i'm trying to reconstruct our weekends up in clare . last week
i covered sundays,when we all left . this week i'm gonna try
the other end of the weekend , aka "the gathering"...
i remember us usually leaving ohio on fridays , after dad
got home from work . maybe not always , but mostly .
that gave us the maximum time there , and since we had
the farthest to travel , that just made sense . trust me , a
six hour car ride with the folks wasn't really high on my
list of things to do . the only thing that made it worthwhile
was the knowledge that at the end , we would be at my
favoritest place in the world . i usually fell asleep at some point
around toledo or so , secure in knowing we were that much
closer to clare . never slept the whole way , as i was way
to excited to even sit still , much less sleep .
so , sometime around 10 or 11 o'clock we would hit the
outskirts of clare , and the real countdown began . i don't
specifically recall driving thru clare , but as i found out as
a teenager there , with the exception of the high school
kids who had cars and "bombed town" , there just wasn't
anything going in town at night . i have some vague
memories of local landmarks whizzing by in the dark ,
but the only one that sticks right now is the sign on the
side of old 27 that said "do not pass"...which i always
read as "donut pass" . i have no idea what-so-ever why
that would remain in the old memory circuits , but maybe
it's because that was the marker i used to determine
that we were just a few miles away from grammas...yay !
3 comments:
Well Sorry I have no memories at all.....Just kidding of course. I know excitement was in the air for me and I'm sure Tom, when we knew you and Cindy were and Aunt Joann and Uncle Ben were going to be up there. The way up from here hasn't changed too much except if you count sections of old 27. Our old cars dad drove, so in the early days I don't believe we had air cond. so windows down which made it noisier. And for a time my dad actually smoked cigarettes on the way up (one or two) But Just before we got there I almost peed myself partly because of excitement of going there, and part because we'd been on the road. Tom and I always found something to do playing or reading in the backseat. It's like we couldn't get through Clare fast enough knowing we weren't far off, and I would observe the entire scenery of old27 between Clare and Gramma's anticipating it wouldn't be long now, and basically when I saw the park I knew we'd made it and would sit up and look out the windows and windshield to see if you guys were outside or would come out of the house. Pretty exciting. Of course not nearly as long a drive as you. Our conversations as kids would start up right away without missing a beat and within seconds we were saying something funny to laugh about and beginning our little plots thereafter. "Let's go up to then barn, or the park,did you hear the new Beatle album or other group?" Hey let me show you this, or do you guys watch this T.V. show? etc.
We drove that route to Clare so often (about 30 years!) and watched it change even over the last 25 years that we know it too well. The old route is implanted in my mind even before the highway was finished. Dan may be too young to remember the two lane trip all the way up. But there is a 25 year by pass around the east side of St. Johns MI from Lansing now. (18 miles north of Lansing). The Old 27route went past what was then an empty field where Dan's house is now in DeWitt. Then later right through St. Johns, waiting in line for only one traffic light which has now become 2 or 3 traffic lights. But on a holiday either direction, cars were backed up there for a mile or more, esp. Memorial Day weekends, July 4, and Labor Day weekends. So for the last 25 years we go around St. Johns. Just not the same - in some cases thank God, in others bad; scenery taken up by strip malls and shit.
Later there is the same stretch of road between St. Johns and Ithaca/St. Louis area where it is 4lanes but access to side roads and driveways. I remember when they added the other two lanes ca 1962Then there was the accident corners near the east west railroad tracks. Only a blinker light and often on the way home we would find oursleves in backed up traffic because of an accident. Theythought they could solve the porblem after too many accidents, injuries and deaths by putting in a regular traffic signal. Nope. Finally they put in a bridge over 27 and that worked. The X-Way resturant is no longer there, but was for years. Now they call the stupid highway "127." I don't get it, it will always be 27 to me.
yeppers,it will always be 27 to me also.and,i really dislike strip malls...
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