Did you play an NCAA men’s basketball tournament bracket? Despite the lower numbers of office-goers, office pools and college basketball betting will be at an all-time high.
More than 45 million Americans – about 1 in 8, or roughly the number of folks happy with Biden – were expected to play a bracket or gamble on the March Madness tournament.
How mad? Well, more than 20 million online bracket entries were submitted on ESPN, Yahoo and CBS.
Of those 20 million, 192 got all 16 of Thursday’s opening round.
Considering Kentucky’s collapse against Saint Peter’s, I imagine those 192 folks either hated the Wildcats or graduated from SPU.
Brain on drugs
If you needed any more evidence about what drugs can do to your thinking abilities, well, let’s go to Florida.
Spring Hill’s Thomas Eugene Colucci called the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office for help.
Colucci needed the authorities because he believed he had bought a counterfeit product. That product? He felt the meth he bought was bath salt.
So the sheriff deputies arrived, tested the meth and found that it was actually meth. They took Colucci for medical treatment and then jail.
And, always looking to help the community, the HCSO took to social media and posted that if anyone “doubts about the authenticity of any illegal narcotics you have on-hand or have obtained from another person, the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office is pleased to provide this service, FREE of charge.”
Well other than eventual court costs and legal fees, that is.
Pinching pennies
The federal government has tighter trading policies with Russia. You likely know why.
That will allow higher tariffs on Russian goods imported to America.
As you’d expect, most of the 10 most-imported goods from Russia are oil or fuel-related. So yes, the costs at the pump aren’t going down any time soon.
Of the others, it was kind of surprising how many crabs we get from Russia. America imports $1.1 billion worth of crabs – that’s almost 32 million kilograms and close to 70 million pounds – every year.
Obit observations
We lost an American hero this month and a longtime Bryan College fixture.
John Anderson’s Tuesday funeral was with full military honors. He was five months short of his 104th birthday.
Anderson joined the U.S. Navy in January of 1942 and served as a chief petty officer in the Pacific in World War II. After graduating from Illinois and Dallas Theological Seminary, he planted his roots in Dayton, and in 1955 started his lengthy career teaching at Bryan.
He stayed at Bryan until the mid-1990s. The school said Anderson, who taught Greek, Hebrew and Bible at Bryan, played a key role in the college becoming accredited, which became official in 1969.
And the impact he had on his students was just as pronounced.
Former student Jerry Day posted, “Doc Anderson was the most influential person in my life during my college years. He was one of the reasons I went to Dallas Theological Seminary and into the ministry. He didn’t just teach Greek and Hebrew. He taught ‘life.’ I still remember so many of his ‘sayings.’ Only heaven knows the impact he had in the lives of his students.”
That’s a life well-lived.
Contact Jay Greeson at jgreeson@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6273. Follow him on Twitter @jgreesontfp.
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Jay Greeson