The water in the Shields Park Pool looked mighty inviting in a photo that appeared on the front page of Thursday’s Tribune.
It brought back memories of a picnic at the park when I was a child. The picnic was great, but I kept looking longingly at the pool, filled with kids. They would dive in with a splash, then come back up, their hair slicked back and their heads bobbing in the water, looking like so many seals.
One day, I promised myself, I will learn how to swim. Like those other kids, I will paddle along in the water, unafraid.
I did, too. It didn’t happen as quickly as I would have liked, but eventually I took lessons. I learned to float, then to actually swim. I never got up the nerve to dive, but I was just happy to be able to jump in and kick my way around.
Along the way, I realized that swimming is a lot like life. It looks a lot easier than it is.
In life, there’s nothing like the way you feel the first time you realize you can’t go shopping for shoes every payday, because you’re not living at home anymore.
Swimming’s the same way. You knew it was going to be different, but there’s no way to describe how it feels the first time the water closes over and around you.
OK, so you get used to not breathing except when your head is out of the water instead of in it. That’s not too hard when you’re just standing in the pool and dipping your head under just for practice. The hard part is not panicking when you jump into the deep end and realize there’s a little more distance between you and the surface. You pop back up in an instant, but early on, it can seem like forever.
In life, it’s easy to get in over your head, but the less you give in to panic, the sooner you’ll rise above your circumstances.
Watching other people swim, like watching other people dance or work or just plain live, tends to be somewhat two-dimensional.
That’s because that third dimension requires feeling.
You can’t swim without getting up close and personal with the way the water feels on your skin and drips down your back and pushes against your body. Even once out of the water, there is the way a soft breeze feels blowing across your face, and how relaxed every muscle in your body feels.
In the same way, you can’t really live without feeling, either.
If you don’t seem to have been really living lately, come on in.
The water’s fine.
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Persinger is community editor for The Tribune. She may be reached at (812) 523-7063 or jpersinger@ tribtown.com.

It’s enough to give pirates a bad name.
Last week, not only did Somali thieves take the captain of a ship hostage — just another day on the high seas for them — but also, as it turns out, the ship was carrying donated food to Africa.
Somehow, I don’t think these particular pirates were looking for some canned goods. Instead, they were looking for a hostage to trade for ransom, plying what has become a profitable trade these days.
The Associated Press reported that Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the pirates who attacked the Maersk Alabama and took the captain, Richard Phillips, hostage, were between 17 and 19 years old.
The pirates, three of whom were killed, weren’t likely to have been freelancing. Instead, these young men were probably sent out by someone grown rich and powerful from piracy. It’s likely they had no choice, only orders. Piracy is big business at the present, with millions in ransom being paid by ship owners for hostages from a variety of countries.
Now the United States is pressing Somalia to root out the pirates menacing the seas off the Horn of Africa, the AP said, and Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke said he could go after them if other nations give him needed resources.
Sharmarke told The Associated Press that his plan will be ready next week in time for an international conference on Somalia in Brussels. He added that his government is willing to share information that could boost the new U.S. initiative to freeze pirates’ assets and pursue the money trail of ransoms.
Businessmen and some politicians are said to be behind the pirates, people Sharmarke said his government has identified.
How much Somalia and its prime minister can do is debatable. Sharmarke’s government barely has control of a few square miles in the capital of Mogadishu, an area patrolled by African peacekeepers.
The plague of piracy has been around for centuries, and it’s not likely to end as long as it remains profitable. It also has been relatively risk-free for the pirates, until now.
Will the shootout involving the Maersk change how ships operate? Will it make pirates more likely to harm their hostages?
Only time will tell, but with Somalia filled with turmoil and hungry people, it will remain a prime jumping-off place for piracy, and a prime target for those determined to put a stop to it.
The reality of piracy is a long way from the swashbuckling tales told by Hollywood or torn-bodice novels.
Maybe it’s time to say a little prayer for “They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters.” (Psalm 107:23).
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Persinger is community editor for The Tribune. She may be reached at (812) 523-7063 or jpersinger @tribtown.com.

It’s 3 a.m. and the phone is ringing.
Who is on the line?
Oh, maybe Ruthie from Alabama or Marty from Montana. It all depends on which television rerun of Nancy Grace you’re watching at the time.
Whatever brought you to this point — insomnia, maybe, or the end of a late-night shift — finding something you actually want to watch at 3 o’clock in the morning is a challenge.
It also paints a less than flattering picture of the type of viewers that TV moguls expect to attract in the middle of the night.
Do they think everyone who’s awake at 3 a.m. is overweight, gone to flab, can’t find a date without help or is in need of industrial-strength makeup? Do the decision-makers in charge of late-night programming hold conference calls on just how lame the products sold in the middle of the night can be?
“Yeah, the talking fish mounted on the wall is as outdated as the rubber chicken, but get this — a rubber chicken that does the chicken dance! Huh? Huh? Great idea, right?”
Yes, sir, I want to buy one of those. And I’ll get it for $19.95 plus shipping and handling, except that, if I call right now, I’ll get not one, but two, dancing rubber chickens for not $19.95, but only $9.95, and no shipping fees. Plus, I’ll get a fake fried egg absolutely free! With not one, but two, chicken dance dancing chickens and a fake fried egg, I’ll be the life of the party! (Here, the commercial will cut to a shot of people crowding around someone holding up a fake fried egg, with everyone laughing uproariously.)
Oh, here’s something a bit more upscale — authentic, newly minted old coins plated in genuine fake gold. You’d pay $40, $80, even $100 elsewhere, but you can order now and get your genuine fakes for only $19.95 plus shipping and handling. There’s more! Call right now, and the announcer will throw in his own great-grandmother’s authentic fake antique teapot absolutely free! Be among the first 200 people to call, and you’ll pay only $9.95 and receive, absolutely free, certificates of authenticity for every genuine fake antique you buy.
OK, so if I don’t like what’s on, I can turn to other channels.
Maybe I’ll find a program like “How I Survived Being Attacked by a Grizzly Bear by Beating It in the Head with a Fake Antique Teapot!”
It’s 3 a.m. I do not want to watch any program that shows people being tossed over a bull’s horns, falling from the sky with an uncooperative parachute or being plowed into by an out-of-control racecar.
I’m glad the people survived. I don’t want to watch them doing it.
Fortunately, there is an alternative to television. It doesn’t try to sell you anything. It doesn’t assume you’re an idiot or an adrenaline junkie. It just sits there awaiting your command, day or night, any season, and it never, ever does the chicken dance.
It’s called a book.
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Persinger is community editor for The Tribune. She may be reached at (812) 523-7063 or jpersinger@tribtown.com.

Against a backdrop of eerie shadows cast by the flickering flames from the orange-red firelight, the two predators circled each other warily.
Drawing ever closer, at last they made their move, lunging and grappling, then breaking apart only to attack again.
As if to match the movement of the shadows all around them, they leaped high into the air, their bodies arching gracefully, answering to a moment that called for finesse rather than brute strength, every move one of elegant fierceness.
Then they sat down on the living room floor and looked around, bored again.
Sometimes I think cats are crazy, but when the power is out, they certainly can be entertaining.
Normally, they would have been racing each other up and down the stairs, sounding like a herd of small elephants. They do that a lot. I’ve been thinking about building a small arena and strapping little Ben Hur-type chariots onto the kitties, just to make it interesting. Put in a couple of toy mice as “drivers” and they’d be all set.
Normally, TJ would have been stopping occasionally to put his front paws up beside the television screen and watch for a while, but, no power, no TV.
Lizzy likes to roam and meddle, which she can do in the dark as well as the light, but I don’t think it’s as much fun when there’s no chance of someone catching her batting the artificial flowers around and knocking over the vase. When she does something like that, she zips out of the room, only to casually stroll back in in a moment, her face absolutely glowing with the sweetness of innocence.
Having regrouped after their “fight,” they did something else they like to do. They play a game of “I don’t see you,” walking back and forth past each other while pretending the other is invisible.
This time, perhaps inspired by the candlelight and the dancing shadows it created, they picked up the pace. It was like watching the opening moves of a carefully choreographed dance, performed to a manic beat that only they could hear. At any moment, I expected them to turn in the same direction and engage in a forcefully and artistically executed tango (think Al Pacino and his partner in “Scent of a Woman”).
Instead, they slowed down, still walking in opposite directions, so I began singing “Strangers in the Night.”
That put a stop to the pacing, and quickly. They sat down, huddled together and fixed me with twin stares.
I hadn’t expected applause, but I hadn’t expected to frighten the poor things, either.
About that time, my son, who had been having a long, soaking bath by candlelight, poked his head around the door and said, “I was deep into my meditation, and then I heard someone singing ‘Strangers in the Night.’”
I think I frightened him, too.
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Persinger is community editor for The Tribune. She may be reached at (812) 523-7063 or jpersinger@tribtown.com.

Seven years ago Sept. 11, Americans woke up and began what they expected to be a routine day.
Seven years ago Sept. 12, they woke up with the knowledge of the living nightmare that had happened the day before.
The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, left people in the entire country shocked, fearful and angry. There was outrage, but there was also something else stirring, something that showed in the way that people of all types of backgrounds stood together as one.
In New York, people gathered together in groups to talk, to pray, to ask for news of the missing, to light candles. They were of different faiths, different skin colors, different countries of origin, but all that seemed to flicker away in the candlelight. In that terrible time, they were simply Americans, and more importantly, human beings.
It was a scene that played out across the country.
Not everyone lost a loved one that day in New York or Washington or Pennsylvania, but many prayed for those who did, and they prayed together.
Not everyone could personally comfort those who mourned, but they let them know, in whatever way they could, that each person who died on Sept. 11 was not just another number on a list, but an individual with their own unique life.
A lot has changed since then, not the least of which is that this country, once so united in a time of enormous tragedy, is locked in a struggle within itself.
Americans disagree on just about everything, from how, and when, to end the nation’s presence in Iraq to whether, and where, to drill for oil.
Americans have always been a scrappy bunch, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The problem today seems to be that the country is split down the middle, and no one has any interest in building bridges. Political bipartisanship seems to have become sadly, even dangerously, lacking.
The country has some serious problems, and it’s going to take a lot of folks working together to get them fixed.
There’s nothing that says the solution to a problem has to come from government. Solutions can come from anyone — individuals, think tanks or grass-roots organizations. This country is full of people who are intelligent and experienced and value common sense. They are capable of solving problems and they are capable of recognizing an excellent idea when it’s put before them.
There’s no more time for bickering, by those in office or anyone else.
If Americans don’t come together on some major issues, and soon, the infighting may accomplish what the terrorists of Sept. 11 couldn’t.
Let’s put aside our differences now and work toward a better day, and an even better one the day after.
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Persinger is community editor for The Tribune. She may be reached at (812) 523-7063 or jpersinger@tribtown.com.

A new show at Southern Indiana Center for the Arts in Seymour features one of my favorite art forms — photographs.
The exhibit, the Carl Morrison Photography Show, which runs through the end of May, displays the work of Hayden native Carl “Mo” Morrison, a travel photographer and writer now living in California.
I don’t know yet what the exact subject matter is for the photo exhibit, but I saw a sampling of Morrison’s work at the Web site MoKnows Photos.com.
Scrolling down the Web site, I saw some unique photographs, divided into Morrison’s “projects” — pictures from across the country, steam trains, landscapes, lighthouses, trains, covered bridges, classic cars and even a collection of neon signs.
I’ll have to admit, though, that my favorite “project” was the one tagged “Automotive Brightwork.” We’re talking the real deal, here — Cadillac fins and Studebakers with their distinctive “nose,” Pontiac hood ornaments and a (be still, my heart) red 1957 Chevy with a continental kit.
I was impressed, too, with the back end of a 1959 DeSoto, and a Stutz grille.
One photo really took me back. It showed a fin with the words “The Wanderer” written on it. I don’t think I was quite in my teens when it became the fashion for boys to make their cars more distinctive by adding a couple of words. It was usually the name of a song popular at that particular time. (Wasn’t it Dion who sang “The Wanderer”?) The only specific name I recall was “Moonlight Gambler,” after the song. That fad seemed to disappear almost as soon as it began, but it was fun while it lasted.
There are plenty of photos on Morrison’s site, including some really nice covered bridge pictures (a couple are from Jackson County). I expect his train photos would be especially appealing to local model railroading buffs.
An opening reception for Morrison’s show will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. today at SICA, 2001 N. Ewing St.
The arts center has a full summer ahead, and its activities aren’t limited to exhibits. According to its most recent schedule, the first Friday Night Live performance is set for May 9. I work most Friday nights, so I wasn’t able to catch any of the shows last year, but I heard from several different people who did attend and said they had a great time. Performing at the first show this year will be the Apostolic Tabernacle Choir and the Peace Lutheran Praise Team, and I heard some really great things about them from someone who heard them sing at a recent event.
As always, SICA also will have other offerings that range from pottery to art classes to art camp.
It’s warming up and blossoms are everywhere. It’s a great time to line up some spring and summer activities that are close to home.
SICA is at 2001 N. Ewing St. For information, call 522-2278 or visit www.soinart.com.
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Persinger is community editor for The Tribune. She may be reached at (812) 523-7063 or jpersinger.com.

Teapots, buttons or Coca-Cola signs — if it exists, someone will collect it.
I collect words.
“Osmosis,” for example. Forget its biology-based first and second definitions in Webster’s. Go straight to the third definition, the one that describes a “seemingly effortless absorption of ideas, feelings, attitudes.”
We learn two ways, especially when we’re children. One is through instruction and study. The other involves an absorption of knowledge that takes place every day, a process so subtle we’re not even aware of it. We learn by osmosis. That, and bad experiences that give us a really big smack and definitely are not an example of learning by osmosis.
“Miasma” is a word I liked a lot better before I learned exactly what it meant. I thought it sounded wispy, delicate. Yep, “vapor rising as from marshes or decomposing animal or vegetable matter” is bound to be wispy. And delicate.
Here’s a word I just happened to run across: “fogdog.” It’s “a bright spot seen at the horizon as a fog starts to dissipate.” “Fogdog” doesn’t sound like a bright spot to me, but more like something hunkering in the shadows.
I always liked the word “trinket,” applied to an inexpensive ornament or piece of jewelry. I also liked the trinkets themselves. I had fake jewelry all over the place — literally —when I was a little girl. It didn’t take long for the gem in a 59 cent “diamond” ring to wind up in one room and its setting in another. My “pearls” always came unstrung; my pop beads popped their last soon after purchase. I’ll say one thing, though. I got the good out of every single one of those 59 pennies. Life was meant to be lived, dollinks.
Another favorite was “cotillion.” I was always reading some novel set in the past in which young ladies would attend cotillions, or balls. They always got to dance with handsome young military officers. Yes, “cotillion” was good. “Sock hop” just didn’t have quite the same ring to it.
“Mississippi” is a great word. I used to listen to “Mississippi Delta” on the B side of “Ode to Billy Joe,” and Bobbie Gentry would sing “M-i-double s-i-double s-i-double p-i.” As she belted that out in her raspy voice, I felt like I really was right there in the Mississippi Delta.
Another Bobbie Gentry song had one of my favorite words of all time in it. “Copasetic.” I know exactly what copasetic means, beyond its definition of “good, fine, excellent.”
For me, it describes those moments when your own little planets have aligned and you are at peace with the world and, most importantly, with yourself. It’s the feeling of complete relaxation that follows an afternoon in the pool, when, freshly showered, and dressed in your favorite pair of well-worn jeans and an old, soft shirt, you turn on some blues, put your feet up and just drift.
You have just entered the delta zone, and it’s all copasetic now.
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Persinger is community editor for The Tribune. She may be reached at (812) 523-7063 or jpersinger@tribtown.com.

If I could travel back in time, one of the places I would visit is southern Indiana, including right here where I live.
I’d go back to a time when nothing was here except plants and wildlife and the occasional hunting party passing through. I’ve read stories of what it was like back then, and I don’t know if someone from the present could even take in what they were seeing.
Most of all, I would want to see the streams and rivers, before they became murky and polluted. Of all the many environmental concerns today, I worry most about the water supply.
Before the past few years, I had been concerned most about the quality of water. But with some states eyeing each other’s water supplies, and since the drought here last summer, I also worry now about the availability of water.
It isn’t just water for human beings that is important. Water, plentiful and unpolluted, is necessary to sustain wildlife and plant life, not to mention crops and livestock, including horses.
In looking up some information on water resources, I ran across a Web site, www.in.gov/dnr/riverwatch. I had read about Hoosier Riverwatch in the past, but I took the opportunity to browse through the site and found it interesting.
According to the Web site, Hoosier Riverwatch, a state-sponsored water quality monitoring initiative, was begun in 1994 to increase public awareness of water quality issues by training volunteers to monitor stream water quality. Hoosier Riverwatch collaborates with agencies and volunteers to provide educa-tion about watersheds, increase public involvement in water quality issues, promote responsible stew-ardship of water resources and provide water quality information to citizens and government officials working to protect rivers and streams.
It’s sponsored by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources-Division of Fish and Wildlife, and funding is provided in part by the Federal Sport Fish Restoration Fund.
Some of the information the site provides is how to get involved and take training sessions. It explains what a watershed is and furnishes a map showing watershed areas in Indiana, gives an overview of wa-ter monitoring and related assessments and furnishes Adopt-A-River guidelines and an online data search, along with other information and related links.
Something that caught my eye was an Indiana rivers quiz, which you can reach by clicking on Educational Resources.
Twenty-six rivers are listed, with an A-Z list of information about them. I found out I was woefully un-knowledgeable about Indiana’s rivers.
Here’s a description of one of them: “It drains only 500 square miles and its Miami name means “sap of the bloodroot.” The river? The Salamonie.
If you want to have a little fun and maybe learn more about Indiana’s environment, there are still 25 rivers to be matched with descriptions.
Take the quiz yourself, and you’ll probably be amazed at how much I didn’t know.
And if you’re so inclined, say a little prayer for good crops this year, and pray for hay for the horses.
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Persinger is community editor for The Tribune. She may be reached at (812) 523-7063 or jpers-inger@tribtown.com.

Schools may close for the summer, but a child’s education never stops.
As classes and homework take a leave of absence, the void they leave behind will be filled with other pursuits, every one of which will be a learning experience in its own way.
What kind of education will your child have this summer?
I consider myself to have been a lucky child. My summers were spent playing outside, helping work on the farm when I was forced to, and reading.
We children were blessed with a patient mother who always had time to read to us, or, after we learned to read for ourselves, she was always there to answer a question or explain the meaning of a new word. She and my father read the paper every day, and talked about what was going on in the world, and I listened. I loved to read, and consider the endless time I spent with books to be one of the strongest foundations of my childhood education.
It wasn’t until later years that I realized how many other influences contributed to my education as well, beginning with where we lived. All around were fields and woods and springs, brimming over with life. There were flowers everywhere, some planted by my mother, others growing wild. There were lilacs so thick and plentiful that I could run through them as if in a small forest, taller than I stood, the scent of so many blossoms almost dizzying, especially right after a warm spring rain.
Of course, there was another facet of my education. It was called work, and it usually involved a hoe, which I wielded neither accurately nor well. The funny thing was, I not only learned to do it, but also to like it, and the sense of accomplishment it gave me.
As I look back at the things I learned, and how I learned them, I think I have found the key element in the successful education of a child. It’s the people who are willing to teach them, to make sure they learn from the life around them. In my case, those people happened to be my family.
Life has changed in many ways, but there are still plenty of moms, dads, grandparents or other relatives, and paid caregivers as well, who go the extra mile to see that a child’s need for learning is met.
There are working moms and dads who are never too tired to read another story, or to allow a child to help with a task, when it would be so much easier to do it themselves.
These are the people who realize that they are a child’s most important teacher, and that school is always in session.
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Persinger is community editor for The Tribune. She may be reached at (812) 523-7063 or jpersinger@ tribtown.com.

A barn is like an anchor for those who make their living from a sea of rolling fields.
It is a place of shelter for livestock, and also a shield from the elements for the tools of the farmer’s trade.
Old barns, worn, even dilapidated, display character and draw forth a poignant wistfulness. Once, they were filled with the sounds of life on the land. Their lofts were stuffed with hay, and in the evenings, there was the comforting, contented sound of animals munching their supper before dozing off in the darkness.
The barns of rural Jackson County are fading into the past, as the face of farming changes and the landscape with it.
That’s a fact that hasn’t gone unnoticed by people interested in preserving memories of barns, past and present, by preserving the structures’ images.
“The barn has been the center of American rural life for centuries,” states a press release from the Jackson County Fair Antique Building Committee. “Barns stood for harvest and hard work. The barns are fading from the landscape, victims of their age, the expense of maintaining them and their lack of practical purpose.”
That’s why the committee will sponsor a photography contest this year with the theme of “Jackson County Barns,” says Karen Terrell, who is chair of the Antique Building, along with co-chair Carolyn Robison.
“The theme (for the Antique Building overall) is ‘Pride in our past, faith in our future,’” Terrell said, with the photography contest display serving as an added feature for the building.
The committee is urging people to preserve a favorite barn in a picture to share with visitors to the fair and to keep for future generations to see. Terrell said photos also could be submitted that had been taken in the past of barns now no longer standing.
Contest rules:
All entries must depict a barn located in Jackson County.
The entrant must include his or her name, address, phone number and location of the barn in the photo on a 4×5 card with each entry.
Prints must be no larger than 8×10, framed or on mount board. The winner will receive a prize, and the picture will be featured in the 2009 Fair Book.
Bring all entries to the Antique Building at the fairgrounds from 9 a.m. to noon July 18 or 19. All en-tries will be displayed in the Antique Building during fair week.
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Persinger is community editor for The Tribune. She may be reached at (812) 523-7063 or jpersinger@tribtown.com.