Enunciate

There's a commercial which has been running a lot lately late at night. What's it for? I don't know. I can't remember because of the voice over artist.

At one point he says that whatever it is he's talking about is 'globally relevant'. But he runs the words together so that it actually sounds as though he's saying, 'global irrelevant'.

There's quite a difference between something which is important all over the world and something not having worldwide meaning. Enunciate, darn it, so that we know which you mean. Maybe then we'll remember what you're selling. It's probably garbage anyway seeing as it's a late night infomercial. But still, speak precisely will you?

To Grandmother's House We Go

I'll never get this story quite right. But it is, in my mind, a neat little story, so I'll try.

It was either me Mother's grandmother or great grandmother, I just don't recall exactly. So we'll assume her great grandmother, and I'll refer to her as great great Grams as that's what she'd then be to me.

Great-Great-Grams lived in a small house behind one of me other great great relatives. Family legend says she lived to be 108, though I really don't know about that. One day she decided that her house, maybe three rooms in size, needed to be painted. Only she didn't have the money to pay for it. Neither did anybody else, the time being the Depression with cash particularly scarce in the South those years. Yet she really wanted the house painted.

The solution? Friends and relatives went through their homes and barns and garages and came up with a pint of paint left in a can here, a quart there, maybe most of a gallon in another can and so forth. They mixed it all in a large bucket, furnished a few paint brushes from their various collections, and painted Great-Great-Grams house a nice grey-lavender kind of color. She loved it, her newly painted little home, and everyone involved felt a certain pride of neighborliness and kinship.

So that's the story. I haven't told it well, but it was worth trying to tell anyway.

Downstate Michigan

I've written before about where Up North actually is in my home state of Michigan. It's the Upper Peninsula, by the way. Sometimes I envy Milwaukee because it's closer to da UP than Detroit. Then I remember that it's Milwaukee, and Wisconsin no less, and I don't feel so bad.

But anyway, at what point when coming from Up North do the downstate vibes start? Well, and this may offend some people where no offense is meant, when I’m coming home I begin getting those vibes at Gaylord, around 60 miles below the Mackinac Bridge connecting our state's two peninsulas. I mean, you have a WalMart, Gaylord, and enough hotels to house a weekend Elks convention. That's kind of at least a large semi-rural area thing you know.

Anywhere after Gaylord the downstate feelings simply come on stronger and stronger, until by mile marker 188 on Interstate 75, you may as well be in Detroit. And that's just the way it is.

Horses in Hessel

As I sat on the porch in Hessel in the wee hours of Monday morning, somewhere around 4 O'clock, I picked up the clip-clop of hooves. It sounded as though a horse were coming up Center Street across from the house.

Then I realized that there was more than one. Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop, almost in unison but not quite. "People are riding their horses in Hessel ahead of dawn?' I wondered.

I stayed quiet and unmoving. Within a minute there appeared three deer, lazily walking up Center. They stopped at the stop sign as though they knew they should. Then they meandered across to our yard and made tiny leaps over the stone fence, to wander past and up the back driveway of the Presbyterian Church next door without a care in the world.

I half wished I had had my phone to try for a picture. But I didn't want to startle them, and it was a very pleasant experience simply watching those deer saunter on by in the nocturnal atmosphere.

Checkpoint

"One thing about my checks. They're always good."

That might be the worst sentence I hear in sales. And it was spoken to me a few days ago as I was given a significant check.

Maybe I'm just paranoid. I had no actual reason to suspect the check is not good. The man who gave it to me has been a customer for around 10 years. Yet before today he always paid cash (which is certainly nice) or with a credit card (which of course I could run immediately). Then I agree to take a check, and his reassurance was not reassuring.

It seems as though every time meself or me Pops before me heard those or similar words we'd have trouble with the check which was always good. Oh, I'm sure not every time. But admit it, when a guy has to make it a point to tell you their check is good it actually makes it suspect. I had already essentially agreed that I trusted his check. After that point, why must he assure me it's good? He even went to the point of showing me that his address was on the check. O-kay. Why would I not expect that?

I was sure the check was good. But I ran it down to the bank right away just the same.

It was good by the way.