Title:
Two of Santa's Reindeer Flee in Texas (Really)
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Agriculture Report.
See text below
Text:
Two of Santa's reindeer -- Comet and Dancer -- got
loose on a busy roadway in Texas just days before
Christmas. Think we're joking? It happened halfway
between Houston and Galveston. The reindeer's owner,
Joe Moorman is a professional Santa Claus, also
known as Father Christmas or Saint Nicholas or Kris
Kringle. But unlike many other Santas, this one
really does travel in a sleigh pulled by reindeer --
except when he has to transport them. On December
fourteenth, the back door of the trailer opened as
he was driving them to an elementary school. Comet
and Dancer escaped onto Interstate-45 -- not exactly
the North Pole. Another driver alerted Santa. As he
told TV station KTRK: "Someone pulled up beside us,
actually, and blew the horn and was waiving and all
that, and told us we had some animals loose. Well,
my heart did not do too well." The morning traffic
was heavy but slow with people on their way to work.
Drivers called the police, who at first thought they
were joking. Yes, there really were reindeer in the
road. Then Santa found that he had some helpers.
People stopped traffic and got out of their cars.
One woman took off her shoes and ran after the
reindeer. Another person followed. But the reindeer
themselves were the ones who ended the chase. They
found a park and stopped to eat. Joe Moorman says he
was more shaken than they were. He says: "God was
with the reindeer, you know, and he takes care of
fools and things that cannot take care of
themselves." The story had a happy ending: Santa and
his reindeer were able to visit the schoolchildren
as promised. The Reindeer Owners and Breeders
Association says reindeer are easy to train to pull
a cart or sleigh. Greg Finstad at the University of
Alaska Fairbanks says reindeer "like people and are
pleasant to have around." He says reindeer
management is not very difficult. That's good, since
he also says -- and children might want to cover
their ears for this part -- reindeer is a basic meat
in the cold climate of Alaska. For VOA Special
English, I'm Alex Villarreal. You can watch a story
about the runaway reindeer by KTRK reporter Deborah
Wrigley at voaspecialenglish.com. Special English is
VOA's daily news and information service for people
learning English. You can also get English lessons
three times a day, Monday through Friday, at the VOA
Learning English page on Facebook.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
