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Show A2 The Emery County Review, Tuesday, September 2, 2008 The News Off The Beaten Path MUG SHOT D E DA Z LIGHTER SIDE They Call Me Noah Good Peaches James L. Davis My brother calls me Noah. He not only calls me Noah, he gets far more satisfaction than is healthy in calling me Noah. From time to time he will come down to my house just so he can call me Noah. He usually does this while I am feeding animals, which is, of course, the primary reason why he calls me Noah. The reason it is not healthy for him to continue calling me Noah is that when my brother calls me Noah he is not trying to compliment me. What he is trying to do is get under my skin and see how far I can be pushed before I snap and start beating him over the head with whatever farm animal happens to be closest at hand. My brother started calling me Noah shortly after I married my wife and just before I finished building my first chicken coop. He called me Noah again while I was in the midst of putting up a pen for the goats and he got quite a hoot out of calling me Noah after we put up the horse corral and started collecting cats to keep the field mice away from the house. This was all funny to him because I am a city boy and seeing me gathering eggs was only slightly less strange than it would have been to see me dressed like a ballerina. He thinks that just because I was not raised on the farm that I do not like animals. He is mistaken in that. I like animals just fine. I like them on Animal Planet and I like them on my dinner plate with a side helping of French fries. While it is true that animals that don’t appear on my television or dinner plate don’t hold much interest to me, they hold plenty of interest to my wife and since she holds my interest I help out with the animals where I can. In our five years of marriage I have learned a thing or two about animals, but then, since I married a veterinarian technician, I guess I was destined to learn something about animals, whether I wanted to or not. I have learned that no matter how dumb you might think chickens are in reality they are far dumber. If you don’t believe me, then you haven’t watched your fair share of chickens. Not only are chickens dumb, but they are in a constant state of surprise, even when they have no reason to be surprised. Every morning our chickens lay eggs and every morning these same chickens are amazed, completely and totally amazed to discover that they have laid an egg. They will scream to high heaven about this amazing thing that has passed through their body. The only thing truly amazing about the whole situation is that after gathering these eggs and washing them I will sit down at the dinner table and actually eat them. They tasted much better when I was under the impression that eggs came from the grocery store. Another thing that I have learned is that goats will ride your horses if you give them half a chance. I discovered this quite by accident one morning when I went out to feed the animals and noticed that my wife’s horse had baby goat prints all over her back. We had put her filly in with the goats to keep her safe from the geldings, who were harassing her. So, to be safe from the other horses she had to face the indignity of being ridden by the goats. It should be noted at this point that we have pygmy goats and don’t ask me why we have pygmy goats because I am not entirely sure. As near as I can tell they are just supposed to be out back so when company comes to visit they can say, “oh, look at the cute goats.” Seeing baby pygmy goat prints on the horses back I became a little bit curious about just how these baby goats managed to climb on the horse’s back. In the end I discovered that pygmy goats not only enjoy riding horses, but they can bounce off walls as if they are made of rubber. I know this because as I was going back to the house I happened to look back to see our two baby goats bouncing against the fence, leaping into the air to dance a jig on the back of my wife’s horse and then bouncing back down again. The horse meanwhile was looking at me as if to beg for deliverance from the goats and I for a moment considered putting her in with the chickens, but didn’t want to surprise them any more than they already were by all the eggs they were passing through their bodies. I went back to the house trying to think of someplace else a city boy could put a young horse to keep her from being ridden by goats. Perhaps an ark would do the trick. Kasia Leavitt, 5, and Hailey Mortenson, 3, demonstrate that when it comes to eating fresh peaches, there is a delicate art involved in eating them without making a mess of yourself. They aren’t completely trained in that art, but they are aware of it. Chuck Shepherd Lead Story “What was once a gentleman’s hobby among a few dozen enthusiasts at the turn of the 20th century,” wrote The New York Times in July, “has evolved into a multimillion-dollar industry,” namely, collecting strands of hair of famous people. Mastro Auctions of Chicago sells $100,000 worth of hair a year, and in October, a tuft of Che Guevara’s went for $119,500 (and John Lennon’s recently for $48,000). Westport, Conn., Americana dealer John Reznikoff (who owns strands of Lincoln, Washington, Napoleon and Beethoven) appraised Britney Spears’ locks (after her 2007 head-shaving) at “only” $3,500. Reznikoff told the Times that, while he advertises his trade in books and autographs, the hair is low-key: “I’m concerned clients might not take me seriously if they see me selling a lock of Charles Dickens’ hair.” The Continuing Crisis -- As Denton, Texas, Pizza Patron employee Stephanie Martinez complied with a disguised robber’s demand for money at closing in July, a co-worker jumped the man, knocked him down, and began beating on him. As the robber’s sunglasses and wig fell off, Martinez recognized him: “Don’t hit him again! That’s my dad!” Police later charged Stephanie’s father, mother and husband with the attempted robbery, concluding that Stephanie had been kept completely in the dark about the heist. -- Among the losers in the recent housing crash was The Shire in Bend, Ore., which was to be a village of 31 homes in the style of those in the “Lord of the Rings” series, with (according to a report in the Bend Bulletin) “unique stonework, artificial thatched roofs, terraces, gardens, and a network of streams and ponds with a pathway to ... ‘The Ring Bearer’s Court.’” One of the The Duplex NEWS OF THE WEIRD only two houses completed has a “hobbit hole” for storing garden supplies. Developer Ron Meyers said he hopes the new owner will respect the concept. -- Nevada Political Babylon: Greg Nance, 49, resigned from the state Board of Education in August after complaints about his ignoring a policy discussion at a public meeting by cooing with his new, 20-year-old wife of 12 days. (When a colleague complained that the woman should not have been seated with Nance at the board table, Nance replied, “Bite me.”) Nance’s replacement will be named by Gov. Jim Gibbons, whose approval rating hovers in the 20 percent range, in part because of rumors of womanizing. Gibbons filed for divorce in May, but his wife of 22 years has refused to leave the governor’s mansion, and, instead, Gibbons has moved out. Family Values -- Former British glamour model Jayne Bennington, 31, says she spends the equivalent of $600 a month on treatments and frills to make her daughter Sasha, 11, into the beauty queen she almost was herself, according to a July profile in London’s Daily Mail. However, Mom has done such a good job that Sasha can’t get work because she no longer looks like a child. Asked her self-assessment by a BBC documentary crew, Sasha responded, “Blond, pretty, dumb (but) I don’t need brains.” (At that, Mom roared with laughter.) -- Blood Is Thicker: In Bihar state, India, a man was charged with having his father killed a day before retirement so that the son might “inherit” his government job via the traditional family-hardship policy. (If Dad had retired, the regular hiring process would have been used to find a replacement.) Crime Pays Kenneth Moore, 49, admitted that he was the one who shot his friend Darrel Benner to death in 1995 during a beer-drinking binge, in front of two witnesses, in Piketon, Ohio, but an appeals court later ruled that he was entitled to a new trial because prosecutors had withheld evidence. At a new trial, with memories failing, Moore was found not guilty. State law thus calls Moore’s nine-plus years served “wrongful imprisonment,” entitling him to compensation, and in July the Ohio Court of Claims approved a payment of more than $500,000 (plus legal fees) for Moore’s having pulled the trigger that night. Unclear on the Concept -- (1) Landlord Richard Ott, 30, was arrested in Newark, Del., in August after he finally snapped in anger at his tenants, who were behind in their rent. According to police, Ott hopped into his Hummer in the middle of the night and crashed into the “tenants’” front door. (2) In July, a guest at the Delta Beausejour hotel in Moncton, New Brunswick, had a morning court date that he had been stalling on for a while and as the clock ticked down, he decided to beg off once again and asked the hotel’s concierge to go deal with the judge. (The judge told the concierge to inform his “client” that he had just been found guilty on all counts.) -- Chutzpah! Philadelphia Traffic Court Judge Willie Singletary has been facing charges since April from the state Judicial Conduct Board based on a 2007 political appearance. At a meeting of motorcyclists, Singletary was captured on video begging for campaign donations by asking, “You’re all going to need me in Traffic Court, am I right about that?” Least Competent Criminals Spectacular Failures of Prison Rehab: (1) Michael Ogle, 29, was arrested for allegedly robbing the BBT Bank in Seymour, Tenn., in August, right after his release from jail for robbing the same bank last November. (2) Timothy Wallace, 38, was arrested after allegedly robbing the Superior Bank in Elkmont, Ala., in July, after his release from prison, where he had served a 12-year sentence for robbing the same bank in 1995. Recurring Themes Insurance companies, especially in Europe, seem game for underwriting almost any odd risk anyone is willing to pay for, and thus News of the Weird has reported on people insured against alien invasion, the Loch Ness monster, and, for three Scottish nuns, the expense of Jesus Christ’s second coming if he were born to any of them. The bedding company SilentNight in Lancashire, England, recently insured mattress-tester Graham Butterfield’s buttocks for the equivalent of about $2 million, finding that particular part of his body to be so sensitive to tiny variations in fillings that he knows, quickly and certainly, if the proper materials have been used. The Aristocrats! In three instances reported in August, American kids were found living in such filthy squalor and isolation that authorities feared they were nearly as developmentally stunted as feral children raised in the wilderness. A 36-year-old man in Lavonia, Ga., was arrested for having imprisoned his wife and three never-schooled children inside their small trailer home for at least the last three years. And in Burke County, Ga., a woman and 11 never-schooled children were found in a filthy trailer home without electricity or running water. And in Polk County, Mo., six children were found among three families living in a clump of 12 isolated, junk-packed trailer homes with 360 animals and the only water coming from a series of connected garden hoses. (Copyright 2008 Chuck Shepherd. Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate.) By Glenn McCoy |
