September 18 – 22, 2025
After a long work day, I was catching up in my Hanson friend group chat and as I was scrolling, I caught the words “New Buffalo.” I paused out of confusion – I grew up in St. Joseph, a small lake town in southwest Michigan, and about 30 minutes away is another small town called New Buffalo. There’s no way any of my Hanson friends would have ever heard of it, so surely I was reading something wrong. Maybe my brain inserted the word “new” and they were talking about Buffalo, NY for some reason. So I kept scrolling only to find out no, I was wrong, they were talking about small town Michigan because for some reason Hanson was booked to play at the local casino.
I thought my previous four shows from this summer were going to be it for me this year, but those plans quickly changed with this announcement. I knew one of my friends had been wanting to see lower Michigan for awhile (having only ever been to Escanaba), and naturally I loved the excuse to fly home for a weekend and spend time with family.
We got into Michigan late Thursday night, and after working on Friday I sent her on Holly’s Nostalgia Tour. I drove her by the little patch of grass at the end of a cul-de-sac we donned “Gilligan’s Island” as kids, my childhood best friend’s home where I learned to play the piano, and the house I have no recollection of as I only lived there for the first 18 months of my life. We drove through the quaint, might-as-well-be-a-Hallmark-Christmas-movie downtown, got my favorite pizza from an old train depot, and dipped our toes into Lake Michigan.
I rarely make it back home this time of year, so we swung by my old high school just in time to catch the end of the football game’s half time. I was a big band nerd back in the day, and now one of my former classmates is the new band director. I pulled the car over, walked right up to the end zone, and caught the last few minutes of their performance. This was the first time I had been to the field or seen the band since I was in it almost 25 years ago and the tears in my eyes caught me by surprise when they finished with our fight song. (As a side note, did you know high school football players these days are actual babies? So tiny.)
Saturday afternoon, we met up with our other friends who were coming in from the Oklahoma show the night before and grabbed dinner before the show at The Stray Dog in New Buffalo. The show itself was, naturally, so much fun, although at one point I was so blinded by a stage light, I couldn’t see Isaac 5 feet in front of me, even with my sunglasses on. While it’s normally not my favorite, I was pleasantly surprised when they played “River”, I’m always happy to hear “Song To Sing” (with the extra verse!), and “Get Up And Go” was another unexpected song for a one-off show.
The next day, we had originally booked reservations to go on a dune buggy ride up in Saugatuk, but cancelled on Friday when we saw thunderstorms in the forecast. Day of, the forecast changed to show it clearing up by afternoon, so we took our chances hoping to hop on a ride without the reservations. We did not luck out this time, though. I had done it before with my family and highly recommend it if you ever get the chance.
My friend asked if we could drive up to Holland, only a few more miles up the road, so she could take pictures of the windmills. After doing that, I mentioned my dad and grandma were only another 30 miles up the road, so we stopped in and surprised them both. I rang the doorbell at my sweet 90-year old grandma’s house, and instead of acting surprised, she opened the door and just asked “well why didn’t you just come in?” She showed my friends and me all her collections and kept trying to pawn everything off on us. After a quick stop at my dad’s house, we headed back to St. Joseph for dinner at one of my favorite local spots, Clementine’s.
I can recommend all the places we visited, share all of my favorite Hanson songs, and post a hundred sunset photos. But there are some things social media can’t quite capture – the tranquility in how such a large body of water can be so calm, the way the wind shifts as the sun sinks below the horizon, the unique, sweet autumn scent of grapes ripening on the vines, the weight of not knowing when you’ll next get to participate in your favorite routine pastimes. But rest assured, there are more adventures to be had. “God only knows all the places I’ll see.”
Scream And Be Frees 