Five things: Winchester showing its PRIDE!

Five ran­dom obser­va­tions from the week that was...

1. I had to miss the Beer Cheese Festival this year due to a pri­or com­mit­ment. But I heard it was a great event. One thing I did notice when I was down­town recent­ly is all the pride flags adorn­ing busi­ness­es in the down­town area. It’s so grat­i­fy­ing to see our lit­tle town cel­e­brat­ing our diver­si­ty in such a bold man­ner. So, maybe next year, for Pride Month — can we have an actu­al Pride Festival?
2. I keep see­ing these memes about how great our gen­er­a­tion had it as kids — and that’s cer­tain­ly true. But the impli­ca­tion that kids today are deprived of the things that made our child­hoods great is bogus. Drive around most Winchester neigh­bor­hoods — or one of our many parks — and you will like­ly see youth out play­ing on any sum­mer day. You’ll see kids rid­ing bikes and scoot­ers, play­ing bas­ket­ball, or just goof­ing off. Being kids, in oth­er words. Sure, they have a lot more elec­tron­ic dis­trac­tions than we did. But all in all, child­hood is still child­hood. Can we of a cer­tain gen­er­a­tion stop act­ing like our child­hoods were supe­ri­or? These kids will grow up some­day and feel the same way. OK, Boomer? (I’m a Boomer.)
3. Changes are com­ing to WinCity News & Views! We just com­plet­ed the process of “Finding our North Star” and in the com­ing weeks, we will be prepar­ing to roll out a brand-new site. Stay tuned for more details.
4. Look for at least two, per­haps three, new WCN&V con­trib­u­tors in the com­ing weeks. All of these folks are well-known around these parts. 
5. Why are near­ly all the homes for sale in Clark County out of reach for so many who need hous­ing? According to Zillow, there are cur­rent­ly only ten homes for sale list­ed under $200,000 – and one of them appears to be a shack in the woods that is unin­hab­it­able (list­ed for $10K.) There are 20 in the $200–300K range, and 36 at over $300K.  I hard­ly think those num­bers reflect the demo­graph­ics of Clark County. Meanwhile, rents – if you can even find some­thing for rent – are sky­rock­et­ing. We are in a cri­sis situation.

Photo gallery: Downtown Winchester showing its PRIDE!