The inn where we were staying had innkeepers that were very, you know, friendly and wanted to help people have a great visit. And the husband of that couple especially kept recommending things that we should do even after he heard like what our plans were. I mean, it just seemed like he really didn’t think that we had maybe set up a good itinerary for ourselves. I think, and I remember like one of the things that he was trying to get us to do was to go a little bit out of our way on our trip like up the coast to see a, uh, the site of a big eagle’s nest. You know, where bald eagles nested. And I — it was like so famous, I even read about it in a, in a guidebook somewhere. Uh, but I hadn’t put it on our itinerary because while I love birds and think bald eagles are really cool and majestic and you know, a really neat thing to see, where I — where my parents live, we see bald eagles every single spring. And, um, I mean — and they’re great to see. You know, very exciting whenever, you know, they come to the lake. But, um, anyway it’s just not something that — it just wasn’t top of my list for, you know, at least not on our itinerary in this vacation.
So he was kinda on me about that and then he was also trying to suggest that we go visit a lighthouse. Or maybe more than one lighthouses. And, you know, I was getting a little bit — maybe getting a little bit irked with him being so pushy.
And so I said, “You know, we actually have a lot of lighthouses in Michigan.”
Which is kind of like a funny thing for me to offer up simply because — I mean, yes, there are a lot of lighthouses in Michigan. I believe Michigan might have the longest coastline of any state in the Union and yes, we have lighthouses. But I’m not necessarily a big lighthouse person, and I had never actually visited one or like gone out of my way to visit them. But anyway, I pointed this out to him, “I got lighthouses at home.” And he immediately snapped back, “You know, if it’s not salt water, it doesn’t count.” And I was like, “Mmm.” You know?
I didn’t think that was — I definitely felt like he was, you know, looking down on the Great Lakes. And while at that point, I think I still considered myself fairly new to Michigan, because I guess at that point, I’d been there — okay I’d lived in Michigan for maybe seven years at that point. Six or seven. It didn’t necessarily feel like my state at the time. But still, it’s where I was living. And I thought that that was — I thought that he was looking down on it. You know, maybe the typical East Coaster looking down on the Midwest. And you know, I came from the Midwest, where I grew up, and went to college on the East Coast and so I had plenty of experience with people assuming that things on the East Coast were more important and better and more substantial than things in the Midwest. So I don’t think I necessarily said anything in response to his remark, but here I am over 20 years later telling you about it. So, it’s, it’s on my mind. I swear it comes up every time I see a lighthouse.