The Importance of Re-Inventing Ourselves

It was with curiosity and a certain amount of anticipatory excitement that my companions and I headed for Bell Street, Los Alamos, last Saturday evening to experience Los Alamos Third Saturday. Who doesn't enjoy participating in a "first", particularly a first of "thirds"? The event was scheduled from 4 to 8 PM and we arrived California Stylishly late by a bit over an hour. But already, the main drag in Los Alamos was thronged and parked in with cars.

Los Alamos is a quiet town by anyone's standard, even on weekends. To us, this is one of its charms. But for the local retailers quiet can be too quiet, uncrowded can be unprofitable, unsung can mean unvisited. Certainly no one has reason to think of Los Alamos as a night-spot destination.

And so Los Alamos set out to do what it needed to do: re-invent itself.

How do you get folks to come out and hang around town for a few hours on a weekend evening? The answer; a little bit at a time. Start small, with enticements offered on a consistent but infrequent basis; say, one weekend each month. Then stand back and watch it grow.

And so on the third Saturday of every month merchants in Los Alamos will remain open for business until 8 pm. The businesses will join in a central theme which will change each month. Each business will decide how to go about incorporating that theme.

St. Valentines Day had just passed and so the first Third Saturday theme was, naturally enough, "Lovefest". We saw the theme applied in many inventive ways. We stopped at the C Gallery where we could view a special "I Love Los Alamos" display of photographs of local people and places. At Casa Dumetz we were plied with wine and then encouraged to tell stories of our first or lost loves. At the Station we enjoyed a hearty beef stew from Charlie's and a beer.

And then we ran out of time. We were sorry to miss the Bee Happy Honey Tasting at Bedford Winery and the other compelling offerings at other stores.

This is not the first time I have watched a town re-invent itself. Ann and I lived in Newport, Rhode island in the early seventies right after the Navy had pulled out. The entire economy of that town had revolved around the Navy. There were dire predictions. But the citizens of Newport went to work to tap into the tourist trade. The rest, of course, is history and Newport is now one of the greatest tourist destinations in the world. We were lucky to be part of it in a small way.

In a changing world, we will need to know how to re-invent ourselves. It is increasingly likely that our environment could change abruptly and that all the old familiar paradigms could disappear almost overnight. Flexibility, autonomy and courage are the traits we need to move forward. The future of our families, our neighborhoods, and our communities may well depend upon our ability to creatively re-invent ourselves.

This blog article was republished in the Santa Ynez Valley News recently.