Trail Mix

Dr. Clark’s Strange Tales

 Workers renovating the old Dayton's department store in downtown Minneapolis came across an unusual find in early April: the mummified remains of a monkey. The store apparently had a pet department in the 1960s, and The Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal reported that Steven Laboe, who worked in the building in the early 2000s, heard stories of a monkey escaping into an air conditioning duct, where it may have met its fate in the form of an exhaust fan. In fact, the mummy does show an injury to the abdomen. "We continue to find pieces of history in the Dayton's project as we redevelop the building," Cailin Rogers, a spokeswoman for the redevelopment team, told the Minneapolis Star-

Tribune. [Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal, 4/10/2018; Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 4/12/2018]  A traditional March wedding at Peckforton Castle in

Tarporley, Cheshire, England, was briefly interrupted when an owl trained to deliver the rings to a waiting best man changed its mind about where to land. The betrothed Jeni Arrowsmith and Mark Wood of Wrexham watched as the barn owl flew down the aisle toward the best man, but a seated groomsman then pointed at the bird, which it took as a signal to fly to his hand. "The owl just dived in and hit the guy -- who is terrified of birds!" said wedding photographer Stacey Oliver. "He fell off his chair." "Everyone was absolutely hysterical," the bride later told the BBC. "It made the wedding because we were talking about it all night." [BBC, 3/27/2018]