If you’ve never heard of Bay City, Michigan, raise your left hand like you are about to recite an oath—palm facing away from you, thumb to the right. Your hand is now a map of the lower peninsula of Michigan. Bay City sits in the crook between the thumb and the pointer finger—right where that little fold of skin is.

Pat and I have been in Bay City for some weeks now. Our stay culminates in Pat’s 50th highschool class reunion. He still has good friends here. Decades ago, we came to their weddings, danced the polka and the hokey-pokey, and participated in shenanigans I no longer care to disclose. Their kids are now married with kids of their own.

It’s been fun catching up, but I won’t be joining Pat at the reunion. Next weekend, I’m headed to Chicago to meet up with our daughter, Taylor. 

Funny story: The last class reunion I attended was Pat’s fifth. Let’s face it, class reunions are miserable events for the plus one. At the time, I swore that I would never attend another. Pat countered, “Agree to come to the 50th.”

Playing the odds, I said “Fine.”

What can I say? I was young and a 50th class reunion was unfathomable, so I agreed to go.

Then a few months ago, Taylor tossed me a lifeline. She has a meeting next week in Chicago. I can get there easily. We can spend a long weekend together. Of course I said yes; Pat understood.

If someone asked me to summarize Bay City, I’d say it’s largely a blue collar town where friends still gather at the bar on Saturday afternoon to watch the University of Michigan play football, beer is $3.50 a bottle, and no one ever talks about politics. Most of our friends hale from Irish and/or Polish immigrants who came here for work, settled down, and had children by the six-pack.

Historically, Bay City is a port town connected via the Great Lakes to the iron ore mines further north and west, to the city of Detroit around the thumb and south, and even up and out to the Atlantic.

Additionally, it’s connected by the Saginaw River to the city of Saginaw due south. Numerous tributaries create a web stretching through miles of dense forest. In the 1800s, this fortuitous position enabled Bay City to become a cog in the fur trade and then a major miller of logs which floated downriver to a bevy of Bay City sawmills.

The french geographer and author Élisée Reclus once said, “Geography is history in place, history is geography in time.” That captures Bay City so perfectly.

(And no, I never heard of Reclus. I paid my two dollars and read that quote in the Bay City History Museum. When I asked the ticket seller how many visitors she expected that day, she looked at me and said, “Probably one.”)

In the early 1900s, furs and logs were replaced by factories. This is automobile country and the General Motors foundry in Saginaw was once the largest foundry in the world. Iron ore carriers routinely came through Bay City en route down river.

Today, car engines are increasingly not iron and the foundry workforce has shrunk from nearly 7,000 employees in the ‘70s to 300 today.

Defoe Boat and Motor Works operated on the riverbanks in Bay City until it closed in 1976. During World War Two, 153 military ships were built here—along with a presidential yacht eventually renamed Honey Fitz by JFK.

Before Bay City Rollers was a Scottish pop band, it was a cigar manufacturing company also located right here. 

When Pat went to high-school, the city had a population of 55,000 people. Today, it sits at 32,000 and declining. His high school is now a middle school.

Today, the Bay City based factories have been completely disassembled and the land reclaimed. The future won’t be found in the past; it’s simply unimaginable right now.

Growing up in New Jersey, and then living as an adult in North Carolina and Colorado, I never thought of the boom and bust of the midwest. Now I think about it every day as I walk and walk. I cross a bridge on my way to coffee and wait as the draw bridge lifts so that the occasional ship may pass.

I go by tidy bungalows, fixer uppers, and the stately homes of the lumber barons. I cut through the two charming downtowns of Bay City—one on each side of the river—past red brick bars, restaurants, and boarded up windows. 

My son Mike is an urban planner and back in the day he consulted in many midwestern towns just like Bay City. I text him questions. He replies with information I’ve never considered. Maybe one day we will walk this city together, and he can tell me what he sees and thinks. 

Suffice it to say this town has become somewhat of an obsession, and it’s illuminated the extent to which I don’t understand my own country. I’m excited to see other places with different stories—to give myself the time and space to read their history and contemplate it all.

In that spirit, last month, during my writing class in Paris, I decided a few things. First, I won’t pursue any of my hare-brained writing ideas. Other than an occasional post here, I don’t love the writing life. It was ten years ago when I retired and took my first writing class in Paris. Last month, I put a period on the end of that decade.

Second, there will be no more apartment in Paris. Two weeks ago, as soon as I arrived back in the United States, I gave notice. We will be there in October and November. Then we will set off on the decade of what’s next?.

I’m pretty sure this story ends someplace with a coffee shop and a bookstore. I’ll join a book club and faithfully and preparedly attend every meeting. I’ll buy our food from local farms. Maybe I’ll foster an elderly dog. We’ll cuddle by the fire as I burn my passport and he licks my face.

As compelling as that life sounds some days, it’s going to wait for a while.

When I told our son Ryan that we were giving up Paris, he suggested that he and Mike independently come up with a list of ten cities and towns across Canada and the United States. Pat and I would then visit these places for anywhere from a few days to a month.

In the absence of a better plan—or a home base—I agreed. The places they picked range from Mabou, Nova Scotia (Mike’s list) to Anchorage, Alaska (Ryan’s list). During this fallow time here, I’ve plotted a nine month road trip, booked apartments and hotel rooms, and selected my trip reading list. 

As of right now, I can tell you where we’ll be every day from now until next September. If this feels like overkill, it is. But I’d rather plan now while I have the luxury of time than take precious time away from the trip. The illusion of foot loose and fancy free is—to me at least—rarely all that loose, and almost never free. 

As I finish this, I’m sitting on the banks of the Saginaw River shortly after sunrise. While the days are warm, dawn is chilly. For the first time, I notice that the leaves across the river have turned orange. Geese fly overhead in formation, honking as they go. Fall is here. It arrives eventually for all of us.

Certainly, the day will come when we pick our home base, but not now. I’m raising my hand in an oath. Pat, I swear on the state of Michigan that one day not too far off, we’ll settle down.

I promise.

Categories: Ruminations

Tags: nomadic retirement, the world inbetween, Unusual retirement options