It was a full on day on the Great Lakes. I was in Toronto, at St.
\nGeorge’s Cathedral to start, and then a variety of places in the St.
\nLawrence District of town: Mystic Muffin, George’s restaurant, the
\ncondo 21 floors above the skyline, overlooking the church where the
\nunion had been solemnified that morning in a flurry of veil and and
\ndresses and uniforms.<\/p>\n
It was quite a day. There was a lot of emotion. The bride was radiant.<\/p>\n
Somewhere in the midst of divesting one costume for another, and one
\nvenue for the next, I saw that my brother had written from the Little
\nVillage by the Bay. He is there now, doing his turn in the barrel. It
\nis funny, all of connected by this necklace of fresh water that
\ncollectively embrace us in the Great Lakes Country, the most drinkable
\nmass of H2O on the planet.<\/p>\n
From the Bride’s balcony I could see Rochester, NY, across the lake,
\nand I could sail to the little village by the bay in a few days, if I
\nhad the inclination. I read the status update with interest, after I
\ncopied the words to the song that I was going to attempt to sing that
\nafternoon:<\/p>\n
“How the world can change,
\nIt can change like that,
\nDue to one little word:
\nMarriage.<\/p>\n
See a palace rise
\nFrom \u00a0two-room flat
\nDue to one little word:
\nMarriage.<\/p>\n
And the old despair
\nThat was often there.
\nSuddenly ceases to be<\/p>\n
And I’ll wake today,
\nLook at you
\nand say:
\nSomebody wonderful married me.”<\/p>\n
I copied the words into my iPad and then read through the queue of
\nmessages that had piled up when we were at the church.<\/p>\n
“I not sure why I ran indoors today,” he started. “I did not have to be
\ninside at the College. it stopped raining after two days. Then I tooled
\nover to Potemkin Village and Big Mama popped around the lobby corner as
\nsoon as I came in the front door.”<\/p>\n
“We’re having doughnuts!” she chirped and hustled back around the
\ncorner to where Raven sat engaged with half a sugar speckled air and
\nlard confection.<\/p>\n
Raven managed a weak smile. \u00a0Big Mama beamed.\u00a0 “It’s a special day.”<\/p>\n
“They have doughnuts every morning, Mom.”<\/p>\n
“But\u00a0we\u00a0don’t!\u00a0 Besides, it’s all different here now!”<\/p>\n
We had been talking for several days about the\u00a0two\u00a0Petoskeys and
\nthe\u00a0two\u00a0hospitals.\u00a0 Were there now\u00a0two\u00a0IV’s?\u00a0 Perhaps, but she was
\nready to move on.<\/p>\n
We loaded up and drove.\u00a0 The bright sun on the bay cheered us as we
\nmotored towards Charlevoix. \u00a0Raven, looking less like Almost Death and
\nmore like Old Man, took the opportunity to nod off in the front seat.
\nA lone string of drool hung from his unshaven lip but remained like a
\ndrop of dew in the morning light.<\/p>\n
Halfway to Charlevoix we saw the runners on the bikepath by Lake
\nMichigan.\u00a0 We counted miles to their marathon goal– , 19, 20, 21 . . .
\nwith a few miles to go they angled off into the old treed neighborhoods
\nnorth of Charlevoix and we lost them until just before the finish near
\nthe drawbridge.\u00a0 It was a low key marathon, but still inspiring to
\nwatch a few runners switch into another gear for the last hundred yards.<\/p>\n
Big Mama was entranced. \u00a0Raven dozed.<\/p>\n
After we crossed into the tourist main street with its banners and
\njaywalkers the bridge rose for a passing boat and we parked in front of
\nthe local bookstore. \u00a0Big Mama shopped for books and a Free Press.<\/p>\n
“A day just isn’t a day without the Free Press!”<\/p>\n
“Ancient history” I said as the shopkeeper gently shook his head.<\/p>\n
We tooled through the green forests past blue water as we\u00a0angled over
\nthe Boyne City and back up 131.\u00a0 It was a cup of chili and grilled
\ncheese at the Side Door Saloon as the solicitous owner\u00a0nodded at Raven
\nand thanked us for our patronage.<\/p>\n
Back at Potemkin Village Raven went into standby mode on the couch as
\nHenry Fonda, Ward Bond, James Cagney and Jack Lemmon took us to a cargo
\nship in the South Pacific.<\/p>\n
copyright Vic and Spike Socotra
\nwww.vicsocotra.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It was a full on day on the Great Lakes. I was in Toronto, at St. George’s Cathedral to start, and then a variety of places in the St. Lawrence District of town: Mystic Muffin, George’s restaurant, the condo 21 floors above the skyline, overlooking the church where the union had been solemnified that morning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-socotra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1281"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1284,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1281\/revisions\/1284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}