Religion -cristian/catholic etc etc and Fillipina girls...

[robert angel]

Wow, Flipflop....

Bet we have been to the same places more than we knew. We used to go up to northern Michigan in the summer too, and I first got into Hemmingway up there. We were in Charlevoix, a lot but we went to Petoskey and Traverse City, (Cherry capital of the whole world) Crystal Lake and whole bunch of other places, but mostly between Charlevoix and Petoskey.

I remember water so clear, you could look a hundred feet down and easily tell what color the rocks were and seeing guys catch good eating fish that were bigger than me.


I collected rocks--Petoskey stones, geodes, fossils, a few of my first Indian artifacts too--till my closet was about full up with crazy rocks, and my Mom cleaned em out on me.

Most of the people who lived up there year round, reminded me of people I later met in places like Montana and Idaho--real nice, down to earth, friendly folks without a lot of money, but tons of common sense and contentment.

I remember the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes and in Charlevoix Mt Mesabi, with skinny ole me starting running down it, till I realized I was going so fast, down so steep a hill that I couldn't stop my legs from crankling like pedals--I had to let my feet go and I flew thru the air, like a damn pole vault pole and landed head first into the sand--getting sand all in my stupid face and nose. Somethings, you only do once...

Got sweet on my first girl friend in N. Michigan--a summer crush that went away when we both had to head back to home, school and reality.

When I was 13 or 14, I was with a YMCA camp and we drove  all the way around the whole lake and camped out the whole way every night--I think I crapped in every awful outhouse around that whole dang lake--all the way around Lake Michigan--"Lake Micheegummee''

Those blood sucking, tiny  'noseeum' gnats and black flies as big as half dollar coins, that could suck a moose's blood out till it died--hated them--and the leeches in some of the brownish colored rivers--getting em off our bodies with lit cigarettes. I didn't skinny dip in those rivers!

We stopped and checked out Lake Superior and I had no idea how cold a water you could swim in and live to talk (write) about it later--we dared each other and the guys who were brave (or dumb ) enough to go in and stay in for a few minutes, we gave imaginary 'certificates' making each other members of "The Blue Balls Club" --coz you know if you lived up there--first the freezing cold made you hurt, then it made you go  numb--then if you were dumb enough to stay outside--you froze to a blue color and you might lose ur fingers or toes.


People just don't realize that those Great Lakes are so big and that the waves get as big as they do in the north Atlantic Ocean, but they 'break' closer together--making storms there worse than in the North Atlantic. Seen ships 1200 feet long, carrying iron ore and thought--wow--a November storm might just break that monster ship n two pieces and send it and it's men to the deep, deep bottom or if it sailed too late in the year, maybe freeze it so it'd be locked in the ice.

"You DON'T mess with Mother nature" as the old butter commercial used to say....

First time I saw Lake Michigan, I said--"Nah--that ain't no lake--we found ourselves a new ocean!"--the waves so big and the horizon so far away. Every American (Canadians are N. Americans too) should see those amazing lakes.

Geeze the winters in Michigan--I think it was Dave H who said he always remembered snow--sometimes feet of snow--before December. I can remember ice skating on deep lakes by Thanksgiving out side Detroit and one summer in Michigan's upper penninsula--the sky was real unusual and we got to see purplish flashes of the "Northern Lights' all the way from the North pole at that.

Flipflop---thanks for bringing all those old memories back--I've been sweating bullets down here in Georgia for 25 years now and I needed to remember that ole Big Two Hearted river country. They say Hemmingway was almost kind of a sissy --until he spent time up there as a kid, and I know that you, Dave and I know why he toughened up!

[Bill_McC]

I lived 18 years in Michigan and can attest to every word written above. It's a beautiful state, however being born and raised on a cow ranch in Montana under the Big Sky always makes me yearn for wide open spaces and stars that go from one horizon to the other on a cold clear frozen December night. I'm now living in Georgia myself and just learning to enjoy the HOT days and warm muggy nights. Im still looking for good bow hunting and somewhere to go on weekends where I can light a fire and pick some tunes while enjoying an adult libation and the peace and quiet of being surrounded by mother nature.

Bill

[robert angel]

Hey, Bill_McC.,

My Grandparents on me Mum's side came over on the boat from Ireland, without a penny, never mind: a 'a pot to piss in, or a window to throw it out of'. After my Uncle Henry returned from horrific duty as a Navigator on B 58 Hustler, half dead with the horrors of war rolling in his mind and a body still reeling from after effects of malaria from the Vietnamese jungles, he convinced my Grand Pa and Grand Ma Nugent to pack it up and they bought a ranch out side of Billings a bit (a 'bit' by Montana standards, anyway) in a little town called Joliet, not far from much more touristy village called Red Lodge.

Yea--that's one great place to be--I bet a first run, night time movie still costs under five bucks, that there's still snow up along that great Beartooth Highway (highest highway in the USA) in July, as it ambles along to Yellowstone country, on into Wyoming and sterling Idaho.

It's there where I caught my first trout, pulled rocks out of the ground, to make Uncle Henry's ranch more hospitable to livestock (he ended up calling that tough life quits and became a Postmaster) and ultimately, where my Grandparents passed away and are buried on a hillside near Joliet, looking towards Billings, in a land where the views and skies seem endless, the reds are redder and the blues bluer.....

it's not quite the same now--with too many media and fashion magnate types, like the news anchors, movie stars and the much loathed Ted Turner, posing as 'Ranchers', buying up acres by the thousands and putting a stench in the air that the Indians never knew.

But it's still a place everyone should see, if for nothing else to take a big ole V8, car and open her up,letting er rip as you blow the carbon out along an expanse of high way without enforced speed limits, where the end of the road may be a little dot visually, but really twenty five miles down yonder, then seemingly going on forever even after that, the rocky Mountains hours away, but looking like you could walk right up to them.

It's a land unfettered by federal rules and regulations, by a people who can live without any sales tax and don't care much for federal politicians adding odors to their air.

Yea, Bill-it's 'big sky country'-- where it can make a human feel small in size and where some of the greatest sunsets anyone will ever see are.


It's a true 'land of the free and the home of the brave' for a number of people, a quietly proud people, who's days there as they know them, are probably sadly numbered.....

Took me a while to get used to Georgia, but I've come to love some of the things I thought I hated, and from the 'low country'--hundreds of miles of flat, sandy land along the ocean coast and inland onto the Piedmont, where the red dirt and rolling hills rise up even higher to become the Smokeys and Appalachians, there's places like gnarly 'Hell's Gate" and Steam Boat Cut, where the ocean tides smack in hard from weird directions and if you're real lucky, you might catch a huge tarpon on a fly lure if the currents don't suck you under, all the way up to Georgia's Highest mountain--"Brasstown Bald" and into beautiful Hiawassee, Georgia and Lake Chatuge. There's a few other nice, sparsely populated spots too along there, that are natural treasures, 'southern style'.

If you haven't been yet--get to the other side of lake Chatuge--on the Tennessee side--it's less traveled and I figure you might find that ideal place you're searching for, where you can set up camp and a fire and not see or hear any human sounds for days, unless you sing an old camp song or let out a whistle to keep the coyotes away There's very seldom traveled places down around--more like a ways out side of--Waycross  (Home of the late Gram Parsons) and outside of Valdosta, (lots of qauil hunting country), where you might not see any folks for a good spell, but you might--just might, encounter a wild boar, a 1000 pounds heavy. If you do--just try--at least try--not to act scared!

[michaelb]

People just don't realize that those Great Lakes are so big and that the waves get as big as they do in the north Atlantic Ocean, but they 'break' closer together--making storms there worse than in the North Atlantic. Seen ships 1200 feet long, carrying iron ore and thought--wow--a November storm might just break that monster ship n two pieces and send it and it's men to the deep, deep bottom or if it sailed too late in the year, maybe freeze it so it'd be locked in the ice.

That has happened, come to think of it, Gordon Lightfoot even wrote a song about it.

[Jeff S]

Yeah , well you guys can have it. I spent the last 15 years spending a week a quarter in Michigan and the best part of it for me was waiting in Jose Cuervo's at the Detroit airport for my flight back to the coast. And I was all over the state. I suppose the spring and fall were tolerable weather-wise and, yes the outdoors activities were nice, but not much different than most other states and provinces in that part of the continent. I'm happy to say I haven't had to go back since the spring of 2008.

[Kaz1983]

I Think Dave pretty much nailed it right when he said:

>>It shouldn't present a problem, as long as you let her follow her own beliefs. Most Filipinas are quite tolerant of others' religious views. Many ladies come across in their writing style as being more devout than they actually are.<<


And as I think it was kaz, who said:

>>Ahh that makes sense, I suppose if that is important to her - it is important to me in and when they are old enough they will make up thier own minds how important it to them... anyway my dads side of the family are christian but not heavily -they dont go to church<<

I think most Filipinas are raised Catholic and that they will probably want their children to go through catechism and get confirmed and hopefully remain Catholic, but like my wife, she can go to church w/o me sometimes and it's not a big deal. She even skips sometimes now, but tries to remember to pray her Catholic Novena prayer on Wednesdays.

That's what my ex wife and how my current wife--both Catholic raised Filipinas like it--raising the kids in the church. I go along with it and figure it'll give our kids the options later on--just like my parents did. I wouldn't want to be 20 or 30 y/o and in Sunday school class so I could get confirmed by the church...

It seems the only place it all gets a bit complicated is when going through the 'technicalities' of marrying someone from a different faith, but that's still doable and soon passes.

It seems to be that Budhists are rather tolerant and that if a non Muslim marries a Muslim gal, there will be some kind of fall out--some drift.

"Going to church (or temple or mosque) doesn't a make you a Christian any more than does going into a garage make you a car"

Ta for that and any other reply's given...

[flipflop]

Robert

I have Cousins in Petosky. i had to leave the UP for work and now live in Indianapolis. Your descriptions of the N LP and UP made me well up a little as i miss the Great Lakes and the Forest alot. The geological story behind the Petosky stone might be as moving. The patterns in those stones are coral meaning at one time that part the  of the earth was under ocean. Having done alot of snorkelling in the reefs off John Pennykamp I knew as soon as I saw one what it was. A very rare and beautiful stone.

I lived in Gladstone and woke up to the beautiful view of Little Bay De Noc every morning. In the winter it was peppered with hundreds of Ice shacks and in Feburary they used to run the UP 200 dog sled race right across the bay. Tw or 3 times a summer a freighter  by the name of Block pulled in to unload some salt or coal.

I found myself in a unique situation on that bay once. It had turned really cold in late november one year and the lake froze enough so that you could go out on it. Then we had a windstormn that peeled all the snow off the ice and and it was like glass. I was walking around on the bay on a sheet of glass with a perfect view to the bottom.


ThI could go on but wont. thanks for sharing though
 

[robert angel]

Jeff--I think you live in what sounds like a safe and very lovely area of South California, but I'd love, given the time, to show you some places in Michigan. I'm not sure now, but for many years, Michigan had more boats, including incredible yachts, than any state in the USA. The beaches, rivers and lakes are great, but the winters are definitely brutal!

In areas, it's got amazing cultural diversity, there's still plenty of high end shopping and dining available and cultural affairs are pretty invigorating too.