Mark’s Musings – September 20, 2017
Mark Fortune
Are you fair ready or fairly ready? You might think that’s a trick question – it’s not! Preparing for the Coshocton County Fair is always a lot of work depending on your level of involvement. Have a booth in the large or small commercial building or along the second midway? Lots of work. Working on one of the finest Grange display’s in the state for the Art Hall? Lots of work. Have a youngster taking livestock or a special project? Lots of work, water and feed. The water and feed for the livestock of course. Taking an antique tractor or two to the fair? Lots of work.
Working a shift or more at the Coshocton, Ridgewood or River View food stand? Lots of work. Making some donuts at the Rotary stand? Lots of work and shall we say, sugar? So that one is kind of cool. You can work and snack at the same time.
Are you a Junior Fair or Senior Fair board member? Wow. To say that these folks put in a lot of volunteer hours is only scratching the surface of what they do. Sure, it’s lots of hours that you see and plenty of hours that you don’t see. These folks are the Coshocton County Fair. Without them the 166th Coshocton County Fair just doesn’t happen. Thank you.
Now another hurricane – Maria – is headed towards Puerto Rico and the Leeward Islands. As if all of these folks have not had enough to deal with. Several people that are familiar with St. Thomas and St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands have said that the devastation is widespread and that the people there are worried about being forgotten. With the attention focused on the Houston and southern Louisiana area and Florida that concern could be valid. As a territory the U.S. Virgin Islands are not treated the same as a state but President Trump has declared the territory a disaster area thus releasing federal funds to support recovery efforts including the removal of debris. As a major tourist destination and a port of call for many cruise ships it may be years before this area returns to some semblance of how it looked prior to Hurricane Irma.
After a sluggish start to the season the Cleveland Indians rattled off 22 in a row and have started another mini-streak with two wins and clinching the American League Central Division. Some would say that the team is indeed firing on all cylinders at the right time of year. Manager “Tito” is taking one game at a time and has the ability to plug the injury laden team with the perfect position players at the right time. Tribe fans are excited to head into the post season knowing that this team does have a real opportunity.
As expected the Buckeyes had few problems with Army except for that one 99 yard drive put together by the hard fighting Cadets. A couple of relatively easy games – if there is such a thing in college football – are coming up with UNLV and Rutgers. The last half of the season is a tough one.
The Bobcats of Ohio U knocked off Kansas and are now 2-1 on the season heading into the MAC schedule.
Despite losing six of their last ten the Dodgers are the team to beat in the National League with the Cubs not quite able to finish off Milwaukee. The regular season is winding down.
Category: Mark's Musings, Opinion
