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.

We had a TV quit working on us a couple of weeks ago.

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.

Plans are in place to tear down the building I’ve always referred to as the Hoosier Dome although it’s been known as the RCA Dome for a long time now.

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.

As a history buff, I enjoyed taking pictures and talking to Fleeta Arthur about what the lower river levels at Shieldstown this year have revealed.

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’ve been the proud and happy owner the past couple of years of something I never thought I would own. That would be a lap dog.

As a kid and even as a young adult, I tended to like bigger dogs. Now that I’ve reached the ripe old age of 50, I’m really beginning to like the idea of having a smaller dog like my good buddy, Rookie, hanging around all the time.

This little bichon frise came into my family’s life a couple of years ago and he’s become a real member of the family or at least he thinks he’s one of us. He’s sure treated like a family member most of the time, except when I step on him when I make a visit to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

He has his bad days, but don’t we all.

And many of my younger friends and family members tend to make fun of him. Some even have picked up the strange idea that Rookie is actually a member of the cat family.

But he’s loyal and he actually thinks his as big as the rest of the dogs in the neighbor. We don’t  tell him any different because he thinks he’s protecting us. we don’t want to hurt his feelings.

A story I’m working on right now points out how valuable even a small dog can be. The story is about a little  chihuahua, Stella, who wakes up her owner in time for her to discover a kitchen fire in her neighbor’s apartment. Stella saves the day.

It’s something I would like to think Rookie would do for us if the need ever arises.

Go Dog Go

I’m going to make a bold prediction here. I think we’re going to have a really cold, cold, cold winter.
I’m talking about consecutive days of below zero weather. It’s been a long time since we’ve had one of those kinds of winter. Oh sure, we had 29 inches of snow in one day a few years ago, but it didn’t last long.

I’m basing my prediction on something my grandfather told me years ago when we had a similar hot and long dry summer.

He said back in ‘06 there was a similar hot summer followed by a really cold, cold winter. It’s hard not to believe a man who spent 95 years on this earth and saw plenty of summers and winters. He was right that year, and I think we’re going to pay for this summer before the winter’s over.

Remember you heard it here first.

The recent arrest of Medora Superintendent Andrew Day raises an interesting question.
Day’s arrest, however, on two counts of ghost employment raises an interesting question. What exactly is ghost employment? I had to look it up myself. That’s in part because my image of ghost employment involved someone getting paid for not doing a job.
State statutue defines ghost employment as a public servant who knowingly or intentionally hires an employee for the governmental entity that he or she serves and fails to assign to the employee any duties, or assigns to the employee any duties not related to the operation of the governmental entity or a public servant who knowingly or intentionally assigns to an employee under his supervision any duties not related to the operation of the governmental entity that he serves.
I’ve been covering the police beat for the better part of 15 years now, and I can’t remember another time when someone has been charged with ghost employment during those years. Ghost employment is something you use to hear a lot more about back in the days when the patronage system was in effective in local and state government. In those days, public officials could and often did hire family members to work for them, and that led to some terrible abuses of the system. It’s good those day are gone.
I’m not making any judgment about whether or not Day is guilty. That’s for a court to decide.

I haven’t always agreed with everything Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has thrown at us in the past two and a half years, but I’ve got to give him credit for one thing. He sure knows how to get out and mingle with the commoner.
In the 21 years I’ve been in this business, I’ve never seen a governor visit our area more than Mitch has during his tenure.
And he just doesn’t come down here and mingle with other politicians or business men and women.
He actually talks to anyone willing to give him the time of day. I like that in a person.
On Friday, he stopped in Seymour and brought along more than 200 motorcycle riders. It was a ride designed to promote motorcycle awareness and traffic safety in general.
It also was a ride designed for another purpose, Daniels told me.
“We just want to have fun,” he said.
Nothing wrong with that.

The boy I use to call “Young Man” has become just that, a young man. On Wednesday, my wife plans to take him to the license branch so he can get his beginner’s permit.

It’s kind of scary knowing that a little more than a year from now, he will be grabbing his keys and leaving our home to go out and do what teenagers like to do when they become independent.

In a way, I’m glad he’s growing up although it seems to have happened so fast. A year ago, he was almost a head shorter than me and now we can look at each other eye-to-eye.

As they say you can’t stop progress, but sometimes I sure would like to slow it down just a little.