Greetings Modesto Friends,
I am thankful.
I am thankful for my family and friends.
I am thankful for creative and curious people.
I am thankful for the energy of people that have ideas, who take action, think about the future, think about other people, get things done and love their community. This energy is special and there is a feeling that when we all work together, we can truly change the way things are into what we want it to be.
We are craving our history, our authenticity and we want to capture those times where the good memories come from and we want to bring them back where we can. We love our modern life that is all connected by satellites in space but we want the simple things that bring us back to earth. This issue of ModestoView is dedicated to the creative and crafty people that feed us with the energy we need to connect with each other. Things made by hand are special, songs created from the heart are amazing, and the people that make and fix things are the true caretakers of our fast paced modern society. Hand made books, shoes, tables, appliances and other things bring a new connection keep us local. I constantly look for ways to keep every dollar local, every gift I give comes from our community and we need to spread the word to people that we all know and do the same. Modesto gets better from the inside out and ModShop will be a showcase of location craftiness on November 29.
Our downtown is starting to light up again. We have new restaurants opening, we have more places playing live music and that means that people are out walking and connecting again. But this is just the spark, we need to light it up. Our goal is to revitalize 10th St, 11th St, J St and hope this is the core that will energize the rest of downtown. We need you. If you are reading this, and you have not been downtown, consider this a personal invitation. Come see our new creative space where we will have a new office downtown in the old Camera Center. You will see Tony the Barber, Project Yes Youth employment, Stanislaus Magazine, Good Neighbor Shine and more. We hope to light it up with neon and light the downtown light. 10th St from the Doubletree to the Gallo Center needs to be a well, lit, interesting, creative promenade loaded with nightlife, day life, music, art and commerce.
We want to bring back the holidays of our youth and in December, Rockin’ Holidays will bring the return of lights and decorations to downtown Modesto in 10th St Place. The Rock’n Holiday parade combines American Graffiti with the Christmas and the holidays. Chris Isaak brings his Rockin’ Christmas Show to the Gallo Center and Rockin’ Santa and Rockin’ North Pole will magically appear and it will even snow. Exciting huh?
It is all by the work of our hands that we can make a difference. Speaking of technology, I want one of those devices that just slows everything down. If it doesn’t exist yet, I need to invent it.
Time just moves too fast. We need to slow down, but there are just too many good things to do and that is why we have ModestoView.
We are here to celebrate the good in our community. I am thankful to the businesses that advertise in ModestoView. These are the good people and please partronize them with your business. Thanks to them, we can design, print and deliver the magazine in your hands.
I am thankful for you, our readers. You make this all worthwhile and keep your positive energy coming. Enjoy this issue and tell me what you like, or don’t like.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Chris Murphy
Publisher & Founder, ModestoView
