Trying to put it into words

One week ago we started the drive back from the Upper Peninsula. It had been a week of relaxation and pleasant diversion. Michigan's Upper Peninsula is a place of primitive beauty, dark forests, thick swamp, sparsely populated, dense with trees, wild ferns and low brush. A sky so blue it looks artificial. There is nothing, and everything, and everywhere you are there is so much to see. I have spent the last week trying to digest everything, to make sense of the place, to put it it words.

And, I am surprised to admit, I am at a loss, to quote Bob Dylan "All my powers of expression and thoughts so sublime, could never do you justice in reason or rhyme." Not that I am comparing myself to Bob Dylan, whose "powers of expression" won him a Nobel Prize. But, anybody who knows me, or has spent anytime reading my blog, knows I can go on and on about very little. 

It is a magic place of power, myth, stark beauty, and ancient legend. The lake can be calm, still as glass, so clear you would swear you could touch the bottom only to find out the water is so deep a fully submerged kayak paddle is not long enough. You cruise over rocks that you know are just below the surface. It is the same lake that has recorded a 51 foot wave near Whitefish Point, not far from the Graveyard of the Shipwrecks and the Shipwreck Museum. Which is only 15 miles from where the Edmund Fitzgerald lies, all hands still manning their station. 

While in Marquette, the largest city on the Upper Peninsula we stopped at a lake side park, at just the right moment to watch a freighter dock and take on a load of iron ore. It was the Kaye E Barker. It was roughly the same size as the Edmund Fitzgerald, 730 feet long, 67 feet wide. Looking at it, how it dwarfed the train cars that brought the iron pellets, how the men walking across the deck looked so small, and you think how could a storm, on a lake, sink a ship so huge? But it does, and that fact fills you with awe. 

I was going to turn this into a picture post, short on words, long on images, and it turned out too wordy, so often the case. 

I am going to leave you with the following words. The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is a true hidden gem. Most of the cars we saw were from Michigan, a few from Wisconsin, and Ohio, and a rare license plate from some place else. Of all our vacations it was the brightest, most delightful, and relaxing. True, it was the first that my wife and I had alone. It is a place to visit, to love, and to share. So, I am sharing. If you don't visit, don't blame me, I told you.

A Trip to the Past, A New Friend

      

Nostalgia is not one of my vices. The past is gone, and I can live with that. There is a line from an old song that sums things up pretty well. "I only wish that I could see yesterday, the same way that I can see tomorrow.¹ I can't really explain it, but it makes sense. Maybe you would like a little more anger with your with your enigma, "I'm getting nothing and expecting oblivion, the past ain't even worth living in, it's just a nail that keeps being driven in.² I'm not really sure what that means either, but I have no real attachment to the past. The present has enough problems, intrigue, drama and pleasure for me. I don't need to go digging into yesterday.

However, there was a small town about halfway to Big Bay called Grayling. We stayed there last night and it was like stepping back in time. The buildings were old, Main Street lined with small, single story buildings. Locally owned businesses serving the community, street level symbiosis. Insurance agency, bank, diner, and bar all within shouting distance. All, presumably, on a first name basis. Park once, take care of everything.

We ate at the place rated #1 in Grayling by Trip Advisor, Paddle Hard. It was a crowded little bar that had an amazing number of micro brewed beers. The place was crowded, it was noisy and it was a perfect place for us. Loaded with humanity, all shapes, sizes, ages, all manner of fashion choices, all wedged into a small, cramped place. Flatbread pizza was the specialty and we had the mashed potato, cheddar, green onion and bacon. We like to eat things we don't have at home. Mashed potato flatbread pizza qualifies.


It was a such a charming little town we decided to have a "walkabout." It was like going back to the town I grew up in, or the town I grew older in. It really drove home the changes in my life.

We stopped in to buy some fireworks. It was owned by an elderly couple who had been selling fireworks for years. I was wearing a Louisville Cardinal National Championship shirts, and the old man, who was sitting on a chair behind a little folding table, with a glass of water and a newspaper laid carefully, meticulously in front of him, asked "are you a two point guy or a three point guy?" A question any real basketball fan can answer without thinking.

"I am no fan of the three point shot, it has changed the game in ways I don't care for." I answered, without thinking, no real fan is neutral about the 3 pointer.

"Me either. I played before the three point shot." He said.

He was stooped, and leaned constantly to his left, even while sitting in his chair. He looked old and frail, and a little brittle, but his eyes lit up when we talked about basketball.

He had played for a season at Michigan State and he was Spartan Green through and through. When I told him my wife knew a young man who played for the Spartans, and told him who it was, his eyes lit up, he was excited, he knew the name.

"Oh, he is good. He won a few of those games by himself." He was happy to be talking to a person whose wife knew somebody who played basketball at his alma mater.

It was one of the best parts of the trip so far. This small, fragile old man sharing his memories, and asking about mine. His wife told my wife he had been a high school hoops star, and he still had the passion. His wife said he would be thrilled to talk about basketball, he still loved the game. And, he did, and it was obvious. And I was happy to have had the opportunity. I can't speak for the old man, but I came away a little richer.

Life is made up of small seconds, seconds that flash into nowhere. Too often we rush past the good things to reach our goal. How many things do we miss? I am not sure I want to know. But, these few seconds were among the best of the trip so far.

                           

1 The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, Give My Compliments to the Chef

2 Graham Parker and the Rumour Empty Lives

Dream Vacation,

Tomorrow, my wife and I are hopping in the car and taking off for the Upper Peninsula. It will just be the two of us. We have a big cabin, way too big for us, but we had a couple of no shows. So we can ramble around, side to side, end to end, top to bottom.  It will be like a mansion, lifestyles of the lower middle class and unpopular.

We are taking our kayak and the cabin comes with a canoe. We can paddle around the big lake, the one they call Gitcha Goomee. Nautical dreamers pretending to be sailors. Plus, we have this new iPad Pro. So, we can write, edit, make movies, and pretend to be entertaining.

Lake Superior is one of the most powerfully magic places in North America. It is home to legends, monster fish, monster legends, all the myth and folklore I could ask for. And since it just the two of us we can explore to our complete exhaustion. We can take the shipwreck glass bottom boat tour, and the Pictured Rocks cruise if we want. We can eat at any damned place we please.

The book “Anatomy of a Murder” is based on a series of events that happened in Big Bay. When it was made into a movie it was filmed there. Jimmy Stewart plays the lawyer who defends the accused. To me, he is one of the finest actors of all time, and there are scrapbooks at the Lumberjack Tavern, where the Murder happened, and the Thunder Bay Inn, where they filmed much of the movie. 

We plan on making the drive to Whitefish Point and visiting the Shipwreck Museum. They have the bell recovered from the Edmund Fitzgerald. Truly, a modern artifact, if only because of the haunting song by Gordon Lightfoot, which was one of the first echoes calling me to Superior.

But, more than anything else, it will be a week alone with my wife, the girl of my dreams. She is as intoxicating now as the day I first saw her, so many years ago. Just the two of us, alone, no pressure, nothing but me, and her smile, and her laugh, and her brown eyes. She is going to try kayaking, and I am going to try to be a good husband. And we are going to relax, like the old married couple we are.