Ned Luce

The excitement in the lives of the folks living in Port Ludlow is beyond measuring as you can see from this week’s Life in Ludlow. 

First up is my report on the scintillating and yet informative Ludlow Maintenance Commission, LMC, annual meeting! 

We typically have one in April for election of the trustees on the board and a few financial items. Yep, the COVID put the kibosh on that meeting. 

There is another one typically held this time of the year to gain the acceptance from the membership for the board approved budget. That meeting is now scheduled for Dec. 17. 

One of the items at the April meeting concerns an audit. An audit is required by the by-laws to be held each year but the board and the membership typically agree to only have one every two or three years to minimize expenses. 

This item is among others recommended by the board and agreed to by the membership. 

Those living in or owning a lot in the LMC are probably heartened by the planned decrease in the annual assessment from $712/year to $650/year facilitated by the financial impact of the pandemic. 

That item is part of the budget for next year. I suspect most of us would have preferred to have neither the pandemic nor the assessment reduction if we could have availed ourselves of the facilities and services provided by the funds from the assessments. 

Then again, maybe not all of us which is why there are elections and votes.

The meeting last Saturday was hosted by LMC President Alan Keisler, Treasurer Linda Haskin, and General Manager Brian Belmont. Never appearing but credited with being an integral part of putting the show together was Bob Shaw.

Frankly, they did a great job. The only piece missing was the traditional wine and cheese party following the meetings.

BJ reminded me that this past weekend would have been the 127th edition of the annual Monon Bell Game between the Little Giants of all-male Wabash College, my alma mater, and the Tigers of coed DePauw University, BJ’s alma mater. Unlike many other larger colleges and universities around the country these schools of the North Coast Athletic Conference decided to forego the piles of money from televising their football games (what??), and instead cancelled all fall sports in favor of saving students’ lives. 

Wabash leads the series 62-55-9 and was looking forward to avenging their unfortunate loss in last year’s game. 

Oh, don’t worry, I don’t think any of the colleges in the North Coast Athletic Conference actually make a dime off of televising their athletic contests. 

One of our grandsons organized a fantasy football league for us, our children and their families, 10 people. BJ’s team is “DePauw” and mine is “Wabash.”

We played each other last weekend so I will report the results in next week’s column unless something more interesting comes along to write about. Of course that would not be difficult under normal circumstances. 

Like anybody else writing for magazines, newspapers and the internet today, it is real difficult to say anything not colored by this pandemic. The whole thing is exhausting and we all passionately want it over and done with. 

Personally I am now getting used to always remembering my mask and almost always staying “socially distanced” from others at the store, etc. 

I am convinced we might not see the end of the tunnel yet but we can see the tunnel. We know there are vaccines and therapeutics being invented that will be available in the foreseeable future. 

Frankly, I am looking forward to the end of this pandemic as passionately as a DePauw coed yearns for a Little Giant. 

(Ned Luce is a retired IBM executive who lives in Port Ludlow and puts the LOL in LIL. )