Isn't it ironic ... don't you think?

Irony, coincidence or just plain weird? ... You make the call.

To me, irony is hearing "Stairway to Heaven" playing as you enter an elevator.

Concidence? That's like rain on your wedding day, despite what singer Alanis Morissette might have said.

And weird? Well, let's just say we know it when we see it.

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Anyone else see the irony in IBM announcing it is adding 125 Indiana jobs (at a call center near Daleville where it already employs 500)?

IBM once employed 985 in Greencastle. In fact, for you numerologists out there, the 25th anniversary of that fateful IBM Greencastle closing announcement will be this fall -- wait for it ... -- on 11/11/11.

Irony? Coincidence? Our own oddity?

Regardless Nov. 11, 2011, will mark 25 years -- could it really be a quarter-century? -- since that Nov. 11, 1986 announcement that forever changed the face of Greencastle and our industrial presence.

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TeGrotenhuis at Tzouanakis? What a great pairing while it lasted.

How is it no one from Tzouanakis Intermediate School has ever won the regional spelling bee to qualify for the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee?

I understand that the first spelling lists students there receive included Tzouanakis and TeGrotenhuis. That's not exactly C-A-T or D-O-G, is it?

If this were "Wheel of Fortune," you'd never have to buy a vowel. They're all there.

And in selecting a successor to Dan TeGrotenhuis, who is retiring as principal, you have to wonder: Does spelling count for the Greencastle School Board?

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What are the chances that a guy named Weiner would end up in a sexting scandal?

Man, you just can't make up that kind of stuff. The whole thing smacks of a "Saturday Night Live" skit -- I mean in the old days. When they were funny.

Yet somehow I keep thinking good old Oscar Meyer is missing the boat, not putting this guy behind the wheel of the Wienermobile for a photo op. Or at least let him ride shot-bun (Yep, that's what they call it. I know because I actually got to ride there once).

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The next time DePauw University picks another Columbus, Indiana-based industrialist to give its commencement address, let's just go ahead and schedule the ceremony indoors, OK?

This year it was Timothy Solso, a 1969 DPU grad who heads Cummins Engine, who spoke during the rain-shortened ceremony that ended up scrambling to resume inside Meharry Hall.

Several years before, the last time it rained on the DePauw parade, the speaker was DPU Board of Trustees Chairman James K. Baker, who formerly headed Arvin Industries of Columbus. It was Baker who spoke when the ceremony was conducted inside the Lilly Center for the first time when rain intervened.

Given Indiana's uncertain weather, it is still an amazing streak for DePauw to have been able to hold commencement outdoors in the middle of May in all but two or three years over three decades.

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Back when my oldest daughter, Kara, was a lifeguard during one of the first years the new city pool was open, she made her first water rescue while teaching swim lessons one morning.

Ironically, the toddler who decided to take an unannounced solo dip that morning is now one of the city pool staff members.

Reminded of this, she recently texted me this response: "Well, at least he learned how to swim!"

Definitely a happy ending.

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Am I the only one who wonders how one very badly timed door opening in Indianapolis may have changed the course of American politics?

Seriously, you have to wonder how much Mitch Daniels being knocked upside the head and getting 16 stitches played into him choosing not to run for president.

Did it knock some sense into him? Or was there a Democrat on the other side of that swinging door?

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And can anyone explain to me how Putnam County failed to receive a disaster declaration for the horrendous Jan. 31-Feb. 1 ice storm that crippled this area, yet qualified as a disaster area for the April 18 thunderstorms that basically dropped some rain on us and blew down a few branches?

***

Weird? Sure.

Irony? A tinge perhaps.

Coincidence? I think not ...