Things sure have changed, and I take my hat off to those who made it happen including the employees of the Seymour branch and manager Barbara “Babbs” Tauman. Great job.

One recent morning, however, I was listening to WDVX, a Bluegrass station out of Knoxville, Tenn., while at work and heard a song that talked about Seymour, a train robbery and the Reno Brothers. Yea, I know I was supposed to be working.

The song is on an album, Took Down and Put Up, released this summer by Larry Cordle & Lonesome Standard Time. 

It was written by Chris Stuart, a lead singer and rhythm guitarist as well as a bluegrass songwriter.

Stuart’s family is from Texas, although he grew up mostly in Jacksonville, Florida. He is presently playing in Europe with his band, Backcountry.

I don’t know why Stuart came to write about an event that happened in Seymour on Oct. 6, 1866, but it sure is an interesting song to listen especially if you enjoy bluegrass.

In the past that would have been a major crisis because it would have meant many fights over the remaining television. For some reason, however, in recent years we have accumulated a storehouse full of TVs and other devices of entertainment around our home.

At the time of this TV’s demise we had TVs in five rooms. The problem with that is there are only three of us living in the house, if you don’t count the dog. When you throw in a computer, a couple of DVD players and a few more radios and it sure seems like overkill to me.

The television that decided to bite the dust gave no signs that trouble was brewing.

When it quit it just quit, but it’s death didn’t come in a way I would consider normal.

In fact, I think a ghost might have set up shop in our home and just in time for Halloween.

Why do I lend anything to that possibility? Because this television just started coming on without any help, unless Rookie (our dog) has been spending his spare time learning how to turn on a television.

And to make matters worse, when it would come on in the middle of the night, the volume would be low. It would, however, get louder and louder until it was turned up full blast, which woke me up and sent me pounding into my son’s room to see why he couldn’t shut off his TV - again.

I really don’t think we’re a victim of any visits by ghosts or spirits.. It’s more likely that we are a victim of some kind of new technology that’s well ahead of anything I’m ready to learn.

It will be a sad day for me when that happens.  

I wasn’t involved in the actual construction of the dome, but I it sure seemed like I was there every day when it was being built back in the early 1980s. That’s  because I worked for the paint store in Indianapolis that provided more than 2,000 gallons of brown block filler for the interior walls of the dome.

The dome always could be seen from IUPUI where I spent part of my days back then attending school. 

The dome is always the place where I received my degree in journalism back in the early 1980s. My sister would later receive her degree in the same building.

Over the years I attended a number of state boys basketball finals in the Dome, and it was a real treat to see my alma mater, Ben Davis, win a title there back in 1996 (back before class basketball began).

I also had the chance to watch the Owls compete for a state title there back in 1991.

I also watched numerous Colts games there as well as a couple of NCAA tournament games. 

The place holds a lot of memories for me, and I’ll sure miss it.

Arthur, a member of the county park board who has researched the history of Shieldstown and the nearby covered bridge, has her ideas about what’s there. I think she’s probably on the right track. She contends that the row of logs that once ran in a row across the bottom of the river is most likely the base for a dam, which was used when a mill was built at Shieldstown in the mid 1850s.

Some of the logs have now floated downstream leaving gaps in the structure, but there’s still enough there to see what was once there. 

Arthur said others believe they could have been a corduroy road. One of those individuals is Jackson Township Trustee Bill Marsh who has a cabin in the area. Marsh said it looks a lot like a corduroy. He and others with similar beliefs could be right. I don’t know.

Marsh and I talked about the logs that were there for quite a while.

There’s no doubt at all that human activity led to the logs being laid there and it happened a long time ago. For one thing, they have holes cut in them.

If you have any interest in history, especially that of the mid 1800s, you might want to consider stopping by the bridge this fall to check it out. Just look to the south when you cross the bridge. It’s well worth it.

If you do so and have any ideas about what’s there, let me know.

I told him that in my 20-plus years of covering government issues and the courts, nothing is black and white even state statute. Put five lawyers and a judge in the room and you would get six different opinions about what state statute said on any given subject.

Here’s just one example of how “muddied” state statute can be on a subject.

Brownstown’s town council consists of five members, but only four are required to vote. State statute says the president is the executive member of the council and does not vote unless there is a tie.

State statute also says that an ordinance needs to have at least two readings for passage and those readings need to be on different nights unless the council passes it unanimously on first reading. That by the way, means the president has to vote.

Another state statute, however, says the vote does not have to pass unanimously for an ordinance to be enacted during the same meeting. That statute says only a simple majority has to vote yes.

And here’s another interesting tidbit. The clerk-treasurer in Brownstown also may vote in the event of a tie vote if the president is absent.

I hope that clears everything up.