Jesse DeGroodt

1 month ago | mainstreetmag.com | Jesse DeGroodt

Our old Dutchess farmers may feel proud of their farms,Producing such fine crops, having beauty that chains,The stranger that journeys far over the stateDeclaring old Dutchess stands firston the slate. Rhinebeck farmers, of good tillage,are not afraid,When they gather their harvest,they find they’re well paid;Their corn, rye, and oats, such abountiful yield,Crops bounteous, see growing, inevery field. – Excerpted from “Rhinebeck the Beautiful,” written by J. T. Hanunkk in 1889.

Mar 27, 2025 | mainstreetmag.com | Jesse DeGroodt

Nooooo! A thousand times, no. Not here!Yes, of course, the knee-jerk response to any mention of nuclear power is to scream with the fury of seven tornadoes during an early Sunday-morning earthquake. Everyone has a position, certainly, but how about we set politics to the side and start with a clean slate here, shall we?

Mar 3, 2025 | mainstreetmag.com | Jesse DeGroodt

An’ here I sit so patientlyWaiting to find out what priceYou have to pay to get out ofGoing through all these things twice– Bob DylanOne might suspect that after decade upon decade spent meandering this fair Earth of ours, even a besotted toadstool might’ve acquired a nugget or two of what passes as wisdom, but then, that’s a hard thing to verify, at least for yours truly, who has never once encountered a tipsy ‘shroom.

Feb 3, 2025 | mainstreetmag.com | Jesse DeGroodt

For those attracted here by the prurient possibilities suggested by this headline, settle down. Unless something goes completely off the rails, we will not be discussing, reviewing, or analyzing some raucous Thursday night orgy organized and participated in by the neighborhood cauldron of bats, romp of otters, or prickle of porcupines, although I suppose if it’s an orgy you have in mind, you could do worse than to populate it with that trio.

Dec 3, 2024 | mainstreetmag.com | Jesse DeGroodt

However hard times may be pressing down on the hearts and purses of the citizens of Rhinebeck,” observed the December 26, 1931, Rhinebeck Gazette, “there is no evidence of it in the spread of holiday cheer about town.”Like a fair number of us, we had family that were born and grew up in the teeth of the Great Depression, roughly defined as extending from the October, 1929 Wall Street crash to 1939.