Occasionally I find a ditty in the local paper that requires sharing. Those of you familiar with renegade pigs in the freeway and the survivor story of the swimming-pool hog may not be a bit impressed. Anyone who’s read my picks from the local police blotter might be too jaded at this point. I don’t know. Even News of the Weird may have a difficult time believing this one.

It seems we have a jail escapee. A gentleman who managed to unhitch a primary fence at the local detention center shimmied out, then scaled another fence about 13-feet high, crowned within razor wire. Although in the past hour or so we’re all relieved to hear he finally turned himself in, his story is already the stuff of legend. Little Rock’s KATV Channel 7 gave us this slice of life earlier:

“A theft suspect who was caught after he was swarmed by bees has escaped from the Faulkner County Jail.

Faulkner County sheriff’s deputies say that 46-year-old Ricky Dale Ford peeled back a section of chain-link fence to escape an exercise yard and then scaled a secondary fence Sunday afternoon to get loose.

Area law enforcement said Monday that Faulkner County deputies have not been able to find Ford.

Ford was riding a stolen ATV when he clipped a bee hive at a home on Billy Goat Mountain near Vilonia. He was caught Wednesday in nearby woods, where police found other stolen property.

When Ford struck the hive, the bees swarmed him, stinging him up to 100 times. Ford’s address is on nearby Nanny Goat Lane.

Ford was jailed after hospital treatment.”

There’s so much going on there I scarcely know where to begin. It’s no wonder Ricky Dale was compelled to give himself up considering the description of him published in the Log Cabin Democrat.

“FCSO Chief Deputy Jerry Gross said Ford was barefoot and was wearing black-and-white prison clothes when he escaped.”

And the real clincher,

“A deputy said Ford may still have visible whelps from the bee stings.

Ford is described as a white male about 6 feet tall with dark hair and a ‘mullet’ haircut.”

Why, this fella defines Audacity of Hope. Let’s forget for a moment that he’s a gentleman likely entering his heart-attack years. Nevermind the innumerable bee-stings that tasered him into the detention center in the first place. There’s a whole lot of believing (or something) that gets a man that age up and over a razor-wired fence. Barefooted.

I think someone needs to test the water up on Billy Goat Mountain. It may not explain the mullet, but it might go a long way in deciphering exactly what kind of country boys they’re growing up there.

Special thanks to my good friend Tony, who alerted me to the breaking news. If I wrote down one-tenth of the bizarre stories he tells me, I’d have to quit my day-job and scribble itinerantly.