According to the article "Camel-Related Deaths" in The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology:
Deaths associated with camels involve kicking, stomping, kneeling or sitting on a victim, or biting and shaking and throwing. Lethal mechanisms include hemorrhage from vascular injuries and internal organ disruption, crush asphyxia, and blunt craniospinal injuries. Death may also follow falls from camels or vehicle collisions.
Some searching for examples of camel-related deaths led me to discover a book with the oddball title, Kicked To Death By A Camel, published in 1973.
The author, Clarence J.L. Jackson, was a pseudonym for Richard W. Bulliet, a history professor at Harvard (and later Columbia University). On his Amazon page he writes:
My first novel, Kicked to Death by a Camel, was nominated for an Edgar in the category of Best First Mystery. Some readers have maintained that the best thing about it was the title. Neither Kicked to Death nor any of my subsequent novels, most recently Chakra and The One-Donkey Solution, met much commercial success, but they enabled me to make stories out of my personal experiences, mostly during travels to the Middle East.
Sounds like it could be a fun read. If you're interested, you can either buy a used copy or check it out via archive.org.
Yon Zircle Bowlin died last week at the age of 94. His weird claim to fame was that he was the final-born member of the Bowlin "alphabet family."
His parents, Allen and Sarah Bowlin, named all their kids in alphabetical order (first and middle names). They ended up having 13 kids, completing the alphabet.
The 13 kids: Audie Bryant, Curtis Drue, Era Faye, Grady Hampton, Ida Jeanette, Knola Leantha, Millard Nathan, Olivia Penelopi, Quincy Ruth, Sarah Thelma, Ulysses Vinson, Wilson Xava, and Yon Zircle.
In 1941, when Dolores Moran was 15, she worked as a waitress at a drive-in restaurant in San Jose, California. One day she served a local farmer some coffee and hamburger. The next year Moran left San Jose and moved to Hollywood where she achieved brief fame as an actress.
By the 1960s her acting career had ended. But then, in 1968, Moran learned that the farmer she had served at the drive-in 27 years ago had died, leaving her his apricot orchard valued at around $300,000 (or $2.5 million in today's money).
Moran had no memory of serving the farmer, whose name was Anthony Ponce. Nor had the two ever communicated since then. She said, "for the life of me I can't remember the man." But evidently she had made a big impression on him.
Monroe News Star - Dec 18, 1968
Ponce's relatives contested the will, arguing that he was not of sound mind when he made it. I haven't been able to find out how the case was settled, but I'm guessing Moran got to keep the orchard since it's usually fairly difficult to invalidate a will.
If she did get to keep it, then that would have to count as one of the biggest gratuities of all time. Perhaps the biggest? Especially for an order of coffee and hamburger.
Aug 1979: Frustrated by a sparrow that was chirping in his church when a guitar recital was going to be recorded, Rev. Robin Clark ordered the bird to be shot.
I'm sure that, after that, no one made a sound during the recital.
The Vancouver Columbian - Aug 8, 1979
I couldn't find a recording of the sparrow-death recital, but here's some music by Konrad Ragossnig.
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.