Hmmmm ... is that fever, headache, joint and muscle pain, flushed skin, red and watery eyes, dry cough, sore throat, watery mucus and general weakness the dreaded influenza — or is it something else?It might be the flu. Even medical experts have a hard time knowing for sure. The one thing everyone knows about the flu, though, is that no one wants to get it. At its best, it’s miserable. At its worst, it kills.Flu season has officially begun, and millions of Americans are heading for their doctor’s office, clinics, flu shot “events” and drug stores for vaccinations. The U. S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) recommends everyone over the age of 6 months get vaccinated, except for those allergic to chicken eggs, anyone who has had a reaction to the shot in the past or anyone running a fever.The national health organization has a mission of preventing widespread outbreaks of any contagious illnesses. But not even the experts agree that mass immunizations are the answer to stopping the spread of a virus that changes constantly — potentially as often as with each body that hosts it. This year’s vaccine is the same as last year’s, which is unusual. The annual vaccine (effectiveness is estimated at as little as six months) is formulated based on past data and predictions for what might come. The current formula is aimed at H1N1, or the “swine flu” that caused the 2009 pandemic; Influenza A (H3N2); and Influenza B.It seems that everyone has a story about why they do or do not get vaccinated. One local 54-year-old woman gets a shot at the private school where she works. As an allergy and asthma sufferer, she feels it helps protect her. She still seems to get the flu every year but she believes the vaccine reduces the length and severity.A woman in her 20s, with some medical training, said she does not get an annual shot because she is not in a high-risk category, and because of the risk inherent in the vaccine.She says the virus can activate in your system after you get the shot, so you end up getting the flu anyway. Also, she said, the vaccine given each year only protects against limited strains of virus. It’s still possible, even with the shot, to catch a different version of the flu.Dr. James Steckleberg, on the staff at the Mayo Clinic, writes on the center’s website that many strains mutate in their host. But mutations that begin with a strain formulated into the vaccine may remain similar enough so that an inoculated immune system will attack it.Can you get sick from the vaccine? The CDC says it’s possible, since it’s made from a “killed” virus that is not dormant. That means it can activate in the body.However, the Mayo Clinic says what actually happens is an immune system response that produces flu-like symptoms, most often in young adults. Some would ask, does it matter? Symptoms are symptoms, and sick is sick.One of the biggest current factors in weighing the options is cost. Some Medicare and health insurance plans cover some or all of it.But some don’t, and many families have lost benefits to unemployment or cost-saving measures by employers.Shots average around $30. It can quickly add up to more than a family can afford. Children younger than 9 should get two doses if it’s the first time they have been vaccinated for influenza. There is also the potential need for a second shot during the flu season, if a particularly virulent new strain prompts the development of a new vaccine. The flu season can also last into May — beyond the estimated optimum protection duration for the vaccine.If you do get the flu, chances are you will be advised to tough it out, and most importantly, stay home and try to avoid spreading it to others. It is impossible for medical professionals to know for sure if a patient has the flu based on symptoms alone. Laboratory tests are now available, but doctors typically use them only on high-risk patients. Antiviral drugs can be given, and are most effective when taken soon after symptoms begin.Antibiotics are effective against bacteria, not the flu, which is a virus. They may be prescribed for those at risk, or who develop conditions such as bacterial pneumonia while fighting the flu.For others, taking antibiotics with a virus can do more harm than good, according to the CDC, as they can trigger an antibiotic resistance when needed most.Getting a flu shotMILLBROOK — The Dutchess County Department of Health (DCDH) will hold a flu shot clinic on Friday, Dec. 2, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Millbrook Cornell Cooperative Extension, 2715 Route 44.Interested individuals may register and find more information about flu immunization online at www.dutchessny.gov and clicking the “What to Do About Flu” button, or visit bit.ly/DCFlushots. For those without Internet access, call the Department of Health’s Flu information line at 845-486-3435 or call to register at 845-486-3419.The fee for inactivated flu vaccine will be $32; FluMist will be $40. The fee for the pneumonia vaccine is $75. Influenza and pneumococcal vaccines are covered by Medicare Part B; individuals must bring their card to the clinic. Adults enrolled in Medicare HMOs may be required to pay the fee.The adult flu clinics will offer vaccine to anyone 18 and older wishing to protect themselves against influenza. Individuals under 19 years of age may attend one of the department’s children’s immunization clinics to receive flu vaccination and other important immunizations at low-cost or no cost. Individuals younger than 18 years of age must be accompanied by a parent or guardian. Go online to www.findaflushot.com to find other locations where the clinics will be held.
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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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