Ran across this on fark.com this morning:
‘Lost’ ball located 91 years on
(yes, the headline is verbatim, it’s the BBC ”)
"The family of a boy whose tennis ball got stuck high up in a cathedral archway have asked for it back – almost a century later.
It has been lodged in the mouldings of Lincoln Cathedral since 1914.
But its presence was only noticed by cathedral staff after the nephew of Gilbert Bell, who threw the ball, wrote a letter asking for it back.
The ball is believed to be among the oldest surviving examples in the UK. ” The earliest proper tennis ball held in the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Museum dates from 1916, while Gilbert Bell’s is from at least 1914."
If you plan on clicking in to Fark, I’ll warn you that the comment thread there is typically farkian ”
The story made me think of the last trip I made to an O‘ahu store (the location name is reserved to protect the innocent) with my son, where at least ten years ago he got one of those gooey toy eyeballs you used to get as prizes in gumball-type vending machines for a quarter, and promptly got it stuck to the ceiling.
We didn’t visit the store very often – maybe once a year or so, but every time we did, Zach made a beeline for the same spot of ceiling tile to see if that gross looking drippy eyeball was still there – and it always was.
Now it was right out in the open, easy for anyone to see, but how many people look up at the ceiling landscape when they go shopping?
This year we saw the eyeball was gone. Now do you think it finally lost its stickiness and fell, or was discovered and cleaned off?
I wouldn’t have asked for it back.