FROM FLINT TO INDIAN RIVER, MI.

Rolling down Michigan’s interstate Highway 75, you don’t see much. This scene is what passes for a mountain in the flat, Great Lakes State rubbed flat by a glacier millions of years ago.

At a rest stop I photographed what I believed to be poisonous sumac. I remember it as a child when I grew up in the Upper Peninsula. I made pink frosting with the berries with my mother’s warning ringing in my ears. “Don’t taste it, remember, it is poisonous.” I looked it up on the internet and  found out it is a harmless relative of poison sumac. It can cause a rash, and that’s it.

I saw several old barns and managed to catch two of them. By the time I get my lens cap off, open the window and aim, with the motor home on cruise control, I usually miss.

I call them endangered species. What I missed, a truck with 22 tires, eleven dullies per side, racing  down the road. The second item I missed:  a sign on a tiny building, about 4 feet tall and 3 feet square with a satellite dish attached to the roof and this sign:  My Wife Wanted To Come Home and I told her I’d build her a Place Of Her Own.  Third: we’ve seen two WORKING drive in movie places. Also endangered species.

We reached Indian River and had the good luck to pull into Post #7439. We were just about to have a cocktail when Dave, Leo and Ray pulled in and invited us in for a beer. Dave is 60, Navy, Viet Nam era. Leo, 85 years young, WWII. Ray, age 80, a veteran of the Korean War. A super friendly bunch of guys who welcomed us and traded stories with us for a couple of hours.  In fact Ray taught me about a place in California I’d never heard of. We were pointed to a better road than the Interstate for tomorrow, and reminded of a number of sites to see.  Vets! It doesn’t get better than this bunch of Brothers. Thanks, guys.

SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION

Yesterday, we had some honey-do’s to take care of and I was surprised to see a Piggly Wiggly Market here in Westwego. (Grabbed a drive-by picture.)

You’ve heard of the college kids fad that passed around a few years back where everyone was trying to find out how they were connected? It was a game based on a play by John Guare that claims humans are all connected within six degrees of separation. It was more fun than anything else.
I’m claiming a connectedness to the Piggly Wiggly Markets. First, my folks were enamoured of Piggly Wiggly way back when they were a big outfit. We lived so far into the backwoods that the little shopping we did was from in front of a counter. You told the store clerk what you wanted and if the clerk was notoriously slow, or in a gossipy mood, you waited a long time for your can of peas and quart of milk. Basically, Piggly Wiggly was the first “supermarket”. Everyone told him people would steal him blind and warned him what a fool he was to open up the store and let people grab things from the shelves. Well, he had faith in human beings and he made a fortune.
My second connection is that we came close to buying the Red House Ranch in Calaveras County, CA. A ranch that belonged to the family that owned the Piggly Wiggly Chain. Most likely not the original family. And, third, I met a widow on my trip to China who was heir to the Piggly Wiggly fortune. I can’t say I remember her name. (I know I’m reaching. This is the thinist of connections.)

The truth is, I thought Piggly Wiggly’s were an endangered species. So, I looked them up on-line. Good info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piggly_Wiggly