Greg Awtry

A couple of days ago, as we were going through yet another Polar Vortex, a Facebook “memory” popped up in my notices. I must admit as I get older it’s nice to have high-tech reminders to help me reconnect some of those brain cells that increasing get disconnected!

The notice sent me to a link to my first Alpena News column I wrote seven years ago on March 1, 2019. Allow me to back up a bit before I go on.

I spent the majority of my working career as a newspaper publisher in Nebraska. Before that I was in sales, based out of Okemos, Michigan. Josie, my wife, and I raised our two children there, until I accepted a transfer to Virginia. And after a couple more moves we decided then that when it came time, we would return and retire in Michigan. Why? We loved Michigan and wanted to be close to my daughter and our grandchildren.

That time came in 2018 when I informed the newspaper I would retire in 2019. For much of 2018, Josie was preparing us for the move by “major downsizing” as she put it, along with literally countless trips to Goodwill.

Then life, which has a mind of its own, reared its ugly side, by unexpectantly sending my life-long soulmate Josie to Heaven. I was, and still am heart broken. I was lost. I tried to stay at the newspaper, but my heart told me no. Life is so fleeting and fragile, I knew I had to immediately take our dream to Michigan and live it out just as we had planned.

So, on February 1, 2019 I left Scottsbluff, Nebraska, headed straight towards Michigan. Once again, life, or should I say winter, got in the way. I was doing this in a major Polar Vortex that saw temperature drop to 20 below zero and dumped mountains of snow across most of the country.

After spending two days crawling across the frozen tundra I arrived in Hubbard Lake to see the small house I had bought without ever seeing it. My furniture and all my belongings were stuck in South Dakota in that same Polar Vortex, so with time on my hands, I headed to the first thing on my to-do list, which was to go meet Bill Speer, publisher at the time at The Alpena News.

For nearly twenty years I had been writing weekly newspaper columns and editorials and wasn’t ready to let that go. Bill and I had like minds about community journalism and he agreed to give me some space in the paper. Thank you Bill! (I hope you are enjoying your retirement as well.)

I have written about 200 columns for the paper since then, always ending each one with my email address asking you what you think. I have heard from hundreds and hundreds of the readers, many in agreement and many in disagreement, both of which are fine. That’s what opinion pages in the paper are supposed to do.

By now, you are probably wondering where I am going with all this. First off, Josie and I made the perfect decision to once again call Michigan home. In our life we had lived in five states, always saying the difference in Michigan was the people. Let’s face it. Michiganders are just downright friendly.

You have deep appreciation for the outdoors. You care about your neighbors. You work hard, play hard and live life large. And here in Northeast Michigan, it is even more exaggerated, with overwhelming pride of community and country. Sure, we have our differences like politics and whether you are Green and White MSU fans or Maize and Blue Wolverines. That’s exactly how it should be, but when the sun sets over our Great Lakes State every evening, we are all Michiganders that even a Polar Vortex can’t beat!

Thank you to the Alpena News for allowing me to be a small part of the paper. And thank you to all the readers for your support, comments, both good and bad, but always civil. I respect each and every opinion you have. It’s what we do in Michigan. I know why I live here. Let me know why you choose to live here in Northeast Michigan, at gregawtry@awtry.com