I’m not real big on writing about the death of someone I know.

I’m going to do it at least this one time though because I attended the funeral of former Sheriff Jerry Hounshel’s wife, Linda, on Wednesday morning.

I knew Linda to some degree, but not near as well as I know Jerry.

One thing that was said during her funeral was that Linda often went out of her way to help women prisoners during her eight years as matron there.

I know that to be true because one time she told me about a poor woman in the jail whose mother had just died.

“She wanted to go to the funeral,” Linda related to me.

The problem was the woman, who was from Indianapolis had nothing to wear, but her orange prison garb.

“I wasn’t going to let her go to her mother’s funeral like that,” Linda told me.

So Linda told me about how she went about finding something for the woman to wear to her mother’s funeral and then talked about taking her to Indianapolis and waiting for her until the service was over.

I don’t think Linda was telling me that story because she wanted a pat on the back for her efforts. I think, that despite the fact that the woman was in jail on a cocaine charge, Linda thought enough of her to find something for her to wear that wasn’t going to be embarassing.

That’s just the way Linda was.  Like most matrons, she spent a lot of time at the jail and she also spent a lot of time taking female prisoners here and there.

She was always showing me artwork male prisoners had drawn for her or other staff members. She was proud of a lot of the work and loved showing it off.

You could tell Linda thought a lot of the artists and others in the jail and thought it was just a shame they were sitting there wasting their lives away.

I also had to talk to her on a couple of occasions about the meals she fed the prisoners. She was always quick to point out that a dietician had to approve every menu, and she wasn’t skimping just to save money for her and Jerry for their new house.

I believed her because I know she was one of those rare people whose lives cross your path every once in a while.

She meant what she said and didn’t pussy-foot around about it. I think she was one of the more honest people I know.

I think many people felt that way about Linda.

A recent outing to Indianapolis proved to me the economy is not in near as a bad a shape as we’ve been led to believe by the media.

My family and I traveled to Greenwood to have dinner with my mother and father and some of my siblings on Mother’s Day. We had decided before hand to meet at 4 p.m. and thought we would have little trouble finding a place to eat at that time.

So imagine my surprise when I’m told by the hostess at one fine establishment that it would be a three to three and a half hour wait for a table of eight.

We quickly checked another restaurant and my wife was told it would be four hours before the could rustle up a table.

We were told it would be two to two and half hours at another restaurant.

I don’t know about you, but with the high gas prices dining out at the more expensive restaurants since last it would be the first thing to go. We finally settled on a cafeteria-style restaurant were the wait wasn’t near as bad.

For one thing, you have to buy gas no matter what else you do because if you can’t get to work you won’t be able to afford anything else - period.

If the economy is as bad as we’re being told, where is everybody finding the money to eat out.

As a side note, if those Indianapolis restaurants are that busy maybe they need to consider opening up restaurants out here in the sticks.

It will, however, be a long time before I visit any restaurant that tells me I’m going to have to wait more than a hour to be seated. It’s just not good service and the one thing people want and expect is good service. In an economy that is supposedly so bad, good service is often the only thing that sets one business above another.

Friday will be an historic day for my family.

That’s the day we return home after spending nearly six weeks living with my mother-in-law and father-in law while our house was being remodeled.

As the old saying goes, It’s been real. It’s been fun. But it’s not been real fun.

My in-laws are great people and I appreciate everything they’ve done, including feeding us, washing our clothes and cleaning after us, these past few weeks. They’ve just done a lot for us, but I’m sure they want their home back to themselves as much as we want to go back home.

I know our invasion of their home has been as hard on them as it has been on us.

I knew when we began talking about this project that it wouldn’t be easy and it hasn’t been.

But the improvements to our 70-plus year-old home have been great and it’s been well worth the many inconveniences.

I’m counting down the minutes, however, that I can go to sleep in my own bed.

Danica Patrick’s win in the IRL Indy 300 at Motegi, Japan, on Saturday was probably the greatest news for open-wheel motor sports racing in years.

The dazzling beauty sparked a fairly big surge of the interest in the sport when she appeared on the scene several years ago. You could tell Patrick had more going for herself than looks at that time, and her win in her 50th start Saturday night proved she has what it takes to get to victory lane - often.

I knew she could do it, and I’m sure her victory is going to make this year’s Indianapolis 500 more exciting.

As a kid growing up near the track, the 500 was the race to see and in my book it still is the greatest race in the world.

I’ve only missed six races (including the last three) in a time span of 40 years, but I have no intentions of missing this one. It sure would be great to see Patrick wind up in victory lane.

It was a little odd to see tears in victory lane. It’s not something you’re likely to see out of Tony Stewart, but I’m sure she’s not the first one to shed a few after a win.

Way to go Danica. I hope you keep kicking some butt in a male-dominated sport.

This has sure been an interesting year for college basketball fans in Indiana, and I’m not even talking about the mess IU has with Kelvin Sampson.

For the first time in years, I actually took the time to watch IU play that other school from up north Tuesday. As a graduate of Indiana, you know which side of the fence I’m on. This year’s matchup was one of the first in a long time when there was something on the line besides bragging rights. It sure would have been nice, however, to see the two teams square off at West Lafayette so we wouldn’t have to hear all those Boilermaker fans talk about being homered.

You won’t hear me say this very often, but Purdue has a really good squad this year. Of course, I think IU’s is a little better.

It sure is nice, however, to see two other Hoosier schools in the top 25. Butler has looked good for several years now, and since I’m an Indianapolis native and that’s where my daughter and her husband obtained their degrees, I have no trouble rooting for the Bulldogs.

In fact, I have no trouble rooting for any team as long as they are from Indiana. That means IU, Indiana State, Ball State, Evansville, the University of Indianapolis, Franklin, Hanover and on and on. That even means Purdue as long as they aren’t playing IU.

I might even go as far as to root for Louisville because it’s just across the Ohio from Indiana.  Just don’t expect to find me bleeding blue for those Kentucky Wildcats. Western Kentucky, maybe, but Kentucky. Won’t happen.

As for the Sampson mess, I didn’t think hiring him as a good decision in the first place, and I think IU needs to fire him.

The last time IU was sanctioned by the NCAA was back in 1966, giving my alma mater one of the best track records in the Big Ten. It’s a shame that one man could bring it down so quickly.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m getting real tired of the weather this winter.

I’m also not real happy with the forecasts that have come from the National Weather Service and weathermen and weatherwomen on television.

Let’s just take Wednesday, for instance. Predictions of 2 to 6 inches of snow or more for Monday and Tuesday fell well short, but we had plenty of ice to go around.

On Wednesay morning, I watched  a forecaster who said the storm had moved out of the area and was well on its way to the east coast. It then proceeded to snow that morning in Seymour.

I know that predicting the weather is never an easy task, but I’d be happy to see a weather forecast that was even 50 percent correct. Or even 25 percent right.

We sure haven’t had many of those this winter.

I do know that spring can’t be far off, but I’m not relying on any weather forecast for that prediction.

For one thing, the sand hill cranes up recently took up residence in the Slab Road area west of Brownstown and in other parts bottom lands in the county, including one just northwest of Seymour. The county is a real good spot for the birds to take a break while preparing to migrate even further north when temperatures start rising.

If you’ve never seen North America’s largest crane, I recommend doing so. You can see 1,000s of them in once place, and they make enough noise that I can hear them more than a mile away outside my home in Ewing.

At least someone can get the weather right.

Here’s some exciting news for the 80 million baby boomers in America. 

On Tuesday, Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, 62, of Earleville, Md., and Vero Beach, Fla., received her first Social Security retirements benefit check. The retired teacher was born one second after midnight on Jan. 1, 1946.

I was born in 1957, making me one of the younger babies born during the Baby Boom years between the end of World War II in 1945 and 1964.  

Why is it exciting news? For one thing, many of us Baby Boomers have spent our lives working and paying into a system we weren’t even sure would be in existence when became our turn to collect.

My children and the children of many other Baby Boomers often complain about how their Social Security payments will be collected and spent by their parents and how it’s likely there won’t be any money left when it’s time for them to retire. That argument has some strong merits especially because many people, such as my 80-year-old Dad, are living longer.

I still have concerns about there being any SS money for me, especially if no changes are made in the coming years.

Without changes, the Social Security administration will begin paying out more than it collects in payroll taxes in 1917.  That’s about nine years before I can retire. Projections are that the SS trust fund will have depleted its reserves by 2041.

The only good news I’ve heard on the subject in recent weeks is that many Baby Boomers have no plans to grow up, let alone retire any time soon.

I’ve told my wife, half-jokingly, many times that I’m going to retire less than five years from now when I’m 55. The truth is I’m probably like the majority of the Baby Boomers whoo never plan to grow up and retire.

I’m having some problems with all the hype about celebrities anymore.

I could really care less about the problems Brittany Spears is having these days.  And I could really care less that Lindsey Lohan, Nicole Richey and Paris Hilton had to spend a little time in jail.

The same goes for O.J. Simpson and his ever-present troubles with the law.  And news about that other Simpson, Anna Nicole, really wore me down. If I see a story about a celebrity on a news program any more, I use my remote to head elsewhere ASAP.

The news outlets really need to get a clue. Most of us could care less about what’s going on with the daily lives of all those big-named celebrities. We have enough trouble worrying about our own lives. It’s not news. It’s never been news.  

One subject I do care about, however, is Major League Baseball’s on-going drug scandal. It was reported yesterday that the guy who gave Roger Clemens his growth hormone shots also shot up Clemens’ wife just before the two were scheduled for a photo shoot for a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition back in 2003.

What’s that got to do with MLB and Clemens? Nothing. Her shot surely didn’t help Clemens win a Cy Young Award or do it?

From what I gather many of the players accused of taking performance-enhancing drugs did so before they were banned. If that’s true, end of story.

MLB should have done a better job of policing back then. Since it didn’t, the subject needs to be dropped. If MLB wants to stop the use of performace-enhancing drugs now, do it.

Baseball doesn’t have a monopoly on problem people. They are everywhere.

If guys like Ty Cobb and Babe Ruth can make it into the Hall of Fame, Clemens shouldn’t be kept out because he might have used performance-enhancing drugs. If that was a reason, there won’t be too many players inducted into the hall in the coming years.

The strike that cost us the World Series back in 1994 cost the sport plenty. I know it did for me. The present drug-scandal could kill the sport completely.

That’s a shame for all those kids who take to the diamonds each spring.

Play ball 

While doing a little research on the lack of rain we had this past summer and fall, I stumbled across some information on the Internet that I found to be interesting.

Did you know that Seymour holds two records when it comes to the hottest temperatures ever recorded in the state.

According to the Indiana State Climate Office at Purdue University, Seymour holds the highest temperature ever recorded in the state for both the months of June and August. Back in 1936, a really hot year, there were at least one day in each of those two months when the temperature reached 111 degrees.

By the way, those aren’t temperatures were not the highest ever recorded in the state. That honor goes to Collegeville where the temperature hit 116 in July of the same year. Collegeville is located in Jasper County in far northwestern Indiana.

For more, visit http://www.agry.purdue.edu/climate/facts.asp

For the record, the drought that plagued the county for most of the spring, summer and fall of 2007 is long gone. It began in late May and ended in early December.

I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to keeping up with the latest and greatest technologicial innovations.

That’s something my 15-year-old can vouch for because I’m always asking him to help me make something work on my cell phone or my DVD player.

But I do try to keep up with the current events, and I just read an article today about a future with driverless cars.

It seems General Motor executives believe that such an animal could become available within the next decade.

Many of the technologies such as motion sensors, lane-change warning devices, GPS mapping and radar-based crusie control, to make a driverless vehicle exist, they claim.

GM says there’s a few simple issues standing in the way of a driverless vehicles. Issues such as privacy, governmental regulation and Americans’ willingness to give up control of their vehicles.

The company also claims the new technology would go along way toward reducing the numbers of Americans who die or are seriously injured in crashes on the nation’s roads each year.

I have a simple question. If the technology exists to make traveling safer, why aren’t we already using it every vehicle coming off a production line?