Is the object you are now holding in your hands (or reading online) about to disappear?I refer to the newspaper, and I ask because I care deeply about the answer.My entire career was spent in newspapers — as a reporter, an editor and a publisher — when the industry was still thriving as the dominant force in public information and advertising. Now, looking back from a retirement perch, I see this institution declining day by day and wonder what this foretells.The evidence is everywhere: newspapers cutting back on size and number of pages, layoffs in the newsroom, and newspapers being sold at fire-sale prices or just shutting down. It is not just the “object” itself but journalism as a public service that concerns me, although I do confess to relishing a paper in my hands, the smell of the ink on that porous newsprint, and the systematic ordering of articles and photos as opposed to the undifferentiated deluge of data we call IT.We all know many of the reasons why newspapers are no longer as relevant and influential as they once were — and that means all the way back to before the founding of our country until about 25 years ago. That’s when newspaper readership, circulation and advertising revenue began its downward slide and the world of electronic communications, PCs and the Internet started to dominate our lives. I don’t blame the new technology, and I do use it myself. It is fast, encompassing, economical and interactive, much more so than a daily newspaper could ever be. But there are things that a newspaper still does better than anything or anyone else. I speak about serving the community.When a new school budget is proposed that could better educate my grandchildren or raise my taxes; when an old friend has died; when a new movie theater is planned in town; when the latest response times of the volunteer fire department are reported; what the state legislature is up to; and how the high school football team is doing: All that news still comes primarily from newspapers. Why? Because they are the ones with boots on the ground. Newspapers still employ the bulk of professional reporters, editors and photographers dedicated to finding out and telling us what is happening in our own backyard. No one else has been able to effectively do that. That doesn’t mean it can’t change in the future, and it doesn’t mean that newspapers have ignored the new technologies. On the contrary, their survival seems to depend upon it. The main problem is that there are fewer news professionals to do the necessary work.The Pew Research Center recently reported that U.S. newspapers have cut their news staffs by 30 percent since 2000 and employ the fewest journalists since 1978 — when our country had 97 million fewer residents (222 million to 320 million today). The electronic media have not filled that gap.For those unfamiliar with media economics, it is important to know that a successful newspaper — or any news provider, for that matter — must make money in order to fulfill its mission as a public servant. Most of the revenue — as much as 70 percent — traditionally came from advertising. Newspapers made their money mostly from display ads, such as a department store’s listing of the latest bargains, and classified ads, such as help-wanted notices and apartment rentals — neither of which radio or television could adequately provide. Today, the Internet gets much of that business, except for local retail advertising, where local newspapers still enjoy an edge. I believe one reason for that is that local businesses know that local newspapers are very much still a key part of the community. As an editor and publisher, I always felt that a newspaper’s most important function was to serve as the public’s “watchdog” of government. But I couldn’t afford the staff to cover all the board meetings, courts, fire and police in our area without making enough money to pay those bills while continuing to make a profit for owners. That is no longer a given.I think the public bears some of the responsibility for the demise of newspapers. It is clear that the need for two incomes in a family and the growing call on people’s time have made newspaper reading more of a luxury than a necessity. But willingness, or the lack of it, plays a role, too. Even back in the 1980s, when I was a publisher, reader surveys consistently showed that “watchdog” news was being read less than stories about celebrities, the entertainment industry, human interest, sports and the comics. We see this pattern continuing today in low voter turnout for town budget meetings, despite their direct impact on our pocketbooks and the good functioning of town government.The strength of newspapers in our society cannot be separated from the democratic process. I hope readers will remember that when their subscription bills come due.Forrest C. Palmer, a resident of Heritage Village in Southbury, began his career at the Waterbury Republican in 1951, joined the Danbury News Times as editor in 1968 and retired as its publisher in 1990. He has remained active in Freedom of Information advocacy and is a past president of the Connecticut Foundation for Open Government.
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Dick Hermans in the Oblong Bookstore on Millerton\u2019s Main Street in 1985.
Provided
For Hermans, the award has prompted some reflection about why he has spent so much of his life involved in community projects.
“I was thinking about it this morning: Why do I do what I do?” he said. “And I think no matter what I’ve done, whether it’s been school board or rail trail, I’m trying to be useful to the communities I’m associated with.”
Hermans is perhaps best known as the longtime co-founder and steward of Oblong Books in Millerton, a business that began almost by accident. He and his first wife, Holly Nelson, were living in Millerton and looking for something to do during the winter. They had been painting houses, including the Grange Hall in Millerton, a job Hermans got through his aunt, who belonged to the Grange.
At the time, Hermans was also working in insurance for his father, doing collections.
“It was fine except I was doing collections, and it really kind of left me cold,” he said.
He and Nelson began thinking about what they might do together. Nelson was an avid reader, while Hermans had studied journalism and had worked in a record store. They noticed a chain of book and record stores operating elsewhere in the Hudson Valley and decided to follow that model.
And so Oblong was born.
Dick Hermans in the Oblong Bookstore on Millerton’s Main Street in 1985.Provided
“We really learned it by the seat of our pants,” Hermans said.
The business would eventually become a beloved and integral part of Millerton’s commercial life. But although Hermans may have learned the book business as he went, his affinity for retail — and for the connections that happen across a counter — had begun much earlier.
As a child, his second-grade teacher operated a little cardboard pencil shop in the classroom, and Hermans still remembers the satisfaction of selling a pencil for a nickel.
“I really liked selling somebody a pencil for a nickel,” he recalled. “I can remember that experience, and it was so pleasant.”
Later, while living in Arizona, he helped establish a food co-op and worked at the counter.
“I kind of knew that I liked doing that kind of thing,” he said. “It’s a nice way to be pleasant with people, but without making too much commitment to them.”
His relationship with Millerton also predates Oblong. His grandparents lived in the village, and he first came to Millerton as a baby. Over the years, he has watched the town change through several generations.
He remembers a Millerton with a much broader array of businesses, when stores such as Delson’s, the Main Street department store that stood for nearly 40 years in what is now Millerton’s Antiques Center, seemed to carry almost everything a resident might need.
“You could find everything from a set of dishes to a shotgun,” he recalled.
The rise of shopping malls changed that kind of downtown retail, he said, but Millerton has remained a lively commercial village.
“For us, it’s been a great place to have business,” Hermans said. “It’s a busy village.”
For Hermans, running a store was never simply about selling books and records. It was a way of being part of a place.
Music has remained another constant. Hermans continues to sell music at Oblong and hosts the radio program “New Harmony” on WKZE. The business of selling music has changed dramatically over the years, particularly with the rise of streaming, but Hermans has adapted.
He was initially reluctant to bring vinyl records back into the store because of their expense. But about four or five years ago, he began stocking LPs again, and they have become the main form of music the store sells.
He finds that many of the customers buying them are reconnecting with music they loved years ago.
“I do best with classic albums that people may have had when they were young,” he said. “And now that they’re retired, they want to hear it again.”
Hermans still reviews between 700 and 1,200 new music releases each week through the store’s distributor, Alliance Entertainment, carefully deciding what belongs on Oblong’s shelves.
That same commitment to place has led Hermans into a wide range of community projects. His work with the Harlem Valley Rail Trail is among the efforts he mentions when reflecting on his years of civic involvement. He has also served on the school board and has been involved with the Millerton Business Alliance and the Irondale Schoolhouse. He is now involved with The New Pine Plains Herald, which he sees as complementary to the work of The Millerton News and The Lakeville Journal.
“I really think that the important thing about this award is that people understand what a newspaper does to connect them to their community,” he said. “And if that means anything to their lives, they gotta support it.”
Hermans knew Mary Lou and Robert Estabrook and remembers them as people who were deeply conscious of their responsibilities to the community.
“They were really nice folks,” he said. “They were very conscious of what their role in the community was.”
There is, in fact, still plenty on his plate. Hermans admits he needs to scale back because he has taken on more than his current abilities can comfortably accommodate.
“To be given this award is very special,” he added. “But I don’t feel like I’m done.”
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Adamah Farm crew members planning out the day’s tasks on a late September day.
Janna Siller
Over my 15 years of growing vegetables in Falls Village, I’ve exerted my will over all kinds of conditions, from drought to humidity to crows with a taste for cantaloupe. That’s what farming is all about. You zip around the field, hopping on and off tractors, moving hoses and chasing weeds, all in an effort to arrange conditions in favor of your crops. It is the crops’ job to gulp up sunlight and move water through their stems, to transform solar energy into your next pesto or ratatouille or butternut squash soup. It is the job of the farmer to irrigate just enough but not too much, to slice dandelion leaves without damaging delicate cabbage roots, to pander and pamper and stay in tune with what plants need to thrive.
The easy part of farming is trusting plants’ resilience. I have seen bright green shoots barrel ahead out of a plant torn to shreds by hail. I’ve watched wilty, heat-stressed seedlings turn rigid overnight and greet the next morning with vigor. The hard part is letting go of what you can’t control. As our crops lapped up Friday’s gentle sunshine and I considered the weekend forecast, I imagined roots holding tight to wet earth and branches supporting each other in sideways, pelting rain. I made sure all of our storage crops were already harvested and tucked away. I battened down the sides of our greenhouses and wished the remaining field crops good luck.
The nor’easter didn’t materialize too dramatically in our corner of New England. A few broken branches and debris blown about, nothing like the July Fourth storm that sent half a tree crashing onto the deer fence and left crates of fresh veggies in coolers without power.
Fall storage crop harvests amid soil building cover crops at Adamah Farm in Falls Village. Janna Siller
Farming is an exercise in acceptance. To do it well and return year after year, you have to balance hubris and humility. The prize can often be a certain equanimity, a training in the art of moving into the next day even when the last one scrambled all your plans.
Epic change is not always about the unexpected. It also comes like clockwork on the seasonal calendar. As I type, the last of summer’s watermelons wait naively on the vine for a few hot days to finish ripening. Broccoli are holding their leaves wide as they did in June and July, only to find that the hours of sunlight decrease with each earlier sunset. Plants can’t pick up and go south or call the manager to order a bonus round of sunshine. Their growth slows and they get a resigned look to the hue of their leaves, so different from the frenzied growth of summer.
The release of fall is not tragic or gloomy. It is not an ending because so many fall tasks are about setting up for the new beginnings in spring.
We turn the vines that yielded thousands of pounds of fruit into the soil, where healthy microbes feast on their rotting stems. Then we plant cover crops — a mix of cereal grains like rye and oats and legumes like peas, vetch and clover. Cover crops hold the soil and its nutrients in place over winter, feeding the soil food web and adding organic matter that next season’s crops will need to grow.
We sort sprinklers and repair hoses. We inventory tarps. We take notes about which plants did well where and how we might try a new approach for this or that. We stack crates of cured garlic and onions and winter squash in a cool, dark room.
We save seeds from tomatoes and beans and lettuce, carefully labeling each variety for next season’s long, sunny days.
Janna Siller is the farm director at Adamah, a community farm in Falls Village offering CSA shares, educational programs and a food access program.
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