Not Exactly Spring Weather

It's still rather cool in Hessel, cooler than normal even though it's late May in Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula. There are no buds on the trees, and a few piles of dirty snow are evident from road and driveway clearing due to the unusual snowfall in the area last winter. Today's high is only supposed to be 52, along with clouds, drizzle and windy conditions. I may just order a pizza rather than try to grill outside, and my reading may be inside by a window instead of out in the garage or on the front porch. Oh, I'll layer my clothes and read in the garage for a while, to be sure, because you can't beat the sound of soft rain on a tin roof. But you know what?

It's still Hessel, and a bad day in Hessel is better than a good day at work. Especially if you have a boss like mine. What an ogre.

It Happens Every Time

One of the nice things about being in Hessel in Michigan's Glorious Upper Peninsula is that on clear nights and early mornings (and no full moon) you can see a lot of stars. As I was up at 3:30 this morning, I stood in the back yard and admired just such a sight. Life is good.

Yet the donuts have to be made. I needed to get packed for my return to the D after a short UP jaunt. As I pottered around I remembered that I have a find the Space Station app on my cell phone. I uploaded it several months before expressly to try to spot the space station one night as I was up north, away from the city's glare, and promptly forgot I had done it. So I took a moment and opened it. Well, whaddaya know? It was to pass over Hessel at 5:07 AM, well before daylight in these parts at this time of year. I was actually putting the app to use. 

Just after five I set my task aside and marched through the back door. The skies had clouded over since I had been outside the 90 or so minutes before. 

Well, I hope to spend one more long weekend up here at the end of September or beginning of October anyway, the good Lord willing and the Creek don't rise. We'll see what happens then.

 

Sundays Not Quite with Mom

I went and saw a West Michigan Whitecaps baseball game with an old friend yesterday. As he lived roughly halfway between Detroit and Grand Rapids, I went as far as his place and we rode together from there. Naturally, then, I rode home on my own after we had returned to his house.

Almost as soon as I started back I saw a sign which told that the next right took you to Hell. That's right, there's a Hell, Michigan in Livingston County. There's also a Paradise, in Chippewa County in the glorious Upper Peninsula. Yes, you can go from Hell to Paradise without leaving my home state, which pretty well sums up Michigan.

I took the side trip. Although I've been there before, I had not driven through Hell since I took Mom there on a Sunday ride a few years ago. My Mother's been through Hell with me. 

With that, I'm opening up the floor. Give it your best shot, readers.

The Quiet

People say that big cities are noisy. They say that because they are. As I sit typing this out on my Kindle I hear all sorts of constant, background noise. Aircraft; cars driving by the house; the low hum of machinery somewhere. Even the freeway which is about a half mile north of me is obvious. And this is only Detroit. New York City, Boston, Chicago, Toronto; they're all worse. The D is rather tame by comparison.

It's what you get used to I suppose, but it really makes me like the quiet of the Upper Peninsula all the more. When it's quiet in Hessel, it's quiet, so much so that a car simply passing can startle. 

Even where there's noise, the noise is different. On our way back from the UP State Fair in Escanaba, close to three hours from Hessel, me son Charlie and I stopped at a rest area around 1:30 AM. It was silent but for the waters of Lake Michigan lapping at the sand and rocks beyond the parking lot. Yet those waves, while a little rough, made a soothing sound, almost a rhythm, which enchanted rather than distracted. The sound of the occasional car headed down Forest Avenue next to my house does not compare.

Perhaps it's merely psychological, but I believe that it's only in the quiet that we can touch the ethereal, the numinous, the that which is not us. The quiet isolates; it causes focus, so that we appreciate what connection we have to the unseen which we nevertheless feel. Quiet refines the senses, so that we may find God alongside.

Eerie Hessel

Earlier this month they repaved Cedar Street in front of our house in Hessel, Michigan in the glorious Upper Peninsula. I took a picture a couple hours before dawn the day after the work. This is it:

It's kind of eerie, don't you think? The interesting thing for me is that it reminds me of a recurring dream I had as child. Really. I remember a lone street lamp in the near distance against a black backdrop, with a vehicle parked underneath, not at all unlike the picture. In the dream, there were voices beyond the darkness, and maybe barking dogs, which I could never quite make out. I can almost hear them again looking at this image.

I like the picture, though what inspired me to go outside at around 4 AM to take it I don't know. And I must admit it's weirding me out a little.

MDOT Sleight of Hand

Road construction crews. I know they take a lot of grief. But I realize the roads need work. We must deal with things as best we can.

Heading north yesterday towards Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula, a construction sign appeared near Grayling. The left lane would be closed in three miles. Oh well. It can't be that bad in the middle of the afternoon, miles from nowhere.

It wasn't. Everyone was able to merge without turning off their cruise control. Life is good.

Yet not five miles later the left lane was closed again, and this time it caused a backup of about a mile and a half. It seems the Michigan Department of Transportation was playing Got ya! You drivers cruised past that first construction zone and grew complacent, but we set up a second bit of road work for exactly when you were breathing easy. It was like when a murder mystery has a trick first ending. Hey, the butler did do it! Oh, wait, he didn't?

It wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the construction crew exchanging high fives though.

A Sign

Yesterday, I was heading home from Hessel, in Michigan's Glorious Upper Peninsula. I was intending to come home Monday but consciously took an extra day because, why not? There was nothing all that pressing and I had no appointments. Indeed Monday itself was a profitable business day even though I was out of town. I took several calls, one of which was for a very significant machine and cable order (enough to pay for my long weekend and then some in fact) which the customer requested a delivery of the next Tuesday, something I could accommodate quite readily. So I didn't need to be home to work. Work found me, for which in this case I was quite grateful.

Still, the daily bread must be baked. I rose this morning, opened the old barn around 6:30 and set to work, in part to take care of a few things I couldn't do yesterday because I had played hooky. Hey, I'm a responsible adult. Sometimes.

The Shop lights flickered once, at about 7:15, yet stayed on. Not so a few minutes later. They went off and stayed off. I took out my cell phone to report the outage (who would have thought thirty years ago that such a thing could be done?) and was soon told that my power would be restored by about 5 this afternoon. 

Dang. I coulda stayed north an extra day. Ah well. Be happy with what you got, right?

Where It's At

This column probably doesn't apply if you aren't from Michigan. But the great debate in our state (that word series is uncomfortably close to alliteration) is, where does Up North begin? 

The Thumb isn't up north. Don't get me wrong: the Thumb is wonderful. It's the number two spot in the state. It has a lot going for it. But it ain't up north. It's too far south, too close to Detroit.

Some say up north begins at Bay City. Well, you start to taste it there, after mile 162 on Interstate 75. Yet you merely taste it, just get a whiff of up north air. 

West Branch? Just a lunch stop along the way.

Grayling? Gaylord? Too touristy. But you can feel the change from downstate as the positive vibes of the north country begin to reach you.

Mackinaw City, right at the top of the Mitt? Oh, oh, oh, so close it's tantalizing. Yet it too, along with Mackinac Island, while great places to visit, simply have too many vacationers, at least during the peak summer months.

But next, finally crossing the Mackinac Bridge into Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula, you are Up North. The rest of the state is just an extension of Detroit. It's that simple.