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Local man marks Las Vegas holiday by tackling
thief
By Bill Whitaker
Paul Beale returned from Las Vegas a few weeks ago a little
poorer but a full-fledged hero.
The Action Telcom salesman not only went to the aid of a young
Las Vegas woman after her purse was snatched, he unwittingly saved
her from her husband's wrath.
Confused? Here's the story.
Paul and wife Shelly recently went to Las Vegas for a three-day
holiday with friends Jim and Marilyn Ream and Forrest and Candice
McCray.
The last night of their visit, during which they stayed at
the world-famous Golden Nugget, they attended a Las Vegas show,
getting out about 9. After that, they went strolling on a side-street.
About that time, Paul looked up and saw a man running from
the nearby casino. Seems the fellow had been inside and grabbed
a woman's purse while she was playing a slot machine. Upon grabbing
the purse, the man hoofed it out of the place and down the street.
Unfortunately for the purse-snatcher, he was headed right toward
Paul Beale, 33, one-time defensive lineman for Cooper High School.
"Stop that man!" the woman yelled. "He's got
my purse!"
Immediately Paul shifted into his auto-hero mode.
"Paul had only to take three steps to the side to meet
him," Jim Ream said. "Then he basically just tackled
the guy."
Security officials arriving minutes later found the purse-snatcher
quite subdued.
JUST DROP THE KEYS
I asked what the lady's reaction was to seeing the thief subdued
and her purse recovered. Turned out the woman -- a resident of
Nevada only two or three months -- had been admonished by her
husband to refrain from going into town and gambling.
This was advice she took -- at least, until her husband went
out of town.
"You could tell she was hopeful she could hide all of
this from her husband," Jim said.
Security officials from the Golden Nugget asked the woman how
much money she had in her purse. After all, the more of value
she had in her purse, the heavier the criminal charge.
"I'm sorry," she said, "but I've only got about
$35 or $40."
"Well," one security official said, "do you
have any credit cards?"
"Yes," she said, though she later confided to Paul
they were all "maxed out."
The woman was eventually asked if she had any car keys.
"Yes," she said. "In fact, when I was running
after him, I thought about yelling to him to take my purse but
leave the car keys."
"What do you mean?"
"I drive a Lexus," the woman said.
Paul later told me his wife Shelly was sympathetic of his decision
to muddy up the evening with a bit of West Texas heroism.
"She understands," he said. "If something ever
happened to her like this, I'd sure want somebody to help her
out."
JUST CALL HER MYRTLE
Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed I've had different spellings
for different accounts about those funny but colorful plants Abilene
Clean and Proud and Make a Difference Day officials want to blanket
Abilene in.
Neil Sperry, author of the best-seller Complete Guide to Texas
Gardening and the most respected authority on plants in our state,
says they're "crepe myrtles," apparently owing to the
French word crepe. And the flowers do resemble, to a degree, crepe
paper.
But the authors of Better Homes and Gardens' New Garden Book
-- no slouches themselves -- say the plants are "crape myrtles,"
obviously preferring a more phonetic spelling of the first word.
One of my editors preferred the former spelling, another preferred
the latter. So it goes in the hectic, work-a-day world of newspapers.
Incidentally, I decided to go to a local garden outlet to see
how they labeled their plants but was unable to get to the root
of the problem.
Handwritten on the white tag of one of these hardy plants:
Creep Myrtle.
Bill Whitaker, who wonders if the campaign to cover Abilene
in "creep myrtles" can truly tolerate such botanical
controversy, can be reached at 676-6732.
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Copyright ©1996 or
1997, Abilene Reporter-News / Texnews / E.W. Scripps. Publications
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