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?

I recently looked over the Indiana Commission on Local Government Reform’s report on Streamlining Local Government.

There were 27 recommendations, concerning county government, schools, libraries and other areas of local government, issued by the commission.

I’ve cover county government for a number of years and I also cover two school boards so I don’t think I’m going to express an opinion on the recommendations dealing with those areas too much.I think we need to take a serious look at implementing many of the recommendations.

For a long time now, I’ve thought the county needed a “mayor” type person, someone who would be on the job 40 hours a week. I’ve watched the county council and commissioners struggle for years with complex issues they have a hard time getting their arms around.

For one thing, council members and commissioners often work full-time jobs besides their work for the county, and they just don’t have the time it takes to understand the complex workings of government. Even full-time county officials have a hard time dealing with some of the buearacy.

One instance of that occurred this year when the state withheld property tax replacement credit monies because of issues submitted by the county to the department of local government.

Everytime county officials felt they had submitted the correct, the state would ask for more.A county executive should be able to get a better handle on some of these types of issues and might even be able to help the county obtain some of those grants everyone believes is out there to be had just for the asking.

I don’t think that many of the present county officials, including the sheriff, should be appointed by the county executive.

That sure seems to me to be opening the door for a lot of cronism.I also like the idea of establishing a countywide body to oversee the provision of all public safety services.

During my years covering the police beat, I’ve seen many occasions where disputes about jurisdiction have arisen among public safety officials.I also like the idea of joint purchasing by schools although many of our local schools already participate in purchasing cooperatives.

Brownstown Central, for instance, recently decided to purchase three buses through Wilson Education Service Center in Charlestown, avoiding the need for Brownstown to have to go through the bidding process and saving money.Recommendations to move municipal elections to even years so they are held at the same time as other Indiana elections is a good one as well as one moving non-partisan school elections to November during those same elections.

The  recommendations are designed to reduce the cost of government and make it more effective and efficient.

I think that Hoosiers need to have the chance to vote on many of these recommendations before they are implemented.

Let’s give them a chance.

Many continue to question Jackson County Prosecutor Rick Poynter’s decision to pursue a plea agreement with Zachariah C.J. Blanton, the 18-year-old Gaston man.

On Monday, Blanon admitted he drove to the Enos Road bridge over Interstate 65 on July 23, 2006. He then took a high-powered 270 Remington rifle from his vehicle and shot and killed Jerry Ross of New Albany, who was riding in the back seat of a pickup driven by his brother, David Ross. The Rosses along with a third brother, Terry Ross, were returning home from a night of late model racing in Indianapolis.Blanton also admitted to firing a second shot at another southbound vehicle, injuring an Iowa man.

As a reporter, I’m supposed to try to remain unbiased as I write any story. That was tough to do in this case considering the crime. It’s a cliché, but I going to use it anyway. There was no winner in this case.

You didn’t have to look very hard to see the pain in the eyes of Ross’ family as well as Blanton’s grandparents.

After the plea hearing on Monday, Poynter faced a tough crowd of reporters all questioning his decision to go for the plea agreement instead of pursuing a trial.I have to give Poynter credit for one thing. He stood by the statements he made when he was running for election in 2006. He said at that time, the evidence in each case needed to be looked at differently and that there are times a plea agreement should be used.He said the same thing under questioning Monday.  At least he’s been consistent.

I’ve attended a lot of meetings of government entities in the county during my more than 21 years as a reporter. One of my favorites is Medora town council meetings.
It didn’t use to be that way because meetings in this small southwestern Jackson County town back in those days could run on for two or three hours.
The present council, especailly President Jim Davers run meetings much more smoothly and they’re usually over in 30 minutes or so. And these are truly some of the most democratic meetings I’ve covered.
Most other governing bodies only pay lip service to the patrons attending their meetings. Sometimes they allow those people to talk if they’ve called and asked to be put on the agenda, but those people rarely if ever get any kind of reply from one of their elected officials.
It’s not that way, however, at Medora Town Hall. After the council finishes conducting its business, Davers asks the town’s department heads if they have anything to add. He then moves on to the townsfolk sitting around waiting to talk.
He asks each one by name if they have anything. Some say no, but others speak up voicing their concerns all kinds of issues. Topics include the dogs roaming town, yards that aren’t clean enough to meet their standards and just about anything else that they can think about at the time. The council rarely can do anything about the issues brought up by the people except to nod and agree.
But I think the people voicing their concerns leave the meeting happy that someone was willing to listen to them if just for a few minutes. I’m as guilty as the next person about taking the time to listen when I’m being spoken to, but maybe we all need to listen a little more and talk a little less.

A year ago, I spent four days and three nights in Washington, D.C., with my son’s eighth-grade class.

I’m not sure about the kids, but it was an exciting time for me since I hadn’t visit our nation’s capital in more than 35 years.

It hasn’t changed much since my first visit with the exception of men guarding key buildings with weapons and the checkpoints e

veryone has to pass through before be allowing in almost any building.

We hit all the high spots during this most recent visit including the Lincoln and Washington memorials, the Capitol, the White House, Arlington National Cemetery, Ford’s Theatre, the Holocaust Museum, the Library of Congress, the Supreme Court, the National Archives and Union Station.

When we were on our way home at asked my son what he liked most about Washington and he gave me an answer I didn’t really expect. In fact, I was so surprised by it that I later asked some of his classmates if they agreed and they did.While they all told me they enjoyed seeing all the old building and monuments, the thing they remember most about the visit was an 80-something World War II veteran who stopped to talk to them just outside the Washington Monument about his war experiences.

This guy was no Audie Murphy, but he talked about the time he spent during the war serving on a Navy tender, a ship that supplies and services other ships. The man had pictures of his ship and spent a good 20 minutes or more talking about the war and why he gave up his Sunday afternoons to come the National Mall and talk to anyone willing to listen.

What had been a pretty rowdy bunch of kids set listening quietly and even asked a lot of good questions.I can’t even remember his name now, but ask some of the kids and they can tell you. That’s just how much of an impression he made on them. What a priceless gift that man gave to those kids.

I watched a video on the Web the other day in which it was stated that one billion people on this planet make a dollar a day.  That same video also said that even more make less in a year than the cost of a laptop.

I don’t know how true those statements are, but if they are it sure seems sad especially when compared to Forbes’ seventh annual list of top-earning dead celebrities.

Do you know that Elvis, who died 30 years ago, made $49 million to top the list and that John Lennon, who died in December of 1980, was second with $44 million. By the way, Elvis has topped the list six of the seven years that Forbes has published it. The only year he didn’t wn was in 2006 when Kurt Cobain brought in $50 million, 8 million more that Elvis.

The top 13 dead-celebrities grossed $232 combined this past year. The remainder of the list in order are Charles Schulz, George Harrison, Albert Einstein, Andy Warhol, Dr. Suess (Theodor Giesel), Tupac Shakur, Marilyn Monroe, Steve McQueen, James Brown, Bob Marley and James Dean.

I not one of those people who believes that someone needs to take charge and redistribute the wealth, but it is amazing how much some celebrities are make long after they died.

The list is located at http://www.forbes.com/lists/

It’s not very often that you can turn on the radio and hear a song about Seymour.

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.