Thursday, July 27, 2006
Into Michigan: More Dogs, More Freeways
The last stop in Ohio is Tony Packo's Cafe, a bar and grill in Toledo made famous by Corporal Maxwell Klinger. It's located on a mostly derelict corner in an old ethnic neighborhood near the waterfront, near a big Eastern European-looking church and a mile or so from where they're building a ludicrously large bridge to replace the current drawbridge over the Maumee River.I order what the bartender tells me to order: a chili dog with a side of chili and a cucumber salad. It's big and delicious and totally unhealthful. The dog certainly kicks Hot Dog Johnny's butt to New Jersey and back again.
Tony Packo's is nicely managing to be both a tourist place for them such as me and a local joint for families and middle-aged laborers stopping off after work and young men out on a Friday night. Four or five guys in this last category come in as I'm about two-thirds of the way through my dinner and gather at the end of the bar. Locals; they tease each other and the bartender and waitresses about last night or last week or whenever, and the girls they tried to pick up and how their style points as they went down in flames. Flawlessly coiffed, with at least one and in some cases two ears pierced and clothes fresh from A&F. In Toledo.
Men reading fashion magazines. Straight men. Oh what a world we live in.
On the way out I take a picture of the hot dog bun that Jamie Farr signed:
I enter Michigan in the near dark and promptly take a wrong turn, and end up taking some significantly smaller roads than even I planned. Eventually I get to US 23, take it north to Ann Arbor, and make a cloverleaf turn onto I-94. I'm not going to get to the lake by sundown, which I promised earlier in the day, but I intend to make it before sunrise.
I've been across this 140-mile stretch of freeway nearly every summer of my life. The ride has always been the same. Not only is the ride the same, but practically every mile of it is the same as every other mile of it. You crest one 30- or 40-foot hill and see another three rolling hills ahead of you, lined by scrubby trees and endless billboards - they used to be for Win Schuler's; now they're for Steak and Shake (which may or may not qualify as a national chain, but I err on the side of caution). If things are really interesting, there's a big hay barn. Eventually you get to Battle Creek, where we used to stop and tour the Kellogg's plant and get free samples of hyper-sugared cereal - you can't do that anymore. At Kalamazoo there's an interesting looking Episcopal cathedral to look at. I don't need to see any of these things to know I'm passing them and feel the little emotional triggers being pulled.
Finally, I see the sign for Watervliet, where it just about kills me to have stop for gas knowing the park and the beach and Lake Michigan are only about fifteen minutes away. I feel the same way I did when I was five. At least, I feel a kind of anticipation that reminds me of the anticipation I felt when I was five. I roll down the window and tell myself I can smell the lake in the air, and pray that none of Michigan's Finest are lurking on the 12 miles to Covert. When I finally do get to the cottage, Mom is waiting up for me, the way I knew she would be, and the only sound in the world is the glorious white noise of waves on sand.
