Cue Balls in Texas

The son-in-law called yesterday afternoon with fodder for my blog. I don't see why he would think I need help. My goodness! It's just been almost two weeks since I've made an entry! I used to get complaints about posting too often because people couldn't stay current. Oh, well...You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can`t please all the people all of the time (someone said)

Anyway...Al thought the following story is news worthy because it happened in North Richland Hills where his son and wife live....thus being, my grandson and wife!

Admittedly, it is a funny story and just proves that Texas women certainly know the real use of cue balls!'

NORTH RICHLAND HILLS — It was raining pool balls in a neighborhood here Wednesday afternoon. ~

A 27-year-old woman thwarted an attempted burglary by pelting two men at the front of her home on Mapleleaf Drive with billiard balls as she stood on her roof.~

"I made it to the backdoor, climbed a tree and onto the roof," Paula Ollie said afterward. "I went to the front of the house and yelled 'Death from above!’ and started throwing the pool balls."~

Ollie said she was accurate.~

"I nailed him in the back," she said referring to the burglar who was near a bedroom window. "I then started throwing at the one at the front door and got him, but I don’t know where I hit him. I did miss once because there’s a dent in the front door." ~

The men ran for their lives cursing, holding their arms above their heads for protection, she said.~

Once she descended from the roof, she called police but by the time they arrived, the men had gotten away.~

Police weren’t enthusiastic about her efforts.~

"We recommend that people call 911 if they see strangers at their home," North Richland Hills investigator Keith Bauman said.~

Ollie described the bad guys as dressed all in black, their hats, shirts, pants and shoes.~

"I know one was white because I could see his arm when he had it over his head," Ollie said.~

As for her warrior cry of "Death from above!" Ollie says it’s from the movies, but she isn’t sure which one.~

"They say it all the time," she said.~

It might be best remembered as the motto painted on Robert Duvall’s helicopter during the dramatic dawn attack on a Vietnamese village in the 1979 movie Apocalypse Now.~

The incident happened shortly after 2 p.m. in the 7600 block of Mapleleaf Drive.~

Ollie was at home alone; her three young boys were at school.~

"I heard something outside and I went to the front door where I heard these two men talking quietly," said Ollie, who had been cleaning the house. "They didn’t ring the doorbell or knock. I put my ear to the door and I sensed that something was wrong."~

Without thinking of calling 911, Ollie plotted her attack. She grabbed her son’s Ben Tin bike helmet and loaded it up with balls from the pool table. She couldn’t remember later how many she had taken.~

She quietly walked through the backdoor to a tree, placed the straps of the helmet in her mouth and climbed the tree. From the tree, she made her way to the roof.~

"If I had known where the BB-gun was, I would have used that," Ollie said. "There’s a crossbow in the house and if I had known where the ammunition was, I would have grabbed that."~

Once on the roof, Ollie began her assault.~

And within a few minutes, she ran the table on them~
ramirez@star-telegram.com