I Owe Lou a Million Dollars

I was thinking of times past today. I began to think about my brother Dean and his brother-in-law Louis Mikulich. Lou or Louie as we knew him was one of a number of children. Lou lived in Traunik, MI his hometown. The Mikulich family was well known in that area as his mother and father had owned and operated a general store and post office there for many years. Louie came from a talented family. My sister-in-law, Gladys or Miki as we knew her was an athlete of some prominence in high school. Several brothers played tennis in college and old man Mikulich had built an asphalt tennis court at his home for his children to play on.

Lou went to college and had a degree in some field like Botany or Biology. I'm not sure what the degree was in. He never worked in the field. When Mr. & Mrs. Mikulich passed away Lou took over the store and kept the property at Joe's Lake in good shape so family members could return to the U.P. for vacations and family gatherings. Lou eventually became post master and ran the store keeping an eye on the family holdings.

Lou was a gentle man, soft spoken and refined. He was well educated and stay current on the events of the day. He was aware and knew of the issues of the region, the state and the country. Louie smoked a pipe and was one of those people whose appearance a pipe enhanced. Lou loved to laugh and had a good sense of humor, however the image he projected was one of serious contemplation.

Whenever my brother was at Joe's Lake Lou paid a visit nightly to sit and discuss the events of the world, enjoy my brother Dean's company, or many times to go night fishing for bass on Joe's Lake. Joe's Lake was a beautiful body of water. About 2/3 of it was bounded by either state or Cleveland Cliffs land. There were cabins, but not too many. The lake was clean, sandy bottom with some silting as there was no flow through the lake. It harbored huge small mouth bass. Dean and Lou caught many bass and always released them, the fun was in the catching, not the eating.

Lou and Dean had agreed they would keep a bass weighing over 5 1/2 pounds and have it mounted to hang in the log cabin. Back in the depression Mr. Mikulich, senior, had a builder pay off a debt owed to his store by building a log cabin on a piece of property Mr. Mikulich had acquired on Joe's Lake. It was a simple cabin, however it was spectacular. It was made of huge northern pine logs, had a huge field stone fireplace, two very small bedrooms and sat on a hill over looking the lake. It was simply magnificent. This is where my brother spent his summers, and the land Lou watched over with benevolent grace.

I've been to that cabin many times. I stayed the night on occasion. I went night fishing with Lou and Dean and enjoyed the thrill of small mouth bass striking surface lures and startling the hell out of the fishermen. I've enjoyed the company of two intelligent, articulate men who enjoyed each others company as much as anyone could. They played golf in Gladstone many times and ate dinner together often. They loved one another deeply.

One time when I was very young I spent a week in Midland, MI at Dean's home. The weekend I was to return to Munising Lou showed up and offered to drive me back to the U.P. The plan was he would drive me to Traunik, the Mikulich home, and then I would call my Dad and he and mom would drive out to pick me up. My folks had given me some some money to pay my way, but Lou wouldn't hear of it. In fact, he ended up driving into Munising and taking me right to my home. I expressed my appreciation and told him that I owed him a Million Dollars. He chuckled and lit his pipe. He said that one day he would collect and drove back to Traunik.

Lou was a solitary figure much of the time and I could not help but wonder about the quality of his life. Lou seemed to enjoy good conversation, discussion of issues, and seemed to care deeply about the country and the environment. He was alone most of the time for Lou was a bachelor.

Through the years we would enjoy getting together when my brother was up north. We would enjoy a fire in the fireplace in that magnificent cabin and I would listen as Dean and Lou discussed and debated the issues surrounding the times. Over the years I stopped in several times at the store in Traunik to pay my respects and noticed Lou grow older, getting gray and a little stooped. He still smoked his pipe and was so gracious when you would meet. Wanted to know how you were, what you were doing, how the family was, my mother and father. He was an easy man to love.

I would remind him from time to time about the Million Dollars. He had forgotten. When I would retell the story he would chuckle and say that some day he might collect. Lou may have forgotten, but I never have. I will always remember that kind, gentle, pipe smoking man who loved life, loved my brother, and was a very good man. Lou got to know my father and mother-in-law as they were postmasters too. They would see each other at meetings held in various parts of the Upper Peninsula and talk about Alger County. It was through my in=laws that I learned of Lou's passing from cancer.

My brother died from a stroke in 1982, and I lost touch with Lou as the common meeting point no longer existed. However, I was sorry to hear of his passing, and wished I had been more outgoing or concerned and made contact with Lou. He was a very special man.

A Thanksgiving Tale

This story is true. but I cannot remember the exact year - probably in the mid 60’s. I think Bonnie and I were married, but it is not relevant.

Michigan's deer season had been in since Nov. 15, and Bonnie and I were in Shingleton, MI for Thanksgiving. I was also going to do some deer hunting and was truly looking forward to the experience.

Shingleton, MI is a small community of 5-600 located on M-28 just east of Munising. Munising is a small town, at the time perhaps 4500 - 5000 souls located on the northern side of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan on the shores of Lake Superior about 50 miles east of Marquette, MI. The distance from Munising to Shingleton is about 12 miles. South of Shingleton toward Manistique lie extensive hunting lands that many from the Lower Peninsula hunt for the elusive Michigan whitetail. This is remote hunting, swamps; bogs and uplands abound. While roads crisscross the area, they tend to be two rut roads that loosely follow the terrain and can be impassable at times.

Tom & Glady Dolaskie, my wife's parents, owned a general store at the cross road of M-28 and M-94. There was a Post Office in the store and Tom was the postmaster. However, Tom's background as an outdoors man is legend. He grew up in the logging camps that were located in the area and made his living for many years cutting logs for the timber industry. He hunted and fished the entire area and was as familiar with the surrounding countryside as you would be of your home.

We had all gone to bed after the usual evening of card games and much talk. Our plan was to rise early, breakfast and then go hunting north of Star Siding back in large swamp area that ran north to Lake Superior. Sometime after we had all fallen asleep we were roused by a knocking at the back door. It was perhaps 11:30 PM. The knocking did not stop. I heard Tom get up and go down the stairs. I could hear voices at the back door, but the location of the bedrooms did not permit me to overhear the conversation.

A few minutes later Tom came up the stairs and knocked on our bedroom door. He asked me to come downstairs. Of course by this time Bonnie and Glady were awake, so we all traipsed down the rickety old stairwell. There stood a man dripping wet and quite wound up. About that time I remembered being awakened by a freak thunderstorm that moved through the area just after we had gone to bed. I lay in bed listening to the crashing and booming and wondered what that would mean to the hunt the next morning. There was a good amount of snow on the ground, I wondered if it would all melt away. Of course, you just knew the woods would be sopping wet, and you were in for a muddy day of slogging trails.

The man and his hunting partner had camped south of Shingleton near a place called the Red something or other, I cannot recall. It was located in a very backwoods area that I had been to before, but it had been some time. Tom knew the area very well and knew from the description the man gave just where they were camping.

Glady called the ambulance service, and they would send an ambulance. I was to accompany the man back to their encampment and render what assistance I could. Being a young man and not trained in any first aid or CPR, I really had no idea what to do except to provide company. Tom would wait for the ambulance and accompany the driver to the campsite in the woods.

Munising has a small hospital, and the few doctors who service the area tend to be General Practitioners. The ambulance service is provided by the local funeral home, Bowerman-Halifax, and what serves as an ambulance is also a hearse. The vehicle was a gorgeous black Cadillac hearse with the small, tasteful sign of Bowerman-Hallifax funeral home on a bronze hood ornament.

The man, who by the way was from Kalamazoo, MI, and I drove to the campsite. Down a barely passable two rut road we bounced and arrived at one of those spacious canvas tents that have sidewalls. We found his partner, barely conscious, lying on a cot beside a small potbellied wood burning stove. Lightening had apparently hit a tree nearby. Searching for ground, it came down the tree, hit the metal stovepipe leading to the stove, and then grounded through the cot and the man leaving a gash in the earthen floor of the tent. The man was injured, had difficulty breathing, and seemed to be in great distress. We were able to cover him with a blanket and tried to keep him awake so he would not go into shock.

We had been at the campsite for perhaps fifteen minutes when we became aware of a vehicle approaching the camp. After the thunderstorm had passed through which was apparently the leading edge of a cold front, the temperature plummeted. It was now about zero, and the roads had become covered with "black ice". Driving out from Munising had been treacherous. But, here we were, trying to care for an injured man and what pulls into the campsite? You guessed it, a brand new, black, gorgeous Cadillac hearse driven by the funeral home director, Footsie Bowerman. Tom had guided him without fail, but the real surprise was when the backdoor opened out stepped Dr. Olson, one of the physicians who serviced the Munising area. When Tom had told Footsie that a hunter had been struck by lightening, Footsie called Doc Olson and Doc Olson told Footsie to pick him up on the way out of town. Together they slipped and slid out to Shingleton. Then joined by Tom they maneuvered their way to the campsite, and there sometime after midnight on a bitterly cold November night Dr. Olson, delivered by a hearse, treated the hunter from Kalamazoo.

The men from Kalamazoo were astounded. Only about 30 minutes had passed since the man had left with me in tow to return to the campsite. Yet in that 30 minute time frame an ambulance that is not on duty that late at night was summoned, a doctor was roused and picked up, 12 miles of icy road were traversed, then another 8 or so miles to the campsite and here we all were. The fellows from Kalamazoo said you couldn't even get that kind of service in a big city where they had round the clock services.

The man hit by lightening survived, but was never the same. He suffered heart damage, walked with a limp, never regained full motor control of his limbs, and lived the rest of his life on disability, unable to work. But before the two left the area, they came by the store to thank Tom & Glady for their help. His hunting partner returned to the UP many times hunting and fishing. He always stopped in the General Store and visited with Tom & Glady. Their conversations often returned to that stormy November night and the outstanding service and care that Footsie and Doc Olson provided. The man eventually grew older, retired and stopped coming to the UP some years ago. Tom & Glady retired and sold their store, and contact was lost. The memory is still etched in my mind, and I put it in this blog so others of my family may learn about the care, concern and service to others rendered to strangers in the cold night of the Northwoods.

The people who live in the Munising area of the Upper Peninsula have a unique spirit formed in part by the remote and rugged life of the area. While some may be amazed by the effort, those who live there would say, yep, just like Footsie and Doc Olson. Footsie has passed on. I do not know about Doc Olson except I know he retired some time ago. But the spirit that drove those men on that night still lives on in the residents of that country.

Halloween Then and Now

When I was a little kid in the 50's Halloween was a great time. I had this cowboy outfit that had two pistols, holsters and a hat. So it didn't take much with a small mask to render me unrecognizable, ha! I discovered this summer that our neighborhood really consisted of the 800 and 900 blocks of Superior Street. The 900 block was about as far west in Munising you could go. So it did not take long to cover those blocks and get a pretty good load of loot. However, being perhaps 6 or 7 I ventured into other blocks looking to load up good. I went past Lincoln School and was getting some distance from home. Was I worried, naw, with my pistols and hat I was invincible. I approached one home and knocked, a man came to the door and I pronounced the age old request, "Trick or Treat." The man made me come into the home and do a trick before I could get a treat. So I turned a cartwheel in his living room. There were other adults there enjoying the festivities and while I thought my task a little strange it was no big deal. I remember coming home with a paper bag with the fiber twist handles that was about 3/4 full of apples, caramels, a few candy bars, some change, and other treats. It was great.

Fast forward to Sturtevant, WI. The time was the latter part of the 70's. My children are 6 to 8 years old and it is Halloween. They have costumes. Their eyes sparkle in anticipation. The routine in the neighborhood is for Dad to escort the kids and Mom stays home and gives out candy, or vice versa. So out we go, me escorting beautiful angels, fairies or whatever the creature was. I stood back on the sidewalk as my two princesses went home to home collecting treats. We circled the block, we went through all of the blocks in the area and finally pleading fatigue we headed home. Time had changed some things. When I was a kid we just took all of the goodies as untainted. Now with stories of foreign objects put in apples, or unsealed items we sorted the loot first. We tossed apples and other fruit that was not in a sealed package. Not much got thrown out, so the kids had plenty of sweets for enjoying. We did that year after year for four or five years. I got such a kick out of my little ones full of enthusiasm running from house to house checking their bags and running home to show their mother their goods. They would sort their stuff, eat some of the candy and then collapse into bed. God, what a good time they had and what a joy they were.

Fast forward to 2000. Terry and I live in Jackson, MS. A new wife, a new life. My children are grown. Terry's kids are grown so now we are relegated to giving out the treats. Our next door neighbor has an audio/video studio and has rigged up lights and music outside of his house. Children running up to the home get almost to the porch when a light show comes on and the booming voice of Dracula comes out and music blares. Some little kids turn tail and run back to their parents. We have a pumpkin and our lights are on. We enjoy the little ones coming and yelling the age old "Trick or Treat" and opening their bags with enthusiasm. There are some older kids with no costumes running as fast as they can just gathering treats. I have a feeling they come from poorer families and perhaps are supplementing the treats the whole family may enjoy.

Fast forward to 2008. We live in a log cabin. We are at the very end of a private drive. It is dark up here, we have no outside lights such as yard lights. We do have lights that come on if something or one triggers the sensing device. We live back in the dark wooded area. No kids come. We are at peace. We eat the treats. No kid would dare come back here, it is just too dark and the house to creepy. We'll leave it that way.