Date: Sat, 29 Oct 2005 00:37:28 -0700 (PDT)
I knew that Thursday, October 27, 2005, my daughter Cassandra, her mother, Brenda, and her grandmother, Shirley had boarded the Wolverine at 4:30 PM at the Pontiac station. It's a forgettable building of no architectural merit with a lobby kept dim due to budget cuts, intended once to serve as a hub for buses, but slated for demolition. Or so goes the rumor. Cassandra and her two escorts boarded an line of empty coaches: only a handful of people board at Birmingham, Royal Oak and Detroit, and the train doesn't fill until the Wolverine reaches Dearborn and Ann Arbor. Show me a city that venerates its train station, and I'll show you a city worth living. Royal Oak allowed DTE to tear out its place on the Wolverine Line; the spot is now an electrical substation. Without doubt, those boarding at Birmingham were all the suburban daughters and mothers on their way to American Girl, a doll store and museum celebrating 16 decades of young female character, depression, war or boom decade. These cute pilgrims and their guides filled two coach cars by the time the westward Wolverine rolled into Dowagiac [Say it DOE - WAH - JACK. I guess Jack the Chippewa missed his doe with an arrow and cried]. At 4:30 PM, I was shopping in Niles, Michigan for a birthday card for Cassandra and a peppy you-go-girl card for Brenda, my former wife, who was traveling to Chicago to present at a conference Thursday. Cassandra's birthday had passed in September, but I still haven't brought her troupe of five nephews together for a proper birthday party, so she celebrates her birthday on the installment plan. This pan-Michigan birthday party pulled off much easier when I was making six figures; I could just throw money at the logistics. Six kids, one round of Happy Birthday to you, nine burning candles puffed out with a single breathe and I'm free --- until next September. But just try to round up five nephews, one of whom is picking up Hurricane debris at professional rates ! Until then, I keep committing random acts of birthday cards, stuffed with various denominations. I try to arrange drop-offs of my daughter at the L.A. Cafe, on the Dixie Highway just south of Waterford Hill and downtown Clarkston. Cassandra loves the setting. Her school, Waterford Village, constructed 80 years prior in 1925 and upgraded numerous times since, stands five minutes walk from the cafe. The cafe is accessible by dock from Van Norman Lake, and we've caught monster bass and pike after meals, using the tackle I keep in the car. The spontaneity of sexual encounter I knew in my twenties has its vestige in my fourth decade fishing hobby. I'll cast my lure into any ole body of water. A church with a brass plated steeple from the 19th century stands on the edge of Lake Van Norman, and the local township is trying to sell it to a suitable owner, not the charismatic Christian church currently renting it. During one visit by daughter and I, the wife of the minister chewed me out for trespassing as she prepared the sanctuary for an "everyone invited, do-drop-in" service, asserting that hers was a holy sanctuary dedicated to the Lord. But it's ok. I tipped her well when she towelled of my truck with a chamois cloth during the church's last make the rent fund raiser. An older house falls to shambles next to the church; it was the architectural office and stained glass studio of Rocky Romano, who recently won an award from the Michigan Architectural Foundation for developing an online curriculum in architectural appreciation for grade-school children. The building stands vacant, no ones paid attention to the for sale commercial property signs after two years, a 1960's era fiberglass speedboat at dock fills with rainwater and enormous snapping turtles sun themselves on a dock no-one seems to own. It's one the corner of Andersonville Road and Dixie Highway, so it destined to be corner pharmacy, a usage complicated by the clear water lake adjacent. Oh yeah, the cafe owner's daughter attends my daughter's school, so I really mind my P's & Q's around the twenty-something waitresses, all friends of the owner's twenty-something daughter. I'm rather glad that generation of waitresses has started wearing diamonds from their first marriages. I'm hoping Cassandra gets one of her earlier jobs there, circa 2012 - 2013. Hope she lets me slip in for a burger now and then, when that happens. Mother of Cassandra gets a tall cappucino with lots of whip, on me, and Cassandra orders the French Toast, adult portion, and the chips & cheese, which I finish up, inevitably. I also dip all the crusts in the syrup she doesn't use, and I don't order my own dish. It's one of the ways child-support paying dads stretch those visitation time dollars. The waitresses all know the routine, and I tip 25 % or higher. All of them call Cassandra missy, as in "eat your crusts, missy". Waitpeople who understand diplomacy always earn a bigger margin. Ever hear of a safe house? Well, I've made a 7 year investment in a "safe" restaurant. Buying free cappucino is cheaper than hiring a private eye, but I use all intelligences gathered for most benign ends. The L.A. Cafe is wireless ready, so Brenda shows me where she's staying in Chicago, a two-bills-a-night glass house hotel a stone's throw from Navy Pier. Great location, but I wonder if I could have snagged it for 50 bucks a night on Priceline. When she finishes her cappucino, smiles and departs, I know her intinerary, her plans and her goals for the outing: all data to use to the good. When you started dating a woman years ago because she had a sense of style, a wardrobe of clothing demanding a walk-in closet and a collection of shoes requiring installation of wall-racks, the idea of a first shopping trip to Water Tower Place and the Miracle Mile for your daughter is a winner to me. There's stuff about feminine wiles and female style my daughter just isn't going to learn from me. Of course, Cassandra isn't going to learn 5000 years of hobo technology from her mom, but it's part of a culture she's going to assimilate from her dad. I have mastered a luftmensch way of being certain to confer well-being, full-employment and moderate enjoyment upon any devotee who learns its principles. I'm living in Berrien County, on the shores of Lake Michigan, and I couldn't live with the idea of my daughter passing through my newly adopted countryside on rail without a visitation from her dad. So I started researching all the permutations. In one scenario, I would board in Kalamazoo, allowing Cassandra to sing "I've got a dad in Kalamazoo" for the rest of her life. But that plan required me to go all the way to Chicago, pick up an Indian Trails bus at 2:00 AM at the Greyhound station downtown at Clinton, and arrive at Kalamazoo's airport at 5:30 AM, refreshed, fully-rested and clean enough to go to work. Right. Amtrak leaves from Kzoo's downtown train station and transpo hub, but because the real action is at Kzoo's airport southeast of town, home of the Air Zoo and subsidized connector flights to Detroit, Indy and Chicago, Indian Trails now drops off there. Stupid. That forces an Amtrak passenger returning on a night bus to take a cab from an outskirts airport to a downtown depot, a common disconnect in American cities, and any intinerary that requires a 20 - 30 dollar cab ride is a failure. The Indian Trails phone rep encouraged me to sweet talk my bus driver into a downtown drop-off, a feat I could only accomplish with shaved face and brushed teeth. I was about to give up when I noticed a Thursday anomaly. An eastbound train called the Blue Water, Chicago to Port Huron connecting once by underwater tunnel to Sarnia and Toronto, ViaRail is real rail, stopped for passengers at the 1892 granite gothic train station in Niles at 5:30 PM. It disgourged passengers 14 minutes and 14 miles later in Dowagiac, another town that had preserved its heritage by recovering its train station, housing the chamber of commerce and tourist bureau within its cut stone walls. For the unreal sum of 30 dollars round-trip, a price that made even the Amtrak agent in Niles sigh behind his bullet proof acrylic window, I bought that intinerary. Amtrak controls the rails from Kalamazoo into Chicago, a rarity, and the company has invested in concrete tie, high speed rails. So the Niles - Dowagiac run moves faster than 60 miles per hour. But first, an Amtrak riddle. How can a train departing Chicago and traveling east arrive at Hammond, Indiana, thirty minutes along the schedule, 45 minutes late? Easy, where Amtrak doesn't own the lines, their passenger train must give right-of-way to passing freight, even if it means a delay of hours. So my 5:35 PM pick-up in Niles slid and became a 6:30 PM embarkation. But that still deposited me in Dowagiac, down by the lumber yard established in 1835, at 6:45, giving me just short of two hours to explore mainstreet Dowagiac, once home to 16 saloons, an opera house and the Beckwith Memorial Theatre, a cast iron stove company named Round Oak and a fishing lure factory. Also disembarking at Dowagiac, a 45 year-old woman, mother of three and wife of one, from California who had flown into Midway and was meeting her father at the station, planning to dine at Zekes with mom excluded for one night. Neither mom and dad were able to see well enough to drive all the way to snowbird Florida, so daughter was handling the driving Friday morning. A sign on one of the depot windows bragged that Jeffrey Eugenides, author of the Virgin Suicides and Middlesex, had lectured at new performing arts center, just the day before, darn my luck. He lives in Chicago, so one wonders if he came at least part way by train. A downtown development authority had stabilized most of the buildings along Front Street, which is south of Railroad Street, the real front street of Dowagiac. All of the brick storefronts are proudly marked with oval markers in bronze, giving year of construction, earliest 1860 and latest 1910 - ish, name of first owner and name of restorer. Less than three years ago, the 1869 edifice at 134 South Front Street suffered the insults of leakage, trespass and condemnation. When I visited Wood Fires Tratorria Thursday night, 134 South Front Street, a pharmaceutical representative and his chosen waiter were hustling together a formal dining table with crystal water glasses and linen napkins in the banquet hall called the Pompeii room, amongst decadent Roman murals painted by Carole Ego. Of course its called the Pompeii room; it's east of the Vesuvius-like field stone oven kept stoked at all times with cured Apple wood from area orchards. The walls of the main dining room presented the work of local artists, including color tour paintings by a fellow called Sy, accurate if you're color touring in a plane at 3000 feet. When all of the guests arrived, I was eating minestrone soup at the bar, chatting with Tennille, a splendid women with a ready laugh, sweet yet naughty and deep throated, and I noticed only one guest who looked like a doctor, and he shambled in after everyone else. Usually doctors will send an office associate, like the medical biller, to one of these wine-and-dine experiences. When Tennille lent me a pen so I could fill out my cards, it was a fancy, smooth writing, laquered barrel unit advertising Cialis. I didn't want to see Alice. I wanted to see Tennille, but it probably was a mistake to nickname her "Ten". As in, "Dinner was perfect, Ten." But Jeri Ryan didn't mind being called 7 of 9 on Star Trek, I reasoned with her. So to win points back, I explained to her my unhatching plan. I knew that the Wolverine train arriving at Dowagiac at 8:41 PM carried forth my daughter and her entourage. And as I explained this, I filled Cassandra's card with 40 dollars, because what dad allows his daughter to walk the Miracle Mile without some mad money? And I filled Brenda's card with 120 bucks because what child-support paying dad allows a payment to go late just because Friday found his ex-wife in another state. The secret to congenial relations between a visiting dad and his custodial ex-wife is shovels of money from dad to ex-wife. Paid in cash, child-support doesn't really count, but ok, I knew it would be well spent. I'm paying this directly to her for now, because Friend of the Court as administered by the State of Michigan hasn't served a with-holding papers upon my new employer in out-of jurisdiction Georgia, who could technically ignore them. I'll probably wind up paying double child support somewhere down the pike, but peace at any price. Plus, my daughter is always well-fed, well-groomed and enrolled in everything from dance to girl scouts. Just as I was leaving Wood Fires, a squad of handsome student athletes in ties and poplin shirts fresh marched in through the arched doorway between the arched windows onto Front Street. Every Thursday, the local radio station interviews the football squad and their coaches on prospects for Friday's game. This is a southwestern Michigan tradition, and I've enjoyed a similar show at Tosi's in downtown St. Joseph. I was worried that I had missed my train as I raced through misting rain to arrive at the station, but I arrived at an empty platform right at 8:41 PM. When its raining, the signaling system for Amtrak is less effective, so trains run slower. Incredible to me, the door into the depot with its restrooms with antique porcelain fixtures opened at that dark hour, and I waited until I saw the crossing lights go red, and the crossing lights went red east and west ! The Amtrak train going east from Detroit was one hour delayed and the Wolverine train carrying my daughter had to wait until it passed. When I finally got to board, after waiting for a man carrying a baby in a basket disembarked, I didn't have a lot of time to waste. I had to find my daughter on one of five cars. The conductor who manned the yellow stool instructed me to go right, but I knew she wouldn't be on that car. So I marched left, searching all the seat rows, now bunks for reclining passengers slumbering their way through Michiana, dreaming of shopping on Friday. By the time I spotted my former wife, the conductor was chasing me down the aisle against the direction of travel, his only passenger boarding at Dowagiac , and I passed Cassandra, who was drawing an involved design in crayon, so I could sneak up from behind. Of course, I had to explain to the conductor what I thought I was up to, but he got it really quickly and took my ticket. When he saw Cassandra staring at me with wide and happy eyes, he moved along. I gave Cassandra her card, which to my embarassment she opened right away. I gave Brenda her card, to which I explained, "You wrote me an email requesting this money right away. Well, this was the soonest I could think of". And then I had to answer a battery of questions of how I came to be on that train and where was my car parked, which I answered really quickly. Cassandra put her card away in her backpack. I guess she packed her own luggage the day before without being asked, in the leopard skin print suitcase I gave her three years ago, with rollers for easy pulling. So maybe she's becoming super-organized, a skill very important for a veternarian to be. She got up, crossed over from her window seat, gave me a hug and kissees on both cheeks, and then I asked her to sit down. "Please have a rip-roaring good time in Chicago because I'm going to want to hear all about it !", I encouraged her. The ride is super-smooth on those high speed rails, so unlike most passenger rails, but I didn't want her to fall. With that, I shook Grandma Shirley's hand, said goodbye to Brenda and kissed Cassandra's hand. The conductor was already asking me to queue up at the door of the first car. Of course, as soon as I got off, I ran to Cassandra's window, kissed my hand and touched it to the windows. She was already looking. I smiled up at her. She smiled back at me from through the plexiglass. I smiled up at her and the train began to roll. She smiled back at me. Grandma Shirley waved at me; I think Brenda waved, but it was a waving away. For safety's sake, and because of a superstition, I didn't run along with the train. The superstition states that one shouldn't keep waving until ones beloved goes out of sight. Stop waving and turn away, and good luck will bring the beloved back soon. But Cassandra didn't know that superstition. She keep looking and waving, even through a narrow span between the next seat and the window.
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