These last few weeks, I've been seeing our region through the eyes of a tourist.
A souvenir-hunting tourist.
My son leaves in July for a year in Sweden through the Rotary Youth Exchange program. We're gathering gifts for the various people he'll live with and meet throughout the year.
We don't know any of them.
We're trying to find presents that represent northwest Lower Michigan, or Traverse City, or Michigan, or just unique things they might not have in Sweden. We've gathered Michigan-shaped oven mitts, Petoskey stone refrigerator magnets and "M is for Mitten" books.
And cherry everything.
Because I'd never thought about it -- much less shopped for it -- it hadn't dawned on me that you could buy socks with cherries on them, barrettes with cherries on them, shot glasses with cherries on them or tea cups with cherries on them.
Right now, I'm thankful that cherries are pretty and that our region isn't home to, oh, the National Alewife Festival or the World's Largest Hairball.
My son, who usually is an enthusiastic shopper, wearied of the task one day when we were venturing "'round the horn" on M-22. About the 15th time we found $50 polished stones, my son sighed. "Can't we just find our own?" he asked. We spent the next blissful hour on the beach at Peterson Park near Northport and, yes, found lovely stones.
But the gifts we're most excited about have a winged wheel on them.
People in Sweden, bless their Scandinavian hearts and talent, are also fans of the Red Wings and their Swedish contingent, apparently the largest of any NHL team. We've heard (through the American press, at least) that some Swedes get up extra early to watch Red Wings games.
The people of Sweden have known Niklas Lidstrom, the Wings captain, Henrik Zetterberg and even Andreas Lilja -- who is from the city my son will be living in, but hasn't played since February -- a lot longer than the people of Michigan have. They've watched these skaters since they were rough-and-tumble mighty mites, or whatever names they use for peewee hockey in Sweden.
I'm not that big of a hockey fan -- except in June -- but this year I rooted extra hard for the Wings, hoping for a run on T-shirts and jerseys with a 2009 Stanley Cup on them.
It wasn't meant to be.
But there are still two lucky Swedish brothers who will soon be sporting actual, expensive NHL jerseys. We got one Lidstrom and one Zetterberg.
I don't know which brother will get which jersey. Maybe they'll fight over them. If they're true hockey fans, they'll know how. But if they're true Swedes, a country that didn't even take sides in World War II, they won't. They'll just share.
Jodee Taylor can be reached at jtaylor@record-eagle.com.
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