THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 14, 1996 TAG: 9604120228
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 03 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Susan Smith, Elizabeth Thiel and Eric Feber
LENGTH: Medium: 98 lines
A vehicle spotted driving through Deep Creek displayed a novel bumper sticker. The sticker read: ``The more men I meet, the better I like my dog.'' Hope that's not a judgment on the males in the area. Lucky lady
It was just another afternoon of mowing the lawn for Sherry R. Hurley. Or so she thought.
The 32-year-old Great Bridge resident was dragging the mower along Monday, looking down at the grass at her feet, when she saw what she thought was a four-leaf clover.
Thrilled at the prospect, Hurley stopped the machine, got down on her hands and knees and began searching.
She hit the jackpot. Within 10 minutes, she'd found nine four-leaf clovers and four five-leaf clovers.
Her two sons, 7-year-old Joshua and 6-year-old Zackary, and a neighborhood friend, 6-year-old Mary Mann, assisted in the hunt.
Hurley swears she doesn't use any special fertilizer or secret clover-growers on her yard. She's never found one of the lucky charms there before.
She'll preserve them for posterity, squeezed between sheets of pressed wax paper.
For a while, anyway, the mowing was forgotten.
``I'm just like a little kid again, looking down through the weeds,'' she said. She's no oenologist
Recently Brenda Dustin of Chesapeake excitedly called a friend to announce the successful purchase of a new car.
``It has everything,'' she crowed. ``And I just love the color. It's chablis.''
But instead of later arriving in a cream, buff or white car, Dustin pulled up in a new soft-red-colored vehicle.
She looked puzzled when told that the salesman had misled her.
``Well, maybe it's not chablis,'' she said somewhat confused. ``But I know it has something to do with wine.''
She and her friend then reviewed the wine menu. They looked at sherry, port, burgundy, blush and rose before they finally hit on the correct answer.
Dustin was driving a new, claret colored car.
``Well, I knew it had something to do with wine.'' Dustin said again. Water bed blues
David Desler, engineer at WFOS, recently moved out of his old house on Old Drive to a new one in Great Bridge.
The move was intense and went rather well, he said, until it came time to tackle his water bed.
``I moved from Tuesday until late Wednesday night, and I was dead tired,'' Desler said. ``I couldn't think straight, I was so tired and I assembled my water bed, frame and all, on the second floor of my new house.''
Desler put in the bed liner and mattress and began filling it with water. The mattress was half full when things began to go wrong.
``Water started going everywhere,'' he said. ``The liner split and it threw the hose right out of the (fill-up) hole. I ended up running around with six trash cans. I was catching water and dumping it in the bathroom. I was so darn tired, I forgot to put a washer in and that kept the water from flowing out quickly. I fell asleep around 4 or 5 in the morning but the water was flowing out slowly and ended up making a wet spot on the first floor ceiling below. I felt as if I were in a Three Stooges film.''
The next morning Desler said he called a buddy of his who worked with a water bed firm. His friend came out saw that the liner was split and the old mattress was beyond repair. Desler went to pick up a new one for his new home. But before the new bed could be brought in, the old one, still with quite a bit of water, had to be removed from the second floor.
``We couldn't get enough water out of the old mattress for two grown men to carry it out of the house,'' he said. ``So we dragged it to the window so we could ideally let it fall out onto the ground. Then we'd cut a slit into it and let the water out.
``We muscled it out the window bit by bit and let it fall out. It fell, all right. But it was so big and heavy that on the way down it snagged itself on the outside water faucet. Its sheer weight managed to yank the faucet's entire pipe out of the side of the house. We stared out of the window and saw Niagara Falls. We made a mad dash out of the house and finally got the water turned off.''
Desler said he had to summon a plumber to fix the broken water pipe and outside faucet.
``Let me tell you, I was so frustrated from all of that excitement,'' Desler said. ``All I want is some peace.'' ILLUSTRATION: Drawing by Mark Carey
A few weeks back I featured a drawing of an old wagon belonging to
the Wests of Cedar Road. This antique desk of wrought iron and wood
decorates their front porch. The desks in schools today are much
smaller and more portable. But you can't carve your initials on a
desk with a Formica top.
by CNB