It was raining when I began to write this. Although no one could rightfully call what we got this afternoon a “downpour,” it was nice to have my windows open to hear the steady drops of a passing shower tapping on my dry-as-dust deck and hard-as-concrete yard. For some reason, the old weather junker we’ve been trying to jump-start for months decided to turn over and run a little while, and we were thankful for even the tenth of an inch or so that my grass soaked up like a sponge.
We are back after being away for a few days to our favorite place on Lake Michigan. It was hard to leave the beach to return here to our arid yards and withered trees, for we sat in the sand and sun and listened to nothing man-made for hours on end. It soon became hard for us to even remember such dry ground as ours when all we could hear was the constant lapping of the lake’s blue-green waves as they just kept coming and coming and coming at us.
Since my kids are no longer kids, and their work schedules and busy lives now rule the whens and wheres of our trips together, we have fallen into the pleasant habit of visiting the great lake together for a little while instead of planning longer vacations. We like it there because it is quiet and uncrowded, and there isn’t a shopping mall within reasonable driving distance. Thankfully, none of us, my new daughter-in-law included, wanted to see asphalt parking lots or amusement rides, check-out lines or continental breakfasts. We ate in small, locally owned restaurants, thumbed through a few antique shops, and took walks in the evenings, but always it was the lake and its endless shore that called to us, morning, afternoon, and evening.
Unlike last year when we encountered all kinds of mechanical obstacles to get there, and we all baked in the parking lot of a tire and brake shop along the way, we had no trouble in reaching the lake this time around. For a while, the traffic was mean and hurried, but once we shed the Interstates we saw more cornfields than cars. It was 97 degrees when we pulled off the highway for good, and 20 degrees cooler than that when we reached the bottom of the long stairway that took us out to the beach on that first late afternoon. Southern Michigan, like central Indiana, is dry, although I got the sense that folks there have had a little more rain than we have had, which isn’t hard since we haven’t had a decent spit come our way for over two months now.
Seeing the marram grass and the shorebirds and feeling the grit of the sand between our toes for the first time in a year was like finding a favorite cousin at a yearly reunion. We quickly made ourselves at home on the beach, each seeing something different on that far blue horizon, the wind making Brillo pads of our hair and reddening our faces. For most part, all conversations stopped…
I am a bit of a rock hound from years back, and even though I have picked up and packed off a ton of Lake Michigan’s sand-smoothed gray-black basalt over the years, I told my wife that I wanted to collect a few of the more colorful beach stones for our aquarium at home. So, on that first full morning on the lake, she promptly emptied a large plastic zip-top bag and told me to knock myself out. She was soon stretched out in a lounge chair, a towel for a pillow, a beach umbrella over her head, and a new whodunit on her lap, and rightfully so. Like the watchful mom she is, I know that she occasionally glanced up to make sure that neither I nor her kids, had disappeared in the rip tides, but otherwise she tackled her book, while I walked and picked and discarded and kept what interested me.
By our last day on the beach, I had not only acquired a bit of a sunburn — for as I usually do, I had underestimated the amount of lotion that I needed — but an impressive collection of granites and quartzes and cherts, none longer than the pocket knife I carry in my jeans. I found feldspars (often called “moonstone”) and small geodes, and even a few pieces of “Lightning Stone,” which is actually siderite spidered with calcite veins. I was quite proud of myself.
To be honest, I had a few stones that I couldn’t identify at all, so I turned to an article by Kathi Mirto when I returned home. She is a Michigan rock hunter who posts nice photos of and articles about Lake Michigan on the web. From her description, I think I also picked up a piece of septarium, a reddish-brown bedrock that, like Lightning Stone, is veined with calcite. Mirto writes: “Another name for [septarium] sometimes is Turtle Stone, obviously due to [its] resemblance of a turtle shell pattern. Sand-smoothed granite and limestone are other common stones found nearby the brown stones. The deep gray and other various colored stones provide a striking contrast from the warm reddish-brown tones.”
Before we left the lake, we hurriedly packed our bags and quickly loaded the family wagon so we could spend a little time on the beach before we turned our backs on it for home. There was just a hint of a breeze that morning and the lake was as calm as I have ever seen it. Joanie and my daughter, Ellen, and I walked down to the water’s edge, not wanting to leave at all, but if a half-an-hour was all we had left, we decided to spend it the way we wanted. I began to look for stones.
In the clear shallows of that serene July morning, I picked up rocks that looked as if they’d come from a jeweler’s tumbler. I found tiny crinoids and corals, too small to have been seen when the waves were rough, and I pocketed two pieces of polished glass, made milky and dull by the countless times they’d rolled across the sands of the lakebed. I filled my pockets.
As we were about to leave that morning, we noticed that a child had written, “Bye” in a ridge of sand that faced the lake. In my mind, I added, “See you next year…”
Mike Lunsford can be reached by email at hickory913@aol.com, or c/o the Tribune-Star at PO Box 149, Terre Haute, IN 47808. Visit his website at www.mikelunsford.com for more information about his books.
News Columns
MIKE LUNSFORD: Observations on smooth stones and blue-green water…
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Remembering Mom a day after Mother’s Day
I don’t think there has been a day in the last eight years that I haven’t thought of my mom. Being all grown up with wrinkles to call my own doesn’t make me miss my parents any less.
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MARK BENNETT: After running for 28 hours straight, what’s another 5 miles?
Some phrases can only be uttered by a few people, or none at all.
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MARK BENNETT: Glitches show limitations of high-stakes testing concept
The dog ate my homework. That age-old excuse — based on a shockingly unforeseen complication — rarely works for a kid who didn’t finish yesterday’s math assignment. Yet, in a role reversal, Indiana school children, along with their teachers and administrators, are left to accept an explanation for a disruption best described as the mother of all ironies.
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MARK BENNETT: One step at a time to save lives
Joan Brown.
Remember that name. -
MARK BENNETT: Sometimes, the mere posing of questions is significant
The era seems quaint now, almost like a fable. When people left their house doors unlocked. When the sight of a police officer in a school meant it was Career Day.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: ‘Dowsers’ provide hope more than science
My grandfather was a man of God. Many times I saw him, his right hand held high in the air at his Wednesday night “prayer meeting,” praising the Lord before weeping at the altar on his knees. And yet, he was a “dowser,” a “diviner,” a “witcher” who, as a favor, would grab a forked sassafras stick and find water for some poor unfortunate whose well had gone dry.
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MARK BENNETT: New reality steers Nashville singer to Crossroads for Historical Society concert
People pass through the Crossroads of America for lots of reasons.
Business trips. College campus events. Federal prison sentences. Visits with relatives. Gas pitstops.
Or maybe a career change and a twist of fate.
Ty Brown makes his first stop in downtown Terre Haute as the headliner of a multi-band Sweet Sensations Country Jam concert May 4 in the Ohio Building — a fundraiser for the Vigo County Historical Society. -
HAYDEN: 9-year-old lobbyist weighs in on school safety
Senate Bill 1 shot to the forefront last week, after it was amended by the House education committee with a provision that mandates every public school in Indiana would be required to have someone on staff armed with a loaded gun during school hours.
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HAYDEN: Republican shift proving to be real
When a federal judge struck down key provisions of the state’s immigration law last week, it seemed anticlimactic.
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LUNSFORD: A different kind of resurrection story, no foolin’
If you’ve had pets in your family long enough, it’s likely that you’ll see a miracle or two — a dog that couldn’t possibly have lived, but did; a cat that grew to 20 pounds after being born the runt of the litter; a goldfish that had been belly-up too many times to believe it could have survived another day.
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STATE OF THE STATEHOUSE: Americans of Hispanic heritage becoming active in Republican party
When Republicans in the Indiana General Assembly decided earlier this year to put off a vote on locking the state’s same-sex marriage ban into the state constitution, it sent a signal that GOP leaders were evolving on the issue of marriage equality.
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MARK BENNETT: Terre Haute barber ‘sharpens up’ customers for 50 years
People streamed through this section of downtown Terre Haute in those days.
“You could hardly walk by here,” John Hochhalter said, pointing toward the sidewalk outside the window.
The bustle has faded since the early 1960s. Hochhalter remains. He’s still barbering in the same shop he and late business partner Kenny Thomas opened a half-century ago this week. -
MIKE LUNSFORD: As of today, it’s unofficially spring
Despite the calendar telling us not to rush things, I think it is all right to go ahead and say spring is here. The Ides of March has passed, Easter is coming soon, and I have already been out in my yard with a rake, getting my boots muddy. It looks like spring to me.
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Americans for Prosperity aim to browbeat GOP lawmakers
If you're outside the Indianapolis TV market, you may not have seen yet the Americans for Prosperity ad that demonizes the House Republicans for resisting Republican Gov. Mike Pence's tax cut plan.
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MAUREEN HAYDEN: Pence may find himself in a mess if he gets what he wants
Here’s a story to consider: A Republican governor with ties to the tea party and possible presidential ambitions decides he wants to slash the state’s income tax rate, but meets with massive resistance from legislative leaders from his own party.
Sounds like the scenario playing out in the Indiana Statehouse, right? -
MARK BENNETT: Reflections of grid success stir with Brent Anderson’s passing
A few hundred miles away, and nearly 40 years gone by, a special game ball still occupies a fond place in Rudy Bohinc’s memories.
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MIKE LUNSFORD: If handwriting is a window to my soul, I’m glad this is typewritten…
Somewhere in the mess I call my “archives,” I have most of my grade school report cards hidden away. I have kept them under wraps, because I want to be long gone when my children — or grandchildren — unearth them and discover that their self-righteous teacher of a dad was, in fact, a terrible student in his formative years.
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MAUREEN HAYDEN: Are legislators gambling with the future of gaming?
Indiana lawmakers have been debating whether to give the state’s casinos more financial incentives to compete with the shiny new gambling palaces popping up in Ohio.
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MARK BENNETT: Never truer: Knowledge vital to narrowing ‘skills gap’
The pillar at the gates of Faber College in the movie “Animal House” bore a wise motto, despite its tongue-in-cheek intent …
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STATE OF THE STATEHOUSE: Pot decriminalization bill dead, but reduced-punishment aspect still alive
In the flurry of activity at the Statehouse in recent weeks, I missed reporting some sad news for stoners: The legislation to decriminalize marijuana is dead.
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MARK BENNETT: Great-niece to re-enact Paul Dresser’s musical legacy in Terre Haute show
People can be forgotten. Their lives end, time passes and memories fade.
Often, the only keepers of their legacies are family and friends, who tell and retell their stories, generation to generation.
For Paul Dresser, his fame burned strong enough as a turn-of-the-century, million-seller songwriter to preserve bits of his public notoriety. -
MIKE LUNSFORD: The ‘lovely gift’ of a beech tree …
This is not the season that I usually write of trees, for besides a few pin oaks that hang on to the most stubborn of leaves, my woods stand bare and dormant and cold right now. My trees are patiently awaiting the green of spring that I feel, for some reason, is to arrive a little earlier this year than is usual.
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STATE OF THE STATEHOUSE: What to do with that $2 billion sitting around
We Hoosiers like to think of ourselves as special, but when it comes to the current debate in the Indiana Statehouse over the budget, we’re a lot like other states: Grappling with some post-recession questions about how to balance spending and taxes.
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MARK BENNETT: An Olympic takedown
Imagine an iconic image of American sports history erased.
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STATE OF THE STATEHOUSE: Pence sticks to his ‘Roadmap’
As a U.S. congressman, Mike Pence made it perfectly clear how he felt about the need for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.
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MARK BENNETT: Indiana’s ‘skills gap’
A problem lasting decades ceases to be a “problem.” By then, the situation becomes “part of the culture.”
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MIKE LUNSFORD: Twain’s Sawyer helps us yearn for ‘wilderness of childhood’
My cousin, Roger, stopped in one day last summer for a glass of tea and a little conversation. Rog has lived an hour’s drive away for years and now, and besides summer reunions, I don’t see him nearly often enough. He’s a good man who has raised a good family, and he owns a healthy sense of appreciation for not only the life he has now, but also the lives we had years ago as kids.
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STATE OF THE STATEHOUSE:Supreme Court providing convenient cover for GOP
If GOP leaders in the Indiana General Assembly announce this week, as expected, that they’re postponing a vote on a constitutional ban on same-sex marriages and civil unions, you can expect them to cite the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to step into the larger issue later this year as the primary reason.
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MARK BENNETT: America’s best quality of life? Indiana must address flaws, set priorities
Just as the job interview seems smooth, the interviewer drops the question.
“So, where do you see yourself in five years?” -
MARK BENNETT: Pondering what is meant by ‘quality of life’ to Hoosiers
Sometimes it’s sincere. Other times, it’s sarcasm.
You cross paths with a friend, ask how they’re doing, and they say, “Ah, just livin’ the dream.”
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