I grew up in a town where everything was new. I’m still amazed at the growth that I see every time I come to visit: a new strip mall here, another housing development there, a wider highway, taller buildings. The sustained growth of the community is remarkable, and, I’m sure, something that is rewarding the business leaders quite handsomely. And growth is good, in and of itself. We are programmed to grow. It is our basic genetic impulse: reproduce, create more, grow.

But there is something to be said for the past as well. The town I live in now had the same number of people almost a century ago. I think of the streets being traveled by the same number of people; I think of the same buildings, new, shiny, bright; and I think of how people are mostly the same, backwards and forwards through time, the world around. We want the same things. We ask the same questions. We think in much the same way.

In this month’s issue, we feature Yellow River journalism , a piece by Caitlin E. Schultz that looks at the Chinese media. We also have an article titled Rediscovering the Old Country in which author Linda C. Wisniewski explores her Polish heritage.

When I think of my hometown and where I live now, I can’t help but wonder if someday the new will become old, and the old will be reborn. The buildings of Duluth are old and heavy with history, but they were once shiny and new, state of the art. Once this town was growing faster than almost anywhere in the world. I wonder if there were people who walked the streets then and sighed, thinking to themselves, this too shall pass.

Aaron Richner I am a writer/editor turned web developer. I've served as both Editor-in-chief and Technical Developer of In The Fray Magazine over the past 5 years. I am gainfully employed, writing, editing and developing on the web for a small private college in Duluth, MN. I enjoy both silence and heavy metal, John Milton and Stephen King, sunrise and sunset. Like all of us, I contain multitudes.