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Show A2 The Emery County Review, Tuesday, August 5, 2008 The News Off The Beaten Path SLICE OF LIFE D E DA Z LIGHTER SIDE Riding the Loopity-Loop James L. Davis I could be wrong, but I do not believe that the human stomach was every meant to have the ability to move freely about your body. It is meant to remain just above your belt, or, as is the case with some of us, above your belt with perhaps a little bit hanging over. But I am quite sure that it was never meant to be sucked to the bottom of your feet or lifted past your lungs, through your throat and lodged into your nasal cavities. To have your stomach do so is unnatural, even dangerous. In the Dark Ages if something like this was to happen to you it would be called torture. In modern times when something like this happens to you it is called a visit to the amusement park. I mention this only because I am scheduled for my yearly dose of torture, because, this weekend we are going to Lagoon. Everybody say yeah! I have learned a great many things at Lagoon over the years. I have learned that not only can my stomach move freely about my body, but many other fascinating details about reality that I had never before imagined. For instance, I learned that it doesn’t matter how much money you take to an amusement park, you will leave with only lint in your pocket. I know this because we go to Lagoon every year. It’s a family tradition intended to force me to stay gainfully employed for the rest of my natural life. We only broke from this tradition for a couple of years when my daughter was of the age where she considered herself too big to ride the “kiddie” rides but was still too vertically challenged to be allowed to ride the adult rides. Because of this, there was great weeping and wailing by my daughter about the inherent injustice of the adult world. I agreed with her wholeheartedly and said that we would return to Lagoon when she was tall enough to go on all of the rides. Apparently that is why my daughter spent a great deal of the next two years hanging from one thing or another; she was attempting to stretch herself until she was tall enough. It worked. Once I realized that I was going to have to go to Lagoon again, I knew it was only going to be a matter of time before someone got sick, and I was terrified that it might be me. It’s been years now that we have gone to Lagoon every summer and I am still terrified that my stomach might actually exit my body on one ride or another. It doesn’t help that on the way to Lagoon my kids talk about the rides they will go on that will stretch their bodies, twist their bodies, whip, strain and puree their bodies and ask me with great excitement in their voices, “Aren’t your excited Dad?” and I of course say, “Sure, can’t wait.” Now the truly demonic thing about my children is that they are each attuned enough to the other that they instinctively know what ride will make the other one sick, and because they have this keen ability they will use it to try and make their siblings physically ill by taunting them until they ride the ride that they should not ride. Under normal circumstances I would not have any problem with this because if my children are sick at the amusement park, they are probably not spending money, which is a good thing. But the problem is that my children are under the false impression that I love all rides that stretch, twist, whip, strain and puree your body. I do not, but I cannot admit that to them because I am a man and therefore, I am stupid. My wife, on the other hand simply looks at the kids and says, “I’m not going on that,” and the look she gives them is of such strength that they do not dare tease her. If I could master that look, I could rule the world. So while my wife sits happily on a park bench, my children will point to some absurd loopity loop of one kind or another and say, “let’s do that one,” and I will say (because I’m stupid), “yeah, that looks like fun.” In that way we will ride every ride that can possibly make us sick and while our faces will grow from nicely tanned, to pale to ashen to one of the undead, we will continue to scream that we are having a wonderful time. Meanwhile my wife will wave from the park bench while eating a snow cone. My children are all teenagers now and I thought that perhaps my trips to Lagoon would begin to become pleasant, that I too might be able to sit on a park bench and eat a snow cone, because I am a parent and therefore my children would not want to be seen with me. Apparently that rule does not apply when you are at an amusement park. Especially if you have a tendency to scream like a school girl, which I have been known to do. Because of that my children can’t wait to take me on the rides. I am a walking, talking, screaming version of show-and-tell. Other teenagers can watch me scream and then they have a conversation topic that they can use to get to know each other. It’s good to have a purpose. Now if I could only convince my stomach. Dalton Hinkins and Larsen Stephens accept the challenge of the shaved ice eating contest. Photos by Josie Luke The Agony of Victory Josie Luke With no willing adults, children took over the foodeating contests held July 30 at the Emery County Fair. The many cowardly adults looked on as a group of young people put them to shame, quickly downing whole pies, large bowls of icecream and brain-freeze inducing cups of shaved ice. The pie eating contest brought out the teenagers, who used several different avenues to try to win the contest. Some happily drove their faces straightway into the whipped topping of the pies and proceeded to gobble up the filling and crust, while others used their hands to scoop up the mess and others chose to “politely” use spoons to shovel in heaping mouthfuls. Whatever method they chose, pounds of pie were eaten in a matter of minutes, with Travis Pizutto, Chase Jewkes and Haley Beckstead coming out on top. The next event was the ice-cream eating contest, which organizers split into two categories: children, and younger children. The two groups were given substantial amounts of the creamy treat, which they attacked with the abandon that comes with high metabolism. Again they each chose their preferred methods; similar to the techniques used in the pie eating, minus the more messy and cold, messy-face method, while adding a stirand-drink approach. Jason Roberts won the younger children’s division and JJ Manning prevailed in the children’s group. Finally, six brave young souls stepped to the table to try the shaved ice eating competition. The brainfreeze combatants stood around the table, some with smiles spreading across their young faces and others, who possibly more fully understood their dire situation, nervously glancing for a place to run. The participants, given a cruel two-minute limit, began their task excitedly, but as the time wore on, the agony became more apparent, with one young boy, Dalton Hinkins pressing his hand to his forehead in an attempt to ease the pain. After an excruciating two minutes, the two youngest competitors tied for the win: Larsen Stephens and a very relieved Dalton Hinkins. After watching the brave young ones, hopefully next year, the spineless adults will join in the fun. NEWS OF THE WEIRD Chuck Shepherd Lead Story Among President Sarkozy’s recent moves to trim the size of the French government was the layoff of half of the 165 physiotherapists at the taxpayer-funded National Baths of Aix-les-Bains. The pink-slipped masseurs warn that the country’s health will be at risk if people are unable to get the mud wraps, thermal baths and deep-tissue massages covered by national health insurance (along with subsidized transportation and lodging for the visits). In fact, 27 of the physiotherapists immediately went on sick leave for depression. Among Sarkozy’s other targets of government bloat, according to a July Wall Street Journal dispatch: figuring out why France employs 271 diplomats in India but more than 700 in Senegal. Compelling Explanations Edward Defreitas, 36, was arrested in Toms River, N.J., in June and accused of causing a three-vehicle collision that injured two men in a car and sent two others (paramedics The Duplex riding in an ambulance) to the hospital. Defreitas told police that he had been drinking and had decided to drive around until he sobered up: “He (said he) was afraid to go home and his mother finding alcohol on his breath.” The Litigious Society -- School custodian Anthony Gower-Smith, 73, was awarded the equivalent of about $75,000 in June in London’s High Court after suing Britain’s Hampshire County government when he hurt himself falling off a 6foot stepladder. Gower-Smith claimed that he had not been properly “trained” on how to use it, despite his long-time experience with such ladders, and despite his signed acknowledgment that he had indeed received training, and despite his having blamed himself just after he fell. (He disavowed the self-blame by saying that, at the time, he was woozy and didn’t remember what he said.) -- Shannon Hyman, now 24, filed a lawsuit in July against the Green Iguana Bar & Grill in St. Petersburg, Fla., for medical bills and lost wages when she was badly burned four years ago drinking a “flaming shot” of Bacardi 151-proof rum (which normally is consumed without incident, but Hyman had spit out the drink, spreading flames to her head and upper torso). Hyman told the Tampa Tribune: “I’m suing because I should not have been let in (because she was under 21 at the time). If I weren’t let in, none of the events would have happened.” Ironies -- In July, the new smoking ban for bars and restaurants in the Netherlands took effect, but it won’t curtail patrons’ right to smoke marijuana in Amsterdam’s coffee shops (where they can buy up to 5 grams a day to smoke on the premises). And, just as the ban became law, the Dutch special-effects company Rain Showtechniek began selling bars a machine (for the equivalent of about $900) that, for nostalgia, replicates the scent of traditional, cigarettesmoked air (but which does not damage health or linger in clothing or hair.) -- Not Quite Rehabilitated: A prominent anti-drug motivational speaker, who uses his own sordid life story to inspire troubled kids to turn their lives around, was arrested in May and charged with attempted murder after allegedly shooting at his girlfriend and an old buddy from prison following a long evening of alcohol and methamphetamines. Said the prosecutor in Isanti County, Minn., of the rampage by Russell Simon Jr., 45, “We’re lucky we don’t have a multiple homicide on our hands.” I Demand My Rights! -- Murder suspect Broderick Laswell, 19, filed a lawsuit in federal court in April against the Benton County (Ark.) Jail, alleging that he was being “literally” “starved to death” while awaiting trial, and complaining of “blurry” vision and of almost passing out. As evidence of his plight, Laswell pointed out that, in eight months behind bars, his weight had dropped from 413 pounds to 308. (Copyright 2008 Chuck Shepherd. Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate.) By Glenn McCoy |