A magnetic message

Being a weekly newspaper editor is every bit as glamorous as you’d think. But lately I’m not just meticulously proofreading letters to the editor (the man’s name is not O’Bama) or squinting to translate this week’s handwritten submission for church news, now I’m tweeting the townspeople’s tantrums and friend requesting folk. The news business, like most industry, is going through major change.

I’m actually really into all of this – I’m not here to gripe. I appreciate a challenge, and man has this transition to digital content and social media been one. Among the “dinosaurs” (as we like to call the industry's stodgy change-fearing colleagues), I’m ahead of the curve. But keeping up is no easy feat. It requires constantly thinking in different ways, maximizing networks rather than newsbytes and basically sewing a smartphone into my hand and a laptop to, well, my lap.

This would be fine – and is fine – for most of my generation (I’m 29), but when I’m out interviewing our older residents about the way Perkasie used to be with 12 pants factories and everyone walking to and from work and pedaling their bikes around town – I get a little nostalgic. And. I. Wasn’t. Even. Alive. Then.

I know I’m not the only one feeling like maybe technology isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Don’t get me wrong – I think it’s allowed us to do amazing things like think at the speed of type or type at the speed of think? When my 10-year high school reunion happened last fall – it was virtually unnecessary because we had all virtually reconnected on Facebook.

But I do think there are big movements to get back to the land, eat locally (locavores), shop locally and live a life more conscious of our environment, our planet and our future generations. Don’t get me wrong – I’m far from earthy, green or anything else you might find appealing/annoying (depending upon where you come from). But I think even the staunchest global warming-deniers probably have a full recycling bin each week at this point.
So this blog is going to be my way to document my own efforts in trying to get back to the land a bit. I’ll likely fail regularly and need your advice/behavioral corrections even more regularly, but hopefully we can laugh at it and possibly even raise a little awareness.*

After kicking around a billion not-so-catchy blog titles, I went with simplicity on "Going Fallow." The Letham Shank Farm in the United Kingdom (this is a hazard of having a world wide web - we get ridiculous sources for totally generic information) defines "fallow" as "land left without a crop for one or more years. A very basic way to improve the soil fertility." I think that's just what I'm looking to do. Relax a bit - a year or more - and see if it doesn't produce a better quality of life in the future. You in?

*Once we have some awareness going, we should obviously get some kind of car magnets drawn up for said awareness, because that’s how you truly get the message out. Which, come to think of it, means there should probably be magnets raising awareness of the awareness that can come from magnet campaigns. I’m going to go ahead and declare April Magnet Awareness Month: Don’t mock it ’til you’ve magnetized it.