Is spring all that far away? The tingle in my bones tells me it isn't. When the sun shines a bit brighter and we start to see glimmers of the ground under all that snow, my motorcycle comes to mind. The insurance is paid up, the bike is polished
and ready to go, and now all we are waiting for is a dry day. That is, dry pavement . . . can't be any ice, for sure.But, sometimes as I start to think of the few months we can jump on our motorcycles and make the day different from so many before us, the dichotomy of what can be found in Fowlerville comes to mind.There was an afternoon last summer, as my husband and I rode slowly through town, a feeling of yesteryear and our modern lives coincided. And it was the feeling of opposites, or contradiction, that collision of two things that don't really go together
. . . the dichotomy of it all. There is always a feeling of stepping into years gone by as one ventures through town . . . brick buildings, old-fashioned streetlights, tall storefront windows book-ending a single front door . . . but it is no more apparent when a motorcycle rider gives a wide berth to riders on horses.Since that day, I have watched these riders wander through a parking lot at a fast food restaurant and then turn toward the downtown, and I witness drivers giving them the same wide berth we did. Once again, it reminded me of you never know what you might see in Fowlerville.
January's thaw came a couple days late but at least we are seeing some things that have been buried under snow for a month.
Can spring be far behind (except it has been reported 0-5 degree tonight)?
Fowlerville is listed as a ghost town . . . not Fowlerville, Michigan . . . but Fowlerville, Oklahoma.
That town, which was located in the southeast quandrant of the state, predated Oklahoma becoming a state. There used to be a post office there, but it was later moved to Idabel, Oklahoma. But it would appear the town no longer exists, unlike our Fowlerville.
But, then curiosity tickled at my brain and I went in search of more towns named the same possibly in other states. I came across a Fowlerville, New York, just south of Rochester. There are two other Fowlerville, New York, locations in other counties, but oddly enough, the first one I found is also located in a Livingston County, and was settled by Wells Fowler.
Okay, this is sounding a bit like a parallel universe situation. We live in Fowlerville, Michigan, located in Livingston County, and was settled by Ralph Fowler.
Reading a bit about their history also paralleled the richness of our village's history. But there are some differences.
Fowlerville, New York, was one of seven hamlets in the Town of York. At the time it was founded by Wells Fowler and William Taylor, in 1816, it contained two churches, two stores, a post office, one hotel, a harness/blacksmith/wagon shop, and an agricultural works, with a population of 375 to 400, including transient boarders (as described in an informational article about York).
The town still exists as far as maps indicate, but all the information found led me to York's history and statistics of it and the surrounding area. Theirs is a population of about 3,000, whereas I have heard numbers bantered around of 8,000-10,000 in Fowlerville and its surrounding areas.
So, there you have it. They say everyone has a twin somewhere in the world; maybe that goes for villages also.
By village ordinance, the downtown is for pedestrians -- you can walk your bike, carry your skateboard, or straddle your rollerblades over your shoulder, but wait until you get away from the main four corners before enjoying these wheels.
But I'm thinking, even with the bit of winter thaw yesterday, that is not even an issue.
In your daily travels, have you ever considered how often you drive on or cross over Grand River Avenue -- once? twice? a hundred times?
Discounting a few potholes along the way, it is usually a fairly smooth ride. But it wasn't always that way. Before asphalt or concrete, there were wood planks. This plank road must have greated a rhythmic pattern of thrumming as the tires would beat on the wood. And before that it was a dusty, dirt trail. But my curiosity got the better of me on how a plank road looked.
This is a bit of what I found while reading some facts on http://www.michiganhighways.org/:
As with other Indian trails, the Grand River Trail was used by the European settlers arriving in Michigan in the 1830s and 40s, fanning out from
Detroit across the southern Lower Peninsula. The original footpath was gradually widened, straightened and improved until, around 1850, two plank roads were constructed linking the state's largest city with its capitol. The Detroit and Howell Plank Road coupled with the Howell and Lansing Plank Road allowed travellers to (more) easily make the trip between Detroit and Lansing via Howell. The plank road companies charged a toll to use the road and toll gates were generally erected every five miles.-The picture in this post is from a stretch of plank road near Belleville, St. Clair County -- in Illinois -- but somehow this seems it could have been similar looking anywhere between Lansing and Detroit. Wide open fields bordered by trees.As one final bit of historical information, the following link (http://books.google.com/books?id=RpxlL7WvJiQC&pg=PA51&lpg=PA51&dq=grand+river+planks+found&source=web&ots=Tsy0XHK3q5&sig=EnCYV-62SSVkvJteLFTQOmXcNfM&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=7&ct=result) gives an interesting account of the development of the plank road that would someday become Grand River Avenue.-So, it makes me wonder. When our tires bounce into a pothole or our vehicles are jarred by the expansion joints going across the lanes, how did our ancestors feel about the bouncing and jostling the experience on their way across mid-Michigan? Or were they just happy to have the ability to travel?
These are the four flags proudly displayed at the Village Offices -- the tallest being the American flag, then the POW/MIA flag, the Village of Fowlerville flag, and the State of Michigan flag. The fabric makes quite a racket as all four pieces snap in the wind.
Sunday Funnies . . . and what better way to kick off this than with having a bit of a laugh on ourselves. Fowlerville has grown and changed over the last 10 years I've lived here, but it is still small-town America. There is hardly a store that I walk into that someone doesn't know my name, or doesn't hail me with a genuine greeting, or can't find the time to shoot the breeze for a few minutes. So when I came across these ways to identify that you might be from a small town, I couldn't resist. They are meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but maybe a little bit true. Have a laugh or two and let me hear from you for more ways I might have missed. You might be from a small town if . . . . . . You can name everyone you graduated with.. . . You know what 4H is.. . . You ever went to a party that was held about 20 miles down a deserted dirt road or in a small country cemetery.. . . You said a major swear word and your parents knew within the hour.. . . You scheduled parties around the different police officers' schedules since you knew which ones would bust you.. . . You ever went or thought about cow-tipping.. . . School would get cancelled for a sports team going to state finals.. . . You could never buy cigarettes because all the store clerks knew how old you were.. . . The whole school would show up at the same party after graduation.. . . You couldn't help but date a friend's ex-girlfriend or ex-boyfriend.. . . Your car was always filthy from the dirt roads.. . . On any given Friday evening, you could find everyone at the main four corners or a local restaurant.. . . You decided to walk for exercise and at least five people pulled over and offered you a ride.And, finally . . .. . . Your teachers would call you by your older sibling's name.Now, I need to hear from you. Can you think of any that I've left out?
and ready to go, and now all we are waiting for is a dry day. That is, dry pavement . . . can't be any ice, for sure.
. . . the dichotomy of it all. 
