Two faces of the Great Lake State (warning, rambling stream-of-consciousness content)

daytwaLast weekend? Downtown Daytwa. I’m sure the folks who live there don’t call it Daytwa anymore often than California residents call that state Cali. Or people here on The Planet Ann Arbor call our city Treetown or Oz or whatever. (Er, I *think* I’ve heard people refer to the planet as “Oz” before but not sure.) It’s like when people started to refer to residents of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula as “Yoopers”. The look on The Commander’s face when hearing the label “Yooper” was priceless and you always wanted to make sure she wasn’t anywhere near her kitchen knife. And she was a transplant, having grown up in, well, Daytwa, or close to it at least. She grew up on her grandparents’ farm in Garden City but megalopolis swallowed that once rural burg up long ago and when I was a teenager, the Mac family sold the house and somebody built a Burger King there. They had been renting it out for years and I had never been there but Grandaddy and Bolette took us on a tour before it was sold and demolished. Does Burger King still exist? I dunno and I dunno what is in that spot now but I kinda bet it is not a Burger King. I have the address somewhere so I guess I could take a field trip some time. By the time we took that tour, The Comm had lived in the Yooperland forever, made friends, and raised children (us) there.

I am a bit different than The Commander. Growing up in the Yooperland (I actually kind of love that moniker), I lusted for our trips down to my grandparents in Detroit and their beautiful little art deco home on Mark Twain (with a breakfast nook!) and our shopping trips to the downtown Hudson’s where The Comm began her career so many years before. I loved sitting in the back of Grandaddy’s Cadillac driving through downtown Detroit with all of its beautiful sky-scrapers. It was so unlike home, where the tallest building was six stories.

Detroit as I knew it as a child kind of didn’t exactly exist when I became an adult. My grandparents left their beautiful home on Mark Twain and moved out to Birmingham. White flight alas… But, I also visited Ann Arbor a lot as a kid and I always had in the back of my mind that I wanted to live here and somehow I was able to do that. And can I tell you how much I love it here? I’m sure you already know that.

But I’m going up to Tahquamenon tomorrow. If we are lucky there will be a shuttle between the falls for folks who don’t want to hike both ways. Or we will manage it on our own because we will have two vee-hickles. Or I might even hike both ways! Whatever, I am going north to the beautiful Yooperland and looking forward to hanging out with our North Country Trail Friends and I love having the (meagre as it is) means to be able to live in multiple places. We have worked so hard in our lives to be able to do that but it is worth it and love you all so much 💜

2 Responses to “Two faces of the Great Lake State (warning, rambling stream-of-consciousness content)”

  1. Margaret Says:

    Great post about enjoying memories and life and where you are right now. I too have come (mostly) to terms with where I am, and accept(sometimes) the relationships that I have at the moment. It’s difficult to adjust to change, so I am still prone to the occasional pity party.

  2. jane Says:

    I’m heading up on Monday to close up. My friend Jeanne is coming with and we’ll likely go to Tahquamenon since she hasn’t been there since her son was young and she and her husband did a Lake Michigan circle tour, with detours to the big lake. 😉