Summer Preview

Our USA

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American Craftsman

magazine

Remembrance of Things Lost

Priorities

Manufacturing & Millenials The Rise of the Sharing Economy

Where the Wild Things Were

Our Country - Our People - Our Stories

Contributors

Amber S. Wallace

Cover Photos

Amber S. Wallace, a photographer in the foothills of North Carolina, thoroughly enjoys all of the creative aspects that are involved in the art of photography. Amber’s personal ambition in a photo is to show her unique art style through a combination of location, fashion, props, models, mood and light.

You can follow her new blog at http://amberswallacephotography.blogspot.com/ or find her on Facebook: Blue Amber Photogaphy.

Water Under the Bridge

pg. 50

Robert W. Brunelle, Jr.

Robert Waldo Brunelle, Jr. is a seventh generation Vermonter, and a descendant of Elder William Brewster of the Mayflower. He is a painter, book illustrator and political cartoonist. He recently retired after having been an art teacher for 31 years. To see more of his work, visit his website at www.mrbrunelle.com, and to read his cartoon strip “Mr. Brunelle Explains It All,” visit www.humortimes.com.

Gwendolyn

Fin pg. 72

The work of Peekskill artist Gwendolyn combines painting and printmaking and focuses on the more non-traditional view of classic cars: the rear end. These paintings of vintage cars are encased in etherial backdrops stamped with images that relate to the make, year or owner of the car in some whimsical way. They are celebrations of sculptural design and heavy iconic figures of Americana. The cars are weightless and seem to disappear into nothingness inspiring the question; – where are we heading? http://sliderarts.com

Long May You Run

pg. 73

Rev. John F. Hudson

The Reverend John F. Hudson is pastor of the Pilgrim Congregational Church in Sherborn, MA. He is the creator and writer of “Spiritually Speaking,” a weekly newspaper column exploring the intersection of spirituality and popular culture which appears in the Community Newspapers of Eastern Massachusetts. His work has also been featured in The Boston Globe and Boston Herald newspapers and he is currently at work on a spiritual memoir about life as a small town minister.

He blogs at http://www.sherbornpastor.blogspot.com

With thanks for inspiration and direction to a few of my other favorites:

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Anne Lamott is an American novelist, progressive political activist, public speaker and teacher.

Her writings cover such subjects as alcoholism, single-motherhood, depression, and Christianity.

Her non-fiction works are largely autobiographical.

Maria Popova is a writer, blogger, and critic living in Brooklyn.

She curates her blog Brain Pickings which features her writing on culture, books and eclectic subjects off and on the internet.

SETH GODIN is the author of 18 books that have been bestsellers around the world. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything.

Dave Pell writes NextDraft, a quick, entertaining synopsis of the day’s most fascinating news.

It’s been named a top app of the year by TechCrunch and PBS and Gizmodo called it “your life vest for the news typhoon.”

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Your Lifestyle Has Already Been Designed

by David Cain

What Happened to the Tiny Town Where Everyone Got Free Money?

by Emma Reynolds

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Priorities by C.C. Chapman

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My Bronx Story by C.D. Thomas

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Shut In Economy by Lauren Smiley

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$3Tip on a $4 Cup of Coffee

by Hilary Stout

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How Technology Tricks You Into Tipping More by Nir Eyal

Remembrance of Things Lost

by Walter Kirn

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Mike Rowe - Off The Wall

Long May You Run by John Hudson

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Manufacturing & Millenials from Reshore Now Blog

Driving Test by Rodney Page

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40 44 52 54 56

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American Craftsman from the book

by Tadd Myers Public Awareness Ads That Make You Think 10 Ways Growing Up in a Small Town Prepared You for Life by Lexi Herrick The Country Cousin In Us All

by John Yemma

Survey Reveals What Today’s America Thinks the Future Looks Like

by Kelsey D. Atherton

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The Rise of the Sharing Economy

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At 90, She’s Designing Tech for Aging Boomers by Laura Sydell

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Technologies Boomers Need to Learn

by Clair Jones

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27 Important Lessons from Old Farmers

Facebook: The World’s Biggest Waste of Time by Bill Robinson

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Breaking the Grass Ceiling

by Christopher Doering

Where the Wild Things Were

by John Birmingham

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Prisoners—Becoming Some of America’s Best Farmers by Lauren Rothman

Books We Like

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American Craftsman

add Myers is an award-winning photographer who, in 2009, began traversing our land to capture and collect portraits of the people and products made in small workshops all over the country. Tadd lovingly compiled a book of these people and their creations, “Portraits of the American Craftsman,” with lyrical descriptions of what they make, who they are, and the tradition embedded in their trade.

This book is a celebration of the handmade at a time when it’s being embraced by a new generation of DIY and local-focused consumers who are averse to the mass-produced.

Here is a glimpse of some of the wonderful people, products and stories found in this amazing book.

Pro Saddles & Spurs Gainesville, TX Bruce Cheaney

“I might have to work from now on, but that’s kind of the way I want it. You can dream up more stuff than you can build in a lifetime” “You never know who’ll walk in that door. You can’t judge a guy by what he’s wearing - I’ve learned that.”

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Bessell Surfboards San Diego, CA Tim Bessell

“When you add love and experience in your work then you have something of real value.”

“There is a perfect surfboard inside every blank, it is my dharma to bring it out.”

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Acadian Accordions Eunice, LA Acadian Accordions

“My goal is for good players to become great players through one of my instruments.”

“Many years of playing has fine-tuned my technique. This in turn has led me to be more and more demanding of what I expect from an instrument and how to make that become reality.”

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Sorrell Custom Boots Guthrie, OK Lisa Sorrell

“My old mentor, Jay Griffith, always told me that a cowboy boot should look like a Coke bottle or a beautiful woman; then he’d describe the shape of an hour glass with his hands.”

“The art on cowboy boot tops is like lingerie: You know it’s there and you feel pretty, but not everyone gets to see it.”

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$3 Tip on a $4

Gratuities Grow Photo: Emily Dietle

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Cup of Coffee?

By HILARY STOUT

The flat white coffee drink was $4. A suggested tip was $3. The cashier at Café Grumpy, a New York City coffeehouse, swiped the credit card, then whirled the screen of her iPad sales device around to face the customer. “Add a tip,” the screen commanded, listing three options: $1, $2 or $3.

w,Automatically Our USA Magazine

10 Ways Growing Up In A Small Town Prepared You For Life

By Lexi Herrick

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very one knew who you were. Your teachers, neighbors, and basically anyone you ran into at the store identified you as your own person. You never felt like someone in the crowd, and that individual confidence can do wonders in your adult life.

Photo: Morgue FileMagazine 11 Our USA

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Water Under the Bridge by Robert Waldo Brunelle Jr., 2011 Our USA Magazine 13

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he best advice always comes from those people with experience. So, when we came across this list on Farms.com we knew we had to share it with you.

Source or photo unknown, but very much appreciated.

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27 Important Lessons From Older Farmers

1.Your fences need to be horse­high,

16. Remember that silence is sometimes

2. Keep skunks and bankers at a distance.

17. Live a good, honorable life. Then

pig­tight and bull­strong.

3. Life is simpler when you plow around

the stump.

a John Deere tractor.

5. Words that soak into your ears are

whispered...not yelled.

6. Meanness don’t jes’ happen overnight.

when you get older and think back, you’ll enjoy it a second time.

18. Don’t interfere with somethin’ that

4.A bumble bee is considerably faster than

the best answer.

ain’t botherin’ you none.

19. Timing has a lot to do with the out-

come of a rain dance.

20. If you find yourself in a hole, the first

thing to do is stop diggin’.

7. Forgive your enemies. It messes up

21. Sometimes you get, and sometimes

8. Do not corner something that you know

22. The biggest troublemaker you’ll prob-

their heads.

is meaner than you.

9. It don’t take a very big person to carry a

grudge.

10. You cannot unsay a cruel word.

you get got.

ably ever have to deal with, watches you from the mirror every mornin’.

23. Always drink upstream from the herd.

24.Good judgment comes from experi-

ence, and a lotta that comes from bad judgment.

11. Every path has a few puddles.

12. When you wallow with pigs, expect

25. Lettin’ the cat outta the bag is a whole

13. The best sermons are lived, not

26. If you get to thinkin’ you’re a person

to get dirty. preached.

14. Most of the stuff people worry about

ain’t never gonna happen anyway.

15. Don’t judge folks by their relatives.

lot easier than puttin’ it back in.

of some influence, try orderin’ some body else’s dog around.

27. Live simply. Love generously. Care

deeply. Speak kindly.

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Mike Rowe:OFF THE WALL

Did you see this post on Mike Rowe’s blog on Profoundly Disconnected – neither did we until it was shared on Facebook, then we shared it on our Facebook page. Thought the message was just too good to lie dormant, so now we share it in our pages.

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n the show “Morning Joe” back in February, Howard Dean was being interviewed and stated that because Scott Walker did not have a college degree it would be an issue. He said that he would be unfit to be president because his lack of a college degeree rendered him “unknowledgeable.”

Joe Scarborogh was surprised by this statement and went on to point out the many people such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg never finished college. Here are a few notable others. Click here to see the back story and some other remarkable folks without that degree.

16th President of the United States

Steve Jobs

Ralph Lauren

Oprah

Walt Disney

Ted Turner

Ellen DeGeneres

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Long May You Run

“We’ve been through some things together with trunks of memories....we chrome heart shining, in the sun, long may you run.”

--Neil Young, 18

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fter all, it’s only a car, right? A machine. A ride. Transportation to get from point A to point B. A collection of moving mechanical parts with no personality, no soul, no life. Who would actually fall in love with an automobile, and then when it expires, when it goes to the big salvage yard in the sky and takes one last road trip; who would be sad about the end of a relationship between a vehicle and a person? Me.

By John Hudson

Fin - Vintage Car paintings By Gwendolyn

found things to do in stormy weather. Long may you run. With your , “Long May You Run”, 1976 Our USA Magazine 19

Facebook: The World’s Biggest Waste of Time?

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By Bill Robinson Business, Technology, Entrepreneurship & Rock ‘n Roll Journalist

acebook isn’t real or productive, it’s just an advanced version of the electronic bulletin boards that have been around since the Internet dawned. Nobody on those old boards met their ‘soul-mate’ or bought a car; or paid their bills; or broadcasted their political opinions; or flamed each other for disagreeing. Facebook (FB) doesn’t really ‘bring people together’ in any traditional sense of the phrase but drives them apart as I will try to prove in this column.

A real ‘social network’ wouldn’t be virtual. It would involve real people, meeting in a real, tangible, bricksand-mortar building or outdoor place, where they might have food, drinks and conversation. That would be real.

What’s not real is an online place where there’s no exclusivity or discernment about who gets in, and all manner of riff-raff voicing their opinions, exchanging links to news reports, photos of kittens playing with string, comic books and jokes, while espousing how great it all is that they’re meeting and making so many “friends.”

Because of all the potential recoiling horror of those irreversibly caught in the FB clutches, this will not be a short, pithy or concise column. I feel the need to completely and totally explain my experiences with FB so that as mad as these FB idolizers may be with me--and I expect the FB bullies to come out flaming--there will be some chance they will understand.

Full disclosure: I freely admit in advance that FB is addictive. (And that worries me.)

Facebook has turned into (if it wasn’t from the beginning) a humongous wast of time and productivity as all those legions of people are glued to their back-lit 20

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screens of all descriptions, typing madly, when they could and should be doing something productive-meaning having some value. Or as productive is further defined. “having the quality or power of producing especially in abundance; effective in yielding results, benefits, or profits.” When I use the word “productive” here, this is what I’ll be referring to and hoping for.

There’s reading a book for instance (or, reading online to educate oneself). Or doing a crossword puzzle/Sudoku (not my thing but it is some people’s). Play chess.

Improve your resume. Learn a new language. Teach your child how to ride a bike. Talk to your mom and dad. Surprise your wife. Go to church. Volunteer at a local soup kitchen. You get the point--there’s SO MUCH more to do in real life, the real world than destroy your brain cells with fleeting FB chatter and fake friends.

As I ramble on, some of you will undoubtedly be saying to yourselves, “But I DO learn things and meet interesting new people and accomplish things on FB.” Balderdash, I say. Let me repeat: It’s not real. It’s ‘virtual.’ When FB starts becoming like LinkedIn and people start finding jobs, building businesses, putting food on the table and improving themselves on FB, then I’ll consider this argument. (Subtext: It isn’t like this now and I don’t think it ever will be.)

Admittedly, I’m ‘old school.’ But unlike my generation who truly knew much more about technology than our parents; my daughter doesn’t know more about technology than I do because I’ve made it my living over the last four decades and she hasn’t even been alive for that period of time. So I generally know what I’m

So You Want To Close Your Facebook Account

Warning: This Video Contains Explicit Language talking about when it comes to much of technology and the Internet.

I was an ‘early adopter’ of FB. After meeting Mark Zuckerberg circa 2006--when he wasn’t the Mark Zuckerberg yet, just a shy kid who was clearly interested in girls--I checked out his nascent site in early 2007.

I wasn’t impressed.

As many of us know, FB’s entire value proposition was originally built on Zuckerberg and his college friends surfing girls’ pictures for lascivious opportunity. Not my thing but I looked at FB as a kind of gigantic, unregulated, free Match.com. FB seemed to be a Costco of women’s pictures and that’s all. Not for me. Only in the following years would FB radically morph into a ‘social media network’ that took over the world.

I’m big on the reasoning behind why entrepreneurs create the businesses they do; what caused it and was that helpful to others? Now if Zuckerberg had created FB to bring a fragmented world together and help people instead of helping incorrigible geeks find girls, he’d really have something.

Before I get into the really annoying aspects of FB that

don’t address my claim of its lack of productivity, let me hit the idea with a tremendous whack that FB is totally and unequivovally unproductive. The vast majotity of large corporations at least frown upon, if not completely deny firewall access for thier employees to FB. And why shouldn’t they? If you owned your own business, would you want to round a cubicle corner and find one of your highly-paid employees engaging in electronic dialogue with their old high-school friend on FB? Of course not.

The best example of how corporations feel FB threatens the productivity of their employees is Goldman Sachs. In January of 2011, the investment banking giant was so “dazzled” by FB’s popularity, that they invested $450 million in it. Goldman’s investment was a sly way to do an end-run around SEC regulations and obtain shares in the hot, potential-IPO stock and distribute it internally to partners and a few favored clients. Ugh.

However, the really interesting thing is, while investing so much of their money into FB, Goldman Sachs was preventing their entire workforce from accessing FACEBOOK. Seems hypocritical and arbitrary, to say the least. But Goldman apparently Our USA Magazine 21

Here are a few we suggest: From NHL Power Skating Coach and Suffolk County Long Island Sports Hall of Fame inductee, Barbara Williams (the first female skating coach in the NHL), comes her second how-to book on ice hockey. Positive Power is perfect for students ages 7-14 (for parents as well), this book will hone your skills, improve your game, and increase the likelihood of obtaining a college scholarship and skating in the NHL.

Amy Abbott’s third collection of essays tackles common issues of loss, grief, transition, and growth with her signature twist of humor. The second in The Raven Lunatic trilogy, A Piece of Her Heart delves into those human elements that make us laugh and cry.