Watercooler Stories

Legitimacy of Welsh tradition argued

CARDIFF, Wales , June 14 (UPI) -- A new book entitled "Traditional Spooncarving in Wales," postulates the Welsh tradition of giving carved lovespoons may not have truly existed.

Author Gwyndaf Breese argues there is little evidence for the tradition where men would hand-carve lovespoons to give to their sweetheart or to signal an engagement, the Western Mail reported Tuesday.

"Despite all the interest and publicity given to lovespoons during the last 50 years," Breese writes, "it might be that the tradition of giving a lovespoon to the beloved was just an obscure rural custom of no great significance, and that the few hundred or so surviving originals are all that were ever made."

The image of the lovespoon has become such an integral part of tourism in Wales that gallery owner Patricia Price told the Mail that her gallery has sold hundreds of thousands of reproductions of the traditional love symbol over the last 20 years.

"Many others were taken out of Wales when people emigrated to places like America," Price said arguing for the existence of the tradition. "I've talked to Americans who have come into the gallery and said, 'We've got some like that. They go back a long way in our family.'"

Gay couple unveil pre-need headstone

LOS ANGELES, June 14 (UPI) -- A gay California couple celebrated their life together and their plans to spend eternity under the same headstone with a party in a graveyard.

Bernardo Puccio and Orin Kennedy invited friends to join them at Hollywood Forever, which happens to be a cemetery and the final resting place of Tyrone Power, John Huston, Marion Davies and Fay Wray, among other people, The Los Angeles Times reported. The event included the unveiling of their Carrara marble monument, which includes an urn holding the ashes of a beloved cat, and the showing of a documentary video about their life, a service the cemetery provides for its customers.

Puccio, an interior designer, and Kennedy, a retired location manager, have been a couple for more than 30 years. Like many in Hollywood, both are from elsewhere, Puccio from Alabama -- Lana Turner suggested he add the "o" to his first name for some continental oomph -- and Kennedy from New York.

"No one, to our knowledge, has taken this approach -- to celebrating life in a cemetery," Kennedy told the newspaper "We've always celebrated things in a big way. Any excuse to have a party."

For teens, e-mail is out, MySpace in

SAN JOSE, Calif., June 14 (UPI) -- For the first time since e-mail was invented, its use has been dropping among teenagers in the United States because they say it is just too slow.

"E-mail is more like snail mail. You don't know when they're going to get it," 17-year-old Alex Stikeleather of Palo Alto, Calif., told the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News.

Even instant messaging is out for many teens. Instead, they are talking on cell phones, text messaging and communicating on Internet sites like MySpace.

A company that monitors on-line use reported that teenage e-mail use dropped 8 percent between April 2005 and April 2006, although time spent on-line was up.

The number of teenagers using instant messaging also dropped 8 percent. But the number of people signed up for MySpace went from 3 million to 7.8 million.

Teen wins national yodeling championship

PINEWOOD, Mo., June 14 (UPI) -- A Missouri 14-year-old, who started her yodeling education with a tape, has won the Patsy Montana yodeling competition.

Catherine Bowler had already used her yodeling this year to win the talent competition at Francis Howell Central High School in St. Charles, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

The Patsy Montana Competition in Pinewood, Mo., honors the yodeling star best-known for "I Want To Be A Cowboy's Sweetheart."

Catherine told the newspaper she became attracted to yodeling when she heard yodelers on a family vacation. Her parents found her a tape called "So You Want To Learn To Yodel" and then it was just a matter of practice, practice, practice. This year was her third try at the Patsy Montana.