Comments on: The Great Lakes…If they were on IMDB

By: sarajane

sarajane — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 19:18:06 +0000

ok thanks for the Mi nostalgia here- I needed it today, and obvioiusly like everyone else I really miss Michigan, no pun intended there. Dita Von Teese, yes, maybe Madonna, though she is pretty tamed now, huh? – how about Amy Winehouse?? She could embody the wildness of Lake Superior… My parents had a camping/fishing resort on Lake Superior when I was a young girl, I was born to be by the water. I was supposedly conceived on the SHOREline of Lake Superior, on one of those feezing cold /wet sandy beach Michigan “make out nights”…Oh if you are truly from Michigan ,dont play innocent… you know what I mean! My father supposedly lured her to the beach for a bonfire with a thermos of hot chocolate that night and romanced her by telling her Indian lore/stories( Gicheegumee, Kitch iti kipi, and singing the legend of Hiawatha song to her that night) or so the rumor goes What a sweet story , huh? well I live “down South now,and I truly miss those cold nights for cuddling close!
lets face it Lake Superior rocks- it is wild and georgous so if you love a wild and georgous girl, take my good advice and get thee to the beach UpNorth! You will get lucky, I promise!
Sara

By: robin

robin — Mon, 28 May 2007 22:09:58 +0000

Frankly, I’ve always thought Gitchegumee sounded like an STD. No offense to native speakers; plenty of English words sound icky too. Pubescent, for example.

I only use my hand to show other Michiganders where I’m from, or where some other place is. People from elsewhere have no frame of reference and look at you funny. Especially if you are in England. ;) If you are from the UP (upper peninsula), you can always turn your left hand sideways, using your thumb for the Keewenaw Peninsula. If you are a geographical stickler, you’ll want to curl up your index finger to make the point more, um, pointy.

I’ve been trying and I’m just not up to the original challenge. The best I can do is Ricardo Montalban for Superior and the wife from Everybody Loves Raymond for Michigan. Erie is the neglected stepchild of the Great Lakes as far as Michigan is concerned, as it’s too far away and we’re slightly ashamed of it for being famously dirty, so maybe Madonna? That’s it. :)

By: Sara

Sara — Mon, 28 May 2007 16:57:35 +0000

Born and raised in MI and now transplanted to NC, I DO show where I’m from using my hand, and I find it annoying there is no similarly easy way to show where I’m at in my new state. It is a little easier for me than some, however, seeing as how I’m from the Detroit suburbs and now live in the Raleigh area.
I have to agree with Sandy that Gitchegumee is a much cooler name than Superior. I guess it just doesn’t fit in the “HOMES” pattern.

By: Leah

Leah — Fri, 25 May 2007 12:51:00 +0000

Who would play Isle Royale? And as I am a Yooper and live on Lake Superior, I have to say that whoever plays Lake Superior needs to be far more cold and bitchy than Dita Von Teese.

By: MidwestMedic

MidwestMedic — Fri, 25 May 2007 05:33:09 +0000

made me think of another Michigander quirk:

Now that I live out-of-state. How many trolls (lower peninsula) people have ever used their hand to show someone the location of a city or where they live?

Almost every Michigan I’ve met has done this at least once to show a non-Michigan person a location.

Also, why does every non-Michigander think every Michigan city is near Detroit or like Detroit?

By: MidwestMedic

MidwestMedic — Fri, 25 May 2007 05:15:34 +0000

found at http://www.michigan.gov:

There is a comparative table of state shorelines on the Michigan Dept. of Environmental Quality’s site that gives the measurements for states touching the Great Lakes. See [link removed, sorry] World Book Encyclopedia (v.13, p.500 of the 2000 edition) states that Michigan’s shoreline, at 3,288 miles is “more than any other state except Alaska. This includes 1,056 miles (1,699 kilometers) of island shoreline.” In v.1 (p.284 and 294) of the same edition it states that Alaska has 6,640 miles or 10,686 kilometers of coastline.

By: MidwestMedic

MidwestMedic — Fri, 25 May 2007 05:08:41 +0000

Thank you so much for this post. Having grown up in the mitten and also lived at Isle Royale (in Superior) but now living in the extreme southern Midwest, I find myself missing those lakes.

I’ve always seen the lakes being more like the women from their bordering states. Michigan would be Chicago/Wisconsin/Lower Michigan type. Huron would be more Detroit or Ontario. Erie is a Buckeye. Ontario would be a north-eastern type…New yorker? With Superior being either Yupper or Norther Minnesotan with the accent and all.

PS: Superior is cold but it is also the cleanest. Also, worlds largest LAKE (by surface area…not volume)

Go HOMES!

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 24 May 2007 21:28:39 +0000

The only thing I know about the Great Lakes is the acronym used to remember their names in grammer school

HOMES

Oh, and Blue created them.

By: Maggie

Maggie — Thu, 24 May 2007 20:41:36 +0000

allen h: You have to consider the coastlines of both the lower and upper peninsulas of Michigan. Most people forget that Michigan has two parts.

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 24 May 2007 19:16:00 +0000

Michigan has more SHORELINE, not coastline, than any other state. Coastline is used to reference proximity to an ocean, not a lake. Yes, the “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” home version got it wrong.