Point Pelee

Groundhog

Shortly outside Roanoke, on Route 24, we saw a big groundhog or beaver, or some such critter, Standing at attention near the roadside, doing a “way-up”.
There was a drainage ditch nearby, swampy and with thick summer vegetation, arid I suppose he lived there.
But he had little or no fear of cars, and when we circled hack to get a picture of him, he was gone, not so much out of fright, I think, as out of the private conviction that he d fascinated enough crazy drivers for one day

Coldwater

In the old Michigan town of Coldwater,
Which, just over the Indiana line, 1 had connected with selling booze to Hoosiers on Sunday,
We had a bite to eat.
At a drive-in off the shady, tree-lined street.
Aged, tall boughs bent over to meet high overhead,
Providing an idyllic canopy for our picnic.
I would love to see it in an early morning mist, or after heavy snow humbled the boughs..
And the houses--the old Victorian hones, were preserved and lovely, as few are anymore.
They gave warmth to a century that has moved away from such grace..

Detroit

Detroit surprised me.
I thought the town was a worse-than-Calcutta slum from one end to the other.
But it isn’t.
We drove through a low-rent neighborhood on the way from the expressway to the Ambassador Bridge, and it was pretty.
It was wide, with shady boulevards and well-kept brick homes.
The bridge itself surprised me, too.
I remembered it from a prior trip many years ago as an eyesore, thick-looking and dirty.
It isn’t.
It’s soaring, airy, and majestic.
And the river beneath, connecting the Great Lakes, was blue and clean to the eye, as are were the lakes.
1 had to change my mind about Detroit.

Then, when we came back on our return trip, Coming from Port Huron to the fourth, And driving through the heart of tie city on the freeway, I formed yet a different impression of Detroit. It is a city of speed, Of savage, unpredictable drivers,
And there is no beauty there. One feels trapped there, Drawn into the heart of the city at ever—increasing speed and tension, There one feels breathless, struggling and tugging to escape to the outskirts and freedom. On a Sunday afternoon in the summer, the city freeway is no place for nervous men. I let my wife drive. She has youth.


Donna

It was at the 1867 Cafe we met Donna, Donna of the smiling eyes, blue as the Great Lakes, twinkling as she filled our orders.
She wore an old—fashioned Canadian dress and white bonnet,
And looked as Hester Prynne must have looked in old Boston.
And, though a bit on the hefty side,
Had warmth and private, charming, selective radiance.


Leamington Pier

There was some unpleasantness that night, As we walked back from the long end of the dock on the boards, the waning light had Al but vanished, Inc the lake rippled, silent and deep.
A gang of boys-- three or four I guessed-- danced out onto the pier, letting the air received whatever vulgarities moved them. Finally one, alone and ahead, twirled about suddenly and yelled something toward us.
“Well Hallo there,” he wolfed at my bride as we passed.
I was startled and indecisive, My heart raced. We walked on without confrontation. I was afraid.
We walked and she talked, but I didn’t hear her voice, but rather the footsteps coming back through the boards from the pier’s end. where the gang would be coming back. There were few others on the pier.
I tried not to be rushed in my step, but when we reached the shore, even then I dared not turn, hut. rather took her home quickly and went inside, and regarded the mirror in our room.
He meant nothing, that boy—— perhaps drunk, perhaps merely rude, he forgot his unconscious challenge immediately, I imagine.
I did not.


Pixie

She couldn’t have been over twelve to fourteen,
Thin as a rail, lithe and nimble and rhythmic,
And slightly, ever-so-slightly curving in her flat doll’s figure.
And of rich, dull, brownish yet shiny hair in a long pony tail, and a pert nose, and pale mouth without makeup,
Tawny, smooth features, innocent eves and smile, and small, perfect teeth.
Our pixie hopped from car to car, Swinging her thin, long arms in an arc behind her as she skipped and flirted with the Canadian boys in the sunk cars
who roared and raced around the restaurant and seldom bought more than a token something to drink as an excuse for love-loitering.
She was a daughter, an embryo of a fine princess, appropriately shy, a bit coy, at the age and stage most nearly perfect as a girl—noy a woman yet, but no longer a child-- an exquisite girl.


The Girls Practicing

Four girls sat on the sunny private beach
in front of one’s mother’s house
On Lake Huron,
In the sand,
And talked about things and people—— mostly people.
Hims and hers—— but mostly hims.
A her came later, and wasn’t very welcome,
And failed to make the grade and soon left,
While the others combed their hair
and brushed the sand,
And got tanned, and practiced.