Michigan

Anaheim, California. Not the first words you’d expect from a post titled ‘Michigan.’

So let’s set the path to Michigan, which is both a beautiful place on this planet, and represents an important era in the becoming of SAGRADOSE.

I was born in Anaheim. My parents met in California, eloped, and had 3 children, all while living in California. For the curious, I am the youngest of the 3, with 2 older sisters.

When I was 1, my family moved to Central Illinois. From beautiful California? Why would anyone do such a thing?

My father, Bruce, grew up in the sticks just outside of Canton. It was always home for him. He was the youngest of 6 children. When my dad was 14, he and his parents and 1 of his sisters moved to California. My grandfather, Miles, was diagnosed with lung cancer. It’s not difficult to understand how that could happen as he smoked heavily for years while working as a coal miner. When that caught up to him, cancer care in America was still in its infancy. The best doctors and systems in place at that time were in California.

My grandfather never recovered. By the time my dad reached 18, his dad was gone. A lot of life happened between that time and this move back to Illinois. But for the sake of this post, the keys are as mentioned: meeting mom, starting a family, then moving to Illinois.

The “why” had everything to do with 2 things: work, and the state of the world. My dad was a high school dropout. He worked with his back and rarely with his mind. And work was plentiful then, but you had to go where the work was. He found work in California, but jobs were popping in Canton, IL with the International Harvester plant there.

And, of equal or greater significance, as church-going, Bible-believing Christians, he and my mom and most every other Christian believed America along with the globe was careening towards hell. The end times. Sex, drugs and rock-n-roll. Vietnam. Political unrest. Civil unrest. Racial injustice. Women actually reaching for their independence and rights. And California had it all, plus the Hillside Strangler and Charles Manson.

Canton, Illinois is a town of ~15,000 people. It was familiar. Safe (feeling, by comparison).

Canton, Illinois is a place where creatives go to die.

I met a girl from Michigan at Cornerstone Festival in Bushnell at the age of 21. We hit it off and would occasionally meet each other half way between Flint, Michigan and Canton. We fell in love and knew what that meant if you’re a Christian: better get married soon or you’ll be in a battle of desire for the dreadful sin of sex… before marriage. Gasp!

For some reason I cannot even imagine in this Universe, we had originally decided that she would move to central Illinois instead of the other way around. And for some reason I cannot remember, that plan changed and we decided to marry and live in Michigan.

This is just the beginning of this era. Michigan holds a dear place in my heart, and always will. But this post gets me to Michigan, which is what gets me to my next topic: Leaderdogs for the Blind.