Mackinac Island
A Place That I Love
It is usually this time of the year where my thoughts drift every now and then, to when I was a Tour Driver for Mackinac Island Carriage Tours. Brings back great memories. I always said as a tour driver, that there are four main holidays. They are Memorial Day weekend. Lilac Festival, Father’s Day Weekend is the Parade. We also have 04th of July with the Fireworks, and finally we have Labor Day Weekend, concluding with the Bridge Walk. I will talk about these four holidays and what they meant to me as a person and employee.
I was usually asked to show up to the Island around the middle of April. A couple of times there was a late Easter, and would miss it, what was a person to do. It was important to me as a Catholic, it was celebrated more privately with some friends instead of family. Between my arrival in mid to late April to Memorial weekend, my hours were short and pay checks were small. The closer we get to Memorial Weekend gradually the hours pick up. Memorial Weekend, I am personally reminded of those Veterans who were killed in the line of duty, both on the battlefield and in training accidents. The last couple of years deaths caused by training accidents has out paced deaths on the battlefield. What a somber thought.
Published by Walter E Kitter
I am a U.S. Army Veteran for 13 years, served in Desert Shield/Storm. I graduated from Saginaw Valley State University with a degree in Education. That is where I found out about the joy of writing. I was a tour driver for about 10 or 11 years for Mackinac Island Carriage Tours. I learned to harness, hitch and drive a team of horses. That job really slowed my life down. Driving 3 to 5 mph, if you went any faster there is a good chance that you could be in trouble. I am in no hurry to go nowhere. In the beginning I was using information about the island that was written by someone else. I Had to make the tour my own. So I bought the books and researched the information for the tour so I could answer any questions that customers had answering with something else besides I don't know. One rainy day, sitting on my carriage, watching the team, rain dripping down my back. it was cold and rainy, all you needed was the ducks, decoys, call and the dog you would set for duck hunting. I wanted to write a book about the island. I found the story behind the facts sometimes more interesting than the facts themselves. I am going to write a book, now I needed pictures for the book, how am I going to get them? thousand yard stare looking out at the team in front of me, pulling up now and then when the carriage in front moved up. Making it to the ticket office, waiting to be loaded still wondering about pictures for my book, customer sees that I am deeply thinking about something. He asks me what am I doing, I explain to him the problem of pictures for the book. He explains that I have the frame for the pictures right in front of me, the two horses heads are the frame for the pictures. That is when I came up with the title, A Place That I Love a tour drivers perspective of Mackinac Island. I spent a lot of time at Anne's Tablet. That is how the book came about
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Walter E Kitter 