Often when I tell someone about growing up as me, they say I should write a book about it. Personally I don’t think it’s book worthy. How many publishers have said that the vast majority of autobiographies are total garbage? Besides, my memory isn’t that good. 🙂
On the other hand, I think a blog post is a perfect venue for this sort of thing. I’ve been meaning to write it for a couple years actually, but it’s rather daunting.
On with the story. I spent the first 7.5 years of my life living in Bay City, Michigan. My folks bought a house my mom had spent some time growing up in, and I really really liked it there. We had a Camaro, a station wagon, a sail boat, a nice house with a decent yard, and my best friend lived 2 houses down.
Along about 1978, my folks decided they didn’t want to live in the city any more. They bought 10 acres of land 100 miles north of Bay City (100 miles south of Mackinac) very near the Lake Huron shore, and sold the house, the boat, and the camaro. And my TRAIN SET. I still miss it. It was worth it though.
Our land was in the middle of about 150 acres also for sale. All of it was undeveloped woods, and it all stayed that way for several more decades. In the winter of ’78, we went camping up there. We took our cross country skis, hoping to do a good bit of skiing. Unfortunately, the snow was about 3 feet deep. I was light enough to stay on top, and had a ball, but my folks went right to the bottom. We only went in off the road about 100 yards and set up camp under some trees, next to a large clearing.
That’s been The Camp Site ever since, and we still cook out there and sit around the fire on nice evenings. The Clearing became the place where we built the house. It was known that way, as The Clearing, for many many years. I don’t remember when we stopped calling it that.
As soon as it was warm enough, we let the house in Bay City go, my mom and my sisters moved in with my Grandma Joiner for about a month while my dad and my Uncle Troy (who’s only 5 years older than me) went up north to build The House.
Tune in next time for The First Summer.
View all posts in this series
- Chapter 1, Heading North - June 24, 2005
- Chapter 2: The First Summer
- Chapter 3: The First Summer Part 2 - June 27, 2005
- Chapter 4: Childhood weaponry
- Chapter 5: The First Fall and Winter - July 6, 2005
- Chapter 6: Setting up house - September 7, 2005
- Hunting - June 14, 2007
- Young Judoka - April 23, 2008
- UFO! - May 18, 2009
- Living Life With Tourette Syndrome - September 23, 2019
- Thoughts on turning 50 - July 17, 2021
OK – did I know that you were from my neck of the woods and forget it? Or did I never know? We’ve got to compare notes sometime from both being northern Eastsiders… 🙂 I grew up about a block away from Lake Huron, and still get excited every time I’m close enough to see it and hear it.
Thanks for sharing! Brings back some similar childhood memories for me.