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.

A Radio Table

My mother and father were married in 1924, I believe. It isn't that important, but suffice it to say it was long ago. Those were interesting times, radio had first come out some years earlier and while a popular new medium for society you had to have electricity.

My Dad had a fascination with wood working. It would've been nice through the years if he could've had a home with a shop and puttered away at that hobby. Regardless, in 1926 Dad went to a woodworking shop class held in the evenings for adults. The teacher was the high school shop teacher, Mr. Henry Nelson. Turns out that in seventh and eighth grade some thirty years later Mr. Nelson was my shop teacher.

In 1926 the social events that occupied a Friday or Saturday evening was listening to the radio. Many couple gathered in homes, listened to the radio, danced, sang along, drank whiskey and beer and partied. My parents were no different. One of the activities that occupied peoples' time was developing a log to record various radio stations call signs on. According to my father it was an oft discussed topic where someone would tell of picking up a Pittsburgh, PA station, or and Indianapolis station, or Louisville, KY station. Much time was spent perfecting the tuning, listening to new frequencies and trying to pick up the call sign and location of the broadcasting station.

Dad decided to build a radio table in the manual arts classes offered at night. I have that table. It is beautiful, he turned the four legs on a lathe, the front and side pieces are mortised into the legs, the top is solid wood and has a decorative groove cut round the top. It has a center draw to hold the log book and writing instrument. It is beautifully finished although it suffered some water damage to the top some years ago that needs to be restored. On the bottom of the piece is my Dad's name, Vernon A. Floria, and the date in 1926 that he made the table. It is really a very nice piece of furniture.

Right now the radio table supports the sewing machine and is serving our needs in that way. It is very sturdy, shows no sign of weakening in the joints and I still like to look at it and think that 81 years ago my father made this piece of furniture.

Oh yes, the function. It looks like a desk, however in those days some radios were operated by a wet cell dry cell electrical arrangement. Where one would think drawers would be there is a solid front. That's because on the back side there are two large compartments. One compartment held the wet cell, the other the dry cell, and wires then ran to the radio from behind. The radio sat on top of the table, the one drawer held the log document and writing instrument and you were set for a Saturday evening's entertainment.

I'm proud of my father's skill, I am pleased that I have this heirloom. It connects me to a fine man who raised a fine family, and did the best he could for the 94 years he was allowed to be on the old earth.

Recent Memory

This little essay is about a recent memory, just made within the last thirty days. My wife Terry and I traveled to my home of Munising for the Fourth of July. Munising is now a small town of maybe 3500 sitting on the shore of Lake Superior. The people are brave souls who will not be bothered by the fact that a whim could close the paper mill and the town would lose it's major employer. Fact is, I don't believe the mill is the major industry in Munising anymore, I think it is tourism.

Munising has long held a Fourth of July parade, festival and homecoming for as many years as I've walked this earth and hopefully will many years after I am gone. This particular week in July was memorable for many reasons. First, Terry came with me. It is a long trip, almost 900 miles and has to be done in two days. Terry is diabetic and sitting during travel plays havoc with her blood glucose level. My wife worked hard at trying to control her glucose level, taking blood samples almost every two hours and adjusting her insulin input from her pump. Still her sugar rose almost to 400 and bounced around between 190 and 390. It was tough on her because she doesn't feel well when her glucose level is high. We made it, and once at my sister's home in Munising she got her glucose level in control.

This allowed us to enjoy looking around, a nice Pasty dinner, and walks about the neighborhood. On the Fourth itself we brought lawn chairs, sat along the parade route on Onota St. and enjoyed a parade as only Munising can put on. The first color guard after the four law enforcement cars with their sirens screaming were the Vietnam Vets. A small number, but a band of brothers that meet in and around the county to provide camaraderie and support. Don't forget, the guys coming back from Vietnam were received like a bunch of bums instead of heroes. An awful lot of those guys still carry psychological wounds that may never heal. I stood and with my hand over my heart had tears in my eyes. They tried damn it, they tried.

The parade was its usual entertaining obnoxious event that pleases all and leaves us all with our varied impressions of the quality of the event. I like it.

My daughters came and what made it so special was they came because I was there and they wanted to spend some time with their old man. God Bless'em! Jenny was sick with a cold, but you would not have known it, she did nap the afternoon of the Fourth and her loving sister took Marissa off her hands so she could get some rest. I am blessed with two daughters that truly love each other, and like being with one and other.

Kristi and I went down town to the fabled water fight put on by the local volunteer fire department. These guys stand about fifty feet apart and blast each other with water hoses coming from the pumper. Then the last part of the fight is to hose down the crowd. A lot of people show up to watch the event in bathing suits, everyone knows what is going to happen. What I get a kick out of is people who run into long lost friends or acquaintances stand in the enveloping water shower talking as if nothing were going on yet they are getting dripping wet. I don't know what draws me to the event, but I get a kick out of it.

As Terry and I settled into bed that night I closed my eyes and was serenaded by the whump, thump of the fireworks down on the bay. They echo through the hills surrounding the town and provide a fitting end to a nostalgic day.

Thursday the kids were in from Grandma's about 2:30 PM and we packed up a picnic basket and were off to Miner's Beach. Miner's Beach is a beach somewhat isolated, hidden by Miner's Castle along the beginning of the Pictured Rocks it doesn't get a lot of traffic. Yet it is a sugar sand beach as fine as any beach in the world. Lake Superior has washed the shore for thousands of years grinding the limestone into a fine sand and packing it firm. Erosion is not much of a problem for this beach. It was a gorgeous day, low 80's. If there was a breeze it was from the north so the black flies and mosquitoes were laid low. Terry or I didn't even put on any mosquito dope.

I brought a bathing suit and went swimming in the LAKE! It was cold, yet it is one of the most refreshing events I have ever participated in. Jenny, Marissa, and Kristi all waded a little bit. Terry stuck her toe in the lake and pronounced in unfit for swimming, too cold. I swam for about half and hour. I found some rocks worn smooth by the wave action and tossed back into the water by those persons trying to skip a stone across the surface of the water. Some of those stone now grace our coffee table in a wooden bowl made by Terry when she was in high school and had to take a manual arts class.

The picnic area just above the beach offered a prime view of the lake and beach. It consisted of a picnic table, a grill and a superb view looking through the pines. I love Lake Superior, I felt baptized by my swim, if any lake could be; this is certainly God's lake. We spent the afternoon roasting old fashioned hot dogs over the open fire, eating chips, and drinking tea, soda, beer and NA beer. We were quiet at times looking at the scenery and taking in the exquisite view of the beach and the Pictured Rocks. We picked up and left about 7:30, weary from the sun and air, full of food that probably isn't good for you but you wouldn't trade for a tenderloin because it was eaten in the fresh air of Lake Superior. Memories were made, memories were spoken of, and stories told. It was a great day.

A Friday night grilled fresh Whitefish dinner prepared by Carol and Chap made the send off on Saturday bittersweet. It was good to be going home, but the weather had been excellent, the company outstanding and the togetherness strong enough to make one want more. It is a memory I shall dwell on over the winter, and talk about with Terry and my kids, and I am sure it will always bring a feeling of well being and love to mind.

The last door Terry and I shut on our trip was a stop a Seguin's Cheese in Marinette, WI. It has been a haunt of mine since it opened 40 years ago. I have bought many pairs of moccasins at their outlet and many pounds of cheese curds and string cheese. Right next door was a state highway rest area. Years ago when my daughters were little girls my first wife and I had stopped with them to take a break, enjoy the cheese and crackers we'd purchased at Seguin's and begin our trip back to Racine, WI. The rest area then had a hill and at the bottom a little covered area with benches and a old fashioned water pump. The kids always liked pumping water from the pump and climbing the small hill. I took two pictures there of those girls laughing, the sun shining on the ground and their eyes sparkling with fun that to this day I can recall in vivid detail. The rest area has been modified, but the remnants of the hill remain and the little covered shelter is still there with the benches and a concrete patch over where the pump was located. Terry and I sat there, I thought of those days when daughters were young. Now I am growing old and was blessed to have time with those wonderful children again this summer. There is and ache in the heart, but it isn't bad, and I will carry that picture of my two delightful children, full of fun and innocence running down a hill near a water pump until the day I pass from this earth.

As Terry and I pulled away beginning our terrible, long trip back to Arkansas I pulled the door shut on that vacation, what we were going to undertake now was not part of the enjoyment of the week. Nothing bad can intrude on that fine time my beloved wife Terry, Kristi, Jenny and grandaughter Marissa had just spent together.

An Old Extended Family

Visiting on the phone with my sister Carol brought back a memory I had forgotten. A lady in our home town, Lillian Revord, recently turned 100. There was a reception at the Methodist church in Munising in her honor. My sister attended and met several members of that family that brought back this memory. Lillian is the mother and mother-in-law of the characters in this writing.

When I was 8 we moved from 802 W. Superior St. to 820 W. Superior St. Just a few houses, but we moved from a house my mom and dad were renting to an upstairs apartment. A young couple, Bill and Dolly Revord recently purchased the home and were renting out the upstairs to help offset the expenses of having the house. We lived in this apartment from 1952 until 1961.

I do not remember the year, but Bill and Dolly suffered a catastrophe. Dolly was diagnosed with Tuberculosis (TB). This was a much feared disease and we were tested every year at school for TB. It meant you were isolated and spent quite a bit of time in a sanatorium. I forget the name of the one in the Upper Peninsula, but Dolly was confined there for a year. Bill and Dolly had three young children at the time, Jackie, Iris and Sheila were there names, a son Billy was added, but I think Dolly was home when Billy was born. The tragedy was that it turned out Dolly did not have TB, it was a missed diagnosis.

Why Dolly was confined Bill had the role of raising the small girls. Jackie was about two years younger than I so these were kids probably ranging in age from 4 to 10? My mother became their surrogate mom. Every day my mother would go downstairs and get breakfast for Bill and the kids. Bill worked for the power company, which meant his day started early. Mother saw the girls off to school, made lunch and dinner for them and baby sat when Bill would go to Marquette to visit Dolly.

I had a case of jealousy. My mother was supposed to pay attention to me, yet she doted on those kids. I voiced my troubles once and a while, mother was patient with her youngest son and pointed out that I was old enough to take care many of my needs and they were just little kids. It still did not diminish my feelings, but I wasn't consumed by those feelings either, it just irritated me from time to time.

I am sure my folks got a break in the rent, or something for all that mom did. She really took care of two households for about a year. Bill was a good man, he cleaned his home, he took over care on weekends, and in general was a positive person in the kid's lives. There came a time about 1960 where their family was just too big, I was a junior in high school which meant that Jackie was entering high school, they needed space. So we had to move, but still I spent nine wonderful years in that apartment and a total of 16 years in that great neighborhood.

In a few later years Bill apparently had a stroke and passed away leaving a young family. It was a real sad time, he was a good provider, a good husband and a good father. Dolly picked up and raised her family and they went on. Jackie later married a classmate of hers, the young Ruhmor kid. Jackie ended up contracting cancer and passed away in her thirties. Dolly worked jobs for many years in Munising and I saw her quite often when I came back home for vacation or visits. I remember one time years ago when I saw Dolly in Munising she pulled out pictures of the kids. They were all grown and her nest was empty, but her heart was full.

The girls were gorgeous, young Bill was the spitting image of his dad. Dolly never missed a time to tell me how much she loved my mom and dad. The end of this little essay is that when Carol attended Lillian Revord's reception at the Methodist church two of Dolly's kids were there. Carol talked with Iris who now lives in Greendale, WI a suburb of Milwaukee, she also met Billy. Carol new of them, however had never met them as adults. Both kids remember my mom and dad, and even asked of my whereabouts. What really hit home with both Carol and I was their mutual love of my mother. Iris recalled the devotion mom had to taking care of those kids, making breakfast, and Iris especially talked about the wonderful "twice baked" potatoes mom would make. Her point was all the work it takes to make those dishes didn't deter mom from making delicious meals for the family. Billy didn't have such deep memories, except he definitely remembered mom's care.

I had forgotten about that period in my life. It wasn't a low point, just an event that slipped away. However it is an example of the love and care both my parents exhibited for their neighbors and others.