I don't know why, but the last few days, John Greenman has been on my mind.
John lived on Burt Lake in Northern Michigan, and he had a log cabin store on Greenman's Point. I remember him from back in the 30's and 40's when we used to vacation at Burt Lake.
It was very rustic in those days, and his store was a meeting place for all the vacationers, the locals, and the Indians in the area.
John was a true pioneer, or a man of the North. He was a big man and generally had a cigar in his mouth, a Rum Soaked Crook. He sold them at his store, in a cedar box. That cigar was the "fisherman's cigar of choice."
Every year my Dad would buy a box of them and I can still smell that aroma today.
There were pictures hanging on the wall of the store, pictures of when John first settled at the lake. There were pictures of him "sawing" the ice in the wintertime, ice blocks that were stored in his ice house, and were used for refrigeration for the store, his house, and all the summer homes in the area. There was electricity, but refrigerators had not made their way that far North yet, just icebox's, and we used John Greenman's ice.
John had built their home with stones from the lake, and I still remember the aroma in that house. It was always cool, and a lot of the interior was wood, Pine, Cedar and Birch, and a Northern Michigan aroma. I still get an occasional whiff of something that brings back all those memories.
The store also served as a bar, and on Saturday night it became the meeting place for the locals. I think most were a mixed breed of Indian and Eskimo and Scandanavian. It was remote. In the 40's, there was a German POW camp not too far away.
My Mother would only stay so long there on Saturday night, she was opposed to bars and drinking, she was a PK, (Preacher's Kid) but we would sit and watch for a little while till things got a little rowdy.
The locals would drink beer and eat sardines and crackers, they would go through cans and cans of sardines. They knew John Greenman's rules, and he ruled with a very iron fist. If someone knew they had done something wrong, or something that John did not like, they would just get up and leave. I remember a nod or a slight gesture from John Greenman, signified departure for the evening.
You didn't want to get on his wrong side, or get thrown out, there was no place else to go.
One of the vacationers and cabin owners at the time was a John Hopkins, or Hoppy as he was known eventually became a year-round resident, and bought the store and turned it in to a regular tavern. It is still there, known as Hoppies.
A visit to Michigan for me, which are becoming few and far between, always includes a visit to Burt Lake, to see John Greenman's stone house, to take that drive down by the cabins, some of which we rented, a trip back to the boatwell, where the Jessidean used to be kept, and a visit to Hoppies, and a "walk down memory lane."
