Odd-but-True Stories

es made through the regulatory process.”

For its part, CDCR said it acted under the authority of Proposition 57, which passed in 2016, allowing parole for most inmates and incentivizing rehabilitative and educational programs, as well as good behavior activities.

Eric Carle, Author and Artist, Dies

Eric Carle, author and artist of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and dozens of other children’s books, died last week at the age of 91.

Since its publication in 1969, The Very Hungry Caterpillar has sold over 50 million copies and been translated into 66 languages.

“I didn’t think it was going to be an extraordinary book,” Carle told Entertainment Weekly in 1994, as the book turned 25. “But children love it. Caterpillar reassures young kids that ‘you scrawny, ugly little thing will grow up and fly and display your talent and beauty.’”

Carle received honorary degrees from over five universities, including Amherst College and Smith College.

Carle was born in Syracuse, NY, to German immigrant parents. When he was just 6 years old, his family moved back to Germany as the Nazis were seizing power.

Though expressionist art was not permitted in Germany at the time, Carle recounted to NPR in 2011 that, when he was 12 or 13, his high school art teacher secretly showed him expressionist works at his home.

“I was used to pretty paintings with a mountain in the background. Although I was shocked, I always carried that day in my heart,” Carle told the outlet.

Many of Carle’s famous books featured nature and animals. He credited his love of nature to his father.

“When I was a small child, as far back as I can remember, he would take me by the hand and we would go out in nature,” Carle said in a 1994 interview. “And he would show me worms and bugs and bees and ants and explain their lives to me. It was a very loving relationship.”

In 1952, Carle graduated from art school and returned to the United States where he initially made a living by working as a graphic designer with The New York Times.

He got his first big break when Bill Martin Jr. needed an illustrator for his recently completed book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

Martin had seen Carle’s artwork in a magazine while in a dentist’s waiting room. “The art was so striking that I knew instantly that I had found my artist!” Martin said about Carle.

In 2002, Carle and his late wife, Bobbie, opened the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts.

On Carle’s website, his family acknowledged his death by writing: “In the light of the moon, holding on to a good star, a painter of rainbows is now traveling across the night sky.”

A Speedy Summit

A teacher is now the woman to have reached the top of Mount Everest in the shortest amount of time.

Tsang Yin-hung, 45, climbed from the base camp – at 17,390 feet – to the summit – at 29,032 feet – in 25 hours and 50 minutes.

The previous record for fastest female climber was held by Phunjo Jhangmu Lama, from Nepal, who scaled the mountain in 39 hours and 6 minutes.

“I just feel kind of relief and happy because I am not looking for breaking a record,” Tsang, who is from Hong Kong, said . “I feel relieved because I can prove my work to my friends, to my students.”

Tsang stopped only twice along the way so she could change clothes. Her climb was also not hindered by other climbers on some of the highest trails. The only other climbers she met along the way were headed back down.

“For the summit, it is not just not your ability, teamwork, I think luck is very important,” Tsang revealed.

This was Tsang’s second attempt to climb Mount Everest. On May 11, she reached very close to the summit but was forced to turn back because of bad weather.

The fastest man to climb Mount Everest is Sherpa guide Lakpa Gelu, who reached the summit after only 10 hours and 56 minutes in 2003.

You know what they say: He who travels fastest travels alone.

Old But Bold

Speaking of Mount Everest, Arthur Muir, 75, recently became the oldest American to climb the world’s tallest peak, beating the previous record set by Bill Burke, who was 67 when he reached the summit in May.

Muir, a retired attorney from Chicago, started mountaineering when he was 68 and first took trips to South America and Alaska before attempting to climb Everest for the first time in 2019. He broke his ankle while climbing a ladder at the time and had to postpone his dream of conquering the peak.

“You realize how big a mountain it is, how dangerous it is, how many things that could go wrong,” Muir said after his climb. “Yeah, it makes you nervous, it makes, you know, some anxiety there and maybe little bit of scared.”

He added: “I was just surprised when I actually got to there [the summit] but I was too tired to stand up, and in my summit pictures I am sitting down.”

Even sitting down, he’s standing thousands of feet above us all.

Crazy Crustaceans

Two really rare lobsters almost became someone’s dinner when an observant caterer noticed the bright orange crustaceans for sale in a tank in a store.

The lobsters were identified as orange Canadian lobsters. They were on sale for about $36.

Caterer Joseph Lee reportedly spotted the lobsters while shopping.

“I went in to do my usual shopping for my catering business,” Lee told SWNS. “I saw these two orange lobsters from a distance and thought they were toys because that’s the only time I’ve seen them orange apart from when they’re cooked. I knew they wouldn’t have put cooked lobsters in there because you need to keep lobsters in a special tank with flowing water below seven degrees.”

Turns out, these lobsters are extremely rare. More rare is the fact that two of them showed up in the same tank.

“To get one in the tank was a one in 30 million chance so the chances of having two are one in a billion,” Lee explained. “It is like getting struck by lightning three times and surviving each time.

“To have not just one but two in the tank is unimaginable.”

The lobsters were donated to the Birmingham Sea Life center.

And now these lobsters are just as happy as a clam.

Mini Mensa

Meet Kashe. She’s two years old and lives in Los Angeles with her parents. She’s also the youngest member of Mensa in the United States.

Parents Sukhjit Athwal and Devon Quest said their daughter, Kashe, 2, was accepted into the world’s oldest high IQ society after scoring 146 on an IQ test – nearly 50 points higher than the 98-point average in the United States.

Kashe is pretty precocious. She can read full sentences, count to 100, and identify all 50 states. She is now working on identifying periodic table elements by their symbols and learning Spanish.

“She’ll wake up on a Saturday and say, ‘I wanna do elements,’ or ‘I wanna do states,’ so whenever she’s leaning into it, we’re just there to support her,” Quest said.

Still, Kashe is, in many ways, like a regular toddler.

“At the end of the day, she’s in that toddler stage,” Athwal said. “So she very much is still a normal 2-year-old where we have negotiations, we have tantrums, we have everything.”

Sounds like she’s one smart cookie.

Never Too Late

Bill Gossett is now a college graduate. The 97-year-old had dropped out of college in World War II to join the U.S. Army Air Corps. After returning from war, he took over the family business instead of returning to school. This year, thought, Gossett donned a cap and gown to accept his college diploma.

“There was always a void there but I was busy learning to run a business. Time went by and I finally decided to finish my degree. It was a goal of self-fulfillment,” Gossett said.

Gossett approached Lincoln College officials about returning to the school to finish his associate’s degree.

“In 2019, Mr. Gossett came to me and said he wanted to finish his associate’s degree at Lincoln College,” Lincoln College President David Gerlach said.

“After meeting with the Registrar’s Office, we determined that Gossett could re-enroll as a reverse transfer student with Prior Learning Assessment credits. We were inspired by his desire to obtain a degree 80 years after his education began,” he said.

Gossett completed his Associate of Arts degree in 2020, but had to wait for the 2021 graduation ceremony due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gerlach surprised Gossett at the ceremony with an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters.

Chocolate Cicadas

They’re chocolatey. They’re crunchy. They’re cicadas.

ChouQuette Chocolates & Confections is churning out chocolate-covered cicadas for customers eager to munch down on insect-y confections.

Earlier this month, the store, located in Maryland, shared an Instagram post on how it’s cooking up and sweetening these insects, which is only a seven-step process.

According to ChouQuette’s instructions, the cicadas need to first be collected, frozen, boiled and oiled before they can be placed in an air fryer. Once the bugs are cooked and cooled, they can be covered in melted chocolate. When the chocolate has hardened, they can then be served like any other chocolate-covered snack – unless of course you prefer your cicadas in a fondue style.

“Crunchy, nutty, earthy, sweet. Like a walnut with wings, covered in chocolate and cinnamon,” ChouQuette’s CEO and chocolatier Sarah Dwyer described to Fox News.

Some people have been swarming to the store to sample the crunchy treats. According to an update on the company’s website, it has been “inundated with orders.”

Even so, there are many who are staying far away from the chewy creatures.

“People are polarized about eating cicadas as they are about politics in DC! I get hate messages and ‘I love bugs’ messages,” Dwyer said.

“We love to make sweet treats based on current events – Dr. Fauci was last year’s viral product – this year it is cicadas – they are plentiful, tasty and easy to catch,” Dwyer said. “We can’t believe the response.”

Other stores have also been experimenting with cicada-inspired dishes. There are trillions of cicadas expected to emerge from the ground over the summer. Most people, though, will view the winged insects as mere pests and not as an option for dinner.