xxxNews Of The Weirdxxx

Bizarre but true stories about real people collected by syndicated columnist Chuck Shepherd.

News Stephen King Can Use
–About 1,000 animals were scheduled to be dug up from Pet’s Rest cemetery in Colma, Calif., after owners realized that their lease had run out (June).

–And the Green River Cemetery in Greenfield, Mass., began hurriedly moving and re-burying bodies, which had begun sliding down a muddy slope into the river (July).

–And about 100 skeletons were recently unearthed from an old graveyard beneath the St. Joseph’s Church, which the Archdiocese of Boston demolished in 2004 and sold (July).

–And the city of London, England, began selling used burial sites (for the equivalent of about $5,600), offering to inter bodies on top of previous burials and to re-mark gravestones with new names (July).

By the Way, What Stories Have Been No-Longer-Weirded?
Eighty such themes have occurred so frequently that they have been “retired from circulation” since News of the Weird began publishing in 1988, and here are more of them:
–Sometimes, firefighters are the ones who start fires, often because of a need to prove how important they are when they put it out.

–And it’s the law in some places that if a local election ends in a tie, it’s decided by a coin flip or a cutting of cards.

–And most of us have heard of postal workers who fall behind in their work and stash mounds of undelivered mail.

–And remember when you were shocked that a high school teacher would actually have sex with a student?

All those stories used to be weird, but no longer.
(Send your Weird News to Chuck Shepherd, P.O. Box 18737, Tampa FL 33679 or [email protected] or go to www.NewsoftheWeird.com.) NEWS OF THE WEIRD