March 29, 2024

School is ‘up and running’ again

Good to see the schools back and at it again. I’m just afraid that if we would have had another semester or two of online learning, many of these students would be set back for a long time. I don’t think that most younger students were made for online classes. I would hate to see this generation of kids fall further behind on their education.

I get the impression a lot of students are happy to see their friends again and get back into some kind of routine, even if it’s school. I’m sure there will be pluses and minuses along the way, but life gives us curve balls everyday. It’s all in how you adjust that makes for the outcome. Happy school year.

Labor Day is coming up Sept. 7, and it’s the last official holiday of the summer. It’s made it kind of a really long summer with all the pandemic situation taking top attention. The heat this week reminds us all that summer doesn’t always end when it is supposed to. I’m also expecting a rather tough Labor Day this year with all the unemployment due to the pandemic, although there does seem to be lots of places employing workers.

The local market has a lot for people in town working on various projects, like the CIPCO plant, Fansteel building, wind turbines and the new McDonalds to name a few.

Sweet corn

My understanding from the Gates folks is that next week will be the last week for sweet corn this year. So get your last taste of fresh corn before you have to wait another ten months. The corn has been excellent this year. It’s been a good corn year.

Property taxes

That note you received from the county last week was your yearly reminder that you get the honor of paying property taxes for owning land in whatever county you reside. You have until Sept. 30 to come up with the first half of the money.

I see our next door neighbors in Nebraska just passed a property tax decrease for their state coming up, and I wish the folks in Iowa had the guts to do something like that. The other angle on Iowa taxes is the income tax. We have both high property and high income tax. I would imagine they could lower one or the other somehow. It’s called cutting back on your spending.

Football

Many of the local football teams start their seasons this Friday. It will be nice to some gridiron action again. I still think the Big 10 is making a big mistake and bet the SEC and couple of other conferences will still end up playing this fall.

January football will leave a lot of teams wondering if it’s worth it or not to play. It’s kind of weird when a National Championship game is played before their season starts. You think it’s cold in November? Wait until you have a couple of those end-of-January days to attend a game.

Playing all the games in a dome, far from your home stadium, would make for an interesting schedule.

Fire to hurricanes

I see the state of California is having its usual fires again this year. The rolling blackouts that take place only make the state a worse place to live. All the “green” (wind and solar) utilities can’t provide the power needed to keep everything going. You still need fossil fuels to provide energy when the green energy can’t keep up.

We have two hurricanes in the Gulf coast this week. Twice the fun you’d say. Hopefully they get downgraded by the time they hit land. Looks like one is headed to Texas and the other towards the New Orleans area. 2020 just keeps getting better by the day!

Thought for the week: “The best way to teach your kids about taxes is by eating 30% of their ice cream.” — Bill Murray