by Coral Roberts

Created on: August 07, 2010   Last Updated: August 08, 2010

In 1989 I move with my family to a small town in the Adirondack Mountains.

The move was a last ditch attempt to keep the family together and keep my grandmother from living in a nursing home. My brother lived in the area we were moving to. He had promise to help take care of grandma. That of course was the primary reason for moving there.

We were very tentative and a bit scared to make this move. My family had always lived in a larger city with all the amenities that went with living there, easy shopping, close to everything, culture and more. What kind of life would we have in the mountains? We were not sure but we were to find out soon enough.  

We had chosen a home in a little town that was just inside the Southern Adirondacks. My brother told us we would not like it there. Don't buy that house he said! Too late I was in love with the house. He warned us that the people would not accept us in this town because we had moved from out of town and had a big city attitude according to him. We didn't agree. We were friendly and outgoing and felt this was where we wanted to be.

Realizing that this would be a challenge we set about a course of action to get the neighbors and the town to accept us. We were always friendly to everyone we met and made a point of shopping and using the stores, post office, and city offices for our needs. Soon people began to see us around and began to talk to us and were curious to find out who we were. This was good.  Part one of our campaign to become part of the town was working. I took some time to learn the area and find the best places to walk our dog.  He was an adorable Cairn terrier. Soon I was walking down town streets with our little guy talking to the neighbors getting to know them and they were getting to know me and our dog. I was always respectful and always carried a doggie bag to clean up after our dog. This impressed the neighbors since they had never seen anyone do that before.

Soon many neighbors suggested we let the dog loose and let him explore the town on his own. We were very nervous about that idea but the town had no lease law and the neighbors liked the dog. Soon the dog was freely playing in the yard and wandering around the neighborhood. People adored the dog and he had made several new dog friends that he often brought home to play at our house. He was happy and so were we. It was not unusual to find a neighbor dog waiting to be let in the house for a treat something to eat, to sit on the

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