Tales of a 21st Century Gypsy
September 13, 2004 Marquette, Michigan.
I left Brimley on a Tuesday, planning to head to Marquette for one night and then up to the Keewenah Peninsula, the uppermost arm of the UP. Matilda had other ideas. En route to Marquette she staged a work slowdown, barely edging above 50 miles per hour all the way there, and slowing to 35 on the hills. So my first night in Marquette I emailed the Vanagon list about mechanics up in the UP.
I was referred to Marcia, a friend of someone on the list. She doesn’t have a Vanagon, but she is a VW person, and her friend Brian suggested I talk to her. Wednesday morning I showed up at the florist shop where Marcia works. After a hearty laugh when she heard how I came to be there, she conferred with a friend, and they referred me to their mechanic, Max. And as Brian had suggested she might in his email, she offered to put me up if I got stuck in town waiting for parts.
Well, I got stuck for two days. And then when the first part didn’t solve the problem I got stuck for another three days, putting an end to my plans to visit the Keewenah Peninsula. But being in Marquette for six days was nice. It’s nothing like the “right” side of the UP, I could tell I was “out left.” Marquette is home to Northern Michigan State University. At twenty-five thousand inhabitants it’s the largest city in the UP, so in addition to being a center for education, it’s a medical center. It’s also the center of the iron mining community of the western UP and eastern Wisconsin, and therefore union stronghold; a sign hanging from one building downtown read “Unions, the people who brought you the weekend.” It’s a democratic stronghold in the mostly-Republican UP. It had a nice YMCA where I worked out every day. It’s got a good food coop, a great coffee roaster, and quite a few bookstores, used and new. And I realized, as I talked to people, that for all that I said I wanted to meet people who are different from me, it is so much easier to be with people who are like me.
People come to Marquette; they don’t just grow up there. Marcia had moved from downstate Michigan, where she grew up, because her then-husband was in school. She was happy to leave her home town, a strongly Dutch Reformed Christian community that she found narrow-minded and illiberal. She has been in Marquette for ten years now, working in the florist shop; jobs are hard to come by up in the UP. Nowadays she’s beginning to think more about what she really wants out of her life, instead of just having a job to get by. That could mean leaving Marquette, though she’s not ready to decide about that yet. Her partner Sven lives up the lake a ways, where he makes guitars for a living. In the summer he goes to folk festivals most weekends, to sell guitars and sometimes to perform as well. He grew up in a small community in Wisconsin – Marcia teases him about being a cheesehead. The three of us, along with Sven’s dog, climbed up Sugarloaf Mountain outside of town, where they showed me a splendid view of the lake and the town, and told me about their view of the community and the UP.
