This year was different because the Fourth was on a Friday, which means some of us had to work the night of the Fourth to put out Saturday morning’s newspaper.

As a rule, I’m usually in the newspaper for our nation’s birthday and that means I miss out on the fireworks, which is not that big of deal. I’ve seen a lot of firework shows both here in Jackson County as well as Indianapolis and Louisville.

On Friday, however, we took a break from putting out Saturday’s newsaper and ventured out on to the roof of the Tribune  just prior to the fireworks show at Freeman Field. That was a good show, but before the main event there were a lot of other people putting on their own firework shows around the city.

From what I can tell people must spend a lot of money on fireworks because from our central point in downtown Seymour you could look any direction and see spectacular displays. There was a constant barrage of fireworks from points all over the city during the brief time that I and a couple of other staffers were on the roof.

The celebration reminded me of the time that my mother and I took my two older children to New York City on our nation’s 200th birthday back in 1976. That city celebrated the bicentennial in style. We stayed at my brother’s apartment in Queens, but traveled to Battery Park in lower Manhattan and wound up watching the show from a perch somewhere near the World Trade Center and not too far away from the Statute of Liberty.

It didn’t really matter where you where in the Big Apple that night, because the firework show was repeated from key spots around Manhattan and everyone had the chance to see the same show.

Our local celebration didn’t match that event, but it was a pretty good show anyway.

I like to think I’m the kind of person who doesn’t have to drop names to prove my importance.

But I think I will anyway.

Over the years, I’ve interviewed Tony Stewart, Fuzzy Zoeller, Evan Bayh, Mitch Daniels, Frank O’Bannon, Arie Luyendyk, Al Unser Jr. and a host of other well-known individuals. I’ve had the opportunity to cover events featuring former Vice President Dan Quayle as well as his wife, Marilyn, former President Bill Clinton and presidential candidate Barrack Obama. I also had the chance to say “howdy” to Gomer Pyle one time after an Indianapolis 500.

My favorite encounter with a famous person, however, occurred long before I became a journalist.

At the time, this person wasn’t famous himself. In fact, he was a little boy of maybe four or five years of age. I was just a 16-year-old teenager trying to make a buck so I could keep paying the then unheard price of 69 cents for a gallon of gasoline.

My work as an usher at Bush Stadium in Indianapolis led to my meeting the child of one of the future members of the Big Red Machine. There were many players from a squad that would win the World Series in 1975 and 1976 playing for the Indianapolis Indians in 1973.

I knew many of their wives by sight, and some of their children as well.

One of those children just happened to be Ken Griffey Jr. Like most boys of that age, Junior loved to throw or roll a ball down the ramp to the area where he sat with his mom and other player’s wives and children.

He wouldn’t remember much about me from his days hanging out at Bush Stadium.

At the time, I wasn’t aware of how far this little boy would go in the world of baseball.

It was great to see him recently hit his 600th homer and join an elite crowd of just five other players in the game’s history. I’m happy that Griffey’s name will go down in history with the likes of Ruth, Aaron, Bonds, Mays and Sosa.

In my book, Griffey’s already got a leg up on at least three of the people on that list because he seems to have been able to stay out of trouble. He also is a far better role model than some of the other members of that club.

Junior might not be the greatest player to ever play the game. But he’s in my top 10.

As the dog and I headed into downtown Ewing, Brownstown Police Officer John Long stopped me and said it looked like I had a long day ahead of me.

I asked him why and he said he had just heard a report on his scanner that they were evacuating Little York because of flooding.

I said something to the effect of “great” and walked on, but a few minutes later, Long caught up with me again and said he had told me wrong.

They weren’t evacuating Little York, they were evacuating Little Acres.

I still haven’t decided whether I need to thank John or not for making my day.

His information however, changed things dramatically for me because Little Acres is in Jackson County whereas Little York is in Washington County.

The dog and I quickly finished our walk and I woke my wife to tell her I was leaving.

I also tried to wake my 15-year-old son to see if he wanted to tag along, but that was a futile effort.

By the time I made it to Little Acres off Indiana 11 north of Seymour, most of the evacuation was completed although flood waters completed covered Indiana 11 just east of the Interstate. I did have the opportunity to take some photographs of a frightened deer caught in a fence along the road. The poor thing was able to free itself after a few minutes. I hoped it survived.

That’s a sight I’ve not seen in my 22 years living in Jackson County.My day, however, was finished. After speaking with my wife and my editor, I learned that evacuations were in progress in areas on the northwest side of Seymour.

I headed that way and spent most of the rest of Sunday morning and afternoon taking pictures of and talking to people leaving their homes because of rising flood waters from the East Fork of the White River.

About 4 p.m., I headed home to take a break, but later in the evening, my wife, son and I headed to Medora to check out the situation in that small southwestern Jackson County town.

The scene there was amazing. The first thing we spotted other than the normal roadblocks were a large group of people of all ages filling sandbags.A walk down Perry Street revealed that flood waters were beginning to creep into the business portion of the town. The population of the town also looked like it was more than doubled.

There was almost a festive atmosphere as children and adults rode their bicycles around viewing the rising flood waters. 

At one point, I even saw a couple of kids playing in flood waters along a sidewalk on Perry Street.The things I will remember about the June 8, 2008, flood, however, is the how everyone pitched in and helped out their friends in neighbors.

In Seymour, I saw many people helping others remove furniture, televisions and other items from homes that looked to be in the path of flooding. 

I saw similar actions by others in Medora, and interestingly enough many of those involved in the sandbagging efforts in that town there were teenagers, who spent hours working to help others. No surprise there becuase as the parent of a teenage, I know what they are capable of doing if they feel the need.

I don’t know how many times throughout the day that I heard people telling others to let them know if they needed help.

It seems people are always voicing those words although the sincerity often doesn’t accompanied them. The sincerity was there Sunday.

I don’t think the people of Jackson County are any different than those anywhere else or any better when it comes to helping out their family, friends and neighbors.

But it sure is nice to see people pull together in time of needs instead of arguing over issues that really don’t amount to a hill of beans.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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’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.

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.