Watercooler Stories

Ohio kids sell lemonade for Katrina relief

CINCINNATI, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- Five Cincinnati youngsters selling lemonade for children affected by Hurricane Katrina have had to extend sales hours to keep up with collections.

The Frueh family kids began selling lemonade at rush hour Friday and planned to close their lemonade stand Monday afternoon. But the response has been so overwhelming, they said they'll continue selling during afterwork hours this week.

By Monday evening, the Frueh children had raised more than $1,600, the Cincinnati Enquirer said Tuesday. Police cars, bus drivers and joggers make unscheduled stops to donate, and often say "no, thanks" to the lemonade before leaving, Laurie Frueh said. Her four children and a niece run the booth, which the newspaper said is hard to miss since it's covered in gold plastic, Mardi Gras beads and balloons, with a sign announcing how much has been raised.

"My goal is to teach them young," Frueh said.

Wine label pushes wet referendum

ORCHARD CITY, Colo., Sept. 7 (UPI) -- A Colorado winery has created a special vintage to honor its town's effort to legalize wine sales.

Orchard City Dry has a sticker price of $19.66, marking the year, 1966, when Orchard City voters approved a referendum banning liquor sales, the Denver Post reported. Jim and Jeanne Durr, owners of the Surface Creek Winery, are selling it at a $7 discount, in honor of the years they have been in business.

The wine's advertising slogans are campaign slogans for the Nov. 1 vote on liquor sales. They include "Do your part to drink Orchard City Dry" and "Is Orchard City a dry town or a dry wine?"

The Durrs only learned recently that they had been selling wine illegally for years. Town officials forgot to incorporate the ordinance banning sales of anything stronger than 3.2 percent beer in a 1994 revision of the municipal code.

Long Island takes on bad grammar

AMITYVILLE, N.Y., Sept. 7 (UPI) -- More than 200,000 Long Island, N.Y., students will face old fashioned grammar instruction and testing when they return to school this week.

Such instruction began falling out of favor in the 1960s, but now, state educators claim most students don't know the difference between a noun and a verb, not to mention participles.

"It's rampant," said school administrator Mike Cohen. "People use 'impact' as a verb until my teeth rattle.

"You've got to immerse students in proper grammar and usage, because they're immersed in improper usage wherever they go."

New York State, which previously tested English and math in grades 4 and 8, will extend English testing to other grades in January and math testing in March, Newsday reported.

To measure students' grammar skills, each new English test for grades 3, 5 and 7 will include a paragraph in which students will correct errors in spelling, punctuation, word usage and sentence structure.

Michigan sisters share life and birth

JACKSON, Mich., Sept. 7 (UPI) -- Michigan sisters Courtney Beach and Ashlee Graham have shared motherhood for a second time -- this time on exactly the same day.

Three years ago, Beach, 24, and Graham, 23, bore daughters two days apart, on Dec. 8 and Dec. 10.

On Friday, they shared a delivery date when Beach of Jackson, Mich., gave birth to her fourth child, a son named Kayden. Within hours, Graham of Rives Junction, Mich., gave birth to her third child, a daughter named Caleigh.

The sisters, who said they have always been close, also shared a birth site -- Foote Hospital in Jackson, Mich.

"Maybe it's because we were so close growing up," Beach told the Jackson (Mich.) Citizen Patriot of the unplanned simultaneous pregnancies. "We've been trying to figure it out."

Kim Hunter said she needs no explanation of her daughters' synchronized pregnancies.

"I like it," said Hunter as she held both babies. "I (held them both at the same time) with the first two and I can do it with these two."

Enforcement of the ban has been suspended pending the vote. If Orchard City decides to remain dry, the Durrs will still be able to make wine and to give out free samples but they can only sell wine by shipping it outside the city limits.