fluff stories

[briannell]

A Cow's Final Bid for Freedom

Sunday, October 16, 2005



Whoever said a cow wouldn't fight for its life?

Police and animal control officers ended up chasing one die-hard bovine all over downtown Garden City, Kan., Tuesday afternoon after it made a desperate dash for freedom while headed to the slaughterhouse, according to the Garden City Telegram.

Baffled city residents watched the 20-minute chase unfold.

"I thought it was a big dog at first," Elizabeth Pardo, who was washing a customer's hair at San Juan Beauty Salon when the four-legged fugitive ran by, told the Telegram. "Then I was like, 'Is that a cow?'"

A city worker managed to rope the cow, only to have it yank him out of his truck. Police then tried to coral the wily beast — which rammed the vehicles, leaving a cow-head-sized dent in the side of one, and got away.

The cow was finally lassoed and it took seven men to hold the lively animal down before it was loaded into a trailer.

"That was interesting," Garden City Police Officer Courtney Prewitt told the Telegram. "Only in Garden City."

— Thanks to Out There reader Aaron P.

Post Card Arrives 27 Years Too Late

ANAMOSA, Iowa (AP) — Evelyn Greenawald of Iowa has just learned how slow "snail mail" can be.

Last week she mysteriously received a postcard from her daughter in Germany, 27 years after it was mailed.

At the time, her daughter, Sheri, was beginning her opera career in Germany. She sent a postcard telling her mother how she fell in love with Europe and that she would be in Paris soon.

Greenawald, now 97 years old, finally received the postcard on Wednesday after it was forwarded to her care center in Iowa.

The card had aged significantly and even a magnifying glass couldn't bring the exact date into focus, but it was somewhere between 1975 and 1978.

Her daughter now lives in San Francisco.

Turning Out for the Underpants Run

KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii (AP) — Some 100 runners wearing nothing but their skivvies turned out for the Underpants Run, an annual event in the days leading up to Saturday's Ironman World Championship.

"It's pretty much 'the' event now," joked founder and former professional triathlete Paul Huddle.

Not all triathletes would agree. More than 1,800 competitors are in Kona for the grueling Ironman, a 2.4-mile ocean swim, 112-mile bike leg through the lava fields and a full 26.2-mile marathon run.

Some of the international athletes who come to Hawaii to train in and around the village for the race in the week before the event sparked the idea for the fun run, which began in 1997.

"It was a reaction to the abhorrent and unbelievable practice of wearing Speedos around town, in the post office, the grocery store, even restaurants," Huddle said.

Stealing the Sheriff's Glock