If we all do our part, both businesses and consumers alike, think what a difference we could make in our community!

I go downtown just about every day. I go, I pick up trash. Other Design Committee folks do the same thing. I know this; I talk to them. Public Works picks up trash at least three times a week. It’s right here, on paper. And, I’m sure we have a few good citizens out there, doing the citizen thing, keeping their side of the street clean, as well. Knowing this, one has to ask: Why is there so much crap on our sidewalks and in our streets? Why are we, the highly-evolved, morally superior, world-saving citizens (AND shopkeepers - you don’t get off that easily) of Old Takoma so comfortable with the filth around them, and why can't we take two seconds out of our busy day/week/month/year and actually throw something away? Every morning, empty water bottles. Vitamin-fortified, super pure stuff. And lots of food wrappers: power bars, granola crunchies, the works. Things we pay premium prices for, that’re (purportedly) good for us, that we then discard on the ground. Can’t be bothered with throwing something away, man. I'm just too worried about the glaciers and rain forests, dude. Feh. Just this morning, I picked up a double fistfull of used napkins and kleenexes on Carroll Avenue. And that’s about normal. Maybe the Wiki entry for Old Takoma should read “Though they are diligent wipers of their own snouts and jowls, Takomans still haven’t mastered the trash receptacle”. I’m ashamed of all of us, and you should be, too.

Here it is, plain: If you can’t recognize what trash is, contact me and I’ll show you. If you allow garbage to exist in front of your shop, shame on you. If you let papers pile up in front of your house until they ROT, then I’m sorry, really sorry, for you. If you never learned that you throw trash in the can, not in the street, then, sadly, you must take another shot at first grade. And if I’m preaching to the choir, then tell a friend to read the irrational Main Street blog, because I’m calling everyone out on this one, myself included. We got pigs on the wing, folks. Wear a hat.

John Hume
Design Chair

I got a lot of comments. I got “Thanks”. I got “Lookin’ good”. I didn’t get “You missed a spot” (good thing). I got “I can’t believe you all are doing this”, and that one puzzled me a bit. I mean, it’s Main Street. Trying things is what we do. They won’t always work, and they won’t ever be perfect, but we never stop trying. The litter’ll come back. It always does. Some of the plants may die. It happens (Keep up the watering, people!). See? No biggie. Don’t ever let fear of failure keep you from hitting the long ball.

I’ve had a bunch of jobs. That happens when you get fired a lot. Try it, if you like. One of my cruddier jobs was in a boiler room. The kind with guys on phones, daily sales meetings, Monday hires, Friday fires, that kind of thing. Everything was charted: number of calls, percentage of turndowns, volume of sales, number of bathroom breaks. The sales manager, a wretched hump if there ever was one, would camp out at my desk if I wasn’t selling. Make me a special project. But here’s the kicker: he’d also make me a project if I wasn’t getting enough rejections. He said it was a numbers game. You have to fail a lot to succeed a little. Too much success means that you just aren’t trying hard enough. Work harder, learn better. Like I said, he was a hump. But, a good teacher.

So, this is our Main Street. It’s big; it’s strong; it can do a lot of things. Don’t be afraid to take it out for a spin. There will be times when we fall and skin our knees. We’ll do things, and they won’t always work, or maybe we won’t succeed as much as we’d like. That’s fine. We’ll do better next time, or we’ll try something different. Life is an experiment; try it!

Stop stopping things. Start starting things. Try trying things.

John Hume
Design Chair

Participants laid down 77 bags of mulchin Maryland and the District, planted over $700 worth of plants, plus many donated volunteer plants from Michele's bountiful garden. We collected over 50 bags of trash and recyclable plant material.

This is the best day yet and I must say the joint is smokin'!!!! There are new plants, the trees are growing and all in all, the Main Corridor of EACH of our three sections on Main Street look terrific. I wanted to say thanks to the community, our sponsors, and to everyone who helped make this Clean Up Day a success!

There are other blind spots. I noticed one just a few weeks ago. It had snowed a couple of days previously; our city sidewalks had largely been turned to the usual strangled pathways. Everything was kind of slushy, kind of gray, kind of annoying, kind of gross. Then I walked past the gazebo. There, over the entire expanse of the plaza, pure as the proverbial driven snow, was an uninterrupted blanket of white. My first thought was “How pretty”. Then, something else kicked in. I realized that, for two entire days, no one had ventured even so much as one tentative snow boot in the general direction of one of our community parks. The gazebo, you see, is a blind spot. It doesn’t appear on a lot of our mental street maps. A lot of our parks don’t. We drive around them, we walk past them, but most of the time, they don’t exist to us. Unknown territory. It's time to change that. Whose parks are these? These are our parks! Let’s play with them. So, next time you do your T'ai Chi, try it in Triangle Park. Or warm up that beach chair and make Takoma Junction your own Muscle Beach! And as for the gazebo? We'll be amazed at what we can do in the gazebo. Our thoughts should encompass the universe. I don’t think filling in a few blind spots will overtax us.

Here’s a great way to get to know our parks: put on some gloves and clean ‘em up! Yes, it’s time, once again, for our annual Main Street Takoma Spring Clean Up. This year, it’ll be Saturday, April 28 (rain date, May 5), from 9 AM to 12 Noon. Volunteers are gathering at Takoma Junction, the Laurel Avenue Clock Tower, and Triangle Park on 4th Street, NW, to pick up litter, sweep, weed, mulch and plant . From there, we’ll be fanning out into the rest of Main Street Takoma to get our commercial area shined up for the new season. Three hours of intense, hands-on community activism. Value: priceless. Be there. Aloha.

John Hume
Design Chair

Crows make pretty good neighbors. True, they’ve had some poor marketing: a flock of crows is properly called a “murder” of crows. The same grouping of larks is called an “exultation”. Larks got first pick. Crows can be loud, but that’s how they communicate. You could say the same about me. Konrad Lorenz demonstrated that they learn things very quickly (at least their hoity-toity European cousins, the jackdaws, do, anyway), and they can then communicate what they’ve learned to the rest of the flock. Or, the rest of the murder, if you like. They work cooperatively to repel enemies (another hat-tip to Herr Doktor Lorenz) and to protect each other’s young. They actively share food with non-related members of their community; something most primates don’t do. And they’re clean: they don’t foul their nests, and they’re always dressed to the nines. All in all, you could say that crows exhibit many of the behaviors that we aspire to in our best moments; things we’d like our children to learn.

So, as these elegant neighbors are moving back to our neighborhoods, we should all look around and take stock of our surroundings. Have we been taking care of things in their absence? Has the nest been getting a little foul of late? Maybe we haven’t been sharing with or protecting each other as much as we should? I don’t speak the language, so I don’t know if I’ve got the right excuses. Maybe the crows will understand. Or maybe it’s time for a little Spring shape up. Because, my friends, Black is Beautiful.

John Hume
Design Chair

Somehow, fine art, distinctive clothing, and hand-made crafts from every corner of the world have made their way to our doorstep. How convenient for us. And how lucky for family and friends on our gift lists!

My family agreed many years ago to keep our holiday gifts "frugal & fabulous," and your family might have the same goal. I find that our Old Takoma shops make it easy to give frugal & fabulous gifts.

My three nieces love the earrings I give them each year. (My favorite frugal & fabulous jewelry stores: Amano, Magic Carpet, Now and Then, American Craft, Polly Sue's Vintage, Moonshadow, and...whew! Too many to list here!) My brother-in-law will receive one of his favorite gifts: an alternative poli-sci or history book. (Did you know that The Culture Shop next to the Metro station has a great socially-conscious bookstore-in-a-store nestled between the hand-crafted jewelry and pottery?)

A young friend can't get through culinary college without his Crocs shoes and all-cotton socks (they're on the wall by the check-out at TPSS Food Co-op). A neighbor's new porch "needs" a unique Turkish hanging lamp to light up our late-night summer dinners (dozens in a rainbow of colors hang from the Covered Market's ceiling). And my little Shetland Sheepdogs will definitely get stocking stuffers from the Big Bad Woof.

I could go on and on — and I will — but not here. OTBA / MainStreet is compiling a shopping guide that lists all the hidden treasures of the Old Takoma shops, even the "finds" in the back-of-the store display cases.

Look for the guide later this week at our shops and here online at www.MainStreetTakoma.org.

— Bevi Chagnon
Chair, Organization Committee
Principal, PubCom.com

As we look for the good deals to stretch our budgets, we also need to consider the broader impact of keeping dollars in the community, circulating through other hands and lives, enriching the character of our town and the experience of living here. The more local trips a dollar makes, the more power it has to change our town.

The local multiplier effect refers to the cumulative value money accrues each time it circulates through a local economy. So the dollar used to purchase a birthday present at S and A Beads may be paid, in part, in wages to a student who works in the shop part time, who then buys flowers for a sick friend at Park Florist, which then pays rent to a local property owner, who then gets lunch at Red Line Grill, which then places an order at Community Printing for new fliers, which then…. You get the idea.

Power comes in keeping our dollars local so that the impact they have on a local economy is amplified.

If you buy your holiday gifts on-line, from an Internet giant like Amazon, your money splits town without a backward glance. It doesn’t stick around to take on new forms and live again in another exchange of labor, resources, and brain power. If you spend your money at national chain stores, about 13 percent comes back to the community, primarily through wages paid locally. However, if you buy from an independent, locally-owned store, 45 percent of the money stays local, paid in the form of wages, rent, business with other local businesses, and so on, according to Michael Shuman, Takoma Park author of The Small Mart Revolution: How Local Business Can Beat Global Competition and Going Local.

But that’s just the beginning. Spending locally enriches the community. Local businesses give to sports teams and schools, support runners in charity races, donate to animal rights groups, contribute to our music festivals and much more. Who sponsors your child’s baseball team or soccer team? Just check the back of the team shirts: Amano, House of Musical Traditions, Middle Eastern Cuisine, Now and Then, Summer Delights, American Craft and the list goes on (check www.baberuthnetowrk.com and www.takomasoccer.org for the complete listing).

Local businesses step up to make donations to the Montgomery Blair High School Silent Auction, one of the biggest fundraisers for the biggest high school around, as well as the activities at the elementary and middle schools. Advertising by local businesses helps keep independent community newspapers alive. The Old Takoma Clean-up days that happen in both the spring and the fall are underwritten by local businesses which provide the money for the plants, mulch, tools, and water bottles, as well as many of the volunteers who beautify downtown Carroll Avenue from the Takoma Junction to the Takoma Theatre. Did you think the city government did that? It’s our local businesses and volunteers at work.

And still we haven’t finished measuring the impact of supporting local businesses on our personal lives and our community. The Big Bad Woof hosts pet adoption days nearly every weekend, and has facilitated the adoption of over 100 animals in the last year. Mark’s Kitchen designates at least one day a month where the profits are donated to a local charity, whether it’s the Washington Animal Rescue League or other non-profit groups. Our canopy of trees along Carroll and Laurel Avenues is watered and cared for primarily by businesses who “adopt” them during the hot summer months, when rain water isn’t enough to sustain young trees. Sangha provides performance space for many groups, including student-created theatre performances. Many of our local artists find space to exhibit their works in our shops, like the creative recycling pieces done by Fritzie Seidler and her students in the windows at Salon Jam and the photos or paintings lining the walls at Savory and Everyday Gourmet. The Culture Shop hosts art exhibits as well as readings by local authors.

Communities thrive with the active participation of the people, organizations and businesses in them. Just as we are politically engaged locally, we can also be economically engaged. Supporting locally-owned, independent, small businesses becomes a powerful tool in building a vibrant place to live and by deliberately keeping our spending local, we can magnify the impact of our involvement many times over.

— Roz Grigsby
Executive Director
OTBA—Old Takoma Business Association

So, if you think our Main Street only good for the occasional Sunday morning scone, then I humbly suggest you might just as well drive your gigantic SUV over to Monolithic Coffee and join the other marching minions of the tickytack jihad. And if you believe that there just isn’t anything happening in Main Street Takoma that would be of any interest, then I must say, sadly, that you have my pity. But I’ll bet next week’s paycheck that you haven’t been there recently to check out your misunderstanding.

Main Street Takoma is unique. Exciting. Sustainable. Renewable. It validates. It has value. Welcome to Main Street Takoma. Use Main Street Takoma. Humanity, no extra charge.

John Hume
Design Chair

I’m serious. Now is the time to celebrate, in a family-friendly, non-human sacrificing, Old Takoma way. Like cleaning up Main Street, for instance. So think about joining the Design Committee, its neighbors, friends and families, for a general cleanup, weeding, planting and mulching day on Saturday, November 18, from 11 AM to 3 PM. You can let us know you’re coming by writing us at: designcommittee@mainstreettakoma.org. Groups will start at Takoma Junction and Triangle Park (4th Street, NW) and converge at the Clock Tower. There is no rain date on this one, but I’ve got it on good authority that it’ll be a beautiful day. And being beautiful is what it’s all about. Beautiful Main Street Takoma.

John Hume
Design Chair

Main Street Takoma comes to the rescue. You knew that’d happen, right? The Design Committee has $75,000, and it’s giving it away. That’s right, I said GIVING IT AWAY. It’s the Facade Improvement Program, and if you have a business on the Maryland side of Main Street Takoma, you really need to get on this, because this can be dollar-for-dollar matching money for your improvement project. But, you’ve got to apply. Up front. Yes, there is paperwork. This is Maryland tax money that the State is letting us work with, and there are taxpayers from Frostburg to Pocomoke City who want to make sure that the hippies aren’t spending it on tie dye and munchies. So, yes, there will be a paper trail. With oversight. Gee-sorry I have to be Mr. Bad Vibes.

But, we’ll make it up to you. On Friday, October 27, at 9 AM, at the Middle Eastern Cuisine Restaurant on Carroll Avenue, Main Street Takoma is hosting a seminar on this program. We’ll walk through it. State guys will be there with the details, and to talk about creative ways to come up with your half of the deal. So, the call goes out: Property Owners! Business Owners! Bring your building problems to Main Street Takoma on October 27, because we’re having a Krazy Daze Half-Price Sale on money! Yeah! I like what I’m saying! I live for this! Let’s make this thing happen!

Oh, but maybe you’re too busy. And there’s paperwork that you might have to fill out. And it’s just such a hassle. Well then, in sympathy, I will play the world’s smallest violin for you.

And the only tune that fiddle will play is: “Oh, the dreadful wind and rain”.

John Hume
Design Chair

Now, on the issue of picking up other people's litter, I ask: At what point did it become acceptable to allow trash on the sidewalk? Give me the date, I will go back in time, and I will change whatever momentous event caused this to happen. And no, you cannot blame this one on George Bush. It happened sometime before. Strike back. Be brave. Bend over, pick it up, and throw it away. There.

I just got back from the Junction, and I've got beer on my mind. Specifically, beer cans. In bags. On the ground. This sends the following messages: First, that this is a place where people sit out drinking beer. You can decide if that makes it a good place to be. Second, it says that someone can take the time to kill off a tall boy, without reasonable fear of being interrupted by the authorities. So, there's a vacuum of security and order in this place. Third, it says that the residents (that's us) care so little about this park that this trash can sit out until high noon. So no one cares. And not caring is the killer of Main Street.

Whenever there's litter and we don't pick it up, we make a secret, nod-and-wink agreement with the litterers. We say: You can abuse me just this little bit. I'll allow it. I'll just act like every thing is normal. I'll keep staring ahead. Because abuse never escalates, right? Just stay cool, and act like nothing's happening. Secret treaties. They never go badly, right?

Wrong. Throw it away. There.

John Hume
Design Chair