THIS WEEK IN THE PARK RAPIDS ENTERPRISE

1. Front page story: Elsie Fearn, 82, dies in a car crash. (The driver: her 84-year-old brother, who survived.)

2. A man died of rabies after being bitten by a bat:

They were loading firewood into the friend's cabin when Hertwig noticed a bat on the door screen. He cupped his hand over it and removed it. ...Although he reportedly felt a "needle-prick," he did not believe he was bitten because no blood was drawn. He did not seek medical care immediately following the incident.

Only three other humans have contracted rabies in Minnesota in the past 100 years. (All died from it.) PUBLIC SERVICE: I heard this on This American Life, and it's true: Bats have tiny teeth. People don't always know when they've been bitten. If you find a bat in a room where you or someone else has been sleeping (or impaired or intoxicated), CAPTURE THAT BAT and bring it in to get tested for rabies. And you have to be vaccinated within 72 hours or you get rabies and die.

[I have a really great mental photograph, which I wish were a real photograph that I could put here, of my father in his boxers and T-shirt chasing a bat around the cabin with a fishing net. Maybe later I will draw an approximation and put it here.]

3. In her op-ed column Slices of Life, Jill Hertler invokes Hamlet as she poses the "age-old dilemma faced by families from Alabama to Wyoming. To truck or not to truck? That is the question." (Spoiler: her husband does get that pickup.)

4. A sampling of headlines:
ADVANTAGES OF TRUCK OWNERSHIP ABOUND (see above)
MOTORISTS CAUTIONED NOT TO "VEER FOR DEER"
CONTEST PRODUCES VARIETY OF WINNING PHOTOS
FALL IS A TIME TO COMPROMISE BETWEEN WATER AND WOODS
REMEMBER TO REVIEW CHANGES TO DEER HUNTING REGULATIONS
HUMILITY THE KEY TO CONQUERING ANGER

5. And finally, the Incident Report, slim but memorable:

A caller reported his vehicle "stolen" after his soon-to-be ex borrowed it and has not returned it; A Park Rapids caller reported he'd gone to the pawn shop to retrieve his gun but someone else picked it up; A vehicle was reported sitting in Heartland Park with the doors open, no one around; A caller reported someone shooting a BB gun at his window; Two girls in a vehicle were reported running over traffic cones in Park Rapids; A Helga Township caller reported someone attempting to enter his home by rattling the door handle, asked for police patrol; An older fishing boat and motor washed up on shore in Mantrap Township; A caller reported his son's front license plate is missing; About 20 cows were on the road in Fern township; A woman in Park Rapids was reported to have put a note on a car, spitting on it and swearing.