Two Gems from the HISTORY OF OAKLAND COUNTY

1. “Then Good-bye, Eyes”

Colonel Stanard was a popular hotel keeper in those early days of pioneer life and dispensed to the traveling public with a liberal hand choice venison, fresh fish, Ohio hog and Kentucky Bourbon, and later in life imbibed too freely himself for weak eyes. When remonstrated with by his attending physician for so doing and told that he must stop drinking any stimulant or lose his eyes, he replied: “Then good-bye, eyes.” There are a few pioneers here today who knew the Colonel well, and no doubt have partaken of his good cheer, not omitting old bourbon.

The whole History of Oakland County is written in such “We are such respectable folks” language that the punchline of this story is even more startlingly endearing, I think. I mean, please, it’s such a good story that even Mr. Stuffy-Author-pants had to include it. “Then good-bye, eyes.” Ha.

2. “The Legend, Which I Have Attempted to Verify”

“The legend which I have attempted to verify is founded upon an incident occurring at Orchard lake long before the coming of the white man and while the grand farms now lying around it were merely a vast oak opening, its sole occupant the Indian and the wild beast. Very near the center of this Orchard lake is a large island, wooded to its very shore. On it are a few apple trees, old and gnarled, remnants of an orchard planted so long ago that the Indians even have no data concerning it. Its name, Me-nah-sa-gor-ning, meaning “apple place,” still lives in tradition.

“On this island the Algonquin chief, Pontiac, had his lodge after his repulse at the siege of Detroit. On the high bank of this lake, opposite the island, is still to be seen the ancient burial ground of the Sacs, Hurons and Wyandots.

“Tradition says that back beyond the memory of the tribe a young chief sickened and suddenly died. The maiden to whom he was betrothed became insane, and whenever she could escape from her guardians they would take the body of the chief from its resting place in the old ground across the lake and carry it back to the place where his lodge formerly stood.

“At last, weary of guarding her, with the advice of their medicine man the tribe killed her, upon her refusal to marry. This crime, so directly opposed to all former Indian custom, so offended the Great Spirit that he avowed his intention of totally destroying the tribe, and to give the maiden, ‘as long as water flowed/ complete control over it. She alone has power to assume her form at any time. She can compel the attendance of the tribe at any time by the beating of the Indian drum. At this sound they must gather and wait where an old canoe has been gradually covered by the drifting sands. Upon the signal of her coming with her dead the warriors must meet her on,the shore, bear the chief on his bier and lay him down by the ashes of his council fire and, waiting beside him until she can caress him, bear him back to his resting place. All, however, must be done between sunset and sunrise—a foggy night being always chosen to elude observation.”

I’m not sure what’s happening at the end of this story. She has complete control over the tribe so that, she can ghostlyly call on the tribe by beating her drum and then they go to the lakeside , where she shows up with the dead chief, and they have to take the dead chief and do something to him and wait while she caresses him?

That doesn’t seem right. More likely, she signals that she’s coming and they have to go get her dead chief and take him to her and they give her time to caress him.  I’d read that “Upon the signal of her coming, the warriors must meat her with her dead.”

But one wonders what the tribe is supposed to do as he rots? Maybe that’s what destroys the tribe? The disgustingness of having to dig up and traipse around with a rotting corpse causes people to abandon the tribe? I’m not sure.  What do y’all think?

Anyway, both quotes are from here.

Ellington Parkway

One of my favorite solitary pleasures is to drive around Nashville when the streets are mostly empty. And yet, I always marvel at how empty the streets get so quickly. It’s so much fun to drive around town at night that you’d think more people would drive around town at night and yet… It’s always just me, my music, and the empty roads.

All this brings to me something I can’t quite figure out about Nashville. When you are on the interstates outside of town, pretty much everyone goes the speed limit or slightly over it. But when you hit the county line, which is also the city limit, some groups of folks seem to speed up, considerably. Watch this the next time you’re on the interstate, how you can be with a group of cars who are all doing, say 70 in a 65… You know, maybe they aren’t speeding up. Maybe they all just continue to go 70-75, even after the speed limit starts to drop.

Anyway, this would be fine. After all there are many major metropolitan areas where you’d better just be prepared to ignore the speed limits and go with traffic if you want to live.

But our desire to speed through town is tempered by the small but reliable minority of people who get out on the interstates, into the middle lane, and do 45. At any given moment, you have, on the interstate, people going almost twice as fast as other people. It makes driving very harrowing.

And then, the number of people doing 45 on any given road with a speed limit of 55 or greater seems to increase when those given roads are Briley and Ellington. Luckily, I live off of a part of Briley that is not yet very crowded, so I can see those 45 mile per hour fuckers way off in the distance and get in the other lane and go around them.

But I was on Ellington last night, just trying to do 55, and I swear I was thwarted in both lanes. Every other fucking body on the road was going 45.  This is a pretty regular occurrence for me, where I’m passing everyone on Ellington while I’m doing the speed limit.

And it just causes me to wonder if there was some treaty struck at some point, where the roads would be split between people who drive very fast and people who drive very slow and the very slow drivers got Ellington?

I mean, seriously, sometimes when I’m on that road, I wonder if my speedometer isn’t somehow fucked and I’m speeding without knowing it.