Thank God it’s Monday, again. I always look forward to every Monday. They’re my 52 Chances a year, in which I get to share Memories of My Mom with you. Therefore, have a happy Monday.
Yesterday, January 18th, was National Michigan Day. As a Michigander, I love my home state of Michigan and I celebrate it EVERY day. In my totally biased opinion, it’s one of the most beautiful states in our country. My husband and I are proud to be born-and-bred Michiganders. Our parents were also delighted to be Michiganders, as well.
A few years ago, on one of my local news shows, the meteorologist, Derek Kevra, reported that over 65% of born-and-bred Michiganders tend to remain in Michigan; which is more than any other states’ residents, remaining in the states of their births, except for Louisiana, which was at 72%.*
[*NOTE: In the news report, from Jan. 5th, 2022, FOX2 News (Detroit, MI), I didn’t hear what Derek’s source was but I found similar information online at Stacker.com for States [with the] Most Born-and-Bred Residents and at Bloomberg.com.]
However, according to Landgeist.com (Jan. 4, 2022), Michigan had the second highest share of people, at 76.3%, who still lived in the state where they were born. That was less than two percent behind first-placed Louisiana and less than two percent ahead of Ohio, which was in third place.
I’ve lived in Southeastern Michigan almost all of my life, as has my husband and each of our parents. I was born less than an hour’s drive from where I grew up, in Algonac; as well as from where I live now, in St. Clair. By the way, Michiganders often describe distances using the time it takes to drive there (depending on traffic) rather than the number of miles.
My husband was born five miles away from where he grew up. In fact, we bought and currently live in his boyhood home, which was also his dad’s boyhood home, before him. By the way, my father-in-law was born only a mile away from here, in what was then the local hospital.
This was his life-long home, built by his dad in 1931. He grew up here and bought it from his dad when he got married. My husband always wanted to likewise share it with me when it was his turn to own it and this is where we plan to stay, always.
Michigan roots have strong bonds. We both appreciate and value our small town origins. We love this state and are proud to call it home. Most of our relatives still live in the area, too. We have so many happy memories from living here, in Michigan, and there are so many more happy memories to make here, too.
In our family, some of us have briefly tried living elsewhere. Just after high school, my husband moved to Arizona and I moved to Texas; during which time, my parents and little sister moved to California. We all ended up missing Michigan within a matter of months and moved back.
My older sister never moved away. As an adult, my younger sister moved to Ohio for a while but she eventually moved back to Michigan, again. My oldest brother tried living in Las Vegas then New Orleans. He also moved back here to stay.
On the other hand, my other brother, Mike, moved to California over 45 years ago to attend Pasadena’s art college and, except for a few years, when he was living in the Phoenix area for work, he’s remained out west and still loves living there. He’s mentioned that the coastal area out there reminds him of our shoreline along Lake Huron, without the harsh winters.
As I’ve boasted in other blog posts, Michigan has the longest freshwater coastline in the U.S. It’s 3,288 miles and borders four of the five Great Lakes. Regardless of water type, Michigan is second only to Alaska in total length of coastline (sea or fresh).
The Great Lakes, as well as Lake St. Clair and the St. Clair and Detroit Rivers, are a large part of the St. Lawrence Seaway. We see freighters passing by our small town all of the time. A lot of ship Captains have come from other places to settle and retire in our beautiful “Blue Water Area”.
Mom – and Dad, especially – loved this area of Michigan, along the beautiful St. Clair River, because of its many small towns and farming communities, friendly people, as well as great fishing and other water sports. Some of my happiest childhood memories are of fishing with my dad. There’s a lot to be said about small town pride.
FROM MOM’S MEMORIES…
As seen in…
My Cup Runneth Over and I Can’t Find My Mop (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; Dec. 1989, p. 56)
SMALL TOWN AMERICA – PEARL BEACH AREA HISTORY
…WE WERE LIVING ON Pointe Tremble Road in Clay Township, better known as Algonac, although we were not actually within the city limits. The township was one of those areas that people didn’t really have any community pride in, at that time.
Down the road from us, however, was a six-square-block area called Pearl Beach. This part of the North Channel area, on the outskirts of Algonac, had played a historical part in the colorful development of that part of Clay Township and of Michigan.
In the 1920s, rumrunners and bootleggers ran their booze by small boats from the shores of Pearl Beach to Harsen’s Island and then across [the river] to Canada.
Down the road was the Chris-Craft plant where, during World War II, the PT boats were built. Chris Smith, who had founded the company, was quite a prominent member of the community. The best part about Pearl Beach, however, is that it wasn’t a ‘legitimate city’.
It was just an ‘area’, but Paul always promoted it as being the best place in the world to live, because it had no city politicians to contend with, no shopping center, no school system of its own and didn’t even have a police or fire department because they had never really needed one.
Clay Township provided services of that nature to Pearl Beach. One thing it DID have, though, that proved to be to our liking and benefit professionally… It did have a post office! The postmaster [at that time], Newt Aspenliter, even lived right next door to the post office.
So, in keeping with the uniqueness of what I wanted to offer, I thought that coming from Pearl Beach would have more appeal to the public than anywhere else would.
I don’t know any Michiganders who don’t love this state’s great outdoors. Whenever my husband and I take a vacation, we always stay somewhere in Michigan. It’s such a big state and there’s still so much we haven’t seen yet. I have a growing bucket list of map dots for us to explore and experience.
Likewise, we enjoy re-visiting some our favorite spots. We like peaceful walks through Michigan’s lovely nature preserves, public gardens, sculpture parks, and wooded hiking trails. We also love to sightsee Michigan’s Great Lakes, lighthouses, rivers, campgrounds, beaches, and waterfalls.
Rock hunting is a very popular hobby in our beautiful state. Michigan’s state rock is the Petoskey stone, which is found mostly on the Lake Michigan beaches, along the northwest side of “The Mitt”. Puddingstones are sought after along Lake Huron’s coastline and “Yooperlites” can only be found at night, with a UV light, on Lake Superior’s shoreline in the U.P.
At AwesomeMitten.com, Matt Heffner wrote a great article,12 Cutest Towns in Michigan to Explore (Updated: Dec. 12, 2023), about some of the charming small towns, worth visiting in Michigan. Many were Mom and Dad’s favorite destinations, to which they’d escape for a day or weekend.
Small towns are famous for having friendly, honest, and polite people in them. The attractiveness of small-town life, besides being surrounded by natural beauty, is its slow-paced simplicity; emphasizing the importance of community, family roots, and genuineness.
Every Michigan town has something unique and interesting about them. I’ve previously written about a fellow Michigander who’s literally been collecting map dots, in the form of photography and stories, traveling to every town in our state.
I want to mention him again, because he has an awesome Facebook page, called Scott’s Michigan adventures, where he’s been depicting his Michigan “map dot” travels. Every Michigan town has a story to tell and so does every Michigander.
Michigan’s small towns often host special events and/or use surrounding, natural attractions and history to entice tourists to not only come and visit but also continually return or even move in. On a side note, fudge shops are in almost every tourist town, around here. So it’s no surprise that fudge is Michigan’s number one tourist treat.
During the countless radio show interviews that Mom used to do around the country and internationally, as the Secret RecipesTM Detective, she often received requests for imitating Michigan-based recipes. The pleas were usually from listeners, who were re-located Michiganders and couldn’t find or enjoy their favorite, Michigan-made, iconic foods.
In her experiences as the Secret RecipesTM Detective, Mom met and became friends with many relocated Michiganders who missed their home state but had moved for work or other reasons. Among them was Ed McMahon (and his wife, Pam), from The Tonight Show, starring Johnny Carson.
Michigan is a treasure trove of great places, people, products, food and so much more. Here are some random bits of trivia about Michigan and Michiganders, which I’ve shared in a few other blog posts.
- Many Michiganders go mushroom hunting (for morels) in mid-to-late spring.
- November 15th (aka: “Opening Day”), is an unofficial Michigan holiday, celebrating the first day of rifle season for hunting our state animal, the white-tailed deer.
- Wherever they go, Michiganders literally carry a map of the state in their hands.
- Michiganders refer to the lower peninsula as the “mitten” and the upper peninsula as the “U.P.”
- Those from Michigan’s mitten refer to the U.P.’s residents as “Yoopers”.
- Yoopers refer to Michiganders from the lower peninsula as “Flatlanders” or “Trolls” (because they’re under “The Bridge”).
- Michiganders refer to the Mackinaw Bridge, which connects the two peninsulas, as the “Mighty Mac”.
- “The Thumb Area” (where I’ve lived for almost all of my life) is in the lower peninsula’s southeast quadrant.
- Michiganders call a sliding-glass door a “door-wall” and carbonated soft-drinks are called “pop”, here, rather than “soda”.
- Only those who drive in Michigan understand how to make a “Michigan left”, which involves a special lane for making a U-turn and then turning right.
LAST THOUGHTS…
Thanks for visiting! I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my memories of my mom, her memories, and other related things. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to email me at therecipedetective@outlook.com. You can also find me on Facebook: @TheRecipeDetective.
IN CLOSING…
In honor of January, being National Oatmeal Month, here’s Mom’s copycat recipe for “Hardtack”; as seen in… Gloria Pitzer’s Cookbook – The Best of the Recipe Detective (Balboa Press; Jan. 2018, p. 179). [A revised reprint of Gloria Pitzer’s Better Cookery Cookbook (Secret RecipesTM, St. Clair, MI; May 1983, 3rd Edition)]. As always, I’m asking only for proper credit if you care to re-share it.
P.S. Food-for-thought until next Monday…
The month of January observes… National Blood Donor Month, National Hobby Month, National Hot Tea Month, National Mentoring Month, National Slow Cooking Month, National Soup Month, National Sunday Supper Month, and more.
The third week of January (18th-24th, for 2026) celebrates, among other things… Hunt for Happiness Week, National Healthy Weight Week, World Kiwanis Week, and National Fresh Squeezed Juice Week.
Today is also… World Quark Day and National Popcorn Day. Plus, as the third Monday in January (2026), it’s also… Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Additionally (for 2026), it’s the start of… National No Name-Calling Week, which always starts on the third Monday of January and runs through that Friday.
Tomorrow is… National Buttercrunch Day and National Cheese Lover’s Day.
Wednesday, January 21st, is… National Granola Bar Day and National Hugging Day.
Thursday, January 22nd, is… National Blonde Brownie Day and Celebration of Life Day.
Friday, January 23rd, is… National Handwriting Day and National Pie Day.
Saturday, January 24th, is… National Beer Can Appreciation Day, National Compliment Day, and National Peanut Butter Day.
January 25th is… National Florida Day, National Irish Coffee Day, and National Opposite Day. Plus, as the last Sunday in January (for 2026), it’s also the start of… National Meat Week, which is celebrated for eight days.
Have a great week!
…3 down, 50 to go!
