This year I asked for (and received) a little piece of the Mackinac Bridge grate. The bridge was completed in 1957 and in 2017 they started replacing the grate in the middle two lanes of the bridge bit by bit.

At first they were selling great big grate pieces like too big to fit in your house but after a while they started selling little pieces like this. The other problem was that you could only get them by going to the bridge IN PERSON and while we traverse the bridge frequently, we never seem to be there at the right time. Somehow I got it into my head to try Etsy and VOILA! Of course, enterprising people who live a bit closer to the bridge have been scooping up grate pieces when they are available and they are ALL OVER ETSY. So I bought a couple pieces for the beach urchins and put it on my own xmas list with a note to check Etsy.

This is what I was gifted with. It isn’t the best pic given our dark crappy rainy ice storm winter day but there is an atomic rabbit who arrived with the grate and some fugly landfill crapola in the background just to keep it real.

In turn, I found a cool albeit dangerous looking knife made out of retired Mackinac Bridge grate steel for the GG. It was forged by a Michigan craftsman who included a hand-written note. There was even a reference to a bible verse. Although I am not religious at all, I am always happy to support small businesses and this all just about brought me to tears. Embiggen it because it is gorgeous.

I don’t think I will make a habit of collecting retired Mackinac Bridge grate fragments or knives made out of their steel but it was important to me to own a little piece of the bridge and I knew the GG would like the knife. I have vague memories of taking ferries across the Straits of Mackinac on our trips to see our Detroit grandparents and other down-state relatives. My dad and I would walk up to the upper ferry deck and he and I would walk around in the dark with our hands in our pockets. I also remember us traveling across the bridge the first day it opened and have a little card commemorating that event. These cards were handed out blank by the toll booth personnel (they were really busy) and my mom filled ours out. Dad, Mom, me, and my 3-month-old brother. I am the only one of us left.

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