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the l4 mile lighthouse odyssey
part I
it was the seemingly endless summer of l983 that I lived out of my ford bronco and collected photographs of the michigan upper peninsula lighthouses along the southern lake superior shore. I had returned to battle creek to reflect on my filming odyssey when the idea of producing a soft cover book titled SUPERIOR LAND LIGHTS captured my imagination. however, it was already august and in a short time my college teaching semester would begin after the labor day holiday. shortly I would have to cut back on my drinking and refocus my attention and energies on classroom teaching responsibilities.
in l983, I was married to olga, my swiss miss expatriate and a very high energy woman. she worked as a trauma nurse on the emergency room staff at leila post hospital in battle creek. it was the life or death -- all or nothing - crisis situations that olga thrived on. her work on the "er" cases brought the same exhilarating rush that the daily intake of demon rum did to jazz-rattle my brain into red-line consciousness.
our marriage was, to say the least, extremely tempestuous, much similar to the passionate edginess of d.h. lawrence and frieda, bogart and bacall, and the spritzy-sizzle of elizabeth taylor and richard burton. in a recent television interview, musician ozzzy osbourne summed up the relationship that olga and I shared with his statement: "often I don't like sharon very much, but there has never been any doubt that I didn't love her."
one night august l983, I telephoned thom hamilton, a man with a charter boat that the ontonagon historical society had recommended for my trip to the l4-mile lighthouse. I told thom that I would be leaving battle creek early the next morning to drive to ontonagon and I would meet him that evening.
olga and I then got into a bitter and booze-driven argument after she said, "goddammit, you have to drive my mercedes north," and my reply, "hell with you, I can make it with my ford bronco." as habit would have it, we later fell into bed and exhausted ourselves in mad-insane love-making. early in the morning, I piled the cameras, film tote and tripod in the benz and headed back north into god's country.
during the summer of l983, I was alcohol consumed and brown bottle driven, however, I observed a hard-fast splake rule: only tab colas until I crossed the mackinaw bridge into the upper peninsula. north of the "big mac" there was a favorite mom and pop grocery store stop where I grabbed a cold sixer and some coronary producing high salt and fatty nitrate laced snacks.
back before the high visibility of MADD, I felt little worry about being stopped by the state police and arrested for a "dui" violation. I logged steady yooper miles with the mer-benz tranny, and if the cool brews ran out, I stopped at a convenient bar and grabbed a couple of loose cans "to go" from the cooler.
I had passed brevort and epoufette and was gaining on the naubinway "reduced speed" village limits when I came upon a huge backup of traffic caused by summer highway repairs to the cut river bridge. I can clearly remember thinking, "shit, I can't have this, I've got to get to ontonagon and meet with my boat captain thom hamilton today." so, I slammed olga's mercedes into reverse, whipped around the line of cars and, with a crumpled michigan road map in my lap, started freelancing across the back county roads. I revved the tranny horses through the small four-corners of rexton, garnet, roberts corner, and finally reached the m-28 junction outside of newberry. from there it was a straight shot west to ontonagon. relieved by my successful detour, I popped a ringpull and continued my on the road buzz.
It was dusk when I pulled into ontonagon road, weary and feeling like one soundly whupped puppy. I found thom hamilton's house on the ontonagon river canal, however no one was home. I stopped at the next-door neighbor's house, where I found the front porch door wide open and loud music sounding from the interior of the house. my "hello, anybody there" did not elicit a response, so I walked back outside and around to the corner of the house to an open window. I tapped on the wall and repeated my friendly "hello there" and, after a slight pause, a dopey-grinning face appeared at the window waving a gun and asking, "what the hell do you want." I thought, ah and so, splake welcome to ontonagon, or something like that.
after some diplomatic conversation that would have made my father proud, I found out that thom hamilton was still out on the big lake with that day's charter party. so, I grabbed a l2-pack of blue ribbon, settled into a motel room and, after an abortive attempt to call olga long distance and tell her, "hello, I made it to ontonagon," I passed out for the night.
the following morning I met thom hamilton at his house. I drank some much appreciated freshly brewed coffee while he checked the loran for the morning boating conditions and readied his boat for our trip. we motored out past the harbor's stone breakwater into lake superior and headed north along the shoreline to ward l4-mile point and the old lighthouse. once at the point, thom anchored and rowed me into shore in a small boat that we had towed behind his charter boat. I roamed the lighthouse property free to take pictures of the elegant old structure much punished by neglect and the upper peninsula seasons in the "long white." since I suspected that I would never return to l4-mile point and the lighthouse, I made absolutely sure that I had good pictures of the lighthouse for my book. I hailed thom from the shore and returned to the charter boat. we made the trip back to the ontonagon marina, enjoying the same lake calm we had experienced on the trip north to the point.
I could sense that thom was a little surprised, or possibly upset, because of the three cans of ribbon that I quickly swallowed. I was celebrating the finish of very nervous adventure, however, and far too soon I would have to pose again as the sober college professor, with the return of the fall teaching semester on campus.
part ii
in a bardic blink twenty years of rat bastard time vanished. I discover myself a shade grayer and a hippy-hop step slower. olga lives in lincoln, nebraska with her insurance executive son, and I have escaped the suffocating confines of campus and college teaching through early retirement.
one of my author-heroes, richard brautigan, wrote a clever literary fantasy WATERMELON SUGAR, that I have reread several times. during the last keweenaw peninsula season of "long white" I created a chapbook manuscript RAINBOW DIARY, which provides a modest reflection on brautigan's writing style in WATERMELON SUGAR. RAINBOW DAIRY tells of island lives of "poet" and his wife-lover-mate "vida." in the chapter "crème vanilla rainbow" I relate how poet and vida visit lost goat island and inspect the ruins of an old lighthouse ruins there.
through several inquires, I learned that the old lighthouse at l4-mile point had been severely vandalized and burned, and suddenly I thought, ah, a perfect chapbook photograph for the "crème vanilla" diary narrative.
early one friday morning I received a telephone call. captain al asked, "can you be at the ontonagon marina by two in the afternoon today for a run up the superior coast to l4-mile point and lighthouse?"
later that afternoon, captain al, his boating companion george, and I passed through the open swing bridge in ontonagon and rode out beyond the rock barrier breakwater. al's boat "trout dancer" made steady progress motoring close to the shoreline, with the small aluminum boat we were towing behind us riding well in the water. I chatted with george, explaining my history of collecting lake superior lighthouse photos and decision to publish the splake book SUPERIOR LAND LIGHTS. george told me about his career with the coast guard service, working the large ocean going ice breakers and spending most of his enlistment station in greenland. after six or seven miles staying close to the shore, al turned "trout dancer" away from the coast to make course in open water to l4-mile point and the lighthouse. at that point the calm lake superior waters turned into angry menacing tides. "trout dancer" was rising and falling in huge troughs of water and pitching broaching at the same time. clutching a boat stanchion, I tried to recall the sing-song beginnings to the old tv sit-com and television rerun staple "gilligan's island," mentally musing if the lines went, "and the minnow would be lost -- the movie star, mary ann, the millionaire and his wife, the professor too -- here on gillagan's isle."
at l4-mile point waves were surging over the rocky reef in boiling cascades and later crashing in white-capped explosions on the shore in front of the old lighthouse. I felt a narrowing "hello there" twinge and ripple and wondered if my enlarged aorta had jumped a notch, threatening rupture and sudden death. or possibly the emergency of the situation had caused the large arterial pipe to pucker, constricting the blood flow pulsing through my body.
earlier during the ride up the coast, captain al had volunteered that his loran reports that morning had listed the lake superior water temperature at 36 degrees. this translated to instant hypothermia if we capsized in the small aluminum boat while rowing to shore.
the sun still burned through an opaque high blue sky, yet on the lake a stiff and increasingly colder wind blew in our faces. captain al's "trout dancer" bounced like an old cork fishing bobber in the superior waves. as george and I pushed off in the small boat, leaving al behind, I recalled the black-and-white symphonic tempest of "victory at sea" episodes depicting stormy scenes of the altantic and pacific oceans during ww-ii operations.
it was impossible not to get our feet soaked beaching the small boat on shore, however, the bardic adrenalin had kicked in and i was focused on getting the lighthouse pictures. the filming game plan I had conceived during the drive from calumet to the ontonagon marina suddenly became a conscious reality. while george checked out the lighthouse, I worked at capturing its essence and demensions through telephone and wide-angle lenses. I was also aware of a distance interior whisper murmuring: please, no camera malfunctions now, batteries, stay live and keep working.
I was too numbed by cold to remember how george and I ever managed to push off the shore and row back through the surf to the "trout dancer." we climbed aboard, secured the small aluminum boat behind to tow back to the marina, and I wrapped myself in a warm wool blanket and huddled on a boat bench below.
back at the marina, al and I toted up the boat chartering fee while my system began adjusting to the solid feeling of good old terra firma. a short time later, I continued my drying out and warming up with a cup of coffee and stack of "welcome to ontonagon" postcards on the booth tabletop at sly's café. I made hastily scribbled messages to post out to my several writing friends, adding the tale about the gray old man I had seen hugging the ground at the ontonagon marina and muttering "ice nine, ice nine, sum-bitch, ice nine." the rare later afternoon coffee proved a winner, giving me the momentary bard-fuel jazzing the system with enough energy to push the artful dodger t-tranny back to calumet. once back at the art gallery loft and splake sanctuary, a tuckered old poet collapsed into a slumber-zzz-ing coma after quickly swallowing a couple of cold brew ribbons. early the next morning, I returned to smoking the elusive damn-dame lady muse and moved full speed ahead toward finishing the RAINBOW DIARY.
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