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something so refined as art or antiques. But unlike the majority of those who composed Milton’s working class, I refused to be intimidated into believing this was actually the case. To the contrary, I knew full well I was better than those who scorned me, and set out to prove it.
    Over the course of the next few months I became a regular visitor to the Forbes Museum. I quickly confirmed what I had first suspected: that security at the museum was practically nonexistent. As far as I could tell, there were no alarms. After-hours security consisted of one guard, a young man who, I observed after several evenings of casual surveillance, consistently left the premises between seven and ten every evening, presumably to visit his girlfriend.
    Robbing the place, I concluded, would be a piece of cake.
    In my world at the time, a robbery like the one I was planning seemed not only unremarkable but to be expected. Compared to the stories I heard nightly from my friends at the Lewis Room, the idea of sneaking into an empty building in the middle of the night and stealing a few old artifacts seemed downright tame. Certainly there was no danger of physical harm. And the theft of a few items from those who obviously had so much hardly seemed objectionable. If anything, I convinced myself, there was a Robin Hood element to the crime. I wasn’t doing it for profit. I wanted the art, and I wanted the notch in my belt.
    On the evening of the robbery I parked the van I normally used to haul my band’s gear from gig to gig a few blocks from the museum and made my way to the premises. It was early summer, and the lush canopy of maple and oak trees on the museum property provided convenient cover as I made my way across the lawn to the back of the building. Using a small pry bar I’d brought with me, I jimmied a basement window and slipped inside.
    Once upstairs I proceeded to gorge myself on precious antiques.I took what I liked and wanted for myself, with little regard for resale value: several large Chinese vases, oil paintings, and a large silver platter that I eventually had to abandon on the lawn outside when it proved too heavy to carry. It was quite a haul. I made more than one trip out of the building, depositing my booty on the driveway, coming back later to pick it all up with the van.
    The only problem was what to do next. Since the breakup of my marriage I’d been living in a small room over the Lewis Room. Realizing I couldn’t possibly store everything there, I decided to leave a large portion with Vicky, who was living in Quincy with Myles III at the time. It was not the best decision I would ever make. Not long after, Vicky and her new boyfriend suffered an attack of conscience and returned their portion of the stolen goods to the front lawn of the Forbes House late one night.
    But despite this minor setback, the evening was a resounding success. Elated to have pulled off my plan so easily, I vowed to follow it up with another museum heist.
     
    I t didn’t take me long to make good on my promise. Soon after my success at the Forbes I set my sights on the Boston Children’s Museum. The director in those days was Michael Spock, son of the famous pediatrician, and his work at the Children’s Museum is credited with having revolutionized the museum experience. His hands-on philosophy, in which children were encouraged to touch priceless artifacts rather than simply view them from behind glass, seemed like a great idea to me. If they could get their hands on the stuff, surely I could too.
    The first and most important lesson I learned from the Children’s Museum is that there is no end to the information people will give you if you only go and ask for it. Presenting myself as a legitimate collector of Asian art (which, technically speaking, I was), I visited the museum and inquired about their collection. Impressed by my knowledge and delighted by my interest, a staff member cheerfully showed me upstairsto the museum’s