Camping memories: Mom had a King Tut arm and Black Panther Afro

I was probably the first person in Manistee County to purchase the new state park Recreation Passport.
You see, my birthday was this past Friday, Oct. 1, the first day they were available.
A little background: instead of getting the $24 sticker you put in the corner of your vehicle window, it’s now only $10 and has been folded into the license renewal process.
The little 2011 sticker has a little P on it that will get me into any park until my next birthday.
There was no better present to buy myself than access to all the wonderful state parks and recreation areas, 98 in total.
Keeping these parks well-funded is necessary to keeping alive the long and storied outdoor tradition in our state.
Growing up in Michigan, camping was always a cheap way for our family to go on vacations.
Two weekends ago, my older brother, Chris, and I were sitting at the Platte River State Campground in darkness, drinking beers after an unsuccessful night of salmon fishing on the river.
We sat in fold-out chairs with our waders around our knees jaw-jacking with his brother-in-law, Andy, our other cohort in our outdoor sporting misadventures.
I don’t know what brought it up, but we started talking about camping. Maybe, since we couldn’t swap fish stories, we had to settle on a different subject.
My bro and I began reminiscing about camping when we were very small kids in the late 1970s, when my old man and my mom would pack us into the gray Chevy Suburban and we’d get out of Bay City.
“We used to go for two-weeks at a time! We’d go way up to the Porcupine Mountains in the Upper Peninsula,” my brother exclaimed. “That’s where we went when Mom broke her arm and had the Afro.”
Being only about 2 or 3 years old at the time, I don’t remember the trip. My brother, five years older, recalls a little bit better the camping trip where my little ol’ mom proved herself a true trooper.
The camping trip where she had the broken arm and the Afro.
I don’t remember it, but it was slightly my fault: my mom broke her arm in order to save my head from getting bashed in.
I was a tad hyper when I was a child. One spring day, to keep me entertained, my mom was pushing me around on a tricycle near an empty swimming pool.
Being the little spazz that I was, I managed to tip right over into the pool. My mom was luckily right there to grab me and we both fell into the empty pool together.
The arm she was using to cradle my head snapped in two during the tumble to the bottom.
Her arm was set in the plaster cast in an uncomfortable position: elbow bent in a V, her hand pointed away from her head, very Egyptian-like.
Since she couldn’t style her normally straight hair, she went to the salon and received a very poofy black perm.
My little Greek mom now not only resembled King Tut, but a Black Panther as well.
Still, that summer, nothing stopped our camping trips.
“You were only a baby,” my brother, who now has two kids of his own told me while we sat near the Platte River. “I don’t know how she took us camping.”
But there’s evidence.
A picture exists that makes my mom cringe with embarrassment when we bring it out of the family photo box.
She’s got the cast, the curls, wearing a blue denim shirt and thick-black rimmed glasses while sitting at a picnic table in the campground. She’s looking down at where I’m sitting next to her with a plate of potato chips in front of me, bawling my eyes out.
“You always were a little bastard,” my brother said at a different state park three decades later.
Still, I’m sure my mom wouldn’t have had it any other way.
While I was crying in the picture, I remember having a blast on camping trips when I was little. It probably even gave my mom a chance to rest a little since my brother and I were so taken with the outdoors.
I’m lucky enough to have memories like these, as I’m sure many of you are.
Hopefully, this new funding mechanism will allow future generations to make similar memories.
So, I implore even those of you who aren’t sure whether you’ll use a state park in the year you’re renewing your license for, pitch in the 10 bucks anyway.
If not for yourself, then do it for all those exasperated Michigan mothers with broken arms who need a place to take their hyper-spazz crybaby kids.

A happy ending? Movie business needs more time in Michigan

We’re a Rust Belt state with a rusty mentality sometimes.
We value hard work that doesn’t exist in these hard times.
Sometimes, we’re too hardheaded to see a good thing when it’s upon us.
So, please, let’s not ditch the the tax incentive for movies just because the non-partisan Senate Fiscal Agency recently found that there hasn’t been much of a financial reward to the state yet.
Let’s stress “yet.”
We live in a new economy. Foreign competition has got us all scrambling. The manufacturing jobs our state once enjoyed won’t be back.
It will never again be the way it was.
Therefore, it’s time to give the movie business a chance.
It’s one of the only positive things we have going for us. It generates conversation. It puts our ruggedly beautiful state in movies and television shows and makes more shows set here possible.
These are good things.
If we want to see a viable, moneymaking industry grow, you’ve got to give it time. It’s only been a few years, and ditching the generous tax incentives would bring everything that’s been brewing to a halt.
The impact is immediate.
Right here in town, we have 10 West Studios, which take advantage of the legislation. When they shoot scenes here, they bring excitement to our streets -- and put bodies in hotel rooms and mouths in restaurants.
Some Republican lawmakers in Lansing, especially Nancy Cassis (R-Novi), question giving such huge tax breaks to production companies -- around 40 percent of costs.
My question is: if it was an oil company that was having trouble setting up their pipeline, would Republicans be so quick to call the tax incentives a bust? Here, I would argue is the bigger reason: Republicans don’t want to publicly sponsor the liberal, Communist, homosexual propagandists from Hollywood who want to corrupt the minds of our youths with subversive and perverse themes in movies.
The Grand Old Party of Grand Old White Guys aren’t exactly the most culturally hip.
Let’s face it, Republicans: you’re just not all that entertaining.
For the most part, you like boring old Westerns and find anything morally ambiguous unnerving.
A good flick should have clearly delineated Good characters versus Bad characters, with Good always winning in the end.
A few of the folks in the entertainment industry you have on your side of the aisle are Charlton Heston (who, FYI, is in one of my favorite movies ever, “Planet of the Apes”), Chuck Norris and, I’m guessing, Wilford Brimley.
Putting them into the scene of a movie might go something like:

HESTON
The bad guys are trying to pry my gun from my cold, dead hand!

NORRIS
No need for firearms, I’m the cowboy of karate! Hi-ya, partner!

BRIMLEY
I will charm the enemy with this bowl of oatmeal. It’s nutritious and delicious!

The point is, the people in Hollywood making the most engaging stuff are, for better or for worse, usually pretty liberal, as highly creative people tend to be.
This should not be a reason to keep a potentially profitable industry out of our state. Even if it hasn’t paid off yet.
Just because it isn’t something tough like building cars or tanks, making movies in Michigan adds to the local communities where it films.
Let’s see if the tax breaks that have lured production companies here have a happy ending.