When I first drove through Main Street in my town more than 15 years ago, I saw a big old brown dog, a retriever, I think, lying in the middle of the road. I stopped the car and jumped out and came over to the dog lying so still in the mid-day heat. “Hey,” I said, leaning over, “you okay, boy?” The dog started, growled, jumped up and walked indignantly to the side of the road, where he lay down in the shade of one of the trees.

A man yelled from the lawn to my right, “it’s okay, he just naps there every day when it’s warm, he likes to sleep on the yellow line. There is no traffic.”

Life has changed in my town. There was no Battenkill Books in that spot then, dogs do not sleep in the street any longer, there is a two-hour parking limit on Main Street now. Hubbard Hall, the arts center, is just down the street, so is the Round House Cafe. Everywhere across America, Main streets are struggling to keep businesses, to keep community. We are fighting hard to do that here.

The Battenkill Bookstore is something of a social miracle, a few years ago everyone thought independent bookstores were all dying, they are having a resurgence, even in our small town. Community lives where people fight for it.