The Daily Item, Sunbury, PA - Mid-Daily Items Blog

Mid-Daily Items: Follow the water

Going with the flow helped lead to the discovery of more than 2,300 marijuana plants in Tyler, Texas.
Complaints of low water pressure by residents at a mobile home park near Tyler prompted a search by the property owner. He noticed a hose connected to one of the homes and followed it into some woods, where the carefully groomed marijuana plants were growing.
Some of the confiscated plants were hanging and drying out Thursday at the Smith County Sheriff's Office.
Sgt. Jim Whithan says the plants, which were discovered Monday, were "properly watered and had been fertilized."
One of two rifles recovered in the woods was reported stolen in Anderson County. So far no arrests. Tyler is about 95 miles southeast of Dallas.

- Hey guys – there are Webcams out there.
Two seasonal Yellowstone National Park concession workers have been fired after a live webcam caught them urinating into the Old Faithful geyser.
Park spokesman Al Nash says a 23-year-old man on Tuesday was fined $750 and placed on three years of unsupervised probation for urinating, being off trail in a restricted area and taking items from the area. The man also was banned from Yellowstone for two years.
The second employee's case is pending.
The park's dispatch center was called after someone watching a webcam on the geyser saw six employees leaving the trail and walking on Old Faithful on May 4.
The geyser was not erupting at the time.
Xanterra Parks & Resorts general manager Jim McCaleb says the former concession workers were hired at the Old Faithful Inn and that such incidents were rare.

- Fire officials in Jersey City, N.J. say a woman attending a relative's funeral was injured at the cemetery when a tombstone toppled, breaking her leg.
Relatives say it took eight people to lift the tombstone off Maria Figueroa. It was not clear what caused the accident Wednesday at Harsimus Cemetery.
A cemetery spokesman told The Jersey Journal of Jersey City that someone had leaned on the tombstone, but would not provide further details.
Figueroa, a 50-year-old Jersey City resident, was taken to Jersey City Medical Center and underwent surgery Wednesday night.
Figueroa was attending a service for a cousin who was fatally stabbed last week.

- And, just when we thought we'd heard "bleep'n" everything.
A Chicago-area company is marketing hair products inspired by ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The shampoo and conditioner carry the brand name "BLAGO It's Bleep'n Golden!"
The owner of Delta Laboratories Inc. of Elk Grove Village says the idea came to him one night.
Blagojevich was removed from office in January after being accused of misdeeds that include trying to sell President Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat. The brand name refers to a comment he allegedly made about the appointment: "I've got this thing and it's (expletive) golden."
Blagojevich has pleaded not guilty to federal charges. His publicist Glenn Selig says he hopes the shampoo "at least passes the smell test."

May 15, 2009 10:01 am

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Mid-Daily Items: Driving while under the influence of cereal

A Massachusetts man may wish he had breakfast in bed instead of in his car.
Police in Needham, Mass., say a man who was stopped for erratic driving on Central Avenue last week was eating a bowl of cereal and milk while he drove. He told officers he was hungry.
Lt. John Schlittler told The Boston Globe that the 48-year-old man, whose name was not released, was also driving with an expired license. The man has been cited for unlicensed operation, failure to stay in lanes and operating to endanger.
Schlittler didn't know what kind of cereal the driver was eating.

- In Tazewell, Tenn., Wanda Bray slings a mean bowl of chili. Quite literally.
Claiborne County Sheriff's Capt. David Honeycutt said Bray was confronted by two men who broke into her home Tuesday night and she fought back by throwing what was described as "household objects" at them, including a bowl of homemade chili.
Then, according to The Knoxville News Sentinel, the 58-year-old Bray went after the intruders with a broom. They fled.
Police later arrested Fabian Moore of Arthur, Tommy Wayne Garrett of Cookeville, and Samuel Partin of Cumberland Gap.
They were charged with the home invasion robbery and with a recent convenience store holdup.
Honeycutt said the intruders demanded drugs from Bray and probably got away with a bottle of blood pressure pills.

- Here’s an update on that busty mannequin at a Cincinnati area barbecue joint.
The news from Reading. Ohio today is that the mannequin can stay, but local officials want her to cover up a bit more.
The life-size figure stands as a busty beacon outside a restaurant owned by Kenny Tessel. He told zoning officials at a hearing Wednesday night that the advertising gimmick has boosted business 40 percent.
Members of the Design and Review Board indicated they were concerned about "community norms." The 5-foot-10 mannequin is on the street wearing a bikini top and tight short-shorts, though Tessel brought her to the hearing draped in a long, sleeveless gray T-shirt.
The board said Tessel may continue to use the figure only if it's dressed more modestly in front of the restaurant, too.
He plans to appeal.

- And , a pilot who landed his four-seat airplane on an Illinois golf course so his 14-year-old son wouldn't be late for a tennis lesson has been sentenced to 18 months of court supervision.
Lake Villa resident Robert Kadera pleaded guilty Wednesday to criminal trespass and disorderly conduct. Lake County Associate Judge Charles Johnson also ordered the 66-year-old to pay a $500 fine and perform 60 hours of community service.
No one was injured in March 2008 when Kadera landed on a golf course without permission. Police stopped Kadera and his son as they were walking to a nearby tennis club.
Johnson told Kadera to stay away from the golf course. Kadera is still subject to any action by the Federal Aviation Administration.

May 14, 2009 10:10 am

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Mid-Daily Items: 'A moose just fell out of the sky'

Police in Clinton, Maine, say a 500-pound moose fell 18 feet to its death when it apparently leaped a guardrail on an Interstate 95 overpass and landed on Hinckley Road.
Officials learned of the incident when a motorist called the town office shortly after 8 a.m. Tuesday and told assistant town clerk Shirley Bailey that "a moose just fell out of the sky."
Bailey said the driver, who was under the bridge when he spotted the falling moose, was "pretty excited about it."
Police Chief Charles Runnels said the yearling bull probably panicked because of the noise and traffic along I-95 and began running. He said it just picked the wrong spot to jump the guardrail, falling onto a road instead of landing in a field.
A passerby with a wrecker hauled away the carcass.

- Officials say a suspected drug dealer who led police on a 90 mph chase in Indiana was arrested after he stopped suddenly at a Taco Bell parking lot.
Fort Wayne police Sgt. Mark Walters says 36-year-old Jermaine Askia Cooper told officers he "knew he was going to jail for a while" and wanted to get one last burrito. He did not get the burrito, police said.
Cooper was held without bail on four counts of dealing cocaine, one count of resisting arrest by fleeing and other charges.
A voicemail mailbox for a listing for a Jermaine Cooper in Fort Wayne was full and not accepting messages.
Police say the chase began Tuesday after officers spotted Cooper, who was wanted on other charges. The chase ended in nearby Decatur.

- Police in Leon, N.Y., who cracking down on rowdy Amish youths, ticketed a teenager for having beer in his horse-drawn buggy when they pulled him over on a western New York road.
They say 17-year-old Chris Slabaugh of Conewango was charged with underage possession of alcohol after he was stopped by Cattaraugus County deputies late Monday night in the town of Leon, 40 miles south of Buffalo.
Detective Nathan Root says the teen admitted drinking beer, but passed a field sobriety test.
Root says another Amish man in the buggy, 22-year-old Emanuel Miller of Conewango Valley, was charged with providing the beer.

- And you think your office fridge is disgusting:
An office worker cleaning a fridge full of rotten food in San Jose, Calif., created a smell so noxious that it sent seven co-workers to the hospital and made many others ill.
Firefighters had to evacuate the AT&T building in downtown San Jose on Tuesday after the fumes led someone to call 911. A hazmat team was called in.
What crews found was an unplugged refrigerator crammed with moldy food.
Authorities say an enterprising office worker had decided to clean it out, placing the food in a conference room while using two cleaning chemicals to scrub down the mess.
The mixture of old lunches and disinfectant caused 28 people to need treatment for vomiting and nausea. Authorities say the worker who cleaned the fridge didn't need treatment — she can't smell because of allergies.

May 13, 2009 10:27 am

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Mid-Daily Items: Hot stamps for sale

The cost to mail a first-class letter went up to 44 cents on Monday. But if you went to John Auito, of Macomb, Mich., you probably could have purchased stamps at a 15 percent discount. Authorities say the rural postal carrier in suburban Detroit stole and sold stamps worth nearly $20,000 because he was behind on his mortgage. Postal agents confronted the 42-year-old Auito on April 30 outside his home. He told agents that he typically sold the stamps at a 15 percent discount. Auito contacted people who had participated in stamp auctions on eBay. He is charged with stealing stamps that were being shipped to retailers in his delivery area. Auito told agents that he began taking stamps in September because he feared foreclosure

Sometimes crooks don’t think about what they are doing. In the case of an alleged shoplifter with a bottle of whiskey in his pants decided to take one more gamble before leaving a Washington County, Wisconsin, liquor store. He filled out a raffle ticket. But the gamble led police right to him. The man was charged Thursday with misdemeanor retail theft, resisting an officer and disorderly conduct. After filling out the raffle ticket to win a ticket to a Slinger Speedway race, the 20-year-old also allegedly snatched two more whiskey bottles before he fled B&S Liquor in Hartford. Owner Steve Jost said the store clerk saw the suspect fill out the ticket and wasn’t going to chase him. The ticket box had been emptied the previous day, so the clerk opened the box after calling police. You guessed it, the crook put his name on the ticket.

If you run out of cigarettes and decide to go to a stranger’s house to bum some, you better wear clothes. Authorities said a woman wasn’t wearing any clothes when she knocked on a stranger’s door in the middle of the night to ask for cigarettes. The Pinellas, Florida, sheriff’s office reported that the woman, 52, went to the stranger’s home early Friday morning. Deputies found her a short time later walking through a mobile home park wearing only boxer shorts. The woman was charged with disorderly conduct and was taken to jail but later released on her own recognizance.

A burglary suspect in Tulsa, Okla., probably thought if you don’t succeed the first time, try it again. And so the would-be burglar returned to the scene of the crime after failing the first time to get in. Police said officers were called about 8:30 p.m. Sunday to the pharmacy of a medical center where witnesses said someone had tried to break in — but had left. Officers said as they were responding when the man returned with additional tools — but still couldn’t get inside. Police said the 30-year-old man was arrested for second-degree burglary as he was leaving the pharmacy the second time.

May 12, 2009 10:39 am

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Mid-Daily Items: Whispers from the Old Cuchillo Bar

The former owner of a 180-year-old adobe building near Albuquerque, N.M., hears the door of a potbellied stove opening and wood being stacked inside, but no one is there.
Mysterious whispers echo in the current owner's ear. Things fall off shelves for no apparent reason.
These are just a few of the strange goings-on that artist Josh Bond, owner of the Old Cuchillo Bar in the southern New Mexico ghost town of the same name, has asked the West Coast Ghost and Paranormal Society to investigate on his property.
"The creepiest I had was a voice whisper in my ear," Bond said. "When things fall in the house, I just sort of write it off."
When he saw an advertisement about WCGAPS, a Phoenix-based nonprofit organization, Bond thought the group could at least explain what was occurring.
Andy Rice, who started WCGAPS about two years ago after investigating more than 200 supposed hauntings and ghosts over more than 13 years, said the group tries to explain the mysteries their clients relate to them using science or common sense.
Only about 5 percent of the group's investigations can't be explained by electromagnetic radiation, thin walls, faulty wiring, lights from passing cars or other normal explanations, said Rice, who called his investigators not ghost hunters, but ghost debunkers.

- We don’t know if the ghost hunters will find anything in New Mexico, but Steve Turnbull turned up a bit of history in Pawnee City, Neb.
Turnbull found two gold Pawnee City Track Meet medals dating back to 1918 while metal detecting at the Pawnee County fairgrounds.
"They were talking about this being the 150th year at a basketball game, and they were wanting to do something special," Turnbull said. "I said that I found something metal detecting that they might find interesting."
The school was indeed interested, and asked to borrow the medals and make replicas. After taking pictures of the medals, which depict a runner in the blocks starting a race, the school sent the medals out to be replicated for awards at the Pawnee City Invitational.
"Except for the size, the medals are nearly identical to the 1918 one," said Pawnee City High School principal and athletic director Bob West. "And it's my intention that we use this medal for all future Pawnee City track meets."
West said the medal found by Turnbull is the oldest known Pawnee City track medal.
Head track coach Alan Strong said the medal provides a wealth of history to the Pawnee City meet.

- And, in New York, A city firefighter jumped into the polluted waters of the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn to save a driver from his sinking car.
Richard Staiti needed a hepatitis shot after his time in the canal, notorious for industrial pollution. He had gone in to get the driver of a Volvo that went in the water early Saturday.
Staiti ended up spending more time in the water than necessary, after he was told there had been children in the car. That turned out not to be true. Police charged the car's operator with drunken driving.

May 11, 2009 10:24 am

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Mid-Daily Items: Voters to decide fate of handlebar mustache

The mayor of the Salt Lake City suburb of Murray says he has little choice but to shave his nearly foot-long handlebar mustache for charity.
Dan Snarr is putting the decision to a vote of residents and says his fashion statement is "getting creamed."
"People are voting 'shave.' It's a way to get back at an elected official," said Snarr, who has sported the waxed mustache for three years but now is resigned to shaving.
Besides, his wife hates it. She's sick of puckering up for a kiss and getting poked in the eye.
Yet the 59-year-old Snarr also is facing pressure from the mustache lobby. The St. Louis-based American Mustache Institute got wind of his plans and called on Snarr to keep a stiff upper lip in the face of opposition.
The Mustache Institute — a tongue-in-check group dedicated to defending a man's right to sport a mustache against modern aversions — is demanding Snarr "recant" his shaving pledge and find another way to support the Children's Miracle Network.
"This could include shaving your head, your back or committing to not clipping your toenails for up to eight months," the group's leaders wrote to the mayor.
Snarr said he had never heard of the Mustache Institute and isn't certain how to respond to the letter. "It's like politics — whatever you do, you're damned," he said.
A local Costco warehouse store says residents have been voting since May 1. The paper ballots will be counted May 16.
Snarr should face down his opposition — mainly women — and keep his mustache, said Aaron Perlut of St. Louis, chairman of the Mustache Institute and a social-media consultant.
Perlut said mustaches fell out of favor in the 1970s and that his group's most recent surveys shows only 20 percent of women favor them. That's why more men are sporting tiny "chin" beards, which Perlut calls a "spousal compromise."
The group stands in defense of the singular mustache, rejecting all other styles of facial hair, even beards.

- And now an update on that 500-pound black cow on the lam yesterday. As we reported right here in Mid-Daily Items, the cow nearly drove police mad after hoofing it out of a New York City slaughterhouse.
Today, there is word that the cow has been saved from a future between two buns.
The young cow, nicknamed Molly, was delivered intact to a Long Island farm sanctuary on Thursday afternoon.
Joseph Pentangelo of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says the all-black cow seems to be enjoying her new freedom at the Calverton sanctuary.
He says: "Her future's a lot brighter now than it was 48 hours ago."
The spirited cow dodged cars, cops and a few irate butchers for a mile after escaping Wednesday from the Queens slaughterhouse. Police captured the heifer an hour later.

- A 10-year-old boy picking up litter in New Hampshire found a charred backpack stuffed with more than $8,000 in cash.
Arie Johnston of Dover, N.H., was helping his grandmother with her town's annual roadside cleanup when he spotted the backpack Saturday. He told Foster's Daily Democrat his first thought was that a person had been killed for the money.
Arie's grandmother called the Alton town clerk, who identified the bag's owner based on the passports and other documents found with the money. The owner was a woman who had lived across the street until a fire damaged her apartment last year.
Police say the woman has since moved to Maine and has asked that her belongings be given to her sister who lives in Alton. Arie's grandmother says a reward may be coming.

- And, a Bartlesville, Okla., man missing since August 2002 has been found in Rapid City, S.D.
Bartlesville Police Chief Tom Holland says his department was contacted Thursday morning by Rapid City authorities concerning David Rockey, who was trying to obtain a South Dakota driver's license. As identification, Rockey presented an expired Oklahoma license.
Rockey told authorities he wanted to re-enter society.
Holland says Rockey told them that when he disappeared, he took cash out of an ATM, left a note for his family, parked his car at the Tulsa airport, then left town on a bus.
Rockey told authorities he had worked odd jobs for cash so that he couldn't be traced.
Halland says no charges are expected to be filed against Rockey.

May 08, 2009 10:48 am

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Mid-Daily Items: Crikey, mate! It's a 'roo!

A wayward kangaroo named Bandit is wandering around the upstate New York community of Canastota.
State police say motorists reported seeing a kangaroo early Wednesday afternoon along the Thruway near Exit 34 in Canastota, 20 miles east of Syracuse.
Troopers who searched the area saw the 3-foot-tall animal and contacted the owner, but the 'roo got away.
Owner Jeff Taylor says Bandit is a 1-year-old wallaroo, a large species of kangaroo. He bought the animal last month for a wildlife education program he intends to start next year.
Bandit has been on the loose for three weeks. Taylor says he believes someone broke into his barn and intentionally let the animal out.
The state police Thruway detail said Bandit remained on the loose this morning.

- In New York City, a cow has escaped from a slaughterhouse and may have a new lease on life.
Police say the black heifer bolted Wednesday afternoon from Musa Hala Inc., which butchers animals according to religious restrictions.
It wandered in Queens for nearly a mile before police captured it an hour later and took it to an Animal Care and Control center, where it was nicknamed Molly.
Officials there are looking into whether Molly can be placed at a farm sanctuary or must be returned for slaughter. It depends on whether anyone claims her.
In 2002, an Ohio cow jumped a 6-foot fence to escape from a Cincinnati meatpacking plant and ran free in a park for 10 days. She was nicknamed Cinci Freedom.

- A puppy that scampered away from her Texas home is all grown up now and mysteriously back after eight years.
Owner Alison Murphy of Austin isn't sure where Dancer has been but says obedience school is the next stop for her newly recovered pet.
The brown and white terrier mix was left last week at the Humane Society in New Braunfels, about 45 miles away. A musician found the dog in his neighborhood and after a few days took the animal to the Humane Society to see if she had a microchip implant.
Dancer did.
Murphy says Dancer's teeth "are in great shape" and the dog is "still the same old girl."
Except the dog no longer recognizes her name. She instead responds to the name Fern.

- And finally today, police in Ohio say they found a man accused of shoplifting because he put his address on a job application before leaving the store.
Dayton police say 49-year-old Stanley Wright was arrested Tuesday on a misdemeanor theft charge after employees said he stole T-shirts and pants from a clothing store.
Police say Wright stuffed the items under his shirt and the waistline of his pants before going to the checkout counter to fill out a job application. The items set off an alarm when he left the store.
Police say Wright wrote his actual address on the job application, and police arrested him there while he was ironing a pair of jeans he was accused of stealing.
He remained in the Montgomery County jail Thursday on a $1,000 bond, awaiting a court date.

May 07, 2009 10:25 am

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Mid-Daily Items: Vulcans welcome visitors for Star Trek preview

About 300 Vulcans are beaming up to Calgary for a sneak peek at the newest Star Trek movie Wednesday.
The residents of the southern Alberta town of Vulcan will see the film two days before Friday's worldwide release.
They will also get the chance to meet Canadian actor Bruce Greenwood, who plays Capt. Christopher Pike in the film.
The town, which shares a name with the home planet of popular Star Trek character Spock, had made a pitch to host the film's Canadian premiere.
They were turned down, but actor Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock in the original TV series and several movies, intervened and was able to arrange a private screening for them.
Vulcan, population 1,942, has developed itself as a tourist attraction focusing on Spock's birthplace.

- A man has admitted living in a northeastern Pennsylvania family's attic for more than a week and occasionally going into the house when no one was there.
Stanley Wayne Carter also admits stealing belongings while the homeowner and her children were out of the house in Plains Township, about 100 miles from Philadelphia.
The 21-year-old from Trumann, Ark., pleaded guilty Tuesday in Luzerne County Court to burglary, trespassing and other offenses.
When asked if he had anything to say to homeowner Stacy Ferrance and her family, he said, "I'm sorry."
Carter had been staying with Ferrance's neighbors, whom he knew. But when they asked him to leave, he went into the attic shared by the two homes and lived there for 10 days in December.
He'll be sentenced in July.

- Now here’s a residential theft in the truest sense of the word.
Police in Greece say robbers near Athens have stolen everything including the kitchen sink, lifting a prefabricated home off its foundation and spiriting it away.
Police say the owner went to visit his 750-square-foot vacation home Monday in the coastal area of Rafina, about 15 miles east of Athens, and discovered it was missing, along with its contents.
Police said Wednesday they think the thieves used a crane to load the structure onto a trailer. They have been unable to locate the missing building.
Thousands of Athenians, including Greece's prime minister, Costas Karamanlis, have vacation properties in Rafina.

- And, a Fairbanks man faces an indecent exposure charge after celebrating his 21st birthday in only his birthday suit.
Isn’t it cold up there?
Alaska State Troopers say Joseph Vance Arabie also faces a resisting arrest count after the early Saturday morning incident.
A trooper was on patrol about 4:30 a.m. when he spotted a naked man walking with a clothed woman on a bike path just off the Johansen Expressway. When the trooper approached the two, the man took off running.
Troopers say the woman didn't answer many of their questions, but did have Arabie's driver's license.
About 90 minutes later, the trooper — assisted by a police dog — found Arabie.
Troopers say Arabie was not able to give a good reason for being nude. The woman was not charged.

May 06, 2009 11:08 am

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Mid-Daily Items: The proof really is in the pudding

A Pennsylvania man has been accused of burglarizing at least three apartments and vandalizing them with spray paint and chocolate pudding — after police say he was found covered in chocolate syrup.
Police say the 24-year-old Bethlehem resident was arrested early Friday after being found with silver spray paint and chocolate on his hands and clothes. They say that helped tie him to a nearby burglary in which pudding and chocolate syrup were spread across the floor and graffiti was spray-painted on the walls.
The man is accused of the burglaries at off-campus apartments of Lehigh University students.
Bethlehem Detective Sgt. Mark DiLuzio says the man admitted the burglaries but claimed another man broke into the apartments and let him in.

- Students and staff at a suburban Rochester, N.Y., high school have been told to ignore the voice mail telling them they're on detention — all 1,400 of them.
A voice mail blast was sent out Monday to more than 1,400 students and staff at Greece Arcadia High School reminding them they had to serve detention Tuesday.
A school district spokeswoman says the recent changes to the school's voice mail delivery system may have caused the error.
The school later sent out a new voice mail blast Monday night correcting the first message.

- This summer's Miner's Revenge mountain bike race in Michigan's Upper Peninsula is taking its name seriously.
The five-mile race scheduled for July 12 at Adventure Mine in Greenland, Mich., will include stretches inside the mine and on the surface. Adventure Mining Co. owner Matt Portfleet says there will be some tight spaces.
He says "a tall person might have to get off and push," but that's part of the fun and the challenge.
Adventure Mining, which offers tours of the site, says the copper mine operated from 1850 to 1920. It's located in Ontonagon County in the western Upper Peninsula, about 85 miles northwest of Marquette.

- And, police in Germany police say an elderly man was so annoyed at hearing the same serenade over and over that he called authorities to report his neighbors — only to discover the culprit was a musical greeting card on his own windowsill.
Police said Tuesday the 82-year-old from Goslar in central Germany told officers he was sick of the music, which would come at irregular intervals and at all hours.
Upon further investigation, police found the musical greeting card on his windowsill, where occasional breezes opened the card just enough to play an irritating tune.
Police say the retiree was happy to find out his neighbors weren't trying to annoy him.

May 05, 2009 10:23 am

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Mid-Daily Items: Early formula to 'Be a Pepper'

Poking through antiques stores while traveling through the Texas Panhandle, Bill Waters stumbled across a tattered old ledger book filled with formulas.
He bought it for $200, suspecting he could resell it for five times that. Turns out, his inkling about the book's value was more spot on than he knew. The Tulsa, Okla., man eventually discovered the book came from the Waco, Texas, drugstore where Dr Pepper was invented and includes a recipe titled "D Peppers Pepsin Bitters."
"I began feeling like I had a national treasure," said Waters, 59.
Dr Pepper's manufacturer says the recipe is not the secret formula for the modern day soft drink, but the 8½-by-15½ inch book is expected to sell between $50,000 to $75,000 when it goes up for auction at Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries on May 13.
It isn't a recipe for a soft drink, says Greg Artkop, a spokesman for the Plano-based Dr Pepper Snapple Group. He said it's likely instead a recipe for a bitter digestive that bears the Dr Pepper name.
He said the recipe certainly bears no resemblance to any Dr Pepper recipes the company knows of. The drink's 23-flavor blend is a closely guarded secret, only known by three Dr Pepper employees, he said.
Michael Riley, chief cataloger and historian for Heritage Auction Galleries, said they think it's an early recipe for Dr Pepper.
"We just feel like it's the earliest version of it," he said.
Flipping through the pages of the ledger book takes one back to a time when drugstores were neighborhood hubs, selling everything from health remedies to beauty products mixed up by the stores' chemists. And among the formulas being mixed up in drugstores were treats for the soda fountain. A two-page spread in Waters' book has recipes for "Soda Water Syrups," including pineapple, lemon and strawberry.
"There were very few national brands," Riley said. "Their lifeblood was all their formulas."

- Police suspect pranksters are behind the theft of a 10-foot head and neck from a fiberglass giraffe that has stood along a southwestern Michigan roadway for more than a decade.
The Grand Rapids Press reports the hollow giraffe's body remains standing on a platform behind a billboard overlooking westbound Interstate 196 in Grandville, about six miles southwest of Grand Rapids.
Grand Rapids Outdoor Advertising President Randy Disselkoen says the giraffe was installed by the billboard's previous owner for a customer, but was kept up after the ad was changed. It has since become a roadside landmark.
The theft happened months ago, but Disselkoen says he was reluctant to discuss it because he didn't want to encourage copycat thefts from billboards.

- And, Jay Leno will be getting prime-time backup on NBC next season from nurses, paramedics and Ron Howard.
NBC says it's adding four new dramas to its 2009-2010 schedule, including a pair of medical shows and one from filmmaker Howard, the series "Parenthood." The series is based on the 1989 movie directed by Howard and stars Peter Krause and Maura Tierney.
NBC also announced two new comedies, including one with Chevy Chase, and prime-time "Weekend Update" shows.
The network says it's renewing "Heroes," ''Parks & Recreation" and the police drama "Southland." More renewals may be announced later this month.
Leno, who leaves the "Tonight" show this month, will star in a nightly prime-time series this fall.