Here I was, all alone in the wilderness with a pen and paper as my sole witnesses — which was both terrifying and thrilling
“Where did you get that tick?” the young doctor manning this small-town emergency room asked.
It was late Thursday night — 12:30 a.m., so actually early Friday morning — and I’d driven a while before finally finding an emergency room in the sleepy town of Clare, Michigan (population 3,127).
It had been a long day. I’d left the beach abutting Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula at 3 p.m., intending to make the 12-hour drive home with minimal stops. This four-hour pit stop in the ER was not in the plans — is it ever? — but the bug feeding on my body was growing by the second, and I knew I couldn’t wait any longer to have it removed.
I live in a small, friendly, out-of-town Jewish community. We’d moved there in 2019 after learning about its existence in a publication like this. Though my wife and I are both from bigger frum cities, in our hearts, we’re out-of-towners. We wanted our kids to grow up in that environment, where every Yid is cherished and the mailman would know our kids’ names.
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