A Hoffa You Can't Refuse

Jimmy Hoffa
Feb. 14, 1913 – July 30, 1975 (Allegedly)

You know, nothing says Valentine's Day like hired union goons. While some folks deliver candy and flowers on this day, still others deliver shakedowns and beatings. This is as it should be...circle of life and all that. Such a man was Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa.

Look. I'll be honest with you. I know nothing about Jimmy Hoffa, and I really don't care. The fact that people have spent the last 33 years looking for him and haven't found a thing is the interesting part.

When Jimmy Hoffa got in that car on July 30, 1975, he probably didn't know that he would vanish off the face of the earth. If he had, then getting into that car would be a goofy thing to do. I mean, he saw The Godfather, right? That's what happened to Carlo. But of course Carlo had it coming. He infiltrated the family and got Sonny killed. Most people agree that Jimmy Hoffa also had it coming...he was most certainly not a shiny happy person. He was born 94 years ago on this very day...and, while no body has ever been found, we can all be relatively certain that he's not blowing out any candles today.

Hoffa worked his way to the top, became a major union leader, etc, etc. That part of the story isn't that fascinating to me. What is interesting is how he formed alliances with organized crime and had people beaten and (probably) knocked off. He had a personal war going with Attorney General Robert Kennedy, and they apparently ended up at the same party at some point and had an arm-wrestling contest (Hoffa said he won).

I'm intrigued by Hoffa's probable connection to the JFK assassination. If you're familiar with Oliver Stone's movie JFK, you know that New Orleans D.A. Jim Garrison dismissed the possibility of mob involvement in the assassination. This is because Garrison himself was a degenerate gambler and owed a lot of money to New Orleans mob boss Carlos Marcello. Don't even get me started on the whole JFK thing...just know that Hoffa was mobbed up through his union connections and the mob and the anti-Castro Cubans all hated Kennedy. Hell, everybody hated Kennedy.

But I digress.

Point is, Hoffa pissed some people off and he got whacked. And nobody seems to know what happened, and there never was any blood or a body or anything. He disappeared real good. It's as if he was sucked up into an alien spacecraft...but if so, the anal probing was probably not that strange for a guy who did as much prison time as he did.

I think it's important that they never find out what happened to Hoffa. I think mysteries like this (and D.B. Cooper and Amelia Earhardt) will never and should never be solved. These mysteries are an important part of our national culture...so don't screw with it.

So happy birthday, Jimmy. And, to the rest of you, have a happy Valentine's Day. Or we'll have your legs broken.