Not This Time, Yoopers

I've been sick all week. Some kind of stomach bug. Had to cancel a whole-ass vacation in the Great Lakes area, including a scenic cruise aside the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore and tickets to Iceboy! in Chicago.

I'm weirdly enchanted by the Upper Peninsula, even though my inner realist assures me it's just some woods with lots of ice and snow—or lots of bugs, depending on when you go. Of course it's more than those things. Just ask a local.

It took me a few tries to get it. There was a fellow standing in the lobby, asking for directions to a suite upstairs, or downstairs, or on the same floor; he didn't know. The person's [Argentinian] name he had leeway to pronounce, I suppose, but the phrase that twisted my ear until I finally, barely wrangled comprehension, was "piano lesson." PYAHnow LASSun, or something close to that.

You see, this gentleman was from the UP, as I later learned from my piano teacher, who happened to be his new piano teacher as well. I didn't realize just how distinct from "normal" Upper Midwest English the Yooper dialect is. I guess the same can be said for some areas right around me, where the fabled and comparatively genteel "Southern Drawl" veers sharply off the beaten path like a 4-wheeler keeping up with whatever game the Bluetick hounds are chasing up the holler.

My galavants into Michigan rarely found me much further north than the 42nd parallel. I went to Muskegon once, but never as far as, say, Traverse City, let alone the UP. This week's trip was supposed to take care of that, plus a return to Fond du Lac, where I haven't been since I was five. We were going to see four of the five Great Lakes (minus Ontario), and possibly swing a light pilgrimage to Sweetwater on the way home.

Oh, well. Life happens. We'll plan another trip someday.