I knew Dockers had opened for season on Saturday, but I wasn't sure if lunches had started. My office is a few miles from Pere Marquette Beach, so I rolled out there along the Lakeshore Drive and past Bluffton, a oaky duneland enclave of cottages where Buster Keaton once lived. I hadn't driven out along the duneland beach drive in the daylight for months. In winter, sometimes I bring a lunch from Greek Tony's and sit in my car, shiver, and eat. The channel rarely freezes. I've never seen it freeze. So it's a place for birds to float and swim if they didn't make it south for the winter.
The channel is a mystic place, full of stories. There's a small stand of hickory and oak that no one bothers near the Harbour Towne Yacht Club. I met a guy at Torrensen's Marina, upstairs where a group of artists share a loft space above boat storage. It was a nifty reception, unadvertised except at Mia and Grace, where I took my supper that night. He is a silversmith and a polymath and an amateur historian who can tell you old facts about Lake Muskegon. For example why it can be called Lake Muskegon and not Muskegon Lake. We clicked, and we spent an hour matching old Lake Muskegon stories and he won. The stand of wood can't be developed because it has historical significance as an Indian cemetery. It remains unmarked, however. Lunker logs from the old growth forest have accumulated on the bottom of Lake Muskegon, sinking there and piling up from decade 1870 to decade 1910 or so, when the logging ran out of raw material. These logs are immensely valuable for their fine grain and for undergoing a chemical reaction over time, pine sap extracted. I would need to talk with a scientist to explain it, but it's similar to petrification. The logs can't be harvested because it stirs up the muck that keeps decades of pollution from entering the water column.
I tried the door at Dockers and found it unlocked, and I pulled it open and walked into the lobby. I didn't see a soul. I walked around the bar and into the dining room, and saw a tall man talking into his cellphone, speaking in a scottish brogue. He waved at me and kept talking. The tents were still up on the Tiki Lounge deck from Saturday's well publicized Shark Taco party, Mako Shark Tacos at 13 dollars the plate, 3 dollars off during happy hour. Placed right in the center of the new menu, colorful and all on a single wide laminated page. The Scottish nature of Harris Hospitality became quite clear to me when I met the summer hostess from Scotland, a niece, who greeted me with a brogue that was handsome yet feminine. Quite a fetching woman who surely has caused a few bagpipes to blare in her short years. I had walked around the complex for a few minutes, looked through the kitchen windows, and notice two waitress in this year's yellow tee working the ordering terminals. Not having time to wait, I opened a swinging door, and said hello. I didn't mean to make them jump in surprise.
I took my usual seat on the western end of the bar, best sight lines, and the one manager came out to greet me, a familiar face because I see her working on the publicity at our Biggby Coffee and I've taken the odd pint of hard cider at Pints and Quarts for three years now. I was officially the first customer of summer lunch, and Danielle and Julie waited upon me. Danielle asked if I wanted the televisions turned on, but I had thirty feet of windows looking over the channels around Pigeon Key. Pigeon Key is the greatest joke in the world, as we shall discuss. Danielle remembered me from last year, getting through the winter working in the catering end of the House of Harris. She shared how she had to be hospitalized three times due to blood poisoning, a scratch from a bit of fun-loving wrestling injecting germ ridden fingernail jam into her bloodstream. She laughed at my joke, "No more cat fights, okay?" Julie had just started that day, and she didn't remember the price of the soup and sandwich special. I just had Danielle pick it out, and she chose the Clam Chowda and Chicken Salad Po' Boy. Julie corrected, "Poor Boy". I smiled. I had to wait forever for my change, but when I had the manse overlooking Pigeon Key to myself, who cared.
I have been talking to local business owners, even the Chamber of Commerce, about a water taxi connecting Dockers, Harbour Towne, Main Street Inn on the North Shore, Bear Lake Tavern, Lakeside Tavern in Lakeside and the Lake House with a water taxi service. The fellow who manages the Shoreline Inn even thought of a boat he saw at a show for a reasonable price. I don't want to own it myself. I just want to use it. I am really such an idea man it's surprising that I am not beyond wealthy by now. I loved futzing around Norfolk and Portsmouth Virginia on the Elizabeth River Ferry, crossing by great warships in dry dock and seeing the occasional dolphins. It docked right by the Blackwater yacht, and a friend of mine from the ferry crew got tapped to crew it. A good water taxi service will be a great draw for tourism, a talking point for our publicity, and a return to the days when people used small steam ferries to get around town.
Pigeon Key is all that remains of Pigeon Hill, a 2 to 3 hundred foot high sand dune where migrating Passenger Pigeons once roosted. It still appears on the topographic maps from the 1950s. It even appears as a name on Google Maps and on bumper stickers advocating its resurrection. The sand had been hauled away until 1973, when the sand docks shut down. The sand docks are slowly disintegrating to wooden piles where the herring gulls can sit and poop.
A painter named Lewis Cross, who lived in a castle on Deremo Bayou off the Grand River, painted passenger pigeons flying over, but I haven't seen his image of the hill. I've seen Victor Casenelli's image as well as some by the man who owns the Lawrence Studio, a home studio in Lakeside, near the Harbor Theater. He has a sign on his studio: "Come Sit on My Porch". So I did and he showed me every painting he hasn't sold yet
As I drove by the beach heading back to the office, I saw that the snow fence had done its job, raising great waves of sand dunes, winds slowed to drop sand between the lathes. Two steam shovels from the City of Muskegon had already begun the month's long job of removing the sand to where ever it goes. A professor once published a paper documenting how Pigeon Hill could rebuild itself, with a minimum of intervention. The Pere Marquette beach sand would swallow Harbour Towne as easily as it had swallowed the banking village of Singapore after Holland removed trees to rebuild the city after the big fire. Notice that I say banking town. That's another story about the stagecoach road between Allegan and Singapore.
When I arrived at the channel for a few moments before driving back, I saw that the dredge called Buxton II had arrived from Holland to clear out the channel again, an annual event. It is joined at the hip, so to speak, to the Tugboat Jessica Joy. I've never seen them up close after six seasons watching them clear the harbors of St. Joseph, Grand Haven and Muskegon. The sand from Muskegon harbor is thrown onto the dune on the north side of Muskegon Channel, part of the state park. Many of our dune lakes didn't have channels until merchants had them dug, wider and wider as mechanical equipment became available to dig faster and more cheaply. Mona Lake Channel is famously clogged every year. Pentwater Lake and the Pentwater River might be called that because a channel had to be dug to release all that pent up water. The Old White Lake Channel, by the Old Channel Inn, is a swamp. Last trip up to Whitehall, I heard that Spartan Coach Mark Dantonio had bought a manse there and was buying big ticket items in town, like a SUV at the local dealership. Rumor is, Izzo is going to follow suit.
I was astounded that I was seeing the sand dredge up close, next to the Laurentian, the Silversides and the McLane, good ships all. Then two tankers rolled up from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and released this year's supply of Brown Trout fingerlings. I was really one stupidly happy boat nerd when that happened.
Ah, it's paradise out here on the big lake near Muskegon. Nice to make a good salary so close to this beauty. But no bagels and sushi on a scheduled basis? Thank goodness the ferry to Wisconsin starts making trips in four weeks and Dockers will be filled with boaters and tourists in a few months.
END
In Freshwater Boys, author Adam Schuitema writes about a sand thief from New Era, Michigan, land of marl lakes. Schuitema can make a metaphor work deep magic. The sand thief steals it from the shores of Duck Lake State Park, but he could have it for the trouble of hauling it away from homes fronting Pere Marquette Beach.
Dockers Fish House is now serving Shark Tacos.
The Buxton II hails from Holland, Michigan and dredges in all seasons.
Two tankers of Brown Trout Fingerlings are now swimming around the Lake Muskegon Channel, and some will avoid being swallowed like Jonah and grow up to be huge Brownies.
Great Lakes Naval Memorial and Museum.
Harbour Towne Yacht Club. Dennis Conner has a lifetime membership, I hear, and a condo in the complex.
The America's Cup:
Mia and Grace is too busy at lunch with Muskegon's genteel set for a business man to dine in time to return to office early enough.
Harris Hospitality is Scottish Hospitality. But the Scotch Egg goes under-represented on their menus:
Torrensen Marine is a center for the green generation of energy. It is also an art center.
Searching for the Lost Journal of Lewis Lumen Cross. I have seen a microfilm of it.
Shoreline Inn
Images of Pigeon Hill:
Victor Casenelli's paintings, one of Pigeon Hill:
Maybe I'll see Coach Dantonio drinking out at the Old Channel Inn.
Old Channel Inn:
Tugboat Jessica Joy
The Buxton II, Sand Dredge
Stocking up the Fishery:
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