It always seems to work out like this.

Paul says the forecast calls for sun two out of three days this long weekend. The one day we are likely to see rain: Saturday. The Fourth of July. It wreaks of a race day forecast for the Indy 500. Rain likely in the morning- with more rain chances for the fireworks at night.

Oh well. I think we’re planning on going to a cookout, so at least we can go inside if it’s raining. I feel bad for the people who might be sitting outside at Conner Prairie or Victory Field. Hopefully it’s just a brief shower during the day, and clears out before the evening sets in.

Maybe you could go to a movie… see below.

Whatever your plans for this Fourth of July, your friends at GMI wish you a happy and safe holiday weekend- stay dry!

That’s what they used to call John Dillinger- public enemy number one.

And now, it’s a new movie based on Dillinger’s bizarre and adventurous crime-filled life, which began here in Indy and ended in a blaze of gunfire, at the Biograph Theater on Chicago’s Northside.

In his many years of crime, he robbed banks, and escaped from two Indiana jails. His gang even killed a police officer in Northwest Indiana- terrorizing Hoosiers along the way.

So why, a colleague asked yesterday, are we glorifying a criminal? And what might that say about us as a society? Or was John more than your average criminal?

John Dillinger

At the time, some considered him a folk hero of sorts, the “Robin Hood” of his time. Typically, Dillinger stole from the rich, robbing big banks- much-vilified in the Depression-era 1930’s.

That 1930’s atmosphere was on display last night in Plainfield, near John’s boyhood home in Mooresville. Outside the movie theatre, there were antique cars on display- and inside, family photos gave fans a deeper look at the history of Dillinger’s life.

A distant relative was there to give interviews. “My grandmother Doris always said, ‘Don’t romanticize him. Don’t villainize him,’” said Jeff Scalf, Dillinger’s great-nephew. “He wasn’t mean-spirited. He wasn’t vicious. He was not a killer, but what he did was wrong.”

 But so far, people seem to be eating it up. Scores of Hoosiers came to see the film on opening night, and recently many have come to visit Dillinger’s grave at Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis. The irony wasn’t lost on some of the people who came to see his tombstone. “The guy was a criminal but people come to see his gravesite… and we make a movie about it. Amazing.”

 Perhaps it’s like the attention given to Michael Jackson’s recent death. Stories need characters. Characters with flaws. And some of them come from real life.

Strange characters. Villains. Hereos.

Just don’t confuse one for the other.