Kelsey Timmerman

Are small towns killing themselves?

By Kelsey

Quiet streets. Rush hour means three cars deep at a red light. My grandmother knows your grandmother. Going to the grocery and seeing 20 people you know.

This is life in a small town.

It’s often over-romanticized. But the small town life is still what I prefer. To me, Muncie, where I live now, is a big city. It’s not big enough to have bad traffic other than at all-you-can-eat buffets, but anywhere with a multi-screened movie theater and a mall is a big city in my book.

One of the small towns that I’ve called home over the years is Greenville, Ohio. It’s where we went for groceries, swim classes, the dentist, and – up until last year – where my day job was.

But small towns are often small towns for a reason: there aren’t many opportunities in small towns. Such is the case with Greenville. A lot of my friends from high school don’t live anywhere near where we grew up.

Greenville is the county seat of Darke County. In Darke County only 33% of households have kids under the age of 18, which is far below the national average of 46%. What does this mean?

It means that I can’t remember the last time a school levy of any significance passed in the county. The attitude seems to be, “My taxes put my kids through school, by God am I going to pay more in taxes to put other people’s kids through school!”

And that attitude just defeated a $2.9 million bond issue that would’ve secured $19 million in state-funding to build a new school.

From the Daily Advocate:
Darke County Board of Election officials released the unofficial ballot votes of 2698 for (49.27 percent) and 2778 against (50.73 percent)

There are still 136 provisional ballots out there, but it’s doubtful the outcome will change.

The Greenville schools can kiss $19 million and a shiny new school that might attract employers goodbye. The cost is a little over $100/year per $100,000 of home value. I’m not for throwing away money myself, but chances are a new school would increase your home’s value more than the tax would cost in the long run.

Does Greenville need a new school? One day Last year school was canceled when parts of the middle school actually started to fall off. An elementary school running out of room (because of consolidations not enrollment increases) had to bring in trailers (aka mobile classrooms). If you’re being taught in something that can be pulled down the road by a semi-truck, you have to question what kind of education you are getting.

I heard about a business that was thinking about moving into the area and when they saw the lack of support for the schools, they decided to go elsewhere. Another business in the county has a satellite office in Dayton for their engineers because no one wants to live in Darke County.

No one wants to live there except the people that already do. And the people that already do have kids that move away and never come back. The number of households with children in school continues to decrease and the community continues to age and die.

Small towns want to hang onto their small-towness, but they vote down a thing that could help preserve their lifestyle and assure a future for their kids and grand-kids.

It’s easy to be nostalgic about small towns. It’s not easy to be nostalgic about ignorance.

Small towns like Greenville are killing themselves, and it’s tough to feel sorry for them.

Mad World

An Uncle’s Job

By Kelsey

My brother, Kyle, and his wife, Jenn, just welcomed their first child into the world.

Max Timmerman weighed in at 6lbs 9oz and was born yesterday a few skips from Houston’s Space Center. The sky’s the limit for Max. He’s got two really smart parents one of who – my brother – is a bit of doofus, but he’ll be okay.

I’ve been a proud uncle to Annie’s sister’s kids, Jared and Cale, for six years now, but it’s different with your own bro’s kids, you know? I feel like I have a little more latitude to teach Max the important things in life: how to spit, how to cuss, how to sneak sips of beer when the adults aren’t looking.

I just signed him up for lifetime subscriptions to Playboy, GQ, Esquire, the New York Times, and the New Yorker. I actually didn’t. But that’s the kind of uncle I want to be (minus the Playboy which would get me in a lot of trouble with Max’s mom).

An uncle’s job is to teach a boy all the things his mom won’t let his father teach him.

It will be an absolute honor, my man, Max.

This Writer’s Life

I want a shark bite

By Kelsey

In honor of shark week, I’m dusting off an old piece from my column writing days. It’s from 2006 so the stats might be a bit out of whack.

Sharks Bite?

The waters don’t feel sharky, but I’ve been wrong before.

I’m 85 miles off the coast of Cuba, 40-feet beneath the ocean’s surface. The water is murky and I am tooling along a lengthy coral finger. People dive in these waters to see all of the bright colors and unique fish. All I can see are shadows.

The coral finger is the big unmoving shadow to my right. The small shadows floating around it vary in size and shape; they are fish such as parrot, squirrel, snapper, and angel fish. The large shadow ahead, coming right at me is…oh, wait. It’s bulky. It travels in smooth horizontal movements. Dorsal fin – check. Odd-shaped head with two malevolent eyes unnaturally separated – CHECK! It is a hammerhead SHARK!

The chase begins, but I don’t stand a chance. 400 million years of evolution are against me.

It would be a lot cooler if the shark had moved in for an attack and I eluded it by ducking behind a coral head and then fought it off by wrestling it with its jaws snapping wildly inches from my mask, but this is not the case.

The hammerhead and I are both surprised. I don’t move or breathe. It changes course. I can see the tip of its snout, the end of its powerful tail, and the eight-feet of streamlined predator in between. Quickly, and with little effort, it disappears into the murk. The chase that ensues is my trying to get a better look at the magnificent creature.

Despite what movies like JAWS, Open Water, and The Deep Blue Sea would lead you to believe, being attacked by a shark is very, very rare. There is a long list of improbable things that you are more likely to be harmed by including, earthworms, banana slugs, and toasters.

If you are like me and you are not into tattoos, but do get some strange enjoyment out of scars, which are life’s tattoos, you may be disappointed at the rarity of a shark bite. After all, what cooler life tattoo is there? I am not talking a big bite where flesh is missing or left hanging. A small one, just big enough to be manly, which requires way less than 100 stitches and no physical therapy, would do. What’s cooler? A flaming skull inked on your flabby bicep or a few spaced out scars left by the teeth of a shark?

Acquaintances at the gym would point to your arm in envy. You could say, “Oh that…it’s just a shark bite.” Congratulations, “Shark Bite”, you just got yourself a new nickname.

Most shark attacks on humans are cases of a mistaken identity: surfers look like seals; a white foot in the silt of the shallows looks like a fish. I am not saying sharks are big puppy dogs that you should grab by the tail and give kisses to, although I have seen this being done on shark feeds in the Bahamas, but you are not the one who should be most afraid in a shark-human encounter.

Each year 100 million sharks are killed by humans. We hack off their fins, essential for swimming, and throw their wriggling, bloody torsos back into the water to die slowly, all for a nice bowl of shark fin soup. According to Julia Brown of Halifax University, worldwide shark populations are falling at an alarming rate. In the past 50 years there has been a 61% decrease in the population of large species. The population of white tip sharks, once thought to be the most abundant large animal on earth, has decreased by an alarming 99%.

It is no wonder that the hammerhead saw me and swam swiftly away. We humans are scary.

Seeing a shark while diving is a lot like seeing a police car while driving; you slow down and take stock, “Do I have anything to be worried about?” Once you realize that you are well within the limits of the laws of nature or of the highway patrol, you continue on your way, occasionally, checking your rearview mirror to see if you are being followed.

Sharks are not to be feared, but to be respected. I have taken over 700 SCUBA dives in the ocean and have yet to have a scary encounter with a shark.

The only fish that ever attacked me was a three-inch blue gill protecting her eggs in a freshwater quarry in Ohio. Unfortunately, I don’t have any scars to show for it. It’s probably a good thing; the nickname “Blue Gill Bite” just doesn’t have the same ring.

A pic I took in the Bahamas on a shark dive.

Travel

$10 for Tuesday: In support of wounded soldiers

By Kelsey

Captain Scott Smiley

Leaving your family isn’t easy. I leave mine for a month or two at time. That’s a tough goodbye. Each time I’m faced with it, I think about the men and women of our military. They are gone for much longer and traveling to lands far less welcoming.

Returning home is always sweet. I return with my hair a bit longer, a few pounds missing, and some great stories. Annie usually cuts my hair within a few days, a couple weeks eating dessert puts the weight back on, and I stew over the stories making them readable. It takes next to no time for me to be back to normal.

But that’s not always the case for our soldiers.

They said goodbye. They went to war. Some of them returned injured.

I don’t know many soldiers. But I had the pleasure of meeting Scott Smiley who is one of a few blind active-duty soldiers. He was blinded in Iraq and is now a teacher at West Point. Scotty’s journey is recounted in his book Hope Unseen due out in September.

But sacrifices like Scotty’s are ones that I don’t think about enough.

Do you?

That’s why this Tuesday I’m sending my $10 to Team, Red, White, & Blue.

Team, Red, White, & Blue is a nonprofit that matches endurance athletes with wounded soldiers and their families. The athletes raise money that goes directly to the soldier. How cool is that?

Today it’s $10, but someday it will be buckets of sweat. I can’t wait.

Join me in Donating / Become a Fan of TRWB on Facebook.

Giving Back, ten4tues

Adventures in Spam: Dead Dad = Win

By Kelsey

It’s been awhile since I’ve done an “Adventures in Spam” piece. Here’s my last one. Anyhow, I received the following email below and thought I would take a break from writing for a few minutes to respond.

My Dear,

It is my pleasure to contact you for a business venture which I intend to establish in your country. Though I have not met with you before but I believe one has to risk confidence to succeed sometimes in life. There is this huge amount of Seven million Five Hundred Thousands U.S dollars ($7.500.000.00) which my late Father kept with a Fiduciary Fund Holder in Abidjan before his death.

Now, I have decided to invest this money in your country or anywhere safe enough outside Africa for security and political reasons. I want you to assist me claim and retrieve this fund from the Fiduciary Fund Holders and transfer it into your personal account in your country for investment purposes on these areas:

1). Telecommunication
2). the transport industry
3). Five star hotel

If you can be of any assistance to me I will be pleased to offer to you 20% of the total fund. I await your soonest response.

Respectfully yours,

Ms. Julien Kowan

MY RESPONSE

Bummer! Sorry to hear about your Dad.

That said…

The timing of your email is great! I lost my job and have to scavenge for food for my family. If I have to eat one more raccoon, I’ll barf. My daughter has taken a liking to blended earth worms.

My favorite thing about Abidjan is that it’s like the first country (note: It’s actually a city) that pops up on an alphabetic list of countries. How’s the weather there?

Let me know what I should do next.

Show me the money! No more raccoons for me!!!!

Kelsey

Mad World

$10 for Tuesday: Samaritan’s Purse

By Kelsey

It’s not always easy giving. First it takes time.

Today I was flying back from 12 days in NYC and really didn’t have any idea of who I was going to give $10 to this Tuesday. I got home. I was tired. I was much more interested in playing with Harper and Oreo than staring at my computer. There was a chance that my $10 for Tuesday wouldn’t get posted until Wednesday.

And sometimes it takes a kick in the pants. Today that kick came from Michele Shaw:

Hi Kelsey! In the spirit of your Tuesday project, I have contributed for a month to Samaritan’s Purse. They do one of my favorite projects-Operation Christmas Child, and are already gearing up to help children around the world come December.

Giving is like anything else, you need a little support sometimes. So this Tuesday, along with Michele, I’m giving $10 to Samaritan’s Purse.

One thing I really like about their site is that you can choose what project you want to support.

Thanks Michele!

Anyone have any good ideas where to shoot my $10 next week?

Giving Back, ten4tues

Stuck on Train

By Kelsey

I’m stuck on a train in Connecticut. You can follow my tale of survival on twitter at #stuckontrain . There’s no AC, but there’s plenty of gaseous kids.

This Writer’s Life

American Flag on NY Stock Exchange Replaced by Credit Card Ad

By Kelsey

Wall Street brought to you by America. America brought to you by Wall Street.

An $8 whiskey near Wall Street. Where is Windell when you need him? Glad I brought my credit card.

(60 minutes later) Wait, wasn’t there just a flag here? Wall Street brought to you by debt. Debt brought to you by Wall Street?

Mad World

A Popular post written by a boob for boobs…did I mention boobs yet?

By Kelsey

If I were paid per page view, I would wake up in the morning and write a headline like the one above.

This is what our world is coming to. Journalist Michael Ayers (@michaeldayers) shared a story with me this morning in the New York Times – In a World of Online News, Burnout Starts Younger.

The piece is about how online journalists are on deadline around the clock and judged by the amount of page views their pieces get. Here’s a passage:

…they try to eke out a fresh thought or be first to report even the smallest nugget of news — anything that will impress Google algorithms and draw readers their way.

Tracking how many people view articles, and then rewarding — or shaming — writers based on those results has become increasingly common in old and new media newsrooms. The Christian Science Monitor now sends a daily e-mail message to its staff that lists the number of page views for each article on the paper’s Web site that day.

The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times all display a “most viewed” list on their home pages. Some media outlets, including Bloomberg News and Gawker Media, now pay writers based in part on how many readers click on their articles.

To me this story is less about recent-grads being overworked than what a focus on page views and writing for search engines means for media as a whole.

I’m somewhat okay with Gawker having a big board in their office that tracks the most viewed posts and who wrote them; the world turns to them for gossip. But the fact that the NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times, and other papers are doing so is really sick. No wonder we don’t hear about people suffering from the financial crisis around the world or the political situation in Kyrgyzstan.

Performance is no longer based on depth and importance, but popular appeal.

In a few years from now maybe I could be the world’s most viewed journalist. Each morning I’ll hit my keyboard first thing and see what’s trending on Twitter and Google and write a post combining as many of the topics as possible.

It would go something like this.

Trending on TWITTER as of 2:54 PM:

1)Cissa Guimares is a Brazilian actress not afraid to show her boobs.
2)Bruna Surfistinha is a former prostitute who blogged about her tricks that likes to show her boobs.
3)Lindsey Lohan used to be an actress now she just shows parts of her boobs and is in prison.
4)Teflon Don is an album by Rick Ross, apparently about bitches:

She came to party like it’s 1999
If she died on my d!@k
She would live through my rhymes

Trending on Google as of 2:54 PM:

1)Defarra Gaymon (actual news) was shot by an undercover cop in NJ.
2)Shirley Sherrod (more actual news!) resigned from USDA after admitting to limiting assistance given to a white farmer because of his race. (editd: oops! The media screwed this one up. She’s back and has received an apology from the President. Imagine that, the media screwed up reporting something.)
3)Colt McCoy is a football player who just got married and a song about his rival Tim Tebow was sung at his wedding.
4)The Switch is a movie in which an actress famous for her boobs gets pregnant with a turkey baster.
5)The Donner Party wasn’t much of a party, unless you like eating humans.

So that’s it. If you want to rake in the page views to protect your job, pay off school loans, or feed the kids you should write this:

Chicks show boobs at Donner Party

At the late night Donner Party following Colt McCoy’s wedding, Cissa Guimares, Bruna Surfistinha, and Lindsey Lohan showed their boobs while dancing to Rick Ross’s new album Teflon Don. Defarra Gaymon and Shirley Sherrod were not in attendance, but they’ll only be trending for the next day or two so they weren’t invited. Word on the street is that Sherrod, in fact, has boobs, but partygoers would rather be eaten than look at them or waterboarded with a turkey baster.

At this rate in a few years we’ll all be bigger asses than…well…than Bruna Surfistinha’s…

Mad World

In the Huffington Post!

By Kelsey

Andrew (my partner on the Nothing Personal project) have a piece in the Huffington Post today – Finance Reform: How Short Memories are Created.

The timing of this piece is more than ironic. Tomorrow we’re hopping flights from Indiana to NYC. Goodbye Main Street! Hello Wall Street!

Our goal in NYC is to treat investment bankers and quants with the empathy that we treated the people we met around the world who had been hit by the crisis. It should be fun.

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