Stevats' Chronicle---July 10th 2010

We're taking a trip today, down the beautiful high ways and bi-ways of Michigan. It's a gorgeous day outside, the sun is shinning brightly, the clouds white cotton puffs on a bright blue background, the trees are all swaying from a northerly breeze. We're driving west down some vast radiant highway, traffic is light and it's early morning, the sun has just breeched the ten o'clock mark.

A green sign for an exit appears with a slanted right arrow guiding us down the exit and we slow our vehicle, it's a classy vehicle, an old Chevy Suburban from the eighties, a gas guzzler by today's standard but a sharp ride none the less. As we crawl to the exit's stop sign we notice the road before us crawling North through a road shaded by large maples and a mixture of oaks. We turn right and drive on.

The streets are well paved, cobblestone facades built on local business' fronts as the road we were once on turns from a Michigan highway to a "Main Street" better known as "Acorn Street" in Stevats. The street is lined in the center with a "Michigan" island or "Michigan Turnaround" and there are traffic lights at every corner, which there are only five through the town. The boulevard island is laden with large Crimson Maples. We are welcomed by the buildings, the quaint cobblestone sidewalks to match the facades of ma and pa business', the kind that usually don't survive but in places like Stevats.

Our stomachs rumble as we smell the greasy foods from local vendors in the rear parking behind the stores. There's an elephant ear stand, a taco stand, and a hot dog stand before the city limits ends and we reach Acorn Park where the fair is in full bloom. People are walking down the city streets in the same northerly direction we are driving and they're all walking to the fair, a custom known to all the people in Stevats. They seem mesmerized by the loud music coming from the Gravitron and the sweet melodic sounds of the carousel. We don't want to stop, not yet, the weather is too beautiful, but we want a small break.

There's a scenic turn out ahead of us and we pull off to use the restrooms available. To the west is a large sprawling hillside and resting on top of the massive hill is an old three story building looming tall and surrounded by Pines. It's beautifully landscaped and so large that we can make out its massive and neatly designed structure. We are awestruck. There's a sign for we tourists with a mark of Stevats, Michigan and a "YOU ARE HERE" font in bold face with an arrow pointing to Stevats on it. We notice a few tourist hot spots marked on the map as well and recognize all of them but one. The one unrecognized states: FIELD OF BLOOD, we're shocked and intrigued by the message and a hot spot that we have missed so load back up into the Suburban for a jaunt to this attraction....

As always, that's the news, we are who we are, judge us not by the smallness of our town, but the spirit that roams here, thrives here and grows here endlessly.