Siamese Twins Share Heart--and Love of Mischief

--Ruth and Verena Cady share an undersized heart and other organs, but the cheerful 20-month-old Siamese twins also share an oversize spirit. They sneak toys from their 4-year-old sister’s room, chase the family dog with their specially designed walker and generally keep their parents hopping. The twins, joined chest-to-chest from collarbone to navel, don’t seem to mind such togetherness. Their father, Peter, who moved the family to Narragansett, R. I., from Colorado last September to teach at Johnson & Wales College in Providence, said the twins’ birth frightened him at first. He thought doctors “would just take them . . . apart and there would be stitches for a while,” but their single heart made that impossible. “Maybe, someday down the road, they’ll find a way,” he said. “We’re hoping.” Meanwhile, the girls are bright and happy, and neighbors’ reactions to them have been “all positive.” “These guys (Ruth and Verena) don’t feel uncomfortable,” said their mother, Marlene Cady. “It’s only other people’s attitudes that make things uncomfortable.”

--Santa Claus isn’t coming to town--he is the town. No one knows that better than Bernard Harden, mayor of Santa Claus, Ga., a rural community of 275 residents. “Our main street is called December Drive,” he said. “Our other streets have names like Reindeer Way, Sleigh Street, Noel Street and Candycane Lane. We don’t have a police force, but, then again, we don’t really need one.” Santa Claus owes its existence to C. G. Greene, a farmer who built a fruit stand and sold pecans and novelties to tourists traveling along U.S. 1 in the 1930s and 1940s. As a promotional idea, he began calling the community around his orchard Santa Claus. The gimmick turned his roadside stand into a sort of tourist attraction. Today, people come for the Christmas Eve candle show. “People come from all around the area and drive through the town with their lights off,” Harden said. The town has no post office, but it does have a postmark, thanks to the post office in nearby Lyons. Postmaster Foster Kramer estimates he stamps at least 5,000 pieces of mail each year with the special postmark.

--When a thief snatched Lisa Derhalli’s purse in Portland, Ore., she didn’t cry or pout: She tackled him. “He was real small, so I did have a fighting chance,” the 5-foot-2 Derhalli said. If the policeman hadn’t been there, “I think I would have gotten in a fistfight.” Derhalli, 22, said she’s happy she got her purse back but feels like a football player after a rough game. “I have bruises on my left hip, and I cut my left hand and bruised it . . . . I ache all over.”