{"id":4312,"date":"2016-10-17T18:13:48","date_gmt":"2016-10-18T00:13:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/?p=4312"},"modified":"2016-10-17T19:50:17","modified_gmt":"2016-10-18T01:50:17","slug":"west-of-lake-odessa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/2016\/10\/17\/west-of-lake-odessa\/","title":{"rendered":"West of Lake Odessa"},"content":{"rendered":"

“We just pulled up to the gate,” I texted Burt and Jenny. “I need to get my checked bag, and I have a book to read.”<\/p>\n

They had left their home in Kentucky well before the crack of dawn and were approaching Grand Rapids from the southeast. They were planning to pick me up at the Gerald R. Ford airport<\/a>, and none of us were quite sure of the timing, which is why I had a book.<\/p>\n

“Just west of Lake Odessa,” they responded. “Will call when we are close.”<\/p>\n

“Lake Odessa!” I thought to myself.<\/p>\n

In the days of our youth, my grandfather used to drive us diagonally across the lower peninsula of Michigan from Jackson to Grand Rapids following a rural route that took us thru Lake Odessa. And there on the south side of Michigan Highway 50<\/a> a block or two from the north shore of the lake was a Dairy Queen Brazier<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

He’d slowly steer the car into the parking lot and announce that it was time for a snack. We’d all pile out of the car and get ice cream cones that tasted so good that… well, good enough to keep my grandfather stopping there for years, although as for that, the smiling faces of his grandchildren probably helped a bit.<\/em><\/p>\n

And years after that, during the summer of ’78 while we worked summer jobs at the engineering firm where he worked<\/a>, Burt and I followed followed our grandfather’s example. After work at the end of the week, we’d drive that rural route (which we both can still do with our eyes closed) and we’d stop at the Lake Odessa Dairy Queen. Every Friday evening that summer, we’d stop there with Jimmy Buffet and Randy Newmann and George Benson playing on the radio, and we’d have ourselves a snack. <\/em><\/p>\n

These were the things in my head as Burt and Jenny announced that they had just passed thru Lake Odessa.<\/p>\n

“What did you tell him?” he asked her. He was driving. She had done the texting.<\/p>\n

“That we were just west of Lake Odessa,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Well,” he said. “He’s going to tell us to go back.”<\/p>\n

Sitting in the airport reading their text, with horror I was imagining the Dairy Queen receding in their rear view mirror. I quickly texted back a response.<\/p>\n

“Go back!” I said. “I have a book!”<\/p>\n

The two of them laughed very hard, as did the three of us when they later told me the story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“We just pulled up to the gate,” I texted Burt and Jenny. “I need to get my checked bag, and I have a book to read.” They had left their home in Kentucky well before the crack of dawn and were approaching Grand Rapids from the southeast. They were planning to pick me up at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4312"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4322,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4312\/revisions\/4322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}