The Dolphins of Detroit

While downtown running some errands I happened to meet Mark and as usual he started talking about the trip to Detroit we were planning or at least that he was planning. He'd been talking about it for years and now that he'd officially retired from all his part-time work and had some time on his hands he was devoting some real energy to the planning and as we walked through the arcade in our masks I realized the time had come to put a stop to this. Mark was a lifelong bachelor with no children unlike me who still had a number of kids in the public school system and whose weekends were not islands in the sun like Mark's. He said what we can do is spend a day or two on Lake Huron to shake off the jet lag and then head to the city to check out this and here had printed some stuff out and he pulled the crumpled papers from his backpack which was sad to see and I said look, Mark, with travel restrictions as they are there's little chance we'll be able to make it to Detroit next spring or probably even all of next year and even if we did make it back we might not be allowed to re-enter this country which would be a problem for us both. I didn't mention that I'd never even discussed the idea with my wife knowing it would never happen. He stared up at the ceiling and said yes to tell you the truth I'm starting to come to the same conclusion. This caught me off guard. I know how much Mark who hailed from the San Diego area wanted to get to Detroit. For all its natural beauty, I added, I don't think we want to get stuck in Detroit. I know, said Mark, it's just, it's just that I always wanted to see the dolphins. There are dolphins elsewhere, I said. But none like the dolphins in Detroit, he said. That is true, I said. I'm not getting any younger, he said, and soon afterwards he ambled off though I was starting to think we might stop somewhere for a cup of coffee but without Detroit and its dolphins I suppose we didn't have much to talk about. Detroit means in the straights and was derived from French, not a native American language like the state names Michigan or Ohio, where I'm from. I have Mark to thank for this knowledge. Without him I'd have nowhere to go but Cleveland.