Keep it Simple: Do we really get to live here?
I can’t think of anywhere else in the world I would rather live than right here in the Great Lake State.
My wife and I have done a lot of traveling over the years — from state to state and country to country but when our trip is at an end there is nothing that makes me feel more appreciative of where we live than when we cross the state line or touch down at Detroit’s Metro Airport or Cherry Capital Airport in Traverse City. Ahhh, home again, home again.
Don’t get me wrong — there are lots of great places around the United States and north, south, east and west all around the globe to visit and take in the sights of all that is beautiful in this big old goofy world but Michigan serves me just fine as the home base I always, even gladly, return to because of its vast beauty from one great lake to another. The thought of living somewhere else, well, it has never crossed my mind.
Vermont’s small-town feel, California’s rocky Pacific coast, the hustle and bustle of downtown Toronto, all get my travel antenna operating just a little bit wacky. A recent trip to Eastern Europe boasting the world’s most beautiful lake and gorgeous mountains, cities and jaw-dropping Adriatic coastline just don’t have a chance when, in the final analysis, Michigan once again comes out on top in the “if you could live anywhere in the world, where would ...”
I had the good fortune to be born in the mitten state and my love affair with all things Michigan began even before I had entered grade school. It was my first vacation memory. The Hilltop Lodge was located somewhere on Lake Michigan; my memory wants to say it was in the Muskegon area but the exact location doesn’t matter - it was in Michigan, on a Great Lake, and that did matter.
We stayed in one of those old-fashioned white wooden shingled single-unit cottages and there were dozens of wooden steps leading down to a wide sandy beach — that I do remember. Our stay at the lodge included meals which to a little kid mind were incredible. It was Michigan blueberry season and every morning my brother and I breakfasted on those little individual cardboard boxes of Kellog’s cereal which were topped off with milk and fistfuls of fresh blueberries.
We spent a good portion of our time on the beach, swimming and digging in the sand. The entire week is etched in my sketchy little kid memory and serves as the benchmark of all that is good about living in the mitten state.
A few years later my undying love of Michigan was cemented during yet another family trip. The Mackinac Bridge opened in 1957 and the following year my family ventured north from our home in southeast Michigan for a wondrous vacation to the northern tip of the Lower Peninsula.
I don’t really remember many of the vacation details except for one which is still as clear and vivid today as it was back in the late '50s. I was standing on another beach, this time in Mackinaw City, and gazing out over the Straits of Mackinac at what appeared to be one of the Seven Wonders of the world — the Mighty Mac in all its 20th century engineered magnificence.
Needless to say the bridge and its surrounding natural beauty in both the Upper and Lower peninsulas has made this guy a diehard state of Michigan cheerleader and it is where I plan to take my final stand when the time comes to breathe my last.
No soupy humid Florida air or dry heat mirages in Arizona for this guy. It will be sweet smelling lake infused Michigan air for me all the way. It’s as simple as that.
Do we really get to live here? Indeed we do.
— Michael Jones is a columnist and contributor for the Gaylord Herald Times. He can be reached at mfomike2@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Keep it Simple: Do we really get to live here?
