The Saline Reporter
A Heritage Newspaper
Weekly Publication
Sense of direction off
PUBLISHED: February 7, 2008
Once we had finally unpacked our boxes and arranged our furniture, it was time to have neighbors over. We decided a Sunday afternoon brunch with coffee and pastries. Since we roast our own, we thought a gathering over coffee would be a great conversation starter.
Advertisement
When the day came, we were delighted that 10 families showed up. Interestingly, some of the neighbors had never spoken to each other before, so we felt like we had brought some people together. We also invited a new family who had arrived from Wisconsin at about the same time we arrived.
During our talk over coffee and Danish, I noticed a few people pointing out locations to each other on their outstretched hands with Detroit at the base of the thumb. I had heard about this geographic gesture before, but what was new to me was that some of our new friends were including their left hand to indicate the Upper Peninsula.
In Michigan, you either know the Upper Peninsula or you don't, just like you either get jazz or you don't. Some of our neighbors had been raised there, while others had spent many wonderful summers there. If you had not already enjoyed an extended period of time in the North Country, it seemed to be a difficult place to explain. So we have put the Upper Peninsula on our travel list because we want to understand Michigan and our neighbors.
While pointing out where you live or came from on your extended hand is a way of locating yourself in Michigan, we had our own way of finding our directions in Tucson that I do miss on occasion. In that city on the desert, we were surrounded by mountains arranged like points on a compass so there was little chance of getting lost while driving. Catalinas were to the north, Tucson Mountains to the west and Rincon Mountains to the east.
I never realized just how much I counted on those mountains for my bearings until I was returning from a conference on the far side of Detroit. I called my wife for directions, but when she asked which way I was driving, I had absolutely no idea. The sky was so thickly overcast that I couldn't even figure out north from south.
Perhaps it's time to buy a compass, or a better map, or a navigation system.
Michael McVey became a professor at Eastern Michigan University last year and moved his family 2,000 miles from Tucson, Ariz., to Saline. Each month, he plans to share his reflections on life in his new home. McVey can be reached at mcveym@gmail.com.
Not all stories are guaranteed to appear
online. The Web edition contains a reasonable
sampling of the print edition stories.
For the most complete news coverage, we invite you to
subscribe
to the print edition of the paper.
Expanded
Web
Coverage
Staff Blog, "Inside The Newsroom"
TOP JOBS
