xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx
Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.
Landscape contractor Blair Davis, who lives in a Houston suburb and whose own yard’s flora includes the Texas Star hibiscus, was the object of a SWAT-type raid by the Harris County Organized Crime and Narcotics Task Force in July. A neighbor had reported Davis as having drugs, in that the Texas Star hibiscus somewhat vaguely resembles the marijuana plant, and the prestigious Task Force didn’t know any better. Davis said that an agent also asked him warily what he planned to do with the watermelons and cantaloupes that were growing in his back yard.
Two reporters from South Africa’s largest online news operation, News24, profiled Miyi Shongi, 58, in August, in her quest to avoid a “curse” of stones landing on her. She was forced to leave her home village of Lombani after her home was pounded inexplicably with stones (evidently witnessed by a police officer) and forced again to leave relatives’ home in nearby Nhombelani after another rock storm hit her. A spiritualist she consulted concluded that the problem was a spell cast by a Zimbabwean trader to whom she owned money.
Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa, Fla. 33679 or [email protected]
Copyright © 2001 by Chuck Shepherd
NEWS OF THE WEIRD
