It wasn’t all bad

last updated 8 January 2015

•When a sack containing $15,000 in cash tumbled from an armored car in Stony Brook, N.Y., it should have been a total loss. The bag burst open when cars ran over it, releasing a blizzard of fluttering dollar bills to the wind and the woods alongside the road. I’ve never seen that much money in one place, said George Fuhr, 76, an auxiliary police officer who came upon the scene. It was wild. My first concern was for safety—people going berserk trying to get this money. But instead of stuffing the cash in their pockets and running away, bystanders chased down thousands of the bills and handed them over to the driver, while cops closed off the road. All but $128 was returned. Police say the sack fell out of the vehicle because the door wasn’t completely closed.

•The last time Navy’s football team defeated Notre Dame, a perennial powerhouse, was back in 1963. But Navy’s 43- year losing streak came to an end last week with a stunning 46–44 victory against the Fighting Irish, in triple overtime. The win is being hailed as the greatest upset since the U.S. hockey team beat the Russians in 1980. Navy, like the other military academies, has a distinct disadvantage in recruiting athletes, since graduates must commit to military service. The win prompted the academy’s commandant of midshipmen, Capt. Peg Klein, to cancel all classes on Monday. A parade is planned.

•LaVerne and Beverly Maves of Edgerton, Wis., certainly know the meaning of dedication. LaVerne, 87, and Beverly, 82, have been handling the same newspaper route for 54 years, delivering the Wisconsin State Journal every single day—other than during a blizzard last year and LaVerne’s heart surgery in 1996. The couple began the pre-dawn route in 1953 to earn extra cash, with Beverly rolling and bagging the papers and LaVerne tossing them from the car. We didn’t think we’d do it very long— just to get over the hump, Beverly said. Neither one of them can barely walk anymore, said one long-time customer, but I’ll be danged if they don’t deliver that newspaper every morning.