My earliest memory is of being awake super early in the morning standing in my living room. Like, maybe 5:00AM. It is the only time as a kid I can remember being up that early. Captain Kangaroo was on. It was only on very early in the morning. That was the only time I ever watched it. (And it was kinda weird.) I remember the screen on the color television being kind of greenish, because it didn’t work right and the tubes were going out on it or something. I looked out the tall window at the end of our living room in our old farmhouse, and there was a wall of green fog outside. It was so thick I could not see our next door neighbor’s house. It was as if an alien ship had landed outside, the lights from their ship reflecting off of the fog. It was strange and frightening, but also exciting at the same time.
That might all sound super fake and trippy. And, I will admit there are probably inaccuracies in it as my brain has been rotted over the last 35 years by too many Pop-Tarts and watching too much Beavis & Butthead while I was in college. I would say I was probably only three or four years old when that all took place.
But I know there is some truth in it, because my mom remembers that day too. Just a little differently than I do…
She remembers it as a day when, in a fit of stubbornness the night before, I told her I was not going to go to sleep. And, well, apparently I didn’t. (Most every kid threatens it, but very few follow through. I was a determined little Capricorn!) She says it was incredibly foggy that morning and there was an eerie green glow to everything. She needed to go to the post office that morning, so she loaded me in the car…where I promptly fell asleep.
Now, this was Riga, Michigan, a quaint but tiny farming town. The post office was literally a 65 second drive from our house.
I find it interesting that even at that young age I would defy her on purpose, just to be difficult. I guess that proves there is no hope for stopping that habit now.
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My family was lucky enough to get a chance to escape up to northern Michigan this summer. This gave me the opportunity to introduce my son to the land of dinosaurs, better known as Dinosaur Gardens.
You see, I visited there when I was only a little older than he. And I not only lived to tell the tale, but I left with proof.
Dinosaur Gardens
I didn’t tell my 4 1/2 year old son where we were heading. I had visited the Dinosaur Gardens website, but I was still afraid that maybe they would be closed or something. Then, of course, he was asleep when we arrived. I groggily took him out of the car and, holding him lovingly to me, said, “Hey, look what is over there in the woods!” and pointed out the giant brontosaurus to him.
An immediate look of horror crossed his face. This is a little boy who actually likes scary things. (And making up stories. I am planning on him to be the next Stephen King.) But, well, apparently he doesn’t like them when he first wakes up.
We took him into the gift shop, where the sight of toy dinosaurs quickly woke him up.
But when we began down the path into the woods, M wouldn’t budge. He was afraid of the brontosaurus. Mind you, it did tower over even mom and dad, let alone him. With some gentle but firm coaxing, he entered the forest. But first he said, “This is very weird and ridiculous.”
I can’t imagine why he could be scared…
In time he became so comfortable, he even began to feed the creatures himself!
M feeding one of the animals.
I had told my husband that my mom had brought me here 30 years ago. He asked me how she knew about it. My mother’s grandmother had a newspaper clipping she had saved about the extraordinary sculptures someone had made in Osseneke, Michigan. So, they had brought my mom (and most likely her older brother) up here once when she was a girl. I love that this roadside attraction, many of which thrived in the days of drive-ins in the 1950s but have since become extinct, continues to roar on for generations of my family.
Even my husband was charmed.
I asked my son if he would bring his kids back to visit. He said that he would, and that I could come too.
I think it is amazing that this tourist attraction has survived for 80 years. And not only been maintained, but improved! There were two new exhibits that had been added in recent years. While we were there, we saw several concrete statues that had either been recently repainted, or had had their previous paint carefully removed and were primed for a new coat.
This was the only sick animal, and I thought it was very clever how they explained his illness.
This is a great stop for everyone. If you like art and dinosaurs, you will love the statues and appreciate all the hard work that must have gone into them by the artist, Paul Domke. If you are a nature enthusiast, you will love the walk in the woods. If you like souvenirs, they have those too. (Personally, I like all four of those things.)
Beautiful
I love that all this was created from one man’s imagination gone wild. He stood on this piece of land and saw that the fabric of time was thin here, that others would be able to come after him and experience prehistoric times as he could, with a little help from his own hands. I love that he had a dream that most would call crazy, to build dinosaurs in northern Michigan’s harsh climate. But he did it. And it has endured for nearly a century.
Yes, I had to recreate the past.
That is all I am asking out of my writing career. That isn’t too much to ask for, right?
The End
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It is something lots of people in the U.S. take for granted.
When I was a child, we didn’t have air conditioning in our house or our assorted cars. And I never thought anything about it. The lack of it was not hardship in my life.
Then when I started 2nd grade, my mom and I moved into a trailer (a.k.a. mobile home) in the trailer court. Crazy thing here is that it had an air conditioner–in my bedroom, no less–(and a washer and dryer) when we moved in, but she sold them, with the excuse that they would be too expensive to run. Then she spend the next 16 years that we lived there complaining about how the laundromat was so much more expensive than having a washer and dryer at home. Go figure. A lot of what she does doesn’t make sense to me. But if I ask her, she will double-talk me until it does. Until I talk to another rational human being, who points out the holes in her logic, or lack thereof.
My old home was just pulled out to the curb, to be sold for best offer, like some used car or piece of trash.
Anyways, if you are not aware, trailers heat up faster and retain more heat than your typical wood-frame house. Actually, you can liken them a lot to the greenhouse affect that happens to your car on a hot day. You know how they say “no matter how far open you leave your windows on a hot day, it will always get too hot to leave your dog in there?” Works the same way with a trailer. No matter how many windows you open or how far, it will always heat up in the midday summer sun to an unbearable level. (And we had the old, slanted crank windows that blocked any potential breeze. And eventually became too stripped to crank, no matter how careful you were each time, and had to be propped open with a chunk of wood.)
I was that dog.
While my mom scampered off to work in an air-conditioned office, I was at home for three months every summer, with nothing but an oscillating fan.
Most days I could ride my bike outside and make a little breeze for myself. With little tricks like aiming the fan to blow hot air out the kitchen window when running the oven, then turning it around to suck in the cool air at night, we managed. Barely.
Do you remember that Married with Children episode where the Bundys were so hot they went to live in the frozen food aisle at the grocery store?
The Bundys camping in the grocery store.
That may be based on a true story. I used to travel to the little local grocery store that was only a four minute walk from my house, just to loiter and absorb as much cold air as possible before my short, sweaty walk home again.
On 80 or 90 degree days, it was just so miserable. Where my current house may equalize with the external temperature, it never gets hotter than that. In that trailer, it was always at least five degrees hotter inside than the temperature outside. There was one summer where the high temp was 100 or greater for four days straight. All my mom and I could do was lay in front of the fans and sweat. Well, she was recovering from surgery, so she couldn’t do much else anyway.
And I realize I sound like I am whining, but I’m not. I actually don’t even like AC because it dries out my sinuses and makes it hard to breathe. And I know some people work construction or road crews and are subjected to high temps for hours. This post isn’t really meant for them.
I want to campaign for if you are going to live in a tin can, you need to provide air conditioning for your child. I used to ride my bike all through the trailer court (there must have been a couple hundred parked in there) and look at each and every home as I went. Some had central air, some only window units, but were all running. MY TRAILER WAS THE ONLY ONE WITHOUT AIR CONDITIONING!!!
After that, I lived in an apartment and now I have a house, in both I have had access to window AC units that I rarely use, because it just doesn’t get as miserably hot as the trailer did.
My mom bought a different trailer after I moved out, and guess what it had?
Central Air.
My favorite quote from the movie The Last Starfighter
I write about things that stood out in my childhood. Being HOT (and not in the leggy supermodel way) and bored and lonely all summer long is something I will never forget until the end of time. It indeed felt like I was in hell.
If I win the lottery, I think it would be awesome to start a fund that would help poor people living in trailers to get an air conditioner, and maybe supply a stipend to help offset the increased electrical usage annually. Maybe that is silly. Food and medicine and such are always looked at as more pressing necessities for the needy. But heat can be dangerous. That is why NOAA has heat advisories and there are community cooling centers on really hot days. It can be a danger as much as any forest fire or volcanic eruption.
Individuals who live in trailers have enough issues to deal with. There is the stigma of being trailer trash, white trash, or redneck. Then their is the fact that Mother Nature has it out for you in other ways as well.
Johnny freaks out over a tornado on WKRP in Cincinnati.
My mom and I took a vacation “Up North” in Michigan in June of 1990. I had completed 8th grade, and was due to change buildings to start scary high school in the fall. My 80’s perm that I had finally gotten caused my hair to become dry and frizzy, and I didn’t have the good sense yet to cut it of. My hair would never be as long again until my future wedding. I still toted my New Kids on The Block book with me, and of course my stuffed animal Barfeys.
Turning in for the night with the essentials
We were only going for three days. My mom decided we would travel up the west side of the state. This was a change from trips we had taken Up North in the past. Usually we were gone for four days, to allow for more sight-seeing, and we usually traveled up the east side or the middle of the state.
“We are not going to Mackinaw City.”
This was my mom’s statement, over and over again, as we planned out the trip. Mackinaw City, and with it the Mackinaw Bridge, are two of my mom’s favorite things in the world. We had been there before. But I think she made the statement for two reasons.
I think she wanted to see something new we had not seen before, which is why we went up the west side of the state.
How she travels, then this took longer, and I don’t think she had enough money for us to have another night’s motel stay.
And she did not want to drive all the way home from Mackinaw City in one day.
Wait. That is three reasons. But they are all related to each other.
We headed off at the end of June. My mom must have thought I was old enough to pack for myself, because I went without a jacket. It is summer! It is June! Who needs a jacket!
That was the gloomiest, rainiest, coldest end of June, until 2015. Since then, I have learned that it is always colder the further north you go, and near the water. Either way, it was still colder than it should have been. My mom told me to layer my T-shirts, so I did. It did not really help to keep me any warmer.
Our first major stop was Holland, Michigan. It was really awesome to see an actual Dutch windmill. There were dancers who wore wooden shoes. They were impressive. Even with wearing layers and layers of socks, I still figured that must be the worst summer job in town.
We traveled through Muskegon that day, and spent the night in Manistee. I kept thinking how much it sounded like “manatee.” We went to sleep and dreamed of warm days and sunny skies. But the dawn brought only more clouds and rain.
In the morning, my mother reminded me, “We are not going to Mackinaw City. We need to start heading back down for home tonight, so we will not have a long drive tomorrow.”
We traveled through Frankfort and spotted a lighthouse across the water. Lighthouses are my favorite. If I recall correctly, my mom found a condo parking lot she drove through to get a better look at it. The Frankfort light may have been the first one I ever saw with a breakwater attached to it. The way the rough waters splashed up against it was impressive. I could have captured it better with a digital camera, but they did not exist yet.
Frankfort Breakwater Light, Frankfort, MI 1990
We stopped at Sleeping Bear Dunes, another of my favorite places. Not so much when it is blowing and cold and rainy though. The first time we had ever been there, I was like eight years old. My mom wasn’t spry enough to climb the dunes with me, and I was too young to climb them by myself. Now, I was old enough to go up myself, but the weather was just too crappy. We bought me a souvenir T-shirt in the gift shop, to add to my layers of warmth. (I was wearing all the shirts I had brought for the entire vacation every day.) It was neon pink and three sizes too big, because I was not done with 80’s fashions yet.
The wind is blowing my shirt, but it looks like something else…
If you think this is just a post about me whining about a gloomy trip, please stick with me. I am almost to the part where the cloud bank lifts and the angels sing. Actually, it was a band playing, but you get the idea…
We went to Traverse City. We drove out on Old Mission Point and found another lighthouse. We couldn’t go inside or climb this one either, but at least we could take pictures out front.
Old Mission Point Lighthouse, near Traverse City, MI 1990
Then a strange thing happened.
My mom got on the road to Mackinaw City (Route 31, most likely). We passed through little towns. We passed by convenience stores selling fudge. We passed through the big cities of Charlevoix and Petoskey.
She kept driving. I kept quiet. Sure, I was the navigator with the map, but she had to know we were headed for Mackinaw City, right? After all, there were road signs that indicated we were nearing it. Billboards advertising the various ferry companies, Arnold, Sheplers, and Star Line, became more and more prominent.
Another funny thing happened. The clouds began to clear.
But she was the mother, the adult, and she had said, “We are not going to Mackinaw City.”
Had she lost her mind? Taken leave of her senses?
Either way, I was keeping my mouth shut, because I really really DID want to go to Mackinaw City. I figured if I didn’t say anything, we would just end up there and it would be too late.
And that is just what happened. We rolled into Mackinaw City. And while I wouldn’t say the sun came out, the rain stopped.
The weather improved enough that the kite store was flying a long string of colorful kites up into the sky, all tied to one another. It was like a fabric rainbow after the rain. The scent of fresh fudge hung heavy in the air. Next to the Straits of Mackinac in the park at the end of the street, a huge band started to set up. When they began to play, the music drifted down the street, where cars were parked along the center boulevard as they probably had since the 1950’s, and souvenir shops lined up next to each other. Since the 4th of July was only a few weeks away, they had many patriotic songs mixed into their selections. I guess it made sense that they were playing in the town square, since it was a Saturday evening. But I was on vacation, and had lost all track of time.
Actual program from that night’s performance
I just think back on that night so fondly. It is one of the moments in my life that I will cherish forever. That may be one of the most relaxed and happy times of my life, right then. My mom and I walked the shops until the lights shined brightly inside and the sun fell below the horizon, in the shadow of the giant bridge, connecting the the two peninsulas like a neck connects a head to a body.
In the morning, the sun shone brightly in the sky (of course!). We made one last visit to my mom’s favorite park by the bridge, then started off on our long trip home.
Mackinac Bridge, Mackinaw City, MI 1990
Years later, I admitted to her that I knew where we were headed but I hadn’t said anything. “Oh, I knew where we were going. But we were that close, and I just couldn’t help but head up there.”
Still, I think she may have been in a vacation daze. If I had said anything, who knows, it may have snapped her out of it. Then we never would have gone to Mackinaw City. I wish I was there right now. With a jacket, just in case…
Follow the romantic entanglements of The Riley Sisters in my books When You Least Expect It & The Wind Could Blow a Bug AVAILABLE NOW! (The Wind Could Blow a Bug is ON SALE for only $.99 for a limited time.)
We are all just the sum of our stories, right? And while one person might see my stories as boring and insignificant, another might just find them relatable and moving. Certain childhood events stand out on the virtual timeline more than others.
The flood of 1981 in Riga, Michigan is one of those events in my life. The River Raisin crested in nearby Blissfield at a record 687.10 ft. (Flood stage is 683 ft.) It is actually a much cooler story from my mom’s point of view. After all, I was only five years old when all this happened. I just did as I was told, and followed my mom’s lead. [Only recently have I realized that she must have spent my entire youth faking strength. She should have been an actress.]
As my mom tells it, she was asleep on the couch in the living room. Our dog Ginger was fussing around in the middle of the night. My mom woke up and swore at the dog. She wasn’t in the mood to get up and let her out. Then my mom sniffed. The dog didn’t want to go out. She was reacting to the weird smell in the air. My mom got up and checked the basement. The weird smell was water flowing into the furnace. The rain combined with the spring thaw of snow was causing water to pour through cracks in the basement walls.
It is probably useful to mention at this point in my story, for those unaware of local history, that before Riga was settled in 1843, it was all swamp. The swamp was drained by digging deep ditches. Deep ditches remain there still, alongside country roads lined with open, flat fields. Too bad that the night the flood first hit, all those ditches were already filled with water. So was the River Raisin.
My mom did what was most logical to her at the time, and waded down into the basement in her nightgown to turn off the furnace. After all, that is an expensive piece of HVAC equipment to have to replace. A little later, as the water only continued to rise, she waded down again to turn off the electricity to the house. Only in retrospect would she realize how easily she could have been electrocuted, leaving a clueless, sleeping child to later find her floating, bloated body.
She called her mother, who lived in nearby Adrian, to come and get us. By this time, water surrounded our house and our car. This must have been when my mom woke me up, told me what was going on, and told me Gramma would be here shortly. I wondered how, in the time since I had gone to bed, our front yard had become a lake.At this point our house had no heat and no electricity. With no power, we had no well, meaning no drinking water, either. My mom opened the door so that I could look into the basement. By this time, the water had made it up to the top basement step. The basement had filled up with water to ground level. Where there used to be an entire flight of stairs, now there was just muddy, brown water.
Our flooded basement, Riga, MI, 1981
Things that are silly to remember about the flood, but they are what I remember because I was a kid:
1. As a kid, I didn’t have pajamas. I usually slept in just a T-shirt (and underpants, you sickos). Many of these were shirts my gramma had brought back from vacations as souvenirs for me. Maybe that was my mom’s way of treating them as second-class clothing. We called them my “sleep shirts.” They were kept separate from my other T-shirts, due to the fact that my mom said sleeping in them stretched the necks out. I never wore them during the day to leave the house. Ever.
Except for the first day of the flood. My mom just put my jeans, socks, shoes, and coat on me, and left on my sleep shirt. That is how I knew something very major and upsetting was happening.
Our flooded house, Riga Hwy, Riga, MI, 1981
When my gramma arrived, she stayed in the car at the road. It was still dark outside. My mom wore her winter boots as she carried our clothes and things out to the car through our front yard that was now a lake. Too bad that the water was higher than the tops of her boots. Next, she carried me out to the car. I was at the age where I still wanted her to pick me up, and she would always be like, “No, you are too heavy.” So, it could not have been easy for her. Finally, I sat in the car and watched as she carried the dog out. Ginger was some type of poodle mix. Guessing, she had to have been at least 45lbs. When my mom tells the story, she says how the whole way she was talking to Ginger, willing her to not twist and writhe and jump out of my mom’s arms and land kersplat into the water. But Ginger did not. She made it to the car.
We ended up sleeping at my gramma’s house for the next ten days: my mom on the couch, I on the loveseat. In my memory I was in kindergarten at the time, but there is no way I could have been at that age. Just one of the ways our memories play tricks on us.
US223 bridge at Blissfield, MI, 1981
My mom spent her days heading down to the house, while I stayed out of her way at my gramma’s. Instead, I was in my gramma’s way, cramping her style. My mom would come home at night with stories about how the main bridge through town was blocked by the cops because the flood waters were hitting the underside of the roadway, and how she begged them to let her through to work on her house. She had tales of the neighbors helping with sump pumps. She had to wait for the water to recede, then the furnace guy to come, then the electrician.
Flooded Park in Blissfield, MI, 1981
2. It was not lost on me, even then, that everyone had lived at my gramma’s house before, except me. I had seen the old 8mm home movies many times to prove it. My mom had grown up here. Ginger had lived her puppy years here. Even my dad who died before I was born lived there for a time when they were newlyweds. I was the odd man (girl?) out.
Flooded Riga Hwy, Riga, MI, 1981
3. It was the first time I would ever get one of those big PAAS Easter poster kits that came with markers to color. My mom bought me a steady stream of new activities to try to keep me out of my gramma’s hair. I got a puzzle featuring a little girl in a blue bonnet and a baby chick. I got a new huge activity book, which I still had not completed years later. But I always remember the PAAS posters the best.
See the railing for the foot bridge? That goes over Floodwood Creek. Ironic, isn’t it?
4. I remember being sick and watching Fridays starring Michael Richards and Melanie Chartoff with my mom on TV as I hacked away. Fridays was like SNL, but better and didn’t last nearly as long. I am positive it was the only time that particular program was ever watched on that television.
My mom always reminds me how my gramma came out of her bedroom and said, “Don’t you know you are keeping Gramma up?” And she wasn’t talking about the TV. She was referring to my loud coughing, which couldn’t be helped.
Flooded Park in Blissfield, Michigan, 1981
The River Raisin has risen many times since then, but never as high. My mom sold the house in Riga when I was 8 years old. I married into a family whose ancestral home sits on the flood plain of the very same river. Sometimes my in-laws have to be evacuated, and my husband and I are happy to be able to provide them refuge.
US223 bridge closed in Blissfield, MI, at River Raisin due to flooding, December 2011. I would let that hottie stay at my house!
Other parts of the country worry about earthquakes or lava or hurricanes. Those of us who reside on a former swamp worry about flooding.
And a little about tornadoes.
And Sharknadoes…
And there is more…
I wanted to post this entry in the spring, maybe on the anniversary of this big flood or at least during flooding season. But I was busy working on my new book, and it didn’t happen. But, well, I am not too late after all…
This is my mother-in-law’s shed behind her house yesterday, as it floats away. This yard was dry enough to mow at 1:00PM on Sunday. 24 hours later, this is what the family saw as they evacuated.
Flooding on Franklin St, Blissfield, MI, June 29, 2015
And here is video someone in Blissfield must have taken with a drone:
Looks impressive, huh? And will certainly cause lots of costly damage. But just imagine, it is still 1.2 ft lower than in 1981. I think the crest of 6/29/15 will be the second highest historical crest for the River Raisin at Blissfield since 2/20/1981.
Follow the romantic entanglements of The Riley Sisters in my books When You Least Expect It & The Wind Could Blow a Bug AVAILABLE NOW! (The Wind Could Blow a Bug is ON SALE for only $.99 for a limited time.)
I'm not stalking you. 