Our Makoonsag

Preface

I once read a personal memoir written by an old man who was one of the children of a North Manitou Island Lightkeeper. The light station was located on the north Island's southern-most point, several miles from the few other people who lived on the island. Some of them were farmers and loggers, but most were summer residents who left as the days began to grow shorter. It was a lonely place, open to the winds and the weather.

The Manitou Passage was still an important maritime asset then, with several ships negotiating the treacherous waters between the towering Sleeping Bear Dunes on the mainland, and the two nearby islands, North Manitou and South Manitou. The significance of the maritime traffic and the danger in that immediate area was marked by the presence of two lighthouse stations and three lifesaving stations. But as time marched on, the importance of shipping was diminished by the growth of railroads, motor freight and air travel. By the late years of the twentieth century, the Manitou Passage was only a footnote in history books, and important only as a beautifully scenic tourist destination. The islands were eventually deserted by all the families who had once thought of them as "home."

Makoonsag is an Ojibwa word meaning "bear cubs"; Mishe-Mokwa is "the Great Bear" referred to in Longfellow's famous "Song of Hiawatha." Those familiar with the area know the Indian legend explaining the presence of the great dune and the two nearby islands. I was conceived on South Manitou, so certain things in the memoir I was reading that evening struck close to home, even bringing tears as in my mind's eye the words on the page morphed into moving pictures of what used to be. That inspired the only attempt I've made at poetry during my adult life.

[-=glw=-]

Our Makoonsag

West of watchful Mishe-Mokwa, lay the cold and lonely Islands
on the slate and restless waters, 'neath the clouds that darkly threaten,
warning boats to stay at bay.

Hosting now the north winds only and the snows its gales blow fiercely
into fields and woods and ruins, drifting over trails and pathways
where our feet oft found their way.

Out of season and abandoned, save for tiny beasts and migrants,
islands where we once made merry; silent now and solitary
on this wintry New Year's Day.

On the mainland we now frolic, having moved across the Passage,
seeking fortunes then elusive (never found on either Island) ...
lighter work for greater pay.

But quiet moments bring to mind the warmth of simple village folk,
faithful kin and caring neighbors, farmsteads once so full of laughter;
journeys made by horse and sleigh.

Dauntless seamen making crossings challenging the angry billows,
worried wives a'watching seaward, catching ropes upon deliverance.
Voyagers back, now home to stay.

Sands still warm on summer evenings soothing bare feet of the children,
racing beams around the lighthouse, finding shapes in starry heavens.
Bath and bedtime after play.

Sought we all for "something better", fooled by fickle expectations,
one by one the Islands leaving. Dreaming then, now sadly knowing,
the better life we'd cast away.

While coldly we forsook our Islands, steadfast they to our hearts cling,
fostering such recollections! Absence hindering not remembrance,
pictures saved there oft replay.

Save we facts and share we fables of our much revered makoonsag;
generations hence might know them as have we, their privileged stewards,
passing on our legacy.

Gene L Warner
January 1, 2004

Beauty is Wasted on the Young ...

... and wisdom is wasted on the old.

Here's the "before" picture. Compare it with the mug shot on the home page. Ain't it a shame?

What possible explanation can there be for nature's making us progressively less attractive as we grow older? (Yeah, I know ... keeps the gene pool fresh and vital.)

On the other hand, youth is a time of ignorance. While we're at our best physically, we're at our worst intellectually. What sense does that make?

Moreover, when we're at our best intellectually, we're at the least socially acceptable time in life ... "senior citizens," "in our golden years," and all that crap, which really means we get to be viewed as bumbling old farts who are totally irrelevant and just taking up space. Never mind that vocationally we're at the top of our game, and merely by virtue of our years of experience and hard knocks, wizened well beyond the younger generations. What sense does that make?

According to the demographics for "hi5," I'm much older (at 67) than almost everyone else on here, so I feel moved to share my wisdom with you all.

My message is that old age really suques. Thus far, I've yet to find anything good about it. Secondly, take warning – it happens much sooner than you expect. In just the blink of any eye, you'll be where I am ("If ever you should live so long.")

[-=glw=-]

Welcome! (... and so what's here?)

Writing is the easy part.

I've always liked to write. I think this was probably a result of my avoidant personality organization. I wasn't good at thinking quickly, because during conversations or debates my mind's first priority was the sensing of self-esteem issues and the deployment of ego defenses. Since it was so easy for others to get the best of me in those situations, I developed the habit of keeping my mouth shut. I became known as a quiet person - a man of few words.

(This is just conversation. If you don't care to
read all this, the table of contents is on the right.)
Of course, I wasn't quiet at all. I had a lot to say, but chose to write it, rather than utter it. I was big on letters and memos, which often consisted of several pages.

The nice thing about writing is that you get to take as much time as you wish to think about what you want to say. As long as there's nobody looking over your shoulder, there's nothing threatening about it, so your mind can concentrate on the subject at hand. That usually prevents your jumping to conclusions or talking out your [expletive deleted], as it were. But even when not, you avoid the embarrassment of having that brought to your attention, since there's nobody there to challenge what you're saying. And usually the better side of you will see to it that those passages get fixed or expunged prior to publication.

That brings up another nice thing; you don't have to worry about saying stupid things that you can't take back. What goes out of your mouth stays out there forever. You can't ever really take it back or eat your words. But you can always highlight something you've written and touch the Delete key; then those words magically vanish as if they'd never been written, never to be seen or heard by anyone.

Because of all this, I had lots of experience writing things. Eventually, people began to tell me I was a pretty good writer; even one of my best friends, who has a Ph.D. in English Literature and teaches writing at USC in Los Angeles. He once told me that he admired the way I so often and so successfully married profundity and profanity, or virtuosity and vulgarity, in the same short sentence. I took that as a compliment.

Enjoy the blog.

[-=glw=-]