Odd-but-True Stories

The balloon ride was a “bucket list” item for Susan Montoya, an assistant principal at an Albuquerque elementary school, who was killed in the crash. The ride was a goodbye gift from her colleagues since Montoya was scheduled to transfer to another school this upcoming school year.

Montoya, 65, was onboard with her husband John Montoya, 61. John also worked in the school district as a special education assistant.

Martin Martinez, 62, was a retired Albuquerque police officer who also worked in the school system. His wife, Mary Martinez, 59, was “very involved” in the schools.

The pilot of the hot air balloon, Nicholas Meleski, 62, who had over 25 years of experience flying balloons, had a daughter who is a school counselor in the district.

For now, police are investigating and are unsure of what led to the crash.

“Every time you go out and fly, you’ve got your soul and the souls in the basket with you,” said Bill Noe, a hot air balloonist and friend of one of the victims. “And there’s always a possibility that something could happen that you don’t have control of.”

Amish Balk at Vaccination

It is proving to be tough to encourage the Amish population to vaccinate against Covid-19. Health care leaders in Pennsylvania Dutch County posted flyers about vaccinations at farm supply stores and at auctions where the Amish sell handmade furniture and quilts. They asked three newspapers widely read by the Amish to publish ads promoting the vaccine, although two refused to publish the ads.

At two vaccination clinics opened in the area, only a handful showed.

In Ohio’s Holmes County, home to the nation’s largest concentration of Amish, just 14% of the county’s overall population is fully vaccinated.

In general, the Amish population lags behind the general population in vaccinations. They are less likely to be vaccinated for preventable diseases such as measles and whooping cough. A core part of their Christian faith is accepting G-d’s will in times of illness or death.

Many in the Amish community believe that the community has achieved herd immunity because they have already gotten sick.

“That’s the No. 1 reason we hear,” said Alice Yoder, executive director of community health at Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health, a network of hospitals and clinics.

Additionally, they are absorbing the vaccine hesitancy prevalent in rural communities.

During the first months of the pandemic, the Amish followed social distancing guidelines and stopped gathering for church and funerals. But when non-Amish neighbors and local elected officials began pushing back against state and federal mandates, the Amish resumed the gatherings, resulting in a surge of outbreaks last summer.

Up at Bat

It took Gwen Goldman sixty years, but she finally achieved her dream.

The New York Yankees fan sent the baseball team a request to serve as a bat girl back in 1961, when she was 10. Her entreaty was denied then because the general manager, Roy Hamey, felt she wouldn’t feel comfortable in a dugout with men.

“In a game dominated by men, a young lady such as yourself would feel out of place in a dugout,” he wrote to her at the time.

Gwen placed the denial on a bulletin board for the past few decades. Her daughter recently sent it to the current Yankees general manager Brian Cashman.

Last week, Cashman surprised Goldman with the privilege of becoming a bat girl during a Zoom conference call, which also included ace pitcher Gerrit Cole.

“Here at the Yankees, we have championed to break down gender barriers in our industry,” Cashman wrote in a letter to Goldman. “It is an ongoing commitment rooted in the belief that a woman belongs everywhere a man does, including in the dugout.”

The Yankees informed Goldman of the honor as part of their Hope Week initiative. Each year, over five-consecutive days, the team shines a spotlight on a specific individual, family or organization worthy of recognition or support.

The honorees share their inspirational stories with Yankees players, fans and the media while being surprised by the team.

This week, Goldman, now 70 years old, found herself standing on the field at Yankee Stadium.

“It was worth writing that letter, worth having that hope and worth pursuing it,” Goldman said. “Even if you don’t get it at first, you just keep going.

“Sixty years thinking about this and here it is.”

Goldman toured the clubhouse, met players and coaches, posed for photos with umpires and threw out the first pitch. She sported a full pinstripe uniform for her honorary duties.

Play ball!

Pancake Pileup

Hy-Vee is now the proud recipient of a Guinness World Record and it’s just flipping over the accolade.

The grocery store chain broke a Guinness World Record at a Missouri location by preparing a serving of 13,000 pancakes.

It took 13 chefs at the store in Blue Springs 7 hours and 16 minutes to cook 13,000 pancakes last Thursday.

Just to make sure that no pancake went unnoticed, a Guinness adjudicator was on hand to verify that the serving of pancakes broke the record of 12,716, which was set in Russia in 2017.

The pancakes were donated

to Harvesters-The Community Food Network, a regional food bank serving the greater Kansas City area in both Missouri and Kansas.

The record attempt was timed to coincide with the launch of Hy-Vee’s “Best Breakfast in America” menu.

Sounds like a lot of syrup to me.

There All Along

What happens when a painting falls off the wall?

Well, if you’re a family living in Italy, you discover that what was hanging on your wall was a long-lost painting by Rembrandt.

The Italian Heritage Foundation said the painting, The Adoration of the Magi, was painted by the famed artist around 1632-1633, and was considered to be one of Rembrandt’s lost paintings. In 2016, it fell off the wall of a country home in Rome and was sent to art restorer Antonella Di Francesco for repairs.

Although, the painting had been darkened by old varnish, during cleaning and restoration, Di Francesco discovered that the work was a long-lost Rembrandt.

The painting was studied by an international team of experts attending a symposium at the French Academy of the Villa Medici in Rome and they confirmed the work appears to be a legitimate Rembrandt.

Guido Talarico, president of the Italian Heritage Foundation, said the family that owns the painting is currently having it stored by art dealers but that it will eventually be made available to museums and galleries.

Hiding in plain sight. Sounds off the wall to me.

Monopoly $

Think that Monopoly money is just able to get you a railroad for $200 or Boardwalk for $400? Think again. Patrons of Ralph’s Tavern in Worcester, Massachusetts, were able to use Monopoly money on Wednesday from 4pm to 6pm to pay the $5 cover charge or to buy $10 hot dogs and tickets for a raffle.

The bar announced the fun initiative as part of its bid to be included in a localized version of the game.

“We also noticed there were some places across the country that were accepting cryptocurrency, so we figured it would be a funny, hilarious thing to start accepting Monopoly money,” said owner Scot Bove. “It’s going to be a beautiful night, so hopefully we can fill the place up and kind of put Worcester on the map. It’s a city on the move.”

Patrons were encouraged to dress up as Mr. Monopoly or show off their Monopoly style for a chance to win raffle prizes.

Ralph’s, which bills itself as the “oldest tavern” in Worcester, is campaigning to be included in a localized Worcester version of Monopoly, which is being produced by Top Trumps USA, the company licensed by Hasbro to produce localized Monopoly games. Fans of Monopoly can help choose the 34 locations they would like to see featured on the Worcester edition game board.

Sounds like it’s all fun and games to me.

Flintstone Fight

Florence Fang loves the Flintstones, but her neighbors aren’t too keen about the colorful characters.

The retired publishing mogul lives in a posh suburb of San Francisco in a whimsical, colorful home. Adorning her yard are giant Stone Age sculptures inspired by the 1960s Flintstones cartoon, along with other oddities.

Two years ago, the town of Hillsborough took Fang to court, calling her cute lawn ornaments “a highly visible eyesore,” and alleging that Fang violated local codes when she put dinosaur sculptures in the backyard and made other landscaping changes that caused local officials to declare it a public nuisance.

The town said that Fang failed to comply with multiple stop-work orders, as well as an order to remove the features around the multimillion-dollar property with its 2,730-squarefoot (254-square-meter) home.

Fang, then, counter-sued the town.

This week, both Fang and the town came to an agreement. Fang will get to keep her beloved characters but will also apply for building permits.

Yabba dabba doo!

Hawaiian Hoopla

Jackie, a resident of Washington, D.C., has been showing up to meetings wearing the same shirt – and no one ever notices.

Since April 2, 2020 and June 16, 2021, Jackie wore her garish Hawaiian button-down shirt to 264 meetings on Zoom as a gag for her co-workers.

But the joke was on her – because no one batted an eye.

“I was like, wouldn’t it be funny if I wore this shirt again? Like that’d be a funny joke and everyone would say something,” she told “Insider Edition.”

Sadly, no one said anything.

“And then I thought, well, I’m going to keep doing this until someone notices, and no one ever noticed,” she said.

Finally, on her last day of work, Jackie told her co-workers about the inside joke. Talk about a joke falling flat.

“When I told my team that I had been wearing the same shirt, they didn’t know what I was talking about. They hadn’t noticed,” she said. “The intern literally said, ‘On purpose?’ So, there’s that,” Jackie said.

Talk about a Hawaiian punch.