Btw I just got around to reading the article you posted and it really helped me, as a transplant, understand the history of Essex better. My neighbors are mostly born and raised here so I've gotten tidbits. I really love the people in this community. I'm a working class Midwestern girl, and I feel right at home here. I see in a lot of these folks what I saw in people back home. People who work hard and care about their neighbors. People who get a lot taken from them and taken out of them but keep on going because they do what they have to do for their families. I moved here for grad school at Johns Hopkins and I have always felt like a misfit there. I'm not an ivory tower kind of girl. So making my home here in Essex gave me that sense of fitting in I needed.

I'm really interested in Cliff O'Donnell from the article, and I wish the article had said more about the volunteer group because I'd like to pitch in. I've been picking up trash while walking with my kids around the neighborhood and maybe I can organize with him something more. I'm going to try to look him up. I'm rambling lol sorry for that. I don't get opportunities to blab about Essex much I guess.