Giddy news in review

With the 2012 political campaigns over and the state legislature not in session, I’m having trouble finding nutty stuff to write about, although I feel it is time for some humor.

Am avoiding discussions about two veteran army generals having women trouble because Fist Wife Iris doesn’t agree with my theory: “Those ravishing sneaky women deliberately lured innocent servicemen into off duty recreation.”

I’m taking the easy way out by redoing a lighthearted collection of foolishness from the files of 1986:

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On April 14th, Vernon Klette talked a judge in Great Falls out of a jail sentence by waving a note “from a doctor” which said Klette was subject to great fear of enclosed places, i.e. dangerous claustrophobia. The note was fake.

I think the city judge should have to spend a few hours in a cell on one count of felony permissiveness, and at very least one count of misdemeanor dumb.

Also, on April 14th, 23-year-old Ervin Handel of Billings was spared eight years in prison for causing an accident which killed a teenage girl. The victim’s mother pleaded with the judge to suspend the sentence, in spite of the fact that Handel has been arrested 11 times for lousy driving since he turned 17.

A May 13th story is about Albert LaVe who sits in the state penitentiary drawing $178 per week from workman’s comp. He got 20 years for robbery in 1976 but got out after serving only four years. Then got a job where he claimed he hurt his back, and disregarding doctor’s opinion about the injury, state officials awarded the comp. Wasn’t long until he was back behind bars for forging a prescription for drugs, but the pay keeps rolling in because “that’s the law.”

LaVe is not alone. One of his fellow convicts gets $226 a week and another gets $200. There is one poor devil who only gets $57.80. Those fellows are living proof that you can have your fake and eat it too.

Another swell May story came from Oakland, Calif., where 46-year-old Terry Kell was convicted in a highly publicized trial of trying to hire someone to neuter her ex-boyfriend because he had dumped her and married another.

The vengeful Terry is out on bond while her 15-year sentence is being appealed. One has to wonder if she’s having trouble getting dates? Probably not ... in California.

A late April article intrigued me. Paul Tavilla is trying to rewrite the books for catching a “dropped” grape in the mouth. His personal record is one dropped from a 52-story building in Tokyo. Friends recently bombed Paul with one grape after another until in an hour and a half they had pelted him with 30 pounds of purple without one single missile on target. They were on top of a 72-story building in Dallas. He was on a messy sidewalk.

Although I’ve never been involved in big-time grape catching, I could help that boy a lot because I understand the rudiments of mathematical probabilities. I’d have him stand perfectly still, head tipped back, with a large plastic funnel in his gullet. Then I’d drop the whole 30 pounds at one time.

That’s it for now. Don’t have space for stories on how to freeze-dry your favorite dog, or how to improve your math scores by taking male hormones.

G. George Ostrom is a national award-winning Hungry Horse News columnist. He lives in Kalispell.