Hearthside Grove Motor Coach Resort
Petosky, Michigan
We are now at the end of our Michigan jaunt, and have enjoyed every minute of our two-and-a-half-week's vacation of sorts. I say that because if this is a vacation, then I don’t know what we’ve been doing for the past year. Everything has been a vacation.
As usual, we are dogged by mishaps, but that’s only the Universe talking to us and making sure we don’t take this retirement thing for granted. The latest was a missing hearing aid.
My little ear-speakers are extremely light, and I am usually quite unaware of them, until and unless I feel a sort of dead sound in one ear, and then I know I need to replace the battery. I hear sound pretty well, but I just can’t make out words. Teeth could be feet, for instance. And a pain in the toe is a lot different from a toothache, so I need these little buggers. And they are not inexpensive, so when one went missing I was, needless to say, concerned.
I have this big, fluffy, curly hair and apparently when I pushed it off my neck in an effort to cool off in the heat, I dislodged one and sent it flying. I started a search as soon as I realized it was missing, about ten minutes later. I checked the car and came up empty-handed, then the bedroom, then oh god my table with its thousands of little jewelry parts, computer, camera, paperback book and pens, etc. I scoured the mess and came up empty again. John backed the car out so I could search the driveway.
I said a prayer and asked for help in finding the missing aid. Of course I found it right away, on the driveway. John had driven over it. I laughed at the irony and said to God – Ooops, sorry, I forgot to ask that it not be crunched under the car wheel.
I laid it gently on the kitchen counter, adding up the additional bucks necessary to replace it. $2500 for two, so $1250 for one? Or maybe I should replace both with the new supersonic ones my pal Dan, my hearing aid specialist, had recommended on my last visit. They wouldn’t whistle when I picked up the phone. Maybe God was telling me I should upgrade.
I picked up the damaged, crushed hearing aid, slide the battery holder closed and listened. The darn thing was working! God had his joke and let me off the hook!
What was I thinking! That wasn’t God. I should have recognized my mother in that one from the very beginning. First of all, she was psychic, of that I am certain. She could find anything, anywhere. If anyone in the house lost anything, anything at all, she would think on it, then within two guesses, locate it exactly where it lay. Rings, keys, homework, you name it. She found it.
She was also the original make-do woman. Having grown up during the depression, she was a fan of re-use, recycle, before it ever came into vogue. My favorite coat growing up was a maroon wool and velvet charmer with hat and muff to match that she made from fabric she found on sale and lined with my father’s old wool coat. I wore it until my elbows were poking out of the bottom of the sleeves. That wasn’t just recycling, that was love sewn into a garment, hers and my father’s both. How awesome is that.
But back to the hearing aid. Of course my mother lead me straight to the spot it lay on the pavement. And even though it was crushed, it still worked. No one would see it behind my ear, so the decline of its former beauty was of no concern. It worked, for heaven’s sake. That in itself was a second miracle. Not to mention the saving of $1250. My mother was also good on managing the money. And she always enjoyed a good joke, especially if she was the prankster.
Yeah, it was her all right.
Not God. Goddess.
Betty
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
The Real Petosky
Bay Harbor Motor Coach Resort
Petoskey MI
A few updates to my blog of the other day:
First of all, I never did find the Petosky Bowlarama. I did find the Bay Harbor Golf Club, the Bay Harbor Resort Village, the Bay Harbor Equestrienne Club, four other golf clubs with various high falutin’ names, six other resort villages, all gated so I was not allowed in, the Bay Harbor Yacht Club, the Crooked Tree Golf Resort, our own current homestead, the Signature Bay Harbor Motor Coach Resort, and … you get the message. Oops. Marylou is now Sunny, Fred is now Frederic, and the venue is the yacht club. Otherwise, the story remains the same.
Next, to borrow a bit from Gertrude Stein, Mackinaw is Mackinac is Mackinaw is Mackinac, and everything is pronounced Mackinaw. Something about Mackinac/aw being close to French Canada, claims to this land, and the variations on pronunciation, although I fail to see how a C can be silent, but it is. That’s not to say that Saginaw has a Saginac. No, that just didn’t happen. Phew. That’s a relief.
One of the sweet waitresses here told me that there is a parcel of land up north that is registered in England, France, Canada and the US of A, the last claim being by some “indigent” people from these parts. I’m pretty sure she meant indigenous. Although I would vote for the poor people if I had a vote. They deserve some consideration, don’t you think? And given how hot this area is in terms of real estate, it would be quite a windfall.
Land on Lake Michigan can get into the upper atmosphere, and the views are pretty dear too. And, by the way, it’s only a six-month town. Everything closes down for the “pretty cold” winter, according to that selfsame waitress. I’ll bet. These are the people that invented mukluks, I’m pretty sure. The people who wear animal fur and nobody throws red paint on them. That’s because the paint freezes in the can.
So Petoskey surprised me, and taught me not to make snap judgments. That being said, I have to tell you that there definitely is a Petoskey Plastics Corp. next to the Bay Harbor Yacht Club. And I’m pretty certain that they have a bowling lane for their employees in the basement.
Hey, I saw a Kia in the parking lot. So?
Betty
Petoskey MI
A few updates to my blog of the other day:
First of all, I never did find the Petosky Bowlarama. I did find the Bay Harbor Golf Club, the Bay Harbor Resort Village, the Bay Harbor Equestrienne Club, four other golf clubs with various high falutin’ names, six other resort villages, all gated so I was not allowed in, the Bay Harbor Yacht Club, the Crooked Tree Golf Resort, our own current homestead, the Signature Bay Harbor Motor Coach Resort, and … you get the message. Oops. Marylou is now Sunny, Fred is now Frederic, and the venue is the yacht club. Otherwise, the story remains the same.
Next, to borrow a bit from Gertrude Stein, Mackinaw is Mackinac is Mackinaw is Mackinac, and everything is pronounced Mackinaw. Something about Mackinac/aw being close to French Canada, claims to this land, and the variations on pronunciation, although I fail to see how a C can be silent, but it is. That’s not to say that Saginaw has a Saginac. No, that just didn’t happen. Phew. That’s a relief.
One of the sweet waitresses here told me that there is a parcel of land up north that is registered in England, France, Canada and the US of A, the last claim being by some “indigent” people from these parts. I’m pretty sure she meant indigenous. Although I would vote for the poor people if I had a vote. They deserve some consideration, don’t you think? And given how hot this area is in terms of real estate, it would be quite a windfall.
Land on Lake Michigan can get into the upper atmosphere, and the views are pretty dear too. And, by the way, it’s only a six-month town. Everything closes down for the “pretty cold” winter, according to that selfsame waitress. I’ll bet. These are the people that invented mukluks, I’m pretty sure. The people who wear animal fur and nobody throws red paint on them. That’s because the paint freezes in the can.
So Petoskey surprised me, and taught me not to make snap judgments. That being said, I have to tell you that there definitely is a Petoskey Plastics Corp. next to the Bay Harbor Yacht Club. And I’m pretty certain that they have a bowling lane for their employees in the basement.
Hey, I saw a Kia in the parking lot. So?
Betty
Friday, August 7, 2009
Bowling in Petoskey
Friday Morning
Michigan, on the road to Petoskey
So who knew you were supposed to put lock nuts on a tow bar to ensure that the bolts didn’t come unscrewed and cause your car to roam free as you were driving. Obviously the mechanic that fixed our last episode of wandering Jeep, that’s who.
This time we were on an interstate, but fortunately pulled over in time to stop anything more serious than the car hitting a reflector to happen. Of course the reflector put a huge dent in the bumper, and the bikes on the back of the bus scratched the Jeep’s hood all to hell, but who’s counting.
So after dropping the Jeep for repairs and spending another $2000 to buy a better towing system, we headed up to Traverse Bay in Michigan for a lovely few days. Nice place, Traverse.
We’re back on the road now, and heading to pick up the Jeep before going on to Petoskey, which is actually the subject of this blog.
Petoskey. I have no idea what to expect, but I my mind’s eye, it has lots of bowling alleys. No particular reason, but I just think Petoskey Bowlarama is a likely building.
I suspect that the locals gather there of an evening, especially during the frigid Michigan winters. As I imagine it, there will be several red and black buffalo-check shirts over T-shirts and jeans. And that’s just the gals. They would, of course, be called gals and not girls, the kind of good-time, funny gals who play like guys and drink beer out of the bottle and are great to have around because they have hearty laughs and nice figures.
I can just see these gals and their guys on the alleys of the Petoskey Bowlarama. Marylou is saying, “Jeez, Fred, you’re getting that cheese from your fries all over the score sheet.”
Fred, being a good guy, scoops up the errant cheese with his finger and licks it away. “Humph,” she says, not really caring that there’s now a pale orange smear on the edge of the sheet. “Food coloring,” she thinks, idly.
Of course if the alleys are computerized, all this will have happened on a computer screen and not a sheet of paper. Now that I think about it, Petoskey would not be behind the times in this respect.
There are a total of seven kids at home, the product of the three couples, and they’re all at Fred and Marylou’s house for a night of movies and cheese popcorn under the care of the local babysitter. You’ll note that cheese is a minor theme here in Petoskey. It’s comfort food, you see, and Petoskey would have no shortage of comfort food.
In the next alley, a group of teenage boys is making a fair amount of noise as they bowl, a fact that annoys a few of the older patrons, but not Marylou’s group, who figure their kids will get there soon enough and if making noise is the worst thing they do, their parents will consider themselves very lucky.
Everybody will be home in bed by eleven, the noisy teens included, and naturally the old folks will have been in bed for at least an hour by then. It’s not that it’s a school day, or a workday. It’s just that the babysitter has a curfew. Marylou realizes that even though she’s a grown woman with children, she still has to abide by an adult’s curfew rules. How ironic.
She tiptoes quietly from the bedroom of her sleeping, cheese-fry-sated husband, checks on the kids, then goes through the kitchen to the garage, where she grabs her bowling ball out of the car, brings it inside, and using a damp dish towel, polishes the Bowlarama dust off, then puts it back inside the new blue Plether case she got for Christmas. Not good to have a dusty bowling ball in Petoskey, where everything is neat and clean and the people are nice and bowling is fun and life is good.
Or so I imagine.
Michigan, on the road to Petoskey
So who knew you were supposed to put lock nuts on a tow bar to ensure that the bolts didn’t come unscrewed and cause your car to roam free as you were driving. Obviously the mechanic that fixed our last episode of wandering Jeep, that’s who.
This time we were on an interstate, but fortunately pulled over in time to stop anything more serious than the car hitting a reflector to happen. Of course the reflector put a huge dent in the bumper, and the bikes on the back of the bus scratched the Jeep’s hood all to hell, but who’s counting.
So after dropping the Jeep for repairs and spending another $2000 to buy a better towing system, we headed up to Traverse Bay in Michigan for a lovely few days. Nice place, Traverse.
We’re back on the road now, and heading to pick up the Jeep before going on to Petoskey, which is actually the subject of this blog.
Petoskey. I have no idea what to expect, but I my mind’s eye, it has lots of bowling alleys. No particular reason, but I just think Petoskey Bowlarama is a likely building.
I suspect that the locals gather there of an evening, especially during the frigid Michigan winters. As I imagine it, there will be several red and black buffalo-check shirts over T-shirts and jeans. And that’s just the gals. They would, of course, be called gals and not girls, the kind of good-time, funny gals who play like guys and drink beer out of the bottle and are great to have around because they have hearty laughs and nice figures.
I can just see these gals and their guys on the alleys of the Petoskey Bowlarama. Marylou is saying, “Jeez, Fred, you’re getting that cheese from your fries all over the score sheet.”
Fred, being a good guy, scoops up the errant cheese with his finger and licks it away. “Humph,” she says, not really caring that there’s now a pale orange smear on the edge of the sheet. “Food coloring,” she thinks, idly.
Of course if the alleys are computerized, all this will have happened on a computer screen and not a sheet of paper. Now that I think about it, Petoskey would not be behind the times in this respect.
There are a total of seven kids at home, the product of the three couples, and they’re all at Fred and Marylou’s house for a night of movies and cheese popcorn under the care of the local babysitter. You’ll note that cheese is a minor theme here in Petoskey. It’s comfort food, you see, and Petoskey would have no shortage of comfort food.
In the next alley, a group of teenage boys is making a fair amount of noise as they bowl, a fact that annoys a few of the older patrons, but not Marylou’s group, who figure their kids will get there soon enough and if making noise is the worst thing they do, their parents will consider themselves very lucky.
Everybody will be home in bed by eleven, the noisy teens included, and naturally the old folks will have been in bed for at least an hour by then. It’s not that it’s a school day, or a workday. It’s just that the babysitter has a curfew. Marylou realizes that even though she’s a grown woman with children, she still has to abide by an adult’s curfew rules. How ironic.
She tiptoes quietly from the bedroom of her sleeping, cheese-fry-sated husband, checks on the kids, then goes through the kitchen to the garage, where she grabs her bowling ball out of the car, brings it inside, and using a damp dish towel, polishes the Bowlarama dust off, then puts it back inside the new blue Plether case she got for Christmas. Not good to have a dusty bowling ball in Petoskey, where everything is neat and clean and the people are nice and bowling is fun and life is good.
Or so I imagine.
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