I came for the waters. . .

It is hard sometimes for a North Country native, eyeing shot-riddled roadsigns and tumbledown barns, and beaten down by too many hard winters, to credit it when people say they choose to live here for the quality of life. Don't they watch Sex in the City? But it's true. Somehow all the conventional wisdom breaks down as you proceed north of the Mohawk. The logic which says the march of big-box retail is unstoppable--and yet the bankrupt Ames stores are being replaced not by Wal-Mart, but by locally-owned Wise Buys and Hacketts. The logic which requires that no natural resource be left unexploited--and yet we continue to set aside more land for recreation, contemplation, or just for its own pristine sake. Small, liveable towns still resist becoming bedroom suburbs of large employers. Decent housing remains stubbornly within the reach of the middle class, and even--gasp--the working poor. We just don't seem to be able to get with the program. May we never.