Ontonagon Labor Day Parade

Yesterday the Lady Friend and I attended one of our favorite annual events, the Labor Day parade in Ontonagon, Michigan, where we spend five months of the year. (It's also the prototype of Porcupine City in my Steve Martinez novels.)

The outsider from the big city might think it just another lame small-town event, but those in the know well understand the heart and soul behind it. People who live in a once thriving place that loses more than 10 per cent of its population every census still know how to celebrate what they have left, and they take considerable joy in sharing and caring for one another despite adversity. These folks know how to have fun without spending a lot of money.

Here's a video of the entire parade. (For best viewing click on the full-screen symbol.)

Getting out the vote

Maybe it's because I'm a nearly lifelong resident of Chicago, where entire cemeteries have been known to go to the polls, but the placement of that sign at a graveyard in Ontonagon, Michigan, is so full of irony that I couldn't help stopping to take this photograph.