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Oh, the weather in northern Michigan

Everyone loves to talk about the weather.

Thus, if I were to ask you to remember back to this point two weeks ago, you would sigh and think “Oh my yes, that snow was terrible!”

A week ago sports fields still were covered in snow. In fact, as of earlier this week a major portion of Michigan — about Standish north and into most of the Upper Peninsula — still had snow covering it.

Friday my business manager shared that her husband, in a span of 24 hours, had been both out ice fishing for bluegill and then golfing in Oscoda. As she said, “only in northern Michigan.”

Which is so true.

This morning I’m hitting the road to watch my oldest granddaughter play travel soccer. Silly me, knowing the way spring sports go Up North, I thought the games were being played indoors. My son quickly set me straight, saying the girls and their parents were antsy to get outdoors. Now mind you the team has not yet had one outside practice. The fields in Gaylord are, you guessed it, still covered in snow. All their practices have been inside.

However, the fields in Harbor Springs are supposed to have had the snow melt off this week, thus those fields are ready (albeit probably frozen hard as a rock) for play this weekend. Since they can’t play outside in Gaylord, the games were moved there.

The fields will be ready, but will I?

Oh, I’ll have the camp chairs packed, the bottled water chilled and healthy snacks ready. But I’ll also have a spring coat along in the car, a winter parka ready, sunglasses, winter gloves, blankets, hats, and a variety of footwear — from tennis shoes to boots. You see, I can remember many an opening day for Little League with snowflakes coming down in May.

Heck, I can even remember one Fourth of July sitting at the bandshell when snow flurries fell from the clouds for two minutes.

And who knows about today. I expect it is possible that I could experience all four seasons of Michigan in an hour’s span.

I’ll be there rooting my granddaughter on. Just look for the guy in shorts and sandals wearing a parka.

~x~x~x~x~

On May 1 all of us will be rooting on Geoff Brousseau, formerly of Alpena, as he appears on the popular game show Jeopardy. His story, which appeared in Friday’s newspaper, is a great one in that he and his family always enjoyed playing the game growing up, and that love of the game inspired him to apply to be a contestant as an adult.

“I have watched Jeopardy since I was in grade school and played all the Jeopardy video and computer games. But it was one of those things where I never actually thought I could get the opportunity to be on the show.”

Well, that opportunity occurs next week and we’re anxious to learn how he fares with show host Alex Trebek.

So, in the spirit of the show: CBS, 7 p.m.

“What is the time and network to view Jeopardy May 1?”

Bill Speer can be reached via email at bspeer@thealpenanews.com or by phone at 354-3111 ext. 331. Follow Bill on Twitter @billspeer13.

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