Life in the North Country? Yup, it’s hard.

 

I think it’s important to acknowledge every once in a while — group hug time — that sometimes this place is just hard.

Saturday morning, I drove through the eastern Adirondacks and the Champlain Valley and everywhere I went people were trying their darndest to, you know, have a nice day.

They were holding track meets and cool little mountain climbing festivals.  Visitors were touristing and locals were going about their Saturday Memorial Weekend bustly business.

But let’s be honest.  The day was bleak.  Like Dickensian bleak.

I dropped by the sectionals high school track meet in Plattsburgh, where my son Nicholas was competing, and people were bundled up to their eyeballs.

Umbrellas were turning inside-out as a raw wind buffeted.

People muttered stoically to each other about the forecast of snow.  The kids in their shorts and tank-tops looked like transplants from another continent, another culture, another season.

My point here isn’t just that this is a crummy bummer of a Memorial Day weekend.  My point is that we should remind ourselves sometimes that we really do have to try harder and put up with more.

I think North Country folks tend to be a little baffled by our struggles.  Why isn’t the economy better?  Why don’t more people to choose to live here?  Why don’t more of our efforts pan out?

Sometimes we get to the place where we start pointing fingers at each other.  That group or faction just isn’t positive enough.  Those folks over there aren’t getting on board with The Next Big Idea.  That scheme must have been dumb from the outset.

Or we blame local government.  Or the environmentalists.  Or the seasonals.  Or the locals.  Taxes are to blame.  Or the lack of services.

But the truth is — and we forget this fact — a lot of the headwinds we face are nobody’s fault.  We just live in a tough-love part of the world.

We’re all trying to make a go of it in a place where there are snow storms and frost advisories in late May, where mud and black flies are (let’s be honest) as much a reality as spotted trout and stunning vistas.

What’s more, we are the stubborn, marching-in-the-wrong-direction few.

Most of America decided decades ago that they prefer California to Michigan and Florida to New York, for no other reason than you don’t have to scrape your windshields.

Don’t get me wrong.  I think those people are nuts.  I’m more than happy to put up with a face full of sleet on Memorial Day weekend.  The pay-offs for these hard days are magnificent.

A week from now I’ll be sitting in my garden with a gin and tonic and all this will be forgotten.

As the entire population of Florida and North Carolina climb inside their collective, crowded sauna, I’ll be going for mid-day swims in mountain ponds and sleeping with the windows open.

But I still want to tip my hat at the challenge, the frustration, the sheer hardness of the North Country.

To all those folks who laid the groundwork for their tourism business, hoping for a banner Memorial Day weekend.

To the farmers who needed to get a muddy field brush-hogged, or to the gardeners who already put their tomato plants in the ground.

To the folks who planned a big first camping trip, or had a house full of guests with no place dry to go.

To those stalwart souls who stubbornly set off on their road bikes despite the howling north wind.

To all of you, I say grit your teeth and take a bow.  This place is worth it.  Living here is a great blessing.  But sometimes it’s just hard.