Talk of the Town

hen I was a kid, my understanding of North Creek was mostly shaped by what it wasn’t. While lakes abound across the Adirondacks, my town had apparently forgotten to acquire one. (I probably complained about this geographical oversight while sitting a hundred yards from the Hudson River.) There was no movie theater. My hometown isn’t even a town, if we’re being pedantic; it’s one of a series of hamlets that make up the town of Johnsburg, a place worthy of scientific inquiry thanks to the fact that, despite its immense size and relatively unpeopled state, everyone still lives close enough to keep tabs on everyone else’s business. (At the same time, everyone’s closest