Word: verb
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Caveat. An Al-verb, a victim of the general's verification program, to which resistance is verboten for even the most insolent little noun. As in: "I'll have to caveat my response, Senator...
Near shore, the rescue proceeds smoothly. But more than 80 fishermen are still stranded farther out on the ice. Jerusalem Township Fire Chief Joe Verb and Rescue Captain Bill Miller have commandeered 20 boats. But Verb is hopping mad. Not only is the Coast Guard unable to provide helicopters (they are grounded in Michigan by fog), but it turns up with what the chief considers totally inadequate rescue support. "What the hell's one 14-ft. boat and five guys going to do in a five-mile area?" he storms. Verb also believes the ice break was caused...
Giving up hope of Coast Guard help, Verb remembers that St. Vincent Hospital, 15 miles away in Toledo, has a "life flight" Alouette III five-passenger helicopter. By now sleet is falling steadily on the marooned fishermen. Some are beginning to panic, thinking that night will fall before they can be lifted off. "The ice was broke up so bad we couldn't get back to the boats," Don Van Dyke recalls. They stay put, afraid that the thickening weather will keep them from being seen. The big red copter whirls down through the sleet, sending up a cloud...
Next morning the wind changes. The temperature drops. The fractured ice pack begins to knit together again. If that freezing north wind keeps blowing the lake may harden up enough for Chuck to get out on the ice again and drive his Datsun pickup back to shore. Chief Verb thinks he "hasn't a hope in hell," though the cars and trucks are still on the floe...
Other men have been less fortunate. Overnight nine snowmobiles have disap eared. A strange coincidence? Verb guesses that some enterprising crook managed to get to the ice pack during the night with a boat large enough to carry them off. Clearly that ill wind from the south has blown somebody some good...