ODDLY ENOUGH

ODDLY ENOUGH

Southeast Texas woman paints fire hydrants after Hurricane Ike

BRIDGE CITY, Texas

A Southeast Texas woman has used colorful paint and her imagination to spruce up a town still recovering from Hurricane Ike.

Lucy Fields since May has painted about 50 fire hydrants in Bridge City, which suffered damage in the 2008 storm. Municipal officials gave the former city council member permission for her personal project.

The Beaumont Enterprise reported last Monday that the designs include cartoon characters, baseball players, a school bus, an alligator and a lighthouse.

Fields says Bridge City volunteer firefighters have had a hard time finding hydrants still partly hidden by debris.

Fields says city personnel have been busy with fixing roads and other infrastructure repairs, so she decided to paint the hydrants herself.

Bridge City is a town of about 7,800, located 95 miles northeast of Houston.

W. Pa. boy who was sent to room fires BBs from window

YOUNGWOOD, Pa.

State police have charged a 14-year-old western Pennsylvania boy with firing BBs at a neighbor’s home and a nearby Dairy Queen from his bedroom, where his mother had grounded him for misbehaving.

WTAE-TV reported last week that troopers from the Greensburg barracks aren’t identifying the boy because he’s being charged in juvenile court with reckless endangerment.

The station says the incident happened July 18 in Youngwood. That’s about 30 miles east of Pittsburgh.

Police say the Dairy Queen owner saw the boy’s gun protruding from the window after a delivery driver’s arm was grazed by a BB, walked over to the house and told the boy’s mother what was going on.

Police say the BBs also damaged a neighbor’s front door, a window and the siding on his house.

Mayor changes mind about creating parking spot

LOGANSPORT, Ind.

The mayor of Logansport has decided to turn a parking spot he created for his yellow Chevrolet Corvette after receiving a parking ticket into a spot for handicapped individuals visiting the City Building.

Mayor Ted Franklin tells the Pharos-Tribune he made the decision because the issue had become a “distraction” because of media attention. He created a parking space recently in the area previously reserved for police, putting up a sign reading “Mayor Parking Only.” He did that after he was ticketed by police when the nose of his Corvette was sticking into a no-parking zone.

Franklin says it’s time to grow up and to “stop playing the game.”

Associated Press