Where I'm From

Those are the Blue Water Bridges. When I was growing up there was only one of them. You could see it from the front left part of my yard. The Blue Water Bridges connect Canada to America, more specifically, Sarnia, Ontario to Port Huron, Michigan. Even more specifically those bridges connect 19 year old Americans to the bars of Canada where they can drink legally. This is something most 19 year olds in Port Huron do, because Port Huron is a pretty dismal place to be 19. There isn't very much to do in Port Huron. Especially in the winter. Let me clarify, there isn't much to do if you don't want to spend all your time snow mobiling, sledding, ice fishing, etc. Not that there's anything wrong with doing these sorts of things, but I am a fragile flower and I like heat and dryness and walls and roofs. I like indoor activities, even in nicer weather I trend to have a limit that is quickly reached when it comes to time spent outdoors. I am meant for cities. I prefer cities, or shaded bug free parklands. Near cities.

Really, Port Huron isn't that terrible a place. I know I talk a lot of smack about it, but it has its good points. For instance, it is very pretty. There is a lovely light house there (okay technically it's in Fort Gratiot, but there is barely any difference between Port Huron and Fort Gratiot.)

Port Huron is also right on Lake Huron (hence the name) and if you happen to like that sort of watery freshwater lake smell (as I do) it's good to live right near a lake. Of course living near a lake, and especially in a city where there is a sort of famous boat race every year (The inventively title Port Huron to Mackinac Boat Race) you will be plagued by the following pick up line when the racers come to town "Hey, I've got a boat." A boat? What is this boat thing you speak of, I have certainly never seen a boat! Barf.

Port Huron also has some history. For instance, Thomas Edison grew up there. The town takes this very seriously. The fancy hotel is the Thomas Edison Inn, I used to work there, it's not so fancy as they would like you to believe. I've cried in the ladies room and the back service hallway, I know what I'm talking about.

But people like to point out, as I am doing, that Thomas Edison lived there. They tend to leave out how his house was torn down and now there are some really overpriced and ugly condos where it used to be.

Also the rumor is that he lost his hearing in one ear because he was thrown off the train from Port Huron to Detroit (by said ear) while selling candy and papers as a boy.

Another piece of history that most good citizens of Port Huron talk about less is the Port Huron Statement written in 1962. The good citizens of Port Huron have never been big fans of hippies, except maybe for my friend Colleen's dad. He listens to Leonard Cohen and almost got arrested at a protest in DC. Mr C is totally a hippie (in a good way mind). Once when he and Colleen got in a fight he rewound herTori Amos tape that he was borrowing to the song Winter and then gave it back to her so that when she put it back in her tape player she got the sneakiest guilt trip ever. (lesson, hippies can be sneaky!)

I'm so far away fromt he point I had in mind for this entry right now! The thing is, I've been thinking about Port Huron a lot lately, because I am finally writing about it in earnest. I guess I had to leave the country entirely to get there. Anyhow, I know that I'm not doing it justice, one of my weaknesses as a writer of fiction is that I often have a hard time working descriptive passages in. I am good at dialogue and I think my narrative voice has always been strong. but i have a super hard time getting in the atmospheric bits like the way the tree branches looked when my dad drove me to the ER to get stitches or the particular bite of an unexpected cold snap in the Spring, or the way the water looks from the cement blocks in front of the Edison. The town itself is a character and I need to give it its due. I need to put my own distaste for the place to the side and find a way to shine a light on what it really is, both the good and the bad. I need to anchor my characters and give them a true world to live in.

So now I guess I can add a city to the list of characters who I need to create a bigger connection to (actually that only brings the list up to 3 which isn't so terrible, sure it's 3 out of 6 but these are still early days and when I get something right, I like to believe that I get it very right. That sounds smug, yeesh, now I'm starting to doubt myself again, damn my smug self sabotaging ways!)

But, yeah, just like I had to find a sympathetic way to look at the characters I can't personally relate to all that well, I need to find a way to relate to Port Huron. Maybe I'll start with the train bridges. I've always really liked the train bridges.