A Friend's Mom

I read in the Mining Journal yesterday that Elaine Hase passed away. Elaine Hase, Mrs. Hase to me, was the mother of one of my childhood friends, Joe Hase. Joe is an only child. His father "Misty" passed away many years ago and to support herself Mrs. Hase had to learn to drive at age 65 so she could get back and forth to work. It doesn't sound like much, but that is quite an accomplishment.

I did not know Joe's mom well even though he and I grew up together. Mr. & Mrs. Hase and Joe lived, when they were in Munising, with Mr. Hase's mother in a small house two doors down from where I lived. Included in that family mix was Misty's brother Billy Hase, an arch nemesis of Joey and I during our childhood days. Billy was a bully, a drinker and dimwitted. I used to tease him to the point that if he ever got his hands on my I'm sure I would've taken quite a beating. Joey used to ask me not to piss him off as he had to go home to him.

I didn't know Mrs. Hase very well. She was a petite blonde, pretty that I remember. She worked for years at the Paris Hotel, a men's hotel in downtown Munising. Mrs. Hase always seemed to have those menial jobs that people take to get along. Mr. Hase worked construction that I recall and of course was not employed all of the time. In their early years Joe would be around in the summer, then Mr. & Mrs. Hase would move to Detroit where Joe's dad would find employment to carry through the winter. Around the 7th grade the Hase family moved back to Munising to take up residence with Grandma Hase (Blanche) until Joe and I graduated from high school. I think they lived there until Grandma Hase passed away, Billy passed away, and then I don't know where Elaine and Misty lived.

Mrs. Hase always was friendly to me. She always spoke but we never carried on much of a conversation. I was never in the Hase home, the living conditions were probably crowded and with Billy around most of the time that would never work out. I remember when Joe and I were in the 8th grade we were going to lift weights to build ourselves up for football. He found some weights and a bar and we lifted weights in the basement of Grandma Hase's home. It was a dirt floor and I was tall enough that when I did an overhead lift I hit the floor joists above my head. That cause Grandma Hase to rush out the back door to see what was making such a racket. I don't remember being yelled at, just told to take care.

My Dad used to tell me that Joe's grandpa was the town clerk, or some such position years ago in Munising. I don't remember the exact title, but he had passed and for all the years Joey and I lived near each other he was gone.

It was a difficult life for my friend Joe. His family was not ambitious by the usual definition. Misty was content to be a laborer, I do not even know if Joe's mom and dad graduated high school. Billy was a bum, he might've taken odd jobs but I don't know what he did. Grandma Hase was a good woman, but she had a daughter that was a real hellion. I don't remember her name right now, but she was a town slut, drinking and partying. She might have married one time, but I don't think it lasted. Every once and a while she would show up at the Hase home and I seem to recall upset and yelling, I suppose as Mother Hase would chastise her daughter's behavior.

Joe made something of himself. He was the first Hase of that family to go to college. He ended up teaching in Munising for years and retired a couple of years ago. His wife Barb is the Superintendent of the Munising Public Schools and will be retiring in a few years. Joe was a neighborhood leader, he was always organizing the neighborhood kids into basketball teams, football teams, or baseball teams. He and I concocted all kinds of tournaments, leagues, and provided the only form of organized sports in our area. Joe went on to be a coach in several sports at Munising, last being the golf coach. Joe is a truly good man, from a background that I simply do not know much about, but I believe to be pretty dismal.

However, Joe loved his parents. He and Misty always had a fishing/camping trip every summer. It was in the Munising area, but it was a time the two of them spent in the woods fishing and being together. He provided care for Mrs. Hase in her declining years and it cost him money he could use in retirement, but other than talk about it he did his duty to his folks.

Joe now has no living parents. This is a strange period of time. My folks have been gone now for 13 years. My mother 38, my dad 13. When they are living you can pick up the phone and talk to them. It is as though they are a buffer between you and growing old. As long as they are alive, there is someone you are close to still living, so you will still be living. When they are gone, it is like an anchor or core disappeared. Now you are really on your own. There is no more buffer in the aging process, you now go it alone. Well not really, your wife is around, but this is blood, this is famiy. I love my wife dearly, she is my family along with my children, but she isn't blood. There is a different feeling about life when you finally have no Aunts, Uncles or parents. It isn't sad, it is just different.

Recent events stir old memories

My Uncle Hollis passed away this last February. He was the last of that generation of family members for the Floria/Dean clan. The remaining family members are the 1st Cousins. To honor my Aunt Ann and Uncle Hollis a memorial was held in Traverse City on July 12, 2008. In addition to honoring the passing of Ann & Hollis the memorial was extended to cover all of the family members associated with the Dean's and seeing my Mother was the oldest of the Dean children I was invited to attend. My two sisters Carol and Phyllis were unable to attend.

Everyone looked the same, just older. The last time this group had gotten together was at my Cousin Deanne's home near Fountain, MI in 1982. It had been 26 years since I'd seen several of my cousins.

The memories were still alive and active. Living in Munising, MI I was not as close to the group in Traverse City so I did not see them very often. However, they were up in Munising numerous times, and I did visit Traverse City several times and have some memories of those visits.

My Cousin Art is about my age. I recall one summer I stayed with my Aunt Gertrude and Uncle Art for a week when they had a home on the shores of Grand Traverse Bay. Uncle Art had a small canal dredged into his property so he could keep a small rowboat accessible without having the try to maintain a dock. The summer I spent a week there Cousin Art and I made good use of that little boat.

Two activities stick in my mind, almost literally. The first was Art and I would row out from shore until we were in 10 feet of water or so and toss golf balls overboard. We would dive down to the bottom to retrieve them. This was no easy task as the bottom consisted of huge boulders that made the bottom rough and uneven. Sometimes the golf balls would get into cracks and crevices that made retrieval difficult. Nonetheless, as young adventurers we were successful most of the time.

The second memory prompted the statement about sticking in my mind. Art had a bow and arrow set for target practice. We took that bow and arrow set out with us on several occasions and would shoot the arrow into the air trying to get it to land as close to the boat as possible. The arrow traveled in almost slow motion. How high it went is anybody's guess, but given the bow was an old fashioned long bow and not too high in poundage the arrow probably went 70 to 80 feet in the air. You could follow the arrow in its trajectory. It would slow down, hit the apex of its flight and then turn over and start back to earth, or in this case water. Sometimes we got the arrow so close that when it went into the water and popped back up you could grab it out of the air. So we spent many an hour shooting that arrow into the air, never dreaming it might come back down in the boat.

Sure enough on one occasion one of us shot the arrow and we watched its flight soar high against the aqua blue Michigan sky. Slowly the arrow succumbed to gravity, slowed to a stop, started to fall backward, the flocking caught the wind and turn the arrow over so the blunt target point was now aimed in the down position. On the arrow came accelerating as the gravity that had slowed its upward flight now brought the arrow back to our spot. OUR SPOT! Holy Shit! Art was at one end of the boat and I at the other, as it became apparent the arrow was heading for us and we were ground zero we bailed. My head came back up out of the water in time to hear the arrow hit in the bottom of the aluminum boat with a resounding THUNK! It did dimple the bottom, thank God it didn't punch a hole in the boat, we would've been in deep trouble.

Needless to say the bow and arrow went back to shore and was used to shoot into a bale of hay. We resumed our ball retrieval exercise and kept our mouths shut. Art does not remember that incident, but I have recalled it several times. It is a good example how two kids can take a routine play exercise and turn it into an adventure. I will always treasure that memory.

An Old Friend Called

It was Friday morning, 3/21/08 and I was home with our Grandson Sam sitting at the computer enjoying a cup of coffee while Sam and I whiled away some time. The phone rang and when I answered a voice on the other end said, Tom ------, Joe ----. Instant transport to a land of memory. Joe and I grew up two houses apart in Munising, MI. Joe is a little older than I, which is part of a different story, but we ended up in the same grade and are classmates from high school. More than that, we are like brothers. I was the youngest of four and for the most part my siblings were gone in my childhood years, Joe was an only child. So, we played together, not so much when were were toddlers, but perhaps around the age of 4 or 5 we came together. From there on it was one childhood experience after another.

Joe and I talked for about an hour. I cannot tell you how many memories came flooding back as we visited. Joe was in DePere, WI with his daughter Kerry who had major let surgery to repair her patella tendon and had been in a cast for two months. Joe stayed with her during her recuperation and part of her rehab, he is close to going back to Munising. He said he was thinking of me and wanted to know how I was doing after my cancer surgery. Fine, then on to the memories.

The old hill next to St. Martin's store, Bob Oas eventually built a home there, but we made the slope into a ski hill and I fell trying to jump really hard, hit my tail bone and disappeared home with a broken ski and tears in my eyes. Then the hill where the old West Ward school was, it was before Bob Gauthier build a home on the property. It was a much larger hill and Joe held the hill record at 30'. The "U" hill up above the town out by St. Martin's farm. The walk to the old golf course, Joe said it is now a forest. Perch Lake, we walked there a few times to fish, now it is the site of some gorgeous homes of Munising residents that sport some cash. The Annie River, still a good little trout stream. Chipmunk valley on the far west end where we used to dig up worms, and someone had left a "tarzan," a rope tied to a heavy limb that swung out over a deep valley. Brown's Addition and the commercial fishing fleet that used to dock there, fishing from the piers and watching the fishing tugs come in with catches of Whitefish, and Lake Trout. There still is one commercial fisherman left there, VanLandshoots, and it is still one of the families that fished out of Brown's Addition. Swimming down near the site of the current high school by the old lumber dock pilings. The Davis's, the Jaspers, the Pond's, my my, the memories were a feast for the old mind.

We ended up the conversation talking about seeing one another this coming summer and walking again those streets we prowled as youngsters. We shall visit old haunts, old ski hills, and old memories. It will be nice to be together in that setting. We can never go back, but we are now two older men who have fond memories of growing up together and look forward to spending some time together.

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!

Why Do I Like the NCAA Basketball Tournament?

I have said before, I was born and raised in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This is a remote area of the United States that is dominated by wilderness. My family never owned a TV until 1956 when I was 11 years old. Our child play was dominated by the creative fires of our imaginations. However, I did like the evenings after a long day when I curled up in my bed in my room that looked out on Munising Bay. Sometimes I would build a fort of pillows on my bed and pretend that I was Hopalong Cassidy or Lash LaRue taking care of the bad guys. Like those Saturday afternoon matinee's, my guns never ran out of ammunition.

One night I was in bed, had my fort built and was fiddling around with an old radio my father had given me. We did not get particularly good radio reception where I lived, but we could get Chicago and there were one or two cities in the UP that had stations. I have no idea how old I was. Knowing the address I was living at when this story I am about to relate I was older than 8 but less than 11.

In the mid-1950's the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) was "the" tournament. The NCAA tournament was leftovers. It was not until some years later that the NCAA tournament became the dominate tournament. As I lay in bed fiddling with the radio listening for call signs to see where I was drawing the signal from I happened on a basketball game. It was the St. Louis Bilikens vs the Maryland Terapins playing in the NIT. I became fascinated at the pace of the game. I am sure it was not as rapid as many college teams play today, but it seemed quick. The announcers added great color and their voices resonated the excitement of the moment.

I had no idea what a Biliken was, St. Louis was a large city I'd heard of but had no knowledge. Maryland, way out there on the East Coast, wow! These were places and names of schools I'd never heard of, yet here they are playing a game in a national tournament. It just seemed like such a huge event.

I do not know who won the game. In fact, checking past records neither of these teams were the champions of the NIT during this time period. However, the fact that teams from so distant places would travel to New York City and play a basketball tournament created quite an impression on my young mind.

Since that time I have enjoyed college basketball especially the "Big Dance." It is such an event, teams from all parts of the nation go to cities all around the nation to compete. Little teams have an opportunity and I am always looking for which Cinderella team will come forward and how far will they go. Many times I can have a NCAA game on, work around the house and listen to the commentary. When I can't see the TV and hear the announcers, often I get transported back to that little bedroom in northern Michigan listening to two teams I've never heard of playing a national tournament. What a thrill

It is one of those times that who wins isn't so important to me as the experience. I hope you have a good day.