Middleburg in the Snow

Anyone who made it to the Christmas in Middleburg parade on December 5 will tell you it was snowy, cold, wet . . . and absolutely beautiful. Everyone's photographs turned out like Norman Rockwell paintings. They caught the hunt parading in the snow, hounds' tails wagging; children and their parents smiling; fire trucks, and book worms, and school kids, and floats. Dogs that needed homes. Dogs that had one. And Santa totally unaware that his hat and beard were completely iced over. It was something extraordinary and rare, and all of us who were lucky enough to be there will long cherish the memory.

The Coach Stop

By now nearly everyone has heard that the Coach Stop will close the first week in January. It was much more than a restaurant. Many of us got our first real jobs there and learned, first hand, how hard it is to do the things that sometimes seem so easy. For those of us in the newspaper business, it's a special loss. It's a rare place indeed that attracts such a happy cross section of a community, three times a day, every day. We'll miss it. Thanks to Mike and Mark Tate for giving us, oh, twenty or thirty years of their hard work, great food, care and kind attention. We wish them, and their families, the very best in the years ahead.

Town

Town Council and Staff always find themselves, for better or worse, at the heart of our news coverage. We do so because their work is difficult, time-consuming, sometimes boring, always important, and, for too many years, all too often ignored. Our Council reporter recently complained vociferously that proceedings . . . even those dealing with the most controversial issues . . . were becoming all too rational, orderly, and polite. Thanks and three cheers for Council and Staff. We're looking forward watching them work.