climb on

From a day trip to Grand Ledge with participants in a climbing camp.

milk challenge

It does a body good ... until Brett and Kevin tell you it's impossible to drink a whole gallon in an hour. But Cindy, ever the go-getter, took us up on our offer. She actually got about 3/4 of it down before throwing in the towel. She was actually disappointed she didn't throw it all up for me. Thanks, Cindy, for being a good sport. I hope your tummy hasn't calcified.

Pete Bergman

“... Either I'm gettin’ lazy or somethin’ but it takes me longer to do a job than it used to, and it seems like the days is a heck of a lot longer now than they used to be, but now that the weather’s nice since it’s settled down, and I’ve gotten my garden, I’ve been comin’ out after supper. We have supper at 5 o’clock, and I eat and I set there a little while then I come down here and I either pull weeds or go back to the lake and clean up and fool around. As far as goin’ anywheres, I don’t go anywheres unless it’s to the doctor and I have to go there once in a while but — I still take them cancer shots every three months.
...
I don’t think I could live this long if I hadn’t worked. I think if I went settin’ around doing nothing I’d puht. But, I don’t know. Here a year ago, yeah it’d been at least a year ago, it was way up. It started goin’ up ’n up ’n up ’n up. And it got up real high. They wanted me to take chemo. Itn’t it chemo? And they didn’t try to force it on me but they said that would ... they’d been givin’ me pills, but the pills wasn’t doin’ no good so they wanted me to take chemo. And doc said that’s about the only thing that we got left that might help ya. But I’d heard so doggone many tales about this chemo thing that I told him I’d have to think about it.
...
But I’ve got it, but they can't tell me where it is. That’s what I can’t figure out. I keep tellin’ them, ‘Well, where is the cancer?’ They don’t know. They say, ‘It could be in your brain.’ It’s somewheres, but it ain’t ... blew up yet, I guess. ‘Could be in your stomach, it could be in your joints.’ And they check me, oh, I don’t know how often it is. They — probably two years ago I had my last one —gimme that bone scan. They’re scared it gets in your bone and I guess it just spreads all over you, but I don’t know. It’s a mystery to me. I don’t worry about it. I just go day to day. If I’m gonna die tomorrow, cancer or no cancer, I can’t stop it.
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Like the most? Bein’ outside. I hate settin’ around the house. I don’t know. It just — I’ve worked outside all my life except three years I worked for General Motors during the war. They sent a letter up to me — oh, my wife’s stepdad worked there and he’s kind of a head up, and he’d been after me to come down there and work. Then this’n here was somethin’ with the government that they needed me real bad. They needed people ... So I had a sale. I was farmin’ at the time. I had a sale. Sold all my cattle and stuff. And I went down there and worked three years in General Motors in Flint. Made the most money I ever made in my life, but I wouldn’t move my family to Flint.
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Where was I born? Over on 30 in Tobacco Township. I moved over here on Bergman Road, ahh, I was 5 years old when I moved over here and I’ve lived here ever since in Edenville Township. Seen a lotta changes.”
- Pete Bergman