Here I am back in Michigan for another three week stint. It feels different this time. Even though all the roads and everything are all flat and in straight lines, it feels more rounded- off because all the trees have leafed out and the ambient background is Green rather than White, Dead Brown and Gray. On my first trip out I found it disconcerting to not be able to identify some of the trees. Now I can say they were probably Elms, Cottonwoods, Butternuts or Willows I was seeing, none of which are plentiful in Pediddleville. Today the air was full of the Cottonwood's downy seeds flying around like snow.
I know the first time I came out here it was a very spur of the moment thing and just about everything was unexpected--I certainly appreciated my trips up to the Thumb and along Lakes Huron and St. Clair, seeing the wind turbines and the vast openness out there, plus it made it easier and more interesting working the long hours. So far on this trip I have been stuck in the boring suburbs, even though I am supposedly assigned to the Mount Clemens (Bath City) area covering Port Huron. I know maybe I should be patient, that the great bonus I seek will come, but right about now, sitting in my truck on hold with a call center for forty-five minutes listening to drivel hold music as cars zoom by at a busy intersection, I feel the urge in a dire way. I did get in to Detroit for one job this past Sunday. It was at a house that sat, along with three others, right next to a giant abandoned factory complex that took up an entire three block area. Two garage doors were gone from the side of the building, and I could see daylight all the way through to the other side. Just inside the doors was a pit which contained the burned-out hull of a twenty foot speed boat. It must have been quite a scene at one time. This neighborhood was quiet--dead quiet. The house I was going to had a threatening, paranoid sign on the front door saying not to knock, so I just left a note saying that the occupants needed a different utility to do the work requested, took a few pictures of the factory, and drove off taking in all the urban decay. I didn't feel in danger because there was nobody at all around. The bright side was that it was so different from the suburbs.
I knew right away when I got up to the Thumb back in March that I would love to see this place in the Summer, and here I am, but so far I've been cramped in the busy boring suburbs north of Detroit, only up as far as Twenty Three Mile Road. It's like if you took the Boston Post Road in Milford, CT, straightened out about twenty three miles of it, then lined up fifteen of those all next to each other. Every National chain store and restaurant you can imagine is here, over and over again. I am very goat-like when it comes to Consumerism, and I can't seem to wrap my mind around this place. Just a couple of days ago I came to the realization that if you are at a four-way intersection, there will be a CVS/pharmacy at one of the corners, always. Often there is also a Walgreens and a Rite Aid. I'd almost guess this is a state law mandating "corner drugstores".
I felt pretty disappointed about all this, but still it beats working right in Detroit, I guess, where there is always the possibility of danger. I had become enchanted with the rural parts of Michigan I saw in the Winter, and in coming back here I wanted more. When I got back home from Michigan at the beginning of April I was very inspired to get back working on a couple of projects I had left behind, but things didn't pan out. Scheduling conflicts, technical difficulties, and a serious battle with the 'ol Creatism Disease all dogged me. I was completely bored and frustrated with work back home,
motivationally challenged, and all the money I made in Michigan was quickly depleted. About all I remember from that time between trips to Michigan was a slow, slow change to warm weather, lots of hectic running around, disinterest in work, a lot of Championship level Procrastination, and the dumb, blanket rule of Pediddleville Law. I was watching the Fargo mini-series on TV. The long shots of cars driving on long, flat roads in the middle of a desolate winter in Minnesota reminded me of what it was like for me back in March, up in the Thumb.
The turning point came when I tried to dispatch and could not. I contacted my dispatcher and she said she'd have to "open me up", and Boom! I was now in the 810 area code! I got to Allentown, a depressed-looking little village surrounded by flat, open farmlands, and to Port Huron, St. Clair, and East China along the blue, blue St. Clair River, right across from Ontario. Now I was happy. Seeing these places in the summer that I had seen only in Winter was a rush. Some roads I had travelled before, others not. I was driving along in the farmlands one afternoon and I saw a dead animal on the roadside. Something about it seemed strange, and I thought it was probably just a cat, but something made me turn around and take a look at it. This animal had light colored fur with orange-y stripes. It was definitely not a cat, definitely not a raccoon. It had vicious -looking teeth very much resembling those of a Wolverine. Canine-looking, but snaggly and sharp, these teeth were dangerous. I think this animal is in the same family as Weasels and Wolverines, but I can't seem to find it online to identify it. Later that day I was talking to an old-timer while fixing his line and I mentioned it to him. He said it would be a very rare thing if it was in fact a Wolverine. The coloring of this animal is wrong for a Wolverine also, but the shape of the face and what I could make out of the body, and those teeth! I need to find out what it is. I'm going with Wolverine till I know better, but since then I have seen two more of them dead by the road, so the likelihood that they are Wolverines is low. Even still, I'll be on the watch for a live one.
Earlier in the day I worked on a line for an old widow who had a nice little property tucked away
among the flatness, not far from the power transmission lines that seem to run off to Infinity. This
was obviously the highlight of her day, and she watched me as I worked and chatted, mostly asking me about what I was doing. She wasn't really aware that she had a problem with her line- the neighbor who watches out for her had called in the trouble ticket. As we chatted she mentioned that her husband had had a phone line out in the large garage in her back yard, and that he used it when he used to go out there to "watch TV". I said I should check that line, since disuse and corrosion could be her problem, but I was really interested in what was in that garage. Keep in mind this area is just outside of Metro Detroit, though it is rural. Sure as shit, there was a Model T, an old, old Cadillac, and a red 1980 Pinto, all under covers in mint condition! It's a good bet that her husband had worked for Ford. This is the kind of stuff you'll see here if you look! Now I was starting to have fun.
I finished work and I had some gear to pick up out by the telephone pole. I drove my truck out there and noticed a stalk of asparagus growing there in the long grass. It looked good, and my plan was to harvest it and munch on it raw, but the lady walked out to the road to chat some more. It seemed like she had read my mind and wanted to keep her asparagus, but she was probably just lonely. I left the asparagus, waved goodbye to her several times and drove off to the crossbox to sign off. Over at the crossbox I finally took the opportunity to blow up my Swedish Bagpipes and play for a little bit. The pipes were the one thing I was able to accomplish when I had been home. Their completion had been stalled due to my first trip to Michigan, and after I got home I was able to turn a functional, but not quite accurate chanter. At least now I could play them and see what they were like. It has been a goal of mine to play these and get acquainted with them while I'm here, but stuck mostly in the suburbs I feel inhibited. No, it has to be out in the rural areas.
Another job I had had a surreal feel to it. I was at an unmanned facility of some sort belonging to the Town of St. Clair replacing a temporary feed left over from the Winter. It was in the middle of nowhere down a dirt road. There was a locked chain across the driveway, so I had to walk in about a quarter mile just as I felt the urge to poop. When I got in there, lo and behold, there was a Port-O-Potty! Walking in, I had noticed the odor of a dead animal. I saw something laying in the field, thought it was a deer, but then it turned out to be a cardboard box. As I did the work I had to pull the old wire off the ground in the field. I saw that the field had been a large puddle for some time, and it had recently dried up. In all the last depressions at the bottom of the puddle there were the dead bodies of thousands of polliwogs- which were what I had been smelling. Then I noticed thousands of tiny baby toads hopping on the ground as I neared. They were about the size of a pea, and there were so many of them that I had to be careful not to step on them. These were the winners in the race against Time.
Between jobs I travelled along the road that goes along the St. Clair River, which is the outlet from Lake Huron. Across the River is Ontario. The water of the River, like the Lake, is incredibly Blue. I believe this is because there is a light colored clay bottom, the water is clean and clear, and it's not all clogged with algae and organic debris. Beautiful. I had a Divinely located job at a the Culinary Institute of Michigan, right at the Nexus where Lake Huron turns into the river, and the bridge that goes from Port Huron to Canada.
The furthest up the Thumb that I've gotten so far is to the town of Peck, where I saw a buffalo farm. I bumped into Raynard, one of my Connecticut co-workers at the tiny central office in the
town. I was practically giddy as we talked about how much we liked it up there-- and it was beginning to seem like we would see more of this--and we were very hopeful. I said I almost felt guilty because some of the guys work right in Detroit every day. They are not seeing God's Country, they are seeing dilapidated houses, crack sales, prostitutes, horrendous roads, and overgrown neighborhoods on their way back to Nature. I left Raynard and went on to my next job, at a house right on Lake Huron. It had a private beach and the people who lived there were not home. Of course, I went down the stairway to the beach and enjoyed it for a while. I collected some beach stones and gazed at the massive beauty of the giant Blue Lake. Of course, I pulled out the Swedish Bagpipes and had a little jam session with the Lake. Now I almost feel like I might have been gloating at how great time I was having doing my job. Heading South I did one more job in Marine City, again Divinely placed right near the River. I completed my work, then took a stroll through the nice riverside park for a while. People were fishing in the river, walking around with ice cream cones, and enjoying the nice early evening. I may have realized at that point that when I was working in these rural areas I seemed to have near mystical experiences--everything in slow motion, seeing every detail, feeling free--and that that, was that. True enough. The whole rest of my time in Michigan had an entirely different flavor...
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