Are your little squirts at home more worried about the weather since last month’s flooding?

Mine seems to be. Our younger daughter is much more interested, and concerned, about the weather and weather warnings these days.

Maybe Sarah’s just becoming more aware, but it sure seems as though it started right after we and others in the neighborhood — and across the state — were told to leave our home because of advancing floodwaters on the weekend of June 7-8.

We were blessed. No floodwaters affected our house, but they were lapping at the edges of nearby lawns west of us.

The odd thing is, that Sunday night, she was pretty excited about getting to sleep in The Tribune office. She didn’t seem that bothered by what was happening.

But she seems bothered now, even calling me at the office some mornings to check the weather report with me.

Ironically, our older daughter, Hannah, seems to be comforting Sarah these days. I say ironically because she’s the one who’s generally needed comforting during storms and who’s always been quick to flip the TV to look for storm watches and warnings.

They both have always looked at me skeptically when I tell stories about how we’d pile on to the front porch to watch thunderstorms when we were kids. I still like to watch lightning streak across the sky, especially out in the country where you can really see it race.

How about you and your children? Are they more sensitive to weather alerts since the June flooding?

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Staff writer and videographer Jill Treadway reported in today’s edition of The Tribune and online at www.TribTown.com that two Seymour motorcycle dealers are reporting strong sales and interest in scooters and motorcycles to help folks stretch their budgets in the wake of $4 gasoline.

That’s just one sign that gas prices are fueling concern among consumers.

Another is how much attention politicians are paying to what we’re paying at the pump.

The latest?

Republican Mike Sodrel on Tuesday announced he will travel next week with four other Republican congressional candidates to visit the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, more commonly known as ANWR.

“High gas prices affect every area of our economy,” Sodrel said in a news release. “I am tired of hearing Congress tell us what won’t work or what takes too long. The only solutions coming from this Congress are to file lawsuits, increase taxes, investigate or regulate. None of this will increase the supply or lower the price of gas.”

The group will stop in Anchorage and then travel to Prudhoe Bay and ANWR.

Sodrel is challenging incumbent Democrat Baron Hill of Seymour in this fall’s general election for the 9th District. Sodrel declined to debate Hill on the price of gas when they squared off two years ago. This is their fourth matchup.

Sodrel and the other candidates headed to Alaska will be briefed by energy industry experts and state and local officials from Anchorage and the Arctic Circle, Sodrel’s news release said. The candidates will also visit with the private landowners and native residents of the Arctic Circle.

An article in The Wall Street Journal said Republican presidential candidate John McCain of Arizona “should take careful note (that)  Republicans in difficult House races are spending scarce campaign dollars to travel to Alaska to dramatize their stance on the drilling issue.” 

McCain — and Democratic presidential candidate Barck Obama — continues to oppose drilling in ANWR.

Hill is also talking about gas prices. His focus has been on controlling speculating in oil futures and forcing oil companies to drill on leases they already hold. He said economists have told himthat speculating in oil futures is causing gas prices to be 20 percent to 50 percent higher than supply and demand would merit.

 Libertarian Eric Schansberg, an economics professor at Indiana University Southeast who’s also challenging Hill’s re-election bid, said he found Hill’s stance on the issue “incredulous.”

“This is doubly frustrating since Baron refuses to debate me on gas prices — after repeatedly demanding a debate on this single topic in May 2006. The funny thing is that he dismissed ‘those fancy economists’ during our 2006 debate in Jasper on the minimum wage,” Schansberg said in a news release.

Schansberg said we’d paying less for gas “if the dollar had not been devalued since 2002. President Bush and his Congresses, including Baron Hill and Mike Sodrel, bear considerable responsibility for that, given their avid pursuit of government spending and debt.”

With gas prices at $4.19 a gallon in Seymour, look for gas to remain a hot topic on the minds of voters, and therefore candidates.

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Are you a gardener?

My daughter, Sarah, and I planted a few toamto plants along the house this spring, as well as a few pepper plants in my mother-in-law’s garden near Cortland.
My mother-in-law, by the way, always has a great garden, much of which she shares with us. I love her spinach salad, made with spinach and green onions straight from her sandy soil.
And I’m eagerly anticipating sweet corn from her first of several plantings.
January Wetzel shoulfd be reporting eports on Page 1A of Wednesday’s edition of The Tribune that more Hoosiers are planting fruits and vegetables this year, partly because of the rising food prices. I’d imagine part of it’s an effort to heat a healthier diet, too.
We love food out of the garden, or from the farmers market or other growers selling their bounty. In case you missed it, January wrote about the Seymour Farmers Market on Monday. You can look it up at TribTown.com.
We always had a garden growing up on the southside of Indianapolis. Pop was a fanatic about growing tomatoes, and Mom planted other vegetables.
I enjoy growing tomatoes, probably because of the connection with Pop. But I really don’t like eating them raw. Pop would eat them like an apple, straight off the vine.
However, I do like tomatoes cooked just about any way imagineable — stewed, in a sauce, in a paste, on pizza or as a soup.
Just don’t ask me to eat them raw. Something about the texture, I think.
Anyway, are you gardening? Share your stories with us online at ddavis@tribtown.com.

We’re curious at The Tribune and TribTown.com about whether readers and viewers found our online updates before and during last weekend’s flooding useful.

With the technology allowing us to post news instantaneously, reporting on weather advisory has been a natural.

It’s become even more so in recent weeks and months this spring, with so much weather happening in our area.

We started posting about heavy rainfall in central Indiana and flooding there and in Bartholomew County on Saturday, including reports on the level of the East Fork of the White River.

Those updates came a little faster as flood waters started moving toward us, especially when the river’s overflow started rushing into area Sunday morning.

We kept them throughout the week, and even into this weekend.

Again, we’re curious if you found them helpful?

We realize if you were in the way of those flood waters you at some point became unable to check the updates as you and your loved ones prepared to leave your homes. My family did, too. Fortunately, we had little effect of the flooding, for which we feel fortunate and blessed.

No, this question isn’t intended to pat ourselves on the back, as we accused of with a similar column asking about whether TribTown is seen as a useful tool. We simply want to know if we’re putting our resources and time in the right place, if such information helps people. Our hope is it does.

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Don’t know about you, but I was glad to see the East Fork of the White River was going down again after briefly raising and then hanging stationary for much of Thursday.

Generally, I don’t too much about stuff. It’s going to happen no matter what.

But I cringed when I saw the river was on the rise Thursday. I’m sure I wasn’t alone, and I’m sure many of us will be watching the river more closely than perhaps ever, at least for a while.

I apologize for not blogging since last Saturday morning, but I got pretty busy keeping postings updated about the rising river waters in Bartholomew County during the day Saturday and of course here in Jackson County on Sunday.

Things have been pretty busy all week, but I decided this morning I’d better post here.

I’ll blog more in the coming days, and possibly later today, on the flooding, weather and TribTown.

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Will it ever stop?

I made a business trip to Columbus early this morning. Wow. What a bunch of rain.

There were also some pretty weird clouds up there.

People in Jackson County who merely inconvenienced by the East Fork of the White River and those farmers who are financially affacted by the flooding may not see much relief coming as a result of the heavy rainfall north and northeast of here. Any water has to eventually filter its way through Jackson County.

That’s why the river’s been so slow to drop in the past 24 hours or so.

Water was standing everywhere in Columbus this morning.

We’ll have to hope that the clouds that dumped 8 to 10 inches of rain in Terre Haute and Paragon overnight weren’t so full as moved east.

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Some observations while flying to San Antonio:

There’s no easy there from Seymour.

And early morning flight out of Louisville took me to St. Louis.

“Don’t get off there,” the Southwest attendant warned during check-in. “It’s just a 20-minute stop. Then you’ll go to Dallas and change planes.”

A similarly early flight out of Indianapolis with another airline would have included a brief stop in Chicago — isn’t that NORTH? — and a change of planes somewhere else.

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When  the Southwest attendant gave me the gate number, B17, I thought it was perhaps a good omen. It reminded me of Pop, who flew as a bellygunner aboard B-17s in the skies over Europe during World War II.

But then the attendant brought up the brief stop in St. Louis.  Not a good thing, since I’ve had nothing but problems when flying in or out of Lambert.

During one approach for a layover, our plane was slowing down, lining up for landing and starting to drop from the sky. Then the jet engines roared. The plane jerked up and to the right.

“Sorry about that,” the pilot or some other crew member said. He then mentioned something about a “near-miss” with a military transport.

A near-miss? I realize the airline industry probably doesn’t like the word “collision,” that’s what “near-miss” means to this English major. Collision. Objects miss each other or they collide. You don’t nearly miss something. You miss it or you don’t.

But there was no such incident today.

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I also noticed while driving to Louisville that truckers on Interstate 65 were going slower than normal, confirming a conversation that two friends shared at church Sunday.

Jerry, who had just returned from a trip to Tennessee, asked Kenny if truckers were driving slower. Kenny said that was case as they try to conserve high-priced diesel fuel and therefore their profits.

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Breakfast offerings at airports are pretty slim, especially in the early morning hours.

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I just  registered with our new reader comment tool, Pluck, and tested the system.

It took just a few seconds to get approval.

And my test comments actually allowed me to use dollar signs, puncuation with sentences and even an asterisk.

The system went up just a little bit ago, so please be patient as the systems guys with Freedon Interactive work out any bugs that up this afternoon and into the evening.

As I said last week, I hope our online users will the new reader comment tool easier and less frustrating to use. I also hope it makes for a more civil community conversation.

Don’t forget to try out the forum option of the tool. It will allow individual users to start their own topical forums.

Unfortunately, we’ve learned that the reader comments already posted on the old system can’t be converted to the new, so anything you posted in the past day or two will no longer appear with their associated stories.

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My impression is Hoosiers enjoyed the limelight that Democratic presidential primary race cast on Indiana.

What’s your take on that?

We’ll publish an editorial on Monday that resurrects an opinion piece I wrote earlier this year, contending that Indiana’s primary comes way too late in the presidential nomination process. It’s been 40 years since Hoosier voters mattered in that process.

But with New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton slugging it out with Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination, our votes, opinions and voices finally mattered.

Thanks for reading my blog, and thanks for logging on to TribTown.com.