Human League – "(Keep Feeling) Fascination" (1983)

The truth may need some rearranging
Stories to be told

And, plain to see, the facts are changing

(It goes without saying that every word in every 2 or 3 lines post is the truth.  But as today’s featured song notes, the truth sometimes needs rearranging . . . and sometimes the facts do change.)

I recently drove from my home in the Washington, DC suburbs to Joplin, Missouri and back, covering some 2250 miles in five days.  (My mother’s house in Joplin was sold recently, and I needed to empty it and sign a bunch of sale-related documents.)

A map of my 2250-mile odyssey

On the way to Joplin and back, I wet my whistle at seven different craft breweries (sometimes called “microbreweries”) located in five states.

On the first day of my trip, I stopped at Barley’s Brewing in Columbus, Ohio, and Black Acre Brewing in Indianapolis.  Both had some excellent beers on tap.  

A shared-bike station in Columbus

I stopped at Barley’s after riding one of the CoGo Bike Share bicycles around Columbus, and the “Blood Thirst Wheat” – a blood-orange flavored wheat beer – was as refreshing as all get-out.

After stopping for a plate of four-way chili (beans sí, onions no) at a Skyline Chili outpost in Indianapolis, I preceded on to Black Acre, which had a very interesting assortment of house-brewed and guest beers available.

Eating Cincinnati-style chili in Indianapolis

I opted for a flight of four beers: a chocolate-peanut butter porter, two versions of Black Acre’s fifth-anniversary Scotch ale (one aged in whiskey barrels, the other aged in wine barrels), and a very high-alcohol (13%) raspberry trippelbock from Mikkelson, a Danish company that markets a dizzying array of eccentric beers that are brewed at microbreweries around the world.  

A tasting flight at Black Acre Brewing

But the hit of the evening was the Boulevard “Rye on Rye on Rye,” a 14.6% ABV rye ale that was aged in not one, but two rye whiskey barrels.  Boulevard (which is located in Kansas City) is one of my personal favorites, and this beer was delicious!

I was walking back to the bar after draining the lizard when I noticed that the guy sitting a few seats down from me was wearing a gun:

Open carry at Black Acre Brewing

I’m pro-Second Amendment, although I’ve never owned a gun and probably never will.  But I do admit that I was a bit taken aback to see a pistol-packing microbrewery patron.  I’m not sure that guns and alcohol are a good combination.

I asked the bartender and the guy sitting next to me at the bar if it was common for someone wearing a gun to walk into Black Acre, and they assured me that it certainly was not.  Both of them were appalled to see a guy wearing a 9mm automatic there.

I pushed on the Terre Haute – which is about an hour west of Indy – before turning in.  

The second day of the trip, I stopped at only one microbrewery – the modest but charming White River microbrewery in Springfield, Missouri.

At White River Brewing (Springfield, MO)

There was only a small crowd at White River when I stopped there at 500p on a Sunday and ordered a tasting flight of five different beers, only one of which – a smoked pepper porter – was at all exotic.  

I'll tell you about the breweries I hit on my return trip in the next 2 or 3 lines.

*     *     *     *     *

Today’s featured song popped up on the “First Wave” channel on my Sirius/XM satellite radio about half an hour after I left White River Brewing.

The only thing between me
and hours of sports-talk radio

“(Keep Feeling) Fascination” was a top-ten hit in 1983 for the Human League, the British synth pop group best known for “Don’t You Want Me.”

Here’s the very striking music video for “(Keep Feeling) Fascination:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: