All you need are time, looks and a whole lotta money?

By ERIC BERNSEE

Editor

Maybe ol' Forrest Gump's Momma was right after all.

That's what I kept thinking Saturday as it shaped up as a busy, busy day without even attempting to visit Cloverdale for its big 175th birthday celebration (reporter Lauren Boucher covered that for us, thank you).

After all, I knew I'd be bouncing all over Greencastle, trying to take photos at several different events, all the while bemoaning the idea I was giving up my whole Saturday for work (ah, such are the perks of the salaried).

Yep, figured I'd reached into that figurative box of chocolates Saturday and plucked out one of those chocolate-covered orange peels or a brazil nut stale enough to break a tooth. Nope, not gooey caramel or delicious raspberry filling, but something gross and old-fashioned.

In other words, I wasn't planning on enjoying my Saturday with so much work to do.

Maybe life is like a box of chocolates. You truly never know what you're going to get (unless it's been left in your hot car, then you know you're getting that chocolaty mess straight from those old M&Ms commercials).

But a funny thing happened on the way to my pity party. I ran smack into a little history, a little mystery and a whole lot of fun along the way.

The day started about 8:30 a.m., granted, early for me on a Saturday after working the night before. But this was a special event, the inaugural Keith Carr Memorial 5K Run.

Friends and family and fun dominated the morning. The fact that something as tragic as Keith's fatal Rome accident could end up creating so much fun and camaraderie for so many was amazing.

"Just smile back" was the theme of the day. And oh, did we all feel in the mood to do that.

How could you not? Crazy camo and costumes were everywhere. Red, white and blue too. It looked like "Duck Dynasty" meets Ronald McDonald.

Crazy colors even adorned most runners' hair. Makenzie Carr, Keith's sister, and Whitney Brotherton, one of his best longtime friends, set the tone with their wild get-ups and upbeat mood.

Emcee Jim Hardwick look more Bozo than Figgie. Mike Van Rensselaer, looking like he might sing "Go, Cubs, Go" or a Pete Seeger classic of some kind instead belted out an a capella version of "The Star Spangled Banner" (did he realize Saturday was exactly the 200th anniversary of the anthem?) that impressed us all and got the spirit moving.

And that was just the start of the day,

Next I chose to follow Kash and Kolten and grandma Mimi around the Greencastle High School parking lot at the "Touch a Truck" fundraiser for the "Imagination Library" effort run through the Putnam County Public Library.

At first the boys progressed rather timidly through the maze of monstrous trucks, a little too concerned about horns and sirens randomly going off to fully enjoy themselves. But soon they were vaulting seamlessly through the side windows of race cars like they were Bo and Luke Duke.

In between telling us they absolutely were not going to touch a fire truck and then wanting to sit inside the cab of everything with tires and a steering wheel, the boys climbed up into a John Deere tractor, invaded a pink dump truck and a county highway road grader, feigned naps inside the sleeper cab of a Walmart semi and resisted all temptation to let Deputy Tom Helmer put them in the back of a squad car or the rear of the Putnam County Jail van.

The latter? Not a bad thing to realize isn't good, even at ages two and three.

After exhausting all vehicles available to touch -- and likewise the adults who brought them -- the boys headed off to Cloverdale to enjoy the parade and the birthday celebration trappings.

Meanwhile, the John Ireland House open house fundraiser for the Heritage Preservation Society of Putnam County kept me in Greencastle for the afternoon.

The historic home tour offered quite the opposite experience from Touch a Truck. After all, not a lot of touching seemed awfully appropriate while observing the historic atmosphere of a million-dollar restoration.

In the front room of the 1887 Italianate gem, Phil Gick of the Preservation Society delights in sliding out the pocket door between rooms to reveal walnut wood on one side and cherry on the other to match the marvelous (as an adjective, beautiful isn't even in the ballpark) woodwork in adjoining rooms of the showplace Ireland built to help market his local planing mill operation.

Hey, who hasn't always wanted to make like Bob Vila and restore this or that old house a la Kim and Tim Shinn or Gick himself?

Who knew it could be so easy?

All you need, Gick and the Shinns will attest, is plenty of time and a whole lotta money (emphasis on the latter, of course). Reminds me of Billy Joel lending lyrics to logic with "all you need are looks and a whole lotta money" to become a rock star, as he sang in "It's Still Rock 'n' Roll to Me."

Meanwhile, battling computer issues back at the office in trying to deal with the myriad of photos I'd taken for the day, somehow the American Legion Flag Day ceremony I'd planned to work into my schedule slipped my mind until it was too late.

Still we were able to end the night on a high note, enjoying the finale of the Putnam County Playhouse musical "Guys & Dolls." A musical swan song to a quite wonderful small-town Indiana day.

And no photos even necessary at the Playhouse ... already shot those 10 days earlier for publicity efforts.

But you know what I realized? Once I got moving around and mingling with the folks who put on these events and enjoying the various atmospheres created, it never once seemed like work.

Nope. Not a bit. Not for a second.

Not even when it became apparent there would be only enough time to share a box of Playhouse popcorn for dinner.

Yep, maybe life is like that proverbial box of chocolates. But at least with popcorn, you know what you're going to get.