ODDLY ENOUGH

ODDLY ENOUGH

Name of Mass. town’s sewage boat? It’s not Dung Dingy

SALISBURY, Mass.

Salisbury, Mass., has a new sewage pump-out boat, and its name is more than just clever: It’s also good advice.

The vessel’s unglamorous job is to travel from boat to boat and pump out onboard septic systems.

The craft was paid for in part by a state environmental grant and will help keep the harbor clean in the town near the New Hampshire border.

Harbormaster Ray Pike says the town’s harbor commission got hundreds of suggestions for the boat’s name but settled on Down Winder.

Pike tells The Newburyport Daily News there were plenty of clever suggestions — including Poo Bear, Pumpty Dumpty, Poop Sloop and Dung Dingy.

He says the commission had a lot of chuckles selecting a name.

The winner was suggested by boater Richard Calderwood.

Conn. boy with rare disorder gets to meet Pa. groundhog

PUNXSUTAWNEY, Pa.

A Connecticut boy with a rare developmental disorder came to Pennsylvania to meet his hero: the groundhog known as Punxsutawney Phil.

Eleven-year-old Mark Russo, of Trumbull, Conn., traveled to Punxsutawney on Saturday.

The town, about 65 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, is home to an annual Groundhog Day celebration that airs on national television.

Russo was born with Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome, a developmental disorder.

Michele and David Russo, the boy’s parents, say he reads a lot and surfs the Internet to research subjects that fascinate him. For he last two years, that’s been Groundhog Day.

Russo’s family says the boy wakes up each morning and hoists one of his pet rabbits into the air to re-enact the Groundhog Day celebrations he’s seen online, while listening to the “Pennsylvania Polka.”

10 across the line: Ohio baby arrives at 10:10 a.m. on 10/10/10

cleveland

Proud parents in Cleveland are thinking of their baby as a perfect 10 — partly because of the way he arrived over the weekend.

Kolsyn Liam Healy was born at 10:10 a.m. Sunday, which was October 10th. That made it 10/10/10 on the calendar.

Kolsyn’s father, Nicholas Healy, calls the time of birth “a little crazy.” He tells WEWS-TV he expects 10 will be his son’s lucky number.

Mother and son were reported to be doing fine at Cleveland’s Fairview Hospital.

Associated Press