Then the people on my bus toured an Italianate style home---a mansion, really---that hadn’t been remodeled or redecorated since 1880 when it was built while
the other half of our group headed for the art deco theater. The guy who commissioned the
house to be built started out his work life at age 14 as an orphaned farm hand and
he went on to become a prosecuting attorney who also owned 1,000 acres on Bois
Blanc Island and a steamboat to take his family back and forth to their summer
home there. I guess it paid well to put people in jail in Ionia County.
Next we took a steamboat, luncheon cruise near our state
capital. The food and jazz band were great and it was the first time I’d been on a steamboat. I
especially enjoyed the storytelling skills of the captain/owner of the vessel.
He remained me of my husband because you could tell the captain enjoyed
repeating his well-honed stories and getting laughs over how his family came to
own so many steamboats---4 or 5, I lost count but the one we were on holds 400
people. Going up and down the river was nothing special---no view of the State capital
building or fancy estates that I’d hoped for---but as I sat in a deck chair on
the top level enjoying the summer sun another woman and I discovered that she
and her husband and Don and I had made the exact same trips out west to
Colorado and Wyoming during the same months and years, to the same little towns as one
another. It’s a small world after all, as they say at Disneyland.
After lunch we toured a “castle” that was built in 1922 as a
replica of a Norman Chateau. No one ever lived in the place, it was built as a
writing studio for a man who was then the largest selling author in the entire
world, James Oliver Curwood. Lo and behold I found one of his books in my
library when I got back home. He wrote over 30 books and at least 18 movies
were based on his action-adventure novels including one that starred John Wayne.
The poor fellow died at age 49 from a spider bite. And I never, ever want to go in another
castle. I am not a mountain goat, used to climbing steep
stairways in turrets, and the views of the Shiawassee River from the top were less than spectacular. I love saying that word, Shiawassee which means, “River that twists
about.”
Our next stop was to a historical village that I found somewhat
boring except for the fact that many of my traveling companions knew so little
about 1800s gadgets and household items. While I was saying, “Oh,
I have one of those!” others were asking, “What was that used for?” I was
rather shocked at that and about half way through the ten buildings I quit saying, “I
have one of those” for fear they’d think I live in a hoarder’s house. Which I
don’t, in case you're wondering. I guess hanging around antique shops since I was 18 years old is something I took for granted. I thought the whole world, for example, recognizes a salt dish when they see one.
On this trip I actually felt that I am finally starting to
fit in with the crowd, having found a click of woman who seem to want to include
me in with their inner circle now. This change has been building slowly over the past
year of seeing each other on trips, at the movies and other senior hall events. I
even got a phone call, this time, from one of the ladies ahead of time wanting
to know if I’d like to be her seatmate on the bus. It felt nice to finally feel like I’m
no longer an outsider. These ladies don’t feel like good friends yet, who know me well enough to pull off a good prank, but progress is progress and who
knows what the future will bring. ©
