Why Blog?

Every once and while when the ideas for this blog seem few and far between, I have to ask myself the obvious question of why I recount a time so long ago. The answer today is that I believe in the benefits of technology and the Internet in particular. Nothing is ever forgotten on the Internet. Data sits in storage forever. This is a fact, and a good reason to have something memorable and or inspirational to write before you begin a blog as it will follow you to your grave.

This is not to give myself too much credit as I know I have good posts and bad. The important thing is I believe its important to recall a time and a town much different than the one which stands today. I sometimes sound old and say the "good old days were better" but that is fairly common as we age and I see nothing wrong about my including a subjective judgment or two into a blog for the world to criticize.

The fact is there are somethings I like better about the Village now than when I was growing up. It's hard to argue with a bigger library, more parks, and better cared for ball fields, to name a few of my favorite things.

I may not like the loss of a "local feel" to Ridgewood in the form of individual shopkeepers who operated store like Perdues, McHughs, Bill Lyons, and the hardware stores. Their children went to our schools and they all had commutes to work which were the envy of their customers who had to hop a train or bus into NYC. The localness of Ridgewood I remember has been replaced with restaurants and bank branches and brings with it a superfluousness that didn't exist when we had Moms at home and we at least tried to eat dinner together.

Who is to say Ridgewood won't return to some of the habits of its simpler roots? The furor created by talk of changing Graydon Pool is a good example. It was nice to see people become passionate and engage in a strong public debate over the pool's future. This leads me to believe their is a strong core of people, living among the McMansions, who will steward the Village through the coming years. Hopefully they will remember the history of Ridgewood and will continue to strongly debate any proposed changes to its aesthetics or the aura it so routinely projects as a nice place to live or to be from.