Monday 04/16/12

Human Interest News   —   Posted on April 16, 2012

A red rooster in Tennessee has pluck

A red rooster sauntered down South Street in Collierville three months ago and now makes daily visits to Gus’s Fried Chicken, cock-a-doodle-doodling to herald his arrival.

It’s not lost on customers and staff that the rooster is visiting the one place that’s built its success on battering and frying up the rooster’s kin-fowl — one breast, wing or thigh at a time.

“Every morning, you can hear him crowing coming down the street,” said restaurant manager Debi McCaffrey. “He crosses that street and just pecks around in the grass.”

Customers aim cameras hoping he will pose next to the restaurant’s sign, which includes a logo of a rooster…

Neighbors don’t recall anyone keeping chickens, which is legal in Collierville as long as they’re in coops.

He most often appears in a fenced field across from Gus’s. He’ll crow in the forest area of the field and will poke his head out when someone calls to him.

Collierville Animal Services has tried for months to catch the rooster before he gets attacked by a raccoon or other predators the plucky, wily rooster may face. They want to take him to a farm where he can be with fowl that still have a pulse.

“I’ve tried reasoning with him,” said shelter manager John Robinson. “I told him it’s not good for him to be hanging around Gus’s and that he might get himself in trouble. He doesn’t listen.

“He fears no man or Gus.”

A firm of Minnesota lawyers fell for the oldest trick on the Internet.

Not-so-sharp legal eagles at Milavetz, Gallop & Milavetz are suing Wells Fargo, claiming the bank should have stopped the lawyers from paying $400,000 to a Nigerian fraud ring.

The worldwide grifters sent the firm an e-mail three years ago, claiming to be a Korean woman needing an advance to collect a legal settlement.

Peanut butter is rich in calories — and price!

Margo Wolf, of Poway, Calif., didn’t immediately notice that her local Albertson’s grocery store had charged her $167 for a jar of Skippy Extra Crunchy.

The store apologized for the credit-card foul-up, forked over a refund and gave Wolf a $10 gift card.

Here’s the easiest way to win a stair-climbing race — take the elevator.

Organizers of the American Lung Association’s 62-floor race and fund-raiser in LA were shocked when winner Miguel Larios, 31, made the climb in just 7 minutes and 45 seconds.

But then building surveillance cameras caught him taking the elevator.

“We looked at this person’s body and his physique, and we knew he did not have the physique of an elite stair-climber,” said ninth-place finisher Mark Trahanovsky, 53.

“He wasn’t sweating a lot; he wasn’t tired. He was wearing basketball shoes.”

From The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN) and the NY Post.