Let’s All Make Some Ripples

by Stepheny Forgue HoughtlinAugust 11, 2021August 11, 2021

I hope you are finding five minutes to listen to my Podcast, Talking Main Street With Stepheny. It has surprised me how much can be said in a short time. When I first started this blog, I asked a college granddaughter, to help me, and she downloaded WordPress, and gave me a few simple instructions. By guess and by golly, and help from younger friends, I carried on.

I am proud to say that I added to Facebook a Main Street page where photographs say more than words about the preservation, restoration and repurposing of our architectural inventory. The posts on my repetitive push to save the shot gun houses, the bungalows, the neighborhoods at risk, seem to be of interest to the readers. This page has 1004 followers so far. I learned how to use Instagram and finally added the Podcast. It is all a work in progress, but I’m smarter today than the day I started. I was determined not to be left behind in these matters.

If you don’t know about Canva.com, it is a free download of templates you can work with to spiff up the looks of your social media. Below is one I created to announce today’s podcast. I think it is effective, I hope you do too. For someone who can’t draw a straight line, a program like Canva satisfies my creative urge which is fun.

Learning how to use social media helps me reach people about Main Street and beyond. Someone told me, “I’m enthusiastic now because you are.” One of my goals is for you to see the possibilities with a determined eye to be part of the solution, not the problem. I want you to join me in making ripples. Listen to the podcast for the meaning and the means to do so. CLICK ON : http://anchor.fm/stepheny-houghtlin

I Choose the Possibilities in Life, the Beautiful and the Good

by Stepheny Forgue HoughtlinJuly 21, 2021July 21, 2021

The title for this blog post comes from the latest podcast published today. I love creating the blog, Main Street Rocky Mount, and the podcast, Talking Main Street with Stepheny. These platforms allow me to talk about the preservation, restoration and repurposing of the commercial architecture downtown and the breadth of residential architecture throughout the Wards. The Facebook page with the same name as the blog is fun too. Each platform has its own opportunity to learn the language of Main Street. The theme, Honoring the Past, Building a Future, continues to guide the content of my efforts.

The #14th Episode of the podcast has now been published. The story-telling I weave through an episode comes from my reading life that began with the books of my childhood up to and including the last two books I’ve just read about James Baker during the Reagan, Bush years.

I have finished writing a 3rd novel that I can’t seem to release into the reading life of others just yet. Research, reading and the writing that follows brings me great joy. Along the way, it stills surprises me when someone tells me, “I read your blog.” There are times when I dare to hope that cheerleading for Main Street has reawakened an interest, even pride in the place we call home. We all have a part in the chorus, and my part includes stamping my foot from time to time, using my voice to encourage people to take a stand when it comes to the dodgy business that lines the pockets of those who work the system, and believing as I do, in the reimagining of Rocky Mount.

There are countless people in Rocky Mount that are the best kind of people anywhere. God-fearing, generous, talented, tireless, smart, and hopeful. Those brothers and sisters living in unacceptable housing, unsafe neighborhoods, are the focal point and the reason I write about Main Street. If you can take 5-minutes to listen to my point of view in this latest podcast, I hope you will agree about living peacefully side by side and the dignity of improved housing, pride in ownership, living the American dream.

Podcast Link: anchor.fm/stepheny-houghtlin

Episode 11: Celebrating the 4th of July with Patrotic Hearts

by Stepheny Forgue HoughtlinJune 30, 2021June 30, 2021

I suggest celebrating this 4th of July, 2021, in a mindful way in the light of the war within the country over the mind and soul of America. Most of you know I started a weekly, 5-minute podcast, Talking Main Street with Stepheny. Though a few days early, Episode 11 is about Celebrating the 4th with a patriotic heart. I hope my point of view will cause you to do your own remembering of what the 4th symbolizes in your experience and the preserving of our nation.

Episode 22: The Proposed City Land Grant – Talking Main Street With Stepheny

Welcome to the 5-Minute Podcast: Talking Main Street. Stepheny attended the meeting the other night on the proposed Community Land Trust. Land Trusts are community-run, nonprofit landholding organizations that aim to help low-income buyers obtain homes; a form of permanently affordable housing based on shared equity. Poverty makes money. There are questions that need answers. The good people at the meeting deserve these possibilities and an outcome that knows right from wrong.