Snatch The Bacon was a fun game we played back when I was in Scouting. The object of the game was for one of two players, both with one hand behind their back, to snatch the hat on the ground and make it back to your home line without getting tagged by the other player or to fake out the other guy and get him to tag you when you were not holding the hat. For some reason the name of that game in my collecting mind has come to mean getting away with something while breaking some arbitrary or asinine rule forced upon me. For example several years ago I bought this badge on an internet auction site. The badge was for participants in a skiing competition held near Berchtesgaden in 1934. I really needed this badge as a companion piece for the event’s first place prize medal that resides in my collection. The badge depicts a ski jumper with three flags behind him; Nazi party flag with the forbidden swastika, the German National tri-color flag of that date and the sports association flag. My greatest fear was that some rat-fink would report the banned item to the auction site, so I asked the seller about the hallmark if any on back. That way I had his email if the badge got pulled off the site before the sale ended. I placed my bid and then sniped it in the final moments. Victory!!. I felt quite a rush just like in the old days when I Snatched The Bacon.

If one can believe the presidential election polls we are about to have our first black president which will be a milestone by any measurement. Interestingly enough Senator Obama can not trace his direct ancestry to any American slaves as most American blacks can or claim. None the less he is a political pioneer which reminds me of a 1937 dated National Guard Medical Department Lieutenant’s Commission named to Claudius Langdon Forney. I bought it from Haag’s Antiques in Columbus, Wisconsin about 4-5 years ago. I like medical stuff and the name sounded black so how could I resist? A quick name check on Google found the name listed in the 1940 edition of Who’s Who in Colored America as a Physician. The Social Security Death Index lists the doctor as an Illinois resident from the Chicago area with life dates of 1897-1969. Then I checked my 1940 Illinois National Guard book and there was his picture as a Captain in the Eighth Infantry Headquarters Company Medical Staff. To become a black doctor in the America of the 1920’s he must have been an exceptional man. At the time of his death America was being torn apart by race riots. I wonder what would he say if he could see the potential Obama presidency of today?

While on my way home from Illinois this weekend I was able to check out two Milwaukee antique malls where I found with this lucite encased marksmanship prize medal. This Blackinton made medal never had a pin so I am certain that it was issued in the lucite. The pin-less broach is inscribed “MILWAUKEE POST OFFICE // SPORTSMEN’S CLUB // RIFLE TEAM // 1961.” The two bars on the ribbon are inscribed “OFF HAND” and “FIRST PLACE”. The irregular shaped medal has a standing rifleman on a white enamel target.

“Going Postal” is an unfortunate slang expression that came into use back in the early 1990’s to describe someone who becomes angry and crazy enough to shoot fellow workers as happened in several post offices in the 1980’s

The medal described above and illustrated below takes the expression “Going Postal” to a  new level.