hy the ha-W movedatoSMhg0an
Why the hell I moved to Michigan

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f you had seen me driving
home to California last week,
swerving slightly on the Iowa
highway through teary-eyed con-
vulsions, you would have told me to
getoff the road and pull it together. I
left Michigan. And sunny California
at the end of my journey seemed a
bleak prospect in comparison.
Two years after moving from Los
Angeles I quickly declared Michi-
gan residency so my drivers license
wouldn't attract so much attention
at the bar.
"Why the hell did you move
here?" is something I heard up until
the week I left. At first, my answers
were meek: goodschool,newcrowd,
et cetera. It took a couple years and a
few Michigan natives to help me dig
into this state in a way that a'four-
year degree will allow if you're up
for exploration.
Now, hindsight setting in, I can
answer the question. Michigan is a
secret. And in California, its repu-
tation is unfair. Please don't take
offense at my early understanding
of Michigan, after all, you probably

think "SoCal" is just full of surgi-
cally modified compulsive shoppers.
Or maybe you don't, as Midwestern-
ers are just so nice.
Either way, coming to Michigan
I expected conservatism, boring
topography, ice and frostbite and
drinking and depression and subdi-
visions and no jobs and Detroit and
Flint and "Roger & Me." But I also
looked forward to a social change,
to four seasons and to a well regard-
ed university.
The attractions that brought me
to the mitten state delivered. And in
a strange turn of things for a Cali-
fornia native, I now would be happy
to move to Michigan permanently.
Julie, my boss at the University,
lives a few miles out of Ann Arbor,
off a dirt road on countless acres of
land where she can hunt deer, cul-
tivate a huge vegetable garden and
let her kids, Claire and Clarke, get
their feet dirty. The same goes for
Mclean's place in Rochester, Sarah's
in Pentwater and the whole of the
Upper Peninsula. My folks' home
in California is nice-for a fenced-

in and deliberately-landscaped half
acre. That's large by Los Angeles
County standards and the price tag
shows it.
The Michigan outdoors is beau-
tiful, albeit lacking in mountain-
ous mise en scene. Though I was
How a
Californian
learned to love
the Rust Belt
disappointed by the downhill ski-
ing (usually a landfill), my friends
swear by the cross-country skiing
on the trails that I enjoyed hiking
in the summer. All without leaving
Washtenaw County, I went moun-
tain biking on frozen trails in Bird
Hills Park in the winter, road biking
down Huron River Drive in the sum-

mer and swimming in the Huron as
soon as the ice had melted.
I'll also miss driving Britten
and Brian's canoe to the lakes near
Pinckney State Park (lakes to remain
unnamed for selfish possessiveness).
Onseveral occasions I wentnorthto
backpack with bright stars and soft
dunes near Lake Superior and Lake
Michigan, and once made it sailing
in the Detroit River.
Amid nature, there are the good
people. Ann Arbor has room for
interested newcomers to take part
in the community, and become reg-
ulars. I feel like I belonged there. I
was lucky enough to witness the
start of the East Quad Bike Coop,
where the University and Ann
Arbor community can participate in
bike education, recycling and main-
tenance (all free).
I was around for numerous Ann
Arbor Brewing Company seasonals,
and daily chance encounters with
friends on the street.I was around
long enough to hit two squirrels on
my bike (they lived) and take back
two stolen bikes.

But Ann Arbor is a quickly chang-
ing place, and while those squir-
rels may still be there, the people
increasingly are not.
Many of my college friends are
moving to Detroit, a city where
people of our (modest) means can
live our own American dream of
sorts: independent living in beauti-
ful houses with space enough for
large gardens and workbenches and
brewing biodiesel and beer. And
while the soil is often contaminated
with residual chemicals of Detroit's
heyday, I know Avalon Bakery, the
DetroitInstitute ofArt, and Detroit's
active community makes up for it. If
I had more time, I would explore
Detroit, revisit Heidelberg Street
and sneak more clay into the kilns at
the College of Creative Studies.
When I park in Los Angeles this
time around I doubt anyone will
question my most recent move. But
I'm asking myself, "Why the hell did
you leave Michigan for California?"
-Andrew Bogaard is a
2008 University graduate.

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