Michigan Transitions – E

I’ve been in southeast Michigan now for six months and a few other things have come on the “hmm, this is different” radar.

• One of the things that was actually attractive to us when we came to the area is that there are more people here. My wife and I grew up in metropolitan areas and we understand traffic, congestion, and suburbia. In a sense, coming to the suburbs north of Detroit was like coming home.
• Humidity – West of the Rockies, we just don’t get real humid weather. Even in the northwest where it rains frequently and moss grows on house rooftops, it doesn’t get as humid as the south and Midwest parts of the continent. Being here about half-way through the summer, I am reminded of a meteorological reality: summer rain is a regular thing. In southern California, you get your last rain in May and it doesn’t rain again until October. Even in the northwest, you’ll get summer showers, but they are brief and light storms. Here near Detroit, when it rains in the summer: it dumps in a thunderstorm and the puddles last for a couple of days.
• Additionally, as I was driving around, another reason there is so much water in the air is clear: not only is Michigan bordered by four of the five Great Lakes, but there are a gazillian smaller lakes and ponds scattered throughout the land. There is probably some study to show the percentage of water surface to land surface here and my guess is that the percentage is much higher here than anywhere in the west.
• The terrain is also different. It is flat here. Again, in the west you don’t have to search far to find a hill or mountain somewhere in your view. On one hand, this can be disorienting for me as during certain times of the day in certain weather (noon-ish with overcast skies), I can’t tell compass direction. On the other hand, it does give a wider vista. Somehow sunsets are more spectacular.
• The coastal northwest does one better, of course. The prevailing tree type is tall and narrow. Therefore, even driving along the Interstate, you can actually have your view of the terrain blocked by trees. In southern California, there aren’t many trees so your view of the terrain is remarkably clear.
• At least in this part of Michigan, this flatness translates to a pleasantly broad landscape. The roadways are built with wide margins between street surface and sidewalk. The notorious “Michigan Lefts” do have the benefit of creating wide medians along major streets.
• “Pop.” OK, this is pretty mundane but I grew up calling soft drinks, “soda.” Here, you go into a restaurant and when the waitress asks what you want to drink, saying “soda” is going to create confusion. “Pop” is the term. And there is a fairly important devotion to regional favorites. Vernor’s ginger ale is bottled locally and is a favorite (though not drunk as frequently as is claimed, I observe). Additionally, “Faygo” is a local soft drink bottler with their own brands and flavors.

Michigan Transitions – D

Once I’d been here and observed people and the environment, I tried to engage in a little amateur anthropology. Sure, being in the upper mid-west and being in the northwest, or even being in southern California aren’t really big differences. It’s not like I found myself in Zaire, after all.

But that’s the challenge, isn’t it? There are differences, even though they are subtle, and it is important to attempt to understand them in order to determine how you will respond to the differences.

Much of what I learned came from people already here. People who were born and raised here, but had travelled and spend significant time in the places I was formed in, were able to give me a perspective. “Where you’re from, things seem to be like this …, but around here, it’s more like ….”

I’ve had to come to grips with my “sub-culture perspectivalism.” That is, my perceptions are shaped by my formative environment. I was born and raised in southern California. That, right there, is a sub-culture apart from most of the rest of the nation of the United States of America. I am a “SoCal boy” and my formative years were spent living a mile away from the Pacific Ocean. The rest of the country was about football or hockey; we were about surfing and volleyball. Southern California, because of the movie and television industry, became the media capital of the country. Though all the media money was in New York, much of the creative talent was in my neighborhood.

I grew up in suburban sprawl, pleasant weather, and was surrounded by people who came from somewhere else. In fact, that “somewhere else” was a subliminal message: “Where I came from was not good.” That is, the east coast, mid-west, and south were places that were bad. California was the land of “opportunity,” meaning that the rest of the country were places of stifling tradition, oppressive conflict, and narrow-minded bigotry. That was the worldview that formed me.

So here are a couple more differences:

• One of the natives here in Michigan says that they are not an optimistic people. Life is hard, the future is not always bright or hopeful, and it is entirely possible that things will get worse. This is in stark contrast to the “California mindset:” life is good, the future looks better, and we can have hope. I’m not really convinced that mid-westerners are pessimistic, but there is a mindset of “toughing it out.”
  
• Mid-westerners are rooted people. They frequently live within 10 to 20 miles of where they grew up. They are in weekly physical contact with family members. Their friends have been friends since elementary school. By contrast, the west coast is full of people who got there by up-rooting and travelling to a mostly unknown place. West-coasters are mobile people who will not find it hard to move from Portland to San Francisco because of job relocation. “Our real friends will keep in touch and we’ll make new friends when we get there.” Family ties are a bit looser in the west – it is not as important to visit mom and dad every weekend. In fact, because family and friends are more scattered, it gives an excuse to travel frequently to visit.

Michigan Transitions - C

So our transition to Michigan first began when I started looking for a job. When I got a nibble from the church, I began investigating the area much more thoroughly. This involved research on the web and even talking to some people who’d lived in or even just visited Michigan and the Detroit area.

The next phase was an actual visit. This helped me to put together things that weren’t clear in my data-only investigation. Now I was able to see with my own eyes and hear with my own ears.
After a second on-site interview with my family, we compared notes and impressions and all of us had favorable responses. The area seemed very much like a flatter, yet prettier, version of southern California. There were more trees, the roads were wider and had more green strips, but there was still the energy and fun of being in a large suburban community.

The next phase of the transition was the acceptance of the ‘job offer’ and then solving the problem of how to get me relocated to Michigan. We decided that I would go, set up ‘camp’ in a small apartment, and get established in my job while the rest of the family would stay put and concentrate on getting the house ready for sale.

To do that, my wife and I took a cross-country road trip so that I could have my car with me at my new ‘home.’ That turned out to be much more of an adventure than we’d anticipated. We got right in the middle of a record-breaking storm and had awful weather all the way across the mountain and plains states. However, providentially, we were always able to travel during daylight hours. That’s not, “travel comfortably,” but we were able to make time and distance. Once we reached Chicago, my wife took a plane back to Washington and I continued on by myself arriving safely.

I was able to secure a condominium ‘house-sit’ and set up my bachelor life while getting oriented to my new job. About two months later, I flew back out to Washington and drove my wife and son across country (much different route, this time!) to join me.

During those couple of months while I was ‘bach-ing it,’ I certainly learned something about getting around in the snow. What was ironic was that this season was the worst snow in decades for the area. So it was a ‘baptism by snow.’ Fortunately, I learned enough quickly enough about driving in the piles of white stuff to avoid any accidents.

As one who was born and raised in the Los Angeles metro area, driving skills were Very Important. As I have travelled and moved place to place, for some reason I am very sensitive to the "car driving sub-culture." How people drive their vehicles is usually the first thing my mind registers as, "Hey, people do things differently around here."

A couple of driving-in-the-snow tips:

• your 4-wheel drive only helps you go in one direction: straight. It does not help you stop any better. You also need an anti-lock braking system to help you from skidding.
• Additionally, losing traction when turning is a common occurrence. Your tires are designed to start and stop in a straight line – they are not so good at holding you on a curve in slippery conditions. For the nerds: think "lateral forces."
• Different snow drives differently. Very cold, powdery snow is actually not so bad for traction; especially if there’s a wind: it acts almost like sand. The worst is melting snow – the combination of ice, water, and snow makes the road “slick as snot.” Typical was the snow that piles up before the plows push it away – it almost looks like stiff oatmeal as your tires go through it.
• I found that, generally, the colder the weather the better the snow traction.

General driving observations:

• There is an odd thing here: the "Michigan Left." In the Detroit area on major streets, the Wise Men of Traffic Control have decided that drivers can not be trusted to make left hand turns as the rest of the country does. They have very wide medians and expect you to first make a right turn, cross over all the lanes of traffic, and then pull into a special turn lane that is put into the median. If you check out Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan_left) you can get the full scoop. Check out this animated website (http://www.michigan.gov/documents/mdot/MDOT_Roads-Travel_mich_left_213414_7.swf) to understand this more clearly. From my perspective, all this does is add milage to your trip and provide even more opportunity for accidents as you cross all those lanes of traffic or become confused as to how to handle an intersection - or even if there is an intersection.
• As mentioned before, the road conditions are much poorer than in the west. Whoever the road engineer geniuses are who devised the Michigan Left apparently wasted all that brainpower on making it more difficult to get from place to place rather than thinking of better ways to make a road bed less prone to pothole-ing.
• Drivers here, as befits residents of the Motor City, are more aggressive. But they frequently drive faster than they are competent. I say this not only as I observe driving behavior, but as I observe the pragmatic results. Already in our time here, we have seen one accident happen right in front of us and another that must have occurred less than two minutes before we got there, as well as seeing a few post-accident scenes on the streets here. Even after 30+ years in Los Angeles traffic, I don't remember seeing so many accidents in such a brief amount of time.
• On the freeways, tailgating is frequent. Sometimes its of the aggressive sort: "Hey, I wanna go faster - get out of my way!" But it is also of a nonchalant sort: "You're going 65 mph and that's a good speed. I'll go 65 mph, too - three yards off your rear bumper."
• Cell-phone use while driving has not be prohibited here, yet. And it does show. There are many times when somebody will be traveling slow in the fast lane, you pass them, and see that they are talking on their cell phone. The other tell-tale sign is weaving or poor lane placement (having the car way over on either the right or left part of the lane - or crossing it). It is true that distracted driving prevents you from concentrating on all the things you need to do to drive well in a fast-paced environment.
• People around here do use their horns more. On the west coast, it was rare that somebody would use their horn to "send a message" of contempt or anger. Horn use was almost always "Look out! Do you see me?" Here, there is more horn use of the "sending a message" sort.
• There are several controlled intersections where there is a small sign posted prohibiting turning right on a red light. The vast majority of these are unneeded (frequently posted in intersections that have left-hand turn light control) and seem posted to become a revenue-producing opportunity for the local law enforcement departments.

Michigan Transitions - B

So what have we done, so far, in transitioning from Washington to Michigan?

The first point to make is that I’m a pastor and my move from Washington to Michigan was occasioned by my accepting a pastorate here. So the first step in transition was the candidating process itself.

Initially, I was contacted by the leadership of this church about an application that I’d sent to them. All that I knew about the area was that it was north of Detroit, Michigan. I did know a bit about the church from its website. Helpfully, the church had pictures of the building and people so I could get some sense of what the surrounding neighborhood was like. I had no idea what the area was really like when I sent the application. When I was contacted, I immediately attempted to orient myself to the area.

One of the first steps was looking up the city the church is in – Sterling Heights – in Wikipedia.

I then looked at satellite pictures using Google Earth. I found out, for example, that Sterling Heights is home to a couple of automotive and aerospace assembly plants. So that tells me that there is a manufacturing base to the local economy.

I then found out that Sterling Heights (#61) was on the Money magazine’s list of the top 100 medium-sized cities in the United States (http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2008/snapshots/PL2676460.html ). That was fortunate as that article let me know about the city’s strengths and relative weaknesses. I then began to appreciate that Sterling Heights was a mid-sized suburban city within the state of Michigan.

I then caught some news and was interested to see that the McCain-Palin campaign stopped for a major event in the city – which told me that the city had some importance in the area.

I started doing some searches using Google maps such as “banks,” “restaurants,” “school,” and even “church.” I learned that there was a clear shopping district, that the area seemed solidly middle-class, and there were several churches nearby. Barb and I joked about seeing some of our favorite restaurants were nearby.

So I constructed a tentative 'mental model' of what Sterling Heights was like. Of course, after collecting such raw “data,” the key thing was the first visit where I could see with my own eyes what the place was like and adjust my model. I was pleased – the place seemed even better than I’d thought. After meeting the people and joking about being a west coast boy out of his element, that actually helped to bring out – in natural conversation - potential differences and points of adjustment.

A couple of first impressions:
1) this place is flat. On the west coast, there’s always a mountain range in view and so it is pretty easy to get your bearings. Here, you have to be a bit more aware of the sun’s position and how the streets are laid out.
2) The road surfaces are not very good. Now the reason is plain – this part of the country regularly gets freezing weather and develops pot holes and cracked concrete.
3) Drivers are more aggressive here. This is actually a welcome change. I grew up in the Los Angeles basin where, it was once quipped, “you’re either the quick, or the dead.” Washington and Oregon drivers, by comparison, drive like old ladies. I appreciate driving in a place where people actually seem to want to get somewhere.

So the first phase of our transition was just getting good information about the place.

Michigan Transitions - A

Several of my friends have been asking and asking again about how are we adjusting to life in Michigan.

For Barb and me, this seems like such an odd kind of question. It is asked so frequently that it almost seems like some sort of group obsession. Right there, I’m trying to understand why people are so very interested.

The first thing is that some people just can’t understand moving such great distances. There are some people for whom great change is a very frightening prospect. I remember when we were living in Santa Maria, California in the late 1980’s and I’d made the decision to move to the Thousand Oaks area to attend law school at nearby Pepperdine University. One of our friends, who couldn’t have been 30 years old yet, was simply amazed that we would move “so far” to do something “so different.” This guy was so rooted to the area – even the valley – that he was born in that he couldn’t imagine relocating. I was struck by the thought that this 28 year old guy was already thinking like an old man.

Even when we candidated for this church, one of the questions that was asked was, “How can you move so far away from your friends and family??” That is, from Washington to Michigan. There are several answers to that question, but the primary one was that Jesus wanted us to. Beyond that, the reality is that real friends stay your friends. Our society is more connected over farther distances than at any other time in history. It is a relatively trivial thing for me to be in immediate contact with a friend in Southern California. Distance isn’t the issue. Actually, time zones present the greatest challenge!

Additionally, we are located nearer the bulk of our family now than when we were on the west coast. The hardest thing, in terms of family, is that both of our daughters are on the west coast. As parents, we can no longer respond as quickly or immediately as we were accustomed to. However, that separation has more to do with our daughters’ stage in life relative to our own. We are becoming empty-nesters.

Even more so, unlike my young old-man friend above, Barb and I have always had an adventurous streak in us. We have always relished travel and the challenge of adapting to new places and people. We’ve moved several times now and realize that, wherever we go, we’ll make new friends, keep the old ones, and enjoy the new place. We’re pretty resilient.

The other part of the insistent question, "how are you adjusting?" is just the nature of relationships here in Michigan. The vast majority of people that we know here are in our church – the church where I’m a pastor. They really can’t ask about my work because I can’t tell them that much. They can complain about the jerks and idiots who they work with. I can’t complain. (snicker) That last sentance is pretty ambiguous!

Additionally, lots of what I do can be confidential in nature and there’s only so much I can share. Even if I chat with people socially, they tend to steer away from talking about my ‘work.’ So what’s left to talk about? Well, I’m new to the area so … “How are you settling in?”

I’ll blog a bit more about our transition as time goes on.