16 (features)
The Reporter • October 2011
r e m Memories m Su rosalyn lucas co-editor-in-chief
Summer is the pool. The smell of chlorine, sun screen and hotdogs. Staying up until it’s early and sleeping in late. It’s full of ice cream, basketball scrimmages on scorching blacktop, fishing in the lake, and – llamas? Sophomore Brianna Williams spent most of her summer break taking care of two llamas. Originally there had been four baby llamas, but two had died, leaving them with the female and male named Spot and Pete. “They’re kind of pets at our house,” Williams said. “I have to cut their hair, because they get too hot. I can say I’ve shaved a llama.” It’s not an easy feat she, said. While shaving Pete, the male llama, he’d try to spit on her and try to kick her, she said. But there was compensation. ”The best part was petting them. They’re quite soft.” Williams said. “Their fur is really light and soft. I can’t describe it.” Her worst memory was when her family noticed that Spot was behaving strangely. Williams said that llamas will lay down sometimes, but not usually. Spot had laid down and wouldn’t move, even when they walked towards her. Since Spot would usually run whenever someone approached, they knew something was wrong, she said. It turned out that Spot had over-heated, which can be deadly for a llama, Williams said. “We had to put her on a blanket and drag her to a spot in the garage where there was air conditioning.” she said. “It was hard. She weighs like 300 pounds.”
marissa bergman reporter
It’s a phenomenon that spread like a disease. Or might have looked like it, considering all the people dropping face down on the ground. At least whenever there’s a cam era. It’s called planking. The name is fairly self-explanatory. “[It’s] when you lay down on your stom ach, face down on the ground like a wooden plank.” Senior Alex is McDowell said. “Then you take a picture.” The origins of the trend are elusive. Som e claim that it was started on the social networking site Facebook. Others say it originated from two friends who started the fad while trav eling in Europe. Wherever the source, planking has caught on. “Everybody’s doing it,” McDowell said . “I was on Twitter and Justin Bieber had tweeted “coning is the new planking.” I didn’t know what either of them was, so I looked it up on YouTube. There’s a song called “Teach me how to Plank” to the tune of “Teach me how to Dougie”. McDowell went with her cousin to a Wal -Mart in both Olathe and Paola and on the Red Box outside the Paol a McDonald’s to plank. They also went coning. “Go through a drive-thru or go into a restaurant and order one vanilla ice cream cone.” McDowell said . “And when they hand it to you grab the ice cream part, turn it over and take a bite out of the cone. Then you drive away. And have a serious expression the entire time.” The serious facial expression isn’t the most important part, she said. “When you act serious they don’t think it’s a joke,” McDowell said. “They think you’re just doing your normal thing.” Unlike planking however, coning is done with a video camera to better catch expressions. “When my cousin and I did it, the lady was like “Oh” and freaked out. We drove away and then we laughed, ” McDowell said. While keeping a straight face while you’ re doing it may not be important, the best part is other people’s expressions. “It’s just for entertainment,” McDowell said. “People’s reactions of what you’re doing is priceless. They’d walk around you and give you this look like ‘what are you doing?’.”
Good!
BAD Getting hit by a car is not a typical summer memory, but for senior Alex Jackson, he’s used to it. Jackson was in Kansas City when a car hit him. “The driver wasn’t paying attention,” Jack son said. “The car was going about 30 mph.” Jackson said he was not seriously hurt, but his leg hurt the rest of the day and he got a bruise. He said it took a few weeks for the bruise to heal. Jackson did not press charges agai nst the driver. “I just got up [and] I went on with the day, ” he said. This is not the first time Jackson has been hit by a car. “I just have bad luck,” he said. Jackson has been hit by 10 cars, the first of which was in eighth grade, he said. “After the fifth one, it was like, whateve r,” he said. Jackson said none of the occurrences were his fault. “You get a sense of security,” Jackson said . “[Crossing a street] is like breathing.” One person didn’t notice that they had hit him. When Jackson stuck his leg out, they bumped it. “They spilled coffee and didn’t notice they had hit me,” he said.
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Photo courtesy of Alexis McDowell
Senior Alexis McDowell planks in the middle of a Wal-Mart aisle during the 2011 summer break. She said she planked in a Wal-Mart in both Paola and Olathe.
Scorching Crazy
Fast X-Box Fun Anti-climatic
Bliss Legit
Taken from a survey of 100 randomly selected students
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