Don't forget what you already know

Hi, I’m Krista. I have been struggling with a way to start this column without introducing myself because you already know me, and if you don’t, you will read enough Grandpa Swede anecdotes in the coming weeks to figure me out soon enough. But I really don’t want to talk about me, I want to talk about us.

I want to talk about who we are as a community, and who we have been, who we want to be. More than that, I want to tell you who we want to be as your newspaper.

The first day that I met with Mark and Pierre we talked about how a paper is basically the journal of our lives here, and how we can work to highlight the past, the present, and who we will be in the future. No matter what anyone fears in this day and age (and we ALL DO), we will never be “fake news.”

This is your paper. This is your journal. This is how we will know what we need to do this week to get stuff done next week. This is how we will remember and be remembered. This is how we will watch our children, and ourselves, grow.

So send us your lives! Call us and let us know what events you have coming up. Call your local correspondents and tell them that your grandkids came to visit. I couldn’t sneak into town when I was in college without Grandpa Swede calling Anti MaryAnn. Let’s be positive, safe, and realistic. Things might not be optimal, be we live in a genuinely great place, and it is great because we share it.

No doubt about it, we are living in a time like we have never seen before. We are all working a little scared right now (Hi! I am Krista!). We have got this as long as we remember that we love each other despite the differences, illnesses, and overall general weirdness. We are all more similar than we are different.

We show it all the time here, with our generosity, our sense of humor, the school and city events that we will always find a way to follow and cheer on, and parades and events that celebrate our past and our present, and what we will be tomorrow. Let’s face it, no one who has ever been here has accused us of not being a bunch of interesting folks.

I am so grateful to be here. I look forward to sharing the past and the present with you. We won’t always be perfect here, but we are always working for a better future, like all of us are.

So, whether you are riding with Larry in Saco this week, following the wagon train, or taking care of your garden this Labor Day, make it memorable. Be safe, be smart, be nice, and be funny. I know you will, because we are Phillips County.