What's in a Name?

On the way back home from work (where I've apparently going to become a non-peon, and start to be able to crack heads), I was listening to the VPR news, in which they said that the Ethan Allen Homestead is going to close.

That's quite a shame. It was the home of uber-Vermonter Ethan Allen, who took Ft. Ticonderoga from the Brits. He retired to Burlington (where else) and lived in the Intervale. At first, I thought of him on this side of the pond, and enjoying his raid on "the other side of the pond" (which is how all Vermonters think of the Adirondacks). My self-identified Adirondackerness chafed at the thought.

Thinking more, though, the inhabitants of the Champlain Basin are much alike, as Bill McKibben noted in his short little book Wandering Home? Is there a common culture in the Basin? I'd say so. St. Albans is nothing more than an extension of the dreary North Country towns of northern NY (drive across Rt. 11 and see what I mean), albeit with a little Vermont flair and a tiny downtown (makes me think of Potsdam, if anywhere in the NC). The accent is the same.

I keep the name of my blog as such to take note of that, and I hope we can get together. That whole Adirondack seccesionist movement was a pretty radical idea, I bet Allen would approve...