Last week I shared with you my background prior to my arrival in Winsted. So how did I get to Winsted?After my termination from Davison, Mich., I made the decision that, based upon the terrible economic situation in Michigan, I would, for the first time in my career, look for employment in another state.The primary impetus for this decision was my three daughters. With my ex-wife remaining in Michigan for the foreseeable future, the girls would always have educational and employment opportunities in that state. If I moved to a different state, I could perhaps develop additional such opportunities for them elsewhere.I used the resources of my professional organization, the International City/County Managers Association (ICMA), to primarily apply to smaller communities throughout the country.In addition to manager positions in the smaller communities, I also applied for assistant manager or other staff positions in larger communities. All in all, I probably applied to close to 120 communities, typically competing against another 50 to 100 other applicants.I was selected for interviews in several communities: Thorne Bay, Ala.; St. Clair, Mo.; Greenwood, Del.; Hoyt Lakes, Min.; Orono, Maine; Windcrest, Texas; New Buffalo, Mich.; Cheboygan, Mich.; and Bellow Falls, Vt.Traveling to those communities was fascinating. In some instances I flew, but I enjoyed driving to many of the towns. Sitting in the various restaurants and listening to the people talk, I found it interesting that many of the issues are common despite the distances between everyone: lack of confidence in the federal and state governments, medical costs, retirement savings and costs, personal finances.From that perspective, Winsted is not unique: Others everywhere are struggling with so many of the same issues.What was most surprising, and, again, not unique to Winsted, is the excitement and optimism that exists at the local level. Yes, significant differences exist everywhere, but, for the most part, local people strongly believe that their community will be fine and that prosperity will return.My first impressions when I visited those communities were telling. In some of the towns, I knew immediately that something was not connecting with me, and that it would not be a good fit for me. That was not to say that the communities were bad — far from it. Nearly all of them were solid and successful. My gut instinct, though, said keep looking. In only one or two instances was I truly disappointed to have not been selected for final consideration.I had previously responded to the Winsted notice seeking town manager applicants, but had not been selected for further review (due to my out-of-state background). When I saw the position re-posted, I re-emphasized my desire to serve in a setting like Winchester, and, this time, I was invited to an online interview with the Board of Selectmen.That was in early February, and I was also scheduled for a visit and interview in Bellows Falls, Vt. My brother had just secured a job working with 20th Century-Fox in Greenwich, and he was residing in Danbury. I drove to his place for Super Bowl weekend. Then, on my drive north to Vermont on the following Monday, I made my first visit to Winsted.I found the setting very attractive, but I didn’t feel a strong draw at the time. I could envision many re-development opportunities and partnerships, but something just didn’t connect. I received a quick tour of Town Hall and met several staff in passing, but as I left and headed north to Vermont, I remember telling some friends that my first impression was nothing remarkable.After my online interview, I was invited to return for a formal interview. It was during this interview that I began to feel a sense of enthusiasm and optimism in the community. I was given tours that showed me many of the town’s assets and strengths. I became excited about serving the community and living in such a beautiful area.When I was offered the position, I had other interviews scheduled in both Wisconsin and Iowa. The opportunity here required a relatively immediate response. I accepted the offer and, with no afterthoughts or regrets, I cancelled my remaining interviews and began preparations to move to Connecticut.I have met many of you, and look forward to meeting more. Nearly everyone cautions me about the political environment here — that I will get frustrated and leave.I hope my enthusiasm and passion for my adopted town is evident. It is truly genuine. I want to be a part of this community for a long time, and I look forward to building upon the strengths, overcoming the challenges, and making Winchester an even more attractive and wonderful place to live, work, and play.P.S. Happy Mother’s Day, Mom. Dale Martin is the town manager of Winchester.
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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 former partner, 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.”
This article has been changed to reflect that Hermans and Nelson were partners. A prior version states that they were married.
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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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