Opinion

Editor’s note: Should any of our friends in Taylorsville happen to read this column, please understand it’s all in good fun and for a good cause. The people of Taylorsville, its high school teams and politicians are all perfectly fine. However, if you have a limited sense of humor, please find something else to read. If not, just know you’ve been warned.

Remember Shannon Brock? She was a staff writer and former news editor here before being promoted to editor at the Spencer Magnet in Taylorsville.

The Roman Catholic priest called, the sing-song lilt of his voice heard through the telephone:
“So, what are we going to suggest today?” he asked her, the usual conversation necessary before the next committee meeting.
Retired Disciples of Christ minister Pat Yates, sitting at her kitchen table last Friday afternoon, said her ideas on Christian education would only be heard if spoken through the mouth of her friend, a Roman Catholic priest also serving on a committee to develop programs for inner-city youth in Ohio.

My sister cried into my coat early Monday morning.
The frost on her windshield hadn’t melted, so we puffed goodbyes outside into the cold air as her car purred low while it warmed.  
I only knew she cried by the quivering sound of her words muffled into the thick, green fabric of my shoulder as she hugged me goodbye.
You see I prefer no eye contact when I say goodbye to people, because as everyone knows, tears are highly contagious.

First graders are champions of the non sequitur.
They’ve perfected the art of the artless transition. One minute, you could be asking them what they think the tools of being a reporter are.
The next, they’re describing the most efficient and safest way to enter a burning building.
Since I cover education for The Anderson News, I’m in and out of schools fairly often, but unfortunately, I don’t often spend unlimited time with students.

Ben, the man pictured directly above me on this page, recently handed me a news article about $1 million.
Turns out that during a recent school board meeting in Woodford County, the Woodford County school board learned they could face $1 million in Affordable Care Act or Obamacare penalties if it failed to offer adequate health insurance to those full-time employees working 30 hours a week.

A little known fact about me — I am the queen of leftovers.
Endless possibilities leave me paralyzed, gnawing on a block of cheddar cheese because I’m too overwhelmed by choice to cook a proper meal for myself.
Give me an almost bare pantry, and I can whip up something pretty delicious.
OK, that adjective should probably be “edible,” not delicious.
Consider this week’s column an exercise in leftovers: the last week’s tidbits layered in an informational news sandwich.
Great. Now I’m hungry.

With three fingers clenched into a curved claw, I tried to pluck heaven out of Jane Bennett’s harp.
No rich, strong and angelic voices sang from the chord’s strings as I had imagined. Moments earlier, I had glided my pointer finger up the strings in a glissando like a child clumsily drags a stick across the bars of a fence.
My first harp lesson had lasted a total of five minutes, and I was already frustrated.
And strangely, kind of relaxed at the same time.

By Rob Hawksworth
The Bluegrass Pipeline team has begun negotiating easements with landowners. This is a critical step in finalizing the route for this important piece of American energy infrastructure. Prior to commencing these negotiations, Bluegrass Pipeline sent a letter to the affected landowners that addressed a number of issues including the important landowner question “how does this benefit me?”

You sign your name in blood on the Internet.
Not literally, because that’d be gross and virtually impossible.
But no other metaphor, in my opinion, gives the right weight of gravitas when it comes to discussing the permanent nature of representing yourself on the Internet.
It’s an unconscious blood oath that you sign with the entire online world, that everyone you write and post will exist for infinity.