Odds and Ends

FOND DU LAC, Wis. -- Chalk up another meaty milestone for Don Gorske.

The Fond du Lac man downed his 20,000th Big Mac sandwich Monday, while surrounded by spectators at a local McDonald's restaurant.

He already had made the "Guinness World Records" book for eating a record number of Big Macs before he hit number 19,000 in March 2003.

He has been eating the fast food sandwiches since 1972 at a rate of at least one a day, and said he has eaten a Big Mac from every state in the union.

Still, the 6-foot Gorske has maintained his weight at about 170 pounds.

OMAHA, Neb. -- A local homeless shelter has purchased a neighboring bar and plans to build something oddly appropriate where the old tavern now stands: a drug and alcohol treatment center.

South Omaha's Stephen Center shelter bought the South Seven bar this month, said Del Bomberger, executive director of the shelter. He said the bar will be knocked down to make room for a new residential treatment center.

Bomberger said the bar had long been a problem for the shelter, because many of the shelter's patrons had drinking and drug problems and were able to get alcohol and drugs in and around the tavern.

The irony of building a treatment center on land where a bar once stood was not lost on Bomberger.

"It's really kind of a fun conversion," he said.