I am a Yooper

There is no denying it, so I might as well embrace it. I have lived in many other places, but now realize that in spite of my many efforts to be something else, I am what I am. I am a Yooper.

A Yooper is a person who is native to the Upper Penninsula of Michigan. We are UPers...or more easily pronounced Yoopers. We are quite different from the folks who live in the Lower penninsula. There is more than a bridge that separates us. We are our own unique culture. We are Yoopers first and Michganders second.

Thomas Jefferson is responsible for this. It was he who decided that the Upper Penninsula be given to Michigan as a compromise. Michigan would give up a strip of land including the city Toledo on the bottom to Ohio, in exchange they would be given the Upper Penninsula. The transplant never took.

We talk like people from Wisconsin or Canada. There are more Packer backers than Lions fans. We prefer to live in rustic surroundings. The climate is brutal and I think it has an effect on our overall temperment. I've always said that Yoopers have more crabby people per capita...but it keeps the riff raff out.

We come from a long line of miners and loggers. We work hard and don't expect much in return. We prefer the simple life. When I make the treck home, I am always amazed at the disparity. The first rest stop is off an interstate highway. It is always sparkling clean and with plenty of amenities including those faucets that turn on and off with an electric eye. The last stop is on a two lane road which is actually one of the major highways. There is an outhouse and a pump for water. No muss...no fuss. Just keep it simple. Not much has changed in fifty years, and Yoopers like it that way. Change is rarely a good thing.

There are some famous Yoopers. Glen T. Seaborg was a world known physicist and was the head of the Atomic Energy Commission for decades. Johnny Volker was my neighbor and the writer who wrote "Anatomy of a Murder". When Otto Preminger decided to make the book into a movie, Hollywood invaded my neighborhood for several months.

Did you know it was a Yooper who invented Jeopardy? Merv Griffith has always credited his first wife Julainne with coming up with the idea of giving the answers and having to think of the questions. Yup...another Yooper.

Some Yoopers that you might know are Steve Mariucci who coaches the Lions now and his friend basketball coach of the Michigan State Spartans Tom Issel. Also, if you are a fan of the TV show "Lost", the bald guy that plays John Locke is a Yooper.

There aren't many of us, but we get around. It's a nice place to be from....eh?

Trivial Pursuit

Back in the mid 1980's, my hubby came home and called out, "Guess what, Mar? They invented a game just for you!" For years he had been teasing me about the vast amount of "garbage knowledge" I had stored in my brain, now finally I could put it to good use.

Of course, I won all the time, and it wasn't long before I had hard time finding people to play with me. We solved the problem by buying harder editions for me, while hubby and the girls got to play the same questions over and over.

Finally one day, it happened. She beat me. My oldest daughter was elated and doing a happy dance around the table. She had beaten the master. What a sense of accomplishment. And how it changed her. With her new found confidence, my shy little intovert began to speak up more in school.

In gym class when it rained, the gym teacher would break out the trivial pursuit questions. Karen was so good that she was always the first choice when choosing sides. Imagine getting picked first...in gym class! Eventually, the teacher saw that whatever team she was on would win...so in fairness, he asked her be "Art Fleming." For those of you too young to remember, Art Fleming was Alex Trebeck before Alex Trebeck was Alex Trebeck.

Then later in high school, we went to parent-teacher conferences. Yes, I know she is very bright. Yes, I know she needs to speak up in class. Yes, I know she is well behaved. Then the last teacher...he smiles this broad smile and says all the same things we have heard many times over and over, but then adds, I have to tell you a funny story.

One day, in a fit of frustration, with how little knowledge his class had of American history, this teacher decided to make a bet with the class. "I think that almost all of you could tell me the name of the space shuttle that blew up, but I'll bet you pizza for the entire class if just one of you could tell me the name of the plane that carried the first atomic bomb."

(I couldn't help but grin.)

Then he says, Karen, who was always quiet, well behaved, and rarely said boo...jumped up from her seat, stood on her chair, pumped both fists in the air...and shouted...."THE ENOLA GAY!!"

"I wasn't so surprised that she knew the answer, it was the excited emotional way that she expressed it."

I had to giggle. How good she must have felt to know she had the right answer.

When we got home, I asked her about the incident and why she had gotten so excited.

Her answer was simple...."Mom," she explained, "it was for pizza!"

My daughter Karen will be getting her bachelor's degree in a couple of weeks. I always knew she would eventually. She just had to have the right motivation. Maybe I should have bet her pizza!

Go Ask Alice

She hasn't been gone a week, and I already miss her much. Alice died last Friday, or was Thursday, no one seems to know for sure. Autopsy pending.

Alice was a human dynamo. One of America's "greatest generation". I hate that term, but you know what I mean. Child of the Depression, World War II youth. She about 100 pounds soaking wet. I think it was because she never sat still. She was a farm wife and after husband died a few years back, a farmer. She ran the place. Did all the stuff that the men do. Her hands showed it. Rough and knarled with age. But you would never know it to look at her.

Alice had bright red hair and a smile that was even brighter. She would come into my office and lighten up the place especially when the sun wasn't shining. If the sun was out...so was Alice. She never stayed put. Go go go.

She was the heart and the soul of our community. They are going to make a park for her with a gazebo. She would like that. They say it's to remember her by, but who could ever forget her. She was always the first one on the scene of any community project. "How can I help you? What do you need?" Those words seemed to be her motto.

She never slowed down, but would always stop to lend a hand or speak a kind word. So wise. Salt of the earth.

She was found on her farm. No one knows how long she had been there. Found by a nieghboring farmer. They looked for foul play, but there doesn't appear to be any. Alice was always there for others, so why did she have to die alone? I take comfort in knowing that she was in the place that she loved the most. Her farm, that land, that earth that she was the salt of.

We are all going to miss her so much. I 'm not sure they make them like that anymore. So the next time, when someone needs to know something...what are we going to do when before it was so easy just to ...Go ask Alice.

Rest in Peace my friend. You've earned it.

Two Daughters

They are as different as night and day, my two daughters. I have often wondered how two girls born to the same parents, coming from the same gene pool, raised in the same house, could be so different.

I think they were born that way. Not a blank slate as some suggest, but each with their own chemistry. One introverted, studious, and an information seeker like her mother. She came into the world quietly, barely a peep out of her, always the quiet child, entertaining herself with books and puzzles, not seeking attention, just minding her own business.

The other arrived loud and bellowing. Upset to be disturbed I think, which would explain why she was so late. It was safe in there. Always into mischief, finding new ways to outsmart. Craving attention and relishing being the center of things. We enjoyed her. She made us laugh. Such personality.

We loved them both...equally, but differently. One made us proud with her achievments, the other made us proud with her success. We worried about them both. Wanting them to have a life knowing unconditional love, a peaceful home, and a bright future.

How did they get to be so different? One explains it this way. The alone years from ages 1-5 were spent together reading and playing and teaching. It's why her vocabulary is to be admired. Her kindergarten teacher was flabbergasted one day, when she heard this voice say, "Excuse me, Ma'am. I am having some difficulty with this. Could I please have some assistance?" She turned around expecting to see a small adult and was surprised to see a little girl in pigtails. Her vocabulary still gets smiles. She delights with words.

The other one had her alone time from ages 13-19. It's when we became friends. We went to the movies together instead of going with her sister. We shared inside jokes. We went on road trips. We found mutual interests. We fought, made up, and appreciated each other. She was there to help me when I needed help, the other had her own life and her own family to take care of. They younger only had us, her parents.

So is that why they are so different. One was born first and the other second? Is it that easy? I wish I knew. Some days, I wish they were more like each other. But maybe it's best that they are so different. Each with their best of us...and each with some of the worst. But differently. Each unique and special in their own identity. It's all so confusing and amazing how this parenting thing works out in the end. All you can do is do the best you can, and hope for the best.

So today we are getting ready for company. Guests will be coming from out of town soon to celebrate the long overdue bachelor degree of the oldest. We are very proud. The youngest is coming to help with the cleaning, and is bringing Chinese food. She goes out of her way to do these things for us. We are equally as proud.

So different they are.

Fresh Start

Some find a blank page daunting. Where do you start? What do you say? Something. Anything. Just begin at the beginning and who knows where you'll end up. That's not important anyway. Just that you enjoyed the journey. So start somewhere...but start.

My mood will probably show the way. Sometimes funny. Sometimes serious. Sometimes thought provoking...but probably mostly ordinary. I think I lead a rather ordinary life, but what do I know, it's not like I'm looking in a mirror, so from outside, it probably looks different.

I was in a meeting with a group of people just getting their brand new Franklin planners. I knew the gal leading the meeting. She and I had worked together before in another place before we got promoted to business suits and brief cases. She told us to make long term goals. Things we would like to achieve somewhere down the line.

I thought about doing a long distance bike race. I liked the idea of having a goal that I would work toward. Having to take small steps to start, but increasingly bigger ones until I had accomplished the distance. Yeah...write that down.

Then I thought about me. How could I be a better person? What did I need to do to be the kind of person that I would like to be. I know...I want to learn to be kind. I wish that I were nicer to people...more thoughtful...less worried about me and mine...and more willing to take the time to be helpful.

It was her first meeting. I could tell that she was a bit new at this. She smiled at me, glad to have a familar face in a room of strangers. "Mary, it looks like you have a couple of things written down. Would you care to share them with us?"

Another time, I might have begged off, but I could tell that she was asking for my help, so I shared. "Well, I would like to do a long distance bike ride someday." That brought several looks of admiration mixed with surprise. "And...I would like to learn to be kind. I don't think that I am very kind. I'm much to competitive and impatient. I think I need to change that."

I wish you could have seen the look on her face. Such a beautiful girl, even with her mouth wide open and her eyes like saucers! "You have got to be kidding. You can't possibly mean that."

"Oh, but I do. Seriously. I really need to be kinder." I am almost in tears now. This is a hard thing to admit to yourself, much less to a room full of other people."

"How many people here know Mary?", she aksed the room. More than half raised their hands.

"And how many people here would describe Mary as being kind?" Even more hands.

Big surprise. Maybe I have them fooled....or maybe I just don't see what they see. Hard to tell.

Then fast forward more years than I want to own up to. I am on the phone with my daughter. I will getting company next month and the house needs to be cleaned. I need help, but am not willing to ask.

"I'll come this weekend to help you clean", she says. She is giving up her precious time off to come and help me do something I know she despises.

"Are you sure?" I ask nicely, holding my breath, hoping she won't change her mind.

"Of course", she says.

In tears, I reply, "Thank you. That is so thoughtful of you...so kind."

"I know"... she says..."I got it from my mother."