July 4 marked the 12th anniversary of my assuming ownership of the Methow Valley News — or, as many of you have heard me describe it, my own Independence Day. There were a lot of reasons for that, personal and professional, and I’ve told the story a few times. Life-wise I was not in a […]
No Bad Days
No Bad Days – Words to live by
It’s more or less that time of year again when I remind myself, and our readers, advertisers and employees, of why I got into the newspaper ownership business nearly 12 years ago. It wasn’t with the expectation of getting rich (I didn’t), or serving my ego (a foolhardy notion), or becoming what these days they […]
No Bad Days- We all made it
Not that I am going to suit up in a mortarboard and gown, but I do have something in common with the Methow Valley graduating class of 2023. They are finishing 12 years of schooling (not counting kindergarten), many them matriculating all the way through the local schools, at about the same time I am […]
No Bad Days – Odds and ends
Has it been a year already? In June, the Winthrop library will celebrate its first anniversary with a series of events meant to engage young and old — in case you haven’t found the place engaging already. The building still seems brand new (could it be that everyone is taking special care to keep it […]
No Bad Days- Early poll watching
I confess, I was following the candidate filings for local elective offices every day last week, right up until Friday afternoon when sign-ups for the November general election closed. I’m always curious about who’s going to re-up, who’s going to challenge the incumbents, and who’s going to forego re-election. It matters. Besides, I’m a bit […]
No Bad Days- My personal perennial
In the carport of my little house in Twisp, each year about this time a brave, resilient red tulip pops up through the gravel — right where until recently the lingering snow held domain. I can tell the tulip is coming back when its leaves begin pushing up toward daylight. I am very careful not […]
No Bad Days – Sentimental journey
It was an interesting kind of “homecoming” Monday night when I dropped into the Twisp Chamber of Commerce’s monthly “Sip and Chat” gathering at 1908 BBQ & Bourbon, the relatively new restaurant on Glover Street. As these informal sessions usually occur on Mondays, when I’m focused on getting the newspaper done and writing this very […]
No Bad Days – Lost in transition
For the many of you who did not get your newspapers last week, we offer an explanation and an apology. We have newspapers go missing fairly often. A least a couple of times a week we get calls — almost always calls, not emails — about newspapers that did not arrive in the mail as […]
No Bad Days – Please, don’t exclaim it to me
From the early days of online communication, we’ve known this: email exchanges are fraught with peril. They can be misread, misunderstood, misconstrued — and that can happen when you, the sender, believe you composed your message with absolute clarity. One reason is that email messages, like these words you are reading, just sit there on […]
No Bad Days – It’s the accumulation
Life is full of perspective checks. Feeling beleaguered, put-upon, unfairly inconvenienced? Just read or listen to the news, if you can bear it. War in Ukraine. Earthquake in Turkey. Mass shootings nearly every day. Unimaginable national debt. Tech sector job losses. The undemocratization of Florida. Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity caught telling the truth. George […]
