Texas Tornadoes

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September 13th, 2019
Back Texas Tornadoes

Like a deadly Texas tornado, Bonnie and Clyde Parker rained destruction across the land, leaving death and destruction in their wake. This is their story.

What can you say about Texas that hasn't already been said?

The Lone Star State is huge, a mostly flatland of cacti, Joshua trees, cows, horses, high rise buildings, and tornadoes. Someone once said Texas has more trees and less shade, more rivers and less water, and more space and less people than any other state in the Union.

Texas has tornadoes. Some of them are killers. They rise up or down from the prairie floor (depending on your perspective) and form a long black funnel that rips apart everything in its path. Kind of like the short violent lives lived by Bonnie and Clyde  whose birthplace was Texas.

Bonnie was a native of Rowena, TX Her father was a bricklayer and when she was young she wrote poetry. Two of her poems were titled "The Story of Suicide Sal" and "The Trail's End."

As a child she was fascinated by movies. She worked as a waitress in Dallas, got married at the age of 15, and never divorced her husband. She was wearing her wedding ring when she and Clyde died in a hail of bullets fired by police who had set up an ambush in a rural parish in Louisiana on May 23, 1934.

Bonnie was 23, Clyde was 25.

The notorious duo captured newspaper headlines across America during the Great Depression by robbing banks, grocery stories and gas stations. They survived many shootouts with pursuing law enforcement officers, killing at least nine officers and several victims.

Their luck at escaping from the clutches of the law was incredible.

After a shootout, police would recover guns, ammunition, photos and other personal items belonging to Bonnie and Clyde's gang, but no Bonnie and Clyde.

Like a tornado, the two would vanish, only to turn up days, weeks or months later, far away, at the scene of another violent crime.

Bonnie's husband was in prison on the day she and Clyde were killed. He told reporters, "I'm glad they went out the way they did. It's much better than being caught."

While Bonnie kept a diary, it was never published. She wrote about being lonely, her love of picture shows, and her impatience with life in Dallas.

Clyde was the son of a poor Texas farmer . He became a thief at an early age and was arrested for stealing cars, turkeys and other valuables.

He served time in several prisons and became enraged at the Texas Correctional System when he was raped repeatedly behind bars. He ended up killing his tormentor with a lead pipe.

Bonnie was 19 when she met Clyde at the home of a friend. They were instantly smitten with each other and she willingly joined him as his partner in crime.

Clyde had a large arsenal of weapons, from a Browning Automatic Rifle to shotguns and pistols, and he taught Bonnie how to use all of them.

When they and their gang members were not engaged in a crime, they would spend the day in a rented house or apartment drinking beer and playing poker.

That was what they were doing in Joplin, MO. when five police officers approached their apartment. They had been alerted by neighbors who suspicioned the inhabitants were up to no good.

A bloody shootout exploded. Two of the officers were killed and the gang members escaped.

During the three years they were together, Bonnie and Clyde robbed 10 banks along with dozens of grocery stores and service stations. They also stole cars but were surprisingly lenient with their victims, giving them money to get back home on and leaving them in the middle of nowhere.

Authorities finally banded together and decided to end their crime spree.

They set up an ambush near Gibsland, LA. and waited two days until the two came driving past. When the firing was over, Bonnie had been hit 26 times and Clyde had 17 bullet hole.

The era of the Texas tornadoes was over.

“Bonnie had been hit 26 times and Clyde had 17 bullet hole”

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