Da UP
Mini Oven and Eric,
Maybe the world is smaller than I think!
There are some professors at Tech whom I remember very clearly. One is David Cimino, who taught a couple of my Physics courses. He really could draw a perfect circle, about 2 feet in diameter, on the blackboard. Pretty amazing to watch. The name Hanner sounds vaguely familiar but I don't think I had any classes with an instructor by that name. I never did meet a Bornhorst, although I watched Bruce Horst in the nets for the hockey Huskies. Probably doesn't count, eh?
My 30th class reunion is coming up this summer, so I'd like to get back up to the Copper Country. Even if I didn't see anyone I knew, it would still be worth the trip. There is so much that I used to enjoy up there, like the view from Mt. Brockway, or the waterfalls that are so numerous, or the sweet rolls at the Hilltop Inn in L'Anse (had to work a baking reference in here somewhere!), or the arboreal drive on US 41 heading north toward Copper Harbor, Eino and Toivo jokes, the original Library's pizza, and more. One of these days I need to go to the Porkies, too.
Dunno about the snow situation up there, since I'm living in Kansas (after stops in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Alabama and Texas). The alumni newsletter dropped their snowfall tracking section a few weeks back, so I'm guessing that it should be about gone, other than maybe a few shaded areas back in the forest or the cities' snow dumping areas. My wife (then girlfriend) was skeptical about my snow stories. For instance, at one point on my walk from campus to downtown Houghton there was a traffic sign which, in Spring or Fall, was a couple of feet above my head. In late winter it was about knee-high. We married my senior year and experienced a literal 40 days and nights of snowfall after moving in, which just about put her over the edge. She's a believer now.
When you were growing up in Ontonagon, Mini Oven, did you ever picture yourself living in places as distant and different as Austria and China? Thanks to my career in engineering, I've been to places around the globe that I never expected to see outside of TV or a newspaper. Quite the unexpected benefit of my college years at MTU.
Is the White Pine mine in Ontonagon still operating? I thought that I had heard it had closed, but that there was a possibility of it reopening.
Thanks for triggering a bunch of memories, thimbleberries and all. Here's a website, in case you are feeling nostalgic: www.coppercountry.com [1]
Paul