Scotty, a long look back

Scott Scurlock died 12 years ago, Thanksgiving Day, 1996, after nearly pulling off the biggest bank heist at that time in history.   Others knew him as Scotty.  But I would never know him that well. My first year at Evergreen State College we kept crossing paths with one another, late fall of 1979. He made such an impression on me that I could have sworn he was there at Evergreen during my entire undergraduate degree, until 1983.   I realize now that he disappeared from my view after the spring quarter, when he was getting familiar with the laboratory wing on campus, making other plans for success, outside of academia.  

Likely it was not simply his choice that we didn't become close; though we studied together, I never indicated the faintest interest in seeing his tree-house. I think I was supposed to be so impressed that I would implore him to let me come and see it. I am not sure quite why I didn't. In so many other ways,  I demonstrated both innocence and a willingness to know more about him. Maybe it is the way that I look directly at people that made him uncomfortable. The other part, was that it being my first year, I was both naive and cautious. I never felt he was dangerous at all, in fact I felt the opposite. Yet,  I did not go anywhere with him where we were totally alone. Even in my dorm apartment, he and I studied in the common kitchen, not my room. 

I'd heard of his then-famous last robbery, just because I happened to be catching up with a roommate from that time,  who had shared that dorm apartment with me.  It was winter of 1996-97 I believe. She assumed I might have already heard, that Scott had taken his life rather than face the consequences of his actions. But no,  my life had had its own large trajectory from Olympia, Washington... to graduate school in the Bay Area, to my current home  in upstate New York. The idea that Scott had been a bank robber, nearly pulling off one last heist (which would have been the largest one in history up to that time), seemed so much a story of fantasy that I did not pursue it then.  My last recollection of him was that he had been like a boy playing chemist that spring quarter we  were laboratory aids at Evergreen State College.

Why this look back at Scott Scurlock, so long delayed?

Eating dinner on Tuesday last week, December 30th, I heard the news that New York City may have had its own record number of bank robberies:  five that day.  The radio reporters spoke glibly about the reasons why; Christmas, the economic hard times from the mortgage debacle and failing banks. When I heard the statistics, about the percentage of bank robbery attempts that fail, the story suddenly had pertinence in my own life.  I wanted to know about Scott and see the person behind the statistics. 

I seized the moment to do a quick study of the internet to see what remained of Scott's story. I expected to see just crumbs of information to give me a scent of the person I knew and the tiniest bit of insight.

Instead, I was surprised to see a three part article on the CBS site that was done almost six years after the robbery.  I learned more than I had bargained for.  One link led quickly to another.  His story had had such compelling interest that Ann Rule had written a book that featured Scott's crime, his story,  first of four. Her book would be the only witness to tell all of his stories would be in one place. Rule would create a complete picture using the perspectives from others in his personal life--his accomplices, friends, professors--who had all just  been given  a  few pieces of his story. Not only did Scott not stick around to tell his own story, but he never got to have it mirrored back to him. 

God gives us free will to do with as we choose. Scott made many choices in his life. Each led him farther and farther away from the understanding of those of us with more simple appetites. I've read how, in his twenties,  he led others to jump into the azure ocean,  from high cliffs in Hawaii. Was it those countless dives  that gave him his first tastes of exhilaration, that would create a craving for more..accelerating him towards his end at 41?  How does a person decide that they won't try a conventional life, but will live outside the law... taking college chemistry into the Pacific Northwest woods, making a killing manufacturing crystal meth.. and then robbing banks?

Me, I am admittedly Pollyanna. I  believe free will is supposed to challenge me  to  live a life that does good while I am here. From the outside looking in,  Scott's life is an example to me of what can happen if to any one of us who don't test and verify our choices, transparently with others.   Compartmentalizing secret lives within ourselves, leads to a life of  self-deprivation. 

Scott missed out on the perspective of growing old with his free will intact.  What if he had allowed  himself to be known (and loved) completely by someone who would have challenged him to live his highest good, rather than his highest thrill?

Perhaps Scott's only choice was to die alone.