The Wind Turbines Of Your Mind...Blowin' Through The Jasmine In My Mind...Cruising The Thumb On The Weekend...And A Post-Script From Pediddleville......

After another week working in the Northern suburbs of Detroit, this past weekend, like the weekend before, was spent way up North in The Thumb.  My goal was to make it to Bad Axe...I knew right away when no job came up on my iPad, that I was headed North, but when I got the call I chuckled when my dispatcher said "Bad Axe". I told her that my goal that day was to go there, and she was glad to help me fulfill it.  I just liked the name of it.  It sounded like a harsh place that builds character.  Apparently some old, broken axe was found by early settlers.  The article I read about it didn't specify if it was a Viking axe or not, but there have been many findings of Viking artifacts all through Michigan.  Funny that areas that were explored by Vikings would later be settled by their descendants, without being aware of it.  Here, and even moreso in Minnesota and the Dakotas, there is a lot of Scandinavian blood. There is even some speculation that a lot of Algonquin words have been derived from Nordic words, just as in some other areas the Native American  languages seem to have been influenced by Old Gaelic. In Fourteen Hundred And Ninety Two Columbus Sailed The Ocean Blue.

Bad Axe has a cool old movie theater, a converted Knights Of Columbus Hall, a music store that was once a bowling alley, and some fascinating antique Telco plant.  Next I went back South to Ubly, which has made it to my list of my favorite places, because it's so freaking rural, because it has a drag strip, and because the wind turbines that I now believe to number in the hundreds are all over the place.  I drove East from Ubly towards Lake Huron and I kept seeing them and seeing them for miles and miles. This is a case where Mankind has actually improved the look of a place. I just couldn't stop looking at them, with their slow, neverending turning, reigning over the land like the Gods of the trees. I have noticed that when the sun is out the light is extremely bright, white light, definitely brighter than I know of the sun in Connecticut.  I wonder if this is because the penninsula is surrounded by giant bodies of water, and maybe the reflection off the water and the snow on the ground magnifies the brightness. It must be gorgeous in the Summer. I only know the upper Thumb of Michigan in the last stages of a tenacious Winter, but the wind turbines are mesmerizing to see, always turning, a great army of goodness, common sense, and beauty...

On Sunday I was on a mission to see the Petroglyphs.  My GPS guidance system showed a route to my job in Ubly, but if I stopped and reprogrammed it here and there, I could go right by the Petroglyphs.  I made it there, and it was closed, so I moved on.  It was a clear bright white and cold day driving through the wide open flat farmland. Open skies, old collapsed barns and houses sporadically placed along the long straight lines of the roads were all I could see for miles, then the wind turbines started to become visible in the distance.  I had gotten very enchanted with the solitude out there alone in the middle of nowhere, or along the shoreline of the huge Lake.  I had completely stopped watching TV in my hotel room.  Silence and stillness permeated my being, even if I had the radio on in the van eighty-five miles out Van Dyke.  Moving along toward the job I was there to do,  I had the Detroit NPR station on the radio, and just as it fuzzed out with interference from another station, I got a chill through the van around my legs, making me think the heater had died. The song that I tuned in that was reaching from the adjacent frequency was "Summer Breeze", by Seals and Crofts.  At first I thought this was some real Cozmick Dada, but it may well have been some foreshadowing.

Two weeks later, back in Pediddleville:

Tonight I finally sat down to finish this thing, this account of where I have been.  I've been drinking three Michigan-made IPAs and trying to settle down and into the old Pediddleville mentality, out of necessity...

"Said the straight man to the late man, 'Where have you been?'  'I've been here and I've been there and I've been in between.'  I talk to the Wind.  My words are all carried away.  I talk to the Wind.  The Wind does not hear.  The Wind cannot hear."*

My Life has been a rapidly changing Flux since returning from the Thumb.  I had almost felt like I could go Native over there.  It has been a tough re-acclimation.  Nothing bad specifically; it's just not quiet here.  It's just not wide open.  I did want to get home because I missed my family and friends, and two or three projects I was working on, but the motivation eludes me.  That's Pediddleville.

A recounting of the return trip home needs to be the bookend here.  The last week of work in Michigan again was mostly in the busy suburbs of Detroit, places like Sterling Heights, Macomb, Shelby Township, and a few trips late in the days as far out as Thirty Mile Road and Port Huron.  We were set to head homeward on the last Saturday, but were required to work half a day before taking off for a hotel just East of Cleveland.  Right off the bat we all dispatched on jobs back in Connecticut!  It took two and a half hours to straighten that out, and of course in keeping with the trend, the job I got was in Fort Gratiot, an hour away up North near Lake Huron.  It was truly time to get out of Dodge, and when I finally gave up on fixing the trouble I was working on, I turned away in disgust, broke through the crusty roadside snow, and fell flat on my belly in a ditch.  Now I had about a six hour drive ahead of me. With pants splattered with clay, I swung by Huron one last time for a few more photos of the now almost clear lake--small icebergs had been seen the day before floating downstream from the lake through the St. Clair River--found a diner for a quick lunch, and started driving South.  The Winter, it seems, did not want to release us.  After I rounded the bend at Toledo, I was now driving in a snowstorm.  It was extremely slippery, greasy driving.  I caught up with a small group of my fellow travellers and we all cautiously drove for hours it it.  Cars were spinning out off the highway all over the place.  The wind was whipping across the road, at times, and I had to keep both hands on the wheel at all times to not lose control.  This was not good for me, since I had developed a muscle spasm in my left shoulder.  It was agony not being able to drop the arm to rest it, not being able to stop for fear of getting stuck, and holding in a bladder full of piss.  When we got to the hotel there was talk of going to a nearby restaurant.  I thought about it, but I needed a shower to wash away the nervous stink of the day's ordeal.  I chugged two IPAs in the shower, got dressed and walked outside to see if anybody was around.  I didn't see the restaurant they were talking about, plus I was exhausted.  With sleet pelting my eyeballs I walked over to the gas station, bought two twenty four ounce Yeunglings and went back to my room.

Somehow I woke up at 4AM.  I made some coffee and wrote the first two paragraphs of this post.   It didn't look bad outside.  The snow had stopped.  Most of the guys planned to shove off by six.  I cleaned off the van and got on the road at about six-thirty.  Just about the time I realized that my muscle spasm was coming back I also realized that it was snowing again--hard!  It was the same as the day before, slippery, nerve wracking, and many accidents.  After an hour and a half or so, the snow changed to heavy rain, but it was little comfort.  The wind kept my shoulder in agony and the road ahead was long.   Somewhere halfway through Pennsylvania I thought I'd better see if I needed gas and think about stopping for lunch.  Sure enough, the gas gauge told me I should stop.  The flashing "Service Engine Soon" light also told me I should stop.  I got off the next exit, got gas, checked the oil, added three quarts, crossed my fingers, and drove off to find lunch.  The van had been a trooper for the whole trip, and the idea of breaking down at this point was not welcome.  I had a tense lunch at a diner and started off again, figuring I really had no choice but to try to get as far as I could.  When it was idling, moving slowly, or accelerating, it was running really rough, but highway speeds were okay, which was a very lucky thing.  Damn the torpedoes!  I didn't have a problem other than the anxiety of not knowing if I'd make it until I finally hit The Metal Muncher (I-95 in Stamford, Connecticut) when I had to slow down for a traffic jam.  Please don't let it die here! Please don't let it die here!  I ended up making it all the way to Old Saybrook.   My wife picked me up in the parking lot.  I left a note in the office for X-Ray Man apologizing for killing his van, unloaded, and went home.  The next two days were hard after this two-day white knuckle ride.  I had not felt this much nervous exhaustion since the big storm clean-ups from a few years back. 

After a week, the company sent twenty more technicians back out to Michigan, including my Brother-In-Law.  I felt bad that I may have misled him and maybe others how great it would be for them, since the protections the company had had against us getting into dangerous areas of Detroit went straight out the window for these guys.  They are right in The Shit.

What did I learn on this excursion?

1.  Michigan has over one hundred and twenty craft breweries and brewpubs.  I did a fair amount of          sampling of these beers, mostly IPA's.  Most enjoyable.

2.  I like Solitude, and when I get out there by myself out in a wide open world, it beckons me.

3.  Even though everything is flat and in straight lines, there are reasons people consent to live there.

4.  People who oppose wind farms are assholes.

*Quote from King Crimson's "I Talk To The Wind" lyrics by Peter Sinfield.

The Heart Of The Thumb...Ubly Windmills And Lake Huron...Big Two-Storied Mausoleum...

On Saturday I got dispatched to a repair job.  When I looked at the job, I thought "UBLY" was an erroneous bit of telephone jargon, not a town, so I found an address in nearby Roseville and programmed my GPS Maps for that.  When I  arrived at the address I soon found out it was wrong.  This Siri-assisted driving is a Godsend in this unfamiliar locale, except in this case.  Looking again, I found out that Ubly was indeed a town seventy five miles North off Van Dyke, just south of the town of Bad Axe.  I'd already blown an hour on the wrong address, now I had nearly a two hour drive ahead of me.  Driving North it eventually became very rural.  I went through a town called Marlette that had put up a sign saying they were "The Heart Of The Thumb".  I saw many old collapsed barns, and many working farms, the land still being very flat and very wide open and smattered with remaining snow and ice.  It was a beautiful day, partly cloudy, but very bright with a big sky.  Stunningly beautiful desolation...

As I approached Ubly I saw a few swampy areas and adjoining fields that were wild, not turned into pastures or cornfields, and I got a sense of what the untouched land would be like, sort of a semi-prairie, I guess.  Then I noticed the wind turbines. At first I saw maybe five off in the distance, but as I entered Ubly I realized there was a whole wind farm there, spreading out for miles.  I was starting to be enchanted by this place.  It was not quite as flat anymore, sort of low, rolling hills here and there.  The roads and properties were all still in square grids, but I began to understand why people would live  here.  The ancient wind, and the people who understand it; a Timelessness I could feel.

And they have a drag-racing strip!  The people have to have something to do on a Saturday, and this is the ideal terrain.  I got to the prem, opened up the box, and within a minute I had the trouble fixed. I went inside and had coffee with the customer, a nice lady, retired teacher.  We talked about how bad Education is these days, and about how bad service is at my company--same stuff I hear back home.  I asked her about the wind turbines, and she told me a route to take to get some good photos of them, which would also take me by some Native American petroglyphs I had seen signs for.  The park was closed, snowed in, so I missed the petroglyphs, but I did see a couple of Amish men driving horse carriages down the road.  Here basically was a well-paid sight-seeing tour.  I didn't even need the GPS to get back to the hotel, just meet up with Van Dyke and drive seventy five miles.

Sunday I hit another fairly rural town called Croswell, well North of Port Huron. The people were not home.  I learned from my contact person that they were at Church.  They had statuettes of Jesus and Mary in the yard, also twin black-faced lawn jockeys.  A place of stark contrasts.  Next I went to nearby Lexington, which took me to the shore of Lake Huron.  Amazingly vast.  I had seen Lake Ontario years ago during the summer, but to see giant Huron iced over was thrilling.  This lake was not placid like iced-covered Lake St. Clair.  Even with the cover I could sense the peril of Huron, a fresh water ocean.  The frozen dunes around the lake were a wind-blown composite of snow and fine beach sand like you'd see on a sea coast.  Another day of easy work, sightseeing, and getting paid good money honestly.

I hope this weekend I get sent to the outer limits again.  Back in the usual coverage area during this past week it's just a lot of commercial hustle-bustle and fairly ugly residential areas.  Every chain store you can imagine is here, over and over.  I have never seen so many Wal-Marts in my life!  Two miles South of my hotel on VanDyke there is a Wal-Mart, and a half a mile North is another one.  Two Wal-Marts within three miles of each other, on the same road!  What is refreshing is that while there are Dunkin Donuts here and there, they are not so numerous, not like in Connecticut where you  literally cannot spit without hitting one. Really the only interesting place I saw this past week was a humongous Catholic cemetery.  I've never seen anything like this in my life. In Connecticut I've seen cemeteries that may have a little office in the maintenance shed, with a phone/fax machine or a DSL hook-up, but this place actually had a big professional office building with executives and clerical staff and a receptionist.  A staff person got in a pickup truck and had me follow him to my job location, about a half mile past countless headstones still covered with Christmas Grave wreaths and snow to the Crypt,  It was a large building of polished marble  and great bronze statues of the usual cast of characters housing the cremated remains of thousands of people in marble and brass drawers.  I was there to repair the emergency telephone line-- for the elevator to the second floor!

Today my goal is to make it to Bad Axe, fingers crossed.

Michigan Seems Like A Dream To Me Now...Greetings, From The First Thumb Knuckle Of The Mitten...

Thursday, March 13th
I've always thought of Michigan as a snowy place, and yesterday's introduction to working in this place was a trial by Fire,...well, Snow.  I don't know if it happened, but some of the Locals were hoping they'd get a lot so they could break a snowfall inches record from the 1800's.  The rest of the Locals were just plain sick of this Winter.  Boy, do we have some pot-holes here.  Thankfully, I don't think X-Ray Man will be upset if I wreck his van.  The old bucket of bolts has been a trooper so far.  I've been in the Detroit suburbs of Warren and Sterling Heights, which inexplicably is very flat, and got up North a bit to Clinton Township, where I hit some roads that were unplowed.  The van was resolute and merciful to me by not getting stuck at all.

The local Weatherman just said the total yearly snowfall is now at 90.7 inches, not over that record.  If we have another snowstorm, they will have a shot at the record again, and it will truly be a freak winter.  Yesterday the only task was not having an accident or getting stuck.  Today will be clear, and COLD.  The sight-seeing day.

Friday, March 14th
Today was a pretty decent day.  I felt physically good, well rested, and it was a comfortable weather day.  The jobs I did were relatively easy. Some of my goals while here are starting to formulate.  I haven't yet seen Lake St Clair, or any lakes for that matter.  This place terrifies me in a way.  Not that I am hating it, but I am used to New England driving.  I miss driving by rivers, up hills, eating lunch at the beach.  Here in the Detroit suburbs I work a lot in a place called Sterling Heights.  I've looked and I don't see anything remotely resembling "Heights" that isn't Man-made.  This place is FLAT! and all laid out in grids based on all these roads that are exactly one mile apart running East to West parallel to each other.  So orderly a plan, it just seems wrong to continue it out into the suburbs from the city, and it continues even way out into the rural areas.  I just don't look at Life at right angles, I guess.  The story goes that New England roads were laid out by cows, and I think I prefer the good job they did.

Another goal I have is to take some pictures, and so far all I've seen is a bunch of busy roads, strip malls, industrial areas and giant factories, and a little bit of residential Suburbia and Rural.  All of the newer-constructed houses out there are wildly incongruous with the surroundings.  They look like something you'd see in Spain or Italy.  There are a few old barns and farmhouses and small one-story brick houses, often obscured by a new McMansion/Villa house, and they're all laid out in that ninety degree Expanse. I really haven't seen much of anything interesting to shoot.  Did I mention how flat it is here?  I noticed that the local Tax Return Services employ people to go out by the road and dress up like the Statue of Liberty with a sign advertising their service.  I have seen this before in Connecticut, but the two guys I have seen doing it here are goofing on it big time.  One of them wears a red ski mask, and stands out in front of the Wal-Mart on VanDyke, and the other one is further North on VanDyke..  This guy has some kind of green foam mask matching the color of the Oxidized Copper Green of the costume, making him look like some mutated Gumby.  It is my goal to get good pictures of these two.  It's hard with the traffic.  I pulled into a gas station across six lanes of Van Dyke and snuck behind  the van and tried to surreptitiously get some shots of the ski mask guy, but I think I was too far away.  I 'm  going to keep trying. It's got to be documented!  I will be on this Quest!

The Port Huron Statement...Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing...Old Chub...

Another day on the road. Just as I was about to turn onto the entry for 80West at about 8:45 AM, I hit random play on the iPod and up came "Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing" by Stevie Wonder.  That is one of those songs that you hear later in Life at some point and it just bowls you over, how fucking awesome it is, and you had never realized it till then.  This happened to me some years ago now, but I still feel it today.  Fitting also that it began my journey to Detroit, since Stevie was from there putting out his records on the Tamla Motown Label!

Saw the divide between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi watersheds, or rather, saw the sign indicating it.  Saw a lot of terrifyingly flat land through Ohio.  Everything about everything there was about agriculture, and I wondered how much of it was Devil-dealt by Monsanto.  When I drove past Toledo on the Highway, I hit the Westernmost point I've ever been to in this Country.  Got on 280 North, then 75, and that's when the sights started to change and the road began to remind me of "The Metal Muncher" back home. (I once was on Jury Duty in New Haven and heard a State Trooper say how he and his cohorts at the barracks call that section of I95 between New Haven and Stamford "The Metal Muncher" because of all the accidents.) Not being a smart phone user, and unable to look at my iPad as I got into the heavy Detroit traffic, I overshot my exit for Warren, Michigan, where I am now, by a long way....

I had gotten off an exit to get my bearings, and couldn't.  I didn't know where the Hell I was.  Everything out here is Gigantic.  Kept looking East to see if I could see a Great Lake, but they were obscured by giant auto plants apparently.  I asked a guy in a parking lot-suppose I should have found out exactly where I was, because he told me continue North, and there would be signs for Warren, but what he really meant, maybe without knowing it, was that I should've gone South, and that there would 'nt be signs!  So I went North a good half hour, thinking that this area was so huge I'd find it eventually.  At last I stopped at a rest area and got straightened out by some locals with a smart phone, headed back South to find I696, where I needed to be-the exit for Port Huron.

Arriving late, but not last, of our twenty van force, to the hotel, within a minute of entering the lobby there was a beer in my hand.  Checked in, threw my bags in my room and off I went with a couple of my co-workers. There is an Irish pub called Malone's across Van Dyke.  I had two pints of  Old Chub Scotch Ale that did me right, and I can normally handle much more. Good, strong beer after the long haul was life-affirming.

Somehow I woke up early.  Today we go to work . Yet another Winter storm should arrive today, if you can believe it, on March 12th, so today will assuredly be an adventure-what I signed up for...

Er-lie In The Marnin'

Leaving Old Saybrook, the banjo song on my radio station was "Er-lie in the marnin'" then "I'm Only Sleeping" by the Beatles.  Fitting send-off in an unfamiliar vehicle starting on a long days journey into the only slightly unknown.  Got to the office ready to go with the truck I usually drive, only to find out it was unregistered, not a good thing for interstate travel.  Had to borrow X-ray Man's truck.  Now everything about my trip will be unfamiliar.  Typical corporate Snafu, always trying to push the envelope on the Regulations.  I am on the way to Detroit, Michigan to work, a lot, and find a small temporary fortune...

Spent a lot of time on the highway in Pennsylvania, mostly West 80.  I can say this: they do not clean up their roadkill here.  Also saw a million or so blue plastic bags strewn on the roadside. But pretty country!  Even in that end-of-winter dreary state it's in now.  Saw people riding in a horse-drawn sleigh off in a field that had some snow left.  I am with a convoy of seven telephone service vans heading for a long haul of relief work in the Motor City. Tomorrow's trek will bring us back into snow and eight degree weather, I hear.

Destination, the mythical City of Detroit. Lions! And Tigers! And Fords! Oh My! Lake Huron and Lake St. Claire. Motown.  Poverty and abandoned neighborhoods.

For dinner went to Pizza Hut for bad pizza and life-affirming beer, and Hot Damn!, this is Pennsylvannia, and the fucking Pizza Hut has Yuengling!

Took a shower and I'm watching Sir Paul on TV.  Na Na Na Na Na Na nah...

Lottery Land

It's been some days since I've looked at the News with much scrutiny after having been very attentive during the Government Shut-down.  This exercise in Political Dickishness perpetrated by the party of the Insane, the GOP, has left me exhausted and confounded.  Hunter S. Thompson believed that the 2001 September 11th attacks caused a National Nervous Breakdown, and this kind of divisiveness based in Hate is blatantly symptomatic of an untreated post-trauma...

At times I've felt that the only solution to the divisive attitudes in Congress these days is to break up the Two-Party System into smaller parties, so that actual coalition governing could take place, like in some of the more civilized nations around the World.  For the sake of familiarity, lets say those parties might be Progressive or Green, Liberal Democrat, Libertarian, GOP, and Tea Party.  Now I'm not so convinced it would work.  The Money influences would find a way to fuck with that scenario soon enough, and we're back to Square One, which is Government for The Rich and Powerful.

There is only one solution I think can work in this brain damaged, nervous breakdown country we live in:  Election by Lottery.

Are you feeling lucky?  If you are a US Citizen, and a registered voter, you could be elected!  There would be a drawing for all offices on a certain date, and every citizen, no matter what views, economic status, social connectedness or even qualifications they had would be equally likely to be elected as anyone else. You could end up as a state senator, or a US Senator.  How about President?  There could be no possible conspiracy to predetermine the trajectory of the Nation by falsifying paperwork and perpetrating some kind of Manchurian Candidate scenario.  Think of the relief most citizens would have in not having to deal with the agitation that comes with the political campaign cycle!  No campaigns! No ads!  No Gerrymandering! No sexist/racist anti-voting shenanigans!  Your sexual behavior would not, could not, be an electability issue since your holding of office would only be judged by your post-election behavior.  If you're ugly, or black, or a scientist, or poor, or an Atheist you'd have just as much electability as Captain America.

Think of the Time, Money, and Energy that could be saved, instead of dumping it all down the existential rat-hole that is the U.S. political election cycle!  How great it would be to not have to listen to those primary debates (or what the Media allows us to believe apparently passes for debates--go to a real proper debate at a college and you'll see what a Wankfest our political debates are).  It would certainly help my outlook for the future not having to get to know the candidates.  Right, I'd rather just be surprised on Election Day.  There would be some sort of oversight process, of course, in case some real whacko is elected, but then again, I'd bet things would work out much better.  There would be strict term limits, no lobbying, and elected officials would be required to vote the will of their constituents rather than whatever agent of Evil Greed gave them money and blowjobs.

I think it's the only hope for this country.  It's certainly less crazy than what we have now.

Editor's Note...State Of The Blog...Pediddleville Lost?...

EDITOR'S NOTE: It has come to my attention that the author of this blog, avalonjeff, has not posted anything since July 1, 2013. No contact has been made with him since around that time.  A check into the back pages of this thing show three unfinished drafts dating from August, 2013.  One addresses Racism in some way, while the second is a whimsical piece about the Only Hope for Democracy, and as one would suspect, some kind of aquarium update may be lurking in the draft folder.

It can only be imagined what he has been up to.  He might come back with wild tales of Lottery Elections, mystical experiences, xmasphobia, kayak wanderlust, job insecurity, escapes from Pediddleville, Mallet Finger and Healing, bagpipes and three funerals of very different sorts.  All or none of the above.  -Ed.