That’s an Anna Nalik song for no particular good reason except it was playing in my rig. I was at this lighthouse today, shitty pictures to come. The guy who ran … I don’t know what he ran I didn’t go inside, I mean where he was standing, you could just walk into the tower but you had to read stuff. Lighthouses are cooler from the outside than the inside anyhow.
So this guy had on overalls, big guy in height and girth, a smudged engineer cap and and a beard that’d make santa look clean shaven and, um, small, and either under dressed or overdressed depending on the, um, reindeer game du jour. I watched him out the side of my face and listened to him talk to a few squirmy kids and them what brought the kids, and I realized as drawn as i was to the novelty I didn’t quite have the energy. I don’t think he knew how novel he was, I mean he didn’t look like he was confused on which costume to wear, it looked like he had exhausted his laundry supply years ago. So his story, as you’ll get it, is I don’t know. I didn’t get a picture of him either; hillbilly train conductor santa.
Don’t trust a smart phone for directions. Not saying it won’t get ya where you’re going, it just has no sense of adventure. I figured out a trick though, get lost, or try to, in the general direction you’re shooting for and then pick a place ahead off the mark and off the main way and then turn it on. This of course backfires when you’re out of range of everything. When I finally got near a cell tower at&t sent me a text on how to call the States from where I was. If I had passed into canada someone should tell them cause they ain’t taxing hillybilly railroad Claus. Not proper they ain’t. If he were Canadian he’d have extra accouterments like waders or duck boots.
There is this feeling in the south that the yoopers (that’s how you pronounce it, you’d get it wrong if I typed UPpers. Mostly Scandahoovian stock, they talk like folks in the movie Fargo) are seperationists. Wait, like me undo that. Southern michiganders feel like the yoopers are seperationists. Hard to tell in the summer, and I haven’t been this way in the winter since 76 maybe 77. In the summer they love tourists. I have to much Oregonian in my blood to believe that bit, the tourist loving bit, well, I did, most of my blood is swishing around in the bellies of skeeters. All those cute little coastal towns in Oregon? They hate you.
I think yoopers are seperate, there’s a whole lot of road kill and not a single missing buck poster. Heh. The UP has a lot of wild in between it’s tame. I saw a warning marked July 3rd near some state park that there were bears near the camp and warning campers not to engage. The same is true in a lot of parts of Oregon, but they don’t warn the tourists, just the bears “Hey Yogi, there’s gonna be tourists coming. I hear if you bang on pots and pans they’ll run from you, otherwise get ready to pose. They travel in Nikon packs.”
Hmmm, I had a point … Oh, yeah. I’m not used to being treating politely as a go to boonie spots in shorts and a t-shirt with a place name on it. And whereas I can’t fault the hillbilly choo choo Ste Nick when I’m wearing the atrocities I’m wearing, mine is after a fashion, it’s a uniform that says “Charge me double and give me bad directions!” His says “give me a buck or I’ll chew on your foot.”
I got to really put my car through it’s paces, windy backroads and almost hills, waiting for the double yellow to go dash dash dash, cranking up the tunes so that you know what’s next in the plot (oh, come on, tell me you don’t do that. In movies they always foreshadow what’s coming with the music, you just half to guess what’s coming when your screen is covered in kamikazi bugs and Anna Nalik is driving away from the wreck of the day and if this is giving up then I’m giving up.
I think this resort is going to get crowded tonight. If I had a plan I’d chastise myself for not planning around this evening here. I’d even spank myself if I could move that well. I haven’t done it pedantically, or, god willing, demonstratively, but I had a reason, maybe two, for coming yoop-ward, and it’s sort of working. But it’s one of those spirit is willing but the flesh is creaky. I’ve been doing stuff I probably should have stretched for or medicated for, and I’m down a quart (whiskey or blood, not oil). I’m downright perky as far as the gambling living dead go, I’m more like gamboling. But, yeah, muscle memory and the ghost of muscles present are kvetching.
I had a bit of girl trouble, well, adult attractive female misunderstanding. My friend and I talk a lot about going places and she always adds “I don’t know that I’d be sable to come back.” I always agree with that, because, you know, it’s not really my home. She was kind of under the impression that I texted her I was going away and the subtext being something like I’ll write if I find work. I think there might be a gig opening up at that lighthouse come Christmas or when the union pacific runs a line out this way.
Oh, yeah, there’s a town that might even be on a map called paradise. I knew this UP pretty well, I’ve been in towns up here that were never on a map and still ain’t. I don’t know which paradise is, but it reminds me of that John Prine song;
Pa woncha take me back to mulenburg county
along the green river where paradise lay
sorry my son you’re too late in the asking
Mr Peabodies coal train hauled it away.
This paradise is a whole lot further from anywhere than mulenburg county. In the LP I feel more landlocked than I’ve felt in a long time. In Paradise MI you know good and god damned well that north of you is a lake that eats ships and curves at the horizon. I guess for the serious tourists there are shipwreck cruises leaving from, well, all over. There just has to be a kid on every tour that asks “If we’re on a ship and we’re going to where …” That’s probably what dualing banjos engineer jolly old elf did for a living when he was a kid; I mean if they needed to plant a shill on the tour.
Yeah, punchy and crunchy, that’s me.
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