They Left It Up to Mother to Get Them Into Hot Water

Three angry Zanesville, Ohio, residents got into hot water--courtesy of Mayor Don Mason. Sharon Bobo, her son Kory, and neighbor Jacque Andrews, were upset because the water from their homes’ faucets had turned black. So they showered at the mayor’s house. Mason, 30, who was not home at the time, said Andrews called to complain and asked Mason’s mother if she could shower there. “Mom’s very accommodating,” he said. “She really didn’t know how to react, so she just said yes.” Mason said the dirty-looking water has been a recurring problem for 40 years in the city of about 30,000. Sediment in the water lines surfaces when backup pumps are turned on to boost water pressure, he said. The city has launched a program, which includes construction of a $2.2-million water treatment plant and a new water tower to maintain pressure. Asked how he would respond to other requests to open his home for showers, Mason said he’ll take them as they come.

--It wasn’t a breeze, what with storms and encounters with cargo ships. But despite the dangers, a young Frenchman completed the first solo transatlantic crossing on a sail board when he reached the coast of Brittany after 3,300 nautical miles and 46 days at sea. Blown by strong winds, Stephane Peyron, 26, landed Monday morning in La Rochelle, France, 100 miles southeast of his intended destination at La Baule, the resort town where his family lives. “He looked very tired but much better than I expected,” said Carole Lees, spokeswoman for Nestle Crunch, a sponsor of the voyage. Peyron’s biggest worry during the voyage was cargo ships, Lees said. “He (Peyron’s craft) is so tiny that large cargo ships never see him,” she explained. Peyron began the trip in New York on June 10 on a specially designed 25-foot sail board that was equipped with solar panels and contained a watertight crawl space for sleeping and storing food.

--The people of Charleston, S.C., wanted to celebrate the bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution in a big way. So more than 400 volunteers worked for nine hours to paint excerpts from the document onto a sign longer than five football fields. The sign, on a 1,500-foot-long-roll of white tarpaulin, has foot-tall blue letters and red stripes and is sprinkled with blue and red stars. It contains 338 words, including the Constitution’s preamble, article headings and some text. The sign breaks the record listed in the Guinness Book of World Records, said Frank AuCoin, owner of the sign shop where the banner was created. A sign measuring 1,168 feet, 6 1/2 inches made in Clearwater, Fla., in 1983 held the record.