Never Been Here Before

East Lansing, Michigan.  I have never been here before.  My niece is graduating from Michigan State University tomorrow and this is most assuredly be a university town, a university city.  We got in late last night and it was snowing, of course.  A young guy, my niece friend, drove us all the way out here from the Detroit airport. Everything was flat and snowy along the endless roadside. 

My niece had booked her father and I a room at the Marriott Courtyard.  I found myself mastering my impulses to run the show.  I was the American and I’d take care of everything.  But it wasn't necessary.  She’d been here for three and a half years.  She knew more about East Lansing, Michigan, certainly, than I did.  She ordered some Chinese food take out, which I wouldn’t have ordered, (we’d had “Chinese” in the airport in Newark against my instincts as well) but her dad was keen to try it.  She explained that the Chinese students all had local Chinese menus they ordered from at some of these places and that the food was pretty good. 

But before we dined we headed out to Meijer, which is a local mega store, which I’d assumed was local but my niece insisted was national.  The ride out in an Uber was with a pleasant young man with whom I sat in the front with and struck up a conversation.  “Yes.  Lansing is the capital.”  “You don’t say?"  I hadn’t known that.  "There are some lovely buildings up there.  They’re worth seeing.”  I tried to imagine what the turn of the century architecture in Lansing would be like.  This Uber driver was such an earnest young man.  But before long we’d arrived at Maijer.

Meijer seemed a lot like the Walmart I’d been in the day before in Fishkill, New York. It was vast.  A supermarket and a department store and a home depot’s worth of material to buy.  We only needed a lighter, for my brother in law and something to drink.  We got these but my brother wanted a look around.  What’s this for?  How do you use that?  He was intrigued by all the variety of things for sale.  I couldn’t help looking at my fellow Americans.  Some of these Meijer shoppers were huge.  Most were young.  One guy had a sad sunken face and a spooky, vacant stare.  Thoughts turned to our oppiod addiction crisis.  Checking out we were stopped and asked to provide proof of age for the alcohol we were trying to bag.   

Heading back to the hotel from Maijer we had a Hatian Uber driver.  Yes, he also drove for Lyft.  No, there wasn’t a particularly large Haitian population in East Lansing.  "There's a small community.  We’re tight."   I shared with him that I’d been to Haiti back in 1989 and he took this in offering that he hadn't yet been born.  At the Marriott we cracked our beers and had a beef dish and bean dish and a dish of fried innards.  And with that we went to bed as we were tired and tomorrow would be a big day.  

Friday 12/15/17