Michigan

[sweetnpetite]

Any authors, or otherwise visiters of the AH from the mitten state?

What do you think of our pathetic state quarter?

 

[Guest]

Born in Detroit, lived there til I was 23. It was a good time to be there til the '66 race riot. Haven't seen the quarter.

Perdita

 

[sweetnpetite]

No shit! I had no idea that my favorate litizen was a michigander.

I would so love to live in San Fransisco. Tell me all about it. Can I come and visit you some day?

The quarter shows the 5 great lakes, and the mitten outline. Nothing more. It says, "Great Lakes State"

 

[Guest]

Just the mitten?

I was born in the Upper Peninsula.

They did include that part of the state, didn't they?




(nothing against the mitten - LOL)

 

[Guest]

Re: Just the mitten?

They did include that part of the state, didn't they?

Sarahh, we used to summer vacation around Traverse City. I love northern MI in the winter too.

SnP, get a book on SF at your library. Give me a month's notice before you visit.

Perdita

 

[Madame Manga]

My parents were grad students in Ann Arbor in the 1960s, and my sister and I were born there. I lived my first five years in the married student housing on the U of M campus. My friends were all children of foreign students; I knew more Japanese and Indian girls than I did Americans.

Michigan seems like a dream to me now (Paul Simon). We left for California when I was nine.

MM

 

[Guest]

Re: Re: Just the mitten?

Sarahh, we used to summer vacation around Traverse City. I love northern MI in the winter too.

Perdita

It's home.

We have a small cabin on the lake (on highway U.S. 2). During summer vacations we try to spend as much time as possible in Mackinac County. We swim, eat smoked fish, pick blueberries, watch for black bears, feed the deer, go to Mackinac Island, swim, and swim, and swim.

It's the perfect place for families.

And last August it became a necessary place of peace for our family after we buried my brother there. It was his wish.

We've lived in Kansas for awhile (my dad is retired Air Force so we lived in many places for awhile) but the U.P. will always be home to me.

 

[kellycummings]

I spent most of my life in southwestern Michigan. From about 3 until around 29. I've lived in Indiana since then and I have to say that I miss Michigan. Indiana really sorta sucks. I won't get into the reasons, too many to mention.
I miss cherries and the lake, the UP and even the blizzards. I miss the buzz of snowmobiles and free public education. I miss free parking and red apples. Mackinac fudge alone is reason enough to go there. *sigh*

Oh, I think I just mentioned the reasons.

 

[jfinn]

My family moved to Michigan from Pennsylvania when I was nine. I was raised around Grand Rapids, spent my summers at our cottage on Lake Michigan, went to college in the Soo and have spent most of my life, off and on, in one part of the state or another--two years Downriver, nine in Charlevoix Country. I'm now back in Western Michigan. Every once in a while I get a case of wanderlust and move somewhere else, but I always end up back here, I guess it's just home.

And yeah, you're right, the quarter is lame.

Jayne

 

[Guest]

Did any of you ever picnic on Belle Isle? We did most every weekend of summers. How about Bob-lo Island? July 4s on the river?

Jayne, I love the Nin quote.

Perdita

 

[Guest]

 

[dr_mabeuse]

My best friend is a do-nothing philosopher who owns a string of cabins which are gently going to seed outside of Saugatuck. Used to go up there every summer and stay for free before the weeds got too high. Saugatuck was where my kids first saw two women holding hands down town, and where they still have great roaring gay parties all along the lakeshore and in town at night. As close to Gatsby as I ever expect to get, and the rest of the state so conservative.

Before that, when I was a kid, we spent summers in Michigan City, Indiana before it got so pricey. The loneliness of those sand dunes and endless white beaches are always with me; the smell of dune grass and poplars, the woods full of blue berries and poison ivy, and at night bonfires on the beach and the stars and the cityglow from Chicago across the lake.

---dr.M.

 

[Guest]

Mab., I miss Mifune; he seemed so you.

Perdita

 

[OldnotDead]

Sorry your quarter's lame. . .

I always think of Michigan as my 'Midwest Maine'. The place I went to camp, both religous and Boy Scout, so my parents could go to Win Schuler's on the way to and from. The place my brother spent his summers studying with Robert Shaw, so we could go to Win Schuler's on the way to visit him. My first University acceptance. Where another brother did go, so HE could go to Win Schuler's.

Cherries and Grape Juice and Dutch Chocolate - Yeah, my mom liked the tulips, but I was too little. Did I mention Win Schuler's?

Boyne Mountain, Iron Mountain. Hey, they look like it in the midwest <G>

If you can visit. GO! If you cannot, too bad.

The Mackinack Island Bridge - they didn't put that on the quarter? Idiots! Think Golden Gate that got built in a place where ice tried to undo everything each winter.

 

[sweetnpetite]

Sorry your quarter's lame. . .


The Mackinack Island Bridge - they didn't put that on the quarter? Idiots! Think Golden Gate that got built in a place where ice tried to undo everything each winter.

Nope, not even the bridge. There were 8 other designs that polls showed to be more popular, but they went with the dullest one they could find.

Yes, I'm pretty sure the UP is included, sorry for forgetting you, sweetsubsarahh.

 

[Guest]

Nope, not even the bridge. There were 8 other designs that polls showed to be more popular, but they went with the dullest one they could find.

Yes, I'm pretty sure the UP is included, sorry for forgetting you, sweetsubsarahh.

I'm just sorry to hear the bridge isn't on the quarter!


Not even any references to whitefish?
Blueberries?
Fudge? (well, that is just a tourist thing, I guess)
The island???

What were they thinking?

 

[kellycummings]

Fudge? (well, that is just a tourist thing, I guess)

I don't think the fudge is just a tourist thing. Good fudge is good fudge, whether you live there or not.

 

[Guest]

Most locals use the term "fudgies" to describe the tourists.

When you're close to the fudge shops on the island or Mackinac City or even St. Ignace the scent is irresistible.

And yes, on occasion, I have purchased some fudge.

(But I am not a fudgie!)

 

[Dirt Man]

I saw somewhere recently that there was actually a sighting of a real live wolverine in Michigan. Can't remember where though. I'm not from Michigan, though my son now lives in Muskegon. However I have worked on the Great Lakes as a deck officer most of my life aboard ore carriers, dredges in Saginaw Bay, tugs, tankers, and the Car Ferries there in Ludington, and as Captain on the carryferry/tug combination that used to be in Port Huron. I've been in just about every seaport that there is in Michigan, even lived in one or two for a short time. I still have shipmates that I talk to on the internet who live in Michigan. It is a wonderful, and sometimes often hectic state with great people always trying to slow down but never quite managing to. The taxes are outrageous, as is their state lottery the last time I played it. But if you live outside of the big cities it's like going back in time to a place few would care to relinquish.

As Always
I Am the
Dirt Man

 

[Vincent E]

http://www.usmint.gov/images/mint_programs/50sq_program/states/MI_winner.gif

The Michigan quarter isn't that bad. I suppose some people would be happier with a portrait of Red Berenson.

 

[jfinn]

Most locals use the term "fudgies" to describe the tourists.

When you're close to the fudge shops on the island or Mackinac City or even St. Ignace the scent is irresistible.

And yes, on occasion, I have purchased some fudge.

(But I am not a fudgie!)

Actually there are a bunch of way to classify people if you live in "The Tip of the Mitt",

Fudgies: The generic tourist designation though it's really about the daytrippers who spend their time in Traverse City (Murdick's Fudge--yum!), the Straits of Mackinac or Sault Ste Marie. These are usually Mom and Dad with the kids in a mini-van and they head out to Big Bear Dunes or Fort Michilimackinac and think taking the quicker--and bumpier--catamarans of the Arnold Line to the island would be a lot of fun until the four pasties from Audies and the two pounds of fudge from Marshalls, finally catches up with Junior.

Coneheads: The yuppie version of fudgies, it's used almost exclusively by the locals in Charlevoix, Boyne City, Harbor Springs and Petoskey to describe the Ralph Lauren clad clientele of Kilwin's Chocolates, American Spoon Foods and Tom's Mom's Cookies. They spend four bucks on ice cream cones with scoops the size of walnuts and think owning a condo in Bay Harbor would be the ultimate 'rustic' experience.

TrunkSlammers: Cottagers, if you can use that term to describe 5000 square foot log cabins with 4 baths, three fireplaces and enough board feet of oak paneling to fill a small forest. So named because Friday's and Sunday's nights are filled with the sound of luggage being loaded into the back of RV's so Mom and Dad can pay for this version of the American Dream. They buy fresh whitefish from Cross's and eat cherry sausage for breakfast and like to go down to the Sportsman Bar on Saturday night to hang with the locals.

Locals: Like every tourist mecca, there's a love/hate relationship between those who live there and those just visiting, but it's not too bad in comparison to some places I've seen. For one thing a lot of the 'locals' are really transplants who come North to get away from the traffic and the noice and the social ills of living in the big city. Of course eventually they realize that those things exist up north too, but with a lot better scenery. In the nine years I lived 'above the forty-fifth' (parallel) we had robberies and plane crashes, tax issues and bad government. And for one horrendous eight month period, a serial killer stalking young women.

Still, most people lose their house keys, because it's hard to keep track of them when you don't lock your house. The schools don't use metal detectors or have cops as hall proctors and the kids manage to stay alive and get an education too. Most nights you can turn on the news and when it gets to the local reports the lead story is what's new at the Cherry Festival because, as the announcer has already stated solemnly, "There has been no significant crime reported today in the region."

And then there is that scenery. Turquoise water and pale, butter colored beaches, small towns full of white clapboard houses, big woods with deer and fox and a bobcat or two. Wetlands that are so quiet. Birds of prey, falcons and hawks and the bald eagles who teach their young how to fly over a house I once owned. Dark nights lit up by bright stars because there is no city to block them and the only things that ever do are the Northern Lights, which are sometimes so intense it feels like day again.

There are four seasons in the North. Summer is Sweet William by the side of the road, driving through a cloud of butterflies, the cool, clean smell of the lake that cuts through the heat of the day. The cold snap that last week in August that signals fall and then the slow inexorable change of color from greens to red and orange and yellow. The last night of Fall, when the air is still and warm and the trees glow and you know that tomorrow the winds will pick up and a week from now the trees will be grey and bare, but on that night it is beautiful.

Snow, lots of snow, and Winter arrives like the bully it is. Heavy and drifting masses of snow, making roofs collapse and roads disappear. But it is beautiful. The stillness of fields where the only sound is the hiss of your skis as they glide through the crunchy crust of snow. Watching the lakes slowly, inexorably turn grey, then white with ice. Spring is lilacs and bridal veil and robins making nests in the eaves of your house. Black squirrels and chipmunks come to the door and beg for food and you give it to them because the winter was hard on all of you. And then it is summer again.

Good lord I'm making myself nostalgic!

Jayne

PS. Thanks Dita, I love the quote too and it's really true, at least for me.

 

[gauchecritic]

Cottagers,

Jayne

Ask John Osborne but don't 'look back in anger'.

Gauche

 

[Guest]

Actually there are a bunch of way to classify people if you live in "The Tip of the Mitt",

Fudgies: The generic tourist designation though it's really about the daytrippers who spend their time in Traverse City (Murdick's Fudge--yum!), the Straits of Mackinac or Sault Ste Marie. These are usually Mom and Dad with the kids in a mini-van and they head out to Big Bear Dunes or Fort Michilimackinac and think taking the quicker--and bumpier--catamarans of the Arnold Line to the island would be a lot of fun until the four pasties from Audies and the two pounds of fudge from Marshalls, finally catches up with Junior.

Coneheads: The yuppie version of fudgies, it's used almost exclusively by the locals in Charlevoix, Boyne City, Harbor Springs and Petoskey to describe the Ralph Lauren clad clientele of Kilwin's Chocolates, American Spoon Foods and Tom's Mom's Cookies. They spend four bucks on ice cream cones with scoops the size of walnuts and think owning a condo in Bay Harbor would be the ultimate 'rustic' experience.

TrunkSlammers: Cottagers, if you can use that term to describe 5000 square foot log cabins with 4 baths, three fireplaces and enough board feet of oak paneling to fill a small forest. So named because Friday's and Sunday's nights are filled with the sound of luggage being loaded into the back of RV's so Mom and Dad can pay for this version of the American Dream. They buy fresh whitefish from Cross's and eat cherry sausage for breakfast and like to go down to the Sportsman Bar on Saturday night to hang with the locals.

Locals: Like every tourist mecca, there's a love/hate relationship between those who live there and those just visiting, but it's not too bad in comparison to some places I've seen. For one thing a lot of the 'locals' are really transplants who come North to get away from the traffic and the noice and the social ills of living in the big city. Of course eventually they realize that those things exist up north too, but with a lot better scenery. In the nine years I lived 'above the forty-fifth' (parallel) we had robberies and plane crashes, tax issues and bad government. And for one horrendous eight month period, a serial killer stalking young women.

Still, most people lose their house keys, because it's hard to keep track of them when you don't lock your house. The schools don't use metal detectors or have cops as hall proctors and the kids manage to stay alive and get an education too. Most nights you can turn on the news and when it gets to the local reports the lead story is what's new at the Cherry Festival because, as the announcer has already stated solemnly, "There has been no significant crime reported today in the region."

And then there is that scenery. Turquoise water and pale, butter colored beaches, small towns full of white clapboard houses, big woods with deer and fox and a bobcat or two. Wetlands that are so quiet. Birds of prey, falcons and hawks and the bald eagles who teach their young how to fly over a house I once owned. Dark nights lit up by bright stars because there is no city to block them and the only things that ever do are the Northern Lights, which are sometimes so intense it feels like day again.

There are four seasons in the North. Summer is Sweet William by the side of the road, driving through a cloud of butterflies, the cool, clean smell of the lake that cuts through the heat of the day. The cold snap that last week in August that signals fall and then the slow inexorable change of color from greens to red and orange and yellow. The last night of Fall, when the air is still and warm and the trees glow and you know that tomorrow the winds will pick up and a week from now the trees will be grey and bare, but on that night it is beautiful.

Snow, lots of snow, and Winter arrives like the bully it is. Heavy and drifting masses of snow, making roofs collapse and roads disappear. But it is beautiful. The stillness of fields where the only sound is the hiss of your skis as they glide through the crunchy crust of snow. Watching the lakes slowly, inexorably turn grey, then white with ice. Spring is lilacs and bridal veil and robins making nests in the eaves of your house. Black squirrels and chipmunks come to the door and beg for food and you give it to them because the winter was hard on all of you. And then it is summer again.

Good lord I'm making myself nostalgic!

Jayne

PS. Thanks Dita, I love the quote too and it's really true, at least for me.

Jayne -

You describe the winter and the scenery so beautifully. You're making me homesick.

I also love the white birch trees. It looks like it ought to be a painting sometimes - the snow, the white trees, the wildlife - sometimes it doesn't even look real.

I was born in St. Ignace. My mother's maiden name is probably the most common Swedish name in the U.P. (Apparently we are related to most people living in Mackinac County.)

Where else but Muridicks for fudge? My aunt, however, makes her own Pasties and sells them nonstop through summer. My uncle has been written up in gourmet magazines about his smoked fish and venison. He's actually mentioned in the U.P. listing of spots to see.

We prefer to take the cat to the island (my kids like to ride on top). It is a blast, if you enjoy the water.

My dad was stationed for a few years at Kinchloe Air Force Base (near the Soo) which is now a prison! Make sure you mind the signs that say - don't pick up any hitchikers!

Now there is finally a Walmart in the Soo (and in Escanaba, too). As annoying as those stores are, it is helpful to find less expensive products in the U.P., and it is a bit charming to see seagulls in the parking lot.

Fudgies - no argument.

Coneheads - haven't heard that term much in St. Ignace (of course Petoskey is a different class of city - so gorgeous- touristy yet not appearing to be)

Truckslammers - yep, couldn't agree more. And they name their cottages, you know? Cute and quaint names, and if you follow the winding dirt road back into the woods or towards the lake to find their property you wonder - how on earth can that domicile survive the winter???

Locals - you know, some of my relatives are quite specific about this term. If you weren't born in the U.P., you can't claim it. They raise eyebrows at my family from time to time. I was born and raised there, we have many relatives there and own property there, but my hubby and kids are apparently transplants!

And the locals are so funny, sometimes so arrogant with the tourists. My grandfather, crusty old fisherman (very much The Old Man and the Sea) used to tell people that at night the Mackinac Bridge would swing out to the island.

Fudgies.

 

[Guest]

Jayne and Sarahh, very lovely pieces. Thank you.

Perdita

 

[Guest]