Saginaw Street is predicted to be ready for business again by Labor Day. Durand's downtown development district landed a development grant, paying for a fresh coat of pavement and streetscape style sidewalks. Durand is fighting small town blight hard, trying to keep businesses in the old storefronts, some buildings constructed from fieldstone, end of the 19th century, and the streetscape keeps times with Muskegon, Grand Haven and Howard City. Personally, I can't wait for sidewalk cafes at the Iron Horse Saloon or Nick's Restaurant next door. My father loved them both, and last winter, he insisted I meet Mom and he at Nick's. I wanted to go to Janelle's, which had a better menu. On the way, he clipped a deer, enough to run up a thousand dollar repair bill. He like Nick's best of the three, Iron Horse, Nick's or Janelle's. He sat beneath the John Wayne poster, next to Dirty Harry, at a perfect angle to watch Fox News. Fox News ran on big screen televisions at all three of these eateries, although Janelle's ran a country western feed to mix matters up. The Iron Horse he loved because the owner once published the Shiawassee County alternative paper, the Independent, maybe the only conservative alternative in the nation. The owner always, Leonard, always came over to spar with my father, and that's all my father wanted. Sure he ate, but he wanted to be part of his times and his movement. My father took the message to the taverns and never needed to know that he was singing to the choir. Except when I sat at table, buying mom and dad dinner, playing what looked to be the liberal straw puppet. My father and I could have filmed our exchanges, a rural version of Hannity and Colmes. He could always demolish me with the obvious facts: he had raised my siblings and I on hard earned conservative dollars and put me through college with them too. I never raised an slight quirk, the idea that he still attended retiree banquets at the UAW hall on Mound Road, Warren Michigan. Traitor to his class didn't fly either. His father, according to family lore, had switched to the Republicans after FDR cleaned out his banking accounts. His mother always had more than 10 Grand in cash in their house. That's the cash I was shown. You ask to know his name? Let's just call him the Shiawassee County Patriot for now.
My father collected caps. The owner of Janelle's noticed the absence at our family table. I blew everyone to a big meal, a good one and surprisingly affordable. He asked my mother for one of his caps to hang from a peg near his usual table. My mother offered his National Guard cap, which is a surprising offer. It was the one he wore the most. He was serving as a weekend warrior when I was born, mostly at an artillery training camp north of Montague, Michigan, called Camp Claybanks. I'm coveting the cap from Area 51; my mother and father made a road trip out to Roswell, New Mexico, a couple married for four decades plus exploring the universe.
I'll be writing about this week in Shiawassee County for a while. For a rural area with a slow pace, the ineffable has unrolled and spoken. The fields and forests are an appropriate place to be engaged by the absolute. I don't get the half of it. The week around my family has been a revelation and an EST seminar.
I took my mother for ice cream at the Ichibon after taking her, ironically, to the bank. The elders, most farmers, were regarding the work progressing on the Streetscape, The men, many sporting John Deer hats, talked knowingly about the new traffic patterns caused by shutting down three blocks of town. Many businesses had no front door access; all had back doors. My mother and I walked through the darkened kitchen of Ichibon to access the dining room. An accident at the Premarc Concrete Culvert Company had knocked out a transformer, dropping all village power, and we were going for ice cream before it melted. One man mentioned that one business had gone under during the construction. A second man declared how one business had closed until fall because of the construction. A third man castigated the system for providing the grant because government had no role in funding these kinds of projects. I whispered to my mother how I was keeping my peace in my father's honor. I made her laugh as I related my counterpoints to her as we walked to my car, well out of earshot. "It takes money to make money", and "one thousand guys rolling into town for a case of beer each won't keep a village alive". Again, I can't wait for the sidewalk cafes.
I dropped by the farmer's market earlier that day, after waking up at the Quality Inn, and I was greeted by a vibrant scene. Plenty of fresh sweet corn and I bought plenty, plus a watermelon. One fellow had started a Czech Bakery in downtown Owosso, and he had plates of Kolache. I picked up a plate of apricot, filled with fresh jam, enclosed in the most delicate pastry I have ever tasted. A woman named Robyn showed off her corn by peeling back a shuck to reveal golden yellow and pearl grains. She had just arrived back from twenty years in the Carolinas, on the seaboard near Oak Island. She was selling for her brother-in-law, and she was working the market on her fourth day back in Michigan. Already, she was thinking about the first winter in years that she had to face.
A busker playing guitar and selling recordings of his work added a festive feeling to the hour, and he looked quite a bit like a young, hungry Bob Seger. Across from him, local author Jeff LaFerney made a brisk business selling his mysteries, published through Createspace. Copies of Skeleton Key awaited customers, and he was pleased with how well the copies were moving. I said all this as I approached his booth, "So, you're selling your own mysteries, self-published through Createspace? And you're doing well with that?" "How did you know all that?" he asked back.
A fellow in sunglasses sat at his table, typing on his computer, connected to internet by a wireless hotspot, a 21st Century ghost of the machine. His shirt said, "Got Ghost?". Founder of the Society of Paranormal Investigators Research and Information Team, http://www.spiritmi.org, Greg Berry had conducted a paranormal investigation of the Durand Depot, and had significant findings, according to his expertise. Starting August 12, he'll be leading nightly tours through the depot, one as late as 1:30 AM. Half of the 40 dollar ticket goes to the charity supporting Durand Union Station, so it's a spooky way to keep an old building alive. His card offers his services free, 100% free, to the public. My father would have loved to have talked to him, and I am wondering what he would find at our 19th century farm house during one of his expeditions? I haven't made the call yet. I am going to discuss it with mother.
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