandparents lived there and on my dads side my great grandparents, my grandparents and parents all lived there.
With a town that small everybody knows or at least knows of everyone else and since my family had been there for so long everybody knows us.
My dads dad owned many businesses over the years in town.The 3 he made his $ from were a Service Station, a Coney Island and the Jukeboxes in the area.On most days he would be at the service station and my grandma would be running the coney joint both would be taking bets and he would also be loansharking out of the service station.At night he would have card and dice games.At the time it was very easy for him to get away with it.His family had strong ties to the business and political community and paid off who he needed to.I know at one wont he had a game at a house that was so close to the police station that he paid to let him use their parking lot for over flow traffic.
The other thing that made him able to operate was the fact that a lot of the guys that came to the games were prominent law abiding citizens that didn't even consider what they were doing as a crime.My dad also worked for my grandpa.He ran numbers,sports,and card games he was also my grandpas connection with bikers(my dads best friend was the president of the local biker club).
I would say that my grandpa was a gangster and my dad is just a gambler. Although he was a bookie and ran card games he also worked everyday and gambled for extra $.He still goes to underground card games and usually does ok.
My grandpa on the other hand was a greedy asshole.It's funny because people who didn't know him very well loved him I still have people comming up to me to say how much they loved my grandpa but the people he was close to like his family hated him for instance his daughter and granddaughter both bought land across the street from him and built houses but he's never been aloud at either house.On x-mas he would sit in his wheelchair(after diabetes took his legs)all alone after his wife died and look out the window at my aunts house as the rest of the family had x-mas dinner lol I would say the mean old bastard got what he deserved.
When my dad got married my grandpa loaned him the $ to buy a house but he charged my dad like anyother loanshark loan he had plenty of $ but was so fucking greedy money was the only thing he cared about. When my dad was a kid my grandpa would trick my grandoma saying he was taking my dad to the drive-in but what he was really doing was picking up hookers and locking my dad in the trunk of the car while he fucked them in the back seat, nice guy
Things could've been different somebody tried to kill my grandpa.He was shot but survived.Im not sure if they ever found out who did it but I know if my grandpa knew who did it he would never have told the copsHe had a lot of enemies so it would have been difficult for the cops to figure it out. But in such a small town news travels fast on the street.I would think that within a few days most people knew who did it maybe even the cops knew but there isn't enough evidence to bring to on court.Hell a lot of times the killer will tell people because he wants people to know it'll give him street cred as long as there isn't any real evidence they can't prove it.I never asked him who did it but I did ask him a few times what happened and every time his story would change so I couldn't believe anything he said anyway.
One of the things I find interesting is when family rats on family.Im not gonna say it's right or that I would rat but I understand because I had absolutely no loyalty to my grandpa.I did except jobs he got me or favors he's done for me but he had no loyalty to anybody all he cared about was money.
So when I read about Sonny Franzese's son testifying against him it makes me wonder if maybe Sonny wasn't such a good dad?I can think of a few things that would leed me to that conclusion.Amongst other things he is a murderer,a loanshark,an extortionist,a bank robber,maybe a rapist and also ok'd a hit on his son I wouldn't say those are good dad qualities.
I just thought a different look at crime may be interesting. Everbody including myself just look at big city gangsters they are the glamorous ones guys like my grandpa are not glamorous at all.He was just a mean old bastard that listen to Laurence Welk