I just stumbled across a Then and Now site about Richmond. For example, here are then & now pictures of the Wayne County Court House.

Also, Kemplog has a post about an upcoming documentary film 1:47 on the subject of the explosion in downtown Richmond at 1:47 p.m. April 6, 1968. Morrison-Reeves has posted page images of the book Death in a Sunny Street by Esther Kellner that documents the explosion. A gas leak coupled with the gun powder in the Marting Arms sporting goods store caused the blast. Vigran’s Department store and Holthouse Furniture were leveled. MacRaven recounts his near miss at being the 42nd person killed that day. Apparently the blast blew out my Dad’s office window (this was about 3 years before I was born). Luckily he’d taken a long lunch or something that day and was not at work. I asked my Dad (also a lawyer) about it a year or so ago. Mostly he just remembered who got the legal work that resulted.

Update: I edited the title to reflect what has become the main subject of the post. My Mom just e-mailed me with her recollections of that day, and I thought she gave a good description of what she had been doing:

I remember it well. It was a Saturday. Your dad and I had gone to Civic Theatre with Dick and Cathy Brantner the night before and then out for some beer. It was a beautiful warm Sat., the day before Palm Sunday. We had lived in Richmond for 8 days and your dad went into the office for a short time on Sat. morning and then came home for lunch. Since we had been out late the night before your dad, Cindy and I all took a nap. We were still unpacking and getting settled and had dinner at home still unaware of what had happened.

Bert Keller called around 9:30 that night and told us what had happened, we were stunned. I still can’t believe that we didn’t see smoke from the down town and didn’t hear the sirens, etc.

We did see the horrible result of the explosion the next day and lived with the reconstruction of the downtown as well as meeting many people whose lives were effected by this tragedy.

. . .

[T]he window in your dad’s office blew in and as I recall glass was on his desk where he had been sitting not too long before the explosion. He was fortunate that he came home when he did.

Seems to me that’s a big thing to have happen to a fairly small town.

Rebecca Neal, writing for the Indianapolis Star has an article entitled Richmond bidding to host national debates in 2008. Apparently Richmond’s mayor, Sally Hutton, sees this as an economic development tool. The price tag for a debate is cited at $1.4 million. A host site is also required to have about 3,000 hotel rooms within a 30 minute drive of the debate site. Dayton, Ohio is probably close enough to fit that bill. (In fact, I once knew some girls in high school who drove from Richmond to Dayton, picked up some lunch, and got back during our lunch our. Though, I’m fairly certain they seriously exceeded some posted speed limits.)

I’d be tickled if Richmond landed a debate. I was born there, and I think the city has some great history. (But, I repeat myself!) I doubt having a Presidential debate is much of an economic development tool. The article cites the little town of Danville, Kentucky, a town of about 17,000 that hosted a 2000 vice-presidential debate. I’m a political junkie, and I didn’t recall there having been a debate there. In fact, I’m usually all but oblivious as to where the debates are taking place. That could just be me, of course.

From reading the Star article, you’d almost get the idea that Richmond was some sort of far-flung province, foreign and mysterious to its readers.

“We want people in Indianapolis to know where Richmond is,” [Mayor Hutton] said.

The article goes on to provide a “Richmond at a Glance” sidebar:

RICHMOND AT A GLANCE
(U.S. figures in parenthesis)
• Population: 39,124.
• Median household income: $30,210 ($41,994).
• Median home value: $73,000 ($119,600).
• High school graduate or higher: 74.6% (80.4%).
• Bachelor’s degree or higher: 13.8% (24.4%).
• White: 86.8% (75.1%).
• Black: 8.9% (12.3%).
• American Indian or Alaska native: 0.3% (0.9%).
• Asian: 0.8% (3.6%).
• Native Hawaiian: 0.1% (0.1%).
• Some other race: 1.1% (5.5%).
• Hispanic, of any race: 2% (12.5%).

Ah, but what sort of language to they speak in Rich . . . mond (stumbling over the word)? Do they have any arcane rituals of which I should be aware? Are their people perhaps inverted, having their head at their feet and their feet at their head?

Richmondites?

Mary Beth Schneider has an article entitled It’s Dems’ party, but GOP left crying. A better headline, in my mind, would have been “Haggling over the price.” (Which is, of course, why I used it myself.) Apparently House Speaker Pat Bauer (D-South Bend) spoke at a function of some sort which cost $500 per person, the proceeds of which went to the State Democratic party for use in mayoral races and on general Democratic Party expenses. According to the article, Republicans are “outraged.” Not because it’s illegal — House Minority Leader Brian Bosma (R-Indianapolis) concedes that it is not. Not because it was conducted during the legislative session — Bosma himself was a speaker at a February 2 GOP dinner. No, the source of the “outrage” is apparently that the Democrats were charging $500 per head at Bauer’s function whereas the Republicans were charging $25 per head at Bosma’s function.

Which brings to mind the quote attributed to George Bernard Shaw:

“We’ve established what you are, madam. We are now merely haggling over the price.”

I don’t know if these mid-session fundraisers are bad public policy or merely unseemly. But, I have to roll my eyes when a politician purports to be “outraged” by something like this.

Because Kenn and Branden were talking about it, and I stumbled across an entertaining YouTube post on Creationism, Neanderthals, and mtDNA:

and, of course, I was looking for an excuse to post the picture of the kitten being threatened with a gun.

Senate Bill 192 School Safety. Sen. Lubbers. Rep. Porter.

This is a bill that passed the Senate in an innocuous form:

Requires school corporations to abate certain school building safety violations that are not immediate safety hazards before the earlier of: (1) one year after the state fire marshal’s determination; or (2) the start of the school corporation’s next budget year. Requires at least one: (1) tornado preparedness drill; and (2) manmade occurrence disaster drill; during each semester of school.

But, over in the House, it picked up a provision about which I have serious reservations: school corporation police departments. In the latest printing, a school corporation may establish a school corporation police department.

A school corporation police officer has general police powers, including the power to arrest, without process, all persons who within the view of the school corporation police officer commit any offense. School corporation police officers have the same common law and statutory powers, privileges, and immunities as sheriffs and constables.

At this point, I don’t have any well articulated reasons for my opposition. I just have a general feeling that we are over-regimenting our schools. Kids conditioned from a very early age to metal detectors and a prominent police presence probably won’t grow into the sorts of citizens envisioned by our Founding Fathers as they fought for liberty and railed against tyranny. Furthermore, I guess I’m not sure I like the idea of entrusting a police force to our local school boards. However, the provision passed the House Education committee unanimously, so maybe my concerns are not well founded.

[tags]SB192-2007, law enforcement[/tags]

DSC_0022.JPG

Originally uploaded by amasson.

Let me know when you’re getting bored of me posting family pics here, but this picture has a bunch of elements I like. The boy has his “Give Peas a Chance” t-shirt on along with what I believe are dog tags of our family friend. The boy is also using his charm and devastating good looks to pick up the daughter of our military friend. (And, might I add, she’s quite the looker, herself.) Finally, despite demonstrating his masculinity and complexity, he demonstrates his tender side by holding on to his good friend, Wolf. (Apparently there was a great deal of sadness yesterday as Wolf had to go through the X-ray machine at the airport. )

‘Atlas Shrugged’ – 50 years later. Short version: Rand was interesting, but her selfish-extreme ideal is no better than the Marxist selfless-extreme ideal. A balance is necessary.

It’s fun to have fun, but you have to know how.

Originally uploaded by amasson.

As it turns out, Harper, like our son Cole, is a climber. The other day, we found her in our toy closet up on the top shelf. She *really* wanted to play with Mr. Potato Head.