Insight Out

Unraveling while traveling

Copper Galore

The approach to Houghton, MI., along the Portage Lake Channel is attractive, not breathtaking. However, the anticipation of a week on the shore of the Keweenaw peninsula is pure oxygen.

HQ of the copper boom lasting a century from 1845-1945, it is now home to the famed engineering Michigan Technical University (formerly Mi. School of Mines) with a noted alumnus, Julie Estep PhD, the prominent rhetorician. Ms. Estep quietly manages to avoid the public limelight in Chico, CA., along with her husband, Gary, and four dogs.

Add Norman Rautiola, now living in splendor, Montecito, CA, inventor of patented keyless entry into automobiles.  He also developed the electromagnetic field which senses your approach and opens/closes doors and windows. Being the nation’s electronic valet became profitable, which Mr. Rautiola generously shares, in addition to his time and business savvy, with MTU.

In the future, sooner than imaginable, we’ll be traveling in driverless vehicles. Rest assured, his Nartron Corp. will own the patent.

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L-R, Norm Rautiola, Mrs. and Mr. Al Gebeau (Ford Motor, ret.)
Aboard the Keweenaw Star, MTU in the background

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Native copper ore, barely oxidized, MTU mineral museum

Unlike California, the planetary prune, which continues the unsustainable siphoning of the Colorado River, the Keweenaw is surrounded on three sides by Lake Superior, the deepest and largest supply of fresh water in the hemisphere.

Add these pluses:

  • birthplace of professional hockey
  • more Finns than a suburb of Helsinki
  • four times the annual snowfall of Buffalo, NY
  • pure water, clean air, no traffic
  • nearest interstate ramp 264 miles;Duluth,MN
  • Scandanavian indelicacy, lutefisk

Quoting* Garrison Keillor ” the purgatory of lutefisk, a repulsive gelatinous fishlike dish that tasted of soap and gave off an odor that would gag a goat….not edible by normal people. It is reminiscent of the afterbirth of a dog or the world’s largest chunk of phlegm”.

Lutefisk may have been solely responsible for the noticeable Lutheran inbreeding of Swedes and Finns.  Who knows?  What is important is that humans are all hybrids, just like our dogs, and you have to wonder…why can’t we get along?

Tribal battles flourish.  In northern Iraq, the Sunnis slaughter the Kurds.  In northern Michigan, factions of the Chippewa, Sault, Ojibwa tribes engage in turf battles for casino revenues.  Everybody is a loser….prisons prosper; substance abuse and depression become the fast track industries.  A solution might be to have warring factions spend a winter together, sharing firewood, skis, lutefisk, and ice fishing huts.

Population growth here remains at zero. No surprise when most activity, in or out of doors, revolves around ice. Californians may be proud of their tan lines, being on a first name basis with cosmetic surgeons, or thankful their homes have not been incinerated in a wildfire or on a mudslide headed for the beach.

No such problem in Houghton, as the natives have an unlimited supply of water to wash and wax the snowmobile in anticipation of another birth controlled winter. We, thankfully, plan a perfect summer week in the community owned waterfront RV park.  The array of local activities has us mouthing at the frost.

Don’t change the dial………

* Pontoon, Aug 2008 Penguin Books®

©insightout2014

 

Introducing Mrs. Wilson….

Wearing nothing but a halter top, frightening full frontal nudity, that which follows may be unsuitable, a rating of PG-55 for the easily offended. A six month Insightout absence, a vacuum created by the loss of family pet, Jack, is over.

The grieving, the failed attempt to establish a website, www.doggone.org, was not working by early April, 2014. A visit to the local Pet Refuge reversed course; a two y/o female (gasp), rescued and fostered by a loving couple, was available. With zero Westminster breeding, and much more likely the result of hasty, unplanned dog sex, she appeared to be 12 pounds of terrier exhibiting a less than subtle attention-deficit disorder; imagine popping corn in a microwave.

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Naming her would be a hurdle. Calling her Orville Redenbacher would cross a sexual boundary. And maybe subject her to a suit from Old Orv’s intellectual property lawyer. Her markings were similar, in miniature, to those of a famed pinto pony, Scout*. Once again, crossing the gender line, nixed Scout. Monikers like Butterscotch and Cafe Au Lait sounded curiously Starbucksian. No thanks a latte.

To those of you familiar with the geography of southeast Asia, her dorsal fur resembled Malaysia to the east and Sumatra to the west….but who would name their dog “Strait of Mallay”?

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Days after the ‘adoption’, when she failed to respond to a command, my friend said, “can’t you call her by name” ? How dumb is that…naming your dog, Byname. Better that, I suppose, than Beyonce.

And so it went for a week. During a quiet moment of contemplation, our eyes deeply embraced, I realized this furball, like Jack before her, was destined to transform me to a better self. Behind that cornea emerged the vision of Washington Grade School, Hammond, Indiana, 1953, and a 14 y/o dyslexic kid. A chronic troublemaker whose future changed when an elderly teacher, Margaret Wilson, triggered his discovery of mathematics.

Who among us has not had a life altered, by a thoughtful, caring person with no intension of personal gain, yet who never lived to witness the ripple on the pond.

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The gratitude and fondness for one lady, a silver-haired arithmetic teacher, sixty years later, has never waned.

In remembrance…..meet Mrs. Wilson ⬇

Airborne, on a favorite beach, the deserted north shore of Lake Huron

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* Tonto, sidekick to the Lone Ranger

 

©insightout2014

..❡…repeat the sounding joy…∲

From our holiday letter, a Christmas past, little has changed.

Ah yes, zero visibility, howling wind, and an arctic clipper courtesy of  the TWC storm d’jour.  I’m reminded of the iconic Burl Ives compelling us to have a ”holly, jolly Christmas” as my 5 HP snow thrower rumbles past the large holly bush.

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Yesterday, 17Dec2013, the bush, the granary, 8″ snow

For those who might enjoy a sprig of branches and berries, they are available, free, under the popular “u-pick” format, no limit. Note our GPS reading, Lat. 41.7222, Long. 86.3497, Elev. 725′. Although no biblical documentation exists, the three wise men, too, must have had a Garmin or how else could they have traveled the great distance from the east and managed to locate the baby Jesus?

My holiday speculation; the star of Bethlehem was the first TV satellite.

Fast forward three years.

Lynn remains stable, yet fragile, as we prepare to celebrate by sharing our new holiday tree, made of re-bar.  Yes, the identical reinforced steel rods used to stabilize concrete bridges. Enough, please, enough of this sentimental, tear producing tangent, before we all lose it.

3′ high, created by Karen Ruihley, the artiste sister of our brother-in-law, relatively speaking.  Imagine what a Lincoln arc welder and an acetylene torch can do in the hands of a genius.  Alert; maintain a safe distance when she’s armed with a chain saw.

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             Christmas portrait, 2013

                             Top:  Lynn

     Bottom: L-R, the Re-Bar tree, the Jack, the Chas

 

The Grinch, in my estimation, was sappier than a Hallmark card, a real softie. Sure, I may have the personality of a walk-in refrigerator, promising no one a gift exchange, other than donations to the grandchildren’s education.  The economy, should it depend on my ilk ( be assured, others cringe at Christmas), would croak louder than an opera bullfrog.

The fat lady would be unemployed.

On food stamps.

Please, insist on observing the constitutional separation of church and retail. That applies to Santa, who, receiving residual annuities from every major advertiser, needs to start paying taxes.  And go on a diet for the grossly obese to reduce his blood pressure and A1C levels, while a bunch of underpaid, non-union, dwarfs do all the work. Scoundrel.

The guy is 3 to 4 hundred years old, can’t afford a Gillette razor, eats chocolate, and never gets older.  He’s making a list and checking it twice?  Huh?  After centuries of practice, he can’t get it right the first time….add senility to his medical profile.  Time to do a transportation upgrade too.  Pan fry that wretched herd of hat racks, including the alcoholic leader with the inflamed red nose.

You may have discerned that I am imbued (whatever that word means) with the holiday spirit, no bahs, no humbugs, while cozily enveloped in the warmth of burning embers from the fireplace, so please join along as I croon that old Bing Crosby holiday favorite;

“I’m dreaming of a white tire iron…..”

 

©insightout2013