Hats Off...

Back in the eighties, when Spy Magazine was the brilliant last word on everything in the NY media world, there used to be a column called Log Rolling in Our Time, which charted " suspicious or humorous examples of mutually admiring book jacket blurbs by pairs of authors."  I'd like to start off this, my first independent blog entry, with something that I hope isn't taken for a local version of the trend and express my heartfelt appreciation  for Carole Osterink's "Gossips of Rivertown" and Sam Pratt's various endeavors, whether at Sam Pratt.com, the Valley Alliance or his work for the new Hudson Antique Dealers Association web site. Even if I don't always  agree with them I always admire--and often learn a lot from-- the professional lucidity of their writing, which can explain small town minutia  in a way that often gives it almost universal significance.  (Particularly impressive is Osterink's recent series detailing the historic buildings lost during Hudson's worst period of urban renewal in the 1970s and 80s.)