Professor Emeritus Porter Abbott always told his colleagues that he intended to move to northern Michigan when he retired. This would raise some eyebrows, as he was already working as a teacher in the fair climate of Santa Barbara, California, which is often seen as an ideal place for someone to settle down in their retirement years.
“People would ask me: ‘Here you are, living in paradise in Santa Barbara — why retire to Michigan? It’s cold up there,’” Abbott said. “Well, living in Santa Barbara was very nice, but it was like living in somebody else’s idea of paradise. Because I had the true idea of paradise – it was right here, up in Leelanau County.”
And that’s exactly what he did once he was ready to hang up his jacket — presumably a well-worn tweed professor’s jacket with elbow patches — and leave the English department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, at 80 years old. Abbott and his wife Anita now live at their vacation home on the little peninsula, which overlooks Lake Michigan.
