From the Editor: The Only Constant Is Change
To complain about change is to risk irrelevance. The universe cares not a whit for one’s misty water-colored memories, so go ahead and settle into Archie Bunker’s armchair and holler “Get off my lawn” at the world, for all the good it’ll do ya.
Yes, change has come, change is coming and change cannot be stopped. Whether that’s good or bad or in between is a matter of perspective, and of time. Cases in point: this edition’s Company News pages, where Enterprise compiles some of the top Upper Valley business news stories that have been reported in the pages of the Valley News over the past month.
To be sure, some of these changes no doubt are positive. Chelsea residents, for example, won’t have to schlep for miles to get their prescriptions filled now that The Medicine Shoppe pharmacy is taking the space at the Chelsea Health Center vacated last summer by Kinney Drugs. And in Springfield, Vt., the regional development corporation there has received $78,253 from the state to help make the Robert S. Jones Center — itself a symbol of dramatic economic change — safer and more attractive for tenants with the construction of accessibility features, sidewalk and paving improvements, exterior lighting upgrades and a new entry roof.
Other changes certainly seem positive, at least for the business involved. The move by Tarm Biomass from Lyme to a new facility in Orford has plenty of apparent upside — revenue-generating tenants, a more efficient building layout, better cell and internet service. But Lyme, of course, will miss the business, which evolved out of the hardware store run by three generations of the Nichols family.
Some changes seem negative. The closing of the Citizen’s Bank branch on the corner of Maple and Pine streets in White River Junction — the site of a bank for more than 40 years — promises to inconvenience many former customers. But, as Lang McLaughry Commercial senior broker Bruce Waters observed, the site is “a very attractive corner and offers great exposure.” How about a new business there to serve the new office complex on nearby Prospect Street?
Some of the changes hit pretty close to home. The first new car my wife and I bought, more than 20 years ago, was a bluish-green (we called it “bleen”) Honda Civic from Gerrish Honda, a fixture on the Miracle Mile in West Lebanon. Now, longtime Upper Valley auto dealer Kurt Gerrish has sold the dealership to a Connecticut operation.
And the Seven Barrel Brewery, where we have toasted many well-regarded colleagues as they headed to new jobs or into retirement, is no more. Here’s hoping the new owners, Salt hill Pub proprietors Joe and Josh Tuohy, can continue the good work begun there by legendary brewer Greg Noonan.
Now get off my lawn.
Ernie Kohlsaat
