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The drive up to the Soo was free of snow and ice. And the time is always an occasion for self-reflection and anxiety about the upcoming holiday. (The anxiety is a new awareness, in the past I suspect it was hidden in anticipation, but I guess age strips away the need to hide.)

I went up early, because I could not stay beyond the 25th. This gave me time with my parents before the onslaught. We’ve established an easy routine – 11:30 and 5:00 my dad calls us to eat and the three of us talk all through the meal. (Let me mention that the TV is on all day, playing out the sordid details of the soap bimbos and bimbettes. The American and Italian soaps are populated by similar replicants. The difference is the words and the landscapes. The tits are similarly perky and the angst is all consuming regardless the longitude.)

Today I decided to go up to the old St. Mary’s and shoot some pics. The image below is the landscape we saw every morning as the yellow bus pulled up the hilltop and deposited us at the front door. Even though the the new St. Mary’s is a French immersion high school, students still use the same front doors we used 50 years ago. (The old St. Mary’s – Boys Catholic High School, is now at the bottom of the hill in a building that used to house a vocational high school. Also, the school is no longer single sex; it is now co-ed.)

The bridge is the gateway into the Upper Peninsula and the United States. (It’s the road home.) The smoke on the right is from the steel mill. (I worked in the rolling mill the summer of my junior year.)