Melanie Bond
[Memoir]

Chapter 4
Game of Hearts

After a fun-filled day at Kinsman Park and the tour through the Soo Locks, we returned home to our camper at Chippewa Bay Mills Landing. As we settled into our evening, I thought it'd be fun to teach Dano how to play the game "Concentration" with a deck of cards. After Dano kept forgetting which cards to turn up for a match, he became frustrated and whined, "I quit!"

But that wasn't the end of it. Harvey decided to teach Dano how to play the game "Hearts" which would also give me the refresher that I needed.
Basically, any player caught with hearts or the queen of spades in their hands at the end of each round has to add a point for every heart or 13 points for the queen of spades. This game can get really exciting when a lucky player ends up with all the hearts (ace through king) plus the queen of spades for a total of 26 points. If that happens, the lucky player earns zero points while everyone else is penalized with 26 points each.
The game ends when the first player reaches a losing score of 100 points.
The player who ends up with the lowest score wins the game.

When Harvey made his coup de grace and dealt us both a 26-point penalty, Dano was astonished. He began to see real possibilities in this game and he rose to the challenge. Through persistence and determination, Dano hung in there and learned strategies that could help him win this game. Of course, with a little bit of coaching from Mom and Dad, he actually WON his first Hearts game which took us by surprise! It was wonderful watching him become ecstatic and jubilant over his first victory. He wanted to play another game right away but it was time to turn the lights out in our little camper and get a good night's rest.

As I tucked Dano into his sleeping bag, I kissed him on his forehead and said, "Good night, champ!"

He said proudly, "No one's ever called me a champ before!"

Chapter 5
Point Iroquois

On Sunday, August 13, we packed up and left Chippewa Bay Mills Landing and headed west. We stopped to visit the Pt. Iroquois Lighthouse on Lake Superior's Whitefish Bay and decided to climb 79 steps to the top of the lighthouse. The price was right--admission was free! Dano loved making the climb and once we made it to the top of the lighthouse with me huffing and puffing, the view of the lake and surroundings was quite serene and peaceful. It had not always been so peaceful here.

Pt. Iroquois became an historical site when the westward invasion of the Iroquois was halted by the victorious Chippewa. The Iroquois confederacy inhabited the State of New York and was originally composed of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca peoples, with Tuscaroras added later, to become known as the Six Nations or the Iroquois League.

The Chippewas who defended their territory here in Upper Michigan were also known as the Ojibwa or Ojibway. They were originally located north of Lake Huron before they moved westward in the 17th and 18th centuries into Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, western Ontario, and Manitoba, with later migrations into North Dakota, Montana, and Saskatchewan.

There was a brand new, crisp, and clean boardwalk from the lighthouse through a small grassy dune and wooded area down to the beach. Once on the beach, Dano enjoyed looking for fossils and found two shrimps and a feather. I enjoyed walking barefoot on the many large pebbles and stones scattered across the beach which gave me a great foot massage! Harvey threw a few smooth stones causing them to skip across the surface of the lake before they sunk to the bottom. What a beautiful morning and a pleasant outing this turned out to be!

Chapter 6
Lower Tahquamenon Falls

>From Pt. Iroquois on the southern shore of Lake Superior, we drove west
>to
Lower Tahquamenon Falls which is four miles downstream from Upper Tahquamenon Falls. The right way to enjoy the lower falls is to be brave and daring. I chose to stay within the safety zone of my van. Dano couldn't wait for Harvey to rent a rowboat so that they could have an exciting adventure. Harvey manned the oars and crossed over to a small wooded island in the middle of Tahquamenon River. They docked their boat and hiked over to the other side of the island. From there, they were able to view the lower falls. A "Beautiful But Treacherous" sign was posted as a warning to unsuspecting tourists. For as long as the river has been there, indians and tourists have perished in these raging waters.

Regardless of the stern warning, 8-year-old Dano took his shoes off, rolled his pant legs up and waded across the top ledge of the lower falls, much like I had done when I was a little girl and came here with my family. Something tells me that Harvey may not have wanted to remove his shoes. He does have gorgeous indian feet! But Harvey decided that he had better remove his shoes just in case Dano got himself into a pickle or a scrape. Dano was daring but inexperienced. He didn’t fully understand or appreciate the potential danger of this turbulent area. Some of the rocks were as slippery as ice with hidden crevices below the water. The bottom was not smooth and in some places the water was deep. Fortunately, Dano was careful and Harvey did not need to rescue him.

By the time they returned to terra firma, Harvey's arms were sore and aching from having to row the boat across the river and back. Like Huckleberry Finn, Dano enjoyed floating along the river and was all aglow with the excitement of his fun adventure.

Chapter 7
Upper Tahquamenon Falls

After a wonderful excursion to the cascading Lower Tahquamenon Falls, we drove four short miles west to take in the fresh energizing air generated by the turbulence of Upper Tahquamenon Falls. It runs more than 200 feet across with a drop of about 50 feet and is the second largest waterfall east of the Mississippi River. Both the Upper and Lower Falls are located within Tahquamenon Falls State Park between Newberry and Paradise, Michigan.

One of the most striking features of the Tahquamenon River is its rich brown color caused by tannins leached from cedar swamps into the river.
Tannin is the same substance found in brewed tea. Waters flowing over tannin-producing trees, leaves, and roots, such as the hemlock, is responsible for brewing this tea-colored river. I like to think of this river as producing instant tea or rootbeer for thirsty man and beast alike! After all, the Upper Falls are sometimes referred to as the Root Beer Falls!

Interestingly enough, the Tahquamenon is noted as being the land of Longfellow's "The Song of Hiawatha" where Hiawatha built his canoe "by the rushing Tahquamenaw." This short extract is the most familiar portion of the poem and begins with the famous lines:

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.

[To be continued next week.]

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Melanie Bond is a retired document analyst and technical writer from the Michigan Department of the Treasury. She is a prominent leader in the deaf-blind community, being the founder of several important discussion lists.