Slightly Off the Mark: radio red

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The Mackinac Bridge in Pictures

One day--let's say it was the 50s, because these things happened back then--some people from the lower peninsula of Michigan rowed over to meet with some people from the upper peninsula. "Isn't it wild," one said, "that we're part of the same state, but can't just drive back and forth?"

"I've got it!" a Yooper said. "Let's make the U.P. its own state! We'll call it, let's see .... Upper Michigan!"

"Or," said some engineer looking for contracts, "we could build a bridge".

"Ha!" said another, who operated a ferry. "Over that long piece of water? It'll never happen."

Opened in 1957, it was at the time the world's longest suspension bridge between two anchorages, and still is the longest in the Western hemisphere. For you flat Earthers, that means this side of the ocean. The main span is 3,800 feet long, and it sure felt that way as we were driving over it. The rest of it is ... well, longer.

In the old days, 9 ferryboats carried 9,000 vehicles a day--plus other ferries that hauled train cars--across the Straits of Mackinac. Or is it Mackinaw? Or is it, as the natives said, Michilimackinac, which means "Straits of the Great Turtle With a Long Name"?

But, with 16 mile backups of drivers waiting to use the ferries, it seemed like there should be a better way. A well-heeled fellow by the name of Cornelius Vanderbuilt II proposed a bridge all the way back in 1888. Someone else suggested a floating tunnel, which sounds like a nightmare from every direction.

Yes, that giant ship hauling iron ore, or rubber duckies, or tanks of Mountain Dew, or whatever, is going under the bridge--and it's a BIG ship. I know, because we later got much closer to it.

President FDR tried to get funds for the bridge project during the Great Depression, but Congress thumbed its nose at him. Figuratively. When it finally happened, it took three and a half years, five lives, and a quarter of a billion in today's dollars before the first person to drive across: Michigan's Governor Mennen Williams, who paid $37.26 in today's dollars. People must have carried around a lot of pocket change back then.

There's a statue in a park on the north end of the bridge, a memorial to the ironworkers who built it and the five who died. Why is it looking away from the bridge? Um ... well, maybe for pictures like this.

40 years later, the 100 millionth vehicle crossed.

By the way, it cost us $4 to get across, during our tour of Michigan that I'll speak more about later. Yes, I took lots of pictures.

What's the point of being at the junction of two Great Lakes, if you can't play in the water?

For those of you who are curious--or fearful--exactly two vehicles have gone over the side, one due to excessive speed and one a suicide. Why someone would choose to drive fast 200 feet over the water is beyond me.

One plane has hit it, crashing into the suspension cables during a heavy fog.

The Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse, along with a steam powered fog horn, helped guide ships through the busy Straits until the year after the bridge was finished. It's now, naturally, a maritime museum.

Oh, one more thing: On April 24, 1959, Captain John S. Lappo flew a Boeing B-47 Stratojet UNDER the bridge. Yeah, I looked it up: It's a six engine strategic nuclear bomber.

Under the friggin' bridge.

No word on whether it, or he, was loaded at the time, but he didn't work for the Strategic Air Command after that.

(By the way, my novel Radio Red is set near Lake Bellaire, which is a real place about 80 miles from the bridge.)

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Remember: If you’re not traveling, you should be reading.

Radio Red Is On the Front Burner

Emily has sent me the working copy for the new Radio Red, so I'm pausing the Hoosier Hysterical sequal writing so I can get the other book edited. It used to look like this:

But we got the rights to the story back, not the cover, so you'll see it next as something new.

Meanwhile I'll continue to slip in some promotion here and there, because writers gotta eat. I won't make it obvious, though.

https://www.amazon.com/Notorious-Grant-Storm-Chaser-Book-ebook/dp/B0F3KWHWK8

On a whim, notorious Hollywood party-boy Ian Grant decides to drive to tornado-ravaged Hurricane, Indiana to plan his estranged sister's wedding. Not that he bothered to tell his sister ... or their movie star father, or his sister's straight-as-an-arrow cop fiancé, or anyone else.

The only other person who seems to know is trying to kill him.

The Notorious Ian Grant isn't a sequel to Storm Chaser and Storm Squalls, so much as a spinoff into the idea of what would happen when a B-list West Coast Celebrity gets plunked into a flyover state and has to straighten up—or else. He soon finds himself under the supervision of Fran, a beautiful police detective who thinks Ian's arrival could only bring disaster.

As if Hurricane hasn’t had disasters enough.

Nor will I mention that, say, The Notorious Ian Grant can be enjoyed without reading the first book, Storm Chaser, but since Storm Chaser is only 99 cents as an e-book, why not get them both? We even have print copies of both here, along with Radio Red and all the others. Maybe I'll mention that next time.

There’s still time to order for Christmas, from many of these places: