Petoskey Stones Along the Path

One thing I like about stones in my path is when I cross them they become my milestones.
~Unknown author

For those of us who grew up in Northern Lower Michigan, we cannot hear the word "stone" without at least a fleeting thought about the Petoskey stone. The polka-dotted rocks don't look like much when they lay dried out on the white-sand beaches along the bays, but the innocuous stones are big business, polished and often carved into ridiculous keepsakes. Some happy memories throughout my life involve Petoskey stones.

When my family first moved to Petoskey and spent the summer living in a city campground while we waited for the closing on our new house, the novelty of the stones was fresh. Like one of the "fudgies" (a local term we quickly came to recognize and scorn appropriately), my brother and I spent many mornings scouring the beach for fossil-stones that might have washed freshly ashore during the night. We collected them by the bucketfuls that summer, and the next few summers as well, and guests who visited were graciously allowed to take home a few from our collections. Suntanned and wet to the ankles, we were always proud of our daily finds. We saw the differences in each stone - this one cracked, that one darker than the rest - and kept every single one.

Unpolished Petoskey stone

Petoskey stones next marked my path in middle school. In seventh grade one of the (unpopular) guidance counselors was assigned to teach my social studies class on Michigan history (assuming I recall those details correctly).  Now, as a teacher, I feel badly for her, probably thrown into a situation she was less than thrilled about. Back then, however, I just remember thinking it was a fantastically easy class. Ms. G had us spend a significant number of days watching a series of movies about Michigan history while we polished Petoskey stones by hand. I'm not sure why we did, but it was sure fun. Choosing our stone from a pile, running it under water to see its potential, then starting with rough sand paper, then finer and finer until it started to gleam, then finishing with a buffing cloth. Hours of labor with a beautiful end product. I really loved middle school, but I have some very distinct memories like that - cleaning out a teacher's closet in exchange for a Slurpee, sewing a button on a shirt for my sixth grade homeroom teacher, polishing rocks for history class. Just can't imagine many of those things flying in the middle school where I teach now. Although I'm still convinced that I got a wonderful education, so I'm not sure what that says about school today...

Polished Petoskey stone

 Eight years ago, when I started teaching and realized that being a "Petosegan" was now just a part of my history, I went shopping with my mom for a Petoskey stone to mark the new milestone in my life: a paperweight to decorate my first teacher desk. It turned into a fun excursion to the quintessential Petoskey stone places - Shorter's General Store downtown, Hall's Petoskey Stone Shop north of town on 31. And I realized that I was a tourist again. My time here as a resident, sadly, was over and though I could visit, it was no longer home. I found a lovely polished stone - actually two - that sit in my office now. Daily spotted reminders of my lovely past in a lovely place with lovely people.

One thing I like about Petoskey stones in my life is that they become my milestones.