TERRE HAUTE —
From time to time, it’s good to sift through the collection of notes scrawled on the backs of envelopes, gasoline receipts and my hand. Here are a few that don’t quite make a whole column, but I want to share:
City Council – If an extraterrestrial being stumbled into the Terre Haute City Council’s chambers during a meeting, it would have no choice but to conclude one of two things:
1. This is a city populated only by white males.
2. Females and people of color are allowed to live here, but they have not yet won the right to vote, own property or expect peer representation in their government.
Folks, it is 2010. Almost 10 percent of the population of Terre Haute is black. Another 3 percent is Asian or Hispanic. Most glaring, clearly half of the city’s population is female. And yet we can’t get a single, solitary non-white, non-male human entity on a nine-member council?
This isn’t about quotas or that now-dirty term, affirmative action. It’s about operating in reality. Like too much of city and county government, the Terre Haute City Council has never come even close to parity for women citizens. But to have zero women with a seat at the most powerful city governing table is shameful, not to mention bizarre.
A perfect opportunity to slightly mitigate this ridiculous imbalance presented itself when Turk Roman vacated his 2nd District position after a jury found him guilty of impersonating a police officer. What a great time for a caucus of Roman’s fellow Democrats to actively and enthusiastically seek a competent and qualified member of the underrepresented half of the population.
But no. Three candidates were considered for the job: white gents all. The most depressing part? Five of the 11 caucus members who chose from among the three white males are women.
Party chairman Joe Etling: Can you get your people thinking at least late-20th century?
Kudos – You see them walking the city’s streets, wearing their office clothes and sneakers, some with iPods in their ears, some monitoring their progress on pedometers or even little heart-rate measuring devices. They are people who are doing something besides griping about their weight or their need for better cardiovascular fitness.
Blowing a car horn in celebration likely would startle them, so let us all just wave, give a thumbs-up or smile in their direction as we pass by – and look to them for inspiration to get our own butts in gear.
Memorable sign – Hanging on the fence recently of an old cemetery on Erickson Street in North Terre Haute: A hand-painted black-and-white sign that beckoned “YARD SALE.”
Contented kids – While riding my bike somewhere on North Eighth or Ninth Street one hot afternoon, I heard splashing water and high, little voices calling out the near-universal swimming pool chant, “Marco! … Polo! Marco! …Polo!”
Slowing down, I peered between houses and trees to find the players of the game. In the back yard of a neat, modest home, I saw two kids about 4 or 5, moving around an inflatable wading pool that was, maybe, 5 feet in diameter, at most.
Don’t anybody tell them they’re not rich.
Internet perspective – One night not long ago, as I settled into clean sheets in my comfy bed, I wondered, “How many nights have I done just this, laid my head upon a pillow and surrendered the day?” Someday, I thought, I will have to do the math. And then I fell asleep and forgot all about it.
A few days later, my Aunt Linda forwarded an e-mail with a nifty link that instantly calculates your days (and nights) on Earth. All you do is click on the year, month and numeric day you were born.
Bingo. Up comes your span, so far, in days, weeks, months and number of leap years. In case you never knew or forgot, the calculator tells you what day of the week you came into this world and what day your next birthday will fall upon. It also reminds you how far along you are in this year.
You can access the site, which of course is free, like 98 percent of the Internet, at korn19.ch/coding/days.php.
Suffice to say, contemplating the total number of days you’ve been here can be, at once, humbling and gratifying. If each day were a dollar, I wouldn’t have much money. But each day was much more than a monetary unit. Each was a tidy, temporal circle in which much untidy living went on. (Especially in college.)
The mind-blower, for me, is to think that the days on the early end of the tally were exactly as long as the days are now. Each 24-hour cycle ran its course, then took its place in line. And yet, my perception of those long, seemingly endless kid days versus these speed-of-light senior-discount days couldn’t be more opposite.
When you’re a kid, no one tells you “carpe diem,” because the diem seizes kids and pulls them along. Somewhere, though, as the numbers start piling up, you comprehend that it’s now the other way around. You see the importance of “seize the day,” and – if you’ve learned anything in the thousands of 24-hour packages you have amassed – you try hard to practice that advice as best you can.
Stephanie Salter can be reached at (812) 231-4229 or stephanie.salter@tribstar.com.
Stephanie Salter
STEPHANIE SALTER: Roundup of mini-columns, columnettes, items and observations
- Stephanie Salter
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STEPHANIE SALTER: The more things change, the more they … change
What the late, great Pittsburgh Pirates slugger knew, so knew the ancient philosopher, Heraclitus, the Buddha and Andy Warhol.
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STEPHANIE SALTER: Making room for the least among us — and their kin
Christmas. Quiet time. Down time. Not exactly the kind of day most folks tend to contemplate their fellow Americans behind bars. And yet, the United States leads the world in percentage of population in jail or prison, far ahead of second-place Russia. About 2.3 million people — nearly one in 100 adults — are incarcerated in this country.
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STEPHANIE SALTER: Carols for the worn, weary and wigged out
For those who are agog and aglow with “the season” — you who start bouncing and humming in Toys R Us at the intro guitar notes of “Jingle Bell Rock” — better search elsewhere for a soul mate.
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STEPHANIE SALTER: Times change. Things disappear. Toilet paper here to stay
You may have seen an email going around with “Nine Things That Will Disappear in Our Lifetime.”
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STEPHANIE SALTER: What I learned on election day
When I identified myself as a volunteer for the non-incumbent mayoral candidate, the woman on the other end of the line cut me off. “Save your breath, dear,” she said.
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STEPHANIE SALTER: Of politics, protests, coupons and e-wishes
It’s roundup time again, that periodic hunting down and herding together of items that have but one thing in common: They grabbed me.
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STEPHANIE SALTER: ‘Understandable’ not the same as ‘wise’
Because I’m not running for office and don’t plan to, I figure I am free to publicly question the designation of some 30 stretches of city streets as “memorial ways” for police and firefighters killed on the job.
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STEPHANIE SALTER: Where have all the protest songs gone?
A telling moment came during the annual Eugene V. Debs award banquet late last month, when the career protest singer and songwriter, Anne Feeney, implored a huge Hulman Center audience to join her for the refrain of “We Shall Not Be Moved.”
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STEPHANIE SALTER: It’s business as usual, but what does it cost to stay angry?
As painful and profoundly sad as the 10th anniversary of 9/11 has been, I found the actual day a balm.
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STEPHANIE SALTER: The unfortunate bottom line … St. Ann’s will close
Ever since word came down that St. Ann Church and Parish have less than a year to live, there’s been much invoking of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of grief.
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STEPHANIE SALTER: The Economy: One complex, thorny, bedeviling issue
No matter how much time and energy I spend trying to understand the Hydra we blithely call “The Economy,” I often worry that its mystery will forever elude me.
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STEPHANIE SALTER: Thinking, now and then, about now and then
I am lying, poolside, in a plastic chaise lounge, listening to pop music and watching water droplets dry on my skin.
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STEPHANIE SALTER: Thousands of things she would have missed
For several years, until she received an official information packet in the mail, my mother planned to donate her body to medical research.
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STEPHANIE SALTER: Marriage? There’s an app for that ... but it’s tricky
As I watched all the happy people celebrating passage of New York’s same-sex marriage law, I couldn’t help but project to a time when Indiana adopts a similar statute.
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STEPHANIE SALTER: Back in the saddle — with the usual burr under it
I really didn’t expect to be gone nearly six months, but then, that’s par for the course these days: What I expect to happen and what actually occurs are often about 180 degrees apart.
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STEPHANIE SALTER: On the other hand … we’ll have a lot fewer leaves to rake
Editor’s Note: Former Tribune-Star Assistant Editor Stephanie Salter’s column resumes today in freelance form and will appear on this page every other Sunday.
TERRE HAUTE — My neighbor, Andy, had just lowered the bamboo blinds on his front porch when we heard a mournful sound. -
Memorable victories
This was about as much fun as a doubleheader split could get for Rose-Hulman’s baseball team.
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STEPHANIE SALTER: Another batch of my status-quo-defending misinformation on schools
The day after state schools chief Tony Bennett responded to my three-column education series, a longtime friend and veteran teacher called.
“I just read the superintendent’s rebuttal in the Tribune-Star,” my friend said. “All I can conclude from it is that you are a dumbass. Welcome to the club. Anybody who doesn’t buy into his vision of education reform is considered a dumbass.” -
Stephanie Salter: One person’s roundup of significant folks lost in 2010
Every late December, as I comb through lists of notable deaths, I swear I will never repeat the process. It takes days of Internet research, mostly because I get distracted by looking up people about whom I know nothing.
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Stephanie Salter: I've got some really good news for some of you guys
Of all the sentences I’ve imagined writing in my long, moss-covered newspaper career, this is not one of them: I am quitting my job to get married.
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Stephanie Salter: A little history of mandated intermingling among U.S. troops
Back in July 1948, when President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981, predictions for its effect on the U.S. military were dire. Sen. Richard Brevard Russell Jr. of Georgia echoed the sentiments of millions of Americans in an address from the Senate floor.
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Stephanie Salter: Another wronged woman becomes the nation’s paper doll
A few hours after the death of Elizabeth Edwards last week, the creepy, contemporary American ritual of vicarious grieving began in cyberspace.
“You are with your son now. Rest in peace.” -
Stephanie Salter: You’ve heard from me — now, listen to the teachers
As e-mail from Indiana teachers and principals continues to pour into my box, the portrait of this beleaguered group grows more poignant each day.
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STEPHANIE SALTER: Have you heard Indiana’s schools are failing? It’s a lie
In Gov. Mitch Daniels’ recent state budget PowerPoint, he put up a comparison chart: The percentage of Indiana public school students who’ve attained an advanced level of math achievement versus “the world.” Hoosiers lag behind the national average, trailing such states as Massachusetts, Oregon and New York, and such nations as Poland and Latvia.
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Stephanie Salter: Bashing teachers in the name of education reform
As I read the Tribune-Star’s recent Page 1 news packages about the governor’s push for education reform, I kept seeing faces.
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Stephanie Salter: After the turkey and before the pie, a round of giving thanks
As my colleague Alicia Morgan wrote last week, there is no downside to taking time out now and then to list and truly appreciate our blessings.
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STEPHANIE SALTER: A story of just one corporate lobby ‘investing in advocacy’
For those of you who know in your marrow that the president’s attempt to overhaul the U.S. health care system proves his socialist agenda, take the day off. What reporter Drew Armstrong of Bloomberg News shared this past week will be of no interest to you.
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Stephanie Salter: Inside today’s grab bag …: Stamps, bands and GOP $$$
It’s time for another roundup of items, little ideas that can’t grow big enough for a whole column, but just won’t go away from my field of focus.
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Stephanie Salter: Can’t make a decision? Consult strangers on the ’Net
A day after I heard screenwriter and director Nora Ephron talking on NPR about that moment in the aging process when you realize you are no longer cut out to be au courant, that moment arrived for me.
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Stephanie Salter: The years may pass, but a friend will always ride shotgun
I should have known there would be a first-aid kit. Susan provided for every contingency.
How like her to have tucked a 106-piece, American Medical Association-approved kit under the passenger seat of her Honda Accord. How like me not to have discovered it until I was deep cleaning the car to get it ready to sell. - More Stephanie Salter Headlines
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STEPHANIE SALTER: The more things change, the more they … change
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Officials: Truck Hit Bridge Before Collapse
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Obama:Sexual Assault Threatens Trust in Military
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Major Detours Following Wash. Bridge Collapse
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