Heard around the West

Heard around the West

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Brief by Betsy Marston

Heard around the West – June 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine

An Apple a Day

“It will be a stunning ruby red. But chances are it’s a bit mushy,” reports the Los Angeles Times. “It” is a big, fat, shiny Red Delicious apple, the variety American orchardists have produced for decades. They were spurred by marketers who said it was better for fruit to look good than to actually taste good. One expert notes that the apple grown mainly for looks resembles other “inoffensive” products of the 1950s like Wonder bread, Cool Whip and Campbell’s condensed soups.

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Heard Around the West

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Brief by Betsy Marston

Heard Around the West – April 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine

Wild Animal Vengeance

Two stories that tell us things never go quite as planned: In British Columbia, Canada, a man recently shot himself in the leg with a pistol he carried in case he ran into bears. The accident occurred while he was fleeing a black bear and her two cubs, reports the West Kootenai Weekender.

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Heard around the West

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Brief by Betsy Marston

Heard around the West – October 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine

Electroshock

You’re in a car when a thunderstorm boils out of the West and rain pelts down. What do you do? Nothing, of course, since the National Lightning Safety Institute says cars are one of the safest places to be during lightning strikes relatively speaking.

Two teenagers in a ’92 Subaru near Jackson, Wyo., found that their car’s antenna attracted a lightning bolt, which struck with a huge boom, recalled Krista Bristol, 16. “Everything went black, and then it went white, and neither of us could hear for about five minutes,” she said. As for the car, the Jackson Hole Guide reports that it stopped dead and its antenna melted into the window. But the experts may be right: Though tingling and awed, Bristol and 14-year-old Renee McKinley emerged unscathed.

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