My Colorful Neighborhood, Part One

 

Then

 After I moved to Roscommon in 2002, it didn’t take long to realize that I had moved to a place where my new neighbors were a different lot than those in my old southeast Michigan neighborhood. Probably the most obvious thing in Roscommon was that 2^nd homes were de rigueur, as the French would say. Either that, or some other reason prompted the observation that half of my neighbors lived elsewhere and rarely visited Roscommon, except for the two-week period of deer hunting season when the cabins were suddenly occupied.

I should have guessed the reason for the empty homes when the builder of my new home inquired if I would be hunting in the fall. When I answered in the negative, he seemed genuinely surprised as he responded, “Isn’t that interesting?” It was as if I was the first person he had ever met who wasn’t a dedicated deer slayer.

It took some time for me to realize that most men in the area were hunters and/or fishermen. A tip off to that conclusion was the sudden appearance of parked vehicles in every patch of forest land whenever the game laws allowed men with guns to meander everywhere in the area. It wasn’t until I joined a group of fishermen who drank coffee every day at a nearby party store before I realized that hunting and fishing seemed to be a favored hobby but also a favored topic of conversation. I met men from my neighborhood at the party store who met there daily before departing for a favored fishing hole. Two of the coffee drinkers went fishing every day after purchasing their essential supplies including coffee, before departing for their fishing expedition. One of the stated goals of the two was to fish in every lake, stream and water hole in the county.

I fell into the habit of joining them for coffee at the party store during my morning walk and it was easy to join in the conversation by the daily inquiry “How was the fishing yesterday?”

One of the coffee drinkers, a man named Jerry Boone, lived at the junction of my road and M-18, the major highway leading to the village of Roscommon. When the store changed owners and the new owners seemed unlikely to succeed, Jerry Boone suggested meeting at his home every morning for coffee. Boone had lost his wife to illness recently, and he was one of those men who needed male companionship to maintain an even keel. We all agreed to move our coffee drinking to Boone’s house and thus began my in-depth indoctrination into the neighborhood. In the next several months I learned about several of the colorful characters who lived in the neighborhood and I wrote a blog about them. *

·       I looked up the old blog. It was published in 2005 and entitled “Odd Characters in My Neighborhood”. In the event that your memory is as unreliable as mine, here is a brief recounting of that blog and some of its leading characters.

“Some odd characters inhabit my neighborhood. We have Big-breasted Bertha, Bicycle Bill and One-arm Amos” (each of whom visits the party store regularly since they offer beer for sale.) Another colorful female resident was Betty Hoover. Betty’s colorful personality came from her status as the unofficial neighborhood gad-about, that is to say, she was a consuming gossip, able turn up at our doorstep any time with the latest neighborhood news.

“Surprisingly, the neighborhood store was robbed recently by thieves who walked ½ mile to the store from their get-away car. After the robbery, the thieves began walking back to their car carrying their loot and shotgun. The police responded to the 911 call and arrested them as they walked back to their car. Apparently, the thieves didn’t think they would be obvious walking along a road with a shotgun in hand right after a robbery.”

“In the next town of Grayling, odd behavior takes a slightly different form. Grayling has the most unusual sporting event in the state: a canoe race that runs 120 miles that begins with paddlers on foot, carrying their canoes. The race requires at least 14 hours of paddling and includes carrying the canoes over five dams. In order to make the race a little more challenging, it is held at night.”

“The neighboring town of Houghton Lake has their own brand of strangeness. They have an annual winter festival on the ice. The most popular part of their festival is the Beer Tent. In the middle of winter folks line up go in the tent where it is 2 degrees warmer than the minus 10 outside so they can buy ice cold beer. Sometimes they have to heat the beer to keep it from freezing. Another popular event during the festival is the polar bear swimming contest.”

“Before, during and after the winter festival, the strangeness continues as folks drive their cars and trucks onto the frozen lake. They want to fish through the ice without pulling their supplies on sleds so they drive vehicles onto the ice and park them. I didn’t think this too strange until I saw several motor homes lined up on the ice.” (You should know that when and if a vehicle breaks through the ice, it is automatically not covered by insurance. Those who suffer this misfortune always seem surprised that they are required to arrange having their vehicle pulled from the lake bottom within a stated time period at their own expense. It is said to be expensive.

All of the colorful characters formerly in my neighborhood are now gone and no new ones have arisen to replace them, as far as I know. Since I no longer have Betty Hoover and Jerry Boone to keep me informed, I may be in error on this point, but if I find differently, I’ll be sure to let you know.

There are few physical changes in the neighborhood that have occurred since 2002 when I first arrived. My mile-long road has been paved and then repaved from M-18 toward my house. Unfortunately, the pavement ends just as the road marks the outer limit of my property. From there to my driveway and then to the end of the road is gravel This must be a measure of my political gravitas inasmuch as there is no logical reason why the road paving wasn’t extended to the end of the road. Past my driveway, the road ends in a horseshoe curve that must confound uninitiated drivers who find themselves heading backwards toward M 18 on the road just traveled. The absence of a completed paving job must be a north woods characteristic as a man in a different neighborhood told me he asked the county officials when he could expect to have his portion of a gravel road paved. He said the county official replied with a question.

“How old are you?” When he replied indicating his senior status the official gave an answer.

“Your road won’t be paved in your lifetime,” he said.

There are two dozen houses that interrupt the forest cover along the road I just described and about half of them are empty most of the time. I don’t know any of the people who come and go during tourism seasons, but when I see them, I’m not surprised to see them in camouflage clothing, carrying a gun.

The few physical changes in the neighborhood over the past 20 years have been widely separated in time. My new house was the first built here in several years according to Boone. He has to be believed since his ancestor was, you guessed it, the real Daniel Boone family that came north. Jerry said his forbearer was not Daniel, but Daniel’s brother Squire Boone, one who was not so famous as his brother. Just to set the record straight, our Jerry Boone was a pleasant fellow and not an Indian fighter like the senior Boone.

Watch for the next blog that speaks to the current neighborhood status.