Watercooler Stories

Wedding, funeral available under one roof

THORNTON, Colo., March 30 (UPI) -- A new business in Thornton, Colo., offers to help shoppers with their wedding and funeral needs under one roof, the venture's owners say.

Larry Tabler and his wife Andrea say their Highline Circle of Life Center will hold funerals, weddings and even handle cremations, all in the same 6,000-square foot building, The Denver Post reported.

"It's the new paradigm in the funeral business today," said Tabler, who has 42 years of experience in the funeral business.

"We have learned to be flexible," his wife added.

The Tablers agree a growing number of their clients prefer non-denominational services for significant life and death events.

Steffani Blackstock, Colorado Funeral Directors Association executive director, said the Tablers' multipurpose center makes sense given the commonalities between funerals and weddings.

"Weddings and funerals are the two major events in life," Blackstock told the Post. "You use flowers for both; you use ministers for both; and it's the one time when everybody comes together."

The center opened in November and features a chapel capable of holding nearly 150 guests to either a funeral or a wedding.

Campus said to have pot den called Narnia

NEW YORK, March 30 (UPI) -- Four New York University freshmen reportedly have dismantled a secret marijuana den called "Narnia" that was entered through a hole in the back of a wardrobe.

By the time it was dismantled last week, hundreds of students allegedly had visited the den, crawling through a large hole carved in the back of a university-issued wardrobe placed to hide a doorway to an alcove, the New York Post reported.

The 10-by-8-foot alcove on the seventh floor of the Hayden Hall dormitory was decorated with Christmas lights, a set of bongos, a stuffed raven and a poster of Narnia's Prince Caspian, the Post reported.

Narnia is the kingdom in the C.S. Lewis novel "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," in which three children enter an enchanted land through an old wardrobe.

"NYU is an experimental community," said Joshua Lawrence Becker, 21, a junior. "I bet student morale will plummet now that (Narnia) is gone."

NYU officials are prohibited by law from discussing disciplinary measures against students but any student caught smoking marijuana risks being kicked out of residential housing, said NYU spokesman John Beckman.

Narnia was dismantled by the students when they heard school officials had become aware of it, the Post reported

Boy grows mullet to help cancer kids

PLANTATION, Fla., March 30 (UPI) -- A 9-year-old Florida boy says he grew a mullet so he could donate his long hair to children who lost their hair while being treated for cancer.

Dustin Amara of Plantation said after his mother told him about children whose cancer has left them without hair, he decided to grow his hair in a mullet style -- long in the back, short on top, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.

"My mom told me about the people who couldn't grow hair because they had cancer and I wanted to help," said Amara, who had his long mane cut Saturday.

Amara's dad said his son at first endured some ribbing from his peers over his hair style.

"He's had some teasing from the other kids because he had his hair long," said Barry Amara, who is growing out his hair to make a similar donation. "They'll tease anyone who looks different. But once he explained why, they really admired him."

The younger Amara told the Sun-Sentinel he intends to grow long hair again so he can make another donation. The hair is used by the charity, Locks of Love, to make wigs for children facing hair loss as a result of cancer treatments or a condition known as alopecia.

Nobleman's monument to witch trials

KINROSS, Scotland, March 30 (UPI) -- A Scottish nobleman is building a maze in memory of the men and women executed as witches on his estate in the 17th century.

The Witches' Maze at Tullibole Castle near Kinross will have a pillar in the center with the names of those convicted and put to death in 1662, The Scotsman reported. Lord Moncrieff said the maze will be a monument to rationalism.

Five stones surrounding the pillar will have what he calls "good words" like "tolerance" while dead ends in the maze will have negative words.

"If you don't use logic inside the maze you will come to a dead end," Moncrieff, a historian, said. "Appropriately, in this year of Darwin's anniversary, the maze has evolved into a plea for people to think rationally. It is my intention that the memorial to the innocents will also be a damning attack on the ignorant and superstitious beliefs of the past as well as of the present day. My plan is to have other meanings and deeper symbolism in the maze, but I don't want to explain it all at this stage."