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Shocking Discoveries, Wood Milk & A Famous Groundhog: Stories That Surprised Us This Year
Delaware is rarely short on news of the weird.
After all, we bond over a meat product reviled by many, decorate a roadside weed for Christmas, and have a baseball mascot inspired by a stalk of celery.
But you knew all that already.
No matter how well we think we know the First State and its people, each year there are the stories that come out of nowhere to surprise us.
Here are some of the weirdest and most surprising stories of 2023:
It's an avid thrifter's fantasy.
A woman in a New Hampshire thrift shop on the hunt for picture frames discovered a heavy, dusty old picture in a pile of mismatched frames.
"The painting was compelling and tense,'' writes Matthew Korfhage. "An older woman in a chair, delivering hard stares to a young woman. And the young woman holding her ground.''
The woman paid $4, took it home and hung it on her wall. Eventually, she moved it to her closet.
In September, that painting was auctioned off for $191,000, making international art news as it turned out to be a long-lost N.C. Wyeth painting called "Ramona.''
The Tomato Ketchup claw machine full of ketchup packages is featured at Zelky's Beach Arcade on the boardwalk at Rehoboth Beach on Tuesday, June 13, 2023. For 50 cents, people can "play the ketchup game" and get packages for their fries.
Matt Weiner is general manager of the three family-owned Zelky's Beach Arcades. One arcade on the Rehoboth Beach Boardwalk is only a few steps away from the legendary Thrasher's french fries stand, a favorite stop for visitors that does not serve ketchup. Instead, fries are served with salt and apple cider vinegar, as they always have been.
The result is a lot of ketchup-loving fries fans asking for or even stealing ketchup from other nearby businesses.
This spring, Weiner "came up with a creative, buzz-worthy, and slightly profitable way to possibly halt ketchup begging and pilfering,'' reports Patricia Talorico
On Memorial Day weekend, a claw-style arcade game usually filled with toy rubber ducks was filled with single-serve packets of Heinz ketchup to help address the ketchup cravings of boardwalk fry nibblers — and inspire more than a few smiles.
Nibbles (left) and Nuggets help themselves to carrots in Middletown on a tiny picnic table send by fans of Chunk the Groundhog.
There's nothing like social media to catapult a furry creature to celeb status.
When Middletown's Jeff Permar first spotted Chunk the Groundhog in his backyard, he saw red, writes Ryan Cormier.
"Once Permar caught the garden-eating woodchuck on a motion sensor camera, he showed the footage to his friend Rick Arzt, lead singer of the Dewey Beach-based rock band Love Seed Mama Jump," Cormier reports.
"Arzt saw a furry star.''
While he may have potential to wreak havoc in the garden and inspire some headaches for the farmer, Chunk has also gone viral as a rising star on Instagram, YouTube, X and TikTok.
For an A-list star who seems to carry a magic wand as she makes bold career moves, it did seem like an odd choice.
As more and more people ditch dairy in favor of plant-based milk and other products, Delaware native Aubrey Plaza became a campaign spokesperson for a fake product called Wood Milk meant to poke fun at substances that don't come from mammals being labeled as "milk.''
While the U.S. Department of Agriculture-approved video ads that featured Plaza in lumberjack mode were funny, not everyone was laughing. Plaza faced some pushback from vegans and climate change activists, as well as a complaint to the USDA Office of Inspector General by the nonprofit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
According to the complaint, MilkPEP campaign launched a "viral advertising campaign disparaging plant-based milks, in violation of laws forbidding federal agricultural promotions from depicting products in a negative light."
As Andre Lamar wrote at the time, the viral ad definitely left a sour taste in some people's mouths.
Historic rifles stolen in the 1970s from Blair County Historical Society In Altoona, Penn. The rifles were returned in a repatriation ceremony at the Museum of the American Revolution on March 13, 2023.
Plenty of Delaware attics harbor a secret or two. But not quite like this one ...
As Matthew Korfhage reports, one Newark attic held the secret to a historic museum burglary spree — and a million-dollar gun.
A man named Michael Kintner Corbett kept priceless American history locked away from the world in a mouse-infested crawl space.
"On May 24, 2017, FBI agents led by art crimes Special Agent Jake Archer followed a search warrant into the hidden upper room of Corbett's Newark residence and to a safe tucked in the basement,'' Korfhage writes. "In the process, the agents broke open a 50-year mystery spanning six states, 16 museums and dozens of historic firearms whose provenance spans the entire history of America — a rash of museum burglaries Archer calls 'one of the largest of its kind that we're aware of.'
Some of the more than 50 participants who participated in Delaware Cannabis Advocacy Network's first "Joints for Junk" community clean-up event in November. The trash collection was held in Millsboro and a second will be held at a still-undetermined Delaware town this spring.
You might expect, if you signed up for a few hours of volunteering, that you could come home with a free T-shirt or water bottle as a thank you. But a joint?
"When it came time to present the pot, grant the ganja or bestow the bud ― however you want to say it ― the organizers of Delaware's first 'Joints for Junk' decided to hand out the promised pre-rolls at the start of the two-hour trash clean up in Millsboro this fall,'' writes Ryan Cormier.
While the Delaware Cannabis Advocacy Network has been organizing community events ever since its founding in 2013, this was the first time it was doing one since marijuana was legalized in Delaware eight months ago, he reports.
"So the nonprofit advocacy group brainstormed a new way to attract volunteers: give out grass. And they didn't even wait until the volunteers put in the work first.''
Turns out, everyone stuck around and the event was a success, with more likely in the future.
Jimmie Allen attends "New Year's Eve Live: Nashville's Big Bash" at Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park on December 31, 2022 in Nashville, Tennessee.
You might expect an award-winning country star defending against multiple sexual assault allegations to go underground, or at least keep a low profile.
What many didn't see coming is the country artist headlining his own comedy show.
As Andre Lamar reported earlier this year, Allen set out to "tackle an entirely new corner of the entertainment industry by launching a comedy tour this fall titled ''I Said What I Said.' ''
The Milton Theatre shared photos on Facebook on Aug. 25 that featured Allen on stage doing a surprise comedy show at the venue. Allen was spotted wearing a hoodie at the show that read "CANCEL Cancel Culture," Lamar reports.
Allen's comedy stint came after two women filed lawsuits against him in May and June, respectively, for sexual assault. The second lawsuit resulted in him getting dropped from his record label BRB Music Group.
The Milton native filed countersuits in July in Tennessee against the women making the charges, according to USA TODAY, Billboard and People.
No criminal charges have been filed against the country star, who has been releasing new material via social media.
The cover of Time magazine announcing Taylor Swift as its Person of the Year for 2023.
It is hardly surprising that anyone tasked with marketing something would daydream about attaching the name Taylor Swift to it in 2023.
But what we didn't see coming was an economics class at the University of Delaware inspired by the pop icon's phenomenal success.
As Kelly Powers reports, Swift was ubiquitous this year.
"The popstar was selected as Time magazine's Person of the Year. Her record-breaking tour has grossed more than $1 billion, per AP, while she remains the top-played artist globally on Spotify. Oh, and the Pennsylvania House of Representatives also just recognized 2023 as the 'Taylor Swift Era' in her home state, via resolution, on her birthday,'' Powers writes.
Seeing an opportunity, "Delaware's largest university hopes to spur 'the future generation's interest in economics' with a voluntary course centering on the singer's economic impact. Her father is a Blue Hen, after all. Kathryn Bender, an assistant professor of economics, is leading the Swift-themed data visualization workshop series for undergraduate students called "Data Enchanted: Transforming Numbers Into Knowledge."
More unusual news out of DelawareRites of passage: 7 University of Delaware traditions every student must try before graduating
No napping: Delaware Day spotlights the state's 'Florida man' history & goofy laws
Oh, Christmas Weed: Claymont Christmas Weed, a 30-year Delaware tradition, is celebrated at Saturday parade
This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Swiftonomics, Chunk the Groundhog: 8 surprising 2023 Delaware stories
The 13 Best Novels (and 2 Best Short Story Collections) Of 2023
Mild VertigoBy Mieko Kanai, translated by Polly BartonNew Directions: 192 pages, $17
Sing me the song of the housewife! An ode to laundry baskets and durable flooring, washed windows and the slick purity of the Western-style kitchen. "Mild Vertigo's" first chapter concludes with an ode to the running faucet: Natsumi, the woman at the center of this Tokyo-set novel, "kept staring at it, and falling, again for some unknown reason, into a kind of trance." If all this sounds intolerably retro, pay closer attention. Natsumi isn't necessarily discontent, but she studies herself like a researcher in a lab. And as she roams her apartment complex, gossiping with neighbors and stalking the grocery store aisles, the novel turns into a brilliant example of "the literature of things," an examination of how we revel in the domestic stuff of life. If the home is the center of our lives, Kanai seems to ask, why not put it at the center of our books?
The Vaster WildsBy Lauren GroffRiverhead: 272 pages, $28
Towering chestnuts, ice floes "squealing" as they break, "yellow and black birds diving into the grasses," native people coated in "paint a half inch thick": This is what a young runaway sees when she flees the desolation of the Jamestown Colony in winter 1610 and heads into the primeval American forest. Groff's second foray into the historical novel (her first," Matrix," about a community of nuns in 12th-century France, marked an extraordinary shift) is a close encounter with nature and a gonzo achievement of narration: The girl — sometimes called Zed, sometimes Lamentations — spends the entirety of the novel alone, battling the life-giving but punishing world and her own faith in a shape-shifting God. Groff keeps the tension high and the language ornate in this otherworldly rumination on what our planet might feel like if we believed in the divinity of nature.
(Farrar, Straus & Giroux)
Biography of XBy Catherine LaceyFSG: 416 pages, $28
X is a novelist, a performance artist, a shape-shifter, and perhaps a con. She's David Bowie and Marina Abramovic and entirely herself. Her name is a mark of absence and presence at the same time. She's fictional, but Lacey animates her so fully that I'm half-convinced she might be alive out there somewhere. "Biography of X" is written from the point of view of X's widow, CM, who is just as confused and curious as the reader about who her dead wife really was. And it charts X's maneuvers through an alternate United States, where the religious right has turned the South into a kind of North Korea, and an art world that is just as obsessed with appearances as our own. This novel burns hot and never fades: It's a new icon as amorphous and magnetic as X.
Terrace StoryBy Hilary LeichterEcco: 208 pages, $28
I've heard "Terrace Story" described as a parable about real estate, which may be true, but come on, people, think bigger. In this palate-expander for narration, a young woman named Stephanie discovers that she can stretch space with her mind. Her first target, at least as far as we know, is the apartment of her financially struggling colleague Annie: Stephanie "adds" a terrace and then promptly locks Annie out of it — and into a different dimension. The story unfolds from there like a long hallway connected to a series of wildly disparate rooms. We learn about Annie's parents' fractured marriage, Stephanie's isolated adolescence and a suburban space colony. The push is about what can grow in the space between the real and the imagined; Leichter has stitched together a narrative that purposely, beautifully, doesn't quite hang together, one where raw emotion rubs up against fantastical possibility.
Loved and MissedBy Susie BoytNYRB: 208 pages, $18
Finally, a novel as happy as it is compelling, as beautiful as it is realistic. Admittedly, the premise sounds grim: Schoolteacher Ruth informally adopts her granddaughter Lily, rescuing her from her mother's drug den and setting out to raise her right. Their life together is tinged with the absence of Lily's mother, who only occasionally appears, thin-armed and scabby. But oh, the lightness and pleasure of Lily and Ruth, their keen companionship over tea and toast, quick trips to the seaside, plimsolls by the door. What keeps it so buoyant is Boyt's glistening prose; like a candle in front of a mirror, it casts light in every direction. "The thick swoon of [love] ...," she writes, "No dilution, everything directly beamed heat and light. Synchronised breathing, warm tessellated limbs." This is the rare novel that brings equal amounts of solace and joy.
What's The Best — And Worst — Christmas Gift You Ever Got? Here Are Some Fun Stories
It was one of those dreaded lulls in conversation when your mind suddenly goes blank.
Flailing for a way to restart the discourse during a party, I latched onto sage advice I got from a friend years ago: "When you can't think of anything else to say, ask a really dumb question."
I blurted out, "What was the best Christmas present you ever got as a child?"
While people gave me some predictable answers: a wagon, an Atari, a bicycle, many of the guests couldn't remember even one highlight gift. Hmmm ...
So, at another gathering, I went in another direction, asking "What was the worst Christmas present you ever got as a child?"
After I got some startled looks, people from the Central Coast and beyond began answering. Responses ranged from the wrong doll to a brother's broken-down, secondhand bicycle when he got a new one.
A drum set that the recipient loved, but his parents (and their neighbors) hated.
A longed-for video game, but the only console was in his nasty brother's room.
A hand-me-down outfit that the young girl had seen her friend wear often.
An orange, a toothbrush and some socks during lean years that the child didn't understand … then.
The worst gift I got as kid? I don't remember.
In fact, I can't really remember many gifts I got when I was that young, good or bad, other than a book my mom wrote for me. I didn't really appreciate it as a gift until I got older (more about it later).
All that begs a questionWe all try so hard to select the perfect gifts for every recipient, especially the kids. Sometimes, though, our selection just bombs, like counterpoints to a Norman Rockwell holiday painting.
What SHOULD we give our children for Christmas?
My cousin Peg Hulsey forwarded to me a related post from 2021 by Melissa Fulenswider, a Texas bakery owner who had been agonizing over "what else I can get my kids for Christmas this year. We have some presents under the tree but NOT ENOUGH!"
The last phrase stopped the author short.
"Then it struck me," she wrote. "I don't remember ONE SINGLE THING I got for Christmas when I was 6 years old. I don't remember a specific toy (for the most part) that brought me an insurmountable amount of joy or feeling a certain level of admiration for a specific gift.
"But you know what I DO remember?" she added. "The laughter. The food. The Mariah Carey Christmas Album blasting from every speaker in the house. The Christmas movies we watched as a family the whole month of December. The hot chocolate. The reading of the birth of Jesus. Singing 'Silent Night' at the Christmas Eve service every year."
Me, too, Melissa. Me, too.
Bum gifts received as adults can be more front of mind nowStill not satisfied, I tried again, online.
The best of the worst answers came from Laura Ruthemeyer, friend and former colleague.
Laura'd gotten "two from my ex-husband," she wrote. "A leaf blower! I lived in a condo at the time, and was not the landscaper. And a set of golf clubs. I'd never golfed, before or since, but 'luckily,' they were exactly right for him. That's the worst … a gift that the giver wants to use!"
Then, "from my ex-MIL, a full-length fur coat! GROSS!" Laura continued. "I lived in San Diego ... And it was a garage-sale score, she told me proudly."
As an adult, I've received a few "are you serious?" gifts.
At the top of the list, from my older, conservative, male boss in Orange County many years ago: an electric razor and an electric toothbrush. Which would have been really insulting and cringy, except he gave the same gifts to everybody in the office, male or female!
Big sale at Sav-On Pharmacy, maybe?
I've wondered ever since if any of us had the nerve to tell him what a bizarre idea that was.
I've found some other awful candidates online, including, of course, the inevitable vacuum cleaner, but not one of those pricey robotic ones. A Weight Watcher's membership and some diet pills. A Spam calendar. A $50 gift card for products at the workplace, with the funds deducted from the recipient's paycheck.
A bottle of raccoon urine. Really?
The capper that a woman gave her husband on Christmas? Divorce papers.
This year is differentThe holidays have morphed at the Tanner house, ever since our offspring grew up into adults on their own, with their own traditions to establish, and especially since three years ago, when my beloved husband Richard died. He was the glue who kept it all together, upbeat and merry.
The big parties are gone, and this year's Christmas dinner for me and my son is apt to be Chinese food at Bamboo Bamboo, in honor of his dad, who loved that down-scaled tradition.
Not expecting any gifts, imagine my surprise when the mailman delivered a couple of packages on the same mid-December day.
The first held the Mee Heng Low cookbook I'd yearned over while I was writing a story in October about the legacy Chinese restaurant that had been in San Luis Obispo for nearly a century.
Former colleague Katy Budge saw my wistful Facebook plea for the book and kindly decided I'd get more use and pleasure out of it than she did.
What a thoughtful gift! Now I can re-create some of those memories at home.
A beloved cousin in Florida sent the second package from her new senior-housing digs. The box held three books from her mega-collection, which she was continuing to whittle down.
This little Christmas story was written decades ago by Andy Herrington, mother of Tribune columnist Kathe Tanner, who has pledged to update it so it can be published to inspire wonder in future generations of children. Herrington died in 1988.
The soft-back was the limited-edition Christmas book my mom wrote when I was at the Santa-doubting stage as a child. I kept believing for years after that. Thanks, Mom! What a delightful gift of wonder! (And yes, as the book's added foreward says, I'm updating it to be published later so other children can experience it.)
The second gift was a plain black binder holding a photocopy of a cookbook my mom wrote after spending years trailing around after her mom Kitty, scribbling down wonderful recipes that had only existed in my grandmother's brain and muscle memory.
The priceless third treasure? My grandmother's own frayed, stained, slightly wobbly loose-leaf binder packed with her handwritten recipes on lined paper alongside newspaper clippings, mostly from the 1970s.
Receiving this gift of an aging cookbook brought back many memories for columnist Kathe Tanner. The book had been compiled by her grandmother, who died in 1977.
I immediately recognized Ganny's almost illegible writing. As I read the recipes, aromas from the past flooded my memory. I could almost taste those ground-almond cookies and the Washington Cream Pie.
Such wonderfully memorable gifts, ones I will never, ever forget and will always appreciate so much. Thank you, Pat, Erica and Katy.
Merry, merry, happy, happy, everybody! Remember, the most wonderful presents we can give each other are memories and wonderful times we spend together.
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