The Look and Feel of Summer's End (Letter to Ellen)

Sunset, Grand Marais

August 31, 2014

Dear Ellen,

Ellen at work

A friend here in Leelanau County asked if David and I had Grand Marais on our minds, after our long working summer. Well, of course. How could we not be U.P. dreaming as Labor Day weekend rolls around? Just this morning (Sunday) I finished reading your wonderful novel, South of Superior, for the fourth time, which set me to wondering how you and Rick are faring after your long working summer in the West Bay Diner. It was the perfect time for me to re-read South of Superior (although I’m hard pressed to think of what wouldn’t be a perfect time to read that novel), with summer drawing to a close and another winter staring at us down the gun barrel. Madeline’s story gives me courage. It isn’t “happily ever after” but taking one step at a time, dealing with challenges as they come along and enjoying every little joy life brings. It’s real life, the way so many of us live it.

This past week I also read one of the best self-published books that has ever come my way, Frozen Moon, by D. M. Greenwald, and wrote up a little review for the Northern Express. More later on this, when I get copies in the store by the end of next week, but I’m pretty sure you and Rick would both find Frozen Moon a gripping tale. I’m ordering Greenwald’s second novel, too, another fictional tale of rescue dogs at work. Michigan writer and former dog trainer Greenwald knows winter!

Anyway, as I started out to say before becoming diverted, I wish I could say we’ll be seeing you soon, but the September calendar is filling up fast, and there is a lot that needs to be done that is not yet scheduled. But you guys will understand that better than anyone else I know.

My truck, the one that broke down in Grand Marais two years ago, vastly multiplying the cost of that particular U.P. vacation, is going into the shop for brake work on Tuesday, but it’s okay, really, that the bookstore won’t be closing soon for a long vacation, because the third printing of the Ice Caves of Leelanau book only arrived last Wednesday. I’ll also be getting ready for a fun book event with Lynne Rae Perkins, who will read from and sign copies of her new book, Nuts to You, on Friday, September 19, from 5 to 7 p.m. And, of course, the second Leelanau UnCaged street fair, with art and music throughout the village, is scheduled for Saturday, September 27.

Banner up!

And that’s only the Northport side of life. Projects on the home front also clamor for attention. But you know how that is, too, don't you?

Pile of weeds, mostly wild grapevine -- a big morning's work

And yet, astonishingly, we have managed a couple evenings out. We went to the annual Sousa concert on Saturday night at the Northport Community Arts Center, and it was fantastic, as always. David and I were commenting to each other how far the village band has come since its first days. Ken Bloomquist got it off to a great start before yielding the podium and baton to Don Wilcox. Both Bloomquist and Wilcox brought years of university band conducting to Northport. Saturday evening’s guest conductor, on his third working visit to Northport, was another accomplished musician. Director Emeritus Colonel John R. Bourgeois, USMC (retired), who was the 25^th director of the U.S. Marine Band from the Eisenhower Administration through Bill Clinton’s presidency. Little Northport! Astonishing!

(David commented that the band in its long-ago first year sounded “like a high school band.” Ha! Maybe like your high school band, I told him, but not like mine. Now they sound like my high school band! I played violin in the high school orchestra, not band, but our entire music program was outstanding in Joliet, Illinois, in the 1960s. During Saturday evening’s concert, I thought several times of fellow blogger Dawn King and how much she would have enjoyed being in the audience – or onstage!)

And earlier in the week we’d gone out to the movies, something we don’t do often. “The Hundred Foot Journey” at the Bay Theatre was all I’d hoped it would be. I recommended it enthusiastically to friends who went on Friday night and were not disappointed. Where is the nearest movie theatre to Grand Marais, Ellen?

What else? Oh, take a look at this modest little plant (above), turning from summer green to fall gold. I see it along West Street when I come the back way into town, and it never fails to remind me of Seney, where I first noticed the plant. But what is it? Do you know? I would be glad to be informed.

Oh, and after pulling all those wild grapevines and other weeds in the pile above, we took a lunch break at the Narrows -- a vacation hour in August! Nothing is more peaceful than waterlilies, don't you think? (Do you think? Which?)

Yellow-gold straw is being cut and baled on the back roads in Leelanau County. Goldenrod blooms along roadsides and across fallow fields, and in low spots Joe-Pye-weed has come into its own. No asters yet. They are still to come. In my meadow at home, for now, coneflowers reign supreme.

For teachers, this is the time of year that life speeds up, but for those of us in business in tourist areas, a considerable slow-down coincides with cooler nights and mornings -- and doesn’t it always feels as if we couldn’t have gone one more week at summer’s pace? Not true, I’m sure. I think it’s being in sight of “the barn” that brings on the exhaustion, and if we knew we had another month to go, we’d summon up the resources to handle it. Oh, but it’s delicious, the feeling of September coupled with not going back to school!

There's never enough time with friends, but you are on my mind more than you know.

love,
Pamela