The Banks of the Ohio

In the waning days of our trip, we spent a fair bit of time along the banks of the Ohio River. Our first glimpse was along the bluffs outside Leavenworth, Indiana. That was on day one of a two-day impromptu scenic drive through southern Indiana. The first day we stopped in Louisville, Kentucky, before restarting our journey the next day in Madison, an amazing river town that — while just a shadow of its heyday — has 130 square blocks of beautiful old buildings in its downtown.

It’s hard to think of southern Indiana as a place of enormous wealth, but so it was when the Ohio was one of America’s principal means of commerce. It still is a hardworking river, as we saw at the Army Corps of Engineers’ Markland Locks and Dam (and observation tower for visitors). On our drive — amidst the corn, soybean, and tobacco fields; along the quiet state highways; through quiet downtowns and wide spots with names like “Possum Junction”; and past the Benedictine archabbey — we also saw numerous barges and factories and powerplants and “riverboat” casinos and cities I had never heard of that thrive off this river.

Cincinnati, a city that I wasn’t really able to understand, seems a microcosm of the Ohio River. A history-based caricature of what the river once was: casinos and rust-belt commerce. But it’s also vibrant, wears its multicultural heritage openly, and will likely portend the future of America.

While there, we stopped into the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. In Cinicinnati, the Ohio separated free and unfree by less than a furlong. It’s hard to imagine slavery or understand the depth of the pathology that infects any society which not only uses it but defends the practice. One primary focus of the NURFC is the multifaceted slave experience and its intersection and common bonds with other social justice issues, notably suffrage. But the center also presents how slavery built America, — making all of society complicit in it and underlining how wrong the current imbalance of wealth and opportunity truly is.

The museum is just a couple blocks away from the Great American Ballpark, which fronts the Ohio River. Okay, it’s named after an insurance company, but what a great name! The park is beautiful — despite having a minor league stadium feel — but the game was a snoozer and the fans were mostly there to drink and chat. But hot dogs are cheap (as is the beer) and the game got better in the 9th inning.

Is Cincinnati also a microcosm of our trip?