D's Notebook

Tag: Indiana (Page 1 of 2)

The Milan Miracle

March 26, 2014 /

It’s been 60 years since the Milan Miracle, when tiny Milan high school knocked off much bigger Muncie Central in the Indiana boys high school championship game. If you’re not from Indiana, you likely know of the game because of the fictionalized version that had Hickory High winning in the movie Hoosiers.

The Indianapolis Star had a fantastic oral history of Milan’s run over the weekend.

Bobby Plump doesn’t spend a lot of time on “what-ifs.” The shot went in after all, didn’t it? Why worry about what would have happened if the ball clanked off the back of the rim that night in Hinkle Fieldhouse?

”I think the correct answer is this,” Plump says, standing in the exact spot where he took the shot. “If I hadn’t made the shot, I wouldn’t be standing here talking to you about it 60 years later.”

Milan 60 Years Later

Convenient Historical Perspectives

May 10, 2012 /

Tuesday was primary election day in Indiana. The state continued its shift to the far right, selecting several candidates for the general election who have narrow views of both US history and how our nation should be governed going forward.

I’m fascinated by how many politicians run around saying that they want to return our government to the ideals that the Founding Fathers had in mind. Why are so many voters so dumb as to believe the Founders had a monolithic view of government? There were a shitload of Founders, and they didn’t all agree on everything. The constitutional process was contentious and many of those involved in creating our government left with bad feelings about the final result. Yet to hear some folks today, the Founders were all on the same page and their 18th Century view of the world is unquestionably the best way to govern in the 21st Century.

Tuesday, long-time Indiana senator Dick Lugar was trounced in the Republican primary by a candidate who toes the Tea Party line and has said he will refuse to ever compromise with senators who hold differing views. The nominee, Richard Mourdock, said that Lugar – a genuinely decent man who spent his entire career carving out a place in the Senate where all views were aired and respected even if eventually voted against – and his style are to blame for all that ills America. So the “constitutionalist” is saying that a man who represented Indiana in a manner that most Founding Fathers would likely approve of, regardless of their ideology, is the one who has caused the problems while narrow-minded, obstructionists like Mourdock are the ones who will cure what ails our country.

Our country is in trouble because members of both parties, in all branches of government, have refused to make tough choices and ask America to make sacrifices for generations. Republicans see spending cuts/tax reductions as the only way to get the economy back on track, and are intent on gutting every part of government except for Defense. Democrats have pushed forward new spending programs while refusing to take honest, long-overdue assessments of existing programs that could result in significant changes in benefits and budget savings.

To get this nation back on track, it will not take conservative or liberal policies, or even some wishy-washy centrist solution. It will take members of both parties, in all offices, talking honestly and openly about what things we need to change to move forward. There will be new taxes, whether the Republicans like it or not. There will be fundamental changes to the old school entitlement programs, whether Democrats like it or not. And to get there without completely wrecking the economy in the process, it will take open-minded, contentious debate, not digging their heels in and refusing to move away from narrow views. Politicians must take political risks and actually be honest with Americans for a change, instead of blaming the other side and insisting that their plan is the only way to fix things. And we’re all going to have to give something up. Wall Street and Main Street. The 1% and the 99%. Majority and minorities. Cities, suburbs, and farms.

Richard Mourdock is right that fixing our country will involve honoring what the Founding Fathers did when they built the foundations for our government. Where he’s wrong, though, is in his imagined belief that the Founders were a singular entity with one view of the world and how government should work. He’s forgetting that the Founders were many, had different perspectives, and believed in the power of debate and compromise. The “miracle” of American government that has allowed this nation to survive civil and global war, economic catastrophe, and political turmoil, is their compromises to ensure that all segments of the country were represented in government. Something the Tea Partiers seem to forget.

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Virtual Storm Chaser

May 2, 2012 /

You know, I’ve been blogging for almost nine years now. I figure I repeat myself from time-to-time, and generally if I think I’m saying something that’s been said before, I acknowledge it. But since I’ve moved my Internet Home around so often, eliminating the possibility of an exhaustive archive, I have to guess sometimes. So I may well have written about this topic before. My apologies if that’s the case.

The first thing I ever wanted to be was a weatherman. I remember when I was three or four, standing in front of a blank TV screen giving fake weather reports to approporiately delighted family members. I analyzed maps so I could figure out where the states were. And when the weather was actually on TV, I paid extra close attention to pick up new techniques for my own reports.

Fortunately, that career goal passed. Although there was a night or two in college, while I was contemplating my next change in major, that I scoped out the Meteorology curriculum. As I recall, there was way too much math and since I had already basically flunked out of pre-business, that didn’t seem like a wise choice.1

Anyway, I bring this up because Tuesday was a stormy evening in Indiana and while the girls watched ‘Good Luck Charlie’ and other fine Disney programming, I sat around monitoring the storms. On the iPad I had multiple radar feeds going, as well as the local storm chasers I follow on Twitter.2 On my iPhone, I was using the Emergency Radio app to monitor the local amateur radio storm network. I checked Google Maps to find tiny Indiana towns from which storm chasers were relaying their reports.

The geekiest (saddest) part about this post isn’t that I was doing all this stuff. No, the geekiest part is that I was loving it. It was better than prime time TV, and certainly better than watching the Royals get crushed in Detroit.

I am approaching the time when I need to begin making career decisions again. Maybe it’s not too late to catch up on my math and finally get that meteorology degree!

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  1. I wish I knew about these weak ‘general studies’ degrees that athletes get. That would have been perfect for me. I could have taken all the different, bizarre, unrelated classes I wanted and still ended up with a degree. The saddest part of my college transcript isn’t the poor grades in the semesters I didn’t care. No, it’s the many interesting classes I took that didn’t do a damn thing to help me eventually get my degree. ↩
  2. I know, I know. I do have a wife, so save the “blogger in the basement” jokes for someone else. ↩

Yay Indiana!

April 11, 2012 /

For the next month or so, the Indiana High School Athletic Association is holding public hearings around the state to discuss multi-class basketball. Even if there is an overwhelming outpouring of support for going back to the old system, no one really expects the tournament to change. The final decision is in the hands of the state’s principals, who are overwhelmingly for keeping things the way they are.

I’ve written before about how my opinion on this has changed after living here. I didn’t used to understand why a state this size would throw tiny rural schools against schools in Indianapolis with 5000 students in any team sport. But I’ve come around, and while I don’t think a single-class tournament would solve all the problems facing high school basketball, a modified system that bridges the gaps between the two systems would be best.

While he doesn’t include it in his story, Indianapolis Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep tweeted that one speaker at last night’s meeting shared the old, tired, wildly innaccurate, Bookeyman argument against multi-class basketball: “it’s socialism, dammit!” If you start talking about high school basketball in this state, someone will claim dividing schools by size is an evil socialist plot sooner rather than later. Well done, Hooisers!

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Storm Chasing

May 26, 2011 /

A long-winded, semi-diary of last night’s storms in Indiana.

Crazy week. If I’m not mistaken, the bulk of my regular readers have heard tornado sirens and taken cover at some point in the past 72 hours. Hopefully all of you made it through this insane weather safe and sound.

Last night was our turn to get Mother Nature’s hammer. To make it even more fun, S. was working, so it was just me and the girls. It had the potential to be an awful night but actually turned out ok.

The first two waves of storms wrapped around us, skirting us but never hitting. The skies were dark and ominous from about 4:00 on, but other than rumbles in the distance we didn’t get any real action. I was supposed to cover a tennis regional final, and the county where the match was to be played was completely covered in bright red on the radar for most of the evening. They were smart enough to postpone it well before the match began. There were huge storms just to the east and south of Indianapolis. But we kept missing the worst of it.

I put the girls to bed at 8:00. I warned M. and C. that we would probably need to go to the basement later on, and they both understood that they had to be my big helpers. I decided to just put L. in our bed, knowing if I laid down in her bed I would fall asleep and the last thing I wanted to do was sleep through a tornado warning. I was watching the one local TV station that was streaming their storm coverage online while she snored next to me. 1 Storms kept spinning up to the south and east, but we remained dry. To the west, though, the entire Indiana-Illinois border was covered in red. There was a stack of tornado warnings from Chicago to Evansville. I knew the night would eventually get interesting.

I decided to preempt things and get the girls downstairs before the sirens went off. I figured it better to get them settled on the couch and back to sleep before then so they would hopefully sleep right through it. That worked perfectly. I took them downstairs around 10:15. I could hear the sirens from Marion County, which is just a mile away, go off at 10:30. Ours went off about 15 minutes later. The girls did not stir. The winds picked up around 11:00. I finally heard a big rumble of thunder a couple minutes later. Rain drops smacked the windows shortly after that. To our north and east there were possible tornadoes, but we never got more than some stiff winds and heavy rains.

I let the girls sleep until 11:40 or so and then carted them back upstairs. They all settled right back to sleep. I drank a beer to take the edge off and soon followed.

Obviously I’m most thankful that we avoided the worst of the storms. But I was also grateful that the girls got through the night without any drama.

In addition to a live stream of their storm coverage, the station I was watching had a severe weather chat room next to the video. At first I covered it up with my Twitter window. But eventually I read through some of the messages. I understand people get nervous when there are storms, especially after what happened in Joplin last week, but much of the conversation in the chat room was just dumb. A couple of the meteorologists were monitoring in the room, so many participants decided to request specific information for their location. There were as many as 2000 people in the chat, so, as you can imagine, it got a bit ridiculous. I’ve left the grammar and punctuation as they were entered, for added fun.

  • “What is the weather condition in Indy right now? I live in Michigan but have friends in Indy.” There were a surprising number of messages like this, people in other parts of the country asking for updates on specific cities.
  • ”I am scared what should I do?” Probably get out of the chat room, for starters.
  • ”Do you think there will be school or no tomorrow” Priorities!
  • ”Could you please have Angela NOT stand over the eastern part of the state?” There were also tons of messages from people who live well away from Indy complaining about their area not getting enough attention from the meteorologists. And for the record, <a href=”http://www.wishtv.com/dpp/about_us/personalities/Angela_Buchman”>Angela</a> can stand anywhere she wants.
  • ”Alicia, when is (my city) getting hit??? Please help me!!” This popped up every 90 seconds or so, with roughly every city in Indiana mentioned at some point.
  • ”Why must this happen? It has already hurt so many people.” Why does the sun rise in the east? Why is water wet? Why do birds suddenly appear, every time, you are near?
  • ”Are you not answering my questions because I’m German?” My favorite comment of the night.
  • Finally, there was a lengthy argument late in the evening between a chatter who was castigating the station for quoting a county sheriff statement that there were “mass casualties” in Bloomington. Lots of people have friends and relatives in Bloomington, he said, and the station was scaring them needlessly. The meteorologists pointed out that was the official wording the sheriffs used, and casualties simply means injuries. He responded that they should do better reporting and not just repeat what the sheriffs were saying, then called them irresponsible. This went on for a while and finally someone shouted him down: “Maybe you should watch another station.” Indeed.

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  1. I forgot to mention I listened to the National Weather Service amateur radio storm network on my iPhone for an hour before the girls went to bed. I can’t help it, I’m a native Kansan. When there are storms, I get geeky. ↩

Our Long Wait Is Over

January 26, 2009 /

In case you missed it, and chances are you did, Indiana is now home to Miss America, ending our embarrassing 77-year drought. Now I no longer have to hang my head when I return to Kansas City and hear from friends who live both in Kansas and Missouri, “What kind of state can’t even claim a Miss America title?”

We’re off the shnide. Suck it, Iowa.

And, more importantly, my daughters finally have a real role model to pattern their lives after.

Rain, Rain Go Away

June 10, 2008 /

I want to be careful how I say this, because there are a lot of people across Indiana and other Midwestern states who have truly suffered over the last week because of all the rain. Some of the pictures from just south of Indianapolis were incredible.

But, I’m ready for all these freaking storms to go away. C. is now incapable of sleeping through even the mildest of storms. Despite having a fan cranked up in her room, at the first rumble of thunder, she starts crying, gets out of her bed, and comes and finds us. She was out of bed twice last night because of storms, and then seemed to be having bad dreams (no doubt of thunder) the rest of the night. I know this because I spent about four hours in her bed, and every 30 minutes or so, she would scream, “NO!” and then fling her body across the bed. Most of the time that meant her head crashed into mine. It’s bad enough I’m squeezed into her bed getting kicked all the time. But the head butts are especially insulting.

And for the record, this started right about the time I bragged about how she had turned into a good sleeper, finally, on the blog. Just another example of how sometimes you need to keep your mouth shut about the cool things your kids are doing.

Election Day Wrap Up

May 7, 2008 /

Please note a more important post will be coming later today. Remember, we’re making a trip to the doctor this morning.

I did not stay up late enough to catch all the drama last night, but I followed some of it. Ironically I was thinking, before results began coming in, that there aren’t any surprises in politics anymore since 800 different polling groups are constantly surveying voters before each election. But last night was a surprise, and perhaps the effective end of the Democratic nomination race. Putting my political science degree to work, and stealing from other people on the ‘nets, I’ll say we’ve got two more weeks of going through the motions and this thing is put to bed after a big Obama win in Oregon on the 20th.

Even though Barack wasn’t able to pull off the win here in Indiana, I feel like my vote mattered. For the record, he did win Hamilton County. I thought the Rush Limbaugh factor might be especially important here. Have I mentioned that my podiatrist plays Rush loud enough for everyone through his entire office to hear? I always wonder how people, even those who agree with his politics, listen to Rush. What’s fun about listening to someone yell that much?

M. actually voted for me. I made all the selections and she pushed the big red button to register the votes. And she got a sticker.

As I stepped into the booth, I realized I had made a critical error. I had not spent enough time examining the two Democratic candidates in the governor race. I frantically tried to remember if either of them had any important endorsements or had made any especially interesting policy statements. I came up blank. So I ended up voting for the candidate who lost by 5000 votes. I guess now I can figure out if I like the woman who won or not.

Speaking of that race, the incumbent Guv wasted no time. I saw a commercial for him at 6:30 this morning. So much for a respite. Sigh.

Big Day

May 6, 2008 /

First off, happy belated Cinco de Mayo to you all. I hope you enjoyed a bag of Doritos or perhaps had some Cinnamon Twists to celebrate the occasion.

Oh, and happy birthday to the iMac, which was announced ten years ago today.

Well, the big day is finally here. Indiana, for the first time in 20 years, gets a real say in who our next president may be. While it appears Indiana is about as muddled as the rest of the country is and neither Barack or Hillary will end the day with a commanding victory in this state, it has been an interesting six weeks or so as the candidates have showered our fair state with attention and ad dollars. I don’t watch much regular TV, but when I do, there’s not much else other than ads for those two, for the Democratic US House primary in Marion County, the Democratic primary in the Governor’s race, and then a few for the Republican primary here in Hamilton County in which Dan “Two Handicap” Burton is being challenged. And the radio is ridiculous. Anytime I leave the house, I’m guaranteed to hear at least five political commercials. This must be what it feels like to live in Iowa.

And then there’s the phone. I’m getting at least five calls a day between my cell phone and the house phone. I assume they’re all political in nature, either campaigns or pollsters, but since I don’t answer and they rarely leave messages, I can’t be sure. Barack has left me a couple messages, or at least people speaking on his behalf have. The guy running against Burton left me a message, too. I’m waiting to get texts and IMs from them as well. Maybe they’ll get that element together for the general election.

The final indication that this is a crazy year in Indiana came Sunday when someone actually came to my house from the Obama campaign to see if I was A) voting today and B) voting for Barack. I’m surprised the police weren’t called out. Democrats roaming the streets in Hamilton County?!?!

After I talked to him, M. asked who he was. I explained that he was talking to me about voting. “What’s voting?” I said it is how we pick the president, mayor, and stuff like that, which I knew was a horrible answer for a three-year-old. Her response was a long pause, then “What?” I rephrased saying the people who make the rules. Not sure if that helped or not.

Anyway, it ends today. My polling place just happens to be at our church/M.’s preschool, so when I pick her up this afternoon, we’ll walk over to the main building and she’ll help me vote for the change America needs. Afterwards, we’ll go put on some Italian loafers, get a latte, and maybe test drive a Prius.

The pre-election polls are all over the place, but I would expect Hillary to win Indiana by a narrow margin. I mean, she’s going to end the gas tax! But, amazingly, my vote for a Democratic candidate in Hamilton County Indiana might make a difference this year.

Auspicious Start

April 18, 2008 /

It’s bad enough when the two-year-old gets out of bed, opens her door, goes down the stairs, and starts running around the living room at 5:30 AM. Then the house started shaking.

Apparently we had a nice 5.4 earthquake this morning. I don’t remember anything from my days in southeast Missouri, right on top of the New Madrid fault (early reports say our shaker this morning was on the New Madrid fault), but I never felt one this big in my one year in California. Of course, it woke up the three-year-old and the entire family has been awake ever since.

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