Southern Indiana Living - March / April 2024

H
ow am I doing?
Teachers no longer
grade me; my last report
card was way, way last
century. Bosses quit evaluating me
once I quit being bossed.
My wife still hopes I improve,
but absolutely knows better.
Like Popeye, I am what I am
and that’s all that I am. OK, that’s
not entirely true. I resolve for 2024
to stream or at least to learn how.
After that, maybe I will check
out one of those — what are they
called — podcasts?
While the world expands,
mine narrows. Goes with aging, I
figure, to care about less no matter
how much more deserves care. My
energy to help change the world
fades like my energy to stay awake
for the 10 o’clock TV news. I took
my turn as a good citizen, tried
hard to make some difference. Now
it’s up to others.
Swallow that, OK.
I grow old where I grew from
the beginning — Southern Indiana.
I spend my 71st year in the same
house in which I spent my first,
much less in the same community.
I believe Southern Indiana not only
to be good enough for me and my
family but good enough for anyone.
Swallow that as well.
How is Southern Indiana doing?
I love its people and places as
much as always. But is it changing
too much? Changing too little?
Is progress necessarily happening
for us or to us?
I asked questions like these for
a living; I was a newspaperman. I
reported on leaders counted on to
know what is best for Southern Indiana.
Did they?
Do they? In retirement I am
left to debate mostly with our dog,
like he deserves a say.
The mutt won’t so much as
chip in on his vet bill.
I have written perhaps 12,000
columns or articles. Topics came
and went. Other topics came and
stayed. For instance, Southern Indiana
decided it simply needed another,
better way to and from Louisville.
Build a bridge, build a bridge,
build a bridge — to be a loyal
Southern Indiana type was to be in
Room for Improvement?
A Note to Baby Boomers
on the chant. For years and then for
decades, bridge talk was not bridge
action.
We Hoosiers mostly suffered
and, of course, Kentuckians tend
not to get overly worked up about
suffering Hoosiers. Yet Kentucky
finally recognized the value of convenient
commutes. Its people could
benefit when they crave fried chicken
at Joe Huber’s. They, too, might
find a job at that amazing River
Ridge place springing up at the old
Army ammunition plant.
Shamelessly late to the party,
Kentucky agreed to be allies if two
new bridges, not one, were to link
their South to our Midwest.
And oh yeah, they must be toll
bridges. Even some of my favorite
friends insisted there was no other
way.
So, I pay tolls and boil because
toll-free bridges go up and stay up
pretty much everywhere else. A
win for Southern Indiana, bridges
nonetheless were. A bigger win,
though, they should be.
Southern Indiana also needed
a casino if not casinos, some locals
believed. Some didn’t. Clark and
Floyd counties initially passed on
the prospect. Harrison County
gambled on gambling.
The casino there settles in as a
key employer and sugar daddy for
road remakes and college scholarships
and much else that otherwise
might go without.
Negatives persist, invariably,
overwhelmed by positives. No
wonder Orange County joined the
casino craze as soon as it could.
Local governments long ran
Southern Indiana’s hospitals because,
well, somebody had to.
One need not be a reporter, however,
to realize how, though never
simple, health care becomes dizzyingly
more complex. Our hospitals
proved attractive to big-buck
operators and, in most cases, deals
were offered that our leaders could
not refuse.
Or maybe they could have refused
and just did not. Either way,
Southern Indiana is less in control
of its health care. Good thing?
My experience is not overly
convincing. I doubt I am the exception.
I watched communities welcome
Walmarts to town while mom
and pop competitors struggled to
respond. My hometown, Jeffersonville,
just cut the ribbon on its 28th
fancy car wash.
OK, I exaggerate. No doubt,
though, dear old Jeffersonville has
no excuse for dirty cars.
Clarksville is on its third primetime
commercial stretch since
the 1960s and New Albany somehow
squeezes business after business
along a stone’s throw stretch
of State Street.
Southern Indiana adds stores
and restaurants, a crowd of commerce,
familiar and handy, reason
after reason not to need so much
those new bridges to Louisville.
New housing likewise keeps
developers hustling and traffic sitting.
Southern Indiana turns more
into North Louisville and less like
Mayberry. People in Southern Indiana
long told me they appreciate
being near Louisville but not in it.
The borders blur ever steadily.
Or perhaps I am just overdue
for cataract surgery.
IU Southeast and Ivy Tech remain
vital assets that have matured
smartly. If they could be better they
mostly could be busier. Southern
Indiana benefits when more of its
residents take to heart the unrivaled
upside of education.
That challenge sadly lingers.
Then again, Southern Indiana
makes ever-increasing use of its
geographic edge — its perch along
the Ohio River. It also finds occasional
ways to work regionally.
The massive redevelopment
of River Ridge stands out in this
regard. I wish for a long list of examples.
Turf wars get Southern Indiana
nowhere.
How am I doing? How is
Southern Indiana doing? We both
mean well.
Like my bosses liked to repeat,
there always is potential.•
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 • Mar/Apr 2024 • 11