Boys basketball

Well, if you like basketball, you gotta love this time of year. Four boys and girls high school games a week, two IU games (we don't acknowledge the existence of Kentucky at this website; UL ok.)

Game at Lanesville came up a bit short, but the team looks pretty solid, and Lanesville's no pushover, particularly on their home floor.

The truth about this blog

The truth is, I'm a visual person. I do words ok, but I mostly choose not to do words. I do pictures. The website is really the blog, abeit a non-verbal one.

Heartbreaker -- New Albany 65, Corydon 55

I can never decide if I'm sorry I missed a game like Saturday's New Albany game, or happy I missed the heartbreak. Small consolation, I suppose, but the Lady Panthers once again looked very good against a favored opponent. So close!

Meet Meredith Sarles

A couple of months ago, we got a call from a woman we didn't know named Meredith Sarles. We operate a workshop for photojournalists, the White Cloud Workshop, and she was calling to say she was interested in the workshop, would like to make her photography better and work with us.

We finally met, of all places, at Cockadoodle Days, where we were both photographing the queen contest. The following week I met with her to look at the pictures she'd made there. I was surprised at how good her pictures were. She's a Harrison County native, grew up in New Salisbury, graduated from North Harrison, had virtually no formal training as a photographer. No reason to expect much. But her pictures were good enough I immediately arranged for her to do some work for Life in Corydon.

She's photographed several things for us already, and you'll be seeing more. We're glad she's here.

Impressive

Puns wouldn't be any good if they didn't make you grimace...

The Lady Panthers press has delivered two big wins for them so far. They crushed Perry County and held on to beat a Charlestown team that has been picked by some to win the conference. For a while it looked like Charlestown was going to be no more trouble than Perry County, but they got their act together in the second half and made it a game.

As I've noted before, Life in Corydon is a small operation. We couldn't cover every football game, so we certainly aren't going to be able to make it to every girls and boys basketball game. We'll do as much as we can, but we won't be at every game.

See the Biddy Ball girls

The Lady Panther Biddy Ball teams will be playing at halftime of the home Lady Panther games over the next few weeks, beginning this Friday night.

Really, it's not to be missed.

Veterans Day and Basketball Begins

Two things we covered this weekend, the opening of Corydon's girls basketball season and Veterans Day ceremonies. The Lady Panthers didn't disappoint. After a slow start against Perry County, they turned on a full court press and thumped the Lady Commodores, 60-33. A pretty good group of Corydon fans made the trip to cheer their team on.

Veterans Day was disappointing. I searched all week in the local papers for information about Veterans Day ceremonies, and found nothing. Both the papers had special tributes to veterans, but no indication about what was happening on Veterans Day. The VFW, though, had been advertising a chicken dinner that day, so that was at least happening. On Saturday, I headed downtown about 10:30, cruised around the square, saw nothing that resembled a possible ceremony getting ready to happen and went back to the VFW.

All the participants were inside, having decided to stay where it was warm and dry. At 11:00 am, the appointed hour, the VFW folks presented a short program to a small crowd of less than 50 people. Neither paper covered the event.

It is sad, really, that we are at war and our tribute to veterans was so small and sparsely attended.

Glad that's over

Try as I might, I can't totally ignore yesteday's election. Let me just say this...

I'm really tired of negative campaign advertising, particularly the kind that distorts the records and opinions of the candidates by narrowly focusing on something they may have said or a bill they may have voted on (sometimes years in the past). It's an insult to our intelligence to think that we voters don't see through that kind of propaganda; an insult to suggest we don't know that most issues are not simple enough to be condensed into a sound bite.

For a change, I'd sure like to see a candidate stand up and say something like, "My opponent is an honorable man who is committed to his beliefs. Here's how our positions differ. You should choose between us based on our stance on the issues."

Politicos say that positive campaigning doesn't work. How sad, if that's true.

Enough politics. Life in Corydon will get back to other important stuff, like Lady Panther basketball.

Biddy basketball

I still think T-ball is just about a sweet as kids' sports gets. But after watching Lady Panther Biddy Ball twice over the weekend, I have to admit I'm hooked. The most fun are the 1st and 2nd graders, most of whom don't yet have any experience unless you count the ones who've learned to dribble in grandma's living room (don't try that at your own house, kids. Moms aren't as forgiving as grandmas.)

Yesterday the coaches introduced the concept of "walking." That is, if you have the ball and wish to move up the floor, you must dribble it, not carry it and run. If you move and don't dribble, you get called for walking and the other team gets the ball. Faced with the new rule, the girls did better. Still, there was a lot of dribble some, run some.

Interestingly, there were also a lot of situations that reminded me of a rugby scrum. Eight young players crowded together struggling for one oversized (for them) basketball.

Baskets were rare, but roundly applauded. A good time was had by all.

Winter sports start

Saturday, Nov. 4, kicks off the winter sports season. The girls basketball team travels to Tell City for a scrimmage. Boys first game is Nov. 16. Girls swimming starts Nov. 27 at Charlestown, boys swimming Nov. 30 at Southridge. Wrestling opens with a meet at New Washington on Nov. 29.

Basketball is an interesting challenge for us at Life in Corydon. The Corydon High School gym has lights which give a reddish cast to pictures taken without flash. It's bad enough that Alan Stewart of the Democrat sets up portable strobe lights to overpower the existing overheads.

Basketball is also problematic because it's a sport that photographers think of as vertical. That is, the players are tall, the action is largely vertical, so most photographers hold their cameras to make vertical pictures. Your computer monitor, however, is horizontal, just like your television. So it doesn't make any sense for us to try to post vertical pictures on a horizontal monitor. Making horizontal pictures of basketball, though, is a challenge.

We'll do our best to be up to it.