Fichigan

Notorious

Laid up with a cold listening to some songs I wrote/recorded long ago

She causes scandals everywhere she goes
She drinks too much, she talks too loud
Everybody knows
She’s notorious for breaking all the rules
She lines ’em up, she knocks them down
She’s no-one’s fool

Beneath the cool surface, behind the bright veneer
Beyond the statuesque facade and past the second beer
She gets you on the dance floor and curtsies when you’re through
She’s not what you expected… But she expected you

Her reputation proceeds her with a shout
Your snobby friends, your relatives
Will all find out
They will be laughing at this little joke
It’d be my guess they can’t accept
What they don’t know

Beneath the cool surface, behind the bright veneer
Beyond the statuesque facade and past the second beer
She gets you on the dance floor and curtsies when you’re through
She’s not what you expected… But she expected you.

This is on the Without a Hitch music CD by Wrong Agenda – available in the Kent District Library. All songs loosely based on Alfred Hitchcock and his movies.

Apache Camper Hand-Off

My 1961 Apache Chief camper has accounted for the majority of hits on the fichigan blog. People love these old campers and have clubs dedicated to their preservation. Mine served me well. The canvas is still very good. No worries about bad weather. This year I bought a 2006 Scamp trailer and didn’t need two campers so I gave the Apache to Jake, Feral’s son. Jake you might remember as the artist in Alpena, Michigan that did the bike path sculpture as well as the art nouveau bike racks downtown. He’s a blacksmith and artist of amazing talent. He was at trout camp this spring and asked about the camper.

I met Jake and Feral up at Burnt Clutch, a remote (free) camping spot, to pass along the camper and do some fishing. I was protesting the fee increase at the Pigeon River rustic campgrounds – see previous post. It was a one-night trip. We fished the Pigeon River together, the three of us wading up the river and taking turns in the lead. Jake was using what I thought was a vintage Shakespeare close-face spinning reel and rod but it turns out the reel was a South Bend 1200. It seemed to be an exact copy of a Shakespeare 1776 leaving me to wonder if Shakespeare made reels for South Bend in the fifties?

Jake took the lead and caught a twenty inch brown trout right away. He was placing the lure with precision next to the bank and working the cover well. I was impressed. I hadn’t fished with him in a while. He caught a second nice brown on his next turn up front.

Feral and I were out-fished (and getting used to that with Natch) but now Jake, another upstart, had us making jokes to cover our pain. We recovered enough to catch a couple pan fryers but, hey.

Jake with his 1961 Apache Chief camper. I ran through the process of set-up and take-down with him, and threw in some wheel bearings and misc stuff he might appreciate. There are other posts about this camper if you use this blog’s search engine which tell some history. I purchased it for $275 so long ago it is embarrassing to admit when. I sure got my money’s worth.

Michigan’s Proposal 1

comes back to haunt Michigan campers. It looked good on paper: A constitutional amendment to allow money from oil and gas mining on state-owned lands to continue to be collected in state funds for land protection and creation and maintenance of parks, nature areas, and public recreation facilities; and to describe how money in those state funds can be spent.

The constitutional amendment would:

• Allow the State Parks Endowment Fund to continue receiving money from sales of oil and gas from state-owned lands to improve, maintain and purchase land for State parks, and for Fund administration, until its balance reaches $800,000,000. • Require subsequent oil and gas revenue from state-owned lands to go into the Natural Resources Trust Fund. • Require at least 20% of Endowment Fund annual spending go toward State park improvement. • Require at least 25% of Trust Fund annual spending go toward parks and public recreation areas and at least 25% toward land conservation.

It passed 4,154,745 to 774,509.

Now the proposal, which had universal appeal as a way to improve our outdoor experience, is being used as justification for raising campground fees across Michigan. According to the DNR website the money from oil and gas leases is drying up, campground use is on the rise, and more money is needed to maintain campsites. A rustic campsite in the Pigeon River State Forest now costs $20 per night up from $15 per night, a 33% increase. This at a time when families are struggling with increased inflation.

I visited two of the rustic campgrounds last Friday, Pickerel Lake and Pigeon Bridge State Forest Campground. It was a beautiful day in June. There was one camper at Pickerel Lake and no campers at Pigeon Bridge. Doing the math, five days of camping plus the recreation pass needed to drive into a campground costs $112.00. If you buy the recreation pass when you arrive it is $117.00. Seems high for a tiny plot of land and use of an outhouse. What maintenance? True, Pickerel Lake has giant boulders brought in from somewhere because they look cool (watch your bumpers backing in) and a lake with no beach, but it is peaceful. I just wonder how many Michigan families are going to look at their budget and decide to stay home. Today, 1.4 million Michiganders fall below the poverty level, but more importantly, the United Way’s ALICE Report shows that 43% or 4.3 million of working Michigan households struggle to afford the necessities like housing, childcare, food, technology, health care and transportation. As far as I can tell the proposal allowed for more boulders added to the campgrounds, just not people.

Next post: Jake gets the 1961 Apache Chief camper.