The Best Burger In Michigan
“This is not Burger King. You don’t have it your way. You take it Bud’s way.” This was true. There were two items on the menu, a “hamburg” and a “cheeseburg.”
Me and My Book
No one believes it. I didn’t believe it, until I grabbed the bumper, tried to lift, and realized I didn’t even know how to grip the thing. I’m writing about an experience I still don’t fully understand, and the sharing of it is even more incomprehensible.
I Need an Escape
It is that stillness I search for in the transcendental north. The quiet amidst the buzz of living that I haven’t discovered in the nooks and crannies of my own hum of days.
Ten Minutes
Then the boxes are labeled and slid into the corner, waiting ominously to be lugged onto a trailer. They speak a steady word: change is coming; change is here.
Marooners
The water of Lake Superior is bone-chillingly lovely in a way that could only be considered refreshing to someone whose brutalized bones could use a good, algid chill.
Petoskey
One never knows who might show up at the condo. One year there were seventeen people stuffed into the three bedrooms. Three people slept on the porch.
Recipe for a Michigan Summer
Carefully examine relatives for non-swimmers and set these aside for later use. Wrap swimmers in bathing suits and grease liberally with sunscreen. Use SPF 20 or higher.
Talking Bird
My bird tried to fly away last week. JJ lives inside a cage inside a house, and I feel bad for him and his wings because it must get a bit cramped behind the iron bars.
Body Burden
A few paper sacks on the wrong truck inflicted environmental and physiological damage that Michiganders are still trying to sort out three generations later. God–what else are we doing to ourselves?
Dermacentor variabilis
Two more ticks joined the swimmer in the bowl. We flicked an intruder into an empty pasta sauce container and scrawled “Tick Jar” across the glass in Sharpie.
