Signs of the times, and a trip down memory lane
Signs of the times, and a trip down memory lane
I’m in Bay City at my cousin Marc’s house. Despite my lack of communication, Marc’s my favorite cousin, the closest to me in spirit, interest. I learned some interesting things about him that I hadn’t been aware of before. We flew into Detroit Metro Wednesday evening. By the time found our way through the airport, got our car, and got on the road it was almost 11:00 local time. We got to my sister’s and had pizza and stuff that she ordered. Thursday morning we drove out to see my folks. Mom’s looking ok, but there’s something different. For one thing, she’s lost weight. Not eating much because of the nausea from chemo. I gave her the Tasty Healthy Confectionary goodies that I brought for her, explaining what they were. My walked up as i was doing this, asked what it was. I said it was anti-nausea medicine, home-made. I don’t know if she’ll try them, I asked her to put them into the freezer, try them if she thought it appropriate. Will she do it? I don’t know, but i’ve done what I could. I confirmed with Nissokone about my visit later that afternoon, then we took off for the north. One thing that blew my mind was the trip up. The drive here included following US-23 up the Lake Huron coast. This stretch of road has many cottages with Huron lakefront, and there’s nothing to really distinguish them from the road except the unique signs that people have made, often with the family name. One of my favorite ones was for “The Brewers” which had a picture of a steaming teapot on it. Very colorful, these signs are the only way for most folks to find the place. These haven’t changed, there were some that I remembered from back in the day. We got to Oscoda about 3:30, and were greeted by Chad, the camp director. He walked us around the camp, and i gave running commentary about things as I remembered them. Mostly the camp is about the same as i remembered, surprisingly enough. There have been some changes, but mostly it’s the same old place I remembered. I didn’t get to see everything that I wanted, but I learned something important in this exchange. From what I have observed, Chad is a down-to-earth, rather literal kind of guy. If I didn’t try to see something, he wasn’t gonna lead me there. The tour was mostly me saying “can we go to the ___?” and then going there. There was a recurring theme in things that I saw which could be summarized as “signs of the times”. For instance, we were in the barn, up in the hay loft, and across the doorway where hay would be tossed down there was a guard rail to prevent people from accidentally walking out the door. There were a number of other places where there were fences to prevent ppl from going places which were dangerous. Sign of the times. I had asked Chad if we could possibly stay overnight at the camp; he said that he couldn’t do that, that only ppl who have passed a background screening could stay overnight as a protective measure for the kids. Huh? oh, yeah, sign of the times. It’s not the 70’s any more. we were done with the tour in an hour or so. When I asked about the candlelight ceremony, Chad said that i could go. Here’s the point, though: I didn’t make much of a big deal about the campfire beforehand, so in the end I only got to see the candlelight ceremony, sitting in the office until I could get an escort down to the chapel. SItting there knowing that I wanted to see that, but because I hadn’t specifically asked for it that afternoon, i wasn’t getting it at the last minute. Anyways, after the tour, we went back into town. One mission I had was to find “Staff beach”, a place where we used to party when i worked here. The folks I’d talked had never heard of staff beach, so I decided to try to find it. Staff beach was just off US-23 a little north of town. I had some pretty firm landmarks, so I figured I’d find it. One thing I have to say that surprised me is how much I remembered of the lay of the town, considering i’d never spent that much time in the town itself (i only had one day off a week when i worked there). We found staff beach, but it was different. For one thing, the driveway into it had been blocked with a “authorized vehicles only” gate. We parked next to the gate, and walked in. The area that had been beach 25 years ago has grown over marsh grass. Looking down the shore at the beach where people always used to sun-bathe, I saw more of the same - a beach that has been taken back over by grasses. What happened? I suddenly realized that this was one more sign of the economic nuke that had happened to this town: It used to be next to a big Air Force Base that has since been closed. Wurtsmith AFB used to be a place where they repaired B-52 bombers as well as sending these cold-war war machines on potential missions of nuclear death towards the USSR constantly, recaling the planes at the last minute. With the base closed, there was no longer a class of bored AF personnel playing on the beeach, and in the lack of traffic, nature had intervened. After this, we found a motel to stay in. It was right on the beach, which was to be important later. We got to the camp when agreed, and the campfire was already going. We had to wait in the office before being allowed to join the campers at the candlelight ceremony. I had a bunch of time to consider the relationship between what i want out of life vs what i specifically ask for. I seem to assume that what i want is understood even though I’m not always specific about it. Food for thought. The ceremony itself was a bit of a let-down for me. For one thing, camp is much smaller now than it used to be. When I was here, there were 200-300 ppl in camp. This time, there were less than 100 ppl. The symbolism of the candles was not explained, and the whole thing was different. It was hard for me not to be disappointed at it not being like it’s supposed to be. I’m still having a hard time with this. I had a number of moments when i found myself asking what they thought they were doing, like i knew what the “right” answer was. Had to let that go. When we got back to the hotel, we decided to try to get up early t watch the sun rise over the lake. Lake Huron is a Large Body of Water: you can’t see the other side, it’s almost like an ocean or sea, except it’s fresh water. We managed to wake up in time and took the bed spread out to the beach with us. The sunrise was beautiful, and in the last moment, very quick. We went back to the room and crashed until we had to check out. The drive back down was ok, we stopped in a few places.. stopped in Tawas and collected some sand and some water, and then continued on down the coast. We got to my cousin Marc’s house and have been having a wonderful time hanging with him, his wife Gloria and son Mike. Marc and i had a cool conversation in his library in which he showed me his alchemical library which he’s been compiling for about 30 years. I had inherited a bunch of alchemical glassware from him that I returned a few years ago.. it seems i’m about to re-inherit it back. Guess it’s time for me to do something in that direction. I also had a nice conversation with Mike, his 22 yr old son, out in the back yard ;) Introduced him to several new ideas, such as the church of the subgenius, etc. He’s a good kid. I’ve never really gotten to know him, i think the last time i was here he was 15 and I was unknown to him, really, at the time. It’s nice to reconnect with relatives, and meet others who I haven’t ever really known. I’ll write more about my time wiht marc tomorrow. Camp it