There could be many memories of hours spent with Wayne, all the way from early childhood when the Babcock family moved to Northern Michigan from Midland. But the one memorable weekend was when his brother Wilbur, Wayne and I were to sing at a church event in the Upper Peninsula. We decided to make a weekend of it starting by fishing at Wogashance Point. It meant sleeping outdoors overnight with no tent and before the days of sleeping bags. The Babcock boys did this as a routine but it was a new thing for me. They spread a sheet on the sand and used another for cover. They told me I could be in the center between the two of them. I tried to sleep but the mosquitoes were at their northern Michigan worst. But I think the reason that I got little sleep that night was due to Wilber and Wayne in a half-asleep state were swatting mosquitoes on either side of me and using some very un-Mennonite-approved words about the nasty pests.
The next day after singing at one of the churches, the brothers said they wanted to try to find a "Lost Lake" somewhere between Munising and Paradise. There was no paved road through the area, only a small line on the map. But we set out in Wilbur"s 1936 Ford. Soon the roads were basically unimproved logging road. After an hour or so of driving we did find an unimpressive, small lake; no signs to say that it was the "Lost Lake". But by then we were lost. Except that the "road", such as it was, did continue on in the general direction of Paradise.
It was getting mid-afternoon, and Wilbur needed to get home to go to work the next day. So he wanted to take the shortest route and according to the map, that was through Paradise. On we went. I was in the back seat and at times when we went through some major mud holes on the road that by now was only a logging road, my head hit the top of the car when we came out of the hole.
About the time we were near Paradise, as Wilbur turned on the headlight switch , he discovered they did not work. Something about the trip through the wilds, maybe the muddy water that splash up, had destroyed the wiring to the front lights. We stopped at a gasoline station to see if we could get help. A young attendant there did some direct wiring from the switch to the lights that seemed to work. Enough so that we headed on to cross on the Mackinaw straights ferry.
I don't remember all the details from then on, but I do have some vague recollection of Wayne leaning out the window with the flashlight to show the way ahead. Maybe that was before Paradise. But we did get home that night; Wilbur went to work the next day; but that week he traded in the old Ford on a brand new one.
There would be other stories , including trips to the UP, but I would not want to tell some them, in order not to embarrass Jo!
