Will be be up to the challenge?

Nostalgia's fine, but sometimes when we look in the rearview mirror the images can be distorted by a rosy tint.

As Jay County begins work on a new strategic plan, it's easy to find ourselves overestimating the challenges confronting us and waxing nostalgic about the way things used to be.

After all this is a place Norman Rockwell came to so he could paint Americana.

But while it makes sense to be clear-eyed about the problems ahead of us - demographically, economically, environmentally, technologically, and in terms of the human condition - it also makes sense to be clear-eyed when we look at the past.

The Jay County I grew up in as a kid had some great things going for it.

The business climate was dominated by owner-operators. Local factories were tied to entrepreneurial families who still lived here. Management of those plants always lived in the same town as the factory, shopping in the same stores, sending their kids to the same schools, going to the same churches as their employees.

And all that was great.

But if we're hanging onto our perspective, there are a few other things to remember:

•There was next to no concern about the environment. In Portland, that meant that "Salamonie" was a synonym for stinky. In Dunkirk, it meant that the kinds of environmental controls taken for granted today by the glass industry weren't given a thought.

•Cultural opportunities were minimal. Something like Arts Place could only be dreamed of. Library collections were a fraction of what they are today. It's true that there were moviehouses not just in Portland but in Dunkirk and Redkey as well; but none of them showed first run movies on a timely basis. Cable TV, the Internet, and satellite dishes have - for good or ill - changed the landscape.

•Health care was pretty primitive by today's standards. The emergency room at Jay County Hospital had no doctor on staff; he was on-call if the situation called for it. The ambulance service - not EMT or paramedic - was provided by local funeral homes.

•Educational opportunities pretty much ended with high school. The Portland Foundation's scholarship program only really took root in the 1960s. And something like John Jay Center for Learning was simply inconceivable.

•Stray dogs ran freely all over town, and many streets had no curbs or gutters.

The list could go on, but you get the picture. The point is not to minimize the challenges ahead nor to denigrate the past.

Instead, it's simply a reminder of how far we've come and evidence of this community's ability to re-invent and transform itself.

Plenty of challenges were expected to be tossed on the table Tuesday night. The track record suggests we're up to all of them.[[In-content Ad]]