This Month’s Featured Articles…

Growing up in Crosby, TX, a small town near Houston, interior designer Joshua Smith knew he wasn’t like the other boys and it caused him much pain and grief. He recalls his “pink sock” moment as an example. “I had these new socks,” Smith explains. “They were actually a salmon color and matched my polo shirt. I thought they were pretty cool, but this one kid gave me such grief for wearing girl-colored socks that I never wore them again.” Somehow Smith knew he had [...]

In May of last year, I wrote a story on the forgotten treasure that is the American drive-in movie experience. How this bit of the country’s flawed but authentic mid-twentieth century culture had been quietly capitulated by the easily accessible digital grab-bag of the modern moviegoing experience. Still, the story revolved around the enduring legacy of the drive-in theatre through the decades and how its distinctiveness between movie watching, and movie outing has forged an ineffable bond between cinema, the outdoors, and our desire to [...]

What does an animal make of a pandemic? On various early morning bike rides this spring, I’ve startled foxes and bears as they saunter along our unusually quiet country roads, no doubt pleased that our iron horses have yielded such amiable byways to them. My stealthy approach catches them unaware, and they immediately scurry for the nearest culvert, but their nonchalance on the blacktop is refreshing. I return home to transform into a whirling dervish for the next eight hours, toiling like Sysyphus after an [...]

Unlike any time in our recent memory, the crisis that has befallen populations around the world has forced large scale governmental institutions to lay bare the true value of public health and safety. Emergencies, natural disasters, and traumatic events throughout history have often brought out the best and worst in society and the COVID-19 pandemic has been no exception. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the heart of the human spirit has persevered in places where community outreach is part of the very fabric of society. Local leaders and [...]

Millerton, NY’s North East Community Center (NECC) has become accustomed to providing community support on a whim. Established in the winter of 1988 at the urging of Wendy Curtis and Sam Busselle, through the passing of a town statute, its original purpose was to respond to the lack of social support services for Village of Millerton and the Town of North East residents, who reside far from county services out of Poughkeepsie, NY. As happens in many small towns around the world, events of even [...]