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Welcome to Zipperfinch Lake |
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THE HISTORY OF MICHIGAN
The 20th Century
January, 1926
Michigan turned over all planning of highways to the Michigan State Highway Department. Funding for the department's projects came from a two cent tax on each gallon of gasoline sold.
The department's research projects began as monies from the tax came pouring in. A few of the studies were an immediate success. One such success that is evident even today is the "overnight pothole phenomenon."
Alfred Conway, a civil engineer and researcher for the highway department, was the person credited with the discovery of methods that allow potholes to appear in any type of road surface virtually overnight. The highway department at first tried to deny that any such capability existed but department officials finally conceded that they had funded the research and implemented the method on Michigan roadways "to keep employment levels high to help the state's economy." Conway's procedures remain a well-guarded secret, shared only with municipalities that must keep the method classified or forfeit all present and future state road funding.
During World War Two, the Army Corps of Engineers unsuccessfully tried to force the Michigan State Highway Department to reveal the secret of the overnight pothole phenomenon. Courts declared that since the army was unwilling to show, in a public forum, a military need for the data, the state was free to withhold it from them.
The U. S. War Department brought together many of the nation's top scientists to try to duplicate Conway's data. They called the effort "Project Tank Trap." After many unsuccessful months of research, the War Department terminated the project. Researchers and engineers said it was "beyond anything they were capable of duplicating." These same scientists and engineers then began work on the very successful Manhattan Project.
January, 1927
Dr. I. M. Sludgebottom, professor of history at Wayne University, finally dispelled the rumor that Zilwaukee got its name because a group of German immigrant settlers thought they'd arrived in Milwaukee. "They actually thought they were in Fon du Lac," he said.
September, 1927
Elvira Benson of South Haven was searching for driftwood along a beach on Lake Michigan when she spotted the find of her life. Up ahead on the sand she saw a piece of driftwood that was exactly the shape of a tiny person. She raced ahead knowing what price such a rare find would fetch in her driftwood and rock shop.
Much to her disappointment, the driftwood did turn out to be the body of a tiny person, one Manny "The Dwarf" Heinrich who, before his untimely demise, was a bookkeeper with one of the larger Chicago mobs. Police theorized that he'd been rearranging too many commas and decimal points in his bosses' books, giving himself large pay raises. The underworld rumors were that the Godfather admired his initiative but decided to terminate his employment anyway. Evidently, the large storm of two days before had transported Manny to where Mrs. Benson mistook him for a piece of driftwood.
Elvira continued to search the beaches for many years and was given the nickname "The Bloodhound" by local authorities because of the number of Chicago accountants, both large and small, she continued to find washed up on the sand. She never did find her perfect piece of driftwood, though.
After she passed on in 1947, or so the story goes, a group of mob accountants erected a monument to her in a steam tunnel below one of Chicago's larger buildings.
August, 1928
Thelma Goodbody of Flint held the first recorded Michigan garage sale. The items that brought the highest prices were a Griswold waffle iron (handle broken) and a pair of World War One vintage binoculars (right objective lens missing). Mr. Goodbody, upon seeing the large crowd gathered in his front yard, hurried down to the local tavern where he swore to everyone within hearing range, "She'll never have another sale again." Mr. Goodbody had barely gotten the petunias replanted and the lawn reseeded when Mrs. Goodbody got together with a few of the neighbors and held the first multi-family sale in the front yard. Her sales became an annual event. Mr. Goodbody, having given up on ever having a nice looking lawn, tore his yard up, replaced it with concrete, and painted it green.
July, 1929
The state attorney general overturned a Livingston County law that prohibited women in bathing suits from riding in cars. The county board of commissioners passed the law which Commissioner Clyde Butz originally proposed.
Mr. Butz suggested the county pass the law, telling the board that sheriff's department officials reported that male motorists were causing accidents by having their attention diverted from driving by bathing suit clad women.
The truth was that only one accident had occurred in the county because of a male ogling a female in a bathing suit. The accident occurred when the driver, one Clyde Butz, was motoring through Brighton when he observed a woman in swim wear driving in the opposite direction. He swung his head around so fast to look at her that he strained his neck muscles. His passenger, Mrs. Butz, upon seeing his actions, hit him forcefully in the head with her very large handbag. The blow loosened two of his teeth and caused him to lose his sight in both eyes. Thirty members of the Deranged Killers Motorcycle Club happened to be riding their vehicles slowly in front of him. Luckily, he didn't injure any of them as he forced them off the road.
Clyde pulled his car off onto the shoulder, responding to his wife's very loud directions, and his sight returned in time for him to witness thirty angry motorcyclists striding purposefully toward his automobile. He proposed the new Livingston County law after his release from the hospital a few months later.
June, 1934
Dr. Oscar Grunter of Mackinaw City became famous by discovering and diagnosing the first known case of Mackinac Island fudge overdose. His patient, Miss Inah Krump of Cheboygan, complained of stomach upset, cramps, headache, flatulence, gastrointestinal malfunction, and shortness of breath.
Dr. Grunter ruled out bubonic plague, typhoid fever, and cholera before discovering the root cause of the disease.
After administering a healthy dose of Epsom salts, his patient returned to near normal, although she suffered from blurred vision for years afterward.
This disease was previously unknown but has now become quite common and medical advances have increased the cure rate dramatically. Although it is known in medical terms as Mackinac Island Fudge Disorder or MIFD, scientists sometimes call it Grunter's Disease in honor of the late doctor who passed on from the ailment himself after a short research trip to the island.
February, 1943
The story of Luigi Pasquale began in north Africa during World War Two. The Allied troops, who invaded the continent on November 8, 1942, were pushing toward Tunis in Tunisia. Luigi Pasquale was a private in an Italian armored division which was under the command of German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. It was the purpose of the eight Italian infantry divisions and the single Italian armored division to supplement Rommel's famed Afrika Korps.
Luigi was a novice tank driver who sometimes pulled the wrong lever, causing the tank to swing in the opposite way from the intended direction. Luigi knew exactly where he was going on May 9, 1943 near Protville, Tunisia, when he peered through the port and saw the advancing allied army. He swung his tank away from the enemy division and roared toward Tunis with as much speed as he could coax from the vehicle. This abrupt turn and burst of speed startled the other tank drivers and soon the entire Italian armored division was following Luigi. The tank retreat didn't last long because two divisions of British armor held the area two miles ahead. The Italian division surrendered without firing a shot.
The allies confined Luigi and the rest of the Italian prisoners in a temporary camp in northern Tunisia. The Italians were happy to be out of the war and they danced, sang, and played their accordions well into the night, much to the distress of the German counterparts who didn't see much to be happy about during their imprisonment. Luigi attempted to belt out a rendition of Lili Marlene on his accordion every evening to try to cheer up the Germans but his accordion playing left much to be desired and the Germans became more and more surly.
A week later, the Italian prisoners marched aboard a transport ship and began their voyage to North America.
On the east side of the upper peninsula sat Raco, Michigan. The town got its name from the Richardson-Avery Lumber Company around the turn of the century. After the slump in the lumber industry, the company abandoned Raco. In 1929, it became a Civilian Conservation Corps camp.
Official records are unclear as to exactly when Luigi arrived at the Raco camp but arrive he did, accordion in hand.
A few of the prisoners of war protested when the officials assigned them to work details but not Luigi. It wasn't that he was aware that the Geneva Convention of 1929 allowed use of prisoners of war as a labor source. He was happy to have something to do.
Since Luigi Pasquale had been a tank driver, the camp administrators assigned him the job of bulldozer operator. The camp staff soon discovered Luigi's propensity for pulling the wrong lever when, while scraping a firebreak, he knocked down two of the camp cabins. Officials reassigned him to the job of camp handyman. The time passed quickly for Luigi, though bad luck crept up on him from time to time.
On one particular day, his group leader gave him the task of checking the chimney on top of the mess hall. Next to the building was a fifty-five gallon drum with a wooden top that Luigi climbed on to boost himself up to the roof. In hindsight, it would have been better to get a ladder but Luigi wanted to save time. All went well with the inspection project until the time came for him to climb down from the roof. He stepped down on the barrel and, as he was about to jump to the ground, the wooden lid flipped sideways causing Luigi's left leg to be inside the barrel with his right leg on the outside the on the ground. Luigi was not a tall person so the abrupt drop caused more sensitive parts of his anatomy to come crashing down on the barrel rim. The pain coursed all the way up to his hair follicles. He was standing there, one leg inside the barrel and one leg out, moaning, with tears streaming down his face, when the supervisor happened by. He informed Luigi that the barrel he was standing in was filled with left over cooking grease and oil from the camp kitchen and that he'd better get himself cleaned up. Luigi painfully pulled his leg out of the barrel and started toward his quarters.
The camp cats, of which there were many picked up the scent of fried food and began following Luigi. They climbed allover his grease soaked pant leg and licked his boot every time he stopped walking. He'd shake his left leg to dislodge the cats before he could start moving again. His leg was a bloody, cat scratched appendage when he reached his destination.
The odor of fried food and the cats stayed with Luigi for most of the week. The prisoners also noticed a marked increase in the camp cat population due to extra felines wandering in from neighboring farms and towns when the scent of fried food reached them. From that time on, Luigi was known as the Cat Man of Raco.
Small incidents continued to plague Luigi but nothing is worth mentioning except the time he was replacing the roof boards on one of the buildings. He let the ends of the boards overlap the edge of the roof, figuring that he'd save time by cutting them all off at once when he finished the job. Luigi knew the boards were strong and they'd probably support his weight if he walked out to the end of them. They didn't. The pain was almost unbearable when he crashed to the ground but it was a clean break. His broken arm healed in no time.
After the end of the war, Luigi elected to remain in Michigan and he became a citizen of the United States. He started a successful construction company in Grayling. His sons took over the prosperous business following his retirement. Luigi's accordion playing never did improve.
January, 1945
Residents of Grand Rapids became the subjects of a large experiment initiated by the United States Government. Government and city officials met behind closed doors to discuss the fluoridation of the water supply for the entire city of Grand Rapids. Irma Sudbury, a secretary in the city's Department of Public Works listened to the closed door top secret meeting through a heating vent in her office. City workmen, while tearing down a wall recently, discovered a cylinder from a transcribing machine that Irma had recorded the conversation on while poised at her listening post. The conversation on the recording begins sometime after the government official had explained the concept to a city official. The following transcript does not contain the names of the participants for obvious reasons.
"You want to do what now?" asked the city employee.
"We want to introduce sodium fluoride into the city water system. "
"Uh-huh. Isn't that chemical poisonous?"
"Very poisonous," answered the government official.
"What does this sodium fluoride do after you put it in the system?"
"It helps prevent tooth decay."
"I'll bet it does," said the city man with an incredulous tone in his voice. "Cyanide might work pretty well, too."
The government official paused in the conversation, probably because it was obvious to him that he wasn't getting his point across very well. Before he could explain again, the city employee spoke up.
"Let me get this straight. You want to poison people so they don't get cavities. Isn't that a little extreme?"
"You don't understand. We're not going to kill anyone."
"That's a relief."
"The small amount of sodium fluoride we'll add to the water probably won't have any harmful effects."
"Probably won't do any harm?"
"We're ninety-nine percent sure it won't. Just in case, though, we'd like you to instruct all city employees to watch for the warning signs."
"What are the telltale signs?" asked the city employee.
"One of the first signals that something is wrong is if the residents start experiencing forgetfulness."
"All Grand Rapids residents suffer from that."
"Twitching of the facial muscles is another sign."
"We've all got that, too."
"Irritability?"
"Yup."
"Diminished IQ?"
"Definitely."
"Well then, I'm one hundred percent certain that the sodium fluoride won't do any harm. Do we have your permission to go ahead with the project?"
"Sure, I don't see why not. I get my water from a well anyway."
March, 1947
The state's first television station began operation though no one could figure out why, since there were few people who possessed receivers.
The early television broadcasts consisted mostly of a test pattern accompanied by an annoying one thousand cycle tone. The test pattern did amuse viewers for some years until a more discriminating audience demanded better programming. That demand initiated a more diverse broadcasting schedule.
During the mid fifties, the new medium carried such programs as Soupy Sales, Pinky Lee and, a little later, Johnny Ginger. These programs amused the audience for a few years until viewers demanded better programming.
Television did improve. Old television networks such as Dumont gave way to giant conglomerates. Local stations formed their own news and weather teams which came on, at first, for a few minutes every evening but in later years took over hours of programming each day.
Weather forecasts were a source of amusement to audiences for many years. Gamblers placed bets on the weather with local bookies after the forecast, usually betting against the weather person, until the bookies, who were afraid of bankruptcy, raised the odds against the betting public.
A television station in Alpena designed a pie chart marked off in sections labeled rain, snow, wind, etc. Station employees placed the chart on a table and put a turtle in the center of it. Whatever section the turtle walked to was the forecast for the next day. It turned out that the turtle's predictions were ninety percent accurate which was a much greater accuracy rate that any weather reporter in the state. The Alpena station became the loser when a Detroit network affiliate fired their weather man and hired the turtle.
Being a news reader was not without its risks, either. In the mid seventies, a local Lansing station fired its anchor man. While he was getting ready for the six o'clock news, his blow dryer shorted out causing sparks to jump to his scalp and his coiffured look went up in a puff of smoke. Management couldn't use him on the news team since he wasn't pretty anymore, the main prerequisite for a television news man. His agent found him new employment in the entertainment industry as a member of a local wrestling tag team. The television station hired a new anchor and he worked out well after a shaky beginning. To cure his stumbling over words on the air, the station hired English majors to help him sound out the larger words. After two years, he could read the news on his own.
The television camera itself turned out to be society's mirror. When the camera showed the public during sporting events and on the scene news reports, people made faces, waved, shouted to their mothers and, by their actions, said to the viewing audience, "Look at me. I'm mentally unbalanced."
The space age brought a whole new dimension to television viewing. Entrepreneurs formed corporations, wired whole cities with cable, and broadcast movies and old television shows from the early days of the medium which were beamed down from satellites twenty thousand miles above the earth. The companies also rebroadcast local television signals over their cable and charged citizens large monthly fees for something they used to get for free.
In the late nineties, companies ran fiber optic cables throughout the nation and the interactive television age began. Viewers could choose from over five hundred television channels, three hundred of which were talk shows, one hundred were shopping channels, and the remaining fifty were news programs.
The new technology frightened people and they refused to use the inter-active capabilities of the new system. The final straw was the advent of the "reality" television show. The public demanded the return of the test pattern and the accompanying one thousand cycle tone.
February, 1951
Contrary to popular belief, the recycling craze did not begin in the seventies. Vera Jane Calvin of Cadillac was the state's first recorded serious recyclist. There was the government mandated recycling during World War Two, of course. That recycling was a small venture compared to Ms. Calvin's efforts.
Vera Jane Calvin was a heiress to a large fortune left to her by her late father, Albert Calvin, the shipping magnate and founder of Calvin Ship Lines which transported grain and taconite from ports on Lake Superior to companies in Ohio.
Vera Jane's recycling efforts turned from a hobby into an obsession soon after she started her enterprise. Her propensity toward clear glass bottles changed to include colored glass and metal containers of every size and shape. Soon she had branched out into old tires and used oil. She introduced members of her social clubs to recycling and, in a matter of months, she had converts far and wide.
Ms. Calvin's recycling empire became so large that she purchased a trucking company to haul the tons of material she was collecting. She bought a steel mill to process the scrap metal and a glass factory to melt the bottles and jars. Vera Jane added a refinery to her list of holdings to process the used oil. She had the boats of Calvin Ship Lines transport old tires to a plant on Lake Michigan where workers ground them up and shipped them down south for use in road building.
Vera Jane Calvin had gone through half of her fortune when her two grown sons, Carl and Ken Calvin, petitioned the court to have her declared incompetent. The judge took one look at the garbage strewn around her two hundred acre estate and signed the papers immediately. The court committed her to a rest home.
Vera Jane Calvin passed on in 1962 from blood poisoning caused by cuts from the rusty barbed wire she'd been collecting from the fence that surrounded the rest home but her legacy lives on to this day.
The recycling that Vera Jane knew and loved has become almost a religion. Recyclists have forced lawmakers to pass new regulations designed to clean up land fills. The laws are so strict that the government forced smaller dumps to close. This has been a boon to the economy because it forces people to drive long distances and pay exorbitant amounts of money to dispose of unwanted items. Many people drive out to the nearest dark country road late at night to dispose of their trash. This has the positive effect of spreading the garbage out evenly throughout a county and it isn't all stored in one spot in a nasty land fill. We have Vera Jane Calvin to thank for this.
February, 1955
William Wurst founded the Worry of the Month Club in a small shed behind his garage in Three Rivers. Membership in the club was low in the early years and the only regular members were William, his wife, and three brothers-in-law. The monthly newsletter, The Worry Sheet, was one page long because the only concerns in the mid fifties were war and nuclear annihilation.
The club began to flourish in the late sixties because of the Viet Nam War and by the late seventies the number of Worriers, as people called them, blossomed into the millions. Chapters of the club opened throughout the state. By the nineties, The Worry Sheet had grown to over fifty pages.
A large boost in membership coincided with the acid rain scare. Acid rain was front page news in The Worry Sheet for many years but later William relegated it to the back pages, if he mentioned it at all.
To keep membership levels high and the dues pouring in, William began filling the pages of The Worry Sheet with every item of possible concern he could find and backed up these concerns with statistics which The Worry Sheet staff made sure contained outrageously inflated numbers.
The fruit tree spray Alar was a big item for Wurst and membership in the club rose again. Then he discovered that the more worries he could foist upon the unsuspecting public at any given time, the better it was financially for him. William pushed the depletion of the rain forests scare to the limit. The disappearance of the ozone layer was another one of Wurst's front page items. There were smaller worries, of course. The decreasing number of wetlands was one. The loss of animal habitat was another. Pollution in both the water and the atmosphere were large items in The Worry Sheet for awhile. Skin cancer and stories about food additives received prominent attention. Then William dug up an obscure Food and Drug Administration study which launched his big scare, second hand smoke.
Membership in the Worry of the Month Club rose to new heights following the publication of Wurst's newsletter on his new found scare. The state and federal governments passed laws limiting smoking in certain areas and newspapers reported that people were dropping dead from smoke inhalation throughout the country.
Then came William's call for complete bans on alcohol, tobacco, and any product containing caffeine.
In the latter period of what became known as "the worry years," membership in The Worry of the Month Club began to dwindle. Wurst himself commissioned a study to find the reasons for the drop in dues paying members. He tried to keep the results of the report quiet but the truth slowly dribbled out.
The study showed that members of The Worry of the Month Club were prone to ailments which disabled or even caused death. Club members had the highest hypertension rate of any group ever studied. Ulcers were common among the members. The heart attacks they suffered strained the nation's health care resources. The author of the report cited one case where a person had a heart seizure at the mere sight of a cigarette. Mental disorders and nervous breakdowns occurred frequently. The report quoted a case history where a doctor confined a person to a mental institution when the patient suffered the onset of total hysteria and mental collapse after discovering that the beef she'd just consumed contained nitrites.
Finally, a Federal judge ordered the disbanding of The Worry of the Month Club. Wurst appealed the decision all the way to the Supreme Court but the Federal Judge's ruling was upheld at every level for the good of society.
William retired to the Cayman Islands and lived off his many millions of dollars he'd collected from his club members. Now, a strange, ninety-something old man has been spotted in various places around the country, expounding on the dangers of "global warming" and telling everyone who will listen that we are all doomed.
December, 1966
The well known and revered Riley Pitman purchased his first snowmobile and began his illustrious, if short, career which made him a Michigan legend.
Riley pioneered many of the snowmobiling traditions and rules that exist in Michigan and the nation. He's probably most famous for Pitman's Axiom which, simply stated, says, "The shortest distance between two taverns is a straight line." Many snowmobilers follow this axiom to this day without a notion about the origin of it. Pitman's Axiom goes on further and allows each snowmobile driver, after four tavern stops, to decide for himself or herself exactly what a straight line is.
Riley based most of his rules upon Pitman's Axiom. After two tavern stops using Pitman's Axiom, Riley's Rules come into effect. Riley's Rule Number One states, "Snowmobiles, when run at top speed, will shorten the time needed to fulfill Pitman's Axiom and also clean carbon deposits out of the cylinders." His rule number two says, "On any ice covered lake at night, snowmobilers will follow the tail light of the snowmobile in front of them, even after it sinks in open water." As many as fifteen snowmobiles in a caravan have been known to follow this rule.
There are many more of Riley's rules but they are too numerous to write about here. After the introduction of the personal water craft, a Grass Lake resident brutally plagiarized many of the rules and applied them to the personal water craft with only the slightest rewording and the substitution of "dry land" for "open water."
Riley Pitman's proliferation of rules came to an abrupt end when he dutifully followed Riley's Rule Number Five while snowmobiling near Iron Mountain. Rule number five says, "Never turn the engine off while working on the machine." He was last seen speeding off toward a gravel pit while frantically trying to adjust the carburetor high speed adjustment. It remains unclear to this day whether or not he had gained enough speed to jump the gravel pit but a thorough search turned up no sign of Riley. Searchers did find his snowmobile tracks on the other side. It was well known by his companions that he had enough fuel on board, because of the extra tanks he'd added, to reach north central Canada by way of Minnesota.
January, 1967
A groundswell of support for a proposal put forth by a Gaylord public official arose in the state. The official, Bill Liverpool, proposed that all U.S. presidential candidates be chosen much like the Selective Service System chose servicemen. Bill based his proposal on the theory that anyone who sought the office of President of the United States suffered from mental instability or worse. He put it bluntly by saying, "Anyone who wants that job has to be nuts."
Bill worked on the details of the proposal for many months. The basic idea was that draft boards would select a presidential candidate for each party. The boards would immediately reject any candidate who showed the least bit of interest in leading the nation. The perfect presidential candidate was one who U.S. Marshals had to drag before the board kicking and screaming. The president would serve one term of six years duration before draft board officials dragged new candidates forcefully from the streets. The candidates would undergo extensive psychiatric exams to ensure that they didn't want the job.
Bill Liverpool foresaw that candidates would conduct campaigns differently than they had previously. Each presidential non-hopeful would extol the virtues of the other candidates while telling the American people why he or she would make a terrible chief executive. The new system would inject honesty into the presidential race.
Supporters of Bill's proposal considered extending it to include senators and house members but they dropped the idea after considering its ramifications. The draft boards pointed out to the supporters a pertinent fact. There wasn't a person in the country who wouldn't want a cushy, privilege laden position as a member of Congress.
When word leaked out about Bill's idea and the support it was getting from the citizens, politicians from around the country quickly squelched the proposal by passing laws making talking about the idea illegal. Bill had to quit his job because of threats and harassing phone calls. Audits of his finances by the Internal Revenue Service became more and more frequent. He eventually had move to Australia to escape the constant pressure.
November, 1967
The 560 foot ore carrier, the George C. Scott, was down-bound from Duluth to Cleveland with a load of iron ore. A rift was developing between the ship's master, Captain Angus McDougal, and the first mate, Franklin Conklin. As they passed the Copper Harbor light, Captain McDougal called Franklin Conklin to his cabin. He explained to the first mate that he thought the crew was being much too disrespectful and as captain of the ship he demanded that Franklin do something about it.
"They complain every time I play my bagpipes out on the deck and I won't have any more of it."
The captain berated Franklin Conklin until the ship was well past the Manitou Island light where Franklin stormed out of the captain's cabin, slamming the door.
Restlessness began building among the crew as the ship traversed the Soo Locks and started down the St. Mary's river.
"The captain's addled, Franklin," said Walter Smith, the first engineer. "He hasn't been right since he got those screeching, wailing, bagpipes. That noise is enough to loosen all the teeth in my head"
"I know, Smitty. He plays those blasted things every free waking moment he has. He says he has to celebrate his Scottish heritage."
"He wasn't like this last trip. His Scottish heritage is beginning to jangle my nerves," said the engineer.
The ship was just out of De Tour Passage when a large storm began to build up with heavy winds howling from the southeast. Soon the ship was pounding and rocking against twenty-five foot graybeard waves. The crew, unable to rest in their bunks or do their shipboard tasks because of the rough seas, showed definite signs of terror.
"Don't worry, men," said Franklin. "The Captain knows what he's doing."
This statement by the first mate caused Sally Sawbuck, the assistant steward, to start crying hysterically since Franklin had specifically said that men shouldn't worry.
"It's all right, honey," said Alfred Sawbuck, the steward and Sally's husband. "He meant you, too."
Everyone treated her as if she were one of the men. With a flannel shirt, dirty dungarees, and lumberjack boots gracing her large six foot frame, she wasn't exactly the picture of femininity.
The storm finally subsided when the George C. Scott was thirty miles due east of Rogers City. The captain had pushed the ship through the tempest with a skill unequaled in recent history. He summoned Franklin Conklin to the bridge where he turned over command to him. Before going to his cabin for some much needed rest, the captain again admonished Franklin about the attitude of the crew.
Back in his cabin, Captain McDougal grabbed one of his two sets of bagpipes and walked out on the deck to play a tune or two before heading to his bunk for some much needed rest.
The crew maintained their composure for as long as they could, but after the third rendition of a badly played Amazing Grace, the second mate stormed onto the bridge. "Franklin, we can't take it anymore," he said, grabbing the first mate by the collar. "You're going to have to take over the ship."
Franklin Conklin was also past his breaking point. "Mutiny is a pretty desperate act but I think you're right. There isn't much else we can do. Let's go confront the captain."
Captain McDougal glared at the two of them and put his bagpipe in his cabin. "Do you realize what you're doing, Mr. Conklin. Mutiny is a hanging offense."
"I don't believe it is anymore," said Franklin, as he marched the captain out to a waiting lifeboat. "Anyone who wants to go with him should get in the boat." The second engineer and one of the wheelsmen climbed in with the captain. "Since we're off Sturgeon Point now, you should make Harrisville in a few hours," Franklin said to the captain as he ordered the lifeboat lowered.
The remaining crew members watched as the lifeboat headed in an westerly direction. Franklin Conklin ordered the wheelsman to bring the ship around. The mutineers flung two sets of bagpipes overboard as the George C. Scott headed north.
The captain and the two other crew members made it to Harrisville where they called the Coast Guard and reported what had happened. The George C. Scott, however, was never seen again. Many knowledgeable people theorize that the crew sailed the ship back up into Lake Superior. The crew opened the sea cocks and scuttled the ship five miles off from Isle Royal and rowed the lifeboats to the island where they live to this very day. Supporting facts are that forest rangers and hikers have reported occasional sightings of a group of bearded men accompanied by a very large woman skulking through the woods.
July, 1972
Michigan established a lottery and along with the lottery came a vow from the state government that all proceeds would go toward funding schools. Upon hearing this promise, every citizen in the state yelled in unison, "Yeah, right," which is a feat in itself since many residents of the upper peninsula speak Canadian and not English.
The government did keep its promise and all the lottery funds went for education. The amount of money in the school fund didn't increase, however, because the state held back money in the general fund that would have gone to schools had it not been for the lottery. In political terms, this procedure is known as alternative financing. In legal terms it is known as fraud.
The lottery brought ruin to a few residents of the state. Carl Claypool of Luna Pier took out a second mortgage on his house and used the twenty thousand dollars to purchase lottery tickets. He was so sure he was going to win that he used a line of credit to purchase a new thirty-four foot cabin cruiser and new cars for himself and his wife. He planned to payoff the large debt with his lottery winnings.
Carl didn't win. While downing his fourth scotch on the rocks at the local tavern, he was so despondent that he announced to everyone that he was "going to a better place." Then he walked out of the bar and disappeared. His wife Mabel called the State Police and suicide prevention experts for assistance. Officers instituted a massive search but they found no trace of Carl. A few weeks later, local officials found him in Cincinnati. It turned out that the better place he was going to was Ohio.
The lottery continues to flourish and many more people have sought political asylum in neighboring states.
July, 1975
Governor William Milliken put a new law into effect that defined legal death in Michigan. The law says that death has occurred if two tests during a twenty-four hour period confirms there is no brain wave activity. Lawmakers have proposed bills that would exempt some county officials and college professors from this law.
January, 1978
Bad Axe city officials held an emergency session of the city council to try to devise a way to prohibit weather people, stand-up comics, and other undesirables around the state from ridiculing the town name. City politicians issued a proclamation that read in part, "All persons, whether residents or non-residents of Bad Axe, shall speak of the City in a positive way or not speak of the City at all." No one ever mentioned Bad Axe in the state again.
February, 1978
A think tank in Traverse City, which some people say is a contradiction, studied the immigration problem that the United States had been experiencing. For the past two years, residents of the southeastern states had seen a large influx of people fleeing their native nations.
The committee studying the problem consisted of ten members from all areas of Michigan academia. Chairman Irving Holstadt brought the meeting to order.
"We all know why we're here today," he said. "This is a very perplexing problem and I hope you people have some ideas."
A committee member from Jackson spoke up and pointed out that many individuals and organizations supported allowing the illegal immigrants into the country.
"If we could get everyone of these people to invite just five immigrants into their home and care for them, there wouldn't be a refugee problem."
"They aren't that dedicated," said another member. "They're marchers and talkers, and that's about as far as they'll go."
The committee haggled far into the night and sometimes the arguments escalated into pushing and shoving.
"That's my jelly donut you've got your grimy paws on," yelled the member from Charlevoix.
"Well, take it then," said the committeeman from Grayling, throwing the pastry at her.
"Who sat on my hat?" yelled still another member.
"We have to remember why we're here," said Irving Holstadt. "Does anyone have any ideas on how to solve the problem?"
"What problem was that?" yelled the members in unison.
"The illegal immigration problem," said Irving. "That's why we're here."
"Oh, that problem," said the member from Grayling. "I have an idea that would insure that these people really want to immigrate here. If we implement my suggestion, ninety percent of the potential immigrants will stay home."
The Grayling committeeman came up with a brilliant suggestion. He proposed that authorities allow no immigrants, no matter what country they were from, south of the forty-fourth parallel for the first five years of their residency.
"These are warm climate people," he said. "It would show the government whether they were serious or not."
The whole committee applauded his suggestion and went into a brainstorming session. They finally decided on three possible locations for the immigrants to settle. All three towns were on one of the Great Lakes.
"Some of these people came here by boat," said Irving. "They have to have a way to sail back to their own country, should they so desire."
The members eliminated one of the site selections, Copper Harbor, Michigan, because it was too small to accommodate a large influx of people. They voted against another site for the same reason. The site in Wisconsin won unanimous approval.
"Then we've decided the issue," said Irving Holstadt. "We'll send them all to Green Bay."
February, 1983
A foreign linguistics student, a Senior at Eastern Michigan University, began his study of phrases used by local and national television newscasters. He'd planned to use his research as a basis for applying for the doctoral program at the University of Michigan.
The first roadblock to his success came when he noted an anchorman reporting on a person in the hospital in temporary serious condition. The student reasoned that the use of the modifier "temporary" signified there must be other stages of a serious medical condition. He also reasoned that the worst must be a permanent serious condition and wondered how that differed from a person described as critical. After searching through medical reference books, journals, and computer data, he found no reference to anyone ever having been in "permanent serious condition." Undaunted, he phoned hospitals around the state searching for anyone who had ever known of someone in permanent serious condition. Finding no data on the phrase, he gave up and scratched it off his list.
He then directed his research toward words he'd heard uttered by a reporter on a local television station remote report. The newscaster had described how a "brutal murder" had just taken place. Abdul thought that all murders were brutal but after hearing the report, he changed his mind. There must be gentle murders or kind murders, he reasoned. His search for gentle murders almost gave him positive results. He stumbled upon such deaths as assisted suicides and mercy killings. Upon further searching, he couldn't find one prosecutor in the state that would classify any murder as kind or gentle. If they could, one prosecutor said, it wouldn't be murder.
An anchor woman reported a senseless rape that had taken place on Detroit's west side. The student searched the state for an example of a "sensible rape." He found none.
After two weeks of intensive psychotherapy to help with his confused state, the student dropped the linguistics program an enrolled in the physical education program instead.
May, 1986
Isaac Newell of Lovells noticed a small jack pine growing in the middle of a field he hadn't cultivated in a few years. Before plowing, he decided to uproot the offending tree. He warmed up his Kubota tractor, drove it out to the middle of the field, and wrapped a chain around the tree. Putting the tractor into four wheel drive, he easily pulled the jack pine free.
Unknown to him, a Kirtland's warbler, a federally protected species, had constructed a nest in the small tree. A group of bird watchers from the Saginaw branch of the Audubon Society, who'd been observing the bird, watched in horror as Isaac dragged the tree over to his brush pile. People in the group yelled obscenities at Isaac Newell as one of them drove off to notify government authorities. Two members of the group were so upset after witnessing the incident that they suffered mild myocardial infarctions. Other members of the society transported them to the hospital in Grayling. Isaac didn't hear the remaining members shouting and questioning his ancestry above the roar of the tractor engine.
A day later, James (Bird Dog) Kelly, a special agent with the Division of Law Enforcement of the Department of Interior's Fish and Wildlife Service, arrived on the scene. He inspected the hole where Isaac had pulled the tree out. Then he went to the brush pile where he carefully examined the Kirtland's warbler's nest and the nearby Kubota tractor. Returning to his office, he reported his findings to the United States Attorney's office. Since members of the Audubon Society had positively identified the Kubota as the offending machine, the U.S. Attorney filed a lawsuit against the tractor.
Word reached Detroit of the impending legal action and the United Auto Workers Union hierarchy issued a statement backing the government's court suit, not so much because they were lovers of Kirtland's warblers but because a Japanese tractor had committed the offense.
At the trial (United States of America v. Kubota Tractor Ser. No. K16484) Bird Dog Kelly testified at length about his findings. Members of the Saginaw Audubon Society also took the stand. The judge found the tractor guilty and ordered it confiscated by the government.
A grand jury indicted Isaac Newell and charged him with harming an endangered species. He sold his farm to pay his legal fees and eventually declared personal bankruptcy. The jury at his trial found him innocent of all charges.
January, 1987
The Michigan Department of Transportation, after a careful study, requested funds from the Federal Government to erect a sign on northbound US23 at the Ohio border that instructs motorists to speed up to eighty miles an hour. The Federal Government, after conducting its own study, found the sign is unnecessary.
January, 1991
C. Alva Butterington of Grosse Point Park showed up on the census as being the only homeowner in Grosse Point Park, Grosse Point Farms, or Grosse Point Woods who didn't own a cabin or cottage up north. Angry people brought this fact to the attention of these communities after extensive research and a series of reports by a local television investigative team.
Citizens formed protest groups and religious leaders spoke out during their sermons against this transgression. Picketers carrying signs while holding the hands of small children marched in front of Butterington's residence shouting slogans. Concerned officials called police to hold back the protesters.
Mr. Butterington resolved the crisis himself by purchasing a small summer retreat on Drummond Island.
May, 1991
Lacking funds, the entire government of the State of Michigan shut down for a week. The residents were not forewarned of this event and spent the entire week wondering why the system was running so smoothly. When the legislature and public servants returned to work, government was thrown back into its normal chaotic state.
June, 1991
Environmentalists warned that an increase in methane gas in the atmosphere was contributing to global warming and the greenhouse effect. Earth watch groups blamed much of the gas increase on the flatulence of cows. The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded a large research grant to Michigan State University professor of biochemistry Dr. Bensen Burns to study the effect of bovine emissions on the atmosphere.
Dr. Burns designed and built a monitoring device to measure the amount of methane in the ambient air using gas chromatography. He placed twenty of the devices at various strategic locations around the state. He also designed an instrument that attached to the backside of cows to measure gaseous output at the source. Velcro and contact cement held the instruments in place.
Aiding Dr. Burns in his study was research assistant Bubba Sodgrass, a behemoth of an undergraduate who played left guard on the Michigan State football team. It was Bubba's job to wrestle the cattle to the ground and attach the devices. Bubba Sodgrass, under Dr. Burns' direction, attached the instruments to hundreds of cows in Michigan and a few across the border in Indiana. Bubba astonished Dr. Burns by attaching the devices to three bulls in Ogemaw County, which wasn't surprising to Bubba's anatomy instructors back at Michigan State. The football coach, not wanting to lose one of his starting linemen due to injuries, took a bruised and bandaged Bubba aside and explained to him, with the use of graphic slides, the differences between male and female cattle. "I see why them bulls wasn't easy to hold down," said a wiser Bubba.
The data began flowing in and it puzzled Dr. Burns. His numbers, charts, and graphs didn't correlate with what he expected. The methane released from cattle didn't appreciably increase the amount of methane in the air around the herd. An unexplained increase in seasonal methane did occur in some areas of Michigan, though. In the warm summer months, gas increased dramatically in areas near beaches and marinas. In the winter, the beach and marina methane subsided to normal levels but gas increased at or near ski areas.
After weeks of pouring over data, Dr. Burns developed a theory that it wasn't cattle after all that were emitting high levels of methane. It was Yuppies. To prove his theory, he concentrated his gas chromatography methane monitoring devices at or near places where Yuppies congregate, especially Audi and Mercedes dealerships, sports clubs, golf courses, and trendy restaurants. His devices reported positive data to him.
To obtain absolute proof of his theory, Dr. Burns sent Bubba out into the Michigan countryside to remove the measuring devices from the cows. Bubba brought the machines back to the laboratory where Dr. Burns made a few slight modifications to them so the researchers could attach them to humans.
Bubba, not wanting to repeat his previous mistakes, went back to the football coach for instructions. The coach used graphic slides to explain to Bubba that it didn't matter what gender a Yuppie was when he attached the device. "Even people well versed in anatomy sometimes have trouble telling what sex a Yuppie is," the coach explained.
Bubba ventured out to the Yuppie hangouts and began attaching the machines. He returned to Michigan State a battered and bruised person. He found it was much easier to place the machines on bellowing cows than it was to put them on screaming, kicking Yuppies.
Dr. Burns began pouring over his new data and made many discoveries as the information accumulated. He proved that Yuppies are the main source of the increased methane in the atmosphere, emitting five to ten times as much gas as normal humans. This fact multiplied by the millions of Yuppies in the state corresponded directly to the increases of gas in the air. Dr. Burns' data showed that the average Yuppie emitted five times the normal amount of methane, a vegetarian Yuppie emitted seven times the normal amount, and a liberal vegetarian Yuppie came in at an astounding ten times the average emissions. Dr. Burns didn't have any data on the offspring of Yuppies but he assumed that they would be as gaseous as their parents.
Scientists from around the state applauded Dr. Burns' research and they are considering him for an achievement award. Bubba had to sit out the entire football season due to the injuries he sustained at the hands of the experiment's unwilling Yuppy participants.
November, 1994
Ricky Small of Escanaba became the last known deer hunter in Michigan to utter the phrase, "Seen lots of sign but you can't eat sign." His hunting partner, having heard that phrase once too often, tried to remove Ricky's tonsils with the corkscrew device on a Swiss army knife.
The Delta County Prosecutor termed the attack as self defense. "There was a similar case down below last year," he said. "Someone said, 'If you don't like the weather in Michigan, just stick around and it'll change.' The assault case that followed went to court but the presiding judge threw it out. He said the defendant was doing nothing more than protecting society from terminal gagging."
It is now against state law for anyone to utter either phrase while in Michigan. The Michigan Senate Sub-committee on Cliches is considering amending the law to include "Have a good day."
November, 1994
Duncan Simmons, a water quality specialist at the Simmons Testing Laboratory in Alpena, completed a report on municipal water supplies in the state. He'd co-authored the report with retired sociologist and anthropologist C. M. George, professor emeritus at Wayne State University.
The report concluded a decade long study where C. M. and Duncan analyzed data from potable water sources in Michigan. The Department of Defense classified much of the research and the resulting report as top secret but a disgruntled Simmons Testing Laboratory employee leaked the research results.
The laboratory employees had detected a minute amount of an unknown substance in every municipal water supply sample that they'd tested. This same substance did not appear in the well water of private homes. The scientists called it "Substance X."
Professor George compared the views and actions of people who drank well water with people who drank from public sources. He and Duncan Simmons both concluded that the unknown substance they'd discovered caused people to become more liberal in their thinking and actions.
On the positive side, they found that ultra right wing personalities became moderates after just two months of drinking city water. In some of the cases studied, membership in the Ku Klux Klan dropped to zero in areas where townships had connected to municipal water. The negative aspects of drinking city water far outweighed the advantages.
"The ultra liberal become screaming, irrational, left wing fanatics," Professor George wrote in the report.
The report went into other sources of water, especially bottled water.
"Prepackaged water contains the highest concentrations of Substance X," wrote Duncan Simmons in the report. "The data shows that someone at the bottling facility adds extra amounts of the substance to the water."
Professor George added to Duncan's comments. "This explains why people who drink bottled waters are especially emotional and irrational."
The report concluded by saying that the only clear thinking people remaining in the United States are the ones who only drink water that comes directly from a well.
The U. S. Government, for some reason, has confiscated the two known copies of the report and is keeping them locked in a safe in a highly classified security room at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Duncan Simmons and C. M. George have mysteriously disappeared.
