There are two bridges linking Michigan to Canada, one connects Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and the other connects Detroit, Michigan to Windsor, Ontario. The one in Detroit gets a lot more traffic, so much more that, last I heard, they were planning to build a second bridge. I don't know how many Michiganders go to Canada for their prescription drugs. A few years ago there was a lot of talk in the news about people doing that, but I don't remember that it was an issue in Michigan. To my knowledge, the Canadians don't care if you're a citizen or not when you buy their drugs or access their health care. You do need a passport now to cross between the U.S. and Canada but, if you do it often, you can get something called an "enhanced driver's license", which can be substituted for a passport.
I suppose the reason Lansing became the capitol of Michigan is that it is centrally located, population wise. It's way south of the geographical center because many more Michiganders live in the southern part of the state than in the northern part.
When I ran for precinct delegate I didn't even know what the job entailed, I just read somewhere that Reagan lost the nomination in '72 because he didn't have enough of them, so I filed for it in '76. Precincts in Cheboygan County generally follow township borders, but some of them overlap because it goes by population. After my landslide election (I ran unopposed and got 100% of the votes cast.) I was invited to attend the Cheboygan County Convention. Actually, calling it a convention was a bit of a stretch, there were only a dozen or two guys there, and it only lasted an hour or so. The first order of business was to seat all the elected delegates, which was me. Then the chairman asked who else wanted to be a delegate and some of the guys volunteered. Apparently the reason I was the sole elected delegate was that people didn't usually run for the job, they just sorted out the appointments among whoever showed up at the meeting.
Then the chairman asked who wanted to go to the national convention. I forget where it was held that year, but I would have had to miss work, so I wasn't enthusiastic about it, but I said I would go if that was the only way to register my vote for Reagan. The chairman said it didn't matter who went, because Michigan was allocated a certain number of votes, and none of them would go to Reagan because of that rule change I told you about yesterday. He said that they would all have liked to vote for Reagan, but they couldn't and I couldn't either. Enough other guys volunteered to go and, there being no further business, the meeting was adjourned.
Not long after that, the chairman called me up and asked if I wanted to go to the state convention in Grand Rapids. As luck would have it, I had a long weekend in my work schedule, and Grand Rapids is about halfway to my parents' house. The convention was on Saturday and Sunday, and I didn't have to be back to work until Wednesday night, so I could visit my parents for a couple days afterwards. My hypothetical wife and six year old daughter went with me and enjoyed the pool at the Holiday Inn while I was at the convention.
Saturday morning opened with somebody giving a speech about how proud he was to be a Republican. Right in the middle of it, our chairman rounded up the Cheboygan County delegates and took us to this small windowless room with no ventilation. I joked about it being one of those smoke filled rooms I had heard about, but the chairman asked us not to light up because of the close quarters. He then asked us if anybody cared about the school boards to which we were supposed to nominate people later, and nobody did. Then he asked if we liked Joe Swallow, who was running for judge or something, and all of us did. Then he asked our permission to trade our school board votes for Joe Swallow votes. I asked, incredulously, "Is that legal?", to which he replied, "Sure, that's what party politics is all about." Having given our permission, we all went back to the auditorium where, by now, a different guy was giving a speech about how proud he was to be a Republican.
All day Saturday and most of Sunday were spent listening to speeches about how proud everybody was to be a Republican. Late Sunday afternoon I asked the chairman when we were going to start voting on things, and he told me it would be a couple hours yet. I told him about my planned trip to Chicago and wondered if I should book another night at he Holiday Inn. He said there was no reason I couldn't leave early if I wanted to, since he was empowered to vote for all the Cheboygan County delegates. I then asked him why we had to be there at all, and he said that a lot of guys enjoyed this sort of thing, and the reason he invited me was that he thought I might like it too. I told him that I was grateful to have this opportunity to see democracy in action but, as Ann Landers used to say, "The sample was ample". We partied amicably, but he never invited me to any more party functions, and I never asked him to.
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