GEEZERWEB

Not even triple-bypass surgery has kept Rita Roherty from the shotgun shooting that has been her life's passion. The 82-year-old great-grandmother from Janesville, Wisconsin, underwent surgery last year, and then recovered to win a bronze medal in the women's shooting division of the Badger State Games in June. She hit 91 of 100 clay pigeons to take third place in the competition, three years after winning the gold. Roherty, born Rita McAuliffe in 1923, had 14 children in 28 years of marriage before her husband, Donald Glynn, died. Then she met George Roherty, who took her trap shooting on the couple's first date in 1973. When she won her gold medal in shooting, she hit enough clay pigeons to tie a woman half her age, then won in a shoot-off by hitting all 10 pigeons, she recalled. She said she intends to keep shooting as long as she can still hold the gun, and she'll take on men as well as women. But be forewarned - Roherty admits she sometimes can't resist asking competitors, "You let an old lady beat you?"


*GEEZER HALL OF FAME*
	HEY! Are you sick and tired of feeling defensive for being old? Don't feel that way! We're not "Senior Citizens" or "Old Folks" or "Oldsters". We're GEEZERS and we're damned proud of it!

VAIL, Colo. (AP) - A 72-year-old woman making pot roast in her kitchen discovered uninvited guests in her home Thursday: a bear and her cub. The unidentified woman walked into the kitchen and found the bear standing six feet away, apparently surprising it, Vail police Sgt. Dan Torgerson said. The bear hissed at her and swatted her chest and arm, giving her some minor scratches. The woman then scared it off by yelling and clapping her hands. Torgerson said the bear hissed again and then left through a side door. The woman then found a cub in her house and she pushed it out the door. That bear and cub are believed to be the same ones that entered another home and ate food off the kitchen counter. Bears spend about 20 hours a day eating about 20,000 calories - the equivalent of nearly 20 Big Mac meals.

Not even triple-bypass surgery has kept Rita Roherty from the shotgun shooting that has been her life's passion. The 82-year-old great-grandmother from Janesville, Wisconsin, underwent surgery last year, and then recovered to win a bronze medal in the women's shooting division of the Badger State Games in June. She hit 91 of 100 clay pigeons to take third place in the competition, three years after winning the gold. Roherty, born Rita McAuliffe in 1923, had 14 children in 28 years of marriage before her husband, Donald Glynn, died. Then she met George Roherty, who took her trap shooting on the couple's first date in 1973. When she won her gold medal in shooting, she hit enough clay pigeons to tie a woman half her age, then won in a shoot-off by hitting all 10 pigeons, she recalled. She said she intends to keep shooting as long as she can still hold the gun, and she'll take on men as well as women. But be forewarned - Roherty admits she sometimes can't resist asking competitors, "You let an old lady beat you?"

7-20-06 PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A 66-year-old customer at a city grocery tackled an armed robber and beat him with a can of applesauce when he refused to drop his gun, police said. The suspect shot himself in the head during the struggle, and passed out after the customer administered four blows to the head with the Mott's applesauce. About 15 customers were in Gomez Grocery in the city's East Germantown section when the gunman walked in Sunday afternoon, jumped atop a small freezer and pointed the gun at store owner Eddie Gomez, police said. Customer Thomas Santana, who is 5-foot-4, grabbed the 6-foot-1 gunman from behind when he was on the freezer, and with help from Gomez knocked him down. The suspect, 23-year-old Thomas Reyes, was in stable condition at a hospital, and was expected to be charged with attempted murder, attempted robbery and other charges, authorities said.

7-14-06 A chinese vase given to a London cleaning woman as a retirement present was "a lost treasure of the Qing dynasty". The cleaner's grandson sold it at auction for £92,000 after discovering its history, reports the Daily Telegraph. It might have sold for more than £1 million - but the cleaner polished it so much she rubbed off most of the gold enamel. She had bequeathed the red, white and blue pot to her grandson, who kept it for years beside his television. After reading that a similar vase had fetched £240,800 at auction, he asked Bonhams to look at it and discovered it had been made for the emperor of China 200 years ago. Julian King, a specialist at Bonhams, said: "When I saw it for the first time, I was staggered. This is a lost treasure of the Qing dynasty. I had gone to view it with little excitement because discoveries of this kind are rare. But there it was."

6-27-06 The Big Geez makes history by starting a music blog for OUR generation, as an offshoot of the beloved GEEZERWEB site. Just kidding about it making history, but hey...it's still kind of neat. The idea is to give geezers a place to gather and cuss and discuss music - our kind of music - and also sample some of it. (Tunes are posted for a limited time only.) Take a look!

6-19-06 A Sussex, England man who forgot about a speeding fine for 52 years has paid up after finding the ticket in an old coat pocket. John Gedge, 84, was caught doing 55mph in a 35mph zone during a holiday to Philadelphia in the US in July 1954. He promised to pay the fine when he returned to his hotel but forgot - until he found the speeding ticket last week. He sent a note of apology with a £5 note to Philadelphia cops and phoned to say sorry. John, who lives in an East Sussex nursing home, said: "I told them that Englishmen always pay their debts and my conscience is now clear." US police officer Mark Focht said: "I'm going to frame the letter and the five pound note as an example to everyone that honesty is the best policy, even if it is a little late."

6-15-06 A 70-year-old shoplifter tried to evade capture by biting an arresting officer before realizing he'd left his dentures at home. Pensioner Gustav Ernegger turned on the policeman when he grabbed him as he ran out of a clothes shop in Braunschweig, Germany, after stealing a shirt. But instead of sinking his teeth into the officer's arm, he was only able to leave a wet mark from his gums. Police spokesman Gunther Brauner said: "He tried to bite the officer several times, but had forgotten to put his false teeth in and so was unable to cause him any harm."

5-30-06 Britain's longest-married living couple have revealed their secret - arguing every day. Frank and Anita Milford took the British record by celebrating their 78th wedding anniversary, says the Sun. Frank, 98, a retired dock worker, said: "We don't always see eye-to-eye and have a small argument every day. But that comes and goes. We are always here for each other." And now the couple have their sights on the record for the longest-ever British marriage of 80 years. Anita, 97, added: "There's every chance we could break that record. These days marriages don't last long, but we can't understand that." The pair met at a YMCA dance in Plymouth, Devon, and wed two years later at Torpoint Register Office on May 26, 1928.

2-28-06 An Australian grandmother who saved a friend from the jaws of a crocodile by jumping on the giant reptile's back has been awarded Australia's highest civilian bravery award. Alicia Sorohan was awarded the Star of Courage after risking her life to save a friend who was dragged from his tent by the crocodile during a camping trip in the remote far north of tropical Queensland state in October 2004. Then 60, Sorohan jumped on the 14 foot crocodile's back as it dragged him from a tent while the man's horrified wife tried to both pull him free and protect their baby. The crocodile then turned on Sorohan and almost tore off her arm before her son shot and killed it. "The first thing you think of was just jump on it and try to pull it off," Sorohan told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio after the awards list was announced Monday. "My son came around, he saw me actually jump on the crocodile and he shot it, but it hung on to my arm. I just couldn't get away and you think, 'Oh, there's my time up'." Sorohan said she finds "crocs" fascinating and has since returned to their favorite camping spot, which she calls "paradise." Crocodiles number in the tens of thousands across northern Australia and have killed about a dozen people over the past 20 years.

Annoying...but funny.

12-16-2005 An 84-year-old Polish farmer who had never been further than the next-door village snuck off to London to follow his dreams, but his plans of a new life there didn't last long. Without a word to his family, Ludwik Zon donned his Sunday best and rode off on his bike to catch the bus and train to Warsaw, then flew off to London. Worried officials who found him wandering around Heathrow got the Polish consulate to take care of him. It arranged his passage home, to his chagrin. "It's too bad I wasn't allowed to stay longer, because the people there have got a wonderful life. I thought I might look about for a job. Here in Poland a person hasn't got a future," the disgruntled pensioner told Saturday's daily Super Express. Fed up with life at home in the small central town of Znin, he skimped on food for years to save some $3000 from his meager monthly pension to execute his plan, he said. His baffled family reported him missing. Zon knew no one in Britain and cannot speak a word of English, but it did not dent his enthusiasm for London. "In my long lifetime no-one had ever been as polite to me as the English, and who knows if I won't return," he said.

12-5-2005 Salvation Army bell ringer Carliemar White wasn't just going to sit there and let a thief run off with his red kettle. So the 69-year-old retired waiter got up and ran after the thief, who was decades younger and perhaps 100 pounds heavier. White grabbed the heavy kettle out of the surprised thief's hand. White, who'd already been ringing the bell at his kettle for more than eight hours before he was hit on Monday, thinks the thief underestimated him. "I didn't want to lose that kettle," White said. "He was going to have to take me in that car to get it. By the time he got to the car, I was right there with him. I got to the car right when he did. It shocked him." White was one of four Salvation Army bell-ringers to meet with a thief this week in the St. Petersburg area - one volunteer was in a wheelchair, one is blind in one eye. The incidents prompted Salvation Army officials to issue a statewide directive Thursday to secure kettles with chain locks or something else. Dick said kettles have been secured to tripods in other places, but this is the first time the Salvation Army in Florida has issued a statewide directive to do so.

No reason why a geezer can't be a gourmet.

11-29-2005 Pick on someone your own age. Maybe the 17-year-old Omaha girl will remember that the next time she decides to tangle with a feisty churchgoer. After church on Sunday, Pearl Fritts, 76, decided to drive and visit her mom at a nursing home. When Fritts arrived, she told police, she pulled up behind the home to drop off some recyclables. As she removed the articles, she heard someone behind her ask whether she wanted help. No, Fritts said. That's when she got clobbered. "She just slammed my head against that bin," Fritts said. "I was so shocked." So shocked - and now angered - that she whipped around and put up her dukes. The teenager - who wanted her car - was taller, Fritts said, but couldn't weigh more than 100 pounds. Soon the girl realized Fritts wasn't about to give up the car, so she ran. Fritts drove home and a neighbor gave her a ride to a hospital for some treatment. After Fritts' report to the police, the girl was found and picked up at a nearby restaurant.

11-19-2005 Despite being 83 years old and reliant on oxygen tubes for a lung ailment, Harry Carpenter wouldn't let his wife of 57 years be robbed by knife-wielding intruders in his own home. Two would-be robbers forced their way into the home of Carpenter and his wife, Jackie, Wednesday evening while the two were having dinner, according to a police report. One of them made Harry Carpenter sit down in the sun room, while the other went with Jackie Carpenter, 80, to get money from her bedroom. Carpenter tried to come to his wife's rescue but was threatened with the knife. Then he got his break - his wife pretended to faint and the intruder who was holding him went into the other room to see what was happening. Carpenter shuffled to the laundry room, where he kept an old, unloaded rifle that he used to shoot squirrels, he said. When one of the intruders came back, he found Carpenter aiming the rifle at him and yelled at his companion to flee. Police were unable to locate the two suspects, who didn't get any money.

11-14-2005 A nursing home in Ireland has hit on a cheering way to keep up the spirits of its elderly patients -- by providing its own pub. St Mary's Hospital in County Monaghan, near the Irish border with Northern Ireland, believes ready access to a good pint may help its patients -- average age 85 -- actually live longer. "We would say the whole social aspect of life does extend the years -- it means the patients aren't bored to death," Rose Mooney, assistant director of nursing told Reuters. The pub, which opens at 11 a.m. and closes at 9 p.m. and charges normal bar prices, had also led to an increase in the number of visitors, she said. Having its own bar made the hospital, which has around 140 patients, unique in Ireland, she added.

10-14-2005 Bosnian pensioner who claims to have been married 162 times has said he wants to marry at least another 100 women. Nedeljko Ilincic, 75, from Milosevac in Bosnia and Herzegovina, said he first got married when he was 15 and since then it has been "just one wife after another". He said he now plans to see if his "feat" is worthy of a place in the Guinness Book of Records. The former waiter, who has 14 children from different marriages, told local weekly Svet: "I first got married when I was only 15. I did it mainly because my parents wanted me to marry a woman named Joka, even though she was 20 years older than me, because her family was rich. I soon divorced her though because I didn't like her and after that it was just one wife after another. I seemed to be getting either married or divorced all the time. The length of the marriages was always different, sometimes I'd spend a few years with my wife, other times it would just be a week. I must hold the record though." And the former waiter, who is currently single, said that at 75 he had not lost his appetite for marriage. "I'm still very popular with the ladies. I may be getting on a bit, but I'm not ready to give up on love just yet. Another 100 marriages would probably calm me down."

9-15-2005 Keeping a promise to her grandson that she would parachute when she turns 85, Thelma Tillery did just that. "When you step out on that little step, man, that's when it really hits you," Tillery said after successfully landing in Kearney, Nebraska. "Everything worked, and I hit the ground running," Tillery said. "And that's about as good as you can get, I guess." So good, in fact, she recommends the experience. "Anyone who is curious about it and would like to do it ... should go ahead and do it," she said. "I'd do it again - not tomorrow - but it's not something I would hesitate to do again."

A GEEZER'S solution to the high cost of gasoline.

8-19-2005 A 93-year-old Lithuanian woman with a "grip like iron" fought back against a robber by grabbing him by the testicles. The woman, who says her strong grip is down to years of milking goats, held on to the man until police arrived. She told police: "He started screaming like an animal and his friend was trying to pull him free, but I have a grip like iron." The man's screams of agony and his friend's shouts for the woman to let go alerted neighbors, who called police.

6-29-2005 A 73-year-old San Diego woman fought off a man who tried to steal her dog by beating him with a bag of books and kicking him in the groin, police said. The woman, who was not identified by police, was pushing a shopping cart around 10:45 p.m. Tuesday when a man on a bicycle snatched a bag from her cart that contained her 12-year-old Yorkshire terrier, according to San Diego police Sgt. Jim Schorr. It's not clear whether the man realized there was an animal inside the bag. As he rode away, the woman swung her book bag, knocking the man off his bike, then kicked him in the groin and reclaimed her dog and her bag. The man retaliated by hitting the woman in the head and escaping on his bike, police said. Neither the woman nor her dog were injured.