Articles from the Neighborhood Newsletter

By Dolores Schueler (Brunswick Road)

I plan to transition out of my role as a primary distributor of the Neighborhood Newsletter, but still plan to work for the Newsletter in some capacity. Fifteen years ago, when the Neighborhood Newsletter was just being reborn after a hiatus of a couple of years, I saw Nils Fonstad out delivering newsletters on my street and offered to help. He and Bill Berkowitz were taking on the entire delivery, so I offered to help revive a distribution network that had been in place in the Newsletter’s first incarnation. Since then, the Newsletter has enjoyed great popularity, and finding help has generally not been a problem.

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From Goldenseal, a magazine of West Virginia traditional life:

“Every Saturday afternoon, Ivan [at 90 years] packs his violin and banjo in his car and drives the half mile to Bowman Ridge Community Association Center. . . . He makes the coffee and sets the potluck table for the weekly ‘Bowman Ridge Opry,’ an open jam session of bluegrass, country, and traditional artists….

“There’s no cover charge for this gathering of friends, which gets under way by 7 p.m. and goes until 11 p.m. every Saturday, regardless of weather, crowd size, or lack of pickers. …Like the other musicians, he does it for the camaraderie and smiles. ‘If you can get them people sitting back there grinning like a butcher’s dog, you know you are doing something right.’ “

by Judy Weinberg (Venner Road)

The downturn in the housing market has certainly been front and center in the media this past year. There is no denying that the mortgage crisis hit many homeowners, and the rapid increase in house prices in the past decade caused inflated prices that were just ripe for a correction. Why did this happen? A lot of this can be explained in two words: easy money.

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