Tag Archives: Colin Criss

Thank you, Mr. Leach, for your vast sports contributions

After my first semester at college, I know what to expect when I meet someone who recognizes me. Generally it’s a warm smile and an eager “How’s college?”

College is tough. I’ve learned that you have to be used to the feeling of being not quite on top of your schoolwork.

And the problem is compounded when you have to balance that schoolwork with extracurricular activities, social activities, and occasionally meals and sleep. Continue reading

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Spring Fling student dance comes off without a hitch—just kidding

 

HOME STRETCH...Town of Webb Seniors celebrate their school's annual Spring Fling at View. Photo by Michele deCamp

HOME STRETCH…Town of Webb Seniors celebrate their school’s annual Spring Fling at View. Photo by Michele deCamp

 

Last weekend, the Town of Webb UFSD held their annual Spring Fling dance. As Student Council President, it was customary that I oversee the decorations and organization. Student Council as a whole, in fact, runs the dance and tries to make it a memorable experience for all the high school students choosing to attend. Continue reading

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Ad’k Current by Colin Criss

Dickens ‘Tale of Two Cities’ among classics offering timeless allegories

“Classics are books that everyone has, but no one reads.” 

—Mark Twain

Mark Twain, with his world-class wit, gives voice to many thoughts across our culture about those old, dusty books.

Many of these books, in their umpteenth editions, only see the light of day in classrooms and perhaps the occasional reading group. They are years, decades, centuries past their prime. Although big time hits when they were published, and despite the insistence of bookworms everywhere, these stories have been pushed to the edge of obscurity by popular culture.

We currently obsess over “Best Seller Lists” that change weekly, and rarely give any thought to visiting works penned by the likes of Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens, Voltaire, Plato, Aristotle, Bronte, Joyce, Stevenson, Rousseau, Thoreau, Fitzgerald, Poe, Tolstoy, and even the quotable Twain himself. The selection of “classics” by these literary giants, as well as by many other men and women, are often confined to one or two shelving units in a bookstore.

It’s too bad.

These books have gained the title “classics” for a reason. A classic is something to be revisited, in addition to being revered. They are more than organizations of words on a page in a matter we call profound. Classics offer lessons that apply to our lives time and time again.

Too often we become set in our ways, losing sight of actual problems we face and settling on a perceived “solution.” Our options evaporate because we do not need options. Have you ever been reminded of another way to approach a problem by quietly observing someone else approaching the same problem? This is the essence of classic literature. Continue reading

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Ad’k Current by Colin Criss

How best to protect ourselves, our loved ones, and others’ loved ones

In Old Forge, Inlet, and surrounding communities, we share a culture. In our culture, we walk to school in temperatures 30 degrees south of zero, we take bets on when the ice will go out in Fourth Lake, and we name the deer that live in our backyards. We love the first weekend the tourists come in late June, and we love the Tuesday after Labor Day because Main Street is once again accessible.

Our culture is rooted in our history, as well. We are a community well in sync with the outdoors, and we have been for a century and a half. Although our culture has come to include supermarkets and other advances, we still enjoy living off of the land. In typical Adirondack fashion, we trap, we fish, and we hunt.

There is nothing I appreciate more in our area than this history—although I do not hunt, my grandparents, great grandparents, and great-great grandparents fed their families venison, and it is important that this community-wide tradition of hunting continues. It is an important part of our culture.

Something that is not a part of our culture, thankfully, is gun related deaths. We are a friendly community that is careful with firearms—gun safety seems to be an innate sixth sense to most of our hunters.

Unfortunately, guns claimed the lives of two in Old Forge last summer, local indicators of a problem that includes the recent rash of gun violence across our state and country. Although neither of these deaths were homicides like the tragedies in Webster and Newtown, they are still unnecessary events in which lives were cut too short. Continue reading

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Ad’k Current by Colin Criss

Nation’s lawmakers need to break the habit of collective inaction

Climate change is upon us. There is little credible dispute about this, throughout our political society. If you have a word of complaint with this assumption, swing by the information center in Old Forge and look at our snowfall totals for the past 40 years.

What you will find is a steady decline—even dipping below 100 inches for a couple winters recently.

We have all noticed the weak winters of late. Even this one, with fairly steady snowmobile trail conditions, came with some major thaws. Snow doesn’t come like it used to.

There is a debate, unfortunately, about how it is affecting us. We live in the mountains! Sure, tough snowfall totals hurt, but maybe the weather will shift yet again and bring fruitful winters in the near future.

The truth of the matter is that global warming demands our attention.

It is affecting our lives and our economy in Old Forge, just as it is affecting the lives of people hit by Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina, people in tornado prone areas, people on coastal areas that are too familiar with monsoons, and people who have been devastated by recent droughts.

Continue reading

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Ad’k Current by Colin Criss

Citizens want their representatives to sit down, agree to face issues 

With small town boards, relatively few resolutions, and tiny budgets, small town politics may seem unimportant in the field of government on a world scale.

Yet these politics, despite being at the bottom of the food chain in the government realm, are worthy of study and attention.

Government on this tiny a scale is often swayed by few factors with large influence compared to the state and federal levels of governance.

For example, the U.S. Government is run by many interests: the economy, foreign policy, social policy, etc., and the hundreds of subdivisions that each of these subjects break down into.

Old Forge, on the other hand, is driven by just one of these interests in particular: a localized economy. Social policy is mostly out of our hands, and we don’t worry about foreign policy unless you count snowmobilers from New Jersey as foreigners.

Does our economy break down into hundreds of subdivisions? Not really.  Continue reading

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Ad’k Current by Colin Criss

Christmas on Main Street: Community effort makes for signature event

Christmas on Main Street, the clever moniker attached to the couple weekends after Thanksgiving, is a growing event in Old Forge’s cultural calendar. The definition of the event is annually evolving; each year it means more things to more people.

For countless tourists, Christmas on Main Street is a chance to get lost in a picturesque mountain village. For residents, it is a welcome distraction to kick off winter, and the holiday season. Business owners welcome the weekends as an additional economic bump. A few more visitors, a few more dollars.

This economic bump doesn’t only help the business owners, however. It helps everyone involved. Events like this cause more businesses to open, providing an even more amusing get away for visitors. These extra businesses also add a few residents to the town population, thus boosting all around economic health for the town we all love.

Therefore, there is one more meaning to the event that often goes unmentioned. Teamwork. Continue reading

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