{"id":1283,"date":"2014-11-22T12:12:43","date_gmt":"2014-11-22T12:12:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/?p=1283"},"modified":"2014-11-22T12:15:13","modified_gmt":"2014-11-22T12:15:13","slug":"michigan-lives-within-my-soul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/?p=1283","title":{"rendered":"Michigan lives within my soul"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"17931_106754932671807_588549_n\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was born a \u201cMichigander<\/em>\u201d
\nor if you prefer the demonym,
\n\u201cMichiganian<\/em>,\u201d and yet
\nI\u2019m not them \u201cYoopers<\/em>\u201d
\n\u2018cause I was raised
\nin that Lower Peninsula
\nthis place called Freeland
\na \u201ccensus-designated place<\/em>\u201d
\nso few in number, it\u2019s an
\n\u201cunincorporated community<\/em>\u201d
\nwithin Saginaw County
\nyou\u2019ve heard of Saginaw
\nnamed like a bay in Lake Huron
\ninside the area of \u201cThe Thumb<\/em>\u201d
\nthe same place Lefty Frizzell
\nof Country music fame
\nsang about in 1964
\nthat song,
\nyou know reaching #1
\n4 weeks at the top of the charts,
\n\u201cSaginaw, Michigan<\/em>\u201d
\nSaginaw too, once was
\nthe land territory
\n“where the Sauk were,<\/em>” until
\nthe Ojibwe, whose blood
\nas they say, flows in my veins,
\ndrove them away
\n~ ~
\nnow I grew up in a township
\nnear a river of the same name
\nwith a bridge once made of steel
\nwell, this river
\nis called to this day
\nthe \u201cTittabawassee<\/em>\u201d
\nor as the Native Americans
\n~ \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0First Nations
\nsaid it in a treaty,
\n\u201cTetabawasink<\/em>\u201d
\nanother tidbit
\nconnected to the river,
\nwhere the name
\nof the place
\nFreeland,
\nwas said to have come to be
\nback in the late 1800\u2019s
\nthe lumber and river men
\nwould frequent a tavern
\nalong this river
\nowned and operated
\nby a women,
\nwho was known to all then
\nas \u201cMammy Freeland<\/em>\u201d
\n~ ~
\nas far as me
\nmy connection to Freeland
\nis that my family
\naround the early 1960\u2019s
\nmoved there on Webster Rd
\nlater living
\non a road named Carter
\nafter my ironworker father
\npurchased the acre parcel
\na portion surrounded
\nor squared in
\nby flat farmland \u00a0 ~
\nas a child and even more so
\nin teenage years
\nthroughout this
\noften tilled land
\nwith fields of corn
\nor navy beans
\nI was often accompanied
\nby my best friend
\na beagle,
\nmy dog Dino
\nwe together
\nboth enjoyed many hours
\nwalking these country fields
\nand exploring, learning
\nabout Nature
\nfor it was during
\nthese expeditions
\nlost to my younger years
\nthat my spirituality
\nmy inner emergent spirit
\nmoved and prodded me
\nalong the journey,
\na path to write and relate
\nto share with others
\nmy lived experience
\ndoing so, through
\na process of self discovery
\nwondering and wandering
\nemotively, intuitively
\nas well as psychically
\nwithin My Empathic Mysticism<\/em>
\n~ ~
\nupon becoming a man
\na young adult
\nmy wandering Scot spirit
\novercame the stay put
\nGerman\/Polish spirit
\nI did yearn for
\nway something more
\neerily inside,
\nmentally and physically
\nI needed to explore things
\nelsewhere,
\nin different places
\ntraveling to live in the city
\nas well as,
\nflying the states
\non an adventure,
\ngoing here and there
\nthen eventually,
\nafter awhile
\nI settled down
\nout east,
\nnext to the Atlantic Ocean
\ncoming to reside in the
\nCommonwealth of Massachusetts
\n~ ~
\neven though, I do
\nreally enjoy New England
\nmy children
\nand grandchildren
\nlive here with me
\nand too,
\nI really have no need
\nto live any place else
\n\u2018cause this is my home now
\nthe spirit of Michigan
\nthe land, the waters
\nand the peoples
\nthe cultures from the past
\ntill present, still
\nwill always,
\nlive
\nwithin my soul<\/p>\n

\u201cI was born a \u2018Michigander\u2019 or if you prefer the demonym, \u2018Michiganian\u2019 and yet, I\u2019m not them \u2018Yoopers,\u2019 \u2018cause I was raised in that Lower Peninsula in a place called Freeland; I\u2019m mainly Scottish, German\/Polish and as my family claims, I\u2019ve got some Ojibwe, also said Ojibwa, Ojibway or referred to as Chippewa or Chippeway flowing in my veins; therefore to this very day, the spirit of Michigan lives within my soul.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

peace out<\/p>\n

Words by \u00a0 ~Keith Alan Hamilton~<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was born a \u201cMichigander\u201d or if you prefer the demonym, \u201cMichiganian,\u201d and yet I\u2019m not them \u201cYoopers\u201d \u2018cause I was raised in that Lower Peninsula this place called Freeland a \u201ccensus-designated place\u201d so few in number, it\u2019s an \u201cunincorporated community\u201d within Saginaw County you\u2019ve heard of Saginaw named like a bay in Lake Huron … Continue reading “Michigan lives within my soul”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-peaceoutpoems","category-muse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1283"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1288,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1283\/revisions\/1288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.keithalanhamilton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}