17 JAN 06: BE AFRAID? BE VERY AFRAID?
David Copperfield brings his "Grand Illusion" show to the RiverCenter tonight - complete with several disappearing acts. He'd better not have anything to do with that Russell County jailbreak....
(But then again, a co-worker told me Monday he wouldn't mind if those two escaped suspects showed up at the David Copperfield show. He said Copperfield might make them vanish once and for all, so we don't have to worry about them again.)
The national news media began focusing on the Columbus area Monday, and the search for two escaped murder suspects. Russell County Sheriff Tommy Boswell appeared on several cable channels, by phone and via satellite - but so far Greta Van Susteren hasn't shown up for an ambush interview.
It may be only a matter of time before the "star detectives" of cable TV show up in Phenix City, to join the search for the teenage suspects. But before you get your hopes up, remember - Rita Cosby and Greta Van Susteren looked all over Aruba, and the young men THERE remain on the loose.
The search for missing murder suspects didn't scare away the Phenix City NAACP. It held its annual "Freedom March" for Martin Luther King Day Monday, beginning at the Russell County Jail. Prisoners probably wouldn't want to join this group, because none of the marchers drove getaway cars.
If the manhunt for suspected killers has you scared to go outside, what I found the other day may not help. An online list claims several places in the Columbus area are haunted! And these places do NOT offer hayrides in October, either....
A Google News search on a totally different topic uncovered a lengthy list of allegedly haunted places across Georgia. It includes the most legendary spot in Columbus, the Springer Opera House. Why the management doesn't call Knox Pest Control to stop those noises, I'll never know.
But some of the other allegedly haunted places surprised me:
+ Jordan High School - which actually shows up twice, for two different spots in the building. You'd think all the recent construction there would have scared ghosts away....
+ "Crybaby Bridge" near Whitesville Road. You supposedly can hear a baby crying, because a child drowned there long ago. You mean it's NOT some property owner who turned down the Columbus Park Crossing developers?
+ The downtown section of the Riverwalk. If you hear heavy breathing there, please do NOT be alarmed - I'm simply out for a jog.
(But maybe there's another theory for this listing. Visitors think the Riverwalk is haunted because they show up when jail inmates are cleaning it.)
Before you bite your fingernails off entirely from fright, let's check some more calming news from Monday:
+ The Rainbow/PUSH Coalition served a free M.L.K. Day lunch to about 450 needy people. All we need now are 364 more groups to do this, and no one in Columbus might need to beg for food again.
+ New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin suggested Hurricane Katrina was sent by God to punish the U.S., for the intervention in Iraq. So why did his city wind up with a lot more damage than Fort Benning?
(Well, at least liberals and conservatives now agree on this issue. God delivered a message to the Gulf Coast -- but they can't figure out exactly what it says.)
+ Productions and stars from the Columbus area struck out at the Golden Globe Awards. "Warm Springs" failed to win. "My Name is Earl" star Jason Lee, whose parents live in Eufaula, failed to win. And "Brokeback Mountain" did so well that every Baptist preacher failed to win.
+ The Atlanta Hawks DID win, handling Houston 94-83 for their tenth triumph of the basketball season. Only three more wins to go, to match the Texas football team....
+ The Columbus Cottonmouths had a day off from practice, because the Civic Center ice rink was dismantled for the PBR bull riding event. There, you see? This proves the cowboys are wimps - because they won't ride slipping and sliding bulls.
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