This Month’s Featured Articles…

Many tear-sodden, crumpled papers ago, I wrestled with the geometry of diagramming sentences (yes, I went to Catholic school). A two-word sentence was simple enough, all horizontal and vertical, but when things went all 45 degrees, and sentences became complex and compound, my diagrams resembled a thicket more than a pine branch.  There is something comforting about sentence diagrams, though: a clarity of thought and organization that dictates that every word serves a purpose and that there ought to be a relationship among words and [...]

As you may have noticed, we’re in party mode over here! That’s right, Main Street Magazine has officially turned ten years old! Wow, what a journey it has been. And it’s really hard to believe that it’s been ten years, 120 issues, and countless stories that we’ve written and shared with all of you.  In that spirit, I thought that I should write a piece that focuses on the magazine itself this month. Some might say that that’s a bit self-serving, and/or that I’m tooting [...]

Regular readers will know I am a bit of a stuck record regarding the importance of finding local seasonal flowers. Firstly, flowers are no different from fruits and vegetables. They ALWAYS grow, look, smell, last – and even taste – better in season. However, even more importantly, out-of-season, flown-from-afar flowers come with enormous environmental costs to our planet and the communities that grow them. While 80% of the flowers purchased in the US still come from abroad, awareness of the ecological and social cost of [...]

January 22 was the official start of the Chinese New Year, which extends to February 9, 2024. Each year is celebrated with a different animal, and each animal cycles through only every 12 years. This year – 2023 – is the Year of the Rabbit. The Rabbit is assuming the place of the Tiger, who retreats to its lair until 2034. Following the Rabbit will be the Dragon in 2024. Most of us know the Chinese Zodiac through paper place mats in Chinese restaurants, where [...]

Oftentimes it has crossed my mind how much new legislative effort is being undertaken to help make life better, as in profitable, for farmers. While many folks tend to equate farming with the wide open spaces of the Midwest, those of us who live in the Hudson Valley and further upstate in New York are well aware that farming is a key component of what contributes mightily to a functional economy. But it surely is not as easy as farmers might make it look to [...]