Re: Mailbag:" Hardy Boy", Back From Missouri and Hearing Dueling Banjos all the way home; On Ballroom Dancing in Blue Jeans

hardy boy @yahoo.com> wrote:

Should Evansville Plant Gumdrop Trees?

Remember that song at the beginning of Oh Brother
Where Art Thou, The Big Rock Candy Mountains? I do,
and I think the city of Evansville has been seduced by
it as well. If you haven't heard the song it was
written during the 1920's about an ideal hobos life.

Here is a verse: In the Big Rock Candy Mountains, all
the cops have wooden legs
And the bulldogs all have rubber teeth and the hens
lay soft-boiled eggs
The farmer's trees are full of fruit and the barns are
full of hay
Oh I'm bound to go where there ain't no snow
Where the rain don't fall, the wind don't blow
In the Big Rock Candy Mountains

When it comes to an Industrial Park in the city of
Evansville, I think that song takes precedent over
reality. I hate to be downer, but why would a major
business want to come to Evansville? Evansville is
convinced with the " If you build it they will come "
approach. I feel there are a lot of reasons that make
that dream a sad unreality.

Hwy 14 is my Number one reason. Great road to get to
Madison and J-town on, that is if you like driving on
road courses, but why would you want to build
something twenty minutes from I90 when you could build
it right there? That eliminated possible NEW large
Industrial companies.

Evansville is a nice town, and maybe it would appeal
to a service based commercial company. I still
haven't completely ruled that out yet, but then you
have to compete against every other " Evansville " in
the Local to Regional area. How many tax breaks and
incentives do you give before you are as profitable as
the WNBA?

I'm not knocking Evansville the city, I love living
here, it's just time that Evansville quit looking over
it's shoulder to see what City A,B,and C are doing and
use the brain resources it has and reinvent the
business park wheel.

Evansville may draw one or two minnows into its net,
but I think the wall hangers will stay wary.
Evansville needs to look at what it has to offer and
use that to it's advantage. Evansville has a lot that
many other cities don't. I just think Evansville is
trying to ballroom dance in blue jeans. Evansville is
a small rural community with a fairly well educated
body of people.

Hmmmm, rural. Lots of Corn, lots of Soybeans. Have
you gassed up Betsy lately? My subtle hints point
towards some kind of cooperative plan with the town of
Union and encourage a Soy Diesel and Ethanol Plant,
heck throw up some wind turbines and we're all set.
With that done, other prospective science/research
companies might be willing to come to this town if
they think we are a progressive role model for the
alternative fuel world.

With the storage capacity of Landmark and rail system
already in place, a lot of the dirty work is sorted
out. This would be a great incentive for local
farmers to keep farming, and make farmland valuable
for what it was meant to do. Full circle economic
impact, not just one area.

I'm not saying put these up next to the Pig, but with
everything in life comes compromise. Not everyone
will be on board, so you might as well throw it on a
fall Referendum!

This idea may also sound like a fantasy so maybe
Evansville should construct a business park, who am I
to second guess them, or maybe I just ate too many
soft boiled eggs this weekend.



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