Veterans Day

It is Veterans Day so there will be no mail delivery today. The annual ceremony at Weston Cemetery featured the choir from Rensselaer Central High School. There seemed to be fewer people than usual but that may be because it was cold and very windy. Mayor Wood gave the main address and Marsha Smith-Wood did the invocation.

On Thursday I drove over to Monon for a meeting and stopped to take a picture of the completed Hanging Grove School memorial. The granite block on the left reads, "Hanging Grove School 1922-1966 Honored 2015"

When I drove this route two weeks ago, about half the crop was harvested. On Thursday almost all was harvested.

The weather forecast says we will get our first real frost tonight.

The voting results for Jasper County can be found on the county website, or here. There were no contested county races. Before the election there was concern in the media about how Donald Trump would handle the results. He seems to be doing quite well, unlike a few people in big cities who, in the denial and anger stages of grieving, are protesting and rioting. Many pundits and most polls were certain Clinton would win, but not an artificial intelligence system. CNBC reported on its predictions on October 28. It makes you wonder if the people at Google, Facebook, and Twitter had deep-mined their data and were aware that Trump would win or that the election would be very close.

The Chamber of Commerce has moved from Drexel Drive to the Chamberlin Building on Kellner and Weston. I wanted to take a picture of the inside but was discouraged from doing so because it was somewhat in disarray from a board meeting earlier in the day. The inside looks much better than the exterior of the the rather drab building.

A friend of mine sent me a picture of this 22-pound carp he caught in the Iroquois River. I am not sure what he does with them.

Laying the giant pipes that were unloaded just to the east of Weston Cemetery has begun.

Finally, the annual report of the Jasper Foundation gave some information about how to avoid taxes if you donate to non-profit organizations and also are required to take mandatory distributions from a retirement account. A little background information may be helpful. Many people have avoided taxes by contributing to IRAs, 401(k) and 403(b) plans. When funds are withdrawn from these accounts, they are taxed, and when a person reaches the age of 70½, the government requires that a certain percentage be withdrawn each year, the mandatory distribution. These distributions count as income and are taxed (which means that the high-tax years of a person's life may be after retirement). However, the PATH Act of 2015 made permanent the provision of some previous years that allowed people to have some or all of the mandatory distribution from an IRA (but not a 401(k) or 403(b) account) be given to a qualified charity and not count as taxable income. And if you have funds in a 401(k) or 403(b) plan, you probably can roll them over to an IRA so you can make contributions from it and avoid taxes.

This is of interest to both older people and non-profit organizations and both should investigate to see if they can benefit from this change in tax rules. See here and here for a start.