Tales of Two Peninsulas and an Island

By Charles A. Swagart and Gary F. Swagart

In Tales of Two Peninsulas and an Island, Gary Swagart recalls some of his experiences as a semi-Yooper kid before he changed to a Troll and later became a Yooper again. Many of these experiences revolved around subsistence living farm life, which contained a lot of hard work, drudgery, even. Some of the stories are about some real characters, simply because that is just what they were.

His love of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Lake Superior, and Isle Royale shows through despite some hair-raising, near-miss incidents that easily could have resulted in catastrophe (including putting his wife in jail.) In this sometimes harsh, but always beautiful part of the world, Death can slip its icy fingers around the unwary without warning. Something as simple as getting a wet foot or forgetting to put car flaps down can be fatal. As can be getting lost in a Lake Superior fog, going downwind, or dropping a wrench in a boat. Simply underestimating the amount of time it will take to get from point A to point B can be fatal. The person who escapes the icy fingers learns to appreciate just how tenuous the thread of life can be.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Nov 7, 2000
• ISBN: 9781469760209

Charles A. Swagart

Gary Swagart is a Professional Engineer currently residing in Florida. He spent nearly a half-century living in one or the other of Michigan's Peninsulas.

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Tales of Two Peninsulas and an Island

All Rights Reserved © 2000 by Gary F. Swagart

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the publisher.

Writers Club Press

an imprint of iUniverse.com, Inc.

For information address:

iUniverse.com, Inc.

5220 S 16th, Ste. 200

Lincoln, NE 68512

www.iuniverse.com

Although these stories are based on the Author’s memories of people who lived and events that actually occurred, the stories herein are fictional. If the names of people in these stories bear any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, the resemblance is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 0-595-14672-4

ISBN: 978-1-4697-6020-9 (eBook)

This book is dedicated to my lovely wife, Clara,

whose input to it has been invaluable.

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

A Visit to the Zoo

A Yooper Kid

Da Yooper Boy Becomes a Troll

The Old Witch

George

Jack (of All Trades)

Electrified Fences

Mister Colon-end

George Fixes My Car

Mutti’s Speech

Uno and Dos

Ice Fishin’

The Blasted Well

A Little Country Jail

Isle Royale Tidbits

First Trip to Isle Royale

The Haunted Farm

Port and Starboard

Carbon Monoxide

Batman

The Sea Gull and the Snuff

About the Author

List of Illustrations

Bull Thistle in the Path of Communication Frontispiece

Pent-up little critters

Yooper kid

I was big for my age

Mr. And Mrs. Colon-end

My old car

Uno

The jailbird

Iron ore loading dock in Marquette, Michigan

Clara on driftwood-strewn lakeshore

Smaller islands and blocks of rock jut out of the water

Ranger III

My boat had a new radio

Clara had a nice mess of fish

Isle Royale camping shelter

Loading my boat on the Ranger III

Puking seagull

The Author

Preface

This is a collection of short stories about people I have known or known about throughout the years and events that actually occurred to the best of my recollection. The stories are not about the rich and famous, but rather, about the poor, perhaps ignorant, downtrodden folks that lived out in the sticks of Michigan. The tales presented herein have actual incidents and situations as a basis, though the details may be a figment of the author’s imagination. The names of the people involved and the locales have been changed to protect the innocent (the guilty too).

Several of the stories are about the lives of people who lived in poverty and harsh circumstances. Having been there and done that, the author feels qualified to state that though poverty and harsh circumstances in and of themselves are far from humorous, they certainly provided for some funny, or at least strange situations.

Other stories are simply about people and situations that have rated enough merit to remain in the old memory file of my noggin for many years.

If you, as a reader, think you recognize someone in these tales, the resemblance is purely coincidental. There is a multitude of real characters out there, if one just pays a little attention. These characters seem to surface when living conditions, such as climate, isolation, and poor economy are combined to make a person’s environment one of an adverse nature. Sometimes, the real characters become that way simply by being in the wrong place at the right time, or vicey versy, as the case might be. I have been fortunate enough to know more than my share of such folks through the years in which I lived in Michigan’s Upper and Lower Peninsulas. Thinking about those people brings back fond memories of another place and another time. Hopefully, these stories will help others bring back similar memories.

A Visit to the Zoo

There was a small zoo in a little Michigan town near the tip of the Mitten, just south of the Mackinaw Bridge. The zoo was little more than, perhaps, three or four-dozen animals in cages. Due to the fact that access had to be maintained throughout the winter, the owner of the zoo had built a boardwalk throughout the zoo. It was elevated about four feet off the ground to avoid shoveling snow as much as possible and had a railing on both sides of it. The boardwalk was rather narrow with not enough room for two people to walk side by side comfortably along it.

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Pent-up little critters

One nice warm summer day, there were quite a few folks that had stopped to see the poor pent-up critters, and all were walking leisurely along the boardwalk, single file, enjoying the fine weather and the animals. All, that is, except one woman. This highly perfumed, wellcoifed, thirtyish woman dressed in a fancy dress, high heels, fur stole and lotsa jewelry had driven up in her swanky car. She proceeded down the boardwalk at a rapid pace, almost rudely brushing her way past the people who were taking their time and enjoying the animals. Each cage she came to, she’d stop and say to the animal, My, aren’t you a cute little (whatever it was), and go charging off to another cage, jostling other folks on the boardwalk rudely along the way. She had thusly visited fifteen or twenty of the caged-up beasties when, with elbows aflyin’, she went hot-footin’ it past a guy who was trying to get some pictures on his video camera. Directly in front of him, she charged in her usual brusque manner up to the cage of a civet cat and said in her usual raucous voice, My, aren’t you a cute little pussy ca… The civet cat moved so quickly, it was unbelievable. It jumped up on the screen in the front of its cage and pissed directly on the woman. It must have been saving that stream for a week! She was drenched from head to foot in hot, stinking, tomcat piss. And I do mean drenched! It was literally dripping off her soggy fur stole, her face, and her suddenly droopy hair. Did it stink! The old boy she had just passed laughed so hard, he almost fell off the boardwalk. Upon reflection though, he didn’t laugh so hard. He didn’t have the remotest chance of catching the whole scene on his video camera. Didn’t even have a chance to think about it. If he had, it surely would have been worth $10,000 on a well-known TV show. Tough luck, fella. Tough luck, Lady, too, eh? ‘Tis hard to say what caused the kitty to behave that way. Was it her sudden movements? Her fur stole? Her voice? Most likely, it was her strong perfume. Doesn’t matter, it was well deserved. It sure was funny, too! At least it was funny from everyone’s perspective, but perhaps, hers. Some people just can’t take a practical joke.

A Yooper Kid

My Ol’ Man was a tool and die maker. During the Second World War, he was a tad old to be drafted, and his skills as a tool and die maker were very valuable in the manufacture of war materiel. The Ol’ Man was no dummy. He had only sporadic education as a youngster, yet graduated from high school and even attended college for a short while. He taught himself the trade of tool and die maker. He had no formal training in it. He just picked it up while working in the factory. He learned how to use trigonometry tables so he could properly position the parts in the dies he made. After the end of World War II, my dad found a job in the Upper Peninsula so we moved up there and lived on a poor to marginal farm about 10 miles from town. The place where he worked folded up within a year after we moved up there, but we stayed there nearly six years, trying to make a living on very marginal land. I think he liked the UP as much as I grew to like it. It seems that he did just about everything he could do to remain living there, just as I did twenty some-odd years later.

My brother and I had to feed and milk cows (time I was eight years old, I had three of ‘em to milk morning and evening), clean barn, feed and care for hogs, and take care of a nearly two-acre garden. When