The newspaper's Chris Morris: "A great opportunity came to me a few weeks ago and I grabbed it."

I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information.
-- Christopher Hitchens

I don't think that my kind of journalism has ever been universally popular. It's lonely out here.
-- Hunter S. Thompson

Officialdom is hostile to inquiring outsiders.
-- Martha Gellhorn

Two months shy of his 35th anniversary at the News and Tribune (formerly the New Albany Tribune), Chris Morris has departed the newspaper. He's not retiring, but taking a new job, which the Green Mouse believes is at the hospital.

Here are his parting words. 

MORRIS COLUMN: This long and winding road comes to an end, by Chris Morris (News and Tribune)

It’s been a little strange being in the office in recent weeks. It’s mainly dark with little human life around, except for me. Thanks to the coronavirus, I have been flying solo at 318 Pearl St. for six weeks now as reporters work from home.

The walls have been good listeners, though, and the page designers in Anderson have provided some company, but the last few weeks have been spent in solitude.

In some ways maybe that is the way it is suppose to be. It’s helped me think about what I was going to say in my farewell column. It’s allowed me to reminisce about all the co-workers and friends I have made thanks to my 34 years working here.

I knew this day would come, either voluntarily or by being told to leave. Many of you have said they would have to carry me out of here, that I would die at my desk.

There have been days when I thought I might.

But thankfully I am leaving on my own terms. A great opportunity came to me a few weeks ago and I grabbed it. And thankfully, I don’t have to move, so I will still be around town. That is a good thing because what has kept me here all these years are the great people who reside in Southern Indiana. I never wanted to move from my hometown.

It would be impossible to name all the people who have helped me along the way. There are just too many folks to thank after 34 years ...

Ooh, ooh, that smell: 5th district councilman Matt Nash, a key supporter of Jeff Gahan's colonial agenda, now is employed by the New Albany Housing Authority -- the mayor's personal colonial realm.

New Albany’s 5th district councilman Matt Nash, son of longtime Democratic power broker, current Board of Works gatekeeper and ineffectual former mayor Warren Nash, has taken a job in maintenance at the New Albany Housing Authority.

Matt was pictured in Thursday’s News and Tribune helping Riverview Towers residents (and at least one cat) return to their homes after their displacement in the wake of the recent crisis of David Duggins’ ongoing gross managerial incompetence.

The new job at NAHA comes directly on the heels of the $10 million Reisz Mahal city hall relocation project, approved in council by a 5-4 margin, and with Matt's crucial “aye” vote coming without a single word of attributable public explanation.

In fact, Matt has been a reliably affirmative vote for Mayor Jeff Gahan; although statistics aren’t readily available, he probably has voted with mayor and party in excess of 90% of the time since taking office in 2016 -- and it's hard to blame this lopsidedness on the perfidy of county government.

In Matt's defense, it’s also impossible to know how often he has been subjected to threats and bullying from vile party chairman Adam Dickey, or the extent to which these pressures, and the local party’s enduring small-pond dysfunction, have contributed to this muddled situation.

(You want my opinion? Local mirror-gazing Democratic fixers like Dickey, Gahan and the elder Nash never have given a solitary damn about Matt as a person, only how he might be utilized in pursuit of their self-aggrandizement.)

In 2015, when 5th district Democratic primary winner Dustin Collins was forced to withdraw from the race for reasons of health, Matt was chosen as replacement by the same Democratic Party precinct apparatus overseen for decades by his father.

The Green Mouse believes Matt inquired about the NAHA job or was pointed in this direction earlier in 2018, prior to the city hall relocation fix. It isn’t possible to know precisely whether there is any connection between the timing of the position and Matt’s vote on the Reisz boondoggle.

But it looks really awful, any way you cut it. Since time began, New Albany has been one humongous, underachieving swamp of constantly revolving quid pro quos.

Naturally, we can expect Shane Gibson to ooze forward in a pool of cash-scented K-Y Jelly, arrogantly assuring us there’s nothing at all unethical, or suggestive of a conflict of interest, about just another councilman getting a federal government job.

Except Matt hardly is just another councilman, and it remains that every last decision-maker at the New Albany Housing Authority was put into place not by a clueless bureaucrat in Washington DC, but by toadies and bootlickers inserted into NAHA by Jeff Gahan himself, as charged with performing politically-motivated tasks precisely like this one.

Lest we forget, last year the housing authority was abruptly and violently annexed by Gahan, and its governing board hurriedly packed with drooling sycophants intimately connected to the Democratic Party’s political patronage machine.

Overnight, NAHA became Gahan’s and the Democratic Party’s new toy, and a way of providing bored C-minus students with a delightful local social engineering experiment to call their very own.

Throughout this process, Matt the councilman remained resolutely (and regrettably) silent. He had nothing to say when Gahan’s right-hand hatchet man, Duggins, was hired as NAHA director at full pay without any experience whatever, replacing the summarily axed Bob Lane, quickly proving to be so flagrantly unqualified for the job that Tony Toran had to be hastily appointed as deputy director,

By the way, Toran is a key Democratic Party hack from way, way back.

These days the New Albany Housing Authority functions as a colonial possession of a corrupted political party and its megalomaniacal mayor, and now a sitting councilman works for the degraded satrap -- to be sure, in an ordinary low-level job located nowhere near management level, one not to compared with the palm fronds, sweet grapes and vestal virgins handed on a silver platter to the fantastically overmatched Duggins.

To be blunt, it’s Matt’s solemn duty as councilman to scrutinize matters like Duggins’ actions at NAHA; he hasn’t done enough of it, but now Duggins is Matt’s boss. How is this NOT a conflict of interest?

I’m addressing you personally, Matt.

We're not close friends, but we're friends nonetheless. I like you and I’ve struggled with writing about this, but you’re too damned smart not to grasp the implications of what you're doing. You’re neither an unwitting dupe nor an unfortunate bystander, and yes, you're complicit in the perpetual nastiness of these self-appointed pillars of society, although as a mitigating factor, we all can see the way they've never refrained from using you for their own petty political ends.

Whatever the background and intent, you’re in an ethically untenable political position, and one of these two paid positions needs to be terminated. Either stop being an NAHA employee, or leave the city council seat.

There isn't much alternative from an ethical standpoint. Whatever your choice, integrity genuinely does matter, even when you're the only one in the club embracing it.

Your decision to shed one of these two positions will be the single most ethical act to occur on the part of a Democrat during seven years of increasingly narcissistic Gahanism, something to be approvingly recalled in the years to come, and pleasingly contrasted with the toxic legacy of forever posturing second-raters like Dickey and Duggins ... and Warren, who quite plainly is a schlub even if he's your father.

Best of all, this can be a chance to get your life back from their insipid clutches, and to do so on your own terms. They're killing you inside, aren't they? Maybe it's time they picked on someone else for a while. 

I encourage you to consider it.

Excellent point: "Louisville should not spend tens of millions for a soccer stadium unless it creates better jobs."

Last evening the first step was taken toward a soccer stadium in Louisville.

The Fischer administration made a successful appeal to council members Tuesday saying the public-private partnership, which would erect a 10,000-seat facility, is a good use of taxpayer money that will put acres of underused land to good use.

After a nearly two-hour discussion in the council's Budget Committee, members voted 4-1 to approve the bond.

Investors said they need to move swiftly on a new home field to stay in the professional United Soccer League. Since its inception three years ago, Louisville City FC has played at the Louisville Slugger Field baseball stadium.

Earlier there was an insightful commentary in which the authors refrained from opposing the pump-priming required to build a soccer stadium, but rather explored the implications of it, and suggested positive outcomes of the sort that Greg Fischer rarely acknowledges.

This is precisely the thinking needed whenever local officials propose tethering development to TIF zones. For instance, the jobs generated by New Albany's aquatic center are seasonal and low-paying.

Shouldn't the benefits be more expansive than that?

Louisville should not spend tens of millions for a soccer stadium unless it creates better jobs, by Richard Becker and Bryan Trafford (Insider Louisville)

Richard Becker is co-chair of Kentucky Jobs With Justice. Bryan Trafford is on the executive committee of Jobs With Justice, works at an area casino, and is a member of Teamsters Local 89.

To move forward, Louisville needs to create more jobs that pay enough to support a family. Right now, too many working families in our city feel like they are falling behind, no matter how hard they work. A low-wage floor holds down household spending power, which holds back our local economy.

As Louisville grows and puts taxpayer money into new development projects, our elected representatives should make choices that help paychecks get bigger and neighborhoods get stronger across the city.

Metro Louisville government has a chance to get this right with a major new project. The owners of Louisville City Football Club want as much as $60 million in state and local taxpayer money to help build a stadium, hotel, offices and retail stores on a parcel of land near Butchertown.

The owners of the team want Louisville taxpayers to get a $30 million loan to buy the land where they would own and operate the development. The owners apparently also plan to ask for approximately $30 million in additional taxpayer funding from the state through a “Tax Increment Funding” financing mechanism.

The development has been portrayed as a done deal, with the team saying it expects Metro Council to rush to a vote in two weeks.

But so far, there has been almost no public discussion about whether spending so much of our money on this project will help raise wages and improve the quality of jobs in our city. The members of Metro Council need to slow down, ask questions, and find ways to use this kind of major investment to create better jobs.

ON THE AVENUES: Cataloguing my consciousness on a warm spring day.

ON THE AVENUES: Cataloguing my consciousness on a warm spring day. 

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

"It can be costly to speak truth to power in your own home community" -- from Harry Caudill: Man of Courage, a film by Jerry Deaton

Seldom do I “wing it” when writing a column, but it’s been an improvisational kind of week, month, year and career. Maybe I’m learning to live with it, so here goes.

---

My mother died almost two weeks ago, and since then, Diana and I have been touched on a daily basis by the many kind words, heartfelt consolations and loving memories.

They’ve come in abundance from our kinfolk, her former students and teaching colleagues, my older friends and newer acquaintances, and especially (at least from my perspective) from my parents’ neighbors on Baylor-Wisman Road in Georgetown. They're such wonderful people.

Any effort to convey our appreciation almost inevitably will be feeble and inadequate, so please accept from us a final, simple “thank you.”

---

At the visitation, I found myself fielding numerous questions about what I’ve been doing these past two years and whether there are concrete plans on my horizon.

These are fair questions, and when folks care enough to ask me, I’m happy to attempt an answer.

For those just tuning in, my career as part of the business entity variously known as Sportstime Pizza, Rich O’s Public House, the New Albanian Brewing Company (and later, Bank Street Brewhouse) lasted from 1990 through 2015.

By early 2015, themes and threads gestating for several years had combined into something approximating a personal resolve to do something different with my life, and I decided to sell my share of both NABC corporations to my two longtime business partners.

Why, exactly?

In retrospect, numerous minor differences of opinion among the partners seemed poised to become major, and while it may yet prove to be mistaken, I thought perhaps some of the rancor might be avoided by being pro-active.

Concurrently, the craft beer revolution of which I was a regional originator looked to be well traveling down the familiar path of self-consumption and bastardization via capitalism as usual, soon to emerge as respected, business-publication-salivary-market segment, one consequently ripe for counter-revolution.

Seeing as I don’t tithe at the altar of the American religious cult known as Business for the Sake of Business, and I’ve never been able to abide business pursuits that involve propriety, respectability or One Southern Indiana (some would suggest “profitability” be added to this list), when “craft” beer stopped being fun, it ceased being me.

I don’t regret the decision to melt away and start over. However, it admittedly disappoints me that the NABC “divorce” settlement has not been resolved in all this time.

Perhaps this always was to be expected from an internal dynamic mirroring that of Fleetwood Mac, circa 1977 -- though without the cocaine (trust me, there was a time when my beer consumption made up for it).

What now?

Interestingly, having steadily conceded ground in desultory settlement negotiations until sparse pennies on the dollar appeared a preferable alternative to the risk of brain damage from the inanity’s expanding extent, my mother’s unfortunate passing has altered the stalemate – at least in my head.

It is as though I’ve been freed of restraint, with the sweet radicalism of old tapping gingerly on the door of a hitherto bolted closet, asking for an opportunity to stretch its legs for the sake of old times.

So, until an agreement is reached and a check is cashed, I remain a one-third owner of all things NABC – some parcels of which are worth more than others, for which there is a simple, business-like solution, although it remains unavailable when two-thirds of ownership has blockaded (and sought to starve) the minority partner, this being me, and categorically refuse to implement the one expedient most helpful to all.

Yes, I’ve made plenty of rotten decisions in my life. However, drinking as often as possible with lawyers has not been one of them. Cocktails may be set to resume.

---

In spite of the settlement imbroglio, I have no regrets at all about the last two years of my life. It isn’t the first time I’ve retired for a short bit while I’m young enough to enjoy it, rather than waiting for decrepitude.

Borrowing against the future always is something of a risk, but the rewards have been ample, even if it can’t last forever. We’ve gotten by, and enjoyed lots of love and laughs along the way.

You can’t ask for anything more, can you?

I’m still a beer guy and always will be, and my beer business legacy is secure. I know quite a bit, and the pendulum is swinging back toward my sweet spot. There’ll be opportunities, whether on my own (as previously discussed) or working for someone else.

Stepping away from the business has allowed for time to clear my head and recover from what hasn’t always been a harmonious journey. There have been hours to read, learn and absorb much of value apart from beer. It turns out that I’m still as interested as ever in education and teaching. The passion merely needs a fresh venue.

Running for mayor in 2015 was an epochal experience in itself. I’m proud of what we managed given lack of resources and daunting odds, and the dissident in me became newly empowered. It isn’t about winning or losing. It’s how you game the play.

I’ve been writing at length each and every day, and while most of it has come without remuneration, a unique body of work has been created. At some juncture, this blog will be seen for what it has become.

Two years ago, when I embarked upon the original “leave of absence,” my mother was beginning her transition into assisted living. From this point, her health began a gradual decline, but there still were plenty of high points and memorable times.

Remaining "at large" in terms of employment and obligations enabled me to be there for her. I did the best I could, and I’m happy to have had the opportunity to share in her final months.

In short, now the time has come. Coffee break’s over, and it’s time to stand on my head again.

---

Many of you know that I've been strategizing about a beer business comeback under narrowly defined parameters. Full-tilt gonzo entrepreneurialism may or may not be a younger man’s game; at any rate, it doesn't have quite the lure as before.

However, if the cats can be herded within those parameters, I’m more than game for the challenge. I’m also listening if any prospective beer entrepreneurs believe I may be of help in assisting in their efforts.

I’ve often joked about how 25 years of self-employment can render one unemployable. It may even be true, but this same quarter-century of experience has certain value of its own. I have a strong work ethic, plenty of zeal and passion, and an absolute commitment to disseminating knowledge through education and explanation.

I may be able to give someone a hand.

Whatever comes next for me is likely to be the result of serendipity as much as planning. I’ve broken a few rules and bent a good many more, but I believe that’s how it’s done.

Everything is relative. My stakes haven’t ever been as high as Harry Caudill’s, and yet insisting on speaking truth to power in my own home community probably haven’t made things easier for me in the past, and won’t in the future.

So be it. If we don’t stand for something, we fall for anything.

After all these years, perhaps finally it’s becoming clear to me. My father was blue collar; passionate, outspoken and honest. My mother was a professional educator; intelligent and determined in pursuit of a mission to educate, one no less zealous for being conducted more methodically.

They raised me right, and I inherited the good from each. Maybe I wasn't always comfortable with it. These days, it all makes sense.

There it is – an hour’s worth of column scribbling with minimal edits and no conclusions. As always, thanks for reading.

---

Recent columns:

March 16: ON THE AVENUES: It's all so simple, says Jeff Gahan.Remove the impoverished, and voila! No more poverty!

March 9: ON THE AVENUES: Never preach free speech to a yes man; it wastes your time and annoys Team Gahan.

March 2: ON THE AVENUES: Breaking up is hard to do. Just ask the Reichstag.

February 23: ON THE AVENUES: A stern-side view of Gravity Head, nineteen times over.

Hire the panhandlers -- better yet, make them serve on city council.

“Halt, prying progressive anti-establishmentarians. You shall not pass!”

Standing before us was a fully armored Roman centurion, complete with diamond-studded breastplate and 24-carat plumed helmet. Iron and steel clanked ominously as the man unfurled his Latinate scroll.

Bizarrely, the scroll displayed an anchor.

“It is I – Tiberius Severus Octavian Elagabalus Septimius Augustus Claudius Hadrian, the Protector of Fitting and Proper Scribnerian Values, Deliverer of all Downtown Datedness, Master of the Ex-Mercantile, and Guardian of the Gates.

"As institutionalized by Thoreau, Milken and even Adam Dickey, I'm entrusted with the responsibility to implacably oppose the invading barbarians, for which the city shall be eternally grateful. We will meet them on the plains, and in the forests, and in the streets, out behind the flood wall and at the Dog Park if necessary.

"Why? Because Jeff Gahan is right! These homeless, panhandling and impoverished ragamuffins make all of us respectable clean-cut paragons of civic virtue look bad. It's even worse than Woodstock. We wouldn't have tolerated these dirty subversives during student council back in the 1950s, and we won't now. I call for the sworn troops of the elite Caesarean Section to muster on Bono Road, and put 'em all on the same cattle cars.

"Damn the torpedoes, and full speed to Galena!"

The Green Mouse paused for a quick but soulful flask's reverie.

"Councilman Caesar, does this mean you're opposed to the idea of giving panhandlers jobs?

In Maine, Portland Tries a New Tactic With Panhandlers: Hiring Them, by Matthew Haag (New York Times)

The complaints poured into City Hall in Portland, the scenic city in Maine with cobblestone streets and waterfront parks. Panhandlers were taking over sidewalks, clogging busy intersections and scaring off tourists.

City officials responded in the same manner as their counterparts across the country — with force. Starting in 2013, they outlawed begging on street medians, saying it was a public safety issue. After a federal court struck down that law, Portland bulldozed a strip in the middle of a road that had proved popular with beggars.

Despite the aggressive approach, panhandlers did not disappear.

So starting in April, Portland plans to try a new tactic. The city will hire a few panhandlers a day, pay them $10.68 an hour, the city’s minimum wage, and assign them to clean parks and public spaces.

The Portland city manager, Jon Jennings, said it was time to think of another solution and believes this one will help everyone. He hopes to eventually be able to convert some of the jobs into full-time work with the city, he said, and Portland’s parks will be more beautiful.

About me, and what's coming next.

For seven years beginning in 1985, I took four long trips to Europe; added together, the time abroad came to roughly 20 months. Back then I joked that it was better to "retire" young, instead of waiting until you're old and can't enjoy it. Jesting aside, between trips I generally held two jobs, so it wasn't entirely leisure. I was working at what became NABC as early as late 1989 and early 1990, and from 1992 until 2015, it was my full-time gig. 

The preceding is intended as prelude to thoughts I posted at Facebook on Friday, and lightly edited for reprinting here. I've kept very busy these past two years, just not in terms of remunerative employment. It's been groovy and amazing, and tantamount to an non-credit post-graduate education. However, the times-they-are-a-changing, and it's time for me to change with them. Your thoughts and ideas aren't merely appreciated. They're essential. 

---

It has been almost two years, and many of you have asked what I've been doing since announcing the divorce from NABC in 2015.

It's a fair question.

First and most obvious has been trying to broker a divorce (business sale) settlement. They're harder than they look.

Second, as previously noted, my mother's health has been worsening -- slowly at first, then more rapidly of late. Remaining "at large" in employment terms has enabled me to be there for her when needed.

Also, I was able to get political, run for mayor and devote time to learning, writing and travel. Being a house husband has been a blast, and D has been supportive. It's all been fine, though the larder gets depleted after a time.

Recently I've been strategizing about a business comeback under narrowly defined parameters, because full-tilt gonzo entrepreneurial pursuits don't have quite the lure as before -- and it made sense to wait until the NABC situation made better sense, as I believe it finally has (fingers crossed).

Maybe, maybe not. I'd rather be a cog than a principal.

The conclusion: Big changes are under way in my world, not all of which I can control, though some I can. I'm desirous of any suggestions (or for that matter, jobs) you might have for my immediate future. I have a solid work ethic; I'm just not sure what to do with it at present.

I've never followed many rules, but always tried to bend them to suit me. Most of the time this has sufficed, which may explain the unorthodox approach.

Your suggestions and advice needn't be proffered here; rather, let's have coffee ... or a beer.

Thanks for reading yet again ... this marks my being almost human twice in less than 24 hours. Like I've been insisting, the sole prerequisite for a comeback is that you must first go away. Please help me explore options.

Cheers!

Truth is stranger than fact, and Develop New Albany is hiring.

I have nothing to add to this.

Dust in the Wind Turbines: Welcome Closer to Home, Carl Malysz.

Thanks, M; I needed an excuse to repost what just might be my favorite city council photo ever (2011).

Community Development Director resigns publicly (WKKG)

Columbus Community Development Director Carl Malysz publicly resigned during Wednesday night’s meeting of the Columbus City Council ... Malysz says that he has accepted a job offer with the Louisville Downtown Partnership as Deputy Director of Project Management and Strategic Planning.

ON THE AVENUES: Beer, farthings and that little-known third category.

ON THE AVENUES: Beer, farthings and that little-known third category.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

On being a writer, Ernest Hemingway suggested leading with truth.

“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

Much later, Stephen King elaborated.

“Sometimes you have to go on when you don't feel like it, and sometimes you're doing good work when it feels like all you're managing is to shovel shit from a sitting position.”

The summary already had been offered by Mark Twain.

“Write without pay until somebody offers to pay.”

These thoughts are prompted by a question many of you have asked me.

“Now what?”

Well, if you figure it out, let me know. Just remember that we’re speaking personally, not in the municipal sense.

The political aspect of the query has been answered for now, although it bears repeating that during the mayoral campaign, I always sought to remind listeners that politics at the local level isn’t about “me,” but about “us.”

Will any of “us” remain here after four more years of Gahanism?

Conversely, and in vocational terms, what comes next is highly individualized, because it addresses what I’ll be doing with the rest of my own life. Chapters are closing and eras coming to an end. Like most other facets of one’s journey through this world, the future is overwhelmingly gray, and as yet amorphous.

Throughout the year, I’ve said that I’ll be selling my share of ownership in NABC to my business partners. This statement of general intent remains accurate.

However, it should surprise no one that the process for doing so always stood to be prolonged, and it is quite likely to take a while. There are nuts, bolts and legalities to be sifted through. Disentangling may well become a full-time job, and unfortunately, this position is pro bono – at least until it isn’t.

Consequently, for perhaps the only time in history, allow me to summarize my innermost condition with words penned by Southern rock legend Charlie Daniels:

“They’re my troubles; don’t let ‘em worry you none. When I signed on to be a man, I figured I was gonna have some. Like I say, either way – go or stay – you ain’t gonna change my life.”

About my high school listening habits … yes, they were a bit different back then. The world changes, and so must we.

---

Obviously, business matters eventually will come to rest, and there’ll be a resolution. Meanwhile, it would be helpful for me to determine what I intend to do after leaving a quarter-century-old sinecure, large chunks of which are of my own creation.

In fact, the possibility that I might choose to grow up some day has occurred to me from time to time, and I’ve frequently joked that one’s marketability isn’t necessarily enhanced by being the undisputed best-ever person to perform a job you designed for yourself.

Or, put another way, working long enough for yourself can make you unemployable. I’m about to find out if this is true. So it goes, come what may, and dial your own cliché.

I always wondered what this would feel like, and now I know. Sans the stereotypically abrupt, earth-shattering epiphany, it’s something that transpires over time. Your consciousness evolves. You become aware that one reality has passed, and another awaits. The feeling is daunting and liberating all at once, and it’s a bit scary at times.

What does it all mean?

Honestly, I don’t know.

Looking in the metaphorical mirror, I’m no less entrepreneurial in disposition than before, and remain zealously committed to the same principles of economic localism and independent local business advocacy which have served as motivation throughout my career.

As for beer, it’s been a big part of my life, though never the only part. I believe there’s still a place for me in it. However, the simple fact is that I’m not very interested in owning another beer (and food) business. I’d rather help other such businesses, perhaps through education, training and organization.

This is why I’m bullish about the future prospects for the New Albany Restaurant and Bar Association as a professional trade group. Unity among the purveyors of shared interest stands to lift the segment and take it to a higher level. I’ll help NARBA in any way I can.

Of course, I’ll also continue to write. In the end, writing is non-negotiable.

---

For me, writing is both compulsion and sublimation. I often wonder how it came to be this way.

Why is it necessary for me to unburden myself of thoughts, feelings, venom and delights, along with any other notions humans find themselves in need of releasing to the world at large, through this demanding medium of the written word?

It probably goes back to being a reasonably intelligent only child, and trundling off to the first grade with two bad legs requiring bulky exterior braces, as well as a speech impediment, one subsequently addressed with corrective therapy. Neither of these conditions was painful physically, but psychologically they were burden. In retrospect, these and other childhood health issues made me feel inferior.

On top of all that, we lived outside of town, and there weren't many other kids nearby. My social skills were stunted, and it would be an understatement of colossal dimensions to merely say “he was shy.” Rather, it was a crippling, oppressive and introverted shyness. Literally, I didn’t know what to say.

My father was a profane and outspoken extrovert who viewed potential human redemption exclusively as a function of team sports, and he meant well, but if I'd have been able to communicate and cooperate with others playing games, there'd have been no issue in the first place.

Books were my solace. What I liked to do most of all was read, and it was through reading that I gradually learned the merits of writing as a means of being able to express what I couldn't manage to say aloud.

It was only much later, when I got into the pub business, that I finally learned how to speak, and to address people directly with thoughts previously reserved for pen and paper.

By now, most readers know that my interest in better beer brought me into NABC. It was opportunity, circumstance and serendipity, not an MBA or previous management experience at a chain restaurant. After a few years behind the bar, it all started to make sense.

And yet speaking remains hazardous and always will. There is no "cure" for shyness. Your brain continues to work as before, while you ceaselessly and remorselessly treat the daily symptoms.

Learning to interact with others made me a better bartender and informed my writing. Moreover, it was a way of breaking out of my inner little boy’s ongoing prison and finding common ground with fellow humans.

People?

They can be almost as interesting as words … at least some of the time.

---

So, now what?

Insofar as I can control my future progress, perhaps a bout of personal discovery, as prompted long ago by Michael “Beer Hunter” Jackson’s astute observation: “The pursuit of the perfect pint should last a lifetime.”

Words may be substituted for “pint” according to your own tastes and disposition.

Is there money to be made by following my writing muse? Will I become a greeter at Wally World? Is another political campaign likely down the road? Who was better, Charlie Parker or John Coltrane?

So many questions, so few answers. Then again, Beer Zen 101 always held that it’s less about the destination than the journey, precisely because the only finish line we share is the one marked Death, which always comes into view soon enough. It’s time to find another path less traveled, and get with it.

I’ll close with a request of the sort I seldom make: Please wish me luck – and as always, thanks for reading.

---

Recent columns:

November 12: ON THE AVENUES: The mayor’s race was about suburban-think versus urban-think. The wrong-think won.

November 5ON THE AVENUES: Confusion, exile, ignobility and resistance.

October 29: ON THE AVENUES: A year later, the backroom politics of pure spite at Haughey’s Tavern still reek.

October 28: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: How many businesses already have died because of City Hall’s street grid procrastination?

October 26: ON THE AVENUES EXTRA: Gahan says speeding sucks, but street safety can wait until after he is re-elected.

October 22: ON THE AVENUES: My career as a double naught capitalist.

October 19: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Courtesy bicycle to the Hotel Silly (2010, 2013).

October 15: ON THE AVENUES: To the New Albanians, each and every one.

October 8: ON THE AVENUES: There’s an indie twist to this curmudgeon’s annual Harvest Homecoming column.

These cities will power the U.S. economy, and we'll just be the landfill.

It comes as no surprise that as we prepare to endure nine months of mind-numbing daily discussions about University of Louisville and University of Kentucky football and basketball, neither Louisville nor Lexington rank very high on the list of cities with the most science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) jobs.

I know -- the world needs ditch diggers, too, and but when was the last time you heard anyone connected with New Albany municipal government talk about articles like this, even in casual conversation over wretched light beer?

For four years, we've been told that a water park, subsidized "luxury" apartments and the beautification of .8 of a mile on precisely one major street will combine with several million other "quality of life" dollars (and a few hundred thousand gallons of Kool-Aid) to pull our city out of the doldrums.

Except that none of these actions even acknowledge the real questions, much less answer them.

How do we keep our best and brightest here, and attract others of like skill?

How can a water park ever do this?

To cite just one example, not only has David Duggins had no identifiable economic development policies apart from delivering boilerplate CF1 tax abatement forms to a snoozing council twice monthly, but when Mark Cassidy began regularly questioning the rubber-stamping, quite a few of these forms proved to have been filled out incorrectly.

No one ever bothered to look. Millions of fast food employees have been terminated for less.

No, we're not likely to be Huntsville, Alabama, at least any time soon. At the same time, we need to be inventorying community assets and considering future economic development locales outside the "always done it this way" box, or it's going to be a tough commute, sans paddle, on River Ridge Creek.

The Unlikely Cities That Will Power the U.S. Economy, by Christopher Cannon, Patrick Clark, Jeremy Scott Diamond, and Laurie Meisler (Bloomberg Business)

A decade ago, Richard Myers was the director of the Department of Genetics at the Stanford University School of Medicine, where he enjoyed the fruits of a rich endowment and his pick of faculty members and graduate students. So he left behind some befuddled scientists when, in 2008, he left Palo Alto, Calif., for Huntsville, Ala., to launch an independent research lab, the HudsonAlpha Institute.

“‘My God, you’re leaving Stanford for Alabama?’” Myers recalls colleagues asking. “‘What’s wrong with you?’”

Huntsville may not seem like an obvious place to base a center for genomics, a branch of biology concerned with DNA sequences that requires expensive hardware and even greater investment in human capital. Alabama ranks in the bottom 10 U.S. states for educational attainment and median income.

Yet Huntsville, nestled in a hilly region in the northern part of the state, turns out to be a great place to recruit high-tech workers. As of May 2014, 16.7 percent of workers in the metropolitan area held a job in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics—STEM, for short—making it the third most technical workforce in the country after San Jose, Calif., and Framingham, Mass., a Bloomberg analysis of Labor Department statistics shows.

Huntsville is one of a growing number of smaller U.S. cities, far from Silicon Valley, that are seeking to replace dwindling factory jobs by reinventing themselves as tech centers. Across the Midwest, Northeast, and South, mayors and governors are competing to attract tech companies and workers.

The Economist: Blue collar (and badly educated) men in rich countries are not adapting well.

I highly recommend these two articles. The leader offers a broad summery, with the essay going into greater detail. As you're reading, bear in mind that New Albany's traditional response to social and economic change has been to eagerly shift downmarket. 

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The weaker sex: Blue-collar men in rich countries are in trouble. They must learn to adapt

... One group in particular is suffering (see article). Poorly educated men in rich countries have had difficulty coping with the enormous changes in the labour market and the home over the past half-century. As technology and trade have devalued brawn, less-educated men have struggled to find a role in the workplace. Women, on the other hand, are surging into expanding sectors such as health care and education, helped by their superior skills. As education has become more important, boys have also fallen behind girls in school (except at the very top). Men who lose jobs in manufacturing often never work again. And men without work find it hard to attract a permanent mate. The result, for low-skilled men, is a poisonous combination of no job, no family and no prospects ...

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The point is expanded and corroborated here, in longer form.

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Men adrift: Badly educated men in rich countries have not adapted well to trade, technology or feminism

KIMBERLEY, a receptionist in Tallulah, thinks the local men are lazy. “They don’t do nothin’,” she complains. This is not strictly true. Until recently, some of them organised dog fights in a disused school building.

Tallulah, in the Mississippi Delta, is picturesque but not prosperous. Many of the jobs it used to have are gone. Two prisons and a county jail provide work for a few guards but the men behind bars, obviously, do not have jobs. Nor do many of the young men who hang around on street corners, shooting dice and shooting the breeze. In Madison Parish, the local county, only 47% of men of prime working age (25-54) are working.

The men in Tallulah are typically not well educated: the local high school’s results are poor even by Louisiana’s standards. That would have mattered less, in the old days. A man without much book-learning could find steady work at the mill or in the fields. But the lumber mill has closed, and on nearby farms “jobs that used to take 100 men now take ten,” observes Jason McGuffie, a pastor. A strong pair of hands is no longer enough ...

Elections are for losers: Malysz subs for Gahan at NAACP forum.

NAACP meeting bullet points: Firefighter hiring, housing strategies, who didn't show up, and who did.

NAACP members question employment standards during forum in New Albany; Gahan criticized for not attending meeting, by Daniel Suddeath ('Bama Radio and the Big Pop-Up)

Though city, county and state officials attended, members of the New Albany chapter of the NAACP used the bulk of their questions to ask about New Albany issues ...

... (Mayor Jeff) Gahan wasn’t present for the forum, and that drew some critical remarks from a few of those in attendance. New Albany resident and NAACP member Marcia Booker said there have been instances of city fire department and street department workers not following employee guidelines, and that the issue “has been brought to the mayor’s attention” without a resolution.

“It’s like he promises he’s going to correct a situation, but nothing ever happens,” said Booker of Gahan, who entered office Jan. 1.

For those who persist in thinking that Doug England no longer serves as mayor, the chutzpah-laced symbolism of the following is instructive:

Community Housing Initiatives Director Carl Malysz attended the meeting on behalf of Gahan, and wrote down a list of questions and comments including those made by Toran and Booker that he said he would present to the mayor ...

Having weathered the transition from England to Gahan, tipped the troglodytes into apoplexy, and resumed attending meetings as official agent of the ruler, surely Carl's up for a new, more descriptive title. We like this one: Keeper of the Compromising Photos.

NABC is now hiring for the new Bank Street Brewhouse.

American brewing ... European sensibility.

The New Albanian Brewing Company is making a provocative gesture in expanding its brewing operation beyond the longtime North Side compound off Grant Line Road to a new downtown New Albany facility, the Bank Street Brewhouse.

The Bank Street Brewhouse (415 Bank Street) will include a taproom/brasserie and full production brewing facility. Save for NABC's craft brewed beers, it will have little in common with our traditional pizzeria and pub.We are accepting applications for serving staff, kitchen positions and brewhouse support.

NABC is an equal opportunity employer:

Fill out an application online ... you must be logged-in, and can register at the website.

Download an application ... or open the application form (.pdf file) in your browser.

Applications for the Bank Street Brewhouse completed off-line may be faxed to 502-721-0258.