This is my last issue as editor of the Shawangunk Journal.

I started this editor job about two years and two months ago. It has been an absolute pleasure to serve you all in that time, and equally wonderful to meet you all at various events, or on the street, or when you’ve stopped in with a story tip or to pay your subscription bills.

I was asked to offer some parting thoughts on working in the village.

I’d been to Ellenville many times before, but in just the two years I’ve had a desk looking out on Canal Street, I’ve seen the village change.

Suddenly, it’s on the radar. O+ Festival, Kingston’s big arts expo, is coming down here. Vintage Modern decamped from Woodstock to Canal Street. Our new butcher, too, is heading over from Beacon.

I think everybody agrees the village needs a boost. But I also think most people don’t want to see it become another Uptown Kingston or Beacon – beautiful spots, but there’s a price. The fear of losing your soul to gentrification runs deep in the Hudson Valley, and I catch more and more hints of that fear around here.

Personally, I think Ellenville is still more threatened by economic stagnation than by too much prosperity. Maybe I’m naive, but the distance from the highway alone is a good barrier against intense gentrification.

The good old days had two things: tourism and industry – and a lot of both. Of the two, tourism is much easier to revive. I think the future of the village will come down to whether it can draw more people to the mountains, to the forests, and to the streams. Those things are both priceless and economically valuable. To get there, the land needs continued protection, and every opportunity to beautify the village needs to be taken. It can seem like a waste to see money put into fresh paint and cute storefronts when there is so little employment in the village, but I do believe, even more strongly now than when I started, that those things can and must come hand-in-hand.

New things are coming, old hopes seem to be falling away. There’s been a real share of disappointment in these two years, which saw the loss of two(!) grocery stores and a plan to build a landfill in the woods of Wawarsing, but the core fact of the village is the people of the village, and that’s an incredible strength.

I wrote in one of my first editorials that the remarkable thing about Ellenville is how much of its tiny population stands ready to pitch in, in ways big and small. I stand by that, two years later.

A lot of places got hammered by deindustrialization. They all lost jobs, lost people, lost stability. Not many of those places have a major nonprofit dedicated to improving the daily life in the community. Ellenville has not just one such civic group, but two – COFFE and the Noonday Club. In fact, three, because we can’t forget the Shadowland. Actually, four – I forgot the Hospital Auxiliary. No, wait – five because the Shawangunk Garden Club is always brightening things up. And, of course, the Ellenville-Wawarsing Chamber of Commerce. I’ll stop counting but I’m sure I’m forgetting a few.

It’s frankly absurd that such a little village has so much engagement. It is a wonderful thing, and it cannot be taken for granted. I encourage all these groups to get more involved with one another. The more they can make happen, the better.

I didn’t really work on this issue. By the time you read this, I’ll have been gone for a week, but I do know that this issue contains the last story I wrote. It’s about one of the many friends I’ve made along the way here, a man trying to navigate this complicated future we’ve all been dumped into. I didn’t intend for it to be my last words here, but I think it’s a good one to go out on because it’s about the same thing I’m gesturing at here. It’s a story about responsibility and care.

The fact is, all of us in this country need to start putting more effort into taking care of one another. Do the little things. Pick up trash. Check on a neighbor. Run for town council. Root for the underdog. At all times, take care of each other. Even – especially – when it’s hard. I hope I held my own while I had the honor of the job.

With that, I’ll see you all around.

As for what other stories await in this issue? Well, that’s news to me.