For some unknown reason, I decided to reread a post from 2010 titled “Nova Scotia, My Side of the Story.” It is an account of a bicycle trip I took with my dear friend Lou Dini in 1995. Our passion for riding bicycles was great. Lou and I worked together at one of the greatest family-owned companies in the world; PANDUIT CORP. Along the way, Lou opted to move from Oak Forest to Dahlonega, Goeorgia where the winter weather was milder and his arthritic life easier. Fortunately, PANDUIT had a division in Cummins, GA. to which he transferred. We remained in contact via e-mail, phone calls etc. We planned a trip to Nova Scotia, Canada together via emails.
Lou passed away a couple of years ago while living in Florida. The rheumatoid arthritis he battled for so many years became secondary to Parkinson’s disease. As I read the account of our trip to Nova Scotia, it reminded me of his tenacity and endurance. His positive attitude eventually waned, and his body began to fail. I am so glad that he wrote a report of the trip and allowed me to publish it on my blog. My story came later and although we both pedaled the same miles our stories are different, but very much the same. I write this today with melancholy in my heart. Recalling all the trips Lou and I took together, like Nova Scotia, Yellowstone Park, and Michigan all make fabulous memories that rise to the top of the memory bank.
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.Â
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. Â We jumped onto I-196 South to get to Steve’s farm. Twenty minutes later, I pulled into his yard. Â 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 ***.Â
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.
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.
Many of us speak of the assimilation of new immigrants into our society, but what is assimilation? It is simple. Assimilation is the absorption and integration of people, ideas, or culture into a wider society or culture. When thousands of people enter a country from a foreign land, it takes considerable time for them to understand our culture. We have gone through this process several times in the history of the USA. Each time, it was difficult for us, but more so for the newcomer. It is they who have to learn a new language and new customs. We on the other hand have to tolerate the migrants old ways as they slowly evolve into the American way. During my lifetime I have witnessed several waves of immigrants entering our society. First was the wave that bought my parents here in the nineteen twenties and long before I was born in the nineteen thirties. I grew up in a neighborhood populated by Americans, Hungarians, Italians, Ukranians, and Polish. I’m certain I left some of them out, but time has a way with dealing with memories.
My father’s assimilation began when at age seventeen he joined the Illinois Central Railroad as a laborer. His sponsor was his sister’s husband, who had arrived a few years earlier than he did. Uncle John Yusko most likely helped him learn the language on the job. Also, many of his supervisors were the sons of immigrants who knew the language and could communicate in Hungarian when English failed. Gradually, my Dad began speaking in English, but never at home. He and Mom spoke in the familiar language of their birthplace. As children, my older brother taught me and our younger sister to talk English while he learned from the Nuns at school. Many of the local businesses were run by immigrants and they too learned from and taught their customers. The best assessment I can make is that assimilation takes time and patience. My dad had a fairly good command of the language even into his nineties, but reverted to Hungarian when he didn’t have the English word. It was hilarious when Mom and Dad while speaking Hungarian slid an English word into the sentence. In my mother’s case she reverted more to Hungarian as she aged.
The second wave of immigrants I encountered was after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution against the Russians. My mother paired me with the nephew of our Pastor’s housekeeper. He was about the same age as me and a genuine Molotov cocktail-throwing rebel who fled for his life. We were inseparable; he challenged me to speak Hungarian, and I urged him to speak English. We were inseparable for about a year, and then I left town to go to college. The next time I saw him, he was on leave from the army. He had joined up to assimilate faster. He sure did. He returned on leave speaking excellent English with a hefty Alabama accent. He went to school on the GI Bill and became an engineer. He assimilated.
The next round of migrants I became aware of came from Viet Nam. My cousins in California helped them through their difficulties for at least ten years. The hardest part of assimilation is getting employment. These poor people struggle with life and do their best to make a living. After that, I lost track of any other migrant infusions, but I have witnessed an awful lot of Central Americans cutting lawns in the neighborhood. I even convinced myself to hire one to do my lawn chores. It is the best decision I ever made to assist with assimilation.
This morning, I researched how the Israelis infused so many people into their country. They devised a process called the Kibbutz. As new immigrants arrived, they were assigned to a Kibbutz, which is nothing more than a farm with a formal name. The newcomers worked the land to raise vegetables and livestock for their consumption and the markets. Any profit made was distributed equally between members of the Kibbutz. That sounds a bit Marxist to me. Many of these enterprises have evolved from agriculture to manufacturing, depending on the individuals’ capabilities. I think this concept appeals to me and is one that we could propose here. Why not divide these people into manageable groups, assign them to some land and basic tools, and let them have at it? The problem with my idea is the government. We have so many swamp creatures inventing regulations and work rules that a Kibbutz in the Israeli sense would be unlawful.
Back when my parents arrived, there were no unions, children were allowed to work, OSHA wasn’t yet an idea, and workers could take chances on the job. It was a working economy. However, employers tended to overdo things. Working conditions became difficult, and the people felt like slaves. When our most revered president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, became president and worked to ease people’s suffering by inventing new laws and regulations, he called it the New Deal, but inadvertently created the Swamp. The various Bureaus have been left unfettered to make rules that are as strong as laws, except they aren’t laws written by Congress and voted in. They are regulations that are imposed upon us whether we like them or not. Because these Bureaus are not controlled by ‘We the People’ they have gone on their merry way and have continued to dream up countless ways to make our lives better than we can. Since the nineteen forties they have grown and spent trillions of dollars on too many things that don’t really make our lives better, but they do make our lives more expensive.
The current government’s approach to assimilation involves two policies: The first is to fly or bus people by the hundreds to various parts of the country and let them loose. The second is to do nothing and allow the immigrant himself to find a way to live. The first is to spread the population without regard to the immigrants or the cities where they are dumped. Cities nationwide have seen this invasion and are remiss about handling housing, clothing, meals, and, more importantly, jobs. The result is that we see communities of tent cities popping up in urban areas all around the country.
When the country encouraged a large population of immigrants to come in the early twentieth century, it needed labor to do work. The current administration has no clue what these people will do when they arrive. Should I hire a gardener, a housemaid, and a cook and provide them a place to live while they work for me? I could be okay with hiring help, but I cannot afford that, a life with my family and Uncle Sam, too.
I’m afraid in the long run, I will end up paying these people to assimilate. Uncle Sam will finally wake up and realize he has created a human catastrophe. He will then begin implementing new social programs to assist immigrants. Two things will happen: 1. He will raise our taxes, and 2. He will print money to pay for the programs, thus increasing inflation and making life equally miserable for all of us. This flood of new immigrants smacks of the redistribution of wealth plan inaugurated by our Progressive, Liberal, Socialist, and Communist former President Obama. When does this guy go away?
Stop the insanity! How does our Congress rationalize authorizing a bill to fund the government by putting a 1500-page bill in front of a greedy Congress? It is not enough that the money required to keep the government running is insanely exorbitant. They want to load it up before the regime changes. That is a guarantee for more inflation early in 2025. It is just what we want as citizens: higher prices for everything.
Many people will not be paid during the shutdown but will get paid back. In other words, they don’t lose anything. Many will take vacations or will retire. Over the years, Congress has passed numerous loopholes to keep from not being paid. So, what is the big flap about closing down? Nothing. It is all a political battle between parties. But a shutdown is worth whatever small sacrifice some people will be forced to make to improve the lot for all of us in the long term. This whole thing is a bluff by Biden’s shadow government designed to put tremendous burden on the incoming president. Democrats are officially declaring open warfare against Trump right from day one. If I had my wish come true, all democrats would be jailed for voting for a 1500 page bill, anytime, much less three weeks before a change.
The newly elected government has just two years to make change happen. We elected them for change. The USA is technically bankrupt with our existing debt and are now taking all tax income to pay the interest. There is but one way to fix the problem. We must stop spending, pay our bills, and live frugally on what we have. You and I are not allowed to print money to pay off our debts; We are forced to use what we get from our employers to pay our bills. I live in a state that is also bankrupt. Illinois continues to borrow money to pay for spending that occurred a long time ago. Most of it is the result of unfunded pension funds. With all the retirees drawing pensions the state has no money to pay for roads and bridges. Fortunately, for us we can still borrow, but we too, are living on borrowed time. Our legislature does not have the balls to do the right thing which is to reduce the man power employed to do the work.
I voted for fiscal responsibility, not for pork barrel spending of money we don’t have. Shut her down!
