“The brawny mix of extraordinary sights-

Weather, politics, races, imagination, corruption, and athletics.

They clash and mingle right here,

Where the broad prairies,

The world's most fertile collection of farm fields,

Meet the vast Great Lakes,

The world's largest collection of fresh water.”

Andrew H. Malcolm

I have loved these five wondrous Great Lakes

Since my very early childhood, and all of my life

I grew up a stone’s throw away from one of them

Just yesterday, I wandered its shores with my wife

I’ve fished and boated on all five of these lakes

I have explored their magnificent natural delights

I have visited many of their historic old lighthouses

I’ve drifted carefree in them, on many a summer's night

I’ve always marveled at their numerous wind swept islands

I’ve very happily found traces of ancient native settlements

I have driven glorious historic back roads surrounding them

For fifty plus years, they’ve brought me joy and contentment

I vividly recall the day I first rode my bike to their grand shores

With my old bamboo fishing pole, and nothing more than worms

How so thrilled I was when my grandmother fried up those perch

And how on yesterday’s visit, for those days, how I truly yearned

My beloved Great Lakes aren’t as great anymore, these days

Many biologists and conservationists now believe they are dying

Far too much agricultural and industrial runoff and pollution now

With all the garbage we saw here yesterday, I soon felt like crying

Nearly 200 foreign, invasive, aquatic species also now reside in them

Like lamprey, zebra mussel, and oxygen robbing algae, killing their fish

Many times a summer, their beaches now close because of deadly bacteria

These days, a fish caught from their waters, is sadly no one’s preferred dish

As we eventually settled down near an old cement levee to eat our lunch

We were appalled by the tons of discarded trash, and by the horrific smell

These five lakes are now even shrinking in size because of global warming

These five once glorious lakes, now all dying, in a modern, man-made, hell

As we sadly drove off from this once very pristine lakeshore

Now merging with a zillion other vehicles, now all crawling by

I looked around, and I truly wondered if anyone else even cared

And soon, a few more wet teardrops began sinking from my eyes

þ2007, Mr. Ed