We had our own Walking Man in Cheboygan you know. I say "had" because I haven't seen him in 30 years, and I think he was at least as old as me, so he's probably dead by now, but I don't know that for an absolute fact. I watched this guy age over the years, just like Uncle Ken watched Chicago's Walking Man age. The last time I saw him, which was the first and only time we ever spoke to each other, his hair had turned gray, and his shoulders had developed a stoop, but he still walked with the same confident stride that he had always displayed, like he knew where he was going. I had never spoken to him before because I was always driving when I saw him walking, and it was none of my business anyway.
One day, back in '91 or '92, when I was tending the State Street Drawbridge, and he was walking across it, with his characteristic tote sack slung over his shoulder, I stopped him and asked where he had been walking to for all these years. He told me that he lived on Bois Blanc Island (Bob-a-lo to us locals) and had friends in Cheboygan that he liked to party with. They lived within a mile or two of the ferry dock, so it wasn't worth loading his car onto the boat, it was easier to just walk over there. By the time the party wound down, the ferry was docked for the night, so he would stay overnight with his friends and catch the boat home the next day, wearing a fresh change of clothes, which was what he carried in his tote sack. I haven't seen him since, but then I don't get around much anymore.
Bois Blanc Island is kind of a suburb of Cheboygan. Wiki says there were only 71 people living there in 2000, but that probably means year-round residents. I'm pretty sure the seasonal and weekend population is higher than that.
Bois Blanc Island (Michigan) - Wikipedia
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