Thursday, June 16th, 2016
Noon --- Downtown Muskegon, Michigan
Ellen Berends is at work. Picnic tables await in Hackley Park, stacked up like green, fallen dominoes. It's every picnic table owned by the City of Muskegon. Ellen and her team will fill the park with tables and then jam the street with tables. She's turning Clay Street into an outdoor cafe.
The restaurants of Muskegon will bring their mobile kitchens to Clay Street. We'll all have a big sit down snack together. Call it the Taste of Muskegon. Ellen is one of those civic people who put it all together around here. She reminds us of a den mother plus a Fortune 500 VP who wanted a simpler life on the lakeshore. The bands are promising because who wants to eat in the park without music? Chris Cordle has a spot on the program. Chris Cordle looks like a guy who could pull off a good Todd Rundgren tribute act.
12:14 PM --- Hackley Park, Muskegon, Michigan
Ellen Berends knows how to book the acts. Chris Cordle looks like a guy who could pull off a good Todd Rundgren tribute act. He can build his own guitar too. Ruxy Music brings the party to the people, meaning there will be dancing on the green. Ruxy Music is an irresistible funk philosopher is on speed dial at the Muskegon Museum of Art. The museum calls Ruxy Music when an art opening calls for fresh.
The Shagwells are studio musicians who pay tribute to the British Invasion. The Shagwells will go well with the Scotch Eggs from Hennessey's Irish Pub. The Shagwells play at Hennessey's Irish Pub all the time!
That's not the only news that caught my eye as I drove to Farmers Market. It's simple sights that catch my eye. The main fire station has the big garage doors up. The most interesting firefighters in West Michigan can go about chores in the fresh air. One of the fireman sings plays guitar.
12:30 PM ---- Driving Terrace Boulevard, Muskegon, Michigan
One of the firefighters sings, plays guitar. And he does it for love, not money. If your fundraiser needs some light entertainment, call the fire station. Don't call the three digit Nine One One. Call the fire station office number. Ask for the singing fireman, who always says yes to a good cause.
One firefighter can locate a Great Lakes ship within five hundred miles of Muskegon. He doesn't need to consult the radar on Boat Nerd Dot Com. That's because he's the Lake Michigan correspondent for Boat Nerd. Firefighters waiting in a constant state of readiness use the time for self-cultivation.
12:34 PM --- Hot Rod Harley, Muskegon, Michigan
The smoke stack of the coal power plant on Lake Muskegon looks attached to the grand entrance of Hot Rod Harley. The smokestack is soon obsolete. The grand entrance displays great orange Harley shields. The smoke stack rises up right between them. Did the architect plan this?
The power plant is burning down its last load of coal delivered by a laker, a delivery made last summer. There's no good reason for a laker to enter Muskegon's channel anymore. It'll be pleasure ships, like the Lake Express and the good cruise ship Pearl Mist from now onward. Does Consumers Power believe that the lake residents will allow that tower to fall? The lake residents haven't allowed the tower at the paper mill to fall yet and it has been years. Leave the tower.
12:47 PM --- The Boomlands, Muskegon, Michigan
Leave the tower. The landmark guides kayakers on the Muskegon River. Peregrine Falcons raise their young on the side. It's nice that Consumers Power had built a Peregrine Falcon house on the side of the tall Shoreline Inn. The power company hopes the Falcons will move and be happy.
Yet, do we want tourists watching as plummeting Falcons kill pigeons on the way down from the tenth floor? Then the falcon has to pluck its kill clean on the lawn before the outdoor cafe of the Lake House Restaurant. Better to leave those falcons to their wild dinners out at the lagoons around the power plant tower.
Let's talk about Bob now. Bob serves as the official booster for the county. He runs the bus department and the tourist bureau. The talented Bob brings us cruise ships, bass tournaments and today, a new statue. Like all those Chicagoland peeps, he's an overachiever.
1:03 PM --- Holiday Inn, Muskegon, Michigan
Like all those Chicagoland peeps, Bob's an overachiever. He even found a man who wanted to give the city a sculpture that cost one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. A man named John Hermanson became obsessed with an old ship that worked the port of Muskegon back in the age of sail. He fell in love with this beautiful lost ship, the Lyman Davis. His grandfather had served as the captain of the Lyman Davis. Bob made sure it happened.
I had to look up the name of the ship. I kept thinking Lyman Briggs, an early professor at Michigan State honored by a lecture hall. Parents named many boys Lyman around 1855.
Hermanson asked friends and acquaintances to write checks. He hired a sculptor, Steve Anderson. Now we have a new sculpture on a roundabout near the Lake House. Now will we see Peregrin Falcons plucking kills off the new sculpture? Ask an ornithologist.
Booster Bob has a good summer going. New trick the eye boulders hang in the trees of Hackley Park for Taste of Muskegon, ready to fall. But the sculptor made the boulders from Styrofoam. A new Walldog style mural on the Holiday Inn honors the making of springs in town.
1:12 PM --- Muskegon Farmers Market, Muskegon, Michigan
I'm driving over to see the new sculpture as soon as I finish my Apple pie I bought from a woman at the Farmers Market. It's fine to know that good people remember the Lyman Davis with a good wind filling its sail. The age of wind will never fail on the always breezy waters of Lake Muskegon. We even host ships that sail into our port looking like one of Columbus's barques.
The Port of Muskegon even enjoys a yearly visit from the museum ship, the Friends Good Will. The Friends Good Will hails from South Haven, a heavenly port often called South Heaven. The local man who helps sails her plays Mandolin for tips Saturdays at the Farmers Market. The Silversides Museum hopes to build a tall ship to round out its fleet. It will moor by the Silversides submarine and the McClain, a Coast Guard cruiser. What if we could see the sails of the Davis fill with wind again?
5:43 PM --- City Beach --- Grand Haven, Michigan
Grand Haven has restricted parking at their Lake Michigan beach for now. I'm wondering if this is a result of construction on the street that goes along the coast. The detour takes one into the wooded sand hills, away from the beach. Driving diners car reach the Bil-Mar restaurant, but that's as far as the road allows car traffic.
The state of this street is harsh to tourists. I wanted a swim. The state park beach is one of the few beach accesses in town. Hoping the city bath house has open doors so I can change into a swim suit.
I can see where the Grand River arrives at Lake Michigan. At the mouth, the waters of the land begin to mix between with the inland sea. The river waters stream along the channel, and continue to steam at least a half mile out. Is it too cold to swim?
I like the mobile bartending service from the MUGS liquor store near the freeway. The unit has rolled up into the city beach lot. A Thursday night private party has taken over the city beach.
Bill-Mars won't mind if I slipped into their restroom and changed into swimming trunks?
6:16 PM --- Bill Mars Beach, Grand Haven, Michigan
I returned to my car with sandy bare feet, feeling rather surprised to be walking on pavement with my bare feet. I took a walk down to the waves from the Bill-Mar restaurant lot. The waves had enough strength and height to knock a man paddling his SUP off his paddle-board. "What's S'up"? Not him.
He had to push the board all the way to the beach to stand up on it again. The storm had carved a foot of sand out of the fore-beach, and I fell backward as the little cliff gave way under my weight. I wandered into the water and the coldness made my feet ache. Now that my feet have warmed, my feet now tingle.
I miss that cold water. I should have stayed in longer. Swimming would have been unbearable until my skin went numb, but what about it? I once swam in Lake Michigan all the time when it felt this cold.
Friends Good Will, a Tall Ship from South Haven, Michigan
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