I like to think I have a few attributes that make me a decent friend, but staying in touch is not one of them. I’m a terrible correspondent. I may love you dearly, but if you move away, or I from you, then you will not hear much from me. It’s not that I’m too busy, although owning a shop can make one feel that way. Nor have I forgotten you. You inhabit my mind with past words, gestures, and laughter, echoes and images that keep you here with me, but I am not inclined to reach out with news.

I saw a phone booth the other day and thought ‘How quickly life changes!’ One always kept a dime, and then a quarter, to make a call. That quarter was important, and could be your only path to safety should something unexpected befall you. In my college dormitory, there was a row of three wooden booths beside the cigarette vending machine, and just about every Sunday, for the four years when the eighties met the nineties, I’d spend an hour in a booth on a collect call with my parents.

Not long ago, in the grand scheme, it was smoke signals and drumbeats, but by my grandparents’ time, letter writing was a thing. Everyone wrote letters. My grandfather would often include illustrations in his letters, and I still have a note in which he describes picking beach plums with his friend, Mel, at the Sunken Forest on Fire Island. “Grandma made the best jelly out of them. Only about 4 jars came out of all those plums. I think if you write to Grandma and ask her for a jar she might spare one.” The image, drawn with colored pencils, shows two men and a tree, and my grandfather writes: “I am the good looking one in the picture.”

Some folks write an annual form letter at the close of the year, reviewing the family exploits, their accomplishments and setbacks. One could imagine what the American people would write this year, if we were all one family addressing the other nation families of the world. “It was a big year for the United States. Many of us fell sick and died, and many others began to acknowledge our systemic racism, and throughout, we were not particularly united. Fire laid waste to homes and forests, and our jobs have changed, or disappeared entirely. We grew our hair long and mostly kept to ourselves. We will learn lessons of immeasurable importance from the unexpected events of this year, but it will take time for us to know them, and we are very much looking forward to next year. With love, America.”

We at Oakland Yard are eternally thankful for your continuing support, and with a store chock full of exciting wines, new beers and truly delectable snacks, we are dedicated to helping you make these last three weeks of 2020 not just manageable, but cozy, fun, relaxed, and maybe the best three weeks of the whole damn year!

Cheers,
Max