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Show A2 The Emery County Review, Tuesday, May 20, 2008 The News Off The Beaten Path MUG SHOT D E DA Z LIGHTER SIDE Conversations with my Daughter James L. Davis My daughter has dreams that actually take longer to unfold than she sleeps. I don’t know how this is possible, but it appears to be a fact nonetheless. It could have something to do with quantum physics. It also could have something to do with the fact that she is 14. I know that her dreams take longer to unfold than she sleeps because I have on occasion asked her to tell me about her dreams, and it takes a full day for her to unweave where her mind has been while her body is sleeping. Her mind is an extensive traveler apparently. My daughter is the consummate storyteller, something I believe she must have inherited from my dad. They both can take the most mundane of activities and weave a story about it that keeps you entertained for hours. Being both a storyteller and a teenager, my daughter can and does use this talent to get herself out of trouble on many occasions. And since she is 14, it is almost impossible to get a word in edgewise because as most parents of 14 year old girls can attest, 14-year-old girls do not require oxygen, so they can talk without having to pause for a breath. I noticed that my daughter no longer has to breathe because one day I thought I would wait patiently for a pause in her monologue about a dream where a very large cat was riding her horse, which wasn’t all that big of a deal except the cat was also wearing her cowboy hat and using her saddle, which meant that she would have cat hairs on her hat and scratch marks on the brushed leather of her saddle. The horse didn’t seem to mind having a large cat as a rider, which bothered my daughter only because she felt the horse should be more particular about who rode her. As my daughter explained in minute detail where the horse riding cat was going with her horse, I waited for her to pause for a breath, or at the very least to say umm or uhh, but it never happened. Four and a half hours later my daughter was explaining how the horse riding cat had switched from riding her horse to driving my truck rather recklessly through the mall while in pursuit of my daughter and her friends, who were visiting the mall in search of three or four other friends who had gone to the mall without inviting them, not that they wanted to go or wanted to be with the other friends, but to tell them that they didn’t care to be at the mall because they had far more important things to do, and they just wanted to let their other friends know that so they wouldn’t get the impression that they were in any way upset for not being invited to the mall in the first place. And they weren’t upset, my daughter insisted to me, until the cat started driving through the mall in my truck trying to run them down, which was bad enough, but made even worse because the cat kept screaming for her to come out and play. Really the cat was just meowing really loud, but in her dream she could understand the cat perfectly well, although her friends couldn’t, but she thought they might be able to except they didn’t like cats, so naturally they wouldn’t be able to understand cats, even in her dream. But everyone knew that the cat was her cat, or at the very least the cat was driving her dad’s truck, so the entire thing was horribly embarrassing. At this point in my daughter’s dream my eyes began to glaze over and I had all but given up on ever getting a word in edgewise, not that it mattered anymore because I had forgotten what I was going to say in the first place. While I have discovered that 14-year-old girls do not need to breathe, I have also grown to understand that 14-year-old girls do not need to use their mouth to talk. Today they talk far more and far longer with their fingers. Last year my wife upgraded our cell phone plan to give my children unlimited texting, and since that time they have attempted to explore the limits of unlimited. Last month my wife informed me that our daughter had amassed more than 10,000 text messages, and I found this somewhat hard to believe. I have since learned that sending 10,000 text messages is amateurish at best, but my daughter still finds it to be a source of great pride. I have discovered that she can text as fast as she can talk, perhaps even faster. But I still couldn’t fathom 10,000 text messages in a month so I asked her what her messages consisted of and she explained to me that a text message conversation was exactly like a real conversation, complete with questions, umms and ahhs. Hearing that she used umms and ahhs in her text conversations I realized that it would be far easier to get a word in edgewise with my daughter if I spoke to her by way of text than attempting to do so face to face. So I tried to text her one night on the way back from the city. She must have been asleep however, because the cat answered the text and wanted to know when I would be home with the truck. I had no idea that cats could text. Keeping it Green The city of Ferron celebrated Arbor Day on April 25 and residents gathered to plant 10 new pine trees. Above, Allison Jackson and her daughter Raygan give one of the new trees a good watering. Left, Emily Neilson, Marleen Chynoweth and Trent Jackson dig in to help with the tree planting effort. NEWS OF THE WEIRD Chuck Shepherd Lead Story Freddie Johnson, 49, was arrested in New York City in April, for the 53rd time after he allegedly once again rubbed up against women on crowded trains. He is such a menace (a 57-page rap sheet) that a special NYPD detail follows him around, certain that he will re-offend. Shortly after the arrest, the New York Daily News reported that his twin brother, Teddy, is now serving an eight-year sentence in upstate New York for a series of subway gropings of his own. A retired police officer told the Daily News that he saw the brothers almost every day and could tell them apart only by their clothes. Freddie, he said, was “blue collar” while Teddy conducted his fondlings “always dressed in a blazer and slacks.” Government in Action! -- In April, Army medic Monica Brown was awarded the Silver Star for bravery for selflessly subjecting herself to enemy fire in order to treat fallen comrades in battle in Afghanistan. However, two days after her heroics, she had been ordered home, against her will, because generals were nervous that a female appeared to be “in combat,” which violates Army rules. By contrast, in April (according to The Buffalo News), the Army, citing personnel shortages, ordered honorably discharged soldier James Raymond back to duty, even though he is on medical disability for a knee injury and loss of hearing suf- The Duplex fered in Afghanistan. (Soldiers on “Readiness Reserve” are still eligible for duty if necessary.) -- Kinder, Gentler Government: (1) The county government in Tampa, Fla., revealed in April that because of its unusual interpretation of state law, all of its inmates on work-release programs during the last 15 years have been accruing pension and postretirement health-care credits. (2) London’s Daily Telegraph reported in April that the Dutch government has begun assigning some of its hardcore unemployed (who are repeatedly rejected for jobs) to “regression therapy,” in the hope that coming to terms with negative aspects of their past will help them present themselves better. Fine Points of the Law (1) Gary Weaver, 41, arrested on a disorderly conduct charge in Cincinnati, was discovered to have an outstanding theft warrant from 1990 involving $21.64. The temporary bond on Weaver in 1990, based on his prior record, had been $1 million, and the 2008 judge refused to change that. (Extra fact: The $21.64 theft was based on Weaver’s paying a store in part with a roll of dimes that were really pennies but with a dime at each end.) (2) Representatives of about 300 Islamic madrassa schools, meeting in New Delhi in April, decided that Muslims could not buy health insurance because the Quran forbids gambling (although they said they would continue to explore ways of reconciling Sharia law with health care financing). Questionable Judgments -- London’s Daily Mail reported in April that the Mab Lane Primary school in Liverpool was boldly dealing with the problem of unruly students by scheduling 20-minute massage sessions twice a week in a room with aromatic oils and soothing music. Children of all ages at the school are taught “simple shoulder and back massages on each other,” the newspaper reported. -- School authorities in Mount Vernon, Ohio, began an investigation in April after complaints that eighth-grade science teacher John Freshwater was injecting his religious beliefs a little too much into the class. In one “experiment,” Freshwater allegedly tossed Lego pieces into a pile and asked students if the pieces could assemble themselves (or would a “creator” have to do it), but the accusation that most aroused parental anger was a demonstration of electrostatic electricity, in which he asked for volunteers to take a shock on the arm, which resulted in a distinct “cross” being burned onto the skin. -- In April, two of the nine Baltimore-area middleschool kids implicated in a potentially fatal beating of a young couple on a transit bus last year said they would soon file lawsuits asking for $10 million each from their school (for suspending them) and the transit company (for barring them from future rides, which it did out of concern for the safety of its passengers). Family Values Joseph Manzanares, 19, pleaded guilty in April to disorderly conduct in Commerce City, Colo., after police were called to a domestic disturbance, as he and his ex-girlfriend, who are the parents of a toddler, fought over which local street gang’s colors (hers or his) the kid would wear. Least Competent Criminals -- Should’ve chosen another career: (1) Joshua Crowley, 22, was charged with robbing a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant in Camas, Wash., in March after being chased down, wrestled with, and subdued by passerby Mary Chamberlain, 66. (2) In April in Bartlesville, Okla., Robert Horsley, 46, allegedly tried to come through a window in the house of a 95-year-old woman, but she grabbed a screwdriver and continued to stab his hand every time he reached inside. By the time police arrived, said officer Tom Holland, “(Horsley’s hand) was pretty chewed up and one knuckle was almost gone.” -- Inadequate Game Plans: (1) In April, in response to a man wielding an ax and demanding the contents of his cash register, the owner of Sam’s Cigars in Vista, Calif., grabbed his wife and dashed out the front door, locking the man inside, where he made pleading gestures through the window until police arrived. (Copyright 2008 Chuck Shepherd. Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate.) By Glenn McCoy |
