Flag Day in northern Michigan

This Flag Day we had an ice cream social to raise money to preserve Kearney Township’s historic Derenzy schoolhouse, which at 111 is even older than I am.  We sat in the shade of a big white party tent–I’ll bet it was the Lions tent but I didn’t ask–to eat our ice cream and cupcakes and drink our coffee and exchange pleasantries.  I got to sit with Sue Keena and her parents.  We bid on books and music and a stained glass panel at the silent auction.  We bought Derenzy School t-shirts and baseball caps.  I have a slide show for you.  While it’s loading I’ll tell you about The Program.

It is important to have a good program for Flag Day, and this one moved along right smartly because Mar DeTar said it was going to last 40 minutes and no longer and Mar is a person you listen to if you have any sense.  The scouts handled the flag ceremony and the old soldiers handled the salute and Todd Derenzy was the emcee.  (He and his wife are new grandparents, so that makes seven generations of Derenzys in the County.)  Sheriff  Dan Bean did the part about the history of the flag, and he said it was a good thing there’s an internet so he could look it all up.  He made a good job of it, even though he’d rather tackle a full-grown bear than make a speech.  Jim Ribby–storyteller, bard, Civil War reenactor and parole officer–recited General Thomas at Chickamauga.  We sang blessings on mountains and prairies and oceans flecked with foam and then Jesse Fisher played Taps.  No blather, no pious pomposities, just straight-ahead honest feeling.  Satisfactory.  Here is your slide show.

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And you want to know about broadband, right?  Well.  It’s a good story and I’m going to work on it tomorrow and you’re just going to have to wait.  I am slowing down in my dotage, and it takes me much longer to be concise.  But get this–there will be at least two and maybe three chapters in our saga, because there is more than one good story to tell.  I love good stories, don’t you?