Jockstrip: The world as we know it.

Three generations go skydiving

PERRIS, Calif., Feb. 22 (UPI) -- A California woman said she celebrated her 75th birthday by skydiving with her daughter and grandson.

Faith Gower, who turned 75 Tuesday, said she was inspired to take the Sunday jump at Skydive Perris in Perris, Calif., after watching former President George H.W. Bush jump out of a plane to celebrate his 85th birthday, The (Riverside) Press-Enterprise reported Tuesday.

"I liked being in the air and thought it would be fun to jump," Gower said.

She said she asked her daughter, Kimberly Main, who turned 50 last month, to jump with her and they decided to bring Main's son, Robert Richardson, 28, who took a skydiving trip to celebrate his 21st birthday.

"Thank you guys for coming with me. You made it so special," Gower told her family members after the jump.

Gower said she might be interested in skydiving again, "but not today."

Light bulb-wielding robber foiled

SAN DIEGO, Feb. 22 (UPI) -- Police in San Diego said a would-be robber who armed himself with a fluorescent light bulb was foiled when a clerk refused to hand over any cash.

Investigators said the man walked into the Washington Street Shell Station just prior to 11 p.m. Monday, brandished the light bulb and smashed it on the desk, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported Tuesday.

Police said the man demanded money but walked away empty-handed when the clerk refused to turn over any money.

Officers said they were searching for the suspect, described as a Latino man, about 30 years old and about 5 feet, 10 inches tall.

Olney wins annual pancake competition

LIBERAL, Kan., Feb. 22 (UPI) -- Kaela Krueger led a field of 15 runners for the Liberal, Kan., leg of the 63rd annual pancake race marking Shrove Tuesday, organizers said.

Krueger, 19, ran the 415-yard course in 68.6 seconds, taking a full 10 seconds longer than the winning runner in Olney, England, against whom Liberal has been competing for decades. The Northampton Chronicle & Echo reported Devon Byrne, 18, set a record pace, covering the distance in Olney in 58.5 seconds and besting 22 competitors to win the international title.

"It's crazy here today," JoAnn Combs, one of the Liberal race's organizers, told UPI.

Patty Rutledge came in second and Leslie Spikes was third. Members of Amanda Schwab's family didn't win but they set a record.

Schwab and her four daughters competed, the first time five members of a single family have taken part.

"We've been talking about it for at least five years, but we had to wait until Kendra [who is now 18] was old enough to compete," said Amanda, who previously competed in 1998.

Legend has it the race was inspired by an Olney housewife who was late for Shrove Tuesday services and ran to the church, still holding her skillet and flipping a pancake. The race can be traced back as far as 1445.

Fried foods are a tradition for the day to give Christians a chance to use up fats before the start of Lent, which begins with Ash Wednesday.

Teen lifts car to save grandpa

MONROE, Mich., Feb. 22 (UPI) -- A 15-year-old Michigan boy says he has no idea how he was able to lift a 2,000-pound Buick enough for his grandfather to escape from underneath.

Austin Smith said he was working on the 1991 Buick with his grandfather, Ernest "Papa Ernie" Monhollen, at his grandparents' Ida Township home Saturday when the car fell from the cinder blocks holding it up and trapped Monhollen underneath, WDIV-TV, Detroit, reported Tuesday.

"I was just so scared," Smith said. "I didn't know what to do."

Smith said he instinctively grabbed the front end of the 2,000-pound car and was able to lift it enough for his grandfather to get out.

"Probably all the adrenaline," Smith said of how he was able to lift the car. "I mean, I couldn't do it right now."

Monhollen was treated for a serious cut to his face, fractured ribs and a fractured eye socket.

"Thank God he was here because if it was just me and his grandmother it would have been over. That would have been it," Monhollen said.