You Can Leave, But You Can't Get Away

Postcard View of the Star Lake Inn in its Heyday

It is obvious from our books that we haven't gotten away from the Adirondacks. And just last week we were reminded again that we probably couldn't get away, even if we wanted to. 

 We were giving a presentation based on The Summer of a Thousand Cheeses at The Village community in Gainesville, Florida. As a way of introducing ourselves to the 40 or so in attendance, we showed the covers of our earlier books in one of our slides. It was a lively group, and we fielded many questions.

As people were filing out a man came up. He had noticed Star Lake in the title of one of the books, and wondered what the connection was. Hearing that I grew up there, he asked if the Star Lake Inn was still in existence. He explained that in the summer of 1943 as a 16-year old he worked as a bellhop in the Inn, then a large and popular resort hotel. The Inn has been gone for four decades, but old connections never seem to disappear completely. The huge and expanding world became  a bit smaller when we discovered that two of us, at least, have a mutual acquaintance.