One whole year after our bridge fell ill, tolls still suck.

On Sunday, September 9, 2012, it will have been one year since the Sherman Minton Bridge closed "indefinitely," a period that turned out to be six months long.  The resulting snafu was so devastating that New Albany very nearly was compelled to market itself as "Come To City," although saner heads eventually prevailed.

The photo above was taken early in the evening of Friday, September 9, 2011, at the Carnegie Center's annual fundraiser.

Bring on the acid: Kerry Stemler sips, picks and grins as the Sherman Minton Bridge closes.

Looking back on it a year later, I stand by what I wrote on the following day, when the fog of uncertainty as yet enveloped us. Perhaps KStem will be back tonight when the Carnegie event reconvenes. If so, perhaps I'll ask him about CART joining the River Fields lawsuit.

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Sept.10, 2011: Sherman Minton bridge down, Kerry Stemler high like a kite.

What we know, apart from the inevitable sensationalism and multi-generational rumors, is that the Sherman Minton Bridge has been closed "indefinitely" owing to cracks, and that we'll now awake to helicopters each morning as though we were living in one of those places that we routinely bomb in order to ensure a reliable supply of petrol to feed Kerry Stemler's "mobility" solution.

Standing for a couple hours at last night's Carnegie Center fundraiser, serving beer samples and watching the inveterate bridge fetishist Stemler cradle insipid white wine while grinning like a screaming skull on acid, does nothing to inspire one's resistance to conspiracy theories, but being an adult, it is possible to compartmentalize: Nothing that Mitch Daniels says can be trusted, now or two days ago, and at the same time, nothing can be done about any of it right now.

The heavy governmental hitters now will reach a conclusion, and once they reveal it, we'll work through the resulting mess and survive, while at the same time knowing that there has been little money or effort allocated by the state of Indiana to maintain such infrastructure, even as the Tolling Authority devises methods to inflict daily incremental pain, which will be more severe in the coming weeks, and all the errant conclusions derived from the Sherman Minton's structural condition, as trumpeted by the folks at 1Si, can now be used to fluff the oligarchs -- as though they needed any more fluffing.

So it goes. Stay tuned.