The biggest object ever stolen by one man was the SS Orient Trader, a 10,639-ton freighter moored in the St. Lawrence Seaway at Wolfe`s Cove in Quebec. On a moonless night in June, 1966, William Kennedy, armed with a sharp axe, slashed its mooring lines, let the vessel drift to a waiting tug, escaped a ban on ship movements during a violent strike and entered the Guinness Book of World Records.
Bus-napping remains a distant second in terms of size. But an entry in that field has been reported from (where else) New York City. There, four weeks ago, a $185,000 bus, one of two carrying baseball fans from Virginia to watch a doubleheader between the Mets and the Montreal Expos, disappeared from the parking lot of the Sheraton Inn at LaGuardia Airport.
”My husband`s been in business 40 years,” complains Betsy Gallop.
”We`ve had kids pick up a bus in our lot and run it down the street. But we`ve always gotten it back in a day or two. We`ve lost some CB radios in New York, but never a whole bus.”
In this case, as days passed, worry turned to gloom. In a dramatic appeal, the company placed a $5,000 display ad in the New York Daily News.
”My family is in Virginia,” it said in part. ”I know they are looking for me. Tell your friends to look also. If your information leads to my recovery, there will be a reward ($2,500.)”
The missing bus is described as a 47-passenger vehicle, carrying Virginia plates, blue stripes on its white sides, 65,000 miles on the hub meter and a dent on the driver`s side. ”We don`t have a clue where it went,” a spokesperson for Gallop said this week in their home base, Virginia Beach.
”Two people called to say they thought they saw it. But nothing solid.”
Drivers and passengers were sleeping at the hotel when the theft occurred. ”The parking lot was supposed to be secure,” the spokesperson said. ”We`re still going to New York City,” she added, ”but we`ll be watching our buses a lot more closely.” The line has 23 buses left.
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