Road Trip to Posey County

With the rare weekend where there were no Greene County sports I knew I had to do the right thing and take my wife out to some location outside of the Terre Haute, Bloomington and Vincennes triangle. It’s a triangle that needs an official name so please comment accordingly.

Indianapolis had the NCAA Tournament so that was out as I would have ended up buying overpriced tickets. St. Louis and Louisville were in the running but the winner was… New Harmony, Indiana.

No one says, “Hey, let’s go to Posey County this weekend” with a straight face. Especially when the towns of Linton and Bloomfield empty out and head to Florida. Hopefully, high school spring breakers are not trying to take care of a pregnant woman and a beagle puppy while on a high school sports writer’s budget.

New Harmony had a cute cottage on Airbnb that allowed pets so away we went. In the end it was a nice place. Plenty of towns in Indiana claim to be “historic” but I can count all them on one hand that actually are. Madison, Corydon, parts of Indianapolis, maybe Vincennes and New Harmony. That’s pretty much it.

The only non-historic buildings in the town were a Dollar General and a gas station. My wife said it would be a nice setting to film a movie or television show. Given the cloudy weather, even a horror movie would look nice in New Harmony.

We ate at a restaurant called the “Red Geranium” where we were seated in a room with glass walls that had two musicians for live music. It was too intimate of a room for an electric guitar but these guys gave it a go anyway. As soon as they started playing, the tables in front of us immediately cleared out, making me and my wife the closest thing to a front row seat.

The musicians asked us where we were from and we told them “Linton.” The singer replied “Oh, well we were in a show in Vincennes last week.” In his mind, Linton and Vincennes were about 10 minutes apart. It’s a mindset I would have had two years ago but know differently today.

New Harmony started out as a Utopian community and the architecture of the buildings reflect that. It’s not the best town in the world for a getaway but it is serviceable and I do credit New Harmony for hanging on to what makes it different. Too many towns in our state have attributes that made them distinguishable at one point or another but have long lost that uniqueness in the last century or so. Highways and corporate fast food have a way of doing that.

I came away thinking two things. One, how did North Posey beat Linton in volleyball this past regional? Two, are there any towns in Greene County that could adopt New Harmony as a model to rejuvenate their town or least bring in some tourism? Linton and Bloomfield don’t quite fit the bill but if I was a community leader in Jasonville, Worthington, or Solsberry I would be taking a hard look at New Harmony and see if there is a lesson there to apply to their town.

New Harmony has elevated itself from just being a dot on the map to something more by hanging on to 200 plus years of history. It’s a lesson worth taking note of.

Nathan is the Sports Editor of the Greene County Daily World and can be reached npacegcdw@gmail.com. His “Low Budget Sports Show” airs weekly on Facebook Live.