Michigan

2021 – The Year of Flâneur?

Yooper Blooper: June 16

“Why would anyone build the most spectacular bridge in the world at the top of Michigan instead of at Detroit where everyone could see it?”

—letter from an irate “troll” taxpayer to the Governor of Lower Michigan, 1980—

The taxpaying troll’s question reminds me of the man who lived close to my hometown in Indiana. In 2011 he wrote to a local newspaper: “A lot of deer get hit by cars west of Crown Point on U.S. 231. There are too many cars to have the deer crossing here. The deer crossing sign needs to be moved to a road with less traffic.”

Perhaps deer are flâneries.

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By Pat, ago

2021 – The Year of Flâneur?

Yooperland: June 13-15

“The best thing that could happen to the U.P. would be for someone to bomb the bridge.”
—John Voelker, former Michigan Supreme Court Justice and the author of Anatomy of a Murder and Yooper resident—

Well, I have to say blowing Da Bridge might be a little extreme. Permit me to say the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is unique and it is obvious Yoopers want to keep it that way. Too late. Hordes of tourist are upon them each summer. Nancy and I, flâneries at heart, wanted to discover the U.P. This is what we found:

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By Pat, ago

2021 – The Year of Flâneur?

Da Yooper: June 11-12

“It’s an edgy place… it still hangs on out there like a rawhide flap of the old frontier…The U.P. is a hard place. A person has to want to hurt a lot to live there”.
–— John G. Mitchell, Audubon Magazine, November 1981—

For years I have heard the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is a “must see” destination. Flâneries Nancy and I chose to find out why. As Bette Davis remarked: “Fasten your seatbelts; we’re in for a bumpy night.” 

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By Pat, ago