Growing Up a Yooper

When we were kids in the Upper Peninsula

Detroit was two full days away

We never set foot in Lower Michigan

The furthest I’d been was Green Bay

The U.P. is largely a wilderness

Dense forests cover much of the land

Pine and spruce, maple, cedar and oak

The lakes make it even more grand

“Yooper”, of course, comes from “U.P.”

Our name for Downstaters was Trolls

Trolls are folks who live under the bridge

We’re sad for those poor deprived souls

Our towns range from small to smaller

My hometown has nine thousand people

It’s fourth in size in the whole U.P.

One stoplight, eight bars, a church steeple

Menominee natives are friendly

They spend lots of time on  the Bay

There’s a passion for boating and sailing

Or watching our Packer team play

My family lived out in the country

Surrounded by pine trees and birch

The river flowed next to our shoreline

We fished there for bullheads and perch

Huge pine snakes lived under our chimney

The pheasants pecked seeds on our lawn

Our dogs lost their battles with porcupines

At dusk we might see a young fawn

U.P. summers were idyllic

Clear air, a mild seventy degrees

We swam for hours in the river

Then turned into lumberjacks chopping trees

Autumn was ablaze with colors

The maples, a glorious red 

The water was too chilly for swimming

We took to our rowboat instead

Winters would drop below zero

With three or four feet of white snow

Icicles stretched from the eaves to the ground

The Northern Lights gave off a glow

In May thick hordes of mosquitos appeared

They hovered about in the air

We covered ourselves with repellent

But those bloodthirsty pests didn’t care

I learned to camp as a twelve-year-old

We’d bike up to Mason Park

Towing our gear in a wagon

Telling ghost stories well into dark

Late autumn, my mother cooked venison

My dad brought home a whitefish

Now and then we might have a pasty

Boiled tongue was a strange U.P. dish

High school sports were our passion

The Menominee Maroons were our team

We cheered them on through thick and thin

To beat Marinette was our dream

The year of my sixteenth birthday

I went to Worth’s camp to hunt deer

We took up our posts at six a.m.

The fathers played cards and drank beer

As teens we borrowed the family car

At nighttime we cruised round the loop

We’d drag race with guys at the stoplight

Then meet at the drive-in with our group

A few of our local politicians

Were convinced the U.P. should secede

And form its own state called Superior

More attuned to a Finn or a Swede

I was lucky to grow up as a Yooper

Some say that we lacked urban smarts

But Yoopers are solid and hardy

They’re known for the size of their hearts