Where do I start with this post? I dunno. A facebook friend I have known since probably kindergarten (a popular guy I have never known well) posted a picture of some snowmobiles with commentary that people who complain about snowmobilers should think about what visiting snow-mobilers contribute to the yooperland economy, which is and has been very depressed for many many years. My lifetime and before. And still.

I don’t know this “friend” very well and I don’t think we agree about politics but he also seems to actually CARE about people, etc. I am trying desperately to find any little bit of common ground with MAGA folks so I wrote a polite comment agreeing with him. Because I DO agree with him. Tourists of any sort help struggling economies. My comment was well received by him and others.

I *have* complained about snowmobilers throughout my life. But life is complicated and so are people. As a high school kid, my brother was dying to have a snowmobile. My brother became a mechanical/automotive engineer and snowmobiles were right up his alley. So we had one for a while. I actually drove it once or twice, across the schoolyard and back. I had a guy named Nick Sherman (cousin of my friend Danny Sherman from yesterday) riding behind me. He was apparently impressed with my ability (as a girl) to drive a snowmobile. I was much less impressed with my snowmobile driving abilities. He may or may not have had a bit of a crush on me and vice versa. But he was only visiting us for a few days and his cousin Danny will always be the first “love of my life.”

What mainly bothers me is when trails get mixed. What I mean is that snowmobiles do NOT belong on hiking trails. Those belong to pedestrian traffic. Most snowmobilers are responsible about this but there are always a few of those, “Well! I drive my snowmobile when I’m drunk!” folks. This is an actual quote from a (long dead) moominbeach neighbor at a county meeting where the agenda was supposed to discuss a part of our two-track road. (I was not there.) The road issue didn’t come up until another neighbor rattled along about, “I don’t like when those snowmobilers drive drunk” (blah blah blah). And that didn’t even bring up the road issue, it just prompted the drunk snowmobiling guy to get up and leave, hollering on the way out. My parents and Radical Betty were totally cracking up about this whole thing.

A cautionary tale. My uncle Don was a popular GP in Sault Ste. Siberia. He delivered about a bazillion babies and to this day, when people see/hear my last name (which I didn’t change when I got married), they ask if he was my dad. Nope. He was my uncle. My dad did not do anything involving blood, guts, or amniotic fluid. He was a banker (like his dad). A couple other things my uncle did… 1) Sew somebody’s nose back onto their face. 2) Deal with (in the ER) a person (maybe two, I can’t remember) who snowmobiled across a wire and got beheaded. I’m pretty sure he/they were dead by the time they got to my uncle at the ER. Jack of all trades…

Where do I end with this post? This pic is not from the yooperland. It is from Tip-up Town at Houghton Lake, an event we are not at this year. This event began long ago as an ice fishing event but now incorporates snowmobiles and helicopters and all kinds of stuff.

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