From the time I was little, I loved to go to Door County. I was lucky – my Dad (I called him FRB, a nickname that stuck with the whole family) had grown up in Door County – and I had aunts and uncles, favorite aunts and uncles, who still lived in the quiet country places of the Door Peninsula. I think of Door County as “my place” – the place I belong, the place I’m tied to. In these later years, I’ve still made the trip from California, flying to O’Hare Field and driving North into Wisconsin and further North Still, to the strip of land that is held by Green Bay on the West and Lake Michigan on the East. I tell people now that I know the “quiet” places in Door County, which is true; a favorite tourist destination now, many of the once small, quiet towns are hubs of activity all summer long and on autumn weekends.
I promised myself on a lonely drive alone from my little apartment in Green Bay along the Bay side of the peninsula, turning off at the junction of Highway 57 that follows the shoreline of Lake Michigan through Baileys Harbor and north, to connect again with Highway 42 in Sister Bay – “Sisters Bay,” in my father’s telling. It was 1974. I promised myself then, as I drove north toward the Peninsula, that I’d always return to Door County. I have. I’ve lived clear across the country in Northern California since the 1980’s, but I still return, as often as I can.
This week, Jeff and I were to be “lighthouse keepers” at the historic lighthouse – still in operation – along Highway 57, and now part of The Ridges Sanctuary, a ring of paths through the woods along the ancient, ancient shorelines of the Lake, shorelines where Lake Michigan has lapped ashore for all time. We had studied the written history of the lighthouse, in order to be prepared for whatever tourists might still come to the Peninsula in late October. We’d been ready to tell them about the history of the lighthouse, how it has been in use through many years, sometimes as a parsonage for the Lutheran Pastor at the Lutheran Church a few miles to the North.
I’d worshipped in that church more than once with my beloved Auntie Irene and her “Peggy,” Uncle Erdreich. They were old world people, from another time, Uncle Erdreich having grown up in a farmhouse less than a mile from the frame house surrounded by woods that he had built up over the years, putting his expertise as a carpenter to work in his own house. Auntie Irene, too, was from another time, an extraverted Bahlert, like my Dad, in a family that has its share of introverts. I’m one of them.
And so Jeff and I had prepared for the week in the lighthouse. I planned as I do for any trip: I thought daily about what I’d wear, what I’d need for the changing season we were sure to experience, making sure my long underwear was clean and ready to be packed. We prepared as we do for every trip, making plans for getting to the San Francisco airport for our flight to O’Hare Field, talking about our plans to stay overnight with long time friend, Joanne, and for our plans to spend a few nights in Shorewood with Randy and Michael before our return to California, to our home.
As the poet has written: “The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley.” (Robert Burns, “To a Mouse, 1785).
And so I’ve had a week – a week completely clear on my careful calendar – fall to me. I’ll be able to make it to my regular exercise class, and I can enjoy my neighborhood walks in these last days of a beautiful autumn in Northern California. Today was a car day: I had the oil changed and I had a car wash for my snazzy Ford Focus.
But I’ll miss my favorite place, the place I’m attached to, the place where I stand at the graves of the ancestors and talk to them. I’ll miss a week of autumn in the Midwest; the Midwest really knows how to do autumn. I’ll miss seeing so many people I love face to face instead of only hearing their voices over the phone.
And I’ll take in autumn here in the Bay Area, its’ own kind of beauty, the changing light, the slow changing colors of the trees in this place.
Autumn sunset, Oakland, photo by Mary Elyn Bahlert, 10/19/2026
