Random Thoughts
- briangparker63
- May 11
- 3 min read
Bastard Pop-tarts
When I bought this "Value Pack" of Pop-Tarts, I saw four Frosted Strawberry, four Frosted Cherry, and four Frosted Blueberry. I admit that I tend to miss things when I'm in a hurry, but who thinks of Pop-Tarts as individual tarts? Each package contains two tarts, and a normal-size box contains four packages. If you eat Pop-Tarts, do you eat one from a package and save the other for later? Chances are, you eat both tarts like I do--and I suspect the Pop-Tarts people assume you do too. Anyway, I thought if a regular box of Pop-Tarts contains four packages of two tarts each, a Value Pack would contain four packages of each flavor, not six packages of two tarts. FML.
'Til Death Do Them Part
A Brazilian couple has set a remarkable record, celebrating 84 years of marriage and officially earning the Guinness World Record for the longest marriage of a living couple. As of February 5, 105-year-old Manoel Angelim Dino and his 101-year-old wife, Maria de Sousa Dino, had been married for 84 years and 77 days. They first met in 1936 and were married in November 1940 when Manoel was 21, and Maria was 17. Over the decades, their family has grown to include 13 children (nine of whom are still living), 55 grandchildren, 60 great-grandchildren, and 14 great-great-grandchildren.
Murder in a Circus Town
Grady Stiles Jr. was an American sideshow performer and convicted murderer. He had ectrodactyly, a genetic condition that caused his fingers and toes to fuse into claw-like shapes. Due to this distinctive physical trait, he performed under the stage name "Lobster Boy."
The Stiles family has had ectrodactyly, a genetic condition, in their lineage since 1840. When Grady Stiles Jr. was seven, his father included him in his sideshow act. Years later, Grady Jr. and two of his children, who also had ectrodactyly, toured together as The Lobster Family.
On September 28, 1978, Grady Stiles Jr. shot and killed his oldest daughter's fiancé on the night before their wedding, believing the man was unsuitable. At trial, he openly admitted to the crime and was convicted of third-degree murder. However, he was not sent to prison because no state institution was equipped to accommodate an inmate with ectrodactyly. Instead, he received a sentence of house arrest and fifteen years of probation.
Grady Stiles Jr. briefly stopped drinking but soon relapsed, becoming increasingly abusive. In 1992, his wife and her son from a previous marriage paid a seventeen-year-old sideshow performer $1,500 to kill him. The hired gun entered Stiles' home and shot him twice in the head, killing him. Stiles was reportedly so disliked in his community that only ten people attended his funeral, and no one volunteered to carry his coffin as a pallbearer.
Author's note: In the early 2000s, I developed a Sunday morning ritual of visiting Turtle Beach in Sarasota, Florida, to relax until the heat became unbearable. One Sunday, a young man and his girlfriend settled nearby on the sand. When I glanced up, I was startled to see that the young man bore an uncanny resemblance to Grady Stiles Jr., sharing his distinct ectrodactyly in both hands (though not in his feet). Given Sarasota's historical ties to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus and its proximity to Gibsonton, a well-known circus and show-folk community, I am fairly certain he was Grady Stiles Jr.'s grandson.
Mahalo
© 2025, Brian G Parker
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