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Mark R. Johnstone, Piney Ridge Road
My parents bought their property on
the west side of Hamlin on
Piney Ridge Road
in 1946. We built a
modest cottage and spent the summers at the lake with my dad
commuting between Chicago and Hamlin on weekends.
We had no car, so the Chicago and North
Shore commuter train between Chicago and
Milwaukee
and the PM car ferries served to make the link.
My dad logged over 1.3 million miles on the steamers under
their four of five different owners.
For groceries, I’d row across Hamlin Lake to Shellenbager’s at South Bayou for
milk and bread. A year
later, Twin Points opened a small grocery shelf at their resort
office. For more
substantial items I would get a ride into Ludington on the Hanson’s
Evergreen Dairy milk van that used to make the trip out to our side
of Hamlin at least twice per week.
The walk back carrying a tote was arduous, but once passed
the Lincoln
Lake bridge, the load
became lighter. What
wonderful memories I have from the days of my youth.
Back in those good old days,
Ludington’s June and early July weather was usually quite rainy and
foggy. And as such, our
twin beacons to maritime safety, Ludington and big Point Sauble
lighthouses, would put on their dramatic sound show.
Back then, Ludington’s signal consisted of a sequence of six
short and gentle Bee-O’s
with a seventh Bee-O being
ten times the duration of the first six with a long protracted
Eeeeee-eeeee-eeee-O in opposition, Sauble, has a lighthouse
personified classic signal with a steady
Beee-Oooooo.
Its pitch, I’m sure was the lowest on the lakes.
I believe that I once was told that the frequency was 140 HZ
on the Bee portion
dropping to 60 HZ on the Ooo
portion of the signal.
The joy of all this sound would be
the week or longer that these two giants would duel with each other,
night and day without a break.
They would drift in and out of sync over a fifteen minute
period. The sound became
so comforting that when the sun finally appeared, the silence of the
horns was deafening.
But, I am sure that you all remember it in a similar manner.
Oh, to curl up with a book and once again be bathed in that
blanket of comforting sound while reading something by Mark Twain.
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