Eat Dessert First

Posted on 30/03/2025 by Grumpa Joe

A version of this story was originally posted on May 20, 2008.

For the last two days, Peggy and I have been traveling. We toured the western shoreline of Lake Michigan. Our destination town was Holland, Michigan. We wanted to see the tulips in bloom. We stopped in small lakeshore towns along the way to explore the shops and the beaches. A favorite activity is to pick up real estate magazines and look at the available homes. Most resort towns have a huge summer-time population that is nearly deserted in the winter. We dream of owning a house on the beach, but our dreams always lose to the practicality of owning two homes.

Our first stop was at Clementine’s in South Haven to eat. The heavy lunch hour was over, so we had excellent service. I always give Clementine’s four stars****. I told Peggy that a block from the restaurant was a wonderful ice cream parlor serving Sherman’s Ice Cream. Our waitress, Janet, said the parlor I remembered had moved to the dairy outside of town.

To work off lunch, we walked the main street browsing the shops. Peggy searched for a summer wreath for our front door, and I browsed all the neat stuff. We found one we liked, but it was the wrong color. She had visioned a light blue, rose, or lavender color. This one was green. She passed, hoping to find what she wanted at another shop.

Driving out of town, I looked for Sherman’s but could not find it. We kept moving and headed to Saugatauk instead. I detoured a bit to show her the “Gay” town of Douglas. As it turned out, they were paving the main street, and the entire business area of two blocks was shut down. We kept going.

In Saugatauk, I made my regular visit to the drug-store and souvenir shop.  I have been there several times, and on one occasion we overheard the druggist hollering at his gay lover. It was funny, but embarrassing too. It didn’t happen this time. Maybe they broke up. We walked shop to shop looking for a wreath. We have a very specific vision for what it should be. Peg kept asking at the shops if anyone in town carried such a wreath. Each time they sent us to another shop. No luck, none of them had what we were looking for. It was becoming more and more apparent that the wreath we turned down in South Haven was the one we wanted. Peggy and I agreed that we would venture back to South Haven if we struck out in Holland.  Our biggest treat was a stop at the fudge shop.  We bought two kinds before leaving town.

We arrived in Holland by six o’clock and checked in at the Holiday Inn Express. Instead of going out to eat, we snacked in the room, and watched tv. The next morning we toured Windmill Island hoping to see bunches of tulips in bloom. There were indeed many tulips, but most were spent, and the colors faded. We climbed the four stories of the De Swaan windmill, now 257 years old. “The Swan” came to Holland, Michigan from the Netherlands. The town purchased it in the nineteen sixties from the country of Holland. It is the only authentic Dutch windmill in the United States.

At the Swan, a tour leader much older than us climbed the stairs without getting winded. Peggy and I puffed at each level. After the windmill, we visited the calliope. What a wonderful instrument this is. Another younger lady explained the history of the calliope. She showed us the player book, a series of cards with holes punched in. These cards fed into the machine and played the pipes and the drums. The music was great.

We left Windmill Island and drove the length of the two shores of Lake Macatawa. This lake extends for several miles and opens into Lake Michigan, creating a great harbor. The homes along both shorelines are magnificent. The middle class of Holland does not occupy them, but rather the very wealthy. These properties are in the one million to three million dollar range.

We lunched at the “Golden Arches” where we tried the new southern chicken sandwich. I gave it one star. From there, we ventured north to the Veldemeer Tulip Farm. Luckily, there were still acres of tulips in bloom. The colors were absolutely brilliant. The trip became a “baby step,” for my new garden. We selected several colors of tulips and purchased them for fall planting. This purchase now solidifies my vision to add a few more flower beds into the yard. More grass to take out, more soil amendment, more compost, and lots of mulch. 

Having spent a ton of money on the tulips, we headed back on the scenic Blue Star Highway to South Haven. I gave up a stop to the Fenn Valley winery to get to my son Steve’s in time for dinner. Along the way to Steve’s we stopped in South Haven to buy that green wreath at the ‘Rambling Rose’ in South Haven. The lovely proprietress gave us directions to Sherman’s along with another fantastic recommendation. On the way out of town we “ate dessert first” at Sherman’s dairy, established in 1906. They have had a lot of practice making ice cream.  We jumped onto I-196 South to get to Steve’s farm. Twenty minutes later, I pulled into his yard.  Steve was waiting for us, and we crossed the river from Benton Harbor into Saint Joseph.

We settled for at the ‘Pump House Grill’ in the heart of the historic Saint Joseph’s business district at the top of the bluff. The menu has a nice variety of foods. The wine list featured wines from Australia. Our server Andrew took good care of us throughout the evening. He incurred my sarcasm when he confessed, after a very long wait, that a printer malfunction in the kitchen prevented our order from being placed. He apologized and promised to discount the meal to appease us. He did as promised. All in all, we had a nice visit with Steve while we waited, ate soup, bread, salad and the table cloth. The food was tasty. I had lake perch, Peggy had a t-bone with too much sauce, and Steve had a Thai Salad with chicken.  The portions were hefty. Even with the screw up, I give the place three stars ***. 

Peg and I were treated to a fabulous sunset on the westward drive home. Several lines of clouds blocked the sun from our eyes but produced ribbons of lavender, taupe, rose, and gold with yellow tinges that merged into Lake Michigan’s grey water

We arrived home in Frankfort, exhausted by 9:30 p.m., where we collapsed on the couch and pretended to watch T.V. until finally retiring after midnight. Not long after we had both fallen into that deep sleep, the phone woke us up. It was 1:00 a.m. I answered, “Where the heck are you Dad?” the caller asked. The male voice was not either of my son’s or my son-in-law’s.

“I think you have the wrong number,” I replied.  

“No I don’t, I have been at McDonald’s waiting for you to pick me up. Where are you?”

Again, I tried to explain, “I think you…” He interrupted again.

“I’m sitting here looking forward to getting home and having a drink and a smoke.” None of my boys drink or smoke.

“Oh,” I answered, “I’ll be there to pick you up in ten minutes.” click

I went back to bed to resume that deep deep sleep.

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A Slow Start, but a Strong Finish

Posted on 29/03/2025 by Grumpa Joe

This site began in 2008 when I became interested in blogging. Until then, I had been trying to do the same thing on a website that I had developed and maintained myself. A friend from work introduced me to WordPress and suggested I try it. I did, and the whole blogging experience began. My goal at the time was to teach self-improvement via goal setting. I quickly learned that I myself did not have enough knowledge of the topic to be able to teach others. Simultaneously, Barack Obama entered the world as a presidential candidate. I saw him as a communist whose message resonated with those of Fidel Castro. This set me off giving opinions of him and his campaign. I learned that the world loved the guy. They could not see though his Hope and Change message to the tenets of communism. To this day, it is my opinion that he was a counterfeit president. He was not born in the USA and therefore did not meet the requirements of the office. He was a charlatan who used a faked birth certificate to deceive the country. Nothing that he did to resolve his birth place has ever changed my mind on him. To me he remains a charlatan and a crook. Every policy and law introduced during his eight years of office is as illegitimate as all the policies devised by Joe Biden

To get off my anti-Obama soapbox and onto a more pastoral subject, I am reposting a piece I wrote in May 2008 about my grandfather, Jim Wigh.

Eat Greasy Food Off Dirty Dishes (May 22, 2008)

Imre (James) Wigh pronounced Veeg

My grandfather knew how to live. Granted, he was a hermit, but he knew how to manage on a very small pension. My recollection of him dates back to when I was ten, he was seventy-two. He was living on a small farm in southwest Michigan. His house was small and without plumbing. It did have electricity and hand pumped water in the kitchen. Gramp’s pension came from working in a coal mine when he was younger. The pension wasn’t very much, perhaps thirty dollars a month. Somehow he managed to live on that amount. He smoked Camels, and drank an occasional bottle of beer. I never knew him to work. My earliest recollection of him does not include work at a job. He was already sixty-two when I was born, so he was near retirement then. When he did retire, there was no social security, only his meager pension from the mine he worked at in West Frankfort, Illinois.

Gramps lived on a farm, but I never saw him plant anything. My mother always planted the garden. She also raised the chickens, pigs, cow, and a horse. Gramps just supervised.

Grampa Jim got the Hungarian language newspaper in the mail every week. His job was to read every issue of the paper from cover to cover. Most of the news in his paper was old, but it didn’t matter, he read the paper faithfully. He was a great socializer. Once or twice a week his friend John picked him up in a model T, around three o’clock in the afternoon. Together they rode a quarter mile to the corner store. This store was special. The store sold gasoline, kerosene, groceries, and had a beer hall too.  Come to think of it, it wasn’t much different from today’s gas stations. Only the beer hall is different. Gramp’s buddy parked at the pump and self served himself a gallon or two of 15 cent gas. Then they went in to pay and to have beer. The two of them sat in the beer hall talking over events. Nine times out of ten, Gramps outlasted his buddy.  Gramps had more than a half bottle of beer remaining when his buddy went dry. John had a wife so he beat it back home before she missed him. That left Gramps alone with his beer.  He wasn’t alone for long, because more customers came to the store, they checked to see if anyone was sitting in the beer hall. Soon, gramps had another party to chat with. He had company non-stop throughout the time he sat in the beer hall. Every one knew him, and loved to talk to him. Meanwhile his beer got flatter and flatter and flatter. Eventually, the bottle was empty.

On many days, gramps didn’t get home until after nine o’clock. By that time we were all in bed, and the house was dark except for the kitchen. Mom was still up doing chores while she waited for him.

When summer ended we returned to the city to start school.  Gramps was free again living his simple life on the farm. He did have to cook for himself after Mom left. I don’t think he ever washed a dish, only rinsed them off. He had a single change of clothes which he wore until even he couldn’t stand it anymore.

Gramps loved the solitary life, but was always happy to see us come for a visit. He was equally glad to see us go home. When he got older, Mom convinced him to come into the city for the winter. He did, but by March he disappeared back to the farm where everyone in the township knew him, yet he could be alone when he wanted to. He could wear the same clothes for as long as he wanted, and eat greasy foods off of dirty  dishes. He enjoyed the sights, sounds, and scents of his farm and nature.

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