or if you prefer the demonym,
“Michiganian,” and yet
I’m not them “Yoopers”
‘cause I was raised
in that Lower Peninsula
this place called Freeland
a “census-designated place”
so few in number, it’s an
“unincorporated community”
within Saginaw County
you’ve heard of Saginaw
named like a bay in Lake Huron
inside the area of “The Thumb”
the same place Lefty Frizzell
of Country music fame
sang about in 1964
that song,
you know reaching #1
4 weeks at the top of the charts,
“I was born in Saginaw, Michigan”
Saginaw too, once was
the land territory
"where the Sauk were," until
the Ojibwe, whose blood
as they say, flows in my veins,
drove them away ~
now I grew up in a township
near a river of the same name
with a bridge once made of steel
well, this river
is called to this day
the “Tittabawassee”
or as the Native Americans
- First Nations
said it in a treaty,
“Tetabawasink”
another tidbit
connected to the river,
where the name
of the place
Freeland,
was said to have come to be
back in the late 1800’s
the lumber and river men
would frequent a tavern
along this river
owned and operated
by a women,
who was known to all then
as “Mammy Freeland” ~
as far as me
my connection to Freeland
is that my family
around the early 1960’s
moved there on Webster Rd
later living
on a road named Carter
after my ironworker father
purchased the acre parcel
a portion surrounded
or squared in
by flat farmland ~
as a child and even more so
in teenage years
throughout this
often tilled land
with fields of corn
or navy beans
I was often accompanied
by my best friend
a beagle,
my dog Dino
we together
both enjoyed many hours
walking these country fields
and exploring, learning
about Nature
for it was during
these expeditions
lost to my younger years
that my spirituality
my inner emergent spirit
moved and prodded me
along the journey,
a path to write and relate
to share with others
my lived experience
doing so, through
a process of self discovery
wondering and wandering
emotively, intuitively
as well as psychically
within My Empathic Mysticism ~
upon becoming a man
a young adult
my wandering Scot spirit
overcame the stay put
German/Polish spirit
I did yearn for
way something more
eerily inside
mentally and physically
I needed to explore things
elsewhere
in different places
travelling to live in the city
as well as flying the states
on an adventure,
going here and there
then eventually
after awhile
I settled down
out east,
next to the Atlantic Ocean
coming to reside in the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts ~
even though, I do
really enjoy New England
my children
and grandchildren
live here with me now
the spirit of Michigan
the land, the waters
and the peoples
the cultures from the past
till present, still
live within my soul ~
~Keith Alan Hamilton~“I was born a ‘Michigander’ or if you prefer the demonym, ‘Michiganian’ and yet, I’m not them ‘Yoopers,’ ‘cause I was raised in that Lower Peninsula in a place called Freeland; I’m mainly Scottish, German/Polish and as my family claims, I’ve got some Ojibwe, also said Ojibwa, Ojibway or referred to as Chippewa or Chippeway flowing in my veins; therefore to this very day, the spirit of Michigan lives within my soul.”
http://www.keithalanhamilton.com/
Me at Leelanau State Park, MI. One of my favorite areas to explore and hang.
http://leelanaustatepark.com/
