October 12 is Columbus Day. Whenever it rolls around, I think of Nellie Hamel, whose birthday was on that day.

Congratulations to Bruce Patrick, who has been named the Citizen of the Year! It is so nice to see that one of our elder citizens has claimed that recognition, many of whom have dedicated their entire lives to this area in one way or another. Bruce is certainly a very deserving one of those people and many are happy with that choice.

Barbara Taylor won the Lions Club $100 lottery October 3.

There are two mountain ash trees in our yard that are loaded with berries. It has been an interesting sight to see hundreds of robins flocking to these trees and eating the berries. I never realized that robins ate berries; I always thought they were worm eaters. Isn't it exciting to learn something new? It seems to happen every day.

Groundbreaking for the new Great Lakes School of Wooden Boat Building on Meridian Road will take place in a few weeks and it will be an interesting project to watch throughout the winter months. Incoming students and instructors and their families will help boost the economy of the area. To make tax-deductible contributions, call Michelle Fiering at (906) 484-5310.

Bruce Patrick's story this week is about the tugboats of Bob Hamel so many years ago:

"Pearless was the first one. Where it came from, I do not know, but it had a big two-cycle, three - cylinder huge gasoline motor, which he used to tow booms of timber and freight. This tug caught fire and burned beyond repair on the north side of Mackinac Island.

"The next tug was the Alie Bee, which was about the same size as Pearless. It also had a huge threecylinder gasoline engine. This tug, Bob had re-motored with a big Fairbanks diesel motor for more power to tow huge booms of timber. He used to tow lumber logs from the Upper Peninsula to Cheboygan. You see, so much log timber was cut in the. U. P. that the local sawmills could not keep up, so much of these logs were towed to Cheboygan. There were 27 sawmills on the river at Cheboygan, and there was also one on Big St. Martins Island.

"After awhile, Bob bought a huge tug hull that Joe Kramen built at Hessel. I think this one was about 38 feet. Bob bought it without a motor, and towed it to somewhere in Wisconsin to have a motor put in. I don't know what happened to this tug.

"The Pearless was built by Joe Kramen of Hessel in about 1918.

Joe had a boat building shop and marine rail-track to haul big boats out of the water for storage and repair. His son, Henry, worked with him.

"Joe had a special stationary engine. It had a box on the side of the cylinder with a cast iron door. This box had an opening to the cylinder head. Joe would rotate the cylinder to dead center...squirt gasoline into the cylinder, and as he closed the door it would ignite a kitchen match, thus igniting the gasoline in the cylinder, and away the motor went. He enjoyed doing this and many times he performed this just to show a visitor how it worked. It was called a match-lit starting motor. He used this motor to run his wood-working machines."

Back to the present, it seems that the weatherman is predicting rain, frost and possibly some snow this coming week. Are we ready for it? At least the price of oil is going down so home heating isn't quite as scary as it was a few weeks ago.