While locals know a bit about the Grand Marais community in Iberia Parish, I got some information about Grand Marais, Mich., from a Sweet Talk reader who dropped off a copy of the Great Lakes Pilot, a tabloid publication serving the Upper Peninsula area.

Grand Marais, Mich., is situated on the shore of Lake Superior and serves as the eastern entrance to the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore. According to some information from www.exploringthenorth.com, the community was established in the 1860s by people involved in the fishing and lumber industries and for a while was a boomtown.

But in 1910, the lumber business declined and the community almost became a ghost town.

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It survived due to commercial fishing and is a Harbor of Refuge, served by the Coast Guard since 1899.

I read that in the area you can visit Bayshore Park, the Grand Marais Historical Museum, the Agate Museum and the Pickle Barrel Museum, among other tourist attractions.

It’d be hard to visit and not stop by the Pickle Barrel Museum to see what that’s all about — a collection showing how pickle barrels evolved over the years?

I frequently share stories about offbeat or unusual incidents, including oddball crimes. A Sweet Talk reader dropped by a report from WPTZ.com that certainly seemed to fit that offbeat description.

It seems a Vermont man was jailed after police say he stabbed his son in the stomach, with a corkscrew, after an argument about a clogged toilet.

It’s probably not surprising, but police say the man had been drinking. There’s no word on how the clogged toilet caused an argument that was so serious the man would stab his son.

And we’re left to assume he was drinking wine, thus had the corkscrew handy to use as his weapon.

Doubt this guy will get many votes for Father of the Year.

From something sent to me by the folks at Process Printers:

• Women have a passion to do mathematics. They divide their age in half, double the price of their clothes and always add at least five years to the age of their best friend.

• The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four Americans is suffering from some form of mental illness. Think of your three best friends. If they’re OK, then it looks bad for you.

Tomorrow is Halloween so be careful if you’re driving during trick-or-treat times to keep an extra watchful eye out for kids. They’ll be excited about their costumes and the treats and getting to the next house, so may not be watching for you.

Trick or treating needs to be about fun and for sure it’ll be no fun if there’s an accident and a child gets hurt because he or she darted out in front of a moving car.

Let’s have a good time, but let’s be sure the ghosts, goblins, pirates, princesses and more have nothing more serious with which to contend than perhaps eating too much candy.

WILL CHAPMAN is publisher of The Daily Iberian.