Six hundred columns of local and high-quality baloney | Life in Ludlow

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Sometimes things just seem to come together nicely, as most things did this past week. 

I mean vanilla ice cream and apple pie, dark chocolate and red wine, and friends giving you a ride to Bremerton to leave your injured car for repair. Then he takes you back to pick it up! 

In addition, I got more pleasant to be with as my teeth got cleaned and I got a haircut. Frankly, what’s not to like about “Indigenous Peoples Day” and “Columbus Day” happening on the very same day? 

I even won $24 in the Rotary Club “scam” in preparation for losing $4 that evening at poker. 

Something not coming together this week was the Wabash College football team losing its first game this year to the College of Wooster and the hassle I went through to put a new modem and router on my computer. I even pleaded for and got an extension to the deadline for submitting this column.

This is column number 600 of my version of “Life in Ludlow.” That means around three-hundred-seventy-five thousand words. My greatest appreciation is for the people who have enjoyed some notoriety from their inclusion in these stories and spent some time reading them, including my wife BJ. 

My sincere apologies to any who were in any way offended by being included. 

Most of all I am thankful for those folks who tell me that this column is the only reason they get the “mis-Leader.” Come on, this is your hometown newspaper and your only real source for the police log! 

I have written minutes for meetings, monthly newsletters for various organizations, and the yearly widely anticipated Luce family Christmas letters over the years but I’d never done a weekly column like this. 

However, when I told my daughter that I was going to try this she noted that it would just be like writing the Christmas letter every week! 

I am grateful to former publisher Scott Wilson for taking a chance by hiring me, a dude with no newspaper experience. I am also grateful to Hudson High School English teacher Dolly Gray and the English professors at Wabash College for their guidance and patience with my writing. Unsurprisingly, I think Scott is the only one still alive.

My friend Steve Gross may have appeared in this column around 300 times and he thinks that may not be enough. He even organized a few of his friends to email me with the opinion that my column is substantially better when I include a reference to him. Many other folks like the Drapers, Ann and Ramsey Smith, the Paxsons, and others regularly provide me with material I can embellish and then relate to you. 

You surely must be tiring of all my stories about Rotary activities and people. The car stories are particularly fun for me and provide a way to incite an email or two from former Tala Point resident Skip Owen. 

Adding more gloom to the Wabash’s loss are the Seahawk’s loss to Pittsburgh and DePauw’s win over Ohio Wesleyan. At least the Kansas City Chiefs won this week. 

The Port Ludlow Voice held a meeting last week to introduce many of the folks who volunteer to write, edit, organize and distribute the monthly local news magazine. They are looking for good people who might step into helping some and may be able to provide backup. This high-quality publication has been printed for Port Ludlow locals for the past 23 years. 

After all this history, opportunity and hope for Wabash football I offer a quote attributed to Shonda Rhimes: “The act of doing something un-does the fear.” 

Love a curmudgeon and have a great week. 

(Ned Luce is a retired IBM executive and Port Ludlow resident who has, as you have read, appeared in these pages 600 times. Not counting the police blotter. Email Ned at ned@ptleader.com.)