Lake Michigan

Vanilla beaches of fine-grain sand. Seagulls swooping overhead. Sailboats on the horizon. Fluffy white clouds in an azure sky. Out to the east as far as you can see, unbroken horizons of blue, blue water. Door County. Call it the Midwest's revenge. For years, we Eastern snobs looked down our noses at the Great Lakes. What possible reason could there be to trade the mighty Atlantic for a vacation here? As far as we seaboarders knew, these were oversized puddles, rust-belt sewers that were boring at best and toxic at worst.

On Tuesday, Dr. William N. Kelley was vacationing at a Lake Michigan resort, soaking up sunshine and basking in the cool lake breezes. Yesterday, he arrived in Philadelphia and walked into the center of a lingering storm at the University of Pennsylvania's vast health-care complex. Ending months of speculation, Penn officials announced yesterday that they had hired Kelley, 50, an internist from the University of Michigan, as executive vice president of the troubled University of Pennsylvania Medical Center, effective Oct. 1. He will be responsible for the university's 701-bed hospital, medical school and physician-practice plan.

Seventeen miles out in a gray Lake Michigan dawn, fish are flying out of the hatch of the Susie Q. Mike LeClair and his crew stand at the sorting table, pulling smelt, chub, burbot and the occasional trout from the gill net. Keepers go into plastic bins; rejects disappear out the door into the charcoal-gray water. LeClair, his orange rubber coveralls glistening under the boat's electric light, pauses to feed one to a gull perched on the net hoist. He smiles - "My pal" - and nods as the bird grabs the fish from his hand.

So much has happened here that it is hard to decide where to begin my report from this quiet haven at the top of Lake Michigan. Skipping over the usual quota of births, deaths, marriages and scandals (which often occur here in combinations unique to small islands), ignoring the archeological discovery that may (or may not) soon shake the world like another Stonehenge, forgetting for the moment the dramatic technological breakthrough that has seen the hard benches on the Beaver Islander (the ferry that connects us to the mainland)

Last month, a 9-year-old girl named Emma Houlston landed a single engine Grumman in St. John's, Newfoundland, to become the youngest person ever to fly a plane across Canada. When Emma was asked at one of the stopovers what flying a small plane across Canada was like, she managed to sum up the experience in two words: "Boring, mostly. " I took that as an indication that she's a pretty sensible little girl. It gave me some hope, in fact, that she's sensible enough to exercise some restraint next fall during show-and-tell period when it gets to be her turn to give a little talk on the theme of "What I Did Last Summer.

When future historians decide who took the lead in preparing America for the 21st century, they may well focus on the nation's governors. The chief executives of the 50 states increasingly are where the action is, while President Reagan and Congress, deadlocked, play to the cameras. Proof of that was abundant in the National Governors' Association's annual summer conference held the past several days in Traverse City, Mich. It is a measure of the well-justified cynicism of the times that many would assume such a gathering must be simply a glorified junket.

After shedding its old skin for some new finery, the Gazela is making ready to embark on one of its most ambitious journeys as Philadelphia's tall ship. In mid-May, the Portuguese-built barkentine will set sail down the Delaware River to begin a three-month trip that will take it to the Great Lakes via the St. Lawrence Seaway. The destination is Traverse City, Mich., where the Gazela will participate in the state of Michigan's sesquicentennial celebration. But along the way, the 104-year-old fishing vessel will show off at cities along the Atlantic seaboard and at Canadian ports such as Quebec and Montreal.

Scientists who have been watching the ever-rising waters of the five Great Lakes are offering little hope that significant relief from flooding, erosion, evacuation and property damage is in sight. Both the laws of man that govern diversion of water, and the laws of nature that govern climate, are working against quick solutions, several scientists said this week during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science here. "Everybody for the last two and a half years or so has looked for the plug, which you can pull away and drain the lakes," hydrology expert Frank H. Quinn said Monday.

When residential developers built the tony towers that now line Chicago's Sheridan Road in the 1960s, Midwestern names just wouldn't do. Sheridan Road, after all, flowed from the 28-mile sweep of Chicago's magnificent Lake Shore Drive, and there was a need to convey the same prestige that was attached to addresses along Lake Shore Drive. Developers christened the buildings, which lined the shore like sentries, with breezy names: Malibu, El Lago, Thorndale Beach, Granville Beach and Park Edgewater.

Commemoratives honoring Michigan statehood and the Pan American Games and a special stamp promoting love will issued this week by the U.S. Postal Service. Each stamp has a denomination of 22 cents. The first commemorative of the 1987 stamp program will be issued tomorrow for the 150th anniversary of Michigan statehood. The design by Robert Wilbert, artist and professor at Wayne State University, depicts a white pine, the state tree, standing in dark silhouette at sunrise on Lake Huron.