From the FBI mailbag: Waco, 1993
The other day I ran across a cache of stuff I downloaded several years ago—FBI files of the hundreds of letters the public sent in during the FBI/ATF standoff at the Branch Davidian compound outside of Waco, Texas, in 1993.2
Let’s go all the way back to the year 2016 and I’ll introduce you to a man named The Faucet Guy(TM). I am terrified of my landlord, so when something breaks I panic and try to fix whatever it is myself, even if it is complicated. I was not prepared to replace the valves on my bathroom sink in the 3 days before I left town for Thanksgiving. On a cold, gray November Saturday, I therefore found myself at a plumbing store called The Faucet Guy, slightly manic with fear and wearing damp clothing. I actually went to the store three times that day, first to buy the thinger to replace the valve with, and then because I realized I needed a tool I did not have, and I threw myself on the mercy of The Faucet Guy, who let me leave my driver’s license with him and borrow whatever the tool was, and then I had to go back to return the wrench or whatever.
I spent a lot of time with The Faucet Guy that day, is my point, and a lot of time reading the newspaper clippings taped to the counter. Included were a couple of obituaries for Mitch Miller, a legendary Columbia Records producer and bandleader and, for nearly twenty years, the best-selling recording artist in the United States. Sing Along with Mitch was also a television show. Anyway, by the time Miller died in 2010, the critical consensus was that his stylings were, uh, corny as fuck. Proof? A Sing Along with Mitch Miller record was among the albums the FBI played at full blast in an effort to flush David Koresh and his followers out of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco in the spring of 1993.
