Now We're off to Merry Lake

We usually stay at Papa Jack's for a couple of days, or until we keep finding him out in his garden. This usually means, for a guy approaching 90, "get the hell out of here!" So we gather up the kids, and off we go, to Merry Lake. The lake is in a town, Camden Mi. which is literally a tobacco spit from the Ohio line. Pioneer Ohio is the first town across the line. This is very important to the story I'm about to tell.
We went to some garage sales in Pioneer on our way to the lake, and I asked one lady if she knew Russ Lanius, he used to be the service manager at a Canon dealer where I was the sales manager back in the 80's. She said of course, they're on their way to NC for a vacation. I can call them for you. So, right then and there, she calls them and I talked to his wife, gave her our email address and she said they would get in touch with me. It was freaky! A few days later, I got an email from a Blackberry it was Russ, the message was "I just left Wauseon H.S and I'm on my way to Mac Steel, talk to you soon". The guys still on the same service call  I sent him on 30 years ago. Hilarious!

MacSteel had one of the worst driveways I had ever seen, that's probably why it's taken him so long! What's really freaky, is that we were traveling from NC to MI on the same weekend. I think we need to keep in touch, and yes, he has a daughter named Missy. You can't make this up!

Next post~Germanator shows up on Merry Lake vacation

Summer Vacation in Detroit, part 2

We arrived at Papa Jacks house, a neat little 2 bedroom, 1 bath home with a "Michigan" basement. I was a real estate agent for a time, and you couldn't count basements in the square footage, so it is less than a 750 square foot home. A "Michigan" basement was added well after the home was built, because you needed some more room. They would shovel underneath the house, raise the house. put it on rafters, and dig the basement. For me that task has "move" written all over it. They were affordable and built and designed for one purpose, to house workers who were coming in from all over the country, to get a great paying job, from the car companies. Henry Fords idea about affordable cars for the workers, took root in the housing market as well.The car companies hired anybody and everybody they could. The demand was incredible. Glass makers, housing, retail, if you relocated in the Detroit area, you were going to do well financially in a very short time. Back to the vacation, we had two grandkids with us, Zoe and Corgan, Butch and Zozo to Papa Jack.

Our arrival dinner was the usual, Caprara Pizza, right down the street on Northline Rd.(Nortline to the locals) It was a fresh dough ready to bake pizza in an aluminum pizza pan for $8.50. You took it home, followed cooking directions on the bag. and viola, dinner time.

Check out my first vacation blog, and play the parade video and the Detroit 2012 video at the same time, it is eerie. I did it by mistake, but what a story they tell.

Next blog, "Arrive at Merry Lake"