Wilbo tests his cardiology at Rosy Mound Park, an Ottawa County duneland. @PureMichigan

There's always a shorter walk through the Red Pine loop. Today, I wanted to see if the dune stairs could make me breathless, force me to rest on one of the many benches built for that purpose. I happy to say I took my first rest on the final bench before the shore. I love how these benches have commemorative plaques, and I can recreate in memory who I imagine these people were during their lifetimes. More than one had the last name of friends from town.

I could toss this Blackberry into the waters from here. As plain Jane as this Blackberry is, sometimes I want to make that pitch. I didn't even raise my pulse rate much. I like how these are the inhabited wilds south of a city, Grand Haven, but here one can meet neighbors. The north lighthouse on Grand Haven's south pier is a toy of red on a stick of grey thrust out into the waves. Children do well out here among the sleeping sassafras and the wind undulated marram grass expanses. Two elementary aged girls changed from boots to walking shoes on a neighboring bench, father having allowed them to walk the beach, provided boots were on their little feet. He texted cellphone messages as they complained good heartedly about cold toes. I made it down the final stairs to the forebeach. A man in a brown felt fedora at the dune climb greeted me as I passed but merely stood and enjoyed the view that his efforts had earned. But he had gone far enough, I could see. A woman looked too young to be a mother, but my eyes have no scale in these judgments any more. She lifted a three year old boy up to the interpretive sign and asked him, "Why don't we see any of these animals?" If we have more afternoons at sixty degrees F, we will. This three year old boy had attained the high ridge, a good effort for a wee lad. A man and a woman, each with binoculars around their neck, reported seeing nothing as they passed. I wonder how that's possible because I heard birdsong on the ridge.

I think I have an hour of sun, a remarkable fact. My crackberrying fingers are stinging after punching this out. Snow still lines the shadowy slopes of the dune woods. Snow remains in the hollows as late as May. This wind carries the cold up from Lake Michigan's deep reservior of blue chill. And I have a roller coaster of dune stairs to walk to get back to my car. And I want to play on the shore in my loafers. My parents are not around to tell me to change into boots.