Paging BobI

[tponetom]

Paging BobI,
In my recent post, “Once Upon a Time,” part of your reply was, “Thank you, tponetom, again. We wait patiently for your posts, here at DetroitYES.”
Being of an “insecure” nature and an obvious “philosophical hermit” [[and mate), I conjured for awhile. And then! The forces of drinking from the Fountain of Hippocrene sent me off on a spree!
If you do not know about that Fountain, look it up. It’s cute.
So, with that said, I could give you about 3weeks, 12 hours a day, on the subject of ‘alley picking.’ but that can get dull. But I just love alley picking.
Or I can regale you with simple stories of what Detroit was in those early decades.
Give me a name of a street on the east side of Detroit and I will have some anecdotes involving it.
If you are an early Detroiter, you will know what 636 Beacon Street was.

I am working on Peggy’s anniversary present [[read ‘card’) but that is going to take awhile.
Now I am going off on a different tangent. I am going to ask anyone who reads this, if they have an ambition, a dream, a flagrant imagination, a gentle notion, OR, heaven forbid, a sensible plan for retirement! Now think about that for a while. Security? Rationality? Communality? Privacy? Necessity? And yes, many other things, ending in “Y”, like in ‘why.’
To further explain: When I was 45 years old I became General Manager of the Plumbing company I was working for. Sitting behind a desk for the next 20 years would have made me a very rich, very comfortable, 65 year old executive. And I thought about it. I got stuck on the “65” part. I “chucked” it.
As it turned out, in a few short years, the plumbing business clientele evaporated..
Smartest move I ever made.
On December 1, 1973, We loaded a U-Haul truck with all of our belongings and with Peggy driving our Chevy Nova, we headed for Ishpeming, in the U. P.[[Look it up)
Our dream began. Paint Your Wagon.
37 years later, we are straining to continue and stretch that dream.
Do I have stories about those 37 years? I have only glossed over them , very lightly. We joined the other animal kingdom and every day was a treasure.
To reiterate, do you have a dream to hitch your wagon to????

[Jman]

"Ishpeming, [[Look it up)".

Anyone who is even remotely aware of Sonny Elliot does not need to look up Ishpeming. lol

[gazhekwe]

Ishpeming is the ultimate dream for anyone. Ishpeming, "up there" in Anishinaabemowin, could mean anywhere from up on that hill to above the clouds, up in the sky, the land of the ancestors.

Where you are now, tponetom, is epingishemokinong, a place way out west. That is my dream place, where the canyons and the desert glow red and gold in that hot sun, and you can get pulque instead of maple sap. People eat cacti there, something to learn for a fish-eating northerner.

[Bobl]

t: Thank You. If dad were still here, he would fill me in about Beacon Street. A dispatcher much of his life, Grandpa was our family's original version of Mapquest. Need an address or directions? Call Grandpa.
Give him a cross street, he would give the addresses.
In the U.P., I caught some tasty Walleye at Shag Lake, not far from your northern domicile, in the mid 1970s.
My dreams involve spending more time at my church, Lake Huron, and my cathedrals, Grand Canyon and California Redwoods. A few recent lean years have postponed these visits. Back to good employment this month, though!
We enjoy your epistles, and look forward to more...

Peace, good man!