Imagine Reality

It is hot here in Arkansas. We were over the 100 mark for the fifth time in five days. I am watering the flower beds and a few shrubs and small trees that are heat stressed. We are heat stressed, it is just too hot to work outside for any length of time. In the morning when it is a little cooler I do my 40 minute walk to improve my overall health, but that is about it.

Sitting on the porch this afternoon with the late afternoon sun behind us and the heat warming our bones I got to reflecting on Gramp's Cabin. My grandfather built a log cabin on the shores of Ostrander Lake in Alger County, Michigan. Gramps built the cabin by hand with some mighty large logs. It was probably built back in the 1930's. Ostrander Lake is a nice lake, it had structure, held some fish and most people who owned camps on the lake were long time residents.

I was sitting in the afternoon heat thinking how nice it would be to sit on the front porch of that old log cabin on a day like today. First of all it would not be this hot. The next picture in my mind is me walking down an old path to the little dock. A small row boat is tied up there, and my fishing tackle is lying in the bottom of the boat. All I have to do is to loosen the line, push off and I'm fishing. I could row out a small distance, let the boat drift and lazily cast about, hoping not to catch anything so the mood isn't disrupted. Near the water I can see tall pines surrounding the shore of this lake. I can see cabins with camp fires and people toasting hot dogs, cooking steaks, or making "somores." A cabin door slams, laughter is heard floating on the slight breeze, the boat lazily turns this way then that way. A child laughs, people tell jokes, discuss problems, drink a cup of coffee, a beer, or pop.

In the meantime the sun is setting to the west, the sky is streaked with oranges, golds, and various shades of reds. The western shoreline is in shadow, the eastern side has some small hills and the sun is climbing the hill casting a shadow on the shoreline. A fish tugs at my line, I pull it in, a Bluegill, no sense keeping him that isn't the purpose of this fishing trip. I slip him back into the water and with a dark flash of his tail he's gone. Probably telling the other fish to watch out there some guy up there fishing.

It gets dimmer, the colors in the sky become pastel. A jet contrail streaks overhead, I wonder where those folks are going. From the direction maybe the plane is coming out of Canada and heading for Detroit. I hope everyone is OK on that flight. The contrail takes on an almost fluorescent look as the sun strikes it at an odd angle.

It is dimmer now, a slight chill in the air. My best girl, my wife, calls out and asks when I will be coming in and do I want some coffee. My answer is soon and yes. There is a kindred spirit back in that cabin, her company reassures me that I am loved and we have things to talk about. She is a diabetic but her health is fairly good and she is pretty much symptom free. God, I hope she stays that way, I do not know what life would be like without her and I don't want to think about it.

Along the shore I hear a splash, a raccoon, a deer, what? My eyes strain but it is becoming so shadowed I cannot make out anything. I imagine it was a deer coming down for a drink. Perhaps a big old bass came close to shore and grabbed a frog for dinner. Bass feed at night you know. The lights in the cabins start to shine on the dim shore like beacons calling me to safety. I know in the set of lights just in front of me there is coffee and warmth, and the smell of wood and cabin.

A screen door slams somewhere, I think of my youngest daughter who used to announce to us that she like the sound of a screen door slamming. This was her way of making sure her mother and I didn't yell at her for letting the door slam. You know though, there is a special noise an old wooden screen door makes when it slams that I like too.

Memories flood my mind, old memories, warm fuzzy memories. Children growing up, playing with cousins, reading books, talking about boys, and trying their hand at water skiing. Where did those times go, and why can't I enjoy them again. I can't that's all, I just can't.

So, my best girl gets up from her seat, gives me a kiss and heads back to work. She has to work late tonight. I get up, stare at the dry grass, the wilting flower beds, pack my memories back in my mind, and wish her a good evening. She leaves and I come inside, alone! Damn the alone! But memories of daughters, of the smell around a small inland lake, of friends and family now old, but still young at heart. Its OK, everything is just OK!

Ah Children!

While my wife and I were in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan my two daughters joined us. One day we went to Miner's Beach for some swimming, sun, sand and a picnic. My granddaughter Marissa joined us. As you can see above she enjoyed the beach. What tickled me was when we got back to my sister's home after the outing Marissa gave up and went to sleep. Kids play so hard, they just become exhausted. I can think of nothing more healthy than a child playing in the sun on a sugar sand beach, running, eating, and being held. Finally their little bodies have had enough and require rest. Limited stamina that shall increase until they can stay up with mom and dad. I really get a kick out of process.

Black coffee, a ham sandwich and memories

Years ago, perhaps 1954 or there about my father drove my mother and I to my brother's home in Midland, Michigan. This was no small task in those days for there was no Mackinac Bridge. You had to take a ferry across the Straits of Mackinac and the boat trip was about 30 to 40 minutes just on the water. This trip was in November, my mother was going to stay at my brother Dean's home for a couple of weeks and then dad and I would drive down, spend Thanksgiving in Midland and bring mom back home.

When we left the Upper Peninsula I do not think my dad was paying attention to the time of year. You see deer season opened in mid-November and went through the end of the month. The weekend we drove mom to Midland and drove back the next day was the weekend all the deer hunters were driving to the U.P. to go deer hunting.

Normally you did not wait long to cross the "Straits," perhaps half an hour or so. During the weekend before deer season waits of over 24 hours were not uncommon. It is hard to understand the lure of deer hunting in Michigan until you understand the obstacles people will over come to go hunting. In addition to bagging a buck many times you would see cars heading back to the Lower Peninsula with a deer over the front fender and a Christmas tree tied on the roof of the vehicle. It was a tradition for many and the start of the holiday spirit culminated in a Christmas dinner and venison steak.

Well my mother prepared some ham sandwiches for my dad and I from the left over ham we had for dinner Saturday evening. We set out for the "Straits" and encountered "the line" somewhere south of Cheboygan, MI. I have no idea as to distance except you were in a line of cars on the side of the road that stretched on as far as the eye could see and were were out in the woods.

People would get out of their cars, form small groups and talk about the prospects of deer camp. Men wore the traditional red plaid shirts and pants with boots and hunting knives hanging from their belts. Many wore suspenders and had red plaid hats. This was before hunter orange. The talk was of deer, trails, woods and things all exciting a mysterious to a young boy my age. Dad and I joined these groups of men standing along the road drinking coffee and telling tales.

All of a sudden the shout would wind its way down the line, "We're moving up!" Everyone would head for their cars and the line would move up some 60 to 120 car lengths. It meant a ferry had picked up a load and headed back across the straits and space was made in the parking lot and new cars filled in empty sections.

As soon as the line stopped engines were turned off and the groups of men reassembled. Again I would join the groups and listen with my imagination flaring up seeing red plaid assembled men stalking through deep northern woods in search of the elusive White Tail. I could imagine me with rifle over arm slowly proceeding among pines and hardwood forest, moving quietly along the edge of swamp or rivers. A light dusting of snow on the ground for tracking should you not down your deer but have to track it. We were actually along a forested road near Mackinac City and you could see the pines and as night settled in the lore grew even more intense.

I had never drunk coffee black. We had a thermos with us that had black coffee in it and I think we had a couple of sodas that I had polished off long before night fell. The night chill descended and we retreated to our car because we had fairly light clothing on. Nothing like the rugged outdoor clothing the hunters wore. Sitting in the dark dad would run the car to take the chill off and we would listen to the radio.

When the pangs of hunger caught us we would break out a ham sandwich, thick sliced ham on white bread with mustard. We would eat a ham sandwich and sip on black coffee and that leads me to the title.

Today at work I had a ham sandwich, I got a cup of coffee and sat at my desk and ate the ham sandwich with mustard on it and drank black coffee. Those tastes never fail to take me back those many years to that night I had to drink black coffee and eat ham sandwiches because that is all we brought along. Dad thought we'd be home long before we actually were and have a dinner at the Candy Kitchen. The best memories come from a thick slab of ham carved from a left over cooked ham and just some plain old French's mustard slathered on. That rich taste of the ham and the intermingling of the black coffee set my memory bells tingling.

As I remember the wait at the "Straits" was 24 hours or longer that night, but we made it in 12. When we entered the parking lot to take our place in these huge parking lots there was string of cars at the end of the lot going on a ferry. Dad gunned the motor and dashed down the lot, got in the end of the line and made it aboard. We halved the time and thank God we did, we were all out of ham sandwiches and black coffee.

Growing Up in Northern Michigan

My wife often refers to my description of growing up north as a storybook setting. It was, I have no way of describing it in any other terms. Munising sits on the shores of Lake Superior surrounded by hills. In front of the town is a large island, Grand Island that makes Munising Bay one of the few deep water bays on Lake Superior protected from the fury of storms.

Around the turn of the Twentieth Century there were blast furnaces on the shore where iron ore was processed into pig iron for further shipment to the steel mills in Chicago. Henry Ford began building Ford cars around 1906. As part of his strategy he knew it made sense not to ship iron ore to his factories around Detroit. The more refined the raw material the lower the shipping costs and the more economical the vehicle. Early Ford advertisements told of true Just-In-Time production, 30 days from iron mine to finished car.

With that in mind Ford started to invest in ore processing. Ford began construction of a power plant along the shores of Lake Superior at Munising, MI. Formerly blast furnaces used charcoal made from the trees of the surrounding area. As trees began to recede from the shoreline transportation of wood became a problem. With the advent of electricity blast furnaces became more efficient using that power form. So Ford's forward looking made the investment of a power plant in Munising viable. A deep water port, ore boats come from the Western end of the peninsula loaded with ore, boats coming from the east with coal to meet and refine ore into pig iron for more efficient transportation to Detroit.

Something happened and Ford stopped his project leaving the foundation of his power plant. This foundation became the play ground for we children growing up. It had a tunnel that went underground out into a nearby swamp and provided another route of escape when we played prisoner and guard. It was the task of the prisoners to escape and go up into the surrounding hills then reform and take over the prison. The guards became the prisoners and then their task was to escape. We played this game endlessly. It was played over a great area and went on sometimes for days. Henry Ford didn't make pig iron in Munising, but he provided a great play ground.

Today that foundation still exists. It is part of a storage area for a boat marina. It no longer fires the imagination of youth, it no longer offers youth the opportunity to exercise their creativity. It did exist, it did offer we kids some powerful opportunities to freely exercise our imagination and play at what ever we wanted. It was a fine experience.