Some revealing news to share this week in the Warp with nothing but the bare facts. Plus an elderly widow gives "The Don" a run for his money and a couple of weathermen get reckless over a record.
One for the Grandkids
The most unbelievable moment of the week has to go to rail worker Warren Lear who was at the Canadian Pacific Railroad yard in St. Paul when a runaway freight train came to a crashing halt. 44 cars and six locomotives derailed, leaving wrechage so mangled that workers had trouble telling which cars came from which train.
From his hospital bed, Lear said, that he and his colleagues were
discussing a college basketball game when they heard about a
runaway train on a radio. Then came the rumble like "a huge
thunder."
"Everyone ran out," Lear said. "I didn't know what way to go."
So he went down and covered his head.
"When I fell, I thought the train was going to run over me. The
only thing I can explain is God was with us. I don't know how. It
was a miracle."
Lear lost his big toe and part of another toe after his foot got
pinned between a knocked-down wall and the floor. But he does have
a heck of a tale to tell his grandkids when they ask what happened
to his foot, years from now.There's No Place Like Home
Shame on District 5 of the state Department of Transportation in Tampa, Florida, for putting pressure on a 109 year old man to move from the house he has lived in all his life, even though they have offered him $2-million dollars for his property. DOT wants Julius James' house and land to expand a freeway. James, who inherited the property from his slave ancestors does not want to leave, for love or money. James was ordered to relocate to a $52-thousand dollar home a-half a mile away, but lawyers intervened and he will be able to stay at home for the time being.
"I don't want to move. I don't want to move at all," James said in
an interview at his white clapboard house. "This is home."Widow Takes Gamble
Meanwhile, a feisty widow is refusing to leave her home in Atlantic City, New Jersey, until she gets the money she's asking from multi- millionaire Donald Trump. That would be $3-million dollars for a 30-by-60-foot lot and crumbling three-story home that is between Trump's Plaza Hotel and Casino and his newest 22 story addition. Vera Coking turned down a $1 million dollar offer and Trump lost out on a bid to have the lot seized in an eminent domain proceeding. So he built around her.
Coking, who has lived in the home for 35 years, continues to hold
out for the $3 million. People who work for Trump have two words
for the 5-foot-5 woman. They call her "Trump's ulcer."
Way to go Vera, you gotta play to win!Show and Tell
Talk about getting a little exposure! Singer-songwriter Kristi Lockwood decided to make a name for herself the other day, and took a walk down Nashville's famous Music Row, wearing only cowboy boots and a cowboy hat. The revealing lunchtime stroll may have earned Lockwood the publicity she was seeking, but it also earned her a citation for indecent exposure.
God Gets Nine Months
And then, there's Ubiquitous Perpetuity God (yes, that's his legal name!), who will be spending 9 months in jail for indecent exposure. Mr. God, as the courts addressed him, exposed himself to a woman waiting in line at a coffee shop the other day in California. Police say he told them he did it so that women "could have some type of awareness of God." At least to our knowledge he didn't also tell her he wanted to "fill her with the Holy Spirit."
Snow Bliss
It could only be a weatherman's dream come true. By early Friday afternoon in Danbury, Conn., during our latest snow storm, meteorologists Bill Jacquemin and Greg Cantwell broke out the champagne and took pictures. This wasn't because they were ready to hunker down with a little buzz for another winter storm weekend. It was because the city broke the winter record of 80.8 inches of snow set in 1947-48.
"We wanted to do it up the right way," Jacquemin said. "This
happens once in a lifetime."Van Gogh Valentine
What a class act. An unidentified collector from the midwest bought a letter written by Vincent van Gogh just months before he committed suicide, for his wife as a Valentine's Day gift.
"I think that's how he justified his purchase," said the broker.
Even still, it might have taken some sweet talking. The price tag
for such a gift...$500,000. 
Kelley!