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Alison Cook looks back at 1997: The Year That Bit

Continued from page 7

World o' Lawsuits
Rob Todd served as celebrity judge
A woman sued Peter's Wildlife on the Richmond strip, claiming she almost choked to death during the club's hot-dog-eating contest.

"T" for two
Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich sued Rudy Teichman of Galveston -- a former city councilman known to his friends as Rudy T -- to get him to take the "T" out of his new Rudy T. & Paco's restaurant.

Good thing Ann didn't mention Rudy T.
Houston's Bed-Wetting Revolution, a nonprofit that fights bed-wetting, was sued by Tulsa's American Enuresis Foundation -- which claimed it had rights to the Bed-Wetting Revolution name, and that it deserved a cut of fees from new clients generated when Ann Landers ran a letter from the Houston group's president.

She wanted Coke, not Pepsi
Ramesh L. Sheladia Patel sued Gujarati Samaj, the Hindu group of which he had been treasurer, claiming its leaders had slandered and libeled him and removed him from office after he got involved in a club picnic dispute between his wife and a volunteer dispensing soft drinks.

But they got the go-ahead to drill in the City Hall reflecting pool
An appeals court rejected a suit by Wilson Oil Co., which wanted to overturn a longtime ban on drilling in Lake Houston.

Shirley MacLaine complained it gave her bad vibes
Attorney John Tavormina, who now owns the River Oaks house featured in Terms of Endearment, sued the makers of the Evening Star sequel when instead of using his home for exterior shots, they constructed an exact replica in Houston.

The fur flew
Two former partners in a pet-grooming business spent a total of $25,000 suing each other for custody of the shop's mascot, a four-year-old Persian cat named Oscar.

Yeah, but the insulation was terrific
A group of 244 homeowners sued HL&P and Kimball Hill Homes, claiming their energy-efficient "Good Cents Homes," certified and inspected by the Light Company, were afflicted with chronic leaks, sagging roofs, bad foundations and faulty brick exteriors.

So where was she when Time ran that Expect the Unexpected sweepstakes?
A Houston woman sued the Texas lottery, among others, claiming that her life and banking career were ruined when she was accused of tampering with a scratch-off ticket to make herself appear to be a $10,000 winner.

Reading, Writing and Rain-forest Algebra

What's the matter, he never heard of chili pie are squared?
State Board of Education member David Bradley, from down the road in Beaumont, ripped the cover off a textbook when other members refused to reject the so-called "rain-forest algebra" text -- which mixed math with chili recipes, photos of Bill Clinton and Maya Angelou and discussions of the environment and the Vietnam War.

But in rain-forest algebra terms, that's a good response
The Houston Image Group's scheme to bring attention to Houston by running a sweepstakes ad in Time magazine, offering 33 prizes such as tea with Charles Barkley or a conducting class from Christoph Eschenbach, drew one lonely instant scratch-off winner from the mag's 4.8 million subscribers.

Picky, pickyMetro officials admitted that -- contrary to previous boasting -- their buses were not really punctual 96 percent of the time (try 80), nor did they average 9,000 miles between breakdowns (more like 6,700).

A tape measure is a driver's best friend
When Metro's new minibuses arrived, union drivers discovered they were seven and a half inches longer than the 30-foot length specified in their contracts. So to avoid paying the steeper wage that drivers of full-size buses earn, Metro (before a truce was called) removed the front and rear bumper guards to produce a 29-foot, 11 1/2 inch bus.

Le Chronk, c'est moi
Chronicle publisher Richard J.V. Johnson reportedly overruled his 13-member editorial board's vote to endorse George Greanias in the mayoral race (the pre-Dick tally was 5 Greanias, 4 Brown, 4 Mosbacher), throwing the paper's support to Mosbacher.

After which he wrestled his entire editorial board to the ground
At the Houston Chronicle's Book & Author Dinner, upon a challenge from literary personage "Body by Jake" Steinfeld, the paper's publisher, Richard J.V. Johnson, dropped to the floor and did five pushups.

First step: Purge all projects that allude to "world-class"
Rice University and the University of Houston announced they would mount a joint study to identify what Houston must do to be a world-class city in the 21st century.

Fast times at Cougar High
U of H grad students charged that the school routinely required them to pay for sham "dummy classes" -- a stratagem to secure more tax dollars -- in order to keep their jobs as teaching assistants.

Aw, it was just a "Tribes of the Amazon" social studies project
An eighth-grader in Cleveland was expelled for shooting a middle-school principal with a needle-sharp dart he had made.

Somewhere, Janis is smiling
Students at Port Arthur's Thomas Jefferson High School -- alma mater of Janis Joplin -- celebrated the next-to-last day of school with a cafeteria food fight in which they overturned tables and chairs, smashed windows, tore down ceiling tiles and sent buns and red-colored drinks whizzing through the air.

Sheila Jackson Lee went down in milliseconds
Deep Blue Junior, a smaller version of the famous IBM chess-playing computer that vanquished Garry Kasparov, defeated Rice University chess champ Nathan Doughty in less than an hour.

Deep Blue doesn't understand it, either
Mayor Bob "I love numbers" Lanier floated an argument purporting to demonstrate that a revised Fourth Ward housing plan by which Houston Renaissance would subsidize 150 affordable units, instead of the 350 originally promised, actually worked out to more units, since added to the 250 units planned separately by the city, the total would be 400, 50 more than the 350 figure, even though both projects together would have added 600 units, and ... oh, forget it.

Fun Couples

They've heard he's offered her that Princess Di part
The tabloids have offered a fat bounty to anyone who can produce a photograph of recently divorced movie star (and noted philanderer) Kevin Costner together with the recently divorced Laura Sakowitz, Bobby's glamorous blond ex.

So that's why she never dates Democrats!
Bob Mosbacher's about-to-be ex, Georgette, was spotted with disgraced Republican political consultant Ed Rollins out and about in New York City, although Rollins pleaded "just friends," saying, "Georgette likes billionaires, and I'm just a thousandaire."

But only after she outfitted all their phones with star 69 and caller ID
Singer Kenny Rogers, who was divorced by his last wife after three women accused him of having phone sex with them, took wife number five, the 29-years-younger Wanda Miller.

My Christmas present or your life
Vicky Renee Menard stalked Tim Chapman and shot him at a north Houston service station in an attempt to get back a coat he had given her for Christmas.

She was inspired by Marv Albert
Jacqueline Boykin was charged with attempted capital murder after she bit her husband, Charles, a Kountze alderman, and then claimed she had AIDS.

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