So, last weekend I was driving back to Michigan for yet another film festival which was being held in East Lansing where I spent two years of college. I'll spare you the frustrating story of the screening and the "awards ceremony" and tell you a different and far more (I hope) interesting story….
The word popped into my head at almost the minute I crossed the state line from Indiana into Michigan: Cattails.
It's not that there aren't cattails in Illinois. It's just that I don't think I have noticed "cattails" in years.
I grew up in a strange middle income suburban enclave among small lakes in a place called Waterford. I say strange enclave, because when my parents first moved us there, our bus route to school took us down a street called Hospital Road which seemed oddly named given the ramshackle mobile homes and farmhouses of families who ran the gamut from small farmer to low income.
Cattails! Cattails grew along the swampy wetlands of these small lakes (which were becoming overgrown and eutrophied by the run off of fertilizers from the well-trimmed lawns). I was always fascinated by cattails which like dandelions transform from one shape and style to a sudden, puffy collection of seeds that will be blown on the wind.
Driving through Michigan with roadsides lined with trees that still clung to their reds, orange and yellow leaves with a kind of a proud modesty, waiting for the chilly autumn winds to pull their fancy clothes away. It suddenly reminded me of summers and autumns I spent in this State.
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