Haiku about Michigan

When I moved out of state to Maryland, I soon learned just how much of a Michigan person I was. When I asked about a pop machine  the first day at a new job, I was looked at like I was speaking another language. "You know, Coke, Pepsi?" It's called soda, I learned. My students kept asking me to say the word milk, because I said it funny. There was a fellow teacher who didn't know what I meant when I used the word "teeter totter," instead of "seesaw." I had several adults laugh when I mentioned Kalamazoo, one even insisted it wasn't a real place. I corrected the pronunciation of Mackinac Island, and was asked, "why do you have a "c" at the end of it then?"  Vernors didn't exist there. I missed it. Fellow teachers were impressed with the HOMES mnemonic which I knew since elementary school, and was surprised they didn't know it.  My neighbors were impressed by my "heavy duty" snow brush. They wondered where they could get one. At the time there were no store resembling a Meijer . I missed the convenience of one-stop shopping. I tried using a Canadian dime and was told they don't accept foreign money. I stupidly said, "But, it's Canadian," and was told, "Yeah, well, Canadian is foreign." 

I'm back in Michigan, have been for a while. I'm glad to be back and I have no plans on leaving again. Today is Michigan's birthday. It's 176 years old. So, today I wrote a haiku about Michigan, which I call home, no matter where I live.

My home, Great Lake State,

The Mitten, Wolverine State,

The Third Coast, My home