Kuunari

On the first weekend in the month of May, the tiny windswept town of Spring, Michigan would hold their annual festival. All 56 residents of the town would get involved. The Mayor and his wife would hold a pancake breakfast on the old parade grounds on just off route 28, by the boarded up school. He wasn’t really the Mayor, he had just been living in the town for longer than anyone else, and so had sort of assumed the title.

The school hadn’t been needed for many years, the three school age kids were bused down to Houghton after the school district consolidation in 1943. The three kids would help make the only flower float (and the only float really) that would be part of the parade that would kick off the festivities. The rest of the parade would involve a truck with members of the hunting club in the bed, the previous years Keweenaw Spring Princess along with the three or four young women competing for this years crown, the only fire truck driven by the 4 members of the volunteer fire department and the Houghton High School band, which was made of more community members than high school students.

John Wannamaker and his wife Alice would play the guitar and sing in the old bandstand after a patriotic speech by the Old Colonel at the parades end. There would be some halfhearted dancing in anticipation for the night, and then the picnic would begin. Everyone would bring something to share, it was like a big church potluck, even though the town church had closed 15 years ago.

If you ever happen to go, make sure you try Edith’s au gratin potatoes, and Gertrude’s pies, made from bilberries picked the previous autumn and canned over the winter. There is a quilt competition, and a hoeing competition, although it’ll be hard for anyone to beat Doug Hieninnen, as he’s won 6 years in a row.

But really, the real treat is the four piece Spring Community Band, combined age 234 or thereabouts, who bust out the polka after dinner is all over. The march in just as dinner is wrapping up, playing the Spring Community Song, which is really just Beer Barrel Polka with the words changed to celebrate Spring, MI. Everyone will get up and follow the band back to the bandstand, where a dance floor will have been placed while the picnic was being enjoyed.

At nights end, after everyone has had their fill of dancing and carousing, although liquor has been curtailed a bit since that horrible incident in 1993 involving Sam Hyppa and John Saari, the band will lead everyone back the way they came, playing the community song backwards. It’s always a great sport to see who can sing the song the best backwards, although by halfway through, everyone is laughing too hard to really give it a try anymore.

Most will stay to help clean up the picnic, and wish each other well. You should try and make it this year, word is Johnson’s son and his wife will be coming up from Milwaukee this year. It should be great fun.