Petoskey

Yesterday I treated myself to a few hours in Petoskey, on the Lower Peninsula's Left Coast, almost due west of Presque Isle.  I stopped first at Odawa Casino where I enjoyed a pleasant brunch for less than $7, and then frittered away $10 at the slots.  I find this type of gambling rather boring.  I suppose that if I put in a couple bucks and won $10,000, I might change my opinion — but yesterday I was falling asleep at the machine!

Then I headed for Horizon Books on E. Mitchell St., my primary target for this trip.  Alpena has one book store, but it's a small independent with limited stock.  While Horizon is no Barnes + Noble, it has a nice selection.  After happily nosing through their stock for nearly an hour, I finally settled on The New Deal: A Modern History, by Michael Hiltzik (Free Press, 2011).  My current book, T. H. Watkins' The Great Depression, has peaked my curiosity about this era, which so clearly shaped my father's view of the world.  There are clear parallels with our present time of economic malaise.  Hiltzik, a journalist with the Los Angeles Times, won a Pulitzer in 1999 for articles exposing corruption in the entertainment industry.  His style should be readable.

I've also acquired Chris Matthews' Jack Kennedy: Elusive Hero (Simon and Schuster, 2011).  Matthews hosts "Hardball" on MSNBC.  I find his Pennsylvania roots, as well as his political opinions, appealing.  Matthews' esteem for Kennedy is very evident.  I'll be interested to see how he expresses this in more words than a TV anchor is normally allowed.

As I may have mentioned, both my brother Brad and I rode in Kennedy's Inaugural Parade in 1961, and I was a freshman at Denison when he was assassinated.  For a teenager, his presidency seemed so full of promise, and his death (and all that followed in its wake) such a nightmare.

After my book safari I stopped at American Spoon Foods to pick up a bottle of grilling sauce. The need for variations on chicken breast drove this shopping spree.  As she rang up my sale, the clerk squinted at my sweatshirt and then asked, "Where is... Presky Isle?  Is it an island?"  No, said I, the name means "Almost Island."  Then I tried to orient her to Lower Michigan's Right (Huron) Coast, with which she was almost entirely unfamiliar.  When I mentioned how few people live here, especially in winter, she got this odd look on her face, as if to say, "How... boring!"  It's not, of course.  But I do get cabin-feverish now and then, and a quick hop to the Lake Michigan side is a pleasant specific. •••