Sometimes it’s easy to forget why we wrestle with all these thorny issues.\u00a0 The health of our economy.\u00a0 The quality of our schools.\u00a0 Public safety, the environment.\u00a0 What does it all add up to?<\/p>\n
Last night I was one of hundreds of beaming parents who crowded into Saranac Lake High School’s auditorium for an astonishing holiday concert.<\/p>\n
The young people were resplendent in their black ties and gowns.<\/p>\n
Their voices soared.\u00a0 Their faces glowed with the passion of the music, from the “Hallelujah Chorus” to the spiritual “Wade In the Water” to a jaunty “New York, New York.”<\/p>\n
Choral director Helen Demong and band leader Keith Kogut remarked again and again that this is a community that values the arts, where kids play rough on the football field but also follow in the footsteps of Duke Ellington.<\/p>\n
I know it’s a cliche to say that we place our hope and our optimism in our young people.\u00a0 But sitting in that crowd last night, hope and optimism is exactly what I felt.<\/p>\n
Yes, times are tough.\u00a0 The economy is sour.\u00a0 We’re at war.\u00a0 We are, in many ways, a society divided.\u00a0 But that’s not the whole story.<\/p>\n
During the final number, Helen asked choir alumni to climb up on the stage and join in the song.\u00a0 It was cool to see how how many people came forward, eager to raise their voices together.<\/p>\n
I can’t help but think that this is what it’s all about.<\/p>\n
As we make cuts and sacrifices, surely nurturing and enriching young people — and creating beautiful moments like this one — have to remain top priorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometimes it’s easy to forget why we wrestle with all these thorny issues.\u00a0 The health […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[22,4863,6],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3423"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3424,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3423\/revisions\/3424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}