June 10 Green Bay

Today we drove from the coast of Lake Superior to Green Bay on Lake Michigan.  Windy all night, and white caps on the lake.  We drove about 35 miles through thick forest, sometimes with the trees forming a canopy over the highway.  Michigan has a lot of forest ORV trails.  We saw a sign that said "Dogsled rides; you drive or ride."  We passed an area called Green Bay that had nice homes and cabins on it.  Some had cute names: Sun of a beach, Trail's end, Moonstruck.  Every road we've been on for the last 2 weeks has firewood stands in people's yards.  They leave a coffee can or something there and paying is by the honor system.  In Menominee we saw a factory names Lloyd's Loom that makes wicker furniture.
    Now we arrive back in Wisconsin.  Huge dairy farms and other farms.  Joe's cheese shop advertises that he's been open since 1918.  Tom lived in Green Bay from 2nd through 6th grade, leaving in 1959.  I flew to Michigan for a weekend when he was stationed there and had a long layover in Gr. Bay.  Friends of the Campbells lived there and Janet picked me up and took me to their home for lunch.  I must have had a long layover.   He was telling me about places and things that he had learned about in history class in grade school.  Green Bay is Wisc's oldest city, established by fur traders and European settlers who were entrepreneurs.  It started with beaver hats in the 1600's and in the early 1900's, someone there invented the first splinterless toilet paper.  (Thank you!)  Today  paper and shipping are the main industries.
    The Packers are 90 years old and are fan-owned.  Gr. Bay is the smallest town to have an NFL team.
    Tom visited the largest railroad museum in America there today.  It even had Gen. Eisenhower's command train from WWII.  Thomas the Train was there and so were a million kids - many fussy and everywhere underfoot.  So it wasn't as enjoyable trying to read the plaques, etc. 
    Then we went by Lambeau Field and his old neighborhood.  Jackson grade school is still in good shape, as is the home they lived in.  Bart Starr lived 2 doors down in a small rambler.  Joe Skibinski rented an apt. in the house next door.  These guys and other Packers would get together at Bart's home and they didn't care if the neighbor kids were around.  They played football with all the boys and Tom used to mow the Starrs' grass.  I always say Bart taught him how to make passes.  He does remember one time when he asked Mr. Starr if he would throw him the football and he said sure and kept assuring Tom that he could be further away than the edge of Bart's yard, and, in fact, could even stand in his yard 2 doors down.  Tom remembers this empty lot down the street from their house, which has an old duplex on it now.  He said if you were too chicken to go off the curb, across the street and up the next curb on your roller skates, you got off the sidewalk onto that empty lot.  He said he knows most of the trees on their street and neighoring ones weren't there and they're now 80' or higher. 
    Roger and Mike Jerry were neighbor kids and their parents and Tom and Gen were friends for many years, but they have both been dead for many years now.  We met the guys for a drink at a restaurant across the street from the stadium and then they and Mike's wife, Karen, for pizza at a place that opened in 1958.  Tom doesn't think they ever ate there.  We had a real nice visit.  It's raining tonight.