Support
Your Locally-Owned Bookstore: Oblong Books and Music
by
Ross Rice
Dick
Hermans had other plans. Well, actually he originally didn’t
really have ANY plans. Mom and Dad realized that small-town Milan
(New York) might not suitable for their wild child, so off to private
school he went. That’s when the plan started coming into focus:
to become a writer, so on to Johns Hopkins University for several
attempts at a degree in journalism, finally finishing up in Tucson,
at the University of Arizona. It was a good plan, shaking things
up with the printed word, giving voice to the antiwar and antinuclear
movements, making a difference. But then, life took a left turn....
Toward
home.
Returning
to Dutchess County for his brother’s wedding, Hermans liked
what he saw of his old stomping grounds. Green trees instead of
desert, cool weather instead of 120 degree Arizona summers, and
a place where he felt more at home politically. That, plus his girlfriend
moved to Millerton. Hermans made the transition back to upstate
New York, and stepped briefly into the family business to save up
money for what was becoming his real interest: music. “I had
worked at a record store in college and was also a disk jockey.
My girlfriend had a lot of book interests, a great reader. We needed
to start a business…I was working with my father and brother
in their insurance agency, trying to make some money! I scraped
enough together to start the store with Polly, my partner...rented
a small space in Millerton that used to be a liquor store, drove
down to the City (New York) for a wholesaler, filled the pickup
truck with books and brought ‘em back. That’s how you
did things.” Between books and music, Hermans figured, they
could make a good go of it in Millerton, and they opened the new
store in 1975.
CONTINUE...
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