xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
In April, choreographer Jenefer Davies Mansfield staged her “NASCAR Ballet” production at the Roanoke (Va.) Ballet Theatre, featuring 20 colorfully unitard-clad dancers, wearing corporate patches of the theater’s sponsors, prancing and leaping around a banked-racetrack stage (to new-age music and the sounds of revving engines), “racing” but occasionally crashing into each other, to be rescued by other dancers who are the “pit crews.” Mansfield was hoping for a big crossover audience of NASCAR fans gathered for a big race in nearby Martinsville. “In this business,” she said, “you’ve got to take chances.”
In December, police in Lewiston, Maine, chased down a patient from St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center who, apparently fed up with his hospital regimen, had fled the building on foot, clad only in his gown in the icy rain, and dragging his wheeled IV pole behind him.
Gary C. Laine, 48, wanted on a fugitive murder warrant from California, turned himself in to police in Kerrville, Texas, in February and, apparently seeking to look cooperative, had already handcuffed himself before walking into the station.
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Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd
NEWS OF THE WEIRD