> SOUTHERN INDIANA — The Ohio River is the very reason for New Albany’s existence. It is a multi-faceted presence, serving as an artery, an impediment, a friend and sometimes, as in the epochal floods of 1937, an adversary.

In the decades following the great flood, New Albany’s waterfront was transformed from an area packed with warehouses still then familiar to retired stevedores and grizzled steamboat captains, into placid acreage sacrificed to levees and floodwalls, shielding downtown from high water. The necessary price was the city’s year-round detachment from its umbilical cord.

More than a half-century later, New Albany’s historic business district is awakening, and the Ohio River again beckons from just beyond its grassy enclosure. When the weather cooperates and the river remains within its banks, it serves as a picturesque backdrop for activities at New Albany’s Riverfront Amphitheater, a venue too long neglected until Hurricane Hugo’s gusts carried away the fabric roof in 2008, setting into motion a refurbishment engineered by Mayor Doug England and his current city hall staff.

In conjunction with progress on the Ohio River Greenway, the Amphitheater’s digs on the levee have been updated. A durable, permanent canopy covers the stage. A volunteer organizing committee put in long hours this year booking weekend events, many of them musical, and all of them free of charge. Insufferable heat and humidity during the summer of 2010 naturally suppressed attendance, but there have been many good times amid the swelter.

Last Friday’s breezy and temperate evening at the Amphitheater merits superlatives. A rock show by the group Cabin was promoted by a pioneering downtown business, Thorpe Woodworks. It was a young demographic, and while working the New Albanian Brewing Company beer booth, I met numerous first-time visitors, many of whom crossed the river on (as yet) non-tolled bridges to enjoy the experience. Children and families were in abundance, and there was no bad behavior.

I hope the good vibe carries over to Sept. 25, when the riverfront amphitheater committee joins NABC and the Louisville Craft Beer Week in staging a Strassenfest at the Amphitheater from 3 to 11 p.m. There’ll be Oktoberfests and other German-style draft brews from a dozen local and regional craft breweries, music and activities for all ages, and food with a German accent prepared by Steinert’s. Admission is free.  

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We’re all hoping that Strassenfest (Sept. 25) will be the ideal prelude to Harvest Homecoming, the granddaddy of all festivals in New Albany. The annual parade runs the following Saturday, Oct. 2, and then affiliated activities culminate with booth days downtown, starting Oct. 7.

In recent years, Harvest Homecoming has been going through a process of reinvention, and I believe we should commend its backers for their future vision. Possibilities are many, and further adaptations to take full advantage of the natural symmetry between it and an evolving downtown business district surely will be of benefit to all involved.

Do we need a second civic festival in New Albany? If done properly, they’re just the sort of exercise to promote good times, unite the citizenry, help us bond through sharing joy and maybe provide another yearly excuse to pay attention to deep street cleaning — preferably, both before and after the throngs come through.

Harvest Homecoming has the autumn outdoor imagery slot locked up, and rightly so. In springtime, two weeks of Derby revelry in late April usually consumes Southern Indiana residents. In 2010, for a second time, there was a Celtic Fest at New Albany’s waterfront. Previously it has been in August and once in June, and will return in 2011.  

So, finding an open date for our second civic festival might be difficult. Formerly, there was the springtime Da Vinci fest in downtown, which in retrospect may have been just a bit before its time. Perhaps there is some hope of resurrecting it, and if so, I’d like to see beercycling events rather than straight racing.

Granted, none of the preceding can compete in scale and impact with the true heavyweight world fests: Oktoberfest, Mardi Gras, Running with the Bulls, or that lesser-known fete in Spain where they have tomato fights, although the violence inherent in each of these, either real or imagined, certainly qualifies them as potential city council fundraising opportunities.

My civic festival proposal would be city-wide and on Election Day in November. It is an exaltation of meat loaf.

Not upper-case Meat Loaf, formerly Marvin Aday, who wanted to sleep on it, but lower-case meat loaf: The myth, the legend, the foodstuff and a great extender, tastily stretching limited household means. Meat loaves of varying composition are staples in cultural, culinary repertoires the world over.

Great meat loaves? There’s a ring to that. Does head cheese qualify as meat loaf? I think so. Pig parts from the head, congealed in aspic and formed into a quivering block, definitely merits a side competition for the more adventurous, because after all, aren’t we past the whole catsup glaze angle? Instead, our competition will encourage creativity. After all, you can barbecue meat loaf, make it Mexican, or substitute doughnuts for bread as filler.

Why choose Election Day for this festive “New Albany Loves Meat Loaf”?

It’s an apt metaphor for a municipality (and county) with budgets long since pared of both lean and fat, where we’re down to cooking the bones for a bit of flavoring marrow. Soon, Gov. Mitch Daniels will have us all dining on meat loaf, and we might as well learn a few recipes sooner, rather than later.

Roger laments the polarizing tendencies of meat loaf politicization, but he plays the hand he’s dealt. Read more at the NA Confidential blog: www.cityofnewalbany.blogspot.com