Whither Harvest Homecoming?

Don't forget where to drink good beer during Harvest Homecoming.

Meanwhile, the best way to meet your trognonymous critics is head on and full speed:

It feels just like 1967 all over the place... from the Letter from New Albany blog.

Driving past this morning, detouring around the over-night tent city that downtown has become, I was amused by the plastic neon "fencing" surrounding every possible living inch of Monroe Shine. I know nothing gives them more anal-compulsive fits than hordes of swill-drinking red-necks from the lower tax brackets putting out hundreds of cheap cigarettes in their shrubberies.

Lately, I've made my peace with Harvest Homecoming, but the debate resurfaces with regularity, and one thing you can count on is that in coming years, there'll be an emerging dialogue as to the way Harvest Homecoming plays out each year. Harvest Homecoming is deeply conservative institution, but the downtown cityscape is changing, and there will inevitably come a time when the festival is called upon to change with it.

Previously, we've discussed possible strategies for "alternative" Harvest Homecoming events to take place near downtown during the same time. These might involve more, shall we say, "contemporary" food, drink and entertainment options, with perhaps an element of social and political advocacy that reflects a broader plane than that currently espoused. Any such effort would have to come entirely from ourselves, because as guardians of New Albany's chosen "signature" annual event, Harvest Homecoming's organizers well understand the resources the festival commands, and aren't likely to cede these any voluntarily time soon. That's why I persist in thinking that off-campus, privately inspired options are the best path; if these succeed, the pressure on Harvest Homecoming to reinvent itself will be irresistible.

I wrote these words a couple years ago:

Ideas we surely have, and in abundance, but money and volunteer labor are two commodities in much, much shorter supply. Currently these are directed toward Harvest Homecoming, which possesses its own internal and self-perpetuating set of rationales and objectives. For what it is, it’s a wonderful thing.

But as my councilman might say, "it is what it is."

For once, he'd be right.

As currently configured, I accept Harvest Homecoming as it is, while at the same time seeing what it might become, and envisioning ways to aid and abet its evolution -- particularly once NABC is doing business downtown.

Until then, there's good beer alongside the swill at Connor's Place ... and choice always is a good thing.