Ishpeming....

Rain threatened in Ishpeming, Michigan, and we stood holding our helmets under an eave at the still shuttered American Ski Hall of Fame. We'd just ridden through the mining district of Houghton, Michigan, and the rusty iron and brick ruins of the old mines had turned me introspective.

"My Grandfather was born here, in the 1880's," I said.

"Do you remember him," Red asked, leaning against the glass doors.

"He bit me once," I said. "I was doing my four year old strut on the keyboard of a piano and he came over to lift me off. I bit him, and he bit me back! Good guy, though....."

Red looked at me with that puzzled look she gets when she isn't sure of what I'm trying to say.

"I remember my Grandmother more," I said, squatting on my helmet. "You know those pasty shops we've been passing? She'd make those, and I'd watch..... they were good! Baked meat and vegetable pies. Delicious. She was always laughing, too... had a great head of white, braided hair...."

The rain began in earnest, hammering down on the streets.

"Don't suppose he saw rain much, my Grandfather. He went into the mines early.... like all the others. Cornishmen. Thousands of them came over here to dig these mines. Spent nearly all their lives under ground or deep down in some great ditch... but now, now I get to ride my motorcycles in the free air and falling rain, and one of my grandfather’s great-grandsons just graduated from Princeton. Three generations from a mine shaft to a Princeton University library....the American story! We owe them... we owe them so very much."

She smiled and touched my shoulder.

"Got an old clipping off the web, my Grandfather and his dad were inducted near here into the Order of St George... a fraternal and protective club for miners.”

A smiling gentleman arrived to unlock the Ski Hall of Fame doors, and we visited the modest hall for a half hour. They had a great exhibit of the army's Tenth Mountain Division, but nothing about the National Ski Patrol from which the Tenth was spawned. The small omission irritated me... irritated me greatly.

Later we geared up and started the bike. "Did the Cornish ski?" Red asked over the intercom. "They didn't," I replied. "Finns came here, too. They built the ski jumps and ski trails."

As we idled down the main street, I saw the entrance to an old cemetery and, on impulse, turned into it. We crawled along the single lane, looking at the elegant, weathered stones. I pulled over and shut the bike off.

"They're here, some of 'em, I know they are......"

Red hugged me. "Do you want to look for them?”

"Nah," I said, starting the bike. "It's Saturday, the office is probably closed..... and we have a long way to go......"

We got back on the highway, heading west, toward Montana, just as they had once done....