A River Runs Under It
By Joe Ludington
I was sitting in the chair at the barber shop the other day, Ron the Barber having a go at what's left of my once-golden locks, when I remembered something I'd heard about downtown Ludington that really had my curiosity up. And who better to ask than the King of the Clippers himself, who knows more about this town, and the few blocks that make up its heart, than anybody else I can think of.
"Ron," I asked, "what's this I hear about a river running underneath downtown Ludington?"
"Absolutely true," he assured me, taking a few snips with his scissors. "See that crack in the street?" He pointed out his front window. "It runs right under there."
Indeed, there was a crack in the asphalt, stretching from curb to curb across Ludington Avenue, directly in front of his store. Then he traced the route for me. North under the street, then under his building and Harrington Tool next door, where it apparently meanders a bit under the print shop on the corner of Rath and Court, then a jog west where it continues on, under the new building a block away called, appropriately, "Hidden Creek Condominiums", and then to who knows where.
Or something like that.
Of course, as I trace this path in my mind, I realize that I could have it backwards. If the river flows into Pere Marquette Lake, it must begin on the northwest side of town, then meander east and south. But if it flows into Lake Michigan, it's flowing the other direction, north and west. Somebody probably knows for sure.
But that's not the point. The point is that there's a darned river down there. And understand, we're talking here about a river that still exists, running merrily along, minding its own business, beneath our fair town.
"After the big rain in June, the one that brought the floods, you could hear it flowing under there," Ron told me, whisking microscopic hair clippings from the back of my neck.
Word has it that there is even a manhole cover at the print shop (Don't hold me to the details. This is merely hearsay) that offers a view of the river rushing along under the building.
I wonder if it's fishable.
It kinda makes you wonder what else was covered up in the building of our metropolis. Other rivers and creeks, perhaps? Dunes? Ravines? Ancient civilizations? King Tut's tomb?
And if you want to take this line of thought even further, and get all philosophical and metaphorical about it, you could even contemplate what secrets exist beneath the social surface of our town, hidden eddies and currents that toss us this way and that. Or, what's hidden inside of each of us struggling Homo sapiens. But on second thought, why ruin a nice day?
On a less sobering note, wouldn't it be great to be able to time travel, and get a glimpse of Ludington as it was a hundred years ago - the raw land about to be subdued, domesticated?
And the river flows on. |
