We were stationed at KI Sawyer AFB three times while I was a kid. Dad got sent back again as I was getting out of college and taking a job in Alabama's Governor's Office.
But there isn't a day that passes I wish I could still be up there, maybe not in old base housing, but more toward our family land on 510 near Marquette. I've always wanted to build a McMansion there with big picture windows on the north side so we could see the lake and a mile or so of snow-capped pines in the foreground.
For the last five years, I've been working on an action adventure novel called The Voodoo Hill Explorer Club. The story is about four teen boys who build a treehouse off base near the secret hideaway of a Soviet Spy in 1977.
Our first time living on KI, we lived on Explorer Street. It intersects with Voodoo Avenue and in winter, was pretty much the only way out of base housing. And to get out of base housing, one followed Voodoo Ave. down a semi-steep hill known as "Voodoo Hill." It is while walking under the Voodoo Ave/Explorer sign, my characters come up with the idea to build the treehouse, and what to call themselves.
My soul still wanders the trails of the woods behind a housing unit around the corner from the first. There I climbed the trees. On snow storm nights I would look out the bedroom window, lick a finger and rub a hole in the hoarfrost. I got pretty good at judging whether we'd have school or not by how hard the snow fell while peering at the street lights.
Yes, so many of us who lived on KI miss the UP. I belong to a couple of groups on Facebook.
If I can get my online writing, novel, and other revenue channels established, I may very well do that.
We never went river rafting though. I don't know that I would now, even! There's a river that runs through Gwinn and during outdoor day camp the summer between fifth and sixth grades, others jumped into a lagoon there. When they came out of the water, they had as many or more leaches on them as the boys in Stand By Me.
You say you open a vein to write. I smile. For most of my life I have said, "I prick my finger." So we are on the same page, (pun intended) on that one!
Blessings to you and yours.
Donny
