Going Home
Brian Crocker on Hometown Reunions & the End of All Our Foes
I turned west off Michigan highway 64 and onto Main Street just as the sun was setting Thursday evening, one day before the reunion was scheduled to begin. With the closing of the mine in 1995 and the dissolution of the school district in 2003, the sun setting on the town seemed to be an apt metaphor. Most of the remaining population of my old hometown is retired, since those too young to retire or who had school-age children had to relocate to find gainful employment and schools. There are a number of homes—many of them built by the Copper Range Company in the 1950s—used as vacation and recreation homes by people from Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan, but the year-round population is mostly old and quiet.
Those old, quiet folks who remain, however, do keep their homes maintained. It's not unusual to see a well-kept house with a very neatly mowed and landscaped lawn next to a vacant, decaying house with a lot full of weeds. And both the elementary and high school buildings are at best minimally maintained for use as storage space for recreational vehicles and boats for those "out-of-towners," or for old, accumulated equipment that may or may not prove useful someday to someone. Spacious buildings that once held apartments, a grocery store, a teen center, and even a small shopping center now hold little more than darkness, dust, and stale air.
Gloomy Reflections
Having grown up here at a time when you'd have been hard-pressed to find a vacant house and when the schools were beehives of activity, I drove around feeling like I had just walked into the ICU room of a wizened old relative decaying from cancer: uncomfortable, nostalgic, sad, and wondering if there was hope still to be found.
The gloom deepened as I drove past the house in which I grew up, and I remembered the day I looked out the picture window as my mother frantically carried my older brother across the street to a neighbor who was a nurse. The gumdrop had lodged in his throat, and what little air reached his lungs was laden with sugar. I said goodbye to his lifeless 7-year-old body on my parents' bed the next day.
About 200 yards down the street from the house stood the little A-frame church where I sang the liturgy and hymns and heard the gospel, along with 40-odd other souls, throughout my school years. It, too, now stood empty, its insides charred and sooty. An older schoolmate who had sat a few chairs down from me in the cornet section had developed mental health issues, and one December evening, she broke into the church and set it afire. I attended the congregation's closing worship service in October 2009, which was held in the neighboring Methodist church building.
A Great Place to Grow Up
After touring the streets, I pulled into the lot at the American Legion hall and found an old classmate just outside the entrance. Seeing him brightened my mood, which had been almost as dark as the sky. Inside, I found two cousins and a few other familiar faces, and for a while I forgot what I had been feeling.
The next morning, I walked (twice) the circuit of the 9-hole golf course on which I had learned the game and, for two years, played for the school's golf team. Once back in town, I had little time to notice the state of houses, other buildings, or anything else other than the swarm of faces that were smiling at me across distances of 10, 15, and even 20 years or more.
The laughter, stories, and embraces went on throughout the evening and into the night. Some of us put it into words, but I think everyone felt it: viewed from the perspective of adults in 2012, this had been one great place to grow up. I suspect many of our parents might have had different memories, not all of them as sweet as our childhood ones, which have been aged and refined by many years. But I also feel sure that they would agree—this had been a great place to raise children.
On Saturday, we gathered in the high-school gymnasium (which the current owner graciously opened up for us to use as a reunion site). Old yearbook pages and photographs were projected onto the wall, some of them eliciting cheers and whistles, others appreciative applause, and still others tears for those departed. A former school janitor/bus driver turned Methodist minister spoke with sincerity and humor about his long association with the district, and about the adventures and misadventures he had shared with many young men and women—now parents and grandparents gathered in this space in which they had won, lost, cheered, and danced so long ago.
Foretaste of an Everlasting Reunion
When the program was over, we all sang (without the help of that pep band in which so many of us had played) the school song. I was surprised at how easily the words came back to me. One phrase in particular set me pondering: "we will shout our praises to our foes both far and near. . . ."
I remembered how, as a young and fiercely devoted Warrior, I had wondered why we should shout praises to our foes. My upbringing in morals and in church, however, had instructed me that it was both the sportsman-like and Christian thing to do—"pray for those who persecute you"—that sort of thing. And I reflected that the foes our beloved little town was now fighting were the same ones that assault all of us: time and mortality. Once again, I was back in the ICU, and the prognosis was just as grim.
As I drove back toward the town to which my own children may return one day for a reunion, a verse from the New Testament letter to the Hebrews came to mind: "here, we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come" (13:14). And I realized that in the laughter, stories, and embraces that had occurred in the previous two short days, I had seen a foreshadowing of heaven: a great big reunion. Only that one won't be limited by time. See you there.
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