http://www.thebattlecreekshopper.com BATTLE CREEK SHOPPER NEWS Thursday, October 3, 2024 35
DNR
Continued from Page 29
See FADING on 36NOW HIRING
DIRECT SUPPORT PROFESSIONALS
to work in a group home for disabled adults in
the Marshall and Battle Creek areas.
Starting at $15.45/hr.
All training provided.
No experience or diploma necessary.Progressive Residential Services
586-295-9742HANDYMAN SPECIALSCall Tony
269-420-9533Carpentry, Decks,
Doors, Windows, Siding
and Egress Windows.M-66 BOARDING KENNEL
YOUR PETS HOME AWAY FROM HOME
“We have 24 years of experience
in our updated facility”
Inside/Outside accommodation- Senior & Small Pet Room
- Private Cat Room
For Reservations 269-729-4900
Only 7 minutes south of the Mall right on M-66 18935 15-1/2 Mile Rd., North of Marshall^
OPEN: Tue-Sat 11am-7pm • Sun 11am-5pm
For more info 781-4293 / http://www.turkeyville.com
- Private Cat Room
* Check out our website for more info!JOIN OUR TEAM
Full Time & Part Time
Days & Weekends for
Restaurant,
Dinner Theatre &
KitchenJ+R Painting
Residential + Commercial
Quality Work + Affordable
Wallpaper Removal
Drywall Repair
Deck & Fence Staining
979-8055determined ghost or two or antique
hunters, if they were bent on finding
something.
No, these signs are less of a deter-
rent and more of a requirement of
lawyers, judges and courts concerned
with risks and the personal liability
of the property owners.
Those things are far beyond my
thoughts in places like this.
I take photographs to keep the
places alive for those who once were
here.
Within the images – especially
those in black and white – there
appear remnants of unspoken or
unexplained truth, simplicity and
countless stories left untold.
Collectively, these photographs
tell a tale of the development and
prosperity of this rugged peninsula,
as well as its decline and descent into
disrepair, pictured across so many
pieces of land that are home to fallen
and forgotten structures.
There are gas stations in this
condition, motels, old stores and
whole communities that have been
reclaimed by the woods up here.
At another farmhouse, one that is
much larger and that remains in bet-
ter shape but is no less abandoned, a
mailbox remains standing at the end
of the driveway.
A small American flag still folds
over in the breeze.
This place, to me, had to have been
a large family farm with many hands
who worked the property to make a
living.
I guess when that living died, the
people moved on, or maybe they
stayed until they died, too.
Not far down the road from this
place is another small and dilapi-
dated house with a faded “Keep Out”
A collection of antique items is pictured from Lime Island State Recreation Area in De Tour Village at the eastern tip
of the Upper Peninsula. (DNR photo)
sign nailed to an old and gray, rotted
fence post.
The post stands where there once
must have been a gravel road, but it
has since grown back over with pas-
ture grass and wildflowers like white
oxeye daisies and orange and yellow
hawkweed.
There is also a very stark and
sobering feeling of reality, destruc-
tion and sadness at these places,
perhaps poverty too – a sense that
dreams died here as well as lived.
I know another place, more person-
ally connected to me, where an old
church still stands along a state high-
way in a small community I visited
frequently as a child.
My grandparents were regular
attendees and donors to the church.
They lived just a gas station andone house up the road from the little
white building with an old cast-iron
bell in the belfry.
My grandparents were close
enough to walk to services.
Today, the doors to the church are
barricaded and the building is fading
fast, though the old bell is still up
there inside the white confines of the
belfry.
I recently had a dream that I was
somehow let inside that church in its
current condition.
I remember that in the dream
everything was gone, and the sanctu-
ary was gutted as though it had been
burned black.
There were no pews, nothing much