jumpingfish

1. Deciding To Go

“Shall we take the kids to Silver Lake?” I asked. My cousin was up for it.

You see, we figured this was the last chance to take her kids while they are still young. Before adolescence sets in. While they can still sense magic drifting in the air. We figured it was the last chance to hike the dunes to let the memories embed themselves into their senses of self. Into their own stories of when they were very young.

We decided to go to Silver Lake.

2. Going There

We left the next day. But we didn’t take the route Google would take. We took a quieter, slower route. We took the two-lane, back-road route that my grandfather used to take.

We drove thru Howard City. Like a true old-timer, as we came into town from the south, I pointed to what is now the VFW Hall and reminisced about the Olsen Knife company that used to be in the same building. 

We drove across Hardy Dam, where we slowed to a crawl on the spillway as my grandfather used to do. And we looked out on the White River canyon (such as it is).

We drove thru White Cloud, where I pointed to the Manistee National Forest ranger station, although it’s not a ranger station anymore.

We stopped at the White River Roadside Park, where we drank from the artesian well my grandfather had us drink from whenever we drove this route.  And we walked down to the soft, grassy banks of the swift-flowing river.

We stopped outside the Leavitt Township Hall and drank from a second artesian well. We’ve stopped there year after year since I was a child. The generation before us did, too.  And all of Oceana County gathered there in a cold winter years ago when a fierce winter storm took out the power for miles around.

We came into Walkerville from the south, driving by the old Bunting home and stopping at the cemetary, where the childrens’ great great great grandfather and all grandfathers since and other Buntings are buried in the cool shade of Pines and Maples and Oaks.

We drove to the 40 Acres where my generation and the one before us spent several long summers when we were young. Here we struggled thru tangled thicket arriving finally at a Maple tree that I knew well. And we stood beside the Oak under which Nani ran her outdoor kitchen. I tried to share the flooding memories of those years when we ran free thru the cane-break, up pine needle strewn hills, under the canopy of a young Pine forest that my grandfather planted three generations ago, trees which towered over us now. But adequate words were difficult to find, and the kids were understandably anxious to get going.

So we continued west, trying (and failing) to pinpoint Abbott’s place. We drove by orchards of cherries and apples. We drove thru Hart, where my grandfather rode to a basketball game on a wagon behind a team of horses one cold winter many, many years ago. And from there we drove to Mears State Park on Silver Lake.

3. Silver Lake

Silver Lake is a place where sand dunes rise to heights you would not think natural in Michigan.

Here, the sand blows in the wind and bites at your ankles. From the top of the highest dunes, if you look you can see the dark blue water of Lake Michigan glimmering in the west. And if you listen, you can hear echoes of Lawrence just one sand dune away.

You don’t have to dig very deeply to discover one of the fundamental flaws of my personality. Ask anyone I work with. Ask my fair and industrious wife or my faithful son. Heck, ask anyone in my family. Sometimes I tend to babble on. This can be a particular problem when it comes to … well, anything.

As evidence, I submit

Or maybe we were just pulling your leg.

You decide!

It was something my grandfather said when he crossed the state line. He’d roll down the windows at the border. He’d breathe deeply. And then he’d say, “Smell them air!”

Breathe deeply now with me, and smell them air!

We gathered at this place in the woods, you see.

Iesha Evans v. the storm troopers:

photo credit: Jonathan Bachman/Reuters