May 27, 2016
Notes from morning until night are here recorded.
Spring Lake has posted American flags every ten feet through downtown, each side of the street drilled for flag posts. The staff of "A Good Concept" are at work in their offices, the plate glass revealing the interior of a 19th Century building gutted and rebuilt during remodeling. Even better, the antique bronze water fountain for for dogs has been returned to its time honored place by Seven Steps Up, a concert hall in a renovated Masonic Hall.
As I drove through Spring Lake, I realized that the bayous of the Grand River were still largely unknown to me. And then I thought of all the friends I had made here in the last decade. As much as I take delight in each friend, I know as little about my friends as I know about these bayous. This is a very quiet corner of the universe, mysteries impenetrable.
New Balance sends participants in Girls On The Run programs a fresh pair of running shoes with pink laces. Girls in Spring Lake laced their new pairs on today and took a shake down trot.
Needed hair cut. Got hair cut. Wanted goatee trimmed. Got goatee trimmed. My hairstylist pouted when I declined a "Howie Mandel". She had kept my head Howie Mandel smooth for a year. I had just returned to her salon after more than a half a year. She was happy to have hot days again. She requires little air conditioning. She doesn't shiver only on sultry nights. Every body is different and she has a body that doesn't stay warm easily. I threatened to get a permanent Kojak with a laser treatment and she laughed. If men started permanently removing their hair follicles at fifty, she worried about loss of livelihood. I paid, I tipped. I drove South of Grand Haven to relax. The blueberry field by the Admiral gas station had bushes in flower from looks of it. I glanced to see bee boxes if possible.
I glanced to see bee boxes if possible, bees still necessary to pollinate that field, usually two stacks of three by the now shuttered farm stand, the blueberries pollinated this week on sale by the Fourth of July. Did I hear the woman selling blueberry jams at Blueberry Haven right? When corn is just knee high by the Fourth of July, blueberries show up for sale at farm stands and farmers markets. By the way, Blueberry Haven stocks them fresh and sells them for a fair price. I kept driving, trying to avoid driving down to Holland. I love climbing the steps up and down through the dune forests of Rosy Mound County Park, and yet it costs five dollars if one lives outside Ottawa County. Aggressively patrolled, the township somehow uses its authority to write tickets there, robosigned after the fact by a city meter agent.
Aggressively patrolled, the township somehow uses its authority to write tickets there, robosigned after the fact by a city meter agent. I paid nine dollars last September for a Recreational Passport I've used a hundred times since, total cost nine bucks. Sorry Ottawa, keep your, possibly racist, beaches. So I took Lake Michigan Drive to Lakeshore Drive, and every home had a sign, "www.SlowLakeshore.com". So I drove forty-five and the only vehicles that didn't pass me with a curse word or the bird were the VW Buses stacking up behind me, all arriving at Buses at the Beach, a four day celebration of sun, music, beer and V-dubs held successfully at Camp Blodgett for three years running. Blodgett has existed on the best beaches in Ottawa County since early last century, open to all Grand Rapid children
Blodgett has existed on the best beaches in Ottawa County since early last century, open to all Grand Rapids children. Light rain has started failing at Blodgett, Buses by the Beach a go in liquid sunshine. South of Blodgett and Pigeon Creek, really a creek that flocked with millions of Passenger Pigeons, a unnamed village has a business that sells fuel for dune buggies and other big boy toys that girls usually drive better. Once, the village carried the name of Port Sheldon.
Sandy Point Beach House serves up pretty nice vittles. An outfitting store has tackle and flies for catching steelies and brookies and maybe a seriously lost splake. The owners could find a guide to put a sportsman right on the fish. The fuel stop has a little kitchen and a clerk fixed a walking taco in a Fritos bag, and I spooned it to myself, sitting at a picnic table.
Wondered how a visitor to the gas stop had managed to slaughter the first June bug of the year with a footfall? I felt like that June bug, and yet I still enjoyed consciousness and time to improve my karma. The rain has slowed down to the lightest drizzle and I remember that I need to buy cough syrup before I do anything else. Pine trees in a hedge have new growth, a paler shade of green from previous growth. Trim that new growth and the tree dies. Or so I remember being told. The pines remind me that I had made a promise to Viceroy when I left Keweenaw in Early April, before Tax Day and after April Fools Day. I left a note in his mailbox and he called me as I was fighting a snowstorm driving through Bruce Crossing. I promised to come drink KBC Widowmaker with him before taking off to Isle Royale.
I promised to come drink KBC Widowmaker with him before taking off to Isle Royale. KBC, intials for Keweenaw Brewing Company, requires little explanation to a seasoned Yooper. Yes, and I better call after that promise because I've learned two facts about men in my travels. One, if one makes friends with a man in Texas, he's a friend for life. Second, if you promise a man of the Upper Peninsula a visit, well, don't keep him waiting too long. It's probably just as true about Texas women and Yooper women. That is, a Texas woman's love lasts for a lifetime and one shouldn't keep a Yooper woman waiting. I just didn't bother the Yooper women too much while in town. I thought about that ferry ride across Lake Superior as I remembered Viceroy. Getting on that ferry soon is more than a gift to myself. On that long journey into a vast wild nowhere, only there can I honor the last generations of wild men in my family. My third grade teacher forced us to sign up for a social security number early, beginning the breaking of men in America. The power elite broke us with identification numbers in the seventies. Called it a retirement plan. Might as well stamp the nine digits on my forehead, mark of the beast. My child just texted me.
My child just texted me. I got it as a storm hit the coast with winds enough to shake my Trailblazer. The Buses by the Beach people are possibly dancing in the rain, wearing that rain as rainment.
It can't last. Mother nature has to shake off the heat of the day some how and rain and wind purges this heat sickness well. My child let me know that her and her mom were crossing the border into Canada. Not her mom mom, but the woman her age that adopted her in high school. So, Canadian Mounties are good but Care Bear mom is just as good. Plus, it's a repeat of last year's journey when I gave directions to Point Pelee. Chuckling, that's my girl. That's the girl I had to cross Straits of Mackinac every summer for six summers running to visit in an island fortress.
Mother Nature's energy is spent. My spring cough caused by sinus drip is not
Walker has a street called Wilson and no Rapid bus service, by vote of the people of Walker. Mile 42666.
Thomas Lynch is from Milford. So is the Grand Valley State University Student from Milford, to whom I just returned her purse. Mile 2690.
Grandville Michigan has a Speedway that connects to a laundromat, both open twenty-five hours a day, reminding me of a gas station in Corunna, Michigan. Mile 2705.
Some housing development built upon a spur of land thrust into a gravel pit lake near Hudsonville. Mile 2717
Has Glitter Milk Gallery on the southernmost section of Alpine closed, leaving Grand Rapids short one more gallery? Mile 2730.
Notes from morning until night are here recorded.
Spring Lake has posted American flags every ten feet through downtown, each side of the street drilled for flag posts. The staff of "A Good Concept" are at work in their offices, the plate glass revealing the interior of a 19th Century building gutted and rebuilt during remodeling. Even better, the antique bronze water fountain for for dogs has been returned to its time honored place by Seven Steps Up, a concert hall in a renovated Masonic Hall.
As I drove through Spring Lake, I realized that the bayous of the Grand River were still largely unknown to me. And then I thought of all the friends I had made here in the last decade. As much as I take delight in each friend, I know as little about my friends as I know about these bayous. This is a very quiet corner of the universe, mysteries impenetrable.
New Balance sends participants in Girls On The Run programs a fresh pair of running shoes with pink laces. Girls in Spring Lake laced their new pairs on today and took a shake down trot.
Needed hair cut. Got hair cut. Wanted goatee trimmed. Got goatee trimmed. My hairstylist pouted when I declined a "Howie Mandel". She had kept my head Howie Mandel smooth for a year. I had just returned to her salon after more than a half a year. She was happy to have hot days again. She requires little air conditioning. She doesn't shiver only on sultry nights. Every body is different and she has a body that doesn't stay warm easily. I threatened to get a permanent Kojak with a laser treatment and she laughed. If men started permanently removing their hair follicles at fifty, she worried about loss of livelihood. I paid, I tipped. I drove South of Grand Haven to relax. The blueberry field by the Admiral gas station had bushes in flower from looks of it. I glanced to see bee boxes if possible.
I glanced to see bee boxes if possible, bees still necessary to pollinate that field, usually two stacks of three by the now shuttered farm stand, the blueberries pollinated this week on sale by the Fourth of July. Did I hear the woman selling blueberry jams at Blueberry Haven right? When corn is just knee high by the Fourth of July, blueberries show up for sale at farm stands and farmers markets. By the way, Blueberry Haven stocks them fresh and sells them for a fair price. I kept driving, trying to avoid driving down to Holland. I love climbing the steps up and down through the dune forests of Rosy Mound County Park, and yet it costs five dollars if one lives outside Ottawa County. Aggressively patrolled, the township somehow uses its authority to write tickets there, robosigned after the fact by a city meter agent.
Aggressively patrolled, the township somehow uses its authority to write tickets there, robosigned after the fact by a city meter agent. I paid nine dollars last September for a Recreational Passport I've used a hundred times since, total cost nine bucks. Sorry Ottawa, keep your, possibly racist, beaches. So I took Lake Michigan Drive to Lakeshore Drive, and every home had a sign, "www.SlowLakeshore.com". So I drove forty-five and the only vehicles that didn't pass me with a curse word or the bird were the VW Buses stacking up behind me, all arriving at Buses at the Beach, a four day celebration of sun, music, beer and V-dubs held successfully at Camp Blodgett for three years running. Blodgett has existed on the best beaches in Ottawa County since early last century, open to all Grand Rapid children
Blodgett has existed on the best beaches in Ottawa County since early last century, open to all Grand Rapids children. Light rain has started failing at Blodgett, Buses by the Beach a go in liquid sunshine. South of Blodgett and Pigeon Creek, really a creek that flocked with millions of Passenger Pigeons, a unnamed village has a business that sells fuel for dune buggies and other big boy toys that girls usually drive better. Once, the village carried the name of Port Sheldon.
Sandy Point Beach House serves up pretty nice vittles. An outfitting store has tackle and flies for catching steelies and brookies and maybe a seriously lost splake. The owners could find a guide to put a sportsman right on the fish. The fuel stop has a little kitchen and a clerk fixed a walking taco in a Fritos bag, and I spooned it to myself, sitting at a picnic table.
Wondered how a visitor to the gas stop had managed to slaughter the first June bug of the year with a footfall? I felt like that June bug, and yet I still enjoyed consciousness and time to improve my karma. The rain has slowed down to the lightest drizzle and I remember that I need to buy cough syrup before I do anything else. Pine trees in a hedge have new growth, a paler shade of green from previous growth. Trim that new growth and the tree dies. Or so I remember being told. The pines remind me that I had made a promise to Viceroy when I left Keweenaw in Early April, before Tax Day and after April Fools Day. I left a note in his mailbox and he called me as I was fighting a snowstorm driving through Bruce Crossing. I promised to come drink KBC Widowmaker with him before taking off to Isle Royale.
I promised to come drink KBC Widowmaker with him before taking off to Isle Royale. KBC, intials for Keweenaw Brewing Company, requires little explanation to a seasoned Yooper. Yes, and I better call after that promise because I've learned two facts about men in my travels. One, if one makes friends with a man in Texas, he's a friend for life. Second, if you promise a man of the Upper Peninsula a visit, well, don't keep him waiting too long. It's probably just as true about Texas women and Yooper women. That is, a Texas woman's love lasts for a lifetime and one shouldn't keep a Yooper woman waiting. I just didn't bother the Yooper women too much while in town. I thought about that ferry ride across Lake Superior as I remembered Viceroy. Getting on that ferry soon is more than a gift to myself. On that long journey into a vast wild nowhere, only there can I honor the last generations of wild men in my family. My third grade teacher forced us to sign up for a social security number early, beginning the breaking of men in America. The power elite broke us with identification numbers in the seventies. Called it a retirement plan. Might as well stamp the nine digits on my forehead, mark of the beast. My child just texted me.
My child just texted me. I got it as a storm hit the coast with winds enough to shake my Trailblazer. The Buses by the Beach people are possibly dancing in the rain, wearing that rain as rainment.
It can't last. Mother nature has to shake off the heat of the day some how and rain and wind purges this heat sickness well. My child let me know that her and her mom were crossing the border into Canada. Not her mom mom, but the woman her age that adopted her in high school. So, Canadian Mounties are good but Care Bear mom is just as good. Plus, it's a repeat of last year's journey when I gave directions to Point Pelee. Chuckling, that's my girl. That's the girl I had to cross Straits of Mackinac every summer for six summers running to visit in an island fortress.
Mother Nature's energy is spent. My spring cough caused by sinus drip is not
Walker has a street called Wilson and no Rapid bus service, by vote of the people of Walker. Mile 42666.
Thomas Lynch is from Milford. So is the Grand Valley State University Student from Milford, to whom I just returned her purse. Mile 2690.
Grandville Michigan has a Speedway that connects to a laundromat, both open twenty-five hours a day, reminding me of a gas station in Corunna, Michigan. Mile 2705.
Some housing development built upon a spur of land thrust into a gravel pit lake near Hudsonville. Mile 2717
Has Glitter Milk Gallery on the southernmost section of Alpine closed, leaving Grand Rapids short one more gallery? Mile 2730.
Photo credit to SiLver sKY - http://www.flickr.com/photos/silverskysolutions/4435976846/
A doorknob of the Salt Lake Temple, crafted in 1893
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