This is a rerun from the 10th anniversary of Our Town, in December, 2005.
Several years later, we are just as grateful as we were then, glad to still be in business! Thanks for reading.
Ten years! With this month’s editions, Our Town has been in business 10 whole years! Don’t worry, though — this isn’t one of those self-congratulatory messages that assumes you care about our milestone. Still, numbers ending in zero do have an effect on most of us, so I’ve been reviewing the highlights of the decade. It’s easy to do, thanks to my most prized possession, a certain purple spiral notebook.
One New Year’s Eve, back when our kids were little, our family of four sat reminiscing about the year’s events. I grabbed the closest notebook and started recording the milestones. Amazingly, we remembered to do this again the following New Year’s, in the same notebook. This is how the best rituals come about, I think — they just happen, then keep happening, as this did. Thus, a 48¢ back-to-school special has become the first thing I’d save if our house was burning down.
So, let’s look at 1995. Ten years ago: Sam learned to read…Amy played “The Entertainer” at a piano recital…We saw a shooting star while sitting on the car roof watching Pocahontas at the drive-in. Finally, after three pages, this subdued entry: We started Our Town. The next year, there is no mention of Our Town at all! It had been a rough year financially, so I guess we didn’t want to think about it on New Year’s. But who cares now? For that was the year that…Amy grew her bangs out…and Sam lost his first tooth.
The next year, the mood is brighter: Our Town has 24 pages! We were thrilled to be in the black with our one and only edition, Winter Park/Maitland. Yet other entries now seem more compelling: It rained so much the lake came halfway up the lawn…Amy is now a Trekkie…Sam’s big toes are the same size as Mom’s.
As the kids got older, we recorded big news events along with business updates, but it’s the little things that I relish reading. One year, Clinton was impeached is in the book, along with We started a College Park edition. That was also the year that Sam learned the guitar and sang, “Taking Care of Business,” an occasion that, unlike those first two items, would have been lost in history if not for the purple notebook! (Lucky Sam, eh?)
Another year, Our Town moved out of the house into an office (120 square feet!) and Terrible drought all summer. But, in bigger news, Amy ate no fast food for five months! Then there’s the year that Our Town is up to four editions and two employees, but that wasn’t the only big change: The kids are now too cool to bang on pans outside at midnight on New Year’s with Mom.
Thank goodness that “cool” phase has passed. We’ll be out there banging the pans this year and many more, God willing. Our hearts are full, and our gratitude to everyone who has ever used an Our Town advertiser is deep and sincere. We know you didn’t do it for us, but you made our family’s livelihood possible when you allowed Our Town to be a tiny part of your life, your beautiful living history of the little events that really matter. Thank you SO much. We wish we could buy each one of you a purple notebook.
Your publishers,
Sandy Bailey Lipten and Mark Lipten