Blair and the Capitol, photo by Apocaplops.

On the statue of Austin Blair “War Governor of Michigan” at the Michigan Capitol in Lansing it says “He gave the best years of his life to Michigan and his fame is inseparably linked with the glorious achievements of her citizen soldiers.” (check it out in the super-biggie-sized view and Michigan Governor Austin Blair on Wikipedia)

It’s hard to ask that anyone give the best years of their life to anything as large as a state, but it might be good to take a few moments sometime during Michigan Week (May 19 – 25, 2007) to consider the massive challenges that people of our state have fought through in the past. From hundreds of thousands of lives given to preserve the Union to hundreds of thousands of hours labored to carve farms from forest, Michiganians have a history of standing tall and staring down and battling through adversity.

While saving our state from today’s troubles is beyond any one of us, there’s little doubt that each one of us has some measure of the solution with our grasp.