Crime Spree

This is the kind of serious, hardened criminals we have in the lovely Northwoods of Wisconsin.

by Cara Spoto • Journal staff • April 23, 2010

A 41-year-old Plover woman is in Portage County
Jail after a blow darting spree in downtown Stevens
Point Wednesday night.

Paula Wolf was arrested at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday,
less than an hour after four pedestrians told police
they were shot with blow darts that came from a van
she was driving.

Police received its first report at 9 p.m. from a 25-
year-old Stevens Point woman who said she was
walking in the 800 block of Crosby Avenue near
Pfiffner Pioneer Park when she felt a dart hit her
chest. A second victim, a 21-year-old Stevens Point
man, said he was walking past Mead Park at 9:13 p.
m. when he saw a van come up from behind and
then felt a dart in his chest. Another victim, a 42-
year-old Mosinee man, was walking in the 1300
block of Church Street when he felt a dart strike him
in the back. A fourth victim was standing outside
1140 Main Street at 9:30 p.m. smoking a cigarette
when a black minivan with what appeared to be a
pipe sticking out the window pulled up. The victim
said she felt the dart hit her, but it did not puncture
her skin because she was wearing several layers of
clothing.

Police pulled Wolf over at the corner of Second and
Main streets at 9:30 p.m. after getting her license
plate number from a victim. When they approached
her van, they found a blow gun, a slingshot and a
small bucket of rocks sitting on the floor of the
passenger side.

Police said Wolf denied any wrongdoing but
eventually admitted to shooting the pedestrians,
none of whom were seriously injured, telling an
officer "she liked to hear people say 'ouch'" when
she hit them. She also admitted to shooting at a 22-
year-old man April 16, police said.

Wolf said that she was trying to strike a group of
people who were smoking outside 956 Main St.
when the dart hit a window on the door of the
business and broke the glass.

She also admitted to unsuccessfully breaking the
windows of a Portage County squad car Wednesday
by shooting rocks at the car with her slingshot,
police said.

Wolf has been charged with first-degree recklessly
endangering safety.

Stevens Point Police Lt. Jim Dowling said the
department has dealt with Wolf in the past on
incidents ranging from forgery and fraud to
disorderly conduct.

Answers

Answers To Quiz:

1. The one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends ... Boxing

2. North American landmark constantly moving backward s . Niagara Falls (The rim is worn down about two and a half feet each year because of the millions of gallons of water that rush over it every minute.)

3.. Only two vegetables that can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons ... Asparagus and rhubarb.

4. The fruit with its seeds on the outside .. Strawberry.

5. How did the pear get inside the brandy bottle? It grew inside the bottle. (The bottles are placed over pear buds when they are small, and are wired in place on the tree. The bottle Is left in place for the entire growing season. When the pears are ripe, they are snipped off at the stems.)

6. Three English words beginning with 'dw' Dwarf, dwell and dwindle .

7. Fourteen punctuation marks in English grammar ....Period, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark,exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parenthesis, braces, and ellipses.

8. The only vegetable or fruit never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form but fresh Lettuce.

9. Six or more things you can wear on your feet beginning with 'S' Shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis, skates, snowshoes, stockings, stilts.

From Rene

Rene wanted me to post this. I guess he thinks there are some know-it-alls in the family.

This is a quiz for people who know everything! I found out in a hurry that I didn't. These are not trick questions. They are straight questions with straight answers

1. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?

3. Of all vegetables, only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perennial vegetables?

4. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

5. In many liquor stores you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. The pear is Whole and ripe, and the bottle is genuine; it hasn't been cut in any way. How did the pear get inside the bottle?

6. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters 'dw' and they are all common words. Name two of them.

7. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?

8. Name the only vegetable or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.

9. Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet beginning with the letter 'S.'

I'll post the answers later. Good luck!

Snow-phoid Mary

We have had very nice weather this winter in our little corner of Wisconsin. The winter was not very snowy or very cold (relatively speaking.) The snow was all melted by the beginning of March and we have had some very nice days since then.

In contrast, I've noticed a definite change whenever I travel anywhere very far away.

I went to Virginia at the beginning of February and this is what happened:

Yep, the Blizzard of 2010.

I went to Utah the beginning of March. Everything was lovely until we got to Coalville, UT. We drove down the canyon into Salt Lake in a horrible snowstorm. The next day, Timp looked like this:

Rene and I went back to Utah for General Conference on April 1. You got it--more snow!!

I know it often snows for General Conference, but I'm starting to get a complex here. Everywhere I go, it snows. I think we'll be making one more trip to Utah over the summer and there better not be any snow this time!

I Know Where I Am

While we were in Utah recently, we wanted to go up to the This Is the Place monument, which is now a heritage park. It's been a long time, so I couldn't remember exactly what street would get us all the way from downtown Salt Lake up there. We were driving our red Saturn which the girls have in Provo. I asked Janet where the atlas was. She said, "Map? There's no map in here." That made me laugh. They drove all the way from Wausau, WI to Provo, Utah without a map. I started thinking about it. I think that all of our immediate family (not sure about the in-laws) could drive quite a few places across country without looking at a map--for example, from Mt. Vernon to Provo, or from Mt. Vernon to Aberdeen, or from Wausau to DC or Memphis.

For some reason, being geographically oriented is a talent in our family. Once I went on a Relief Society temple trip to St. Paul. On the way home, the driver missed the exit from I94 to WI29, which is about halfway through the trip. The next exit was 15 miles down the road in Eau Claire. When we got there, almost everyone was in favor of just turning around and going back up to freeway to the right exit. I said no way, we can do better than that. We found a big road going east, then one going north and lo and behold, we ended up right on 29 about 15 miles east. Everyone was amazed at my ability to figure that out. (Obviously, it doesn't take much.)

We usually do take an atlas with us when we travel. But we use it for things like finding the next rest area, playing the State game, or dreaming about where we'd like to go next. And I have to admit, when we get to a big city we've never been to before, we sometimes get a little lost. But once we've been somewhere, we usually never have trouble again.

Maybe it's because we traveled a lot when the kids were little. In the eastern half of the US, things of interest are a lot closer, so we have been lots of places. In fact, I've been to 40 states and the District of Columbia. Not as many places as our friend Harvey, who required extra pages for his passport, but a pretty respectable number. And by the way, we reached the This Is the Place monument just fine.

Easter and General Conference

This weekend, we were able to go to Salt Lake to General Conference. We had never been in the 31 years that we've been married. Since we won't be making any trips to Provo for graduation or to bring kids home for the summer, we decided this would be a good year to go. We had so much fun!! On Friday night, we went to my mission reunion. My mission president and his wife are turning 80 this year and Sis. Siddoway's health has not been good. So it was wonderful to see them and to hear from them again. As always, they were incredibly inspiring. There was something eerie about the whole thing, though. I had been asked to help with the dinner, so I didn't see people coming in. When I looked out, I was kind of freaked out. Who were all these OLD people?? Seriously, there was a lot of gray hair there! I guess the upside of that is that I came away feeling that I'm looking pretty good for my age. Sadly, I was having so much fun that I didn't take any pictures.

We went to conference sessions on Saturday and Sunday mornings. It's exciting to mingle with the huge throng of people from all over the world streaming into the conference center. And the talks were inspiring. And, as always, it was fun to spend time with the girls and Brian.

We ate at Tucano's and later in the day, had a little Easter egg hunt. In case you can't really see Sarah's picture of the special egg they made, I'll include a close-up.

On Sunday afternoon, between sessions of conference, we went up to the This Is the Place Monument. While we were there, we saw a sun dog. I don't think I've ever seen one before. We tried to take a picture of it, and here it is, for your viewing pleasure.

Like all good things, it ended too quickly. I love the opportunities we have to be with our family. Good thing there will be more of them this spring and summer! And I want to say thanks to Emily and Preston, who let us sleep at their house and who got up early and went to bed late to chauffeur us to the airport.

Happily, when we got home, there was a sweet Easter message from Afton on our voicemail!