Michigan

Please come to Michigan, I'd be happy to show you around. I'd like to come to Singapore some day. I know it would be difficult for me because I don't like big cities much, but I still want to come, because from what I've read about it it sounds so fascinating.

Yes, Michigan has it's problems but I can't think of anywhere else I'd like to live. Detroit gets a lot of negative attention (always has) but Detroit isn't the whole state (though it likes to think so). And yes, I think it is a beautiful state. Especially the Upper Peninsula which really ought to be a state of its own because it is so different from the Lower Peninsula.

People down here in the Lower Peninsula are all upset about the economy and jobs moving out of state, but you know what, up in the Upper Peninsula (UP) that is a very old story. Basically, the Lower Peninsula's economy recovered after the Depression and the Upper Peninsula's didn't. That is why I don't live up there because there aren't that many good-paying jobs. But I can tell you that one thing the Upper Peninsula culture stresses is hard work and thrift. We know how to make do because we have had to for so long. Now it is the Lower Peninsula's turn to learn about lean living. But regardless of what peninsula people live in they know how to appreciate the simple pleasures of life and to have fun. It's not all doom and gloom here.

So Spinning Compass, you mean the Trolls had not been thrifty as compared to the Yoopers?

Ah, so you have done your homework! Very good. Not many people outside the state, let alone the country, know about the Trolls and the Yoopers. Yes, I am afraid that the Trolls have partied it up with all their high-paying automotive jobs and now that they are disappearing they don't know what to do. Except leave. I hear Detroit is almost a ghost town. No one north of the Bridge is too sad about that. Yes, I am a Yooper, forced to live in Troll-land. I figure that is my Purgatory. But what else can you say about a state that has Hell in the Lower Peninsula and Paradise in the Upper?

If I got a high-paying job, I guess I'd save it for future uses in self-improvement like real effective education.