Let’s look at the U.S. Energy Information Administration statistics. According to this government agency, two years ago this month – April 2020 – the average price for a gallon of gasoline in the state of Ohio was – drum roll, please – not $4 a gallon, not $3 a gallon and not $2 a gallon. No, Joe. It was $1.44 a gallon just two years ago this month. That’s from the U.S. government, so it must be true.

Let’s look at the U.S. Energy Information Administration statistics. According to this government agency, two years ago this month – April 2020 – the average price for a gallon of gasoline in the state of Ohio was – drum roll, please – not $4 a gallon, not $3 a gallon and not $2 a gallon. No, Joe. It was $1.44 a gallon just two years ago this month. That’s from the U.S. government, so it must be true.

Just curious: Has anyone seen the highest-paid bureaucrat on the U.S. taxpayers' teat lately? It's so bad that I was checking milk cartons (pun intended) in Alabama last month for Anthony Fauci. No worries. He's well beyond outliving his usefulness.

This is Sunshine Week, a national celebration of access to public information and government transparency. As I have written before, it will be negligibly observed March 13-19 by those precious few Americans who care about what they really pay for on the local, state and national levels and what they actually receive for their tax dollars.

Could it be that Highland County's representative in the Ohio House is the sacrificial lamb in the ongoing gerrymandering, er, redistricting saga? At first glance, I thought it was possible. Let me explain.

Could it be that Highland County's representative in the Ohio House is the sacrificial lamb in the ongoing gerrymandering, er, redistricting saga? At first glance, I thought it was possible. Let me explain.

The email from this first week of 2022 has been just about enough to send me into a Lee Elia-type tirade about career politicians with nice teeth and beauty parlor hair.

The email from this first week of 2022 has been just about enough to send me into a Lee Elia-type tirade about career politicians with nice teeth and beauty parlor hair.

PETA may be onto something with the elimination of baseball's bullpen. But they can't stop with just one Pyrrhic victory. They must work toward the ending of all animal-related terms that may or may not be the least bit offensive – not to one damned animal, of course – but to the moronic wokesters who follow the lead of similarly moronic individuals. Once again, in retrospect, Mr. Forsha was correct a decade ago. We need more cowbell. This, from a lifelong PETA (People Eating Tasty Animals) member.

More than one of our always appreciated Alert Readers brought it to my attention that last week's HCP print edition failed to include my usual column on Page 4. You'll have that. After publishing roughly 2,000 newspaper, magazine and online columns in the past three-plus decades, I am neither fatigued nor void of material. Frankly, I've just been busy.

As it is written in Matthew 6:27: "And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?"

I think those publicly denouncing Neil Clark's book most likely have employed their respective attorneys to comb through it, page by page. They're reading it – at least in my opinion. I have not read Clark's book. But I will soon. I ordered a copy on Amazon this week. It's tough to imagine that Neil Clark's final words – with his knowledge that these were indeed his final words – would be anything less than truthful to the best of his memory.

Knowing a long drive south to the Gulf of Mexico was on my evening itinerary, I thought, what the heck, I'll order a nice meal. After placing our respective orders, the lovely waitress at the Saltine Hogshead returned with portions of those respective orders. She then informed us that "We're out of gravy. We're also out of biscuits – and cornbread. Not to mention sweet potato casserole." For an old Ridgerunner like me, there's just something not quite right when you have to choke down mashed potatoes and chicken fried cube steak – sans gravy.

Hillsboro and Highland County have lost two more icons in the community in recent days. As it is with so many of life's inevitables, these losses are reminders of how precious our own time is, but also how much others have contributed to our respective memories. Maybe some even lended a helping hand to us somewhere along the journey. These men did.

For the last half-century, give or take, I've had the southern Ohio pleasure of watching the change of seasons. By the calendar, each year begins with winter's hangover from the previous year. The coldest season soon gives way to spring, which passes the seasonal baton to summer, which, much to my chagrin, seems to surrender far too soon to autumn, which similarly throws up a white flag to winter in late December. And so it goes. Year after year. Season after season.