Every year at this time my newspaper of choice is the
Cadillac (Mich.) News, “serving,” as it says on
the masthead, “Wexford, Missaukee, Osceola and eastern Lake
counties.” For a blessed ten days or so, in fact, it is the only
paper I read, and while I read almost everything in it, the
classified section usually grips me most. It is the journalistic
equivalent of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, and I can become
something like the stage manager, with new characters to think
about, sympathize with, and even worry about in nearly every
issue.
For instance, will Rick and Laura get together again? They met
at Home Depot last Monday, and Rick has been running an ad ever
since: “Laura…I would like to speak to you or see you again,”
along with his phone number.
Anyway I want Laura to call, and I wish her and Rick well.
Perhaps they will marry and have children. If Laura wants to keep
working while the kids are small she can get help from “STAY@ HOME
Mom,” who, I am sure, is very nice, and is “seeking children to
care for in her kozy Cadillac home — meals, fun and TLC
provided.”
But I am getting ahead of myself. The kids would be in the
future, and Rick and Laura must first get engaged. Meanwhile I note
another classified ad, “Will the party who inquired about a lost
engagement ring at the Frosty Cup the week of August 5th please
call Mary Kay, afternoons and identify ring,” along with Mary Kay’s
phone number.
So it’s good the ring has been found, but how was it lost in the
first place? There is a story here, I think. The engaged couple had
a spat — anger, tears, recriminations. Take back your ring, the
young woman cried, and she threw it at the young man, but he was
disdainful, and the ring bounced off the table and into a
frosty.
More anger and recriminations then, and the breach was not
healed until the week of August 5th. The repentant young couple
returned to Frosty Cup then in search of the ring, but it did not
turn up until Mary Kay spotted it just now, glistening in the dish
washer. Dutifully she placed her ad, where it appeared under
“Lost-Found” on the same day as this ad:
“One $100 dollar bill. Lost Friday 8/9/02. Belongs to the
Cadillac Skate Park Fund. Call (231) 775-0499.”
You are not likely to find ads like that in the New York
Times or the Washington Post, and it suggests a trust
in your fellow man you do not always find in big cities: If someone
finds a $100 bill lying around, then of course they will return
it.
So I happily return to this area every year, and I stay with my
old college roommate and his wonderful wife in their lovely old
house in the woods. I do not want anything here ever to change,
although I am aware I am fighting a losing battle on this, and that
change will certainly come. Meanwhile I look for signs of change in
that infallible guide, the classified ads.
Sometime in the early 1990s, for example, I noticed that
restaurants, even the hallowed Herman’s, were no longer looking for
waiters and waitresses. They wanted instead waitpersons for the
waitstaff. This, of course, was not a good sign, and now I have
found one worse. A growing number of ads for apartment rentals
include the words no smoking or non-smoking, as in “One Bedroom
Apartment near Downtown Cadillac. $400 plus deposit. No
smoking.”
That means the health nazis are here too, even in Wexford,
Missaukee, Osceola and eastern Lake counties. On the other hand,
there are still so many good things. Cadillac, after all, voted for
Bush, and it is still a place where they expect you to return a
lost $100 bill.
