6/26/2017
Neebish Island.
My 69-year-old mother, Karin Meyer, raced down the wide evergreen-lined country road to the Neebish Island Ferry. The ferry was scheduled to leave the mainland at 4:15 PM on Monday, June 26th 2017 and cross the St. Mary’s river to my ancestral homeland. We had three minutes to make the six-minute journey. Karin raced, as she would say, “Like a bat out of hell,” down the two-lane road, hovering over the center line, so as not to skid on the mile long puddles worn into the tire grooves in these sturdy Michigan roads. Getting air as we sailed over the final hill, descending towards the river, I remembered all my earliest childhood trips, spent just like this one, racing to catch the Neebish Island Ferry.
Neebish Island.
My 69-year-old mother, Karin Meyer, raced down the wide evergreen-lined country road to the Neebish Island Ferry. The ferry was scheduled to leave the mainland at 4:15 PM on Monday, June 26th 2017 and cross the St. Mary’s river to my ancestral homeland. We had three minutes to make the six-minute journey. Karin raced, as she would say, “Like a bat out of hell,” down the two-lane road, hovering over the center line, so as not to skid on the mile long puddles worn into the tire grooves in these sturdy Michigan roads. Getting air as we sailed over the final hill, descending towards the river, I remembered all my earliest childhood trips, spent just like this one, racing to catch the Neebish Island Ferry.
Likely, I was four-years-old then, like my son Santiago Brach Lovejoy is now, I had sat on the armrest of our pale yellow station wagon’s vinyl seat, my Dad listened to Marvin Gaye as he tried to deliver my mother, and her merry band of four children to Grandma and Grandpa Maggie and Bill Lovejoy’s boathouse turned family cottage all in one piece.
Just now, watching freight ships go by and wild geese make their way through the cool water, I yelled to Grandma Karin and her 90-year-old mother Grandma Behling who are hanging clothes on a clothes line, how long have I been coming here, “You came from the time you were a baby,” my mom answered, “I came from the time I was a baby,” she continued. “Just like Grandma Doris Behling before me and even Grandma Maggie Lovejoy came as babies. I have been coming here for 69 years,” my mom added.
One difference is that when my family drove up in the yellow station wagon, we drove the eight hour trip, often straight through from Chicago. Stopping only so my mother could get her fix at the A & W drive thru, which I hear is making a come back. This year, Santi, Zadie and I flew in from Washington D.C. via Detroit. This is my first trip in 44-years where I feel the cultural divide between small rural town America and urban America is palpable. I imagine every one one of my relatives that I will spin-the-lazy-susan with this summer is a Fox news watching, Wall Street Journal reading, Trump championing Republican. We have 100 years of family history at this boat house and one gut-wrenching year of heightened political division. We turn to Santi and Zadie, whose fascination with dressing and redressing a Raggedy Anne doll, or making a fort out of 60-year-old furniture takes us away from our political differences and right back to the heart of what matters.
