Well, Christmas has arrived, whether we were ready or not. But what if you still need a last-minute present for that brother-in-law you aren't going to see for a couple of days?
Or what if you now want to buy yourself a present, having done your part to help both the American and Chinese economies by buying loads of Zhu-Zhu hamsters?
Well, look no more. The must-have book of the year has arrived, and it is a sensation. I'm talking about the first-ever Michigan's Upper Peninsula Almanac, by veteran writers Ron Jolly and Karl Bohnak, just published by the University of Michigan Press.
If you are not a longtime Michigander, you should know that the Upper Peninsula, normally called the U.P. (you-pee) is seen as a faintly exotic and somewhere quaint land full of ghost towns, abandoned mines and elk.
What it doesn't have much of is humans. Twice the size of New Jersey, the entire Upper Peninsula has only about 308,000 people, 3 percent of Michigan's population. That's just about as many people as Toledo has, but that's where the similarity ends.
Two-thirds of "Yoopers" are completely rural, or live in towns of 2,000 people or fewer. The people they call "trolls" (those who live "under" the Mackinac Bridge) think of them as folks who mostly wear red flannel and hunting caps. (When I asked a Yooper friend what they thought of us, he said they tried not to.)
When I realized that there really was an Upper Peninsula almanac, I expected it might be a parody, like the movie "Escanaba in Da Moonlight," or those bumper stickers that say, mocking the state's official slogan in Yooper dialect, "Say ya to da U.P., eh?"
But when my almanac arrived, I couldn't put it down. True, you wouldn't want to drop it on your foot; it weighs a couple of pounds. But it is also riveting; 580 pages full of, yes, crazy and bizarre stuff, but also fascinating history, reference material, and more information about the U.P. than you thought existed, attractively packaged.
Yoopers are famous for a crescent-shaped meat pie called a pasty, which they used to eat down in the copper and iron mines. And indeed, there is a picture here of the world's biggest-ever pasty, which contained 400 pounds of potatoes, 250 pounds of meat and enough dough to take everybody in the state up a size.
You can also learn about the world's largest concrete Frosty the Snowman, which is in Alger County, and find out everything you never wanted to know about the "world's biggest annual outhouse race," also in Alger, which may be recreation-challenged.
However, there's also lots of important stuff about the U.P.'s geography, the history, wildlife and distinct culture.
In fact, the Yoopers have had an impact on Michigan far out of proportion to their numbers. I talked to one of the authors of this book about this, Ron Jolly, a well-known radio newsman from the northern Lower Peninsula. To write this book, he teamed up with perhaps the U.P.'s best known weatherman, Karl Bohnak. "Karl did the weather, obviously," Jolly said. Weather, indeed, is big in the U.P. According to the almanac, in some parts of Marquette County, the interval between the last spring frost and the first fall freeze can be as little as ... four days.
That makes for a short growing season. For both men, the almanac was a three-year labor of love. Jolly said he especially loved the incredible ethnic diversity of the U.P.: Germans and Swedes and Finns; Native Americans and the descendants of the Cornish and Welsh miners who came to hew iron and copper out of the earth.
All told, it's enough to make you wish you had a Stormy Kromer (a Yooper winter hat) to pull over your ears so you could trudge off to the bookstore to pick up an Upper Peninsula almanac.
You never know. Mom might have a hot pasty awaiting when you get home. Hopefully, a normal-sized one.
Michigan Manual saved
Speaking of valuable books ... last week I wrote about the state Legislature's decision to not print the 2009-10 Michigan Manual, the famous burgundy-bound state almanac published since 1835, before Michigan became a state.
Happily, after I and some others sounded an outraged alarm, wiser heads, led by State Rep. Pam Byrnes, D-Chelsea, changed their minds.
"As the state's official manual, the Michigan Manual is vital to keeping a permanent record and is an irreplaceable resource for information about our state," said Byrnes, a member of the Michigan Legislative Council. "The Michigan Manual is an important tradition and key to preserving the legacy of our great state."
The solution won't be perfect. Next year's manual is expected to appear in the spring (an online version will be available earlier) and be only a little more than half as long as previous ones. But that's far better than no manual at all, legislative and history buffs agreed.
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