A Million Stories

[ a million stories ]

A Pawn in Their Game

There it was: a gun. A long, lethal-looking thing, its tip supported by an A-frame pedestal, sitting there in the front window of Lou's Jewelry and Pawn along bustling South 69th Street in Upper Darby for all to see. Could it be? Was "Lethal Lou's" back in the gun business?

According to a 2006 report from the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Lou's — "Lethal Lou's" as the report dubbed the business — was once known as a pawnshop where just about anyone could arrange to purchase a firearm. Criminal conviction? No problem. Just released from prison? Eh. All you needed was a straw purchaser and some cash.

The report noted that Philadelphia Police had connected firearms purchased at Lou's to 19 homicides and 65 aggravated assaults between 2003 and 2005, making it "one of the top 45 crime gun retailers in the nation, and first in the entire commonwealth of Pennsylvania."

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives either revoked or accepted the surrender of Lou's gun-selling license (depending on whom you ask) on July 31, 2006.

So what was a giant gun doing in the front window last week? CP had to know.

Sixty-two-year-old Lou, whose birth name is Stanton Myerson, sounded irritated by the question: " It's a damn paintball gun," he said, standing among an assortment of used guitars, chainsaws and a humongous collection of bowie knives. "What's more, it's inoperative."

After "we surrendered our gun-selling license in 2006," Lou said, his business expanded in other directions. Jewelry and musical instruments are top sellers now. The whole gun thing was but one small chapter of a much longer story: His dad started the business in 1919; he's worked there himself since 1954 and he's now the president of the Pennsylvania Pawnbrokers Association.

"It's not as glamorous as you might think on television," he said gravely, adding: "What do people care about this little pawnshop? But if you want to tell people about our paintball gun, well, that's alright with me."

"E-MAIL"

"If you're 'Partyanimal776' and you're sending out resumes, it's not going to play well," Joseph Wilson, a librarian at the Free Library of Philadelphia, instructed students at a free course CP found advertised, deep within the pages of The Public Record, as "Introduction to E-Mail."

In fact, says Wilson, the course is called "Introduction to E-Mail & Social Networking" — though last week's lesson, which ran more than an hour and a half, never quite made it to the social networking part.

He and his students did, however, go over the basics of electronic mail, or "e-mail," including such fundamentals as learning where to find the "@" symbol on a keyboard and more advanced topics, like "attaching" a file.

This course and similar programs offered by the Free Library tend, Wilson said, to draw older folks.

"A lot of older people have been simply bypassed by the computer world," he remarked. "One of our classes is just basic introduction to PCs and learning how to use a mouse."

One woman in attendance called the course "a blessing," noting that she had recently re-enrolled in community college.

"We've just started a class on searching for a job on the Internet," Wilson added. "That, I suspect, will be one of our most popular classes."