And then I wrote...

by Dick Schilling, Editor Emeritus

... that there is an old saying to the effect that if you are enjoying a particularly happy series of events in your life, just watch somebody or something come along to ruin your happiness.
I have mentioned here before that I feel an inordinate sense of well being when the athletic teams for which I root do well.
Well, over the weekend the Waukon High School football team took a lopsided victory, the Iowa University football team beat Illinois, the Chicago Cubs won a game in the series with St. Louis, and Iowa golfer Zach Johnson went undefeated in four matches of President’s Cup action in Korea.
My rooting interest in those winners goes back a long way in most cases.
I started following the Cubs in the early 1940s when a neighbor, who lived in a home which faced West Main’s 600 block, barber Julius Swain, used to listen to the Cubs on his radio on the front porch. Could barbers who worked in multi-barber shops take off some afternoons at will?
My parochial high school did not have a football team, but since I lived in the corner house catercorner from the then Waukon High School football field, at the corner of Sixth Street and Court Street, where East Elementary School is today, I got home from school soon enough Friday afternoons, when games were played in those days, to see at least part of the football games, also in the early 1940s. Then, when games were played at the Waukon fairgrounds, I followed them, later while covering them for the newspaper. For 17 years as sports reporter for the paper, I attended every game, home and away.
Because my dad was a football fan, who attended games in Minneapolis and Madison but not Iowa City, I grew up following Iowa teams by late grade school years.
And I started watching Zach Johnson when he was not yet on the PGA tour, mostly because he was from Iowa, and I remember Iowan Jack Fleck, who had some PGA wins, including one over Ben Hogan, when Iowans were not represented at that level.
But then, this Monday morning, I heard on the radio that those of us receiving Social Security will not be getting a COLA (cost of living) raise for next year. That has happened before, and recent increases have been very slight, so it probably won’t make that much difference.
But the way it is determined still bothers me. Major factors considered include gasoline prices, average wages and housing costs. Most of those were down this year, and so there was no inflationary increase over the whole spectrum.
But those factors are not significant for most Social Security recipients, who drive less, have fixed incomes and do not purchase homes in retirement.
But the prices of concern to seniors are going up. Just ask them!