Back in August, I mentioned how much I love a paper in Guntersville/Marshall County, Alabama called the Advertiser-Gleam. It only writes about things that happen in that one specific part of the state, so there’s no AP wire stories about what’s going on anywhere else. ANYwhere else.
In August, I wrote about how they did a story about a man who loved to eat rattlesnakes and how his neighbor swerved to hit one in the road to give to him (and the skin was going to hang in the public library), and the classified ad about the cockatiel that flew away from home, noting that he left heading South.
Lately I’ve been following the story about a lady there named Patty Jackson who started a rubber band ball last March. She named it ‘George’ after one of her cats.
Every few weeks starting this summer, there was an update in the paper about its growth (even once, the update was “above the fold” on the front cover, which in the news world is big stuff!). The September 20th issue (which is the one on the left in my pic above) shows Patty peeking out from behind the ball. It was 5’4″ around and she was about to put in an application to the Guinness Book of World Records to see about getting it certified.
The pic on the right is from October 21st, and it shows the ball on a flatbed trailer. She and her husband got a dozen people to help move the ball onto the trailer so it could be weighed. It came in at 3800 pounds – almost 700lbs more than the old world record! Yay!
The article says that her friends have already made an official-looking sign declaring the ball the new world record holder, and Patty should hear back from the Guinness people in six – eight weeks. I am so happy for her!