By Scott Sullivan
Editor
Fire Up
The U.S. 131/M-60 cloverleaf a quarter-mile south of the Super 8 in 6 a.m. rain boasted arrows, signs and lane markers, all reflectorized.
Wipers flapping and smearing water semicircles made glass before me math spaghetti. No glows were original, all were my own headlights coming back.
How could I make out directions from distraction without leaded coffee first? Which strand was M-60 west?
Choose now; if you drive past, you’ll have to backtrack, drive in circles, penetrate detours — this time from the other side — waste time and fuel, feel foolish, futile.
I found I was lost fast, so slowed to glean unlit back roads markers. This wasn’t M-60 but my car compass still showed west.
A few manmade lights glowed, I imagined from early-rising homes or all-night security domes over enterprises … Oops, dead end ahead at next crossroad. Wait, doesn’t dash have a Navigator display screen showing street names?
I poked, it popped up, but street names were too small to read. When I slowed to squint, I knew none of them, plus now I’d drawn to a stop.
Turning beams on high showed hints of a two-track past pavement’s end to somewhere. So I turned south again; Is this Hoffman? C.R. 105? Day or Dutch Settlement roads? If I stayed on this long enough, all would end up the same. Side signs said Spirit Springs Sanctuary, then Spirit Springs Campground.
Ah, M-40! Now South to the Jones Shell station at M-60. Glow rose over trees as I passed the M-40 Speedway, slowed down for Winding Creek Cabins and Crane Pond State Game Area, as the oasis neared.
Over curves and around rises, it appeared. I’d been through this fuel mart — filled with coffee, snacks, maps … — before. Satori Salon & Spa promos still were pinned to its corkboard.
West past there on M-60 showed Satori closed, still sleeping maybe … O’Donnell’s Docks, Driscoll’s Lake, Friendly Grill & Tavern, Ceres Solutions, Camelot Campground, Lilly Lake Cemetery …
Past Born Street lay Lewis Lake Road. Now I knew the way. South past Donnell Lake Road, east on Monkey Run Street … red taillights ahead; must be Carter’s van turning north into Lawless Park.
Theodore Kenneth Lawless (1892-1971), a dermatologist and self-made millionaire, won the 1954 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Spingam Medal for distinguished achievement.
The son of a Congregational minister, he founded the Lawless Dermatology Department at Beilinson Hospital in Tel Aviv, Israel, among other gifts to those who would follow forever, advancing healing.
His park sits southeast of Vandalia, an unincorporated village, like Jones, in a place political borders seem more elastic, remote, almost as if they’re not wanted.
Also in or near Vandalia are Haven Hair Salon, New Day Community Church, Wat Lao Buddhist Temple and Storey Road.
Per Pure Michigan, the 820-acre Dr. T.K. Lawless International Dark Sky Park. has more than seven miles of groomed cross country skiing trails you can snowshoe and run on too.
Ron Gunn’s choice for the annual Sandhill Crane All-Trail runs also affords hiking, biking, fishing, picnicking, sledding (inner tubes provided), disk golf, softball, volleyball, horseshoes … play nice with others, respect nature and you’re in.
In 2020, when the world focused eyes on Covid, Cass County converted all outdoor lighting to fully-shielded LED 3,000K or less color lumens, meeting International Dark Sky Association standards.
Manmade-light pollution, the group argues, disrupts wildlife, harms human health, wastes energy, fuels further climate change and blocks our view of the universe.
There were signs of sunrise, mottled by rain clouds, above where Dowagiac Rotary Club volunteers set out boxes of race t-shirts, numbered bibs, safety pins to attach them to shirts and/or rainwear, bananas and apples donated likely by some local grocery to pass out to runners, on picnic tables in the shelter.
A fireplace crackled and spat inside; perfect place for Carter to shoot me interviewing Ron when he could make time to do so. He had a full plate for a race director of any age, let alone 83, before him.
A Zelig, as in the 1983 Woody Allen film named that, is an ordinary person who can change his or her appearance or behavior, a human chameleon, says my dictionary. Carter was among them.
“Ron, we’re here,” he said. “Got time for an 8-minute interview?”
“I can make it,” Ron said.
“Great. Let me set up.” The idea was to frame Ron and me seated on the fire place mantel, flames behind. “We need to go over what you’ll talk about,” he minded me.
“Pull my string,” I said. “We have eight minutes to get to wherever it turns out we go.”