Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Harvest Homecoming's "swill walk" emblematic of clashing demographics.

Previously published at the Potable Curmudgeon blog. By the way, my company is not planning on moving downtown. We're planning on expanding into downtown. Somehow this was garbled after the recent newspaper article, but rest assured that we've no intention of changing the current operation.

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New Albany’s annual Harvest Homecoming festival started life quite small and inconspicuously four decades ago, and it has since grown into what its organizers claim is the second largest gathering of its type in the state of Indiana, trailing only the Indianapolis 500 celebration.

There are numerous themed events for two weeks preceding the yearly parade, then four “booth days” during which streets in the heart of New Albany’s historic business district are closed, yielding to want amounts to an enormous food court with games, information and music thrown in for good measure. At its best, the ideal of Harvest Homecoming is civic-minded and predominantly local in nature, with generations frequenting the same rolled oyster booth or chicken dinner emporium run by the same church or charity.

When Harvest Homecoming took its embryonic shape in the late 1960’s, and unbeknownst to most people living at the time, New Albany’s downtown was about to commence a long, painful and degrading descent into dormancy. As my ruminations today are not intended to constitute an essay about the familiar phenomenon of inner-city urban decay, I’ll leave it at that, and observe that Harvest Homecoming’s governing committee might plausibly say that for a long period of time, certainly by the 1990’s, the festival’s four-day, early October run was about the only game going downtown.

Consequently, Harvest Homecoming has been planned accordingly. Now, with stirrings of downtown revitalization far too strong to be ignored, the plan likely will have to be modified in coming years. Unfortunately, a case can be made that Harvest Homecoming’s demographic and the demographic spearheading downtown revitalization are heading in opposite directions, with potential difficulties that might as well be addressed now rather than later.

For those who have glimpsed a bit of the planet outside New Albany, and who have had the good fortune to be exposed to post-secondary education and its expansion of consciousness, there almost inevitably exists a measure of ambivalence about Harvest Homecoming as the institution has evolved – some would say “devolved – over the years. This ambivalence does not imply rejection of it, but simply a recognition that sometimes the closer one is to something, the harder it is to see how it really looks.

The festival’s stewards are “lifer” volunteers who work hard year-round, and while any fair critique of their performance might point to a deeply ingrained conservatism and a general reluctance to think outside the Bud, their fundamental aim of maintaining a family-oriented annual celebration is admirable.

Admirable, yes, but certainly not easy to ensure, and no single Harvest Homecoming “event” grandly compromises the committee’s goal of a family friendly festival like the Friday afternoon “beer walk,” which might be termed the “swill walk,” and so I think I will.

From the outset, make no mistake: The official Harvest Homecoming committee is no friend of the swill walk, and bristles when people contact the organizers for information about it. Although in the past, I merely shrugged and considered the committee’s attitude toward the swill walk to be an extension of its customary stodginess on other matters, this year I made it a point to observe the swill walk in progress.

The committee is right on target. It isn’t a pretty picture. In fact, the swill walk is a civic embarrassment, and as part and parcel of a litigious society, it’s probably only a matter of time before something ugly occurs and the torts begin flying. Speaking personally, at a time when many in my sector of the beer business are trying to raise the bar when it comes to responsible beer consumption, the swill walk sadly reminds us that neo-Prohibitionists occasionally have something approximating a valid point, and that the activities of the nation’s mass-market swill merchants are as much of a daily threat to our ability to offer the populace a changed paradigm as those who would eliminate alcohol entirely on grounds of its intrinsic “evil.”

Like many other aspects of life, there surely are evils intrinsic to the consumption of beer. Most of us are devoted to the ideal of lessening these, so why encourage their exaltation?

The way it works is this. Every year on the Friday afternoon of Harvest Homecoming, a style show is held at the riverfront “beer tent” (“swill tent” is more like it) during lunchtime, and the show’s conclusion is the unofficial signal for hundreds of people to begin, or in many cases to continue, drinking while traversing a jagged route through the blocked-off and humanity-packed downtown streets where food and activity booths hold sway.

The ubiquity of gratis Anheuser-Busch advertising paraphernalia, which is generated in-house at the local wholesaler at a scale that would humble the propagandistic Communist and Fascist regimes of old, provides ample evidence as to the underlying grease that lubricates the phenomenon of the swill walk, namely, that the local A-B wholesaler has agreed not to cash the checks written to pay for two-story stacks of Bud Light until the week following the festival’s conclusion, something that is of borderline legality in the state of Indiana.

Meanwhile, duly oiled, the denizens of the swill walk surge through the most congested harvest Homecoming area, participants stumbling from one bar to the next, slamming liquor shots and chugging beer from cans that are seldom recycled while screaming obscenities in proximity to children, then urinating in places that even someone like me – a veteran of Oktoberfest in Munich and Pamplona’s festival of San Fermin – is hard pressed to imagine.

Once I saw a port-a-can being nearly toppled by drunks. Around the corner, bikers clad in ominous black costumes queued a short block away from where this year’s “teen scene” stage was erected. How Pamplona manages to achieve a balance between its children and an invading wave of Euro trash is beyond me; perhaps we might ask, because the New Albany way doesn’t seem to be working.

The family-unfriendly effect of all this is hard to exaggerate in print, and when taken in the context of an overall festival that sadly has devolved over the decades into low, lower and lowest common denominators – a metaphor applicable to the city as a whole – it’s frustrating, indeed, to witness the chaos and know that I’m in the same business.

I’m neither naïve, nor out to bring the furies crashing down on the urine-stained drunks gracefully bellowing at each other during the swill walk. It is not my intention to frown on the profit motives of downtown bar owners, who probably reap several weeks of revenue in three days during Harvest Homecoming, and who are happy to accept largesse as offered by wholesalers eager to see the cash registers hum.

Of course, I well understand that my “good beer” segment of the marketplace is small, but I also maintain that this niche is upwardly mobile and in keeping with humanity’s constructive (as opposed to anarchic) instincts, and furthermore, that it is capable of sense and sensibility in addition to windfall weekend profits.

If NABC’s projected downtown brewing project comes to fruition, I hope to be able to illustrate that beer quality can be good, not bland, and that better beer can be consumed responsibly in a wholesome, entertaining and better atmosphere – which, after all, is the lesson any thinking human being takes away after sitting for a couple of hours drinking beer in a Bavarian beer garden, with playground equipment and young children generally in close proximity. Our future beer sales during Harvest Homecoming will be contained and controlled as far as humanly possible, and we’ll try to offer a higher common denominator. We may fail, but we’ll try.

Disclaimers aside, and in spite of my reluctance to tempt unfavorable karma by saying it aloud, the swill walk that takes place during Harvest Homecoming is aided and abetted by a blind eye to illegality, and while I can understand this coming from the local gendarmes, I find it curious that the state tolerates it.

You’re free to disagree. On this call, I suspect many of you will.

12 comments:

All4Word said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
All4Word said...

Did You Know, you can carry a Bud Light from booth to booth, purchased outside the "grounds" of Harvest Hangover, and add to the "family-friendly" atmosphere?

Take it somewhere else. The parking lot of JayCee's in F.K. The Fairgrounds. Take it to Clarksville, who will take anything. Quit killing downtown with it, though.

Fatty food has its place. Let the Lions/Optimists/Methodists/Trash Force-ians set up downtown, but there is no excuse for debasing year-round merchants by creating an event, sanctioned by the city and consuming innumerable city resources, to destroy the year-round investors.

A popular stance? Nah. But a rational one? You decide.

Unknown said...

I suppose there is a lot of validity to your position, but in spite of all the problems with the beer walk, I enjoy it very much. It was nice to be able to enjoy some beers which were not from the Budweiser stable this year though.
As far as the enforcement of laws - it is no different than when any city has a big event going on. Derby, Mardi Gras, Indi 500 ect... The police look the other way on what they deem to be minor violations. They could have made 1000 public intoxication arrests on Friday afternoon if they had wanted to.

G Coyle said...

Wow, I didn't realize the beer walk was actually an official part of HH. We had people staggering and vomiting in front of our house on Main that night. It seemed a little out of control...

Meatbe said...

I agree with Richard, and respectfully disagree with your position, NAC. While there are undoubtedly some abuses and indiscretions that take place during the beer walk, I have seldom seen the sort of frightening, unsavory images that you describe.

From my vantage point, the beer walk is usually a time of great community comradeship and togetherness. In my experience, the vast majority of participants enjoy the event responsibly. There are many area professionals and business people who participate yearly.

I don't know the nuances of the beverage industry, and I grant you that the whole event would be much more palatable if higher quality beer were available along the chosen route. I think that it is too broad a generalization, though, to suggest that the beer walk is a bad tradition because a few revelers may get out of hand. I for one look forward to it every year.

Jeff Gillenwater said...

The overarching question is whether the Harvest Homecoming can be handled in such a way that it helps downtown rather than hinders it. The current "trash it and walk away" mentality obviously isn't working.

If the organizers are open to thoughtful discussion, great. If not, a new location may be the best option. Using some of the city's resources for alternatives also needs to be considered.

Even with all the problems, the beer walk is one of the few events that helps *some* local establishments. It's also the event that the HH committee typically denies exists. That alone may imply something.

As a neighbor mentioned to me, how odd is it that the Homecoming folks kick local produce growers out of their established market for a few days each year to "celebrate" the harvest? Obviously, the festival's intent has been changed along the way -- or needs to be.

Iamhoosier said...

Every change has to start somewhere, I guess. This particular change will happen around the same time as we have new bridges across the Ohio river. Certainly not before we have a Greenway. That's going to be a long upstream swim.

Speaking of the Greenway, did anyone else wonder why there was not a car poke/race along with the 5k walk/race? You know, for those who could not enjoy it any other way.

Highwayman said...

In my veiw this whole phenomenon is yet another example of an industry looking to the immediate bottom line while risking its very future.

It has never ceased to amaze me how disiplines of all types fail to police there own for the sake of profit and then appear suprised when an entity larger than themselves come forward with ultimatums that leave them with no choice in the matter.

edward parish said...

And then news today of The Bistro closing its doors? How can that be that THE coolest spot in NA "outdoor whatever" period be stopping to serve this small community. That one spot has more atmosphere than the mere lot of the buildings barnone. Yes I am not a huge part of the foodie scene on this side of the river but I do know a grand spot when I have visited one and that friends is the real deal. What a shot in the arm for a struggling environment of good eats. Clancy. please do not leave the downtown NA theater.

Ceece said...

what?!

na girl said...

I hadn't been to HH on a Friday or Saturday evening in probably 5 or 6 years and the last time was in the middle of a horrible thunderstorm followed by 4 hours of steady hard, downpour (had to work a booth). I remember that the little bars were doing a brisk business but it was nothing compared to what we saw this year at 7:30 pm Friday night.

There were hundreds of people spilling out of and clustered around each of the bars. They were on the sidewalks, standing in the streets, and filling nearby parking lots.

After we had been walking around the booth area for a while I began to notice how many of the people were walking around drinking. It was very crowded. We went to several booths where we knew people who were working but it would have been impossible to see much less talk to anyone in the crowd because people were packed in so tightly.

Last night someone told me on Sat. night there is some kind of a game card that goes with the beer crawl that can be purchased and then taken to each of the bars.

I can't blame the bars for wanting to make some money. I know how hard it can be to run a profitable business but it seems that HH on Friday and Saturday nights has turned into a largely unregulated beer festival. That is not family fun and that is not community building. That is some kind of tragedy/disaster waiting to happen. The HH committee does the wink, wink, nudge, nudge regarding the beer walks but they have to know what is going on.

The committee might be grounded in tradition and loathe to make changes to the way they have done things for years but the crowd that they are drawing there on the weekend nights has changed and they need to aknowledge the situation and be proactive.

Unknown said...

Off the beer theme for a minute, anybody eat the dumplings from Redman Club? Son and daughter in law did, and got real sick...but they bought the food on Sunday. Total speculation that the food poisoning they contracted came from food servers saving the day's batch, adding it to the next day's and, yes, adding to the misery and contamination by the fourth "booth day."