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A LESSON OF LOSS AND GAIN (a first-person account by Southern Indiana resident Sally Hughes, at Extol Magazine)

IN APRIL 2013, I did something that millions of women have done, seemingly without consequence, but for me it would turn out to be a life-altering decision  ...

Paine & Pleasure, Part 2: A design for life.

Part one of "Paine & Pleasure" urged you to think about Thomas Paine on July 4. In retrospect, this repeat of a column written in 2016 has little to do with Paine, but I already brought it up, so here it is.

It's a good snapshot of my mood in the run-up to Pints & Union, about which there'll be more to say in the next few days. My period of exile is just about over, and it's going to feel a bit odd having a regular spot to hang my hat.

Baby steps. Get back in the saddle, and ride.

---

ON THE AVENUES: A design for life.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Throughout my decidedly mediocre high school basketball career, members of the coaching staff often administered what they surely imagined as damning criticism of my uninspired performance.

“Baylor, you’re always on the outside, looking in.”

They were right on target, and it didn’t really bother me, because I’ve always felt like an outsider, even when making conscious (read: doomed) efforts to conform.

These efforts to fit in almost always fail. High school athletics were merely an early example of the pattern. I tried to take sports seriously, but couldn’t. Reviews were scathing. You’d think I’d clubbed baby seals, or urinated on a grave.

Perversely, many years later there emerged a role model who might have inspired me to work harder at basketball. When Dennis Rodman took his rebounding-first attitude to its most ludicrous extreme and refused to shoot even uncontested layups, at last I saw how it might have been for me.

Alas, by then it was too late.

---

Contrarianism, especially as it pertains to embracing positions that offend the majority, is a quality associated with dissent and radicalism. It’s no surprise that of all the “founding fathers” we Americans are taught to venerate – often mistakenly, in my view – the one who made sense most reliably was Thomas Paine.

Paine was brilliant when it came to documenting the need for revolution. He was less adept at contributing to principles of governance following the revolt’s successful conclusion, but this difficulty in transition isn’t uncommon.

Welcome to my life in “craft” beer.

If I have any single regret about my life as a contrarian, it’s that a pesky sense of fair play causes me to consider the other side, and at periodic intervals, to make ill-fated efforts to go with the flow even when I can foresee the dismal outcome.

Owing to my lifelong mathematical ineptitude, this cannot be attributed to a gambler’s instinct for statistical improbability. Maybe I’m just too nice a guy to avoid “reaching out” here and there.

By high school graduation, many of the various threads of my disgruntlement were exposed, and others were revealed during college – which ended with a philosophy degree, of course.

By 1985, and the high water mark of Ronnie RayGun’s incessant theatrical blather about what it meant to be patriotically American, I’d been to Europe and realized that the waylaid stork made a tragic error dropping me here.

Accordingly, intemperate arbiters of style back home in Indiana greeted me with a fresh new message:

“Baylor, if you hate it so much here, why not just go to Europe and just stay there?”

As usual, they completely missed the point. To be a contrarian is to understand that you can’t ever truly belong, and making good on this realization logically requires staying put, not leaving, so as to inflict your opposing viewpoint on the wider, somnolent community at every turn, forever more.

Perhaps the real reason I never tried playing the role of expatriate in Europe was fear that my contrarianism wasn’t continent-specific and would follow me wherever I went.

In other words, having felt like a European stranded in America, I’d move to Europe, only to find myself becoming attached to Harley Davidson, Bud Light and Mitt Romney.

I couldn’t risk it.

---

The Public House provided the chance to fine tune this approach. A quarter-century ago, I stumbled into the pub and restaurant game quite by accident. It was something I’d never done. My only core belief at the pub’s commencement was that the only way to succeed in business without really trying was to pretend the barroom’s four walls delineated completely different worlds.

Outside them, it was insane Indiana. Inside was a classroom somewhere in Europe. I stayed upright only by self-deception, generally too busy to think, though unfortunately not to drink. There was plenty of alcohol, and while I’m bright enough to know it wasn’t always a good thing, it was a good idea at the time.

However, there was plenty of teaching, too. In retrospect, my expectations were profoundly naïve, but the plan was to be as European as possible within the space allotted, with which I’d be able to locate others of like mind for commiseration, and to educate those who weren’t simpatico.

I genuinely thought of myself as an instructor, and at times it almost seemed to work. The lesson plan called for a period of dependence on European beers, following which America would reclaim its place as a beer country.

We called it microbrewing then, and I was sure that when it got off the ground, the ensuing dialectic would produce the best of both worlds. We’d have good, local beer and a European-style community in which to enjoy it. I could declare victory, and collect consultancy fees happily ever after.

Like I said, I drank a lot in those days, and it may have altered by cognitive function.

I thought better beer could presage a better life, and it was this conviction that started me asking questions about New Albany, because after all, it isn’t as though anyone else would be doing it, especially Alabama-based newspapers.

In turn, this led through Bank Street Brewhouse to two-way streets and a mayoral bid, and the scoreboard shows that none of these have turned out particularly well for me, but isn’t disappointment always a potential outcome when you decide to drop the shield and for once, lead with your heart?

You might win, you might lose, and there’s a reason why sweet dreams are made of this. It’s because they’re dreams, and dreams, you see … well, dreams just aren’t real.

They’re unreal, though bizarrely, with my plans for world domination doing double duty as bird cage liner, those dreams I had aren’t any more unreal than the current spinning wheel marketplace for “craft” beer, or the present brain-dead shape of “two-party” political solutions.

Satire is neutralized, and contrarianism threatened with extinction. We’re living in a skit.

Contrarianism can be exhausting, even more so when you’re older, and never more so than the present time. I find myself becoming reacquainted with my former tactical device, that of an expatriate in my own country, a willful stranger who keeps his eyes fixed on the pendulum, waiting for it to come near again, close enough to hold on for another ride.

But is that what I really want?

A very long time ago, it became obvious that a contrarian can’t be a prophet in his own time. An asshole, yes, though I’m serene about my talent at it.

Live by the sword, die by the sword, and when the local hacks, vandals and poseurs approach you with wilted mutton javelins in hand, you always have the option of throwing the ultimate haymaker in return: A six syllable word.

Okay, that felt better.

Looks like I’m not going anywhere, after all.

When the final buzzer sounds, all a contrarian really has left is the satisfaction of knowing that he fought the bastards good and hard, right down to the last possession … and this I propose to do.

My coaches would be proud.

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.

Running to Stand Still.

I suppose it comes as no surprise that the last few weeks for me have been surreal, a word implying a state of heightened non-reality, not unlike the sensation of a very weird dream.

Except you don't awaken from it, to coffee and renewed clarity. Rather, popular culture moves in mysterious ways, and experiences bleed into each other. The real and the unreal collide.

By mid-February, we knew my mother was dying. Around the same time, owing to Leadership SI activities and topical local debates, I was being immersed in information about the opioid addiction epidemic in Southern Indiana and related public health issues.

In the middle of it, a friend proposed that we attend the U2 show in June at Papa John's Cardinal Stadium. Tickets were purchased, and for the first time in years, I listened to the band's 1987 album, "The Joshua Tree," which will be performed in its entirety at the gig.

With all these things percolating in my brain, one of the songs unexpectedly grabbed me.

"Running to Stand Still" is a song by rock band U2, and it is the fifth track from their 1987 album, The Joshua Tree. A slow ballad based on piano and guitar, it describes a heroin-addicted couple living in Dublin's Ballymun flats; the towers have since become associated with the song.

I've known the story for years, and at first there was an obvious connection with the opioid discussion. The song kept floating back to me when prompted by news items about the proposed halfway house on Spring Street, or the city council's efforts to segregate treatment.

It's been a week since mom died, and yesterday the song started playing again in my head, as though somehow possessing renewed relevance. It occurs to me that "running to stand still" aptly describes what I've been doing to myself these past seven days.

Without thinking about it, I've responded to my mother's death just as she'd have done herself, by trying to wrestle mortality to the ground through sheer organization -- the communications, the notifications, the arrangements, the obituary, and the collating of archives.

All the while, I've been obsessing over all sorts of personal deadlines to finish this, read that, learn twice as much as before, and begin whole new projects without any clear plan to finish them.

Hamster, meet wheel.

The obvious problem with me trying to organize my way out of grief is that while she easily could manage it, I'm just lost in the weeds. My standard joke is that it's never been a problem for me to get organized, just to remain organized.

There is no neat and tidy conclusion to this rumination. I imagine that we all cope with loss as best we can, each in his or her own way. As such, I'm deeply thankful for your comments and condolences, especially from those who have recounted tales from the home economics classroom.

These resonate with me.

That's all for now.

ON THE AVENUES: A design for life.

ON THE AVENUES: A design for life.

A weekly column by Roger A. Baylor.

Throughout my decidedly mediocre high school basketball career, members of the coaching staff often administered what they surely imagined as damning criticism of my uninspired performance.

“Baylor, you’re always on the outside, looking in.”

They were right on target, and it didn’t really bother me, because I’ve always felt like an outsider, even when making conscious (read: doomed) efforts to conform.

These efforts to fit in almost always fail. High school athletics were merely an early example of the pattern. I tried to take sports seriously, but couldn’t. Reviews were scathing. You’d think I’d clubbed baby seals, or urinated on a grave.

Perversely, many years later there emerged a role model who might have inspired me to work harder at basketball. When Dennis Rodman took his rebounding-first attitude to its most ludicrous extreme and refused to shoot even uncontested layups, at last I saw how it might have been for me.

Alas, by then it was too late.

---

Contrarianism, especially as it pertains to embracing positions that offend the majority, is a quality associated with dissent and radicalism. It’s no surprise that of all the “founding fathers” we Americans are taught to venerate – often mistakenly, in my view – the one who made sense most reliably was Thomas Paine.

Paine was brilliant when it came to documenting the need for revolution. He was less adept at contributing to principles of governance following the revolt’s successful conclusion, but this difficulty in transition isn’t uncommon.

Welcome to my life in “craft” beer.

If I have any single regret about my life as a contrarian, it’s that a pesky sense of fair play causes me to consider the other side, and at periodic intervals, to make ill-fated efforts to go with the flow even when I can foresee the dismal outcome.

Owing to my lifelong mathematical ineptitude, this cannot be attributed to a gambler’s instinct for statistical improbability. Maybe I’m just too nice a guy to avoid “reaching out” here and there.

By high school graduation, many of the various threads of my disgruntlement were exposed, and others were revealed during college – which ended with a philosophy degree, of course.

By 1985, and the high water mark of Ronnie RayGun’s incessant theatrical blather about what it meant to be patriotically American, I’d been to Europe and realized that the waylaid stork made a tragic error dropping me here.

Accordingly, intemperate arbiters of style back home in Indiana greeted me with a fresh new message:

“Baylor, if you hate it so much here, why not just go to Europe and just stay there?”

As usual, they completely missed the point. To be a contrarian is to understand that you can’t ever truly belong, and making good on this realization logically requires staying put, not leaving, so as to inflict your opposing viewpoint on the wider, somnolent community at every turn, forever more.

Perhaps the real reason I never tried playing the role of expatriate in Europe was fear that my contrarianism wasn’t continent-specific and would follow me wherever I went.

In other words, having felt like a European stranded in America, I’d move to Europe, only to find myself becoming attached to Harley Davidson, Bud Light and Mitt Romney.

I couldn’t risk it.

---

The Public House provided the chance to fine tune this approach. A quarter-century ago, I stumbled into the pub and restaurant game quite by accident. It was something I’d never done. My only core belief at the pub’s commencement was that the only way to succeed in business without really trying was to pretend the barroom’s four walls delineated completely different worlds.

Outside them, it was insane Indiana. Inside was a classroom somewhere in Europe. I stayed upright only by self-deception, generally too busy to think, though unfortunately not to drink. There was plenty of alcohol, and while I’m bright enough to know it wasn’t always a good thing, it was a good idea at the time.

However, there was plenty of teaching, too. In retrospect, my expectations were profoundly naïve, but the plan was to be as European as possible within the space allotted, with which I’d be able to locate others of like mind for commiseration, and to educate those who weren’t simpatico.

I genuinely thought of myself as an instructor, and at times it almost seemed to work. The lesson plan called for a period of dependence on European beers, following which America would reclaim its place as a beer country.

We called it microbrewing then, and I was sure that when it got off the ground, the ensuing dialectic would produce the best of both worlds. We’d have good, local beer and a European-style community in which to enjoy it. I could declare victory, and collect consultancy fees happily ever after.

Like I said, I drank a lot in those days, and it may have altered by cognitive function.

I thought better beer could presage a better life, and it was this conviction that started me asking questions about New Albany, because after all, it isn’t as though anyone else would be doing it, especially Alabama-based newspapers.

In turn, this led through Bank Street Brewhouse to two-way streets and a mayoral bid, and the scoreboard shows that none of these have turned out particularly well for me, but isn’t disappointment always a potential outcome when you decide to drop the shield and for once, lead with your heart?

You might win, you might lose, and there’s a reason why sweet dreams are made of this. It’s because they’re dreams, and dreams, you see … well, dreams just aren’t real.

They’re unreal, though bizarrely, with my plans for world domination doing double duty as bird cage liner, those dreams I had aren’t any more unreal than the current spinning wheel marketplace for “craft” beer, or the present brain-dead shape of “two-party” political solutions.

Satire is neutralized, and contrarianism threatened with extinction. We’re living in a skit.

Contrarianism can be exhausting, even more so when you’re older, and never more so than the present time. I find myself becoming reacquainted with my former tactical device, that of an expatriate in my own country, a willful stranger who keeps his eyes fixed on the pendulum, waiting for it to come near again, close enough to hold on for another ride.

But is that what I really want?

A very long time ago, it became obvious that a contrarian can’t be a prophet in his own time. An asshole, yes, though I’m serene about my talent at it.

Live by the sword, die by the sword, and when the local hacks, vandals and poseurs approach you with wilted mutton javelins in hand, you always have the option of throwing the ultimate haymaker in return: A six syllable word.

Okay, that felt better.

Looks like I’m not going anywhere, after all.

When the final buzzer sounds, all a contrarian really has left is the satisfaction of knowing that he fought the bastards good and hard, right down to the last possession … and this I propose to do.

My coaches would be proud.

---

May 5: ON THE AVENUES: Getting back, moving forward, drinking coffee.

April 28: ON THE AVENUES: You know, the two-way streets column I wrote -- 7 years ago, in 2009.

April 21: ON THE AVENUES: The Green Mouse tells all.

April 14: ON THE AVENUES: Forever NA, the wrong way ... from 2012, through 2014, to 2016 and beyond, forever more.

It really is best served cold.

A youthful friend of mine apparently has learned one of those important life lessons about free speech. It reminds me of what I was told while living under my parents' roof, to the effect that free speech would begin only after I moved out.

It  isn't always possible to have free speech in the workplace, either. Your employer has a say in it, whether you like it or not.

Then there's the situation when a respected elder wags his or her finger and lets it be known that you've stepped over a line. It might be a teaching moment, administered with grace and compassion, but not THIS time; you're a sassy young pup, and you ruffled feathers. Older folks have a propensity toward humorlessness.

Rinse and repeat.

You need to be made an example, and they'll delight in seeing you grovel, just because they can ... and even (especially when) when they've been there themselves and are oh-so-vulnerable to reminders of the same.

Which I'd dearly love to apply with a circular, rubbing motion, but will not. In the end, it has nothing to do with me, though I appreciate the story. The way this week has gone, I needed the gut laugh.

My friend, I understand. You won't always be powerless, and some day, when you have the opportunity to return the favor, for the sake of all that's holy and humorous in the world, I hope you do.

Good and hard.