Random Randy here...

Time once again to dance to the beat of a different drummer...

That's right.  Today's the day we cut the cord, pulled the plug and stopped reading mainstream media.  We're returning to our roots as a small town newspaper publisher.  We're headin' out on that Random Road roamin' far and wide for Good News.  It's easy to find if you know how and where to roam.

Our first Good News came to us today from a Dear Friend who's a Good News story all by himself.
He sent this to us via Facebook Messenger and said, "I thought you might enjoy it."  Indeed, it jump start our return Random Randy.

Anyway, "When legendary pro skateboarder Tony Hawk shared this glorious 1979 photo of Shane to his combined 15 million followers on Instagram and Facebook, the girl who grew up in Fayetteville, raised three children here, and still calls it home, became a legend, too."

I think you might enjoy it.  See:

https://www.fayobserver.com/story/lifestyle/2024/11/04/who-is-the-mystery-skater-shared-by-tony-hawk-shares-fayetteville-observer-photo/76047957007/

 

Random Randy's first Big Hit today (working as his own random self) was this clip of a famous local landmark known as Upper Mesa Falls in Island Park, Idaho.  The Henrys Fork River pours out of the Island Park Caldera over the lip of this spectacular feature.  We've been there more times than we can possibly remember and we've taken many, MANY Dear Friends to see this Wonder of Nature.

Well, who'd a thunk it but Upper Mesa Falls will have a fleeting nano-second of fame in the upcoming Super Bowl!  How so?  Upper Mesa Falls get a teeny, tiny split second scene in an iconic Budweiser ad.
Jake, a Clydesdale foal, is the star of this Super Story.  You can see Jake Photoshopped into Upper Mesa Falls at the tip of the top arrow.  Likewise, the focus of the Story is a beer keg and you can see it Photoshopped in at the tip of the bottom arrow.

As usual with Budweiser's annual classic Clydesdale ads, this one's sure to tug at your heartstrings, too.
We found the story in the Columbia, Missouri, newspaper.  The video is embedded in the article here:

https://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/local/meet-the-clydesdale-foal-starring-in-sundays-super-bowl-commercial-for-budweiser/article_e962a324-e321-11ef-bd90-53f296be96dd.html 

While roaming into the Jacksonville, Illinois, newspaper we found a fun article about an NFL Super Bowl player who has a soft spot in his heart for "shelter dogs". Kansas City Chiefs defensive tackle Derrick Nnadi has been working for a few years to help get dogs into loving homes in the area by paying fees for more than 500 successful adoptions so far. Nnadi has coached a shelter dog for the Puppy Bowl.  Of course, that immediately got us interested in the Puppy Bowl so there are several links to follow for this story.

Here's the first one:
https://www.myjournalcourier.com/sports/article/kansas-city-chiefs-player-becomes-a-coach-to-a-20150553.php

And the second:
https://www.discovery.com/shows/puppy-bowl

And the third:
https://www.discovery.com/shows/puppy-bowl/see/2025/pb-xxi-gallery

Trust me, if you have even the slightest bit of Love for Dogs, the above links are for you!

This is an interesting choice for a Good News story.  We decided to include it because many people in Ottumwa, Iowa, Dearly LOVE this dam and want to save it.  Ya just never know what people are gonna "love" so that's why we decided it's good news their dam gets to be saved.  It's kinda of a goofy story that perhaps only a civil engineer or a dam fan could love but here ya go:

https://www.ottumwacourier.com/news/local_news/albert-discusses-plans-to-rehab-historic-hydro-dam/article_f1313684-dfe7-11ef-bfa0-3b3dd3c03187.html

We actually started doing our Random Randy gig 9 years ago.  And we did it for nearly a year before we moved on to other random stuff.  Anyway, above is one of our favorite random stories from 2016.

You can read it in context here:
http://www.livesimplecaremuch.com/2016/04/some-sunday-stories.html

So just how random is random, anyway?  Glad you asked.  Here's what we do.  We pick a somewhat random starting point.  In this case it was Keokuk, Iowa.  We've been picking on Keokuk for decades to it was a somewhat familiar random point.  Then we ask our handy, dandy Random Point Generator to pick out five random points with a 150 mile radius of Keokuk.  Then we go looking for towns & cities that might have a newspaper.  We find those newspapers online and attempt to find Good News.  Lots of newspapers these days are behind strict paywalls so that kinda cuts down on our success rate.  In the graphic above, Keokuk is the white map pin in the white circle.  We visited newspapers in Ottuma, Iowa, Columbia, Missouri and Jacksonville, Illinois.

50 years ago we were up to our own eyeballs in writing and publishing Good News.  We started the "Zionsville Main Street" newspaper in August 1972.  It's a long story, of course.

We've been featured in various newspaper coverage for many decades.  This is our first appearance on a front page in 1958.  We'd been in other local stories for a few years before this.

Just for grins we threw in a couple of clips about our newspaper daze. 

The source of our new blog's title page graphic is here:

https://ohsobeautifulpaper.com/2011/04/the-printing-process-letterpress-printing-with-antique-type/