![\""Singin'](\"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/files\/2013\/05\/singinintherain_375.jpg\")
<\/a>“Singin’ in the Rain” movie poster (detail)<\/p><\/div>\n
I think it’s important to acknowledge every once in a while — group hug time — that sometimes this place is just hard<\/em>.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n They were holding track meets and cool little mountain climbing festivals.\u00a0 Visitors were touristing and locals were going about their Saturday Memorial Weekend bustly business.<\/p>\n But let’s be honest.\u00a0 The day was bleak.\u00a0 Like Dickensian bleak.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Umbrellas were turning inside-out as a raw wind buffeted.<\/p>\n People muttered stoically to each other about the forecast of snow.\u00a0 The kids in their shorts and tank-tops looked like transplants from another continent, another culture, another season.<\/p>\n My point here isn’t just that this is a crummy bummer of a Memorial Day weekend.\u00a0 My point is that we should remind ourselves sometimes that we really do have to try harder and put up with more.<\/p>\n I think North Country folks tend to be a little baffled by our struggles.\u00a0 Why isn’t the economy better?\u00a0 Why don’t more people to choose to live here?\u00a0 Why don’t more of our efforts pan out?<\/p>\n Sometimes we get to the place where we start pointing fingers at each other.\u00a0 That group or faction just isn’t positive enough.\u00a0 Those folks over there aren’t getting on board with The Next Big Idea.\u00a0 That scheme must have been dumb from the outset.<\/p>\n Or we blame local government.\u00a0 Or the environmentalists.\u00a0 Or the seasonals.\u00a0 Or the locals.\u00a0 Taxes are to blame.\u00a0 Or the lack of services.<\/p>\n But the truth is — and we forget this fact — a lot of the headwinds we face are nobody’s fault<\/em>.\u00a0 We just live in a tough-love part of the world.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n What’s more, we are the stubborn, marching-in-the-wrong-direction few.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Don’t get me wrong.\u00a0 I think those people are nuts.\u00a0 I’m more than happy to put up with a face full of sleet on Memorial Day weekend.\u00a0 The pay-offs for these hard days are magnificent.<\/p>\n