Another Guess Who? With Kevin

Inspired by Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story, Kevin has crafted a captivating series of “guess who” articles, which he’s generously sharing with our readers!

Lula Parker Betenson is ninety-five.

She wants to tell you about her big brother. Seems you’re already under a misconception or two about him and she, Lula, wants to make sure that you know THE REST OF THE STORY.

Lula Parker Betenson comes from a Mormon family. Her parents migrated from Iowa to Utah, settled property at Circleville, where Lula lives.

She had an older brother who died in the thirties; his name was Bob.

In the years since, you’ve heard a lot about brother Bob Parker. A lot of it isn’t true. Lula wants to correct that. She wants you to know him as she knew him.

Bob was a perfect gentleman.

Lula thinks that’s important for you to understand.

She remembers Bob’s excellent table manners. And that he respected women. And that when dining in a restaurant, he always left a more than appropriate gratuity for the waitress.

These are the details, Lula admits, small facets to her brother’s overall personality. But together they paint an impressive picture.

Bob adored his mother. When he was away from home, he missed her the most. When he visited, he was so glad to see Mom that he waltzed her around the room. Those memories are most vivid for Lula–Bob dancing joyously with his mother, sweeping her off her feet as if she were a toy and lifting her high into the air.

Folks just don’t remember him like that, Lula complains.

They mostly remember the times he sidestepped the law.

Even then, says Lula, it should be recalled that brother Bob never ever killed a man. He was proud of that.

Of course, the emphasis on that fact is not meant to excuse any other wrong he may have done. In fact, when it came to criticism, no one was harder on Bob than Bob.

He was old enough to know better, he always said. He continually reminded himself that what he was doing was shameful and he was always trying very hard to walk the path of straight and narrow.

Yet, somehow, the straight and narrow was just too straight and too narrow–and Bob would be off again, doing those things he knew he shouldn’t be doing.

Bob did not die violently, nor did he die young.

He passed away quietly at a ripe old age in the Pacific Northwest. In bed.

He was not gunned down in South America, as many have come to believe. As a matter of fact, it was the Parker family that helped sustain the rumour.

For, you see, in the end, Bob did go straight.

Under the cover of having supposedly been killed, the last thirty years of his life were peaceful and law-abiding.

Bob might always have been good, his sister Lula assures us. There was simply a time that he fell in with the wrong crowd, a group deservedly called the Wild Bunch.

And of all the bad influences, there was one in particular: a gunslinging horse thief named Harry Longbaugh.

You remember Harry. And you remember Bob, too.

For Lula’s brother Bob–the well-mannered gentleman bank robber who found killing distasteful–the mama’s boy who tried all his life to be good and finally was–called himself Butch Cassidy.

And his pal, Harry Longbaugh, who tried to keep him on the wrong side of the law–you remember as the Sundance Kid.