The demise of work in America

I started working for real with the US Army in 1961, and the pattern of the job with the Army has, generally, been the pattern of ALL the jobs I've had since. Well, not quite, but close. What do I mean?
In the Army I pushed paper, and much of the time I had no paper to push. So, I spent many, many hours on my job there with nothing to do except read books, listen to music or...anything else I could think of to do to break the monotony.
My best job may have been during college when I worked part-time as a sports editor of a small New Mexico daily newspaper. I worked during the hours I was doing my job. I worked a lot, and I enjoyed every minute.
On my next job, I and two other reporters (rewriters they called us) spent every night at the Union-Leader in Manchester, New Hampshire, waiting for someone to call us with stories. We waited to hear from undertakers, because if you died in the state of New Hampshire, you were a news story in the Union-Leader. The paper had "stringers" or correspondents around the states, and they'd call in with local government news. Most often we got information on mayors' courts.
A few nights we did work, like the night we three took 42 obituaries. The rest of the time, however, we did nothing, I mean absolutely nothing. We just waited. Some people on the copy desk got so bored that they developed a sort of hockey game in which they used bent paper clips (large ones) as hockey sticks and pucks made of paper wads warped in Scotch tape. Then they'd flip the paper puck back and forth with their paper clip sticks! Sometimes they would get caught up in the game. You could tell by all the loud talk! But, my, what a waste of time, talent and money!
I don't think that ever, not one time, struck the management.
A few years later I got a job at a newspaper in Ohio, a big one. Same thing: hours and hours and hours of doing nothing while waiting for something to happen. The paper eventually folded, and it should have for all the money wasted on talented reporters who did nothing, or next to it.
Then there came the government jobs, and the same thing: hours and hours and hours (squared) of wasted people with talent! I do not mean to suggest these people could not have contributed positively to state government. I say that the government managers of these people simply wasted them, as did the editors of the newspapers and Army mentioned above.
I can honestly say I've had only one good boss in 40 years of work in the US of A and only two or three of those years being worthwhile work!
I suspect much of the rest of the work force in the country can claim the same experience.

Negro Town, Ohio 1812?
Imagine that?
Yes, it is hard to imagine since much of Ohio was a wilderness in 1812, but a diary I am reading by a soldier of the American War of 1812 tells of coming to just such a town. Or, maybe it was a group of Indian huts occuppied by Negroes. Who knows? He said the town was unoccupied, but that it was called "Negro Town."
He was on his way with his military company of volunteers from Pennsylvania to join William Henry Harrison in his efforts to keep the British and their Indians from invading Ohio.
The soldier's description of the town would put it somewhere between the present day Mansfield, Ohio (which is about 60 miles north of Columbus) and Toledo. He does not otherwise mention the town.
Curious? Yes, because it suggests there must have been a community of ex-slaves there, ex-slaves who had joined the Indians or who lived like the Indians. There are accounts of Negroes participating in the various Indian wars in the Ohio River valley prior to the War of 1812, but this is the first time I've run across something that suggests there was an actual community of these people. All the other accounts I've run across refer to individual Negroes, not a group or large number of them.
Does anyone else know anything else about a Negro community in Ohio about that time or earlier?
I did run across an account of Kakaskia, Ill., at the time George Rogers Clark took it from the British during the American Revolution in which the population of that community included Negroes. I don't recall a specific number, and I don't recall whether they were slaves or not. I suspect, however, they were, at least escaped slaves.
My own modern experience caused me one day to discover a small, Negro or "black" as we say today, community all by itself east of Washington Court House, Ohio and south of Columbus, Ohio. I'm not sure exactly where it was, maybe between Washington Court House and Xenia? Anyway, I was going down the road and ran across this small town, laid out in town or city blocks. The blocks of houses were all north of the highway as I was going from east to west. I drove off the highway just for a few moments, and its seemed every house was occuppied by a black family.
I still wonder today about that community. I did not see the name of any town. I wonder why they call came to be there and where they worked?
One other curious note about Negroes in the American wilderness living as Indians. I ran across a story about a battle in Texas between a group of buffalo hunters and some Indians. The buffalo hunters won the battle and later reported hearing someone among the Indians blowing a bugle. They learned the bugler was a Buffalo Soldier, as the Negroes who joined the U.S. Army after the American Civil War were called. He'd deserted and joined the Indians. The buffalo hunters reported killing the Negro bugler when he tired to jump on a wagon and steal something from it. This was in the 1870s in or around the Texas Panhandle. Good story.

Hello world

Life is good. Great Thanksgiving. Reasonable good--or at least fun---football games to watch. Family and friends to enjoy. Aren' t those really the purposes of most holidays? I think so.
Oh, and I heard what happened to Clint Longley, sort of. Yesterday the game played 20 year ago or so in which Longley came out of nowhere to lead the Dallas Cowboys from a two-plus touchdown deficit to beat the Washintong Redskins came up again. It not only came up, but there was some actual film of the famous game showing a football player with "Longley" clearly printed on the back of his football jersey and one or two of the plays. All this came up in the Dallas-Chicago game played yesterday afternoon, which Dallas won.
Anyway, there was a brief discussion of the game, and one of those discussing it was Troy Aikman. He was Cowboy quarterback during much of the decade of the 1990s, and he said that Longley disappeared in the season after the famous game with the Redskins when he, Longely, "sucker punched" Roger Staubach. Those of you who do not know it? Roger Staubach was the Dallas starting quarterback for that famous Redskin game. He got hit hard and almost knocked out--and had to be replaced by Longley.
Anyway, Aikman said after Longely punched Staubach the season following, no one ever heard of him again.
If anyone out there did hear of Longely again, let me know.

Oh: two more Marines killed in Iraq. I hope that one day all wars will stop and people will realize that the best way to settle any dispute is with words and a hand-shake afterwards: not with guns, bullets, knives or anything else that will hurt someone.
A lot of Americans are and will feel pain over all the dead and wounded in Iraq.
God save their souls!

Thanksgiving! Hooray!

Of all the American holidays, Thanksgiving has to be among the best (after the 4th of July). There is nothing to buy, no cards to send. It's just a big meal and lots of football!
As to football? Do you remember the NFL game between the Washington Red Skins (I think) and the Dallas Cowboys in the mid 1970s? The time for the game is running out! The Cowboys are behind by like two touchdowns, at least. Their star quarterback, Roger Staubach, starts the drive, and wham! He's injured. He must be helped off the field. He is out of the game! Game over? Not quite. The Cowboys put in a quarterback no one had heard of before and never heard of again: Clint Longely. Like magic, this fellow started tossing passes, and before you know, the Cowboys had scored once, then twice, and then, I think, three times to beat the Redskins! Miracle of miracles. I seem to recall the field was even misty that early evening on Thanksgiving.
I also remember how great it was to see something like that happen: a no name taking a team to victory--and himself into obscurity.
Anyone know what ever happened to Clint Longley?
Shalom! Peace! And, ditto in all the other languages of the world!