Early this month, after a
nearly 3 decade exile, I moved back South.
More about my new home later.
This is my reflection of my last walk through Hastings, taken on August
4, 2014. I had lived in Hastings for a
little over ten years…
 |
The Old Presbyterian Church, now a community center.
This photo was taken in late April. |
The air is notably cooler following
the earlier thunderstorm. There is no
wind and the humidity is high and the air heavy. I walk down Green Street toward town. In the past decade, I've walked down this
street a thousand times. I've covered
this mile in the snow, in the fog, at night, in the sun and occasionally (by
accident or lack of foresight) in the rain.
This will be my last walk, least as a resident of this town. Next time, I'll be a visitor. Wednesday morning, I'll be on the road with
my dog, heading south.
Tomorrow is the primary
election in Michigan and signs clutter many yards. Most are for Hoot or Jerry, who are squaring
off for a slot as a county commissioner.
On a personal level, I like them both.
A few people weigh in for Justin Amash, our current congressman who has
managed to piss-off everyone in politics, especially his fellow
Republicans. Brian Ellis is running
against him and is being supported by the establishment that once seated Gerald
Ford in the House of Representatives. As
I won't be a resident in November, I've decided to sit out the primary
election. I'd feel bad voting for
someone right before driving out-to-town for the final time. Mixed in with the campaign signs are a few
"no fracking" and a handful of real estate signs. There are fewer of the latter than they were
four or five years ago when the economy was really bad. Fracking, a method of harvesting natural gas,
is still a hot topic.
I've crossed Cass, Benton, and
Young Streets, which I've been told were named for our town fathers. I know many of the people on this
street. I pass Don's house. He's a hard worker, often holding down a
couple of part-time jobs in addition to his primary work at Flexfab. Currently, he is preparing for another sale
of collected antiques. At Market, where
Steve, a retired dentist lives, Green Street turns almost 35 degrees to the right
and heads into town due east. The homes
here are older; some sport a detached garage with a hayloft above that remains
as a reminder of a by-gone era. In one
older home, made into apartments, Sue lives with her daughter. She'd escaped an abusive relationship in
Tennessee and moved back to her home in Hastings and is now in college. The other apartment is empty, but the woman
who used to live here had a boxer that always barked when I walked by with my
dog.
Catty-cornered across the intersection
with Washington is the Goodyear house, named from an early merchant family in
town. Most all houses in Hastings are
known by their former tenants! This home
has a large porch with a flat roof. When
my daughter was young and they still had teenagers at home, they were a special stop on Halloween. These kids (and a few adults) would set up as a rock band on the roof of the porch and pantomime to
music blasting out of speakers, acting as if they were KISS or Motley
Crew. Halloween was always a big night
on Green Street as hundreds of kids roamed around and everyone decorating their
yards and handing out tons of candy. One
Halloween, a kid ahead of me darted across the street in front of a car. Luckily, the driver was going slow and
watching carefully and screeched to a stop as did my heart. In the last few years, the police closed off
the street, creating a safer environment for kids wandering around in the dark extorting
candy.
A ways down on the north side
of the street is Amy and Brian's. She's
a judge and he retired early and now runs a window cleaning business. Then there's Lori's home with her Nantucket
sign on a front porch, perhaps as a reminder of her hopes and dreams of where
she'd like to be. Back on the south side
of the street in one of the many beautifully restored homes resides Dave, my
pharmacist. When I walk downtown early
in the morning, I often see him walking into town to Bosley's Pharmacy. As I approach the light at Broadway, I see
that the huge house on the rise to the south has a new labyrinth, laid out in
stone in the yard beside the “project house” in
which the owners have been working on for the past ten years. When I moved to town, the place was falling
down and looked haunted or at least like a movie set for an episode of the
Adam's Family. Although it still isn't
fully restored, they've done a remarkable amount of work on it.
As I wait for the light to
change, before crossing Green Street and heading north on Broadway, I scope out
the landscape on last time. The next
block to the south is Central School. My
daughter started attending there at the middle of her kindergarten year. We could have sent her to the newer school,
as many parents did, but were charmed with the old school (the main building
was built in the 1930s). Her kindergarten class had a fireplace and an in-floor goldfish pond. That was pretty neat and overall the school was a good experience for her. She had
wonderful teachers and a very caring principal.
Although John has retired as principal, he’s still a good friend, and I will be ever in debt to Jean, her first grade teacher. I'm going to miss those class field trips! When I worked in town, I would walk up
Broadway to school and my daughter would come running out into my arms to be picked up and
swung around. We'd walk back to my
office, often hand-in-hand, where she'd hang around until it was time to head home.
I turn south on Broadway,
walking in front of Girrbach's, one of two funeral homes in the town. I'd been there many times to say goodbye to
those no longer with us and to comfort friends. At the next corner is Emmanuel Episcopal
Church, a lovely brick chapel-looking church. Across the street is the old Presbyterian Church with its slightly
tipped steeple and huge white columns. The old church building
is looking nice as it is now the home of the Barry Community Resource Center,
which is a wonderful use of the building that dates to the 1850s. It houses a number of non-profit
organizations and the sanctuary has been refurbished to a performing arts
center. The Presbyterians, of which I
was a part, moved outside of town in 2010, onto a 34 acre tract of land next to
the main highway heading toward Grand Rapids.
As a community center, the building continues to serve the town
well and the new site has allowed the congregation to spread their wings.
In the next block, on the left
side is the Adrounie House, a wonderful Bed and Breakfast run by Don and
April. I stayed there my first visit to
this town, back in 2003. Next to the
Adrounie House is a parking lot. Once Dr. Upjohn’s house sat there, but the home is now preserved at
Charlton Park. Upjohn started his drug
business in Hastings. Local legend has
it that his machine to make capsules was so loud he was ordered to remove it
out of town. He did, to Kalamazoo and
they enjoyed the success of his company (now a part of Pfizer). Across the street from the Adrounie House is
the stately courthouse, built in the 1890s.
I head over at Court Street and cross the front yard of the courthouse
to State Street (not to be confused with State Road which is on the other side
of the river). I walk down State Street
(which most people call Main Street as it is the business district), passing
the movie theater and a host of other businesses and restaurants. On the east
end, there is the town hall and the library.
They were raising money to build the latter when I arrived and it opened
a few years later. To the community's credit, all the money for
the construction of the library came from the community. Somewhere in there is a brick we purchased that has my daughter's name engraved on it.
I walk behind the library and across the
footbridge over the Thornapple River, where I pause and look around and to
listen to the water. This bridge is one
of the few remaining structures of the old CK&S (Chicago, Kalamazoo and
Saginaw) Railroad which never made it to Chicago or Saginaw (it ran between
Kalamazoo and Woodlawn), and went defunct in 1938. At the time, the Michigan Central railroad,
whose tracks paralleled the river as it ran from Jackson to Grand Rapids, acquired
the trestle and used it to access the factories on the other side of the
river. The Michigan Central pulled up
tracks in the early 1980s, at which time the trestle was made into a walking
bridge.
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Old CK&S trestle. This photo was taken by Vickie, a friend who paddled
the river yesterday, August 14, 2014 |
Darkness is descending and bats
dart around scooping up mosquitoes and other insects. Yesterday, I paddled under this bridge for
the last time. At the time, the airspace
above the river seemed to be dominated by Cedar Waxwings, darting around doing
their part at harvesting the insects that like to feast on human blood. The trip was bittersweet as I haven't done
much paddling of this section in the summer in recent years (I have tended to
sail instead of paddle during the warmer months). The local canoe livery has now started
renting rubber tubes and the section closest to town was filled with tubers
with their coolers and ubiquitous beer cans.
Cigarette smoke fouled the air and boom boxes drowned the sounds of the
river and the birds. Now it is quiet,
except for the low roar where Fall Creek enters the river. The last couple hundred yards of the creek has
long been underground, as parking lots and buildings sit above it. The huge culvert in which the creek flows into the river emits the roar as air blows through it.
Leaving the trestle on the
north side of town, I walk between buildings owned by Hastings Manufacturing,
the maker of Hastings Piston Rings. At
one time they employed thousands, but today only a little over a hundred. Many of the buildings are empty, as the
company which had been locally owned for three generations went bankrupt a year
or so after my arrival. There was fear
the company would cease operations, but a group of investors purchased it and
it continues to chug along making high quality rings (they are an inclusive
supplier to Harley Davidson). Others of
the buildings were the former home of Viking, a manufacturer of fire
suppression sprinklers. Long before I
moved here, Viking moved across the river and on the west side of town. I walk east on Mill Street, back into a
residential community with houses built on a steep bank above the river, and
turn left at Michigan Street, crossing the Thornapple again on the new bridge. Below me in the water, a family of mallards
preen themselves in preparation for the night.
A block ahead, behind City
Hall, I stop to admire the bronze sculpture of a young girl exploring a
garden. Flowers are all around her
now. She was created by Ruth, a local
artist who has lately taken hundreds of photos of me in order to paint my
portrait. Although I may leave this
town, a part of me will remain. But before
she can work on the portrait, she has a couple of other statues to finish, so
it won't be ready until sometime next year.
The original will hang in the Presbyterian Church and I will receive a
copy. This will do nothing to ease my
struggle with vainglory.
I stop for a beer at Vinnies Woodfired Saloon, a new restaurant
and bar in town, and watch the Tigers lose to the Yankees as I admire the
craftsmanship of the establishment. The owner,
a carpenter, used lots of wood and the establishment has a warm feeling about
it. Finishing my beer, I head home,
taking Jefferson Street, passing the Olde Towne Tavern (known for good burgers)
and the boarded up Fall Creek Restaurant. This was a favorite restaurant, but
the owner, Jeff, got cancer and it closed last summer, just weeks before his
death. I miss him and his subtle humor,
and his love for Santana. His funeral
ended with some musically talented friends playing Europa. The song has a subtitle, “Earth Cries, Heaven
Smiles,” which seemed to be appropriate as there were lots of tears on earth that day. At the other end of the block is Brian's Tire,
ran by Jeff's brother. They have
serviced my vehicles since I arrived in town and I have always felt that they
were honest and fair and will miss doing business with them. At Green Street, there is the Thomas
Jefferson Hall, which used to be the Methodist Church. The building is now owned by the County
Democratic Party, which rents it out for auctions and antique sales as well as
occasionally holding a meeting there. On
the next block stands the new Methodist Church, with its huge dome. Last year they celebrated their 100th
anniversary of the "new building." When I re-cross Broadway, I
retrace my steps toward the house that will be my home for one more night. The movers will finish up in the morning…
###
For those interested, Amash and Hoot won the primary elections. Soon, I'll have to do a post on my new home and the salt marsh that surrounds it...
. Just to be on the safe side, I pack four
water bottles, a full gallon of water along with a sunscreen, insect repellant,
lunch, a towel, and a beach tarp in which to retreat during the searing midday
sun. A few minutes after nine, I arrived
at the Delegal Marina where I met eight other kayakers for the trip to Wassaw
Island. Although we were supposed to
start at 9:30, most of the others already had their boats in the water when I
arrived a few minutes after nine. I
stuffed everything in my boat and joined them and soon we were paddling east,
out of the marina and toward the mouth of Delegal Creek. It’s not a long trip, five miles one way, but
one that has to be carefully planned with the tides and involves some open
water much of the Ossabaw Sound is open to the ocean. We paddled out on the falling tide. Leaving the safety of Delegal Creek, we merged
with the Vernon River which opened to Green Island Sound, passing Raccoon Key
to the south. It was an enjoyable paddle
on calm waters. We passed the mouth of Adam’s
Creek, then Curtis Creek and Pine Island.
You could see a clump of trees in the distance, our destination, but
straight ahead was the wide open Atlantic.
As I didn’t know any of the paddlers before this morning, I first spent
time paddling next to Rudy, who moved to Savannah from New York but is
originally from Belgium. We paddle a
ways out from land in order to avoid sandbars, but even here in places, the
water is shallow enough that I hit bottom with my paddle. In other places it is very deep. As we paddle I get to meet many of the other
paddlers: Bob, Dave, Ruth, John and
three other guys whose names I forgotten.
