Half full: Mark Wilcox
Tourist season
Trending
In the past couple of weeks it really seems that the tourism traffic has intensified here in Houghton and the Keweenaw in general. One indication was when my wife, Maryann, and I went out to dinner mid-week at a local restaurant recently and realized that we didn’t know a soul in the place.
I mean this isn’t a big city and chances are wherever I go … the grocery store, gas station, Walmart, even the hospital, I will inevitably bump into to someone I know. Could be someone I’ve met through my job or the family of a youngster I coached, you get the point. But on that night, the restaurant was packed and not one person said “hello” to either of us. Then it dawned on us … Tourist Season.
Since that night, I’ve been paying special attention to the unfamiliar faces I see gracing our downtown. I am intrigued as they discover the wonderful attractions downtown Houghton has to offer. Watching a family “discover” Swifts Hardware, reminded me of the time, Maryann and I vacationed in suburban Philadelphia. We had no agenda as we wandered in downtown Media, PA. The city’s nickname is “Everybody’s Hometown,” and for good reason. While it’s only 13 miles from downtown Philly and less than 20 minutes by SEPTA train, with a population under 6,000, Media really has a “Hometown” feel. We had no agenda and were free to pop in and explore the downtown, much like I’ve been watching folks do here. We happened to stop into Deals Variety Store. Like our own Swift’s, it’s a small store that you could spend hours in and just scratch the surface. Their sign says the carry “a full line of Hardware, Toys, Stationary, Office and School Supplies, Gardening Supplies, Housewares, Pet Supplies, Bird Seed, Giftware, Greeting Cards, Candy, and more!” Sound familiar?
There was so much to see that we split up and still didn’t see it all. Tourist stuff, hardware, crafts, you get the picture. Watching the family took me back 10 years to downtown Media. We had similar experiences a few weeks ago visiting our grandson in Batesville-Leesburg South Carolina. Trust me, spending a couple of nights in the Leesburg lodge has provided me with a handful of future columns.
These memories, of course, took me back to family vacations of my youth. We always went on a vacation when the factor my father worked at had its annual summer two week shutdown. we didn’t travel far, usually somewhere in the UP. My father, who was from downstate Battle Creek, figured a lot of people from Lower Michigan come up to the UP for a vacation, so let’s find out why. Over the course of my childhood, we visited Copper Harbor, Grand Marais, Sault Ste. Marie, and more. One of the most memorable vacations was when I was about 11 or 12 and we rented a cabin on Lost Lake, off of Federal Forest Highway 13 in Alger County. The cabin came with a small rowboat so my dad took my sister and I out get some pan fish for supper. We did ok, pulling in perch, sunfish and blue gills with just hooks and worms. As I sat in the boat watching my little red and white bobber, it suddenly disappeared, diving deep into the lake. “Son, I think you’ve got a pike,” my dad said.
And that I did. I had never caught anything with more fight than a blue gill and my Zebco 202 nearly broke in half as the reel let out a high-pitched scream as the Northern took more line.
Dad helped but insisted on me landing the monster myself. And I did. (Well not exactly a monster, but a legal 24 inches). However, I felt like Santiago in “The Old Man and the Sea,” as I battled it. We had it for supper that night and despite the bones, it was pretty good. It would take me about 15 years before I caught another fish that big.
Eventually the family stopped staying in motels and cabins and took up camping. First couple of years in a large tent and by my middle teens a pop-up camper. I was about 16 and we were camping outside of Iron Mt. on the Menominee River. I had my bicycle and, with my parents permission, I went exploring. I left Rivers Bend campground and turned left, on what I later learned was Pine Mt. Road. Now keep in mind, I had no idea where I was or where I was going or what I would see. After about a half hour biking on this country road on my Western Flyer with the oversize handlebars, I came across an incredible sight. For a second my mind couldn’t process what I was looking at, and then I realized … it was a ski jump. A big one! I had heard about the Pine Mt. Ski jumps but never attended and certainly had no idea what a ski jump looked like. And there it was.
After I quit staring at this marvel, I got back on the bike and kept riding. Again not knowing what I would find. Soon a sign told me I was in Kingsford (Where I would eventually buy my first house). After stopping at a corner store, I turned right and kept riding, until I came upon, of all things, an airport. That’s right, Ford Airport in Kingsford. An airport I wouldn’t visit again for another 30 years when Maryann and I flew out of Kingsford en route to Vegas.
At 16, I had never been to an airport before, and to a little goober from Rock, Ford Airport looked like O’Hare to me. By this time I had been gone a couple of hours and not wanting to worry my folks I headed back to Rivers Bend, filled with so many feelings. Among them a sense of adventure, maturity of independence. You see, I didn’t need any help, instruction or guidance from anyone on this endeavor. It was all me … and my bike.
There were other memorable family vacations, which may inspire future columns. But watching people discover, and appreciate, the wonders to be found in adoptive home town of Houghton, I couldn’t help but feel proud … and nostalgic.