The "chain gang" for the Hillsboro Indians has outlasted any head football coach in the school's recent history that I can name. One of my former co-workers, the inimitable Tom Pennington, is beginning his 31st season as a member of the chain gang. Tom, Terry Britton, and Mike Ward are the guys entrusted with keeping the proper down and distance and line of scrimmage for the Indians' five home games each season. I know Larry Cole had done this job in previous seasons and I'm sure there were others as well.

The "chain gang" for the Hillsboro Indians has outlasted any head football coach in the school's recent history that I can name. One of my former co-workers, the inimitable Tom Pennington, is beginning his 31st season as a member of the chain gang. Tom, Terry Britton, and Mike Ward are the guys entrusted with keeping the proper down and distance and line of scrimmage for the Indians' five home games each season. I know Larry Cole had done this job in previous seasons and I'm sure there were others as well.

Citizens would be wise to keep a more watchful eye on their government. Attending a town hall meeting once every five or 10 years is all well and good, but government – on all levels – works best when the taxpayers are keeping close tabs. More modest increases in salaries, wages and benefits during the city's Gilded Age would have left some funds available for infrastructure. Of course it didn't happen.

Kelly Walker opened her Saturday, Aug. 20 performance at the Fling Barn with Bobbie Gentry's 1967 classic "Ode to Billie Joe," a song about the day "Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge." Kelly, a.k.a, Kelly Red, dedicated the song to her late husband, Whiteoak High School graduate Kevin Walker, who passed away two months ago at the too-soon age of 47, just 11 days before the couple's 20th wedding anniversary.

Think about it. When a distinguished scholar like 81-year-old Reid Buckley says America’s people have become vile and servile, our governing institutions corrupt, our Congress cowardly, and our vision materialistic, solipsistic, and contemptible, who can argue?

Adams County and the society of Ohio professional journalists lost a great friend this week. For Stephen Kelley to leave us at 62 years of age isn't fair.

A friend of mine has always insisted that a hard-working individual needs at least two weeks’ vacation each year just to recharge the biological battery.
    I can’t argue with that.
    But I can’t always get away for two consecutive weeks, either. As the Rolling Stones say, You can’t always get what you want.

Think about it. An officer of the law whose professional duty is to protect and serve, threatens an American citizen and pretends to be cop, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner all in the same breath. (Well, at least these are Canton's tax dollars at work and not yours.)

From the White House to the statehouses to the counties, cities, colleges and schools, one thing for all of us to remember is this: We need to stop spending money that just isn't there.

And then there’s the TV commercials for “those romantic moments.” I swear I’m not making this up, but one of the commercials shows a man and a woman sitting in separate bathtubs in the middle of the woods. Why? Because you never know when the time is right. Men buy this product, of course. Why? Because they are scared to death that one day they’ll come home and see two bathtubs sitting in the woods or the backyard under two tiki torches and a plastic palm tree. Hey, you never know when the time is right. You must be prepared.

If I have learned nothing else in 50 years, I've learned this: If we cannot respect, we cannot like; if we cannot like, we cannot love; if we prefer to judge, we cannot forgive.

Hey, before I forget, did you hear the one about the bartender and the three lawmakers at the Ohio Statehouse? A Republican senator, a Democrat House member and the governor walk into the new Statehouse bar. The bartender says, “What is this, some kind of joke?”

Most of the time, I’m smart enough to avoid entering into a debate with Jim Surber. And, by no means, is that my intent today. But when Jim used these medium to lament the End Times of newspapers, I couldn’t help but smile.

On those rare occasions in the American political landscape where an all-Democratic political body appoints a Republican to public service or where an all-Republican political body appoints a Democrat to public service, it sends a clear message about the character and integrity of the appointed person.

The majority of us in America’s small towns and rural communities are friends and neighbors. And we ought to start acting like it. In the past several months, we seem to have lost a little focus on the important things. Why?