Southern Indiana Living Magazine - Jan / Feb 2023

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NO PARKING OR ADMISSION CHARGE! 32nd Annual Maple Syrup Festival February 25-26, March 4-5, 2023 9:00 A.M. – 5:00 P.M. EST LM Sugarbush, LLC 321 N. Garrison Hollow Road Salem, IN 47167 (812) 967-4491 • (877)-841-8851 LMSugarbush@gmail.com Please contact us if you have any questions. Please dress in comfortable clothes and sturdy shoes. Waterproof boots are always recommended. Parking areas get incredibly muddy. Please drive 4WD if available. Farm restaurant and store both accept all major debit/credit cards, cash, and personal check. Many craft vendors are cash-only. The festival is extremely busy from 11am-2pm. There is often a wait time for parking and the restaurant during peak hours. Activities are subject to change due to weather conditions. 10 • Jan/Feb 2023 • Southern Indiana Living Contact us at: www.washingtoncountytourism.com or call 812-883-4303 to plan your trip!
A Note to Baby Boomers Yours for the Asking My wife and I finished spring cleaning in the fall. To think we usually are in such a hurry. Hosting a big yard sale would be one way to go. But then a customer would try to pay with Venmo and I’d stroke out. Donating is simpler, of course. Is there a worthy alternative to Goodwill? I asked around. When my car needed an oil change and my favorite mechanic had hung up his wrenches, I asked around. Same when the refrigerator went on strike and the front porch was overdue for an overhaul. I asked around. I continue to be reminded of how I am like my father, who died nearly 40 years ago. He parked a halfmile from the grocery store door. I do, too. A drink of water could not be cold enough for him. Yeah, that’s me, too. And he asked around. Whom he knew mattered right up there with what he knew. Making friends, cementing connections, he was as slick at all that as a politician up for re-election. Dad was neither shy about asking favors nor doing them. That’s how community best clicks, Dad believed. Lean on me and I will lean on you. Yet it seems the buddy system is now about as cool as the shirts and shoes I need to dump. Young adults take advice from online reviews than off neighbors or, of course, off anyone who takes six months to clean out closets. Friends are on Facebook, not drinking coffee around tables after church or at McDonald’s. Relationship has become a fourletter word. A text tops a conversation. Work at home, eat at home, worship at home — am I the only one left who still needs to shower? No one taught me how to change a tire or how to bake a cake. I’m at a loss when the toilet keeps running or the lawn tractor stops running. Then again, I feel lucky that I can talk to people, pretty much any and all people. Whatever else I may be full of, I am full of questions. Ask. That well might be my best advice. Step up and ask. Ask strangers and friends, kin and neighbors. Let curiosity free, stop wondering and start finding out. Appreciate learning and enjoy barriers coming down. Shut up if that seems prudent, in the interest of nose preservation. It usually is not. I told people’s stories for a living and it is absolutely true that everybody has a story. More true is that they have a bunch of stories that they can’t wait to tell. So do I. So do you. Opportunities pass. I would pepper Dad and Mom with questions until next week if only I still could. Instead, I was too busy doing God knows what. This is No. 1 on my thankfully short list of regrets. It’s either that or becoming addicted to pricey ice cream. I read not long ago how habits define us. We are what we do, such was the conclusion. Saying hi, saying thanks, waving and nodding, these may not be my only habits but thank God – and my parents – they are among them. So I ask. Then I listen. Many ask back. Some do not, of course. Their business is no one else’s, period. May missing out prove to be among their regrets. There was a time when I would be invited to speak to students. I told them that I was unaware of anyone who had died from stringing together words and sentences and paragraphs. You might not enjoy your next term-paper assignment, I urged. You will survive it, though, and maybe, just maybe, come out the better for it. That also is how it is with asking, with being friendly, with long lunches with longtime friends and with getting tips about affordable handymen or the tastiest Mexican food. Crazy enough, the more I age the less I care. I used to know the name of the backup catcher for the Minnesota Twins. I used to double-check if tonight’s favorite TV sitcom was to be a new episode or a rerun. I used to matter about whatever actually mattered – I hope so anyway – and too much of what didn’t. No one taught me how to change a tire or how to bake a cake. I’m at a loss when the toilet keeps running or the lawn tractor stops running. Then again, I feel lucky that I can talk to people, pretty much any and all people. Have I uncluttered my mind along with my house? Priorities change, of course, while years pile up. Good health no longer comes as naturally. Money better not run out before my wife and I do. Must we really wait until 5 to eat dinner? The grand prize of retirement, of aging, is time. Closet clean-outs, yes, can wait. Kids’ school breaks no longer determine dates for travels. Need to stock up from Costco or Sam’s Club? We’ll get there soon or fairly soon or … Meanwhile, I will relive good old days with good old friends, and I will consider it my mission to make new friends. I will keep my cellphone in my pocket and nod, wave, greet and, sooner or later, ask around. Still got more stuff to donate, by the way. .• After 25 years, Dale Moss retired as Indiana columnist for The Courier-Journal. He now writes weekly for the News and Tribune. Dale and his wife Jean live in Jeffersonville in a house that has been in his family since the Civil War. Dale’s e- mail is dale.moss@twc.com Southern Indiana Living • Jan/Feb 2023 • 11
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Southern Indiana Living Magazine - Jan / Feb 2023

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