�

Effing Vons, as we�ll call her, obviously doesn�t know me very well.

I was sitting with my coworker at our desk two weeks ago, with an hour left of work before I left for my vacation, literally squirming with the anticipation of leaving for home. Effing Vons came upon me in this state and asked me what was up.

�In an hour,� I said, �I will be on vacation.�

She brightened at this.

�Oh!� She said, �are you going somewhere?�

�Northern Michigan,� I said brightly.

�Oh,� she said again, this �oh� sounding a bit more disappointed than the last one, �what are you going to do there?� She sounded as though I�d just told her I was going to spend the next week in a refrigerator box.

I was fifty-five minutes to freedom, though, and she wasn�t about to bring me down. I smiled at her.

�I don�t know,� I said, �drive down to wine country, spend some time with my family� Probably go to the beach.�

�Michigan has beaches?� She asked incredulously.

Her query was met with absolute silence. I heard my coworker Carmel inhale sharply as blood rushed to my face. She knew the fury that unleashed itself in me upon hearing this ignorant, insufferable question. I remained calm, however. Effing Vons was a California native, after all, maybe she�d never left the state. Or taken a geography class. Or looked at a map.

�Um, the Great Lakes?� I said, letting a small amount of contempt leak into my voice.

�Oh yeah, the lakes,� she said vacantly. �But� They have beaches?�

I felt Carmel place a restraining hand on my knee beneath the desk.

�About nine thousand miles of them, yeah.� I said.

She gave me a look that said are you retarded? and I returned it.

�Uh, Slip, I think I hear your cell phone ringing,� Carmel said pointedly.

�What?� I said, pulling my gaze away from Effing Vons along with the daggers I was shooting with it.

�Your cell phone is ringing in the pantry,� she repeated with authority, �go answer it.� She then kicked me under the table and I took the hint.

I was still fuming about the incident five days later.

I was sitting at a table in the restaurant I used to serve at in my hometown. I was having breakfast with my dad, sister, and brother-in-law, and told them the story. They shook their heads.

I looked out the window at Little Traverse Bay and told them how one tourist customer had once asked me what river was out the window. (The bay�three miles across at its most narrow�I told the man, was Lake Michigan.)

�Yeah well,� my dad said placatingly, �they just don�t know.� As if we were talking about a group of six year olds staring dumbly at an algebra problem. As if we should pat their hand sympathetically and pity them.

�Ugh,� I said, remembering the discussion with a renewed feeling of disgust. I think it best, actually, to educate them.

I take it upon myself to do so. Perhaps I feel a little more strongly and defensively about people�s ignorance living here in California. Perhaps I�m more insulted by what I feel equates a slap in the face of my history. But even when confronted with a derisive, unbelieving attitude like Effing Vons�, my father, and other locals like him, have the luxury of proof sending ten foot swells ceaselessly into the break wall never more than a glance to the west of them. All they have to do is point and say There. You see? Don�t be stupid. Its not quite as easy for me.

As I tend to get a little worked up, I�ll let a man named Jerry Dennis do the teaching. He wrote a book called The Living Great Lakes, an engaging and fascinating piece of meticulously researched non-fiction, and putting aside my obvious prejudice, one of the best books I�ve read yet this year (and I�ve read quite a few).

He writes: If fresh water is a treasure, the Great Lakes are the mother lode. No bodies of water can compare to them. Superior is the largest lake on earth, and the five lakes together contain a fifth of the world�s supply of standing fresh water. Their ten thousand miles of shoreline bound seven states and a Canadian province and are longer than the entire Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States; Michigan alone is bounded by 3,200 miles of coastline�only Alaska has more. The surface area of the Great Lakes is greater than New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Rhone Island combined. People who have never visited them�who have never seen a squall roar across Superior or the horizon stretching unbroken across Michigan or Huron�have no idea how big they are. They are so vast that they dominate much of the geography, climate, and history of North America. In one way or another, they affect the lives of tens of millions of people.

To appreciate the magnitude of the Great Lakes, you must get close to them. Launch a boat on their waters or hike their beaches or climb the dunes, bluffs, and rocky promontories that surround them and you will see, as people have seen since the age of glaciers, that these lakes are pretty damned big. It�s no wonder they�re sometimes upgraded to �Inland Seas� and �Sweetwater Seas.� Calling them lakes is like calling the Rockies hills. Nobody pretends they compare to the Atlantic or Pacific, but even the saltiest saltwater mariners have been surprised to discover that the lakes contain a portion of ocean fury.

The first time I saw Lake Michigan, I thought it must be an ocean.

And so, I promise, will you.