I’d had a particular and personal set of reasons for my stay on Mackinac Island that began this brief sojourn into Michigan. Today, I reached the first event that sparked my extended stay beyond that first weekend – Maryland’s opening game in the Big Ten Field Hockey Tournament. The game’s scheduled starting time of 15:00 or 15:30 would be determined by the time the previous game ended. I’d been generously invited to spend some pregame time tailgating with the team’s family and friends beginning shortly after noon. It takes a bit over an hour to drive from Battle Creek to Ann Arbor so I needed to use the morning’s time carefully and constructively. I looked through some of R-A’s Michigan recommendations and settled on three or four that best fit my schedule and travel plans beginning with
The Bridges of Calhoun County.
Although the bridges I’d visit weren’t covered, they were historic. Calhoun County has four parks and Historic Bridge Park was not only the one closest to the hotel where I was staying but was also east of that hotel – the direction I’d be traveling. The park holds five historic road bridges all featuring truss designs and manufacturing techniques used in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The restored bridges have been relocated to the park from their original locations. Perhaps the park’s site was chosen because it was already the site of Dixon’s Bridge the only stone bridge within it.
According to the park’s brochure, the first of the five relocated bridges was the 133rd Avenue Bridge
that spanned the Rabbit River in Hopkins Township roughly 45 miles northwest of its present spot. After its removal and restoration in 1998, it was installed as a pedestrian bridge in its current location in 1999.
I walked over four of the five bridges but not the one the brochure calls “the show piece of the park”. That one I only drove under. While it spans the park’s entrance it’s the least easily accessible and the morning was cold enough and my schedule tight enough that I chose not to make the climb.
Next stop, Ypsilanti.
If a person travels about five miles east from Michigan Stadium on Washtenaw Avenue, they will cross into the town of Ypsilanti. My first guess is that if you’ve heard of Ypsilanti at all you’ve either completed an in depth study of the 1821 Greek War of Independence or you’re familiar with it as the home of Eastern Michigan University which began its life as Michigan State Normal College – the fourth normal college in the United States. (Normal college was an early term for a teachers’ college.) My second guess is that if you’re thinking, “I know Todd and I doubt he went to Ypsilanti to see E M U especially since its mascot is an eagle not an emu,” you’re right.
No, although I rode past E M U’s campus, I went to Ypsilanti to see one thing and one thing only – the Ypsilanti Water Tower. If you’re now thinking that this must have been prompted by RA, congratulations. You’ve once again pounded the proverbial nail on its proverbial head. So now, I hope you’re wondering what’s so special about a water tower.
I’ll let this paragraph from the tower’s Wikipedia page provide the explanation.
The tower has long been a source of humor for comedians in the Ann Arbor–Ypsilanti area, for its phallic shape; it has been nicknamed “the Brick Dick”. An urban legend holds that the tower will crumble if a virgin graduates from nearby Eastern Michigan University. In 2003 Cabinet magazine ranked the tower as the World’s Most Phallic Building.
Now, phallic architecture is not a recent phenomenon. In human history it dates at least to the late Stone Age some 5,000 years ago. Ancient Greek public buildings regularly had a shrine to Hermes at their entrances. According to Bruce P Grether, these shrines called “Herms” were usually built “in the form of a vertical pillar topped by the bearded head of a man and from the surface of the pillar below the head, an erect phallus protruded”.
And certainly, it doesn’t require one to stretch their imagination to see the ubiquity of this form be it in the famous tower in Pisa, the Vendome Column in Paris (almost certainly an inspiration for Baltimore’s Washington Monument), Barcelona’s Torre Agbar (or any other modern skyscraper), or even the gravesite of Felix de Beaujour.
After Slate magazine readers objected to Jonathan Ames’ assertion that the Williamsburg Bank Building in Brooklyn was the most phallic in the world, Cabinet magazine decided to settle the issue by instituting a search of its own. The Florida State Capitol in Tallahassee won the readers’ poll but the editors awarded the title to Ypsilanti’s 145-foot tall Water Tower that was completed in 1890 and named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1981. Perhaps you agree with Cabinet’s editors. Perhaps not. You can keep your own council regarding what you see or don’t see in the photo below.
The bust in front of the tower is not, as one might suspect, William R Coats, the structure’s architect but is rather Demetrios Ypsilantis – that hero of the Greek War for Independence for whom the town is named.
It was nearing the time when I could meet my fellow Maryland field hockey fans at Phyllis Ocker Field on the campus of the University of Michigan but I had enough time to pick up photos of a couple more RA recommendations and to stop by Arbor Teas the Michigan based company from whom I’ve been ordering loose tea for more than a decade.
My first stop was in the center of Ann Arbor where someone has painted a tribute to Singin’ in the Rain – probably my favorite musical from the golden era of MGM musicals. While cleverly executed, it’s only visible to pedestrians or perhaps in the rear view mirrors of traffic passing along the one way street.
The other was a stop outside the Ann Arbor Food Bank to see the giant (phallic?) carrots rising from the turf. You can see that photo with others from the day in this album.
I had a wonderful time at the tailgate anticipating the start of a hoped for championship run. Though the Maryland roster has a Maci, a Maddie, a Margot, a Maura, and a Maya, it has no Mary who wants to be a superwoman and boss the bull around. It’s a group of women working toward a singular goal. When the Terps took the first step and came away with a 2-0 win over the Iowa Hawkeyes, it took some of the chill off the day.
Coming next, a cereal serial and more.