Time for America to Lead Environmental Change

First appeared on April 21st, 2012
in The Lebanon Reporter

Some would argue winning World War II was America’s high water mark. And for you kids too busy for a history lesson, it’s true your great-grandparents helped save the world sans the cape and tights. And for our efforts, or more to the point those of your great-grandparents, we became honorary Captains of the World.

And while we wore this title with great pride and paraded our values around the globe with the noblest of intentions, shoving freedom in every open craw we came across, somehow the America heading for the twenty-teens, the same place that gave the world the airplane, computers and the Internet, suddenly finds itself an oil-splotched, coal fired dinosaur, defecating mountains of garbage and farting ozone depleting gasses.

If we are still to be the world’s Go-To-Guy on everything then the greatest fight perhaps lies ahead. Once again the world needs rescuing; only this time it’s from itself. If you please, swallow the urge to belch “This sounds like an Al Gore rant”, I’m not here to browbeat you for driving to work alone while drinking your coffee in Styrofoam cups only to turn around and hop on my private jet bound for the weekend shack I bought in Cannes using the money I earned by investing in a Styrofoam coffee cup start up.

But be it an addiction to oil, phobia of renewable energies or the unfathomable amount of garbage we create daily, there are problems the world needs to address. And before Dick Cheney tries to convince you there’s a military option, it starts with us (as in me the person who wrote this and you, the person reading it right now).
From its inception America has been a leader, and it’s this punch first hope for the best style that makes us the beautiful tragedy we are. Today it’s time for us to lead the world in a new direction however. One that will bring us a longer life and our children a healthier planet.

To date recycling is the easiest method we have for saving the world and yet, just like soccer and the Metric System, Americans are yet to fully embrace it. Jennifer Lawrence, Executive Director of the Boone County Solid Waste Management District, says inconvenience is the number one reason people give for not recycling.“(Boone County offers) alternatives such as curbside pick-up, the Lebanon Street Department, (and) County recycling drop locations,” Lawrence explains.

Many of you already recycle to which the Earth, wheezing for oxygen and fighting a bad case of garbage-induced indigestion, says thank you. Jennifer points out that those of you who do recycle have already helped create new materials from your old garbage. “The list of items that can be produced directly from recycled materials is endless,” Lawrence points out. Everything from Picnic Tables and Park Benches to Rubber Playground Mulch, Bicycle Racks, Clothes, Stuffed Animals, Pens, and Pencils can all be made from recycled materials.

Lawrence advises batteries can be tricky. “Rechargeable batteries and cell phones are probably the least recycled,” She explains, “Alkaline household batteries are not recyclable nor hazardous.” The BCSWMD also wants people to know they have a local office in Lebanon where residents can either leave items or find help determining the best destination for taking them.
Still, with so many alternatives, far too much goes unrecycled.

Packaging is a notorious culprit. And while some Americans have done it, working around packaging is not a viable option in many cases. Nobody is asking for you to move up into the mountains, put out a self-sustaining garden, grow a beard and build a bi-level out of rocks and moss; rather the idea is to simply take a second look at what the family puts in the garbage bin.

The website “how to make a difference now” reminds us there are many ways we can reduce packaging. The 2 easiest methods being to take our own reusable bags to the grocery while also buying items in bulk whenever we can.
For some it’s about a lifestyle change. But not a stop cutting your hair and pay $50,000 for a 3 cylinder car that runs on a mix of switchgrass, sunflower seeds and used Q-Tips kind of change. Rather it’s simply a second look at what gets purchased and what gets tossed away.

Perhaps it has another use besides becoming archaeological fodder for some team of scientists 2,000 years from now who are left only to ponder why individual packs of Capri Sun were necessary if people drank them in their homes anyway.
The time has come for America to take the lead in building a greener world. But for those of us worried about getting Johnny to soccer practice on time or making sure the local utilities don’t shut the lights off at home anytime soon, developing new alternatives to fossil fuels and reducing carbon ozone emissions may be lofty goals.

But to take a second look at what we purchase and what we throw away isn’t asking all that much; and what better time to start than on Earth Day? And if you’re still unconvinced, or want the complete rundown of what is and is not recyclable or where to take them, give Jennifer a call at BCSWMD; she is nice and they can be reached 8-4 Monday through Friday at 483-0687.

© 2012 Eric Walker Williams

Despite record, Pacers' attendance woes continue

First appeared on April 12th, 2012
in The Lebanon Reporter

In my hometown the corner barber shop was the place to go for the low down. To find out what the weather would be like that week or how much Artie Johnson paid for that new truck with the fancy running boards and tinted rain guards. It was also the place the old hayseeds gathered on Saturday mornings to ruminate the fallout of Friday night’s high school game. Old men in overalls who chewed longleaf tobacco and cursed the new varsity coach, openly lamenting the death of the underhanded free throw.

Most know Indiana for two things, the deep fried Twinkie and a long love affair with basketball. I first learned how much basketball meant to me from hearing those hayseeds, their passion as strong as their gnarled hands.

So you take a team with the 3rd best record in the NBA’s Eastern Conference and one with a budding young star grouped with a collection of no-nonsense, hardnosed players and you’d expect to find them near the top in league attendance. Especially if you were told that same team with the high flying wing and the bruising power forward played its home games in Indiana, the self-proclaimed capital of Basketball-land.

Currently however the Indiana Pacers are edging out the New Jersey nets for 29th place in attendance (convenient time to remind you there are only 30 teams in the NBA). And when you factor in the fact the Jersey mafia has more than likely killed off another 7 season ticket holders since I pounded this out, the Nets are technically drawing more people to games than we are.

So what is to explain this plague of empty seats that has fallen upon our Pacers? I, like fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers and ESPN analysts explaining why the Heat have yet to win a Title, blame LeBron. Unfortunately the NBA has become a cult of personality and Indiana, like Brother Mitt, simply has none.

When one considers every other Top Flight Playoff Team there’s no shortage of stars. Durant, Howard, Bryant, Nowitzki, the list reads like a Who’s Who of people the average basketball player wishes they were, or at the very least could be for a day. OK, so maybe a month. A month of 4 Star hotels, pregame massages, paychecks that read like a lottery windfall and an endless line of wide eyed autograph seekers you have to muster the energy just to grumble over. Just a month of that and you are happy to go back to accounting. Back to trying to determine why the guy in the cubicle next to you, the one who loves Public Radio and drives a car nobody can hear coming, always smells like cucumbers.

The Pacers could have put all their money in one hat and thrown it at a big name free agent. Maybe even Dwight Howard. Yes perhaps Superman himself would be willing to come here; if only it were written in his contract that the Pacers be willing to fire their coach anytime Howard found himself struck with the notion of course.

And if it’s not a “cult of personality” issue, then it surely is a bad case of lockout fatigue. No matter the real direction fingers need be pointed in that whole ugly lockout mess, at the end of the day you’re smart enough to realize it was still someone with more money than you would see in five lifetimes asking for even more money.

It’s a sad story indeed. And one that would surely have the old men in the barber shop spitting on the floor.


© 2012 Eric Walker Williams

R-E-G-G-I-E wasn't always popular

First appeared on April 5th, 2012
in The Lebanon Reporter

Donnie Walsh is a well dressed man. And whether he chooses his shirt and tie combos in the morning or some fashionista recently fired by the E! Network because numerous plastic surgeries have her face resembling a traditional Gabonese Fang mask does it for him remains a mystery. But in the summer of 1987 Donnie made a choice that was as public as the library or a Facebook rant against your boss.

The spring of ‘87 saw Steve Alford lead the Indiana Hoosiers to the National Championship. I know it to be true because I watched it sitting in the living room with my Dad sharing a bowl of popcorn and a coke (or an eighth of his coke that is; which was customary per our arrangement as father and son) and also because there is a giant red banner in Assembly Hall (which most Indiana fans generally are not slow to point out) which stands in remembrance of that monumental moment.

My Father said Alford would be a saint for leading Indiana to the Promised Land and, after he’d explained what a saint was, I fully agreed despite our not being Catholic. Alford was a dashing young man with perfect hair who had proposed to his wife by hanging the net during a private shoot around; she the beautiful girlfriend who hung around the gym to climb the ladder and pull the net down anytime her boyfriend wrapped it and was surely surprised the day she reached the top of the ladder and found an engagement ring box stuck on the back of the rim. Storybook indeed.

So it looked to be a match made in heaven. The Pacers were a professional franchise that was an ABA Title Machine turned Floundering NBA Failure. In the summer of 1987 they were desperately in need of direction. A hero; a face. And for the average Hoosier fan moonlighting as a casual Pacer fan, what better face than pretty boy Steve’s?

So it was the sharp dressed Donnie Walsh went to the 1987 Draft with Hoosiers one and all fully expecting to hear Alford’s name called as the 11th pick. But upon hearing the loudspeaker boom out “Reggie Miller” fans responded with a hailstorm of boos and cat-calls. Yes, even from the start Reggie was polarizing.

The first time I saw Reggie Miller in a Pacer uniform he was bald, looked like an untwisted pretzel and appeared to have the quickness of a newborn dairy calf. I didn’t see the player who would become the Pacers All Time Leading Scorer and the second best Three Point Shooter in League History; probably one strong indicator of why my front office days have been so slow to develop.
But from the day Pacer fans first booed the 6’7 wing out of UCLA until the day he played his last game in that same uniform 18 years later, all he did was prove people wrong. Despite a highly unorthodox release, Miller became one of the greatest sharpshooters in NBA history. He climbed many mountains including the aforementioned reservations of Pacer fans as well as Spike Lee, while leaving others unconquered (Michael Jordan and an NBA Title).

And if Manning brought a passion for professional football to Indiana then Miller was Manning before Manning was Manning. He built the following the Pacers enjoyed at their height and along the way, be it 8 points in 8 seconds or “Ding Dong the Witch is Dead”, Reggie carved out a lasting place in Hoosier Hearts big enough for both himself and the Blue and Gold as well.

© 2012 Eric Walker Williams