A 2015 column encore: “There’s an indie twist to this curmudgeon’s annual Harvest Homecoming column”

When Harvest Homecoming rolled around in 2015, I was: Running for mayor as an independent, and learning all about the credits and debits of challenging local government orthodoxies. On hiatus from active involvement with NABC for the duration of the campaign, and as yet unsure is the separation might become permanent. Seeking to convince New Albany’s food and drink operators that an independent restaurant and bar association was a better idea than relying on the city-dominated Develop New Albany (now Main Street New Albany) to act in our best interests. Trying to jump-start Biers on Parade, an indie pop-up event on Harvest Homecoming’s parade day. Wondering yet again why the drunken stork mistook the Ohio for the Danube and dropped me into the Open Air Museum of Ignorance, Superstition and Backwardness (sponsored by Mayor Jeff Gahan). I received more votes as an independent mayoral candidate in 2015 than noted retrograde Dan Coffey did, also as an independent, in 2019. What you’re seeing here is the design for my tombstone. As it turned out: I lost the election, but wasn’t at all disappointed. In 2016, the NABC separation became a permanent divorce, with the settlement coming in 2018. NARBA never took off, in part because City Hall’s strident opposition to such...Read more