Michigan, My Michigan

I was hoping that Fred Himebaugh at The Fredösphere, who is a choral person, would want to say something about this recent post, on why professional choral singers should form a union. After my snow-induced nostalgia for my childhood home, the Great State of Michigan, I was primed to read Fred's appreciation of the delights of northern Michigan, inspired by this post from Michael Blowhard (with comments, of course, from another blogging ex-Michigander, Our Girl in Chicago). When I was an undergraduate at Michigan State University, I worked in the summers for an entomological research project in the Upper Peninsula, based in a group house in the beautiful and quirky little town of Crystal Falls, home of the Humongous Fungus Fest. That event is named for what is probably the world's largest and oldest living organism, a fungus that stretches for 38 acres underneath the forest floor near Crystal Falls. (It was discovered by scientists working on a sister research project, and it even made it into a David Letterman Top Ten List.)

There are lots of other reasons to love Michigan, not least of them being a very cool Latin motto (Si Quaeris Peninsulam Amoenam Circumspice) and the fact that there is a controversy about its official state song. It is also the home of the greatest hockey franchise in the world, but it's too painful to think about that when the players are sitting on their asses during what probably would have been Steve Yzerman's final season. Oh, the humanity!