Spring in Michigan and Life Everywhere

by Donna Poole

Spring in Michigan is a guy with hairy legs sticking out of a pair of shorts, feet shoved into flip flops.

Spring in Michigan is a guy with hairy legs sticking out of shorts, feet shoved into flip flops—and wearing a winter jacket, a John Deere knit beanie, and gloves.

Spring in Michigan is that same guy, head down against driving snow, trying not to step on his wife’s tulips as he runs to the mailbox and hurries to get back into the house before frost bite gets his toes.

This April we’ve had summer and winter in Michigan, and that’s what we call spring in these parts. It’s not unusual to have eighty degrees one day and thirty degrees the next. We can say this about our weather: It’s not boring.

When will real spring come, warm weather we can count on to stay with us and not turn fickle tail and run as soon as a north wind blows? This morning the meteorologist said we’ll have it by the second week in May. I say I’ll wait and see.

We have a photo of our oldest daughter, Angie, when she was perhaps three. She’s playing outside in the snow, wearing a yellow fuzzy winter jacket, hat, and mittens. The leaves are fully out on the trees.

The old timers, now long gone, told me to plant peas on Good Friday but not to plant beans until after Memorial Day.

In our part of Michigan, it’s never snowed after Memorial Day in my lifetime, though I don’t doubt it’s happened.

People in Michigan boast about our beautiful summers and then add, “Last summer was fantastic. It happened on the Fourth of July.”

In all seriousness, summer in Michigan is lovely, though sometimes a bit too hot. But for people who can spend time at one of the beautiful Great Lakes that make our state a peninsula, a Michigan summer is pretty close to heaven.

I love camping near Lake Michigan. At one of our favorite campgrounds John and I take our morning coffee, sit on a bench, and watch the large ships and the yachts navigate through the channel and out into the wide blue lake. We like to sit on that same bench in the evening and watch the boats come back in.

Sometimes we hike down the long pier stretching out to the lighthouse and watch the sunset over the lake. When the flaming orb seems to touch the water, I wonder if I can hear a hiss if I only listen carefully. Then we double time it back to get to our campsite before dark.

Breathless and laughing, we make a campfire, relax in our chairs, and talk awhile before bed.

There are few things I enjoy more than camping. For most of our married life we camped in a tent. I loved tent camping, still do. The nostalgic part of me agrees with whoever it was that said, “If you can’t smell the canvas, it isn’t camping.”

We tent camped with our children and sometimes with friends in a rustic state forest in Michigan, a place with no running water or flush toilets. It more than made up for its lack of civilization with a beautiful lake and quiet trails weaving through the forest. The canopy of leaves made it feel like a cathedral.

The kids rode bikes, swam, split wood, and picked blueberries. Now that they’re grown-up they have happy memories of those years…I hope.

Come to think of it, two of our four grown up kids don’t camp and the other two camp in large campers in places that have full hook ups: water, electric, and sewer. Maybe being uncivilized for a week is fun only in retrospect.

We took the kids tent camping in the Smoky Mountains. By then the zipper was broken and we had to pin the flap shut with clothespins. We watched the sun rise over the mountains. We took a hike and saw a mother bear and her two cubs. She took one look at us; we took one look at her, and time stood still. No one moved. Then she growled a warning to her cubs. The first obediently scurried up a tree. The second started up but stopped and looked curiously back at us. She growled louder at it, took her paw, and swatted it on its hind quarters. It let out a yelp and followed its sibling.

We slowly backed away. It was a closer bear encounter than was safe, but oh what a wonderful memory!

No bears entered our tent held together with clothes pins, but we watched a skunk almost go in.

After our kids grew up and our bones grew older it became a bit more difficult to sleep on a tent floor in a sleeping bag. We bought a camper.

We named the camper we have now Old Bertha. She’s a 1988 fifth wheel, and don’t even get me started on the number of repairs she’s demanded John make on her. On some vacations he’s spent more time working on the camper than he has relaxing.

Bertha has no working furnace; we use a space heater. Her main drawback right now is her hot water heater is broken, but we haven’t bothered to fix it. We didn’t think we’d ever be able to go camping again. We last camped in the fall of 2020.

That last camping trip was beautiful. We camped in the remote part of Brown County State Park in the “Little Smokies.” My head was bald from chemotherapy, and I wore a beanie to keep warm. I didn’t have the strength to hike any trails, one of our favorite activities. I could barely climb in and out of the truck.

But the weather was beautiful, and the leaves were gorgeous. We spent hours reading, talking, playing card games, and dreaming around campfires. John drove me through the park countless times so I could see the fantastic views.

When we left to come home, I cried. I had one of my gut feelings we’d never be back, and my gut feelings are seldom wrong.

Our old truck died after that, and at times we weren’t sure I was going to make it either.

But when spring came, I wanted to camp. Without a truck we couldn’t haul Bertha, but we still had our tent, and I begged John to let us try tent camping again. It’s a good thing one of us has common sense. He knew neither of us could get up off the floor, or even a cot, let alone make it to the campground bathroom or outhouse however many times needed in the middle of the night. John seldom vetoes my ideas, but he did that one.

So Old Bertha stayed home, and so did we. There was no camping for Bertha or us, spring, summer fall of 2021; spring, summer, fall of 2022. We mourned the loss of our old truck.

Used trucks are expensive, especially ones heavy enough to pull Old Bertha

Yes, we prayed about a truck, and so did family and friends, but God isn’t Santa Claus, and I really dislike the attitude some people have that he is. I heard a preacher say once that as God’s children we don’t have to take a parking place far from the store, we can demand one close by, and he’ll give it to us, because we deserve it. Say what? I never listened to that preacher again. And no, that preacher wasn’t John!

We don’t demand, as some do, that God do anything for us. We don’t command him to give us a truck, or make my cancer disappear, or help the people we love—and their needs are many. We do ask, with love in our hearts, for him to do those things, but always end a prayer by asking for his will.

Life for everyone is a guy with hairy legs sticking out of a pair of shorts, feet shoved into flip flops.

Life for everyone is a guy with hairy legs sticking out of shorts, feet shoved into flip flops—and wearing a winter jacket, a John Deere knit beanie, and a pair of gloves.

Life for everyone is that same guy, head down against driving snow, trying not to step on his wife’s tulips as he runs to the mailbox and hurries to get back into the house before frost bite gets his toes. And sometimes he doesn’t make it. And sometimes toes need to be amputated.

Through it all we have God. No, he isn’t Santa. He doesn’t promise to rescue us from all life’s troubles, or give us a charmed life, or hand us everything we want. But God does promise to stay with us, to give us strength, and to help us find joy. And if we start to lose hope, he reminds of  the cross and empty tomb and promises to those who believe that an eternal spring is coming.

And sometimes God gives us springtime surprises here on earth too. Today we’re buying a 2007 Chevy Silverado truck with plenty of guts to haul Old Bertha wherever we want to take her. Its rockers are rusty, but what do you expect from a Michigan truck that’s weathered fifteen snowy winters with its salt covered roads? The price was the best we’ve seen, an answer to prayer, and John is pretty happy. Why not? He’s a guy with a truck.

Who knows what other good things may be just ahead? Cancer hasn’t won yet and maybe it never will. Sometimes gut feelings are wrong. Life, like spring, is funny. We never know what’s coming, and every now and then it’s something so wonderful joy runs out of our eyes and down our faces.

Lake Michigan! Brown County! Here we come, so look for us. We’ll be the two people wearing flip flops and winter coats….

The End

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Backroad Ramblings Volume Three: Stories of Faith, Love, and Laughter

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