How to Swim from Michigan to France

 

When I was a child I could have swum across Lake Huron all the way to France. Don't bother me with geography, my sister assured me she could see it. In my twenties I visited Bourg-Saint-Andéol. The cool breeze made it feel like Michigan. Turns out, we are at about the same latitude.

This is also where the Soviets were going to land with their parachutes at any minute. The things they told us in the 1970's. The Ice Age was upon us. We would live on the moon in the year 2000. Cars would fly. We'd have scanners at the grocery store that would know how much each item...wait a second. 

We drank sugar. We sat too close to the TV, but not as close as you are to your phone. We ate hot dogs straight out of the refridgerator! Milk was 5 cents at school, 6 if you wanted chocolate. There is no cents symbol on my keyboard. We had roller rinks. I am not even going to define that. If you know, you know.

I had a tiny red Bible given to me at school. The Gideons handed them out. 

I wonder if they still do that.

A Little Reminiscing

 

Park 1 and Park 2 were joined by this simple wooden bridge in my day. Now it is one big park and no one seems to remember it was once different worlds. The gully between them was deep. It's full of poison ivy now. There are warnings posted. It may have been then too. I seemed to catch it most summers.

Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock beamed down here often. This planet is just like Earth. If we had friends over we'd have Sulu and the Russian guy too. Sleestaks chased us, though they were from another show. I spelled Sleestak right without even looking.

Now our whole world is like this big ditch. 

One side, and another, needing someone to beam down and put things right. 

Little Blog

 

Everyday words go into the air and find you in a small village or a big town or over the sea. What do you see here? What is Dandelion Tea to you?

Waves

 

It's cold...

 

...but it's warm.

The Basement Stairs

These were my childhood basement stairs.

I bounded up them many times. Why? The boogieman, of course. I remember being scared in that house, but not always. Sometimes the dog seemed scared. Whatever was there, if there was anything, is long gone. I have a feeling one of us had been there before me. You know, one of us who casts things out in the Name of Jesus. 

What was I doing in the basement all those years ago? 

Washing my early 1980's Jordache jeans, of course. 

I had one pair.

I was also sharpening pencils. 

This pre-dated our 1973 arrival. 

I have no idea how old it is now.

This is our old house from the road. It looks like Southfork, doesn't it? 

It's not that huge at all. The trees, however, are 100 feet tall. 

Pretty sure you could climb them to Heaven.

Going Home

 

Almost Heaven,

West Virginia,

Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River.

Life is old there,

Older than the trees,

Misty taste of moonshine blowing on the breeze.

Is that what it says? 

Michigan doesn't have a song, 

so I borrowed this one from John Denver.

Take me home, country roads, to the place where I belong...

We moved from the lake when I was almost fourteen. I have wondered 

over the 42 years since what life would have been like if we'd stayed.

Educated in a small town 

Taught the fear of Jesus in a small town 

Used to daydream in that small town 

Another boring romantic, that's me...

John Cougar Mellencamp

My tiny elementary school, my grandma and grandpa's red barn, the Dairy Queen where our bus stopped on the last day of school, the timeless General Store and the Big Boy restaurant in Port Huron had been there this whole time waiting for me. On moving day I twisted my ankle jumping out of the van and didn't get to go back into the house. I never got to say good-bye, until now. I was like Mater in Cars.

"Bye!"

Somehow I know now it was the right time to leave back then, 

just like it was time to return when I did. For a moment. 

Take a Walk With Me

 

The Return

If you know me, you may think the title is about the return of Jesus. 

Nope. 

This is about my return to my childhood home on Lake Huron in Michigan (pointing to thumb). 

It's been a bit over...many...years and I've hardly changed:

I was showing Oldest Son photos yesterday and it struck me how often our riding lawnmower made an appearance. In Michigan a riding lawnmower doubles as a snowplow in the winter. There's an attachment you can get that shoves snow into giant mounds. Think: I am the king of the castle. Here my Dad is pulling my sister and I around on a toboggan. In the American South a toboggan is a woven hat. Up north it is a long wooden sled curled up on the front end like an elf's shoe.

Those were dark days when even the children worked. According to the date on the photo, my sister was 7 here. That can't be right. She was paid $1 an acre to mow our yard, but that was when she was about 12 I think. Maybe she is just playing here. That's me on the swingset, not working. Dad with rake. He worked too. We all worked and everyone smoked and no one wore seatbelts. How did we survive? 

My sister has hardly changed either, by the way. It's uncanny! 

My sister seems to have worked a lot, while I am a lady of leisure even then:

I'll be home soon. 

The house is a vacation rental these days and hubby and I are taking our now grown kids to see it. I won't make them mow the yard. Promise. 

But I will post pictures!