Oddly enough

Oddly enough

Man makes amends for stealing — in 1958

NASHVILLE, Tenn.

No matter how much digging investigators did, the crime remained open until a thief turned himself in and returned the fruits of his theft.

In this case, the crime was stealing two hydrangeas in May 1958 from Centennial Park in Nashville. And the thief, 72-year-old Bill Teitleff of Joy, Ky., returned plants from the root system of the purloined flowers to the park Thursday.

Teitliff told WSMV-TV in Nashville he took the flowering plant because he didn’t have enough money at the time to buy a Mother’s Day gift for his mother. At the time of the theft, Teitleff was 18 and just married.

Eventually, the past caught up with Teitleff and he didn’t like how it felt.

Teitleff says he can now walk through Centennial Park without feeling guilty.

Official: Dots painted on home an eyesore

BISMARCK, N.D.

Jim Deitz believes he’s creating a Grand Forks landmark, but the downtown apartment house he’s painting one polka dot at a time is making a city planner cringe.

The retired house painter on Tuesday was putting the final polka dots on his home-turned-apartments, where passers-by have been gathering to watch him work and to request colors from his palette of a dozen cans of brightly colored paint.

“Pizza-delivery drivers won’t have any trouble finding this place,” Deitz said of the century-old two story home that houses six apartments.

The house is next to a church, a fraternal organization building and a new low-income apartment complex. Deitz and the city had negotiated a deal to buy out the property to expand the low-income housing facility.

Deitz said he was offered $100,000 for the home a year or so ago. “They were going to buy me out, and they backed out,” Deitz said. “I want $150,000 for it now.”

Ryan Brooks, the city’s senior planner, said the polka dot house is an eyesore and that he thinks it’s Deitz’s way of protesting the city’s decision not to buy the property.

“It’s hard to say what this gentleman’s true motives are,” Brooks said. “I think my opinion is the same as everybody — I wouldn’t want to be living next to it.”

Brooks said the city doesn’t have a code that forbids homeowners from painting their houses in certain colors or schemes, however garish.

Deitz insists the polka dots are meant simply to brighten up the neighborhood and are not as a form of protest.

About eight tenants live in the home, and none minds the new paint scheme, he said.

“I got people waiting in line to get in this place,” he said.

Deitz researched several different paint jobs before picking the polka dots.

Associated Press