Small Town USA

Small Town USA 

For those of you who don't know where Webberville, Michigan is... Don't worry it's right next to Fowlerville, and just up the road from Dansville. Or ya know a few exits before the Outlet mall... "Ahhh yeah I may have passed it before" and with the biggest smile I render. "I'm sure you have"

Going through chemotherapy I have bounced a million thoughts around my head with hopes of being able to write about the ones that stick. A recurring thought is my desire to share what it's like being from Webberville, ya know exit 122? before the exit with the big blue barn gas station thing. "Ya ya ya, I've seen it". My hopes are to bring light to my upbringing here and close the book of cliches and stereotypes. I have found the answer.

When sitting in a hospital room for six hours a day while drugs are being pumped into you, the mind tends to drift. I try to stay busy between reading, writing, naps, and whatever's on the golf channel. I am currently in the beginning of Cycle 3, of a 4 cycle plan. Each cycle 21 days, five of which I receive chemo. Throughout these five day periods I have mastered the art of ordering from the hospital menu.

It took until day 5 of cycle two for me to focus enough to notice the availability of milkshakes. I go for strawberry, with hopes to muster up enough gumption to try cappuccino before cycle four is complete. Seems a bit at odds with my blue collar upbringing and approach to this treatment, so I'll stick to strawberry.

I'll be the first to admit, that strawberry milkshake is worth the drive. Even as it spends a frustrating amount of time in a folded up cardboard box during its journey from the cafeteria to my room, its ability to maintain ideal viscosity and temperature yields a flavor that demands reordering. A taste that registers and provokes emotion. Puzzled by my affection for this 8 ounce treat I am lured to questioning it's greatness.

It wasn't until I returned home on day one of cycle 3 that it dawned on me. My house is relatively close to exit 122, and from the window on the north side of the house you can gaze out at the lights of the highway, a giant warehouse and other lights from the industrial park. Above all of those lights, trees, and highway stands a bright sign all too familiar. Out of that north window it might as well be lady liberty... The Golden Arches. There it is, that's my answer. McDonald's Milkshakes.

I can remember when that franchise was built, oh boy had we made it as town! Since it's gone under many transformations, in hopes that it provides to the needs of its clients. None more tragic than the installation of Mccafe. A necessary means to prevent you from going to Starbucks or Biggby. Well it was with this churching up of coffee that the abandonment of what I will refer to as pre-Mccafe milkshakes took place. Ya know before they put it in a see through cup, and added the fancy straw and 25% of it whipped cream. SOMETIMES A CHERRY! I dissent. But there it is, this hospital shake is the closest thing I have found to that beautiful, seemingly endless shake in a giant soda cup.

Yep, that's what it's like being from Webberville. Whenever I want I can drive 30 seconds to a burger and fries.

No, my pairing of these distant shakes stretches far beyond the confines of convenience. Truth is these shakes may not taste alike at all. But that flavor sticks out to me for reasons associated with childhood. It has been sometime since you could order a 2 pound shake from McDonald's, and whether or not that's something I really care about or is just flat out hilarious, I'm glad that flavor brings me back to a place. That place being where I grew up, where I made friendships I still have, and a place to be proud of. Ya know all that cliche bullshit.

Now if I can just figure out why McDonald's coffee tastes like hunting and fishing.

Poem.

4/1/2021

Early Morning Walk

Birds now sing while the grass turns green,

Overhead a flock of geese can be seen.

I clap and I yell as if they can tell,

Surely a good dog will take and follow,

For it feels like spring, gone is winters sorrow.