Isn’t it funny how people take certain things for granted and believe those things will always be there no matter what evidence there is to the contrary? Such is the case with the local branches of the United States Postal Service (USPS). This, despite the fact that the general public uses its services less than they used to, what with paying bills online and the convenience of shipping options with other companies such as UPS and FedEx. And it’s common not only to take the post office for granted, but to complain about it services regularly as well. But really, how much fault can one find with the service provided by the post office? What still is a large volume of material is moved and delivered by the USPS in a very timely and direct way. It’s also relatively simple: Just throw a stamp onto a correspondence and toss it into a box. We do just take it for granted. It’s always been there, hasn’t it?Now, in the Northwest Corner, the post office on Main Street in Lakeville is in danger of being shut down by the USPS as one of its many necessary cost-saving measures. Less usage of the services of the post office means such steps will have to be taken as its losses mount. This move seems counterintuitive to anyone who lives in the area and knows that the Lakeville site is large, with more space for sorting and distribution than any of the other USPS buildings in the area. However, the postal service has made it clear that as they are looking for ways to cut soaring losses, one way is to avoid owning the buildings in which post offices are housed. The maintenance costs of such buildings are much harder to control than set rental costs.It’s still with a sense of impending loss that Lakeville residents consider the possibility that their post office could be shut down. After all, as other shops have come and gone in the Lakeville town center, the post office has been the one constant, a gathering place for decades that is welcoming to all. Even with the decreasing usage of the postal service, once one hears that his or her town’s longtime post office could disappear, those bricks and mortar suddenly take on a whole new meaning.There’s something very personal about those things for which we do still use the post office. Holiday and birthday cards, sympathy cards, wedding invitations and other event invitations still usually find their way through the mail rather than being sent by email. This sort of communication is an actual physical connection supported by the post office that doesn’t really happen in quite the same way anywhere else. And the identity of a small town like Lakeville is tied up with its post office in ways both tangible and intangible.Those who grew up in town may remember past postmasters who were especially kind to them when their parents brought them into the post office with them. Or, maybe just this week a special package arrived from a loved one, and the local postal worker went out of his or her way to deliver it promptly, even if it meant doing it on a Saturday morning. A small-town post office like Lakeville’s is somehow different than one in a more urban area. Seeing a line at the window isn’t an annoyance if there are several people in that line with whom one is acquainted, and the time waiting can be spent catching up with them. Yet really, there are rarely long lines in the Lakeville post office, and the wait times to use the services at the window are not long, either. Is that also part of the problem in the eyes of the postal service looking to shut the office down; should the lines be longer?Many in Lakeville are voicing concern about the closing of their post office and the issues of inconvenience that might arise if only the smaller post offices in the surrounding towns remain. This is a call, then, not only to the USPS to reconsider the closure of the Lakeville office, but also to residents of the region to use their local post offices’ services whenever possible. If they are not supported, they cannot survive.
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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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