FEBRUARY 16, 2019
I have forgotten how many times I will start out to do something, only to realize that it feels like déjà vu all over again.
As I sat at the table, listening to my mom's exaltation about why my birth certificate was "different" than most other peoples' I had a million images jumbling through my brain.
In random order, I found myself recalling past events, conversations and exchanges where I stood apart from my current family.
Why was it no one else had wild curly hair like mine? I literally had the best naturally curly hair in the city. It was just loose curls that sprouted from my head (I always compared my curls with Sampson's in the bible) and framed my face. i was also the only offspring to have blazing green eyes. My hands were smaller than the rest of the family. I was the only one who seemed to love the outdoors. I had this insatiable wanderlust urge for adventure and travel. This had also caused great concern for my mom. I now wonder if she was terrified that in my travels I would accidentally stumble into the truth of my adoption? Mom was always trying to deter my travels. She was particularly nervous whenever I did extended trips in and around our home state of Michigan.
At that moment I suddenly realized that other family members have always looked at me just a bit differently. Aunts and uncles had this look that subtlety said, "I know who you're supposed to be, but I also know who you are not."
At family gatherings and picnics, conversation would stop when I walked up. I now know it was being quickly redirected, as I have become well versed in the art of automatically changing the topic to avoid embarrassing the eavesdropper who was the topic of conversation.
Though I never had any reason to question it then, I seem to have always had this need to connect with the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. As a child, mom and dad took us kids camping almost from day one. Though we had done some excursions into the UP, we did the majority of our camping in other states.
After high school graduation, I was hired at the local steel mill in Trenton. My father had worked at the mill for 26 years and was able to secure me a position in July 1978. A year later I had accrued two-weeks of vacation time. Since I had low seniority in a department of 200, the only time I could reserve for vacation was the last two weeks of January, all of February and the first two weeks of March.
So when I announced to my parents I was taking a two-week vacation to the Upper Peninsula at the end of February, confusion is probably not the word I would have used to explain their look.
They insisted I not go lone, after all I was just 19, had a band new Jeep Cherokee and money. Fortunately, a friend was currently unemployed and agreed to accompany me on this journey.
The Cherokee was loaded with a canvas tent, heater, Coleman stove, 20 gallons of white gas (no lead fuel), 2 rifles, a shotgun and a .357 revolver. When my parents argued about my traveling to the UP, I justified it by saying it was bobcat season and I was just going hunting.
When they say it snows in the UP, what they really man is it S N O W S. The Upper Peninsula is the reason God made snowmobiles.
Anyways, before I digress and get totally lost in the rabbit hole of memories, the original point in this reference is to share, what at that time, was an inexplicable attraction on my part for the Upper Peninsula. This had been lightly touched on in previous posts and will be more relevant in future postings.
As I continued to act on this innate wanderlust, I found unique and unconventional ways to satisfy this desire for adventure.
In 1982 I packed up my Schwinn Voyager 11.8 with full panniers and a Diamond tent and headed for for Williamsburg, Virginia for a 5,000 mile cross country bicycle trip.
In an attempt to quench my wanderlust, my travels would eventually take me to Honeybrook, Pennsylvania in 1985, Honor, Michigan in 1987, Madison, Wisconsin in 1995, Boulder, Colorado in 1996.
Even as these memories and more rambled through my head, I looked my mom and said, "I love you. I never should have questioned you."
Subconsciously questioning just what was the truth and would I ever find it.
NEXT: The Rabbit Hole gets deeper
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