Doctor relates story of his kidnapping in Amarillo

Dr. Steven L. Berk, dean of the Texas Tech School of Medicine in Amarillo, was taken hostage from his home on Sunday morning, March 6, 2005, by a desperate criminal armed with a shotgun and needing money.

Berk relates his hair-raising story in a gripping memoir, "Anatomy of a Kidnapping: A Doctor's Story".

"Four hours," he writes. "That was the amount of time between looking down the barrel of a gun and finding myself free along a silent highway lined by cotton fields. In the time period that seemed eternal, my unique experiences as a doctor created an indescribable bond between myself and my captor.

"I looked upon the situation just as I looked upon a medical emergency: I took a deep breath, hid my panic, and tried to solve the situation."

Berk weaves his medical training and experiences into the story of that four-hour period when the armed stranger entered his home, took him hostage, drove around trying to get cash (Berk didn't know his PIN number and couldn't withdraw money from his ATM), and finally turned him loose outside of Bushland, west of Amarillo.

During the ordeal, Berk memorized the 14-digit vehicle registration number of the kidnapper's SUV, which led to the capture and conviction of Jack Lindsey Jordan, who remains in prison today.

This is one of those stories that you just can't put down once you start reading.

From the experience, Berk said he has learned "to live each day to its fullest; to celebrate the joys of family, work, and good health; and to appreciate our every moment as precious."

Legends and Folktales: Bradley T. Turner has put together a collection of 70 local legends in and around Waco — "Cotton Bales, Goatmen & Witches: Legends from the Heart of Texas".

Each piece — such as "The Kaiser's Killer," "The Misty Man," "The Farmer's Daughter," and "The West Witch" — includes a paragraph or two of text and a photograph by Mark Burdine. TSTC Publishing is affiliated with Texas State Technical College Waco.

Silver Boomer Books: Two new anthologies have been published by Abilene-based Silver Boomer Books, which now has produced 17 books. The new ones are "Flashlight Memories" and "The Harsh and the Heart: Celebrating the Military."

"Flashlight Memories" is a collection of about 100 short essays and poems from dozens of contributors about their earliest memories of the joy of reading.

"The Harsh and the Heart" was inspired by the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, but was expanded to include pieces about military life and service. The book is dedicated "to those who serve overseas, at the homefront, in the home waiting without end."

Also from Silver Boomer Books is "A Cloud of Witnesses: Two Big Books and Us" by Barbara Rollins with O.A. Stepper. The short inspirational poems and prayers are based on text from the biblical book of Hebrews and from the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Harvick messes with Kyle Busch; Busch fails post-race inspection

He only led two laps and was never really a major threat to win at Pocono on Sunday, but Kyle Busch nonetheless found himself once again in the spotlight, and once again for all the wrong reasons.

Busch, barely a week removed from his already-infamous fight with Richard Childress, ran into trouble with one of Childress' drivers almost immediately. On Pocono's 3,000-foot-long straightaway, Kevin Harvick took a long, sloping line that forced Busch almost all the way into the infield.

In the ensuing laps, Harvick bumped Busch several times, making it clear he was attempting to rattle the 18's driver and crew. Harvick continued until NASCAR officials told the teams to knock it off, and they raced the rest of the afternoon without incident.

Afterward, Busch noted that it appeared Harvick "was trying to make it awfully difficult on me." Measuring his words carefully, Busch added that "maybe [that style of racing] kind of shows his character and who he is, how he feels he needs to race on the racetrack. But it's not my fight. He's trying to turn it into one."

Harvick, meanwhile, freely admitted he was trying to get into Busch's head. "He knows he has one coming," Harvick said, according to ESPN's David Newton. "I just wanted him to think about it."

After the race, the news got worse for Busch, as NASCAR inspectors found the left front of his car to be too low. NASCAR will take the No. 18 back to its R&D Center for further inspection and, if necessary, issue a penalty later this week. The severity of the penalty will depend on the violation, and since NASCAR has not yet laid out the points breakdown for penalties under the new points system, the exact possible penalties are still a mystery.

So how low was it? "Doesn't matter, it's too low," NASCAR VP of Competition Robin Pemberton said. "Outside the tolerances."

Busch finished third in the Pocono race. This penalty isn't severe enough to strip him of his finish or anything like that; it's more likely he'll be penalized somewhere in the five-to-15-point range, if necessary.