The news that the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore would be moving hit me hard. Granted, it’s only to a space across the street. And I shouldn’t have been surprised. For years now, I’ve seen the great independent bookstores of New York and the Bay Area downsize or close up shop. Whether you blame mega-stores, the digital era of e-books in general or Amazon in particular, it’s an undeniable truth that the way that people are reading and buying books has changed.

The Obama campaign’s recently released online documentary, The Road We’ve Traveled, opens by evoking the plight of the economy when Obama took office: “This will be as deep as anything we’ve experienced since the Great Depression,” and “not since the days of Franklin Roosevelt had so much fallen on the shoulders of one president.” It mixes a photograph of the Depression — “Unemployed — will take any job” reads one placard carried by a man — with a shot of suited office workers on the streets, presumably out o

From time to time, whenever inspiration aligns with respiration, I will be contributing a column to this paper. It will cover some aspect of moving to and living on this Island, trekking toward retirement while reducing stress and making mole hills out of former mountains. Welcome to the Washashore Chronicles.

You need a lot of money to sell a house. And you need a little more than that if you’re selling two. That’s because it’s a privilege to live in Massachusetts, and you have to pay for that privilege.

You have to go out of your way to see the Arabian oryxes at the Phoenix Zoo.

The paved loop that circles the zoo splits slightly after you leave the giraffes behind. If you go straight, you go by the lions and tigers, the zebras and cheetahs. This is what most people come to the zoo for, and this is the path that most people take.

If you walk off to the left, on the dusty trail that has only three animal enclosures on it, you can find the oryxes. They’re a type of desert antelope, off-white with humped backs and long, straight horns.