The Bank The Bank
"At Jiggs Torchiana's goodbye party I heard a story about how after the war (the second one) Jiggs lost his gas station when the Narberth bank foreclosed after he missed one payment. You heard me right. Of course that Metzger fellow don't own the bank anymore, but it did get me to thinking about banks in general and our own in particular.
50 years after Jiggs was robbed, banks are still holding up people. Two bucks for this, seven bucks for that, deposit a check and they don't let you have your own money back for a couple of days. Heck, costs you a dollar to see your statement.
Which brings me to the Narberth Mellon. Now you can go in there and, if you can think of any reason why you'd want to, you can sit in front of a little camera, turn on the speaker phone and chat with some banker clear across the state on a TV screen. How's that for service?
It's true they still got some real people sitting in there. But, let's face it, next thing you know your local banker will live in Pittsburgh. Which, when you think what they did to Jiggs, is just fine with me."
April 29, 1997