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August 15, 2002

Liz Shimek: From small town to Big Ten

By Chase Edwards
Sun staff writer

This summer Liz Shimek is living in a dorm at Michigan State University, taking summer school classes and preparing herself for her first season of Big Ten basketball. She misses her mother’s home cooking, her high school friends and scrimmaging on the cement slab, down near the silo on her family’s farm with her dad and her big brother, TJ.

But she wouldn’t change one second of her summer -- or everything that led up to it. Ever since Shimek stepped onto the basketball court at Glen Lake Schools as a freshman in the fall of 1997, she’s been basking in her own glory. Playing varsity basketball as a freshman must have been a little intimidating, but Liz always had the support of her friends and classmates. “My first game, freshmen year, I was the first person off the bench, and when I went in all my friends stood up for me and started clapping,” says Liz. “That will always be in the back of my mind. That meant a lot to me, that they were there to support me.”

Shimek has achieved a lot since those early days of varsity basketball. By last summer, college coaches around the country were courting her. When she signed on with Michigan State University and the program run by head coach Joanne McCallie, it was with a full-ride scholarship. No coincidence, Shimek was also named Miss Michigan Basketball this year. And things only got better. Shimek was written up in Sport’s Illustrated Faces in the Crowd section. When she saw her picture in the national sports magazine, Shimek was as surprised as anyone. “I didn’t really know about it. I think my parents were trying to keep it a surprise,” said Liz. “They did say something about it, but I just thought maybe they’d just mention my name.” Instead, Liz opened the magazine to see her picture, along with other outstanding athletes.

Shimek credits her family – her parents, Tom and Linda, her big sister Amy, and TJ -- with more than keeping a whopping secret. “My family has been a big influence on me. They have taught me to give my all in everything that I do, and to always do my best and never settle for anything less,” said Liz. “They’ve taught me to give 110 percent, and they have given me so much support over the years.” That family ethic breeds a healthy rivalry that has only made Liz better -- and brought her closer to her big brother. TJ still beats her in one-on-one basketball though. “He’s a lot bigger than me,” she explained, “It’s usually a close game now, but he always ends up winning.”

Shimek took the values her family instilled in her and ran with it in every area of her life. She has won many awards in both track and volleyball. She led this year’s Glen Lake girl’s track team to a State Championship title. And Liz was also co-valedictorian of her graduating class.

But people who know Shimek realizes it’s not about accolades for her. She’s humble. Her closest friends still recall the elementary school chapter of her life when she was shy and wore green pants to school every day. (“I just liked them,” she says with a smile when people tease her about it.) And they also see the pats on the back, encouragement, and congratulations she never fails to give her teammates -- be it in the gym, on the track or in the classroom.

Perhaps Liz’s work ethic was learned on the farm. I have run track with Liz, and she leads the girl’s track team in warm-ups and exercises in every practice –never failing to do every exercise, despite the moans of her teammates. I remember her goal by the end of the spring was to do a minimum of 25 perfect-form push-ups in a row, touching her chin to the floor each time. She knew this would be required of her while training at Michigan State, and after most of the girls had left I’d see Liz on the floor in the hall doing her “perfect” push-ups with a grin and usually a laugh as I walked by. But even with Liz’s hard work and preparation, one can only imagine the actual intensity of playing college basketball and the huge difference from playing a high school sport. When Liz goes to the weight room with her coach now, she lifts until she can’t do anymore -- and then is often expected to do push-ups. “I’ve never been pushed so hard in my life,” she said with a chuckle. “A lot of it is mental,” Liz added, “It’s all about not psyching yourself out.”

Liz took a break from training and summer school at MSU to have her graduation open house. Relatives and friends from the community flocked to the party to give her their final words of congratulations. “It was wonderful to see all the support at my open house,” Shimek said, “It was really touching to hear how many people actually read the newspaper and came to the games.”

Well Liz, it’s been fun for all of us in this tight-knit community to follow your success. Your constant enthusiasm and encouragement to everyone else will be missed. And you’ve been our best source of entertainment at Glen Lake for four years. Mind if we come and watch you play?

Posted by editor at 11:09 PM | Comments (0)

ARTHUR AND HELEN HUEY SHAPED GLEN ARBOR IN “MAJOR” WAY

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

Rooms at The Homestead used to cost $5 per night. No, really!

And lakefront property cost only $8 per square foot before the BIG BANG hit Glen Arbor. Sounds like a daydream? It is – in a cozy condominium in Suttons Bay where Arthur and Helen Huey spend their days, looking out over sailboats on East Grand Traverse Bay and reflecting back to a time in Glen Arbor when they played such a pivotal role in the little town’s progression.

Art “Major” Huey is rightfully credited with having saved The Leelanau School – on the land that germinated into the sprawling Homestead resort and Camps Leelanau and Kohana up the road – in 1942 after the establishment’s founding father, William “Skipper” Beals, passed away. The nation was at war with Japan and Germany, draining Leelanau of its able young male teachers, and the Skipper had instructed his wife, Cora Mautz Beals, not to continue the risky venture after he died.

She didn’t listen, thanks to the Hueys’ interference, and anyone in the past 60 years who has learned a sonnet at the school, relaxed at the resort or gone horseback riding at the camp is indebted to her for that insubordination.

“If we hadn’t purchased the school it would have closed, and we would have left the area ourselves,” says Major, who, at 89 years of age, still rises in his seat and surrenders a broad smile when he thinks of those days. “We felt the land had potential as a resort and we also wanted to keep the school going.

“Skipper would be pleased if he were here today.”

Leelanau School evolved from a summer camp that Skipper Beals established in 1924 at the urging of the boys at The Principia, a private boarding school in St. Louis. A severe smallpox epidemic in 1921 sent the boys into the Ozark Mountains for recuperation. The boys got better, and had so much fun in the process that Skipper was coerced into tutoring them up north, the beginnings of Camp Leelanau. Teachers at Principia followed the Beals into the wilderness, and in 1929 one boy after another asked to stay for the winter. The staff worked to winterize lodgings, and welcomed the arrival of 15 boys onto their new homestead in 1929, bringing a total tuition of $110,000 with them. The Leelanau School was born.

Major Huey served as Head Counselor at the summer camp and later the school. He married Helen, Cora Mautz Beals’ sister, in 1935 – a move that would come to mean so much for the school. When Skipper passed away in 1942, Major was still only a 29 year-old chap fresh out of Amhurst College on the East Coast. Yet he convinced Cora that he would handle the situation if she promised to stay aboard and help right the ship. Major went to the Traverse City State Bank and borrowed $85,000 to buy the school, on property that stretched for nearly two miles on Sleeping Bear Bay – 1,000 acres, estimates Fiffy Petty, current alumni director at The Leelanau School: hardly an afterthought then, but numbers worthy of an empire now.

Helen admits to not knowing how many acres they actually controlled. Such a measurement was irrelevant. There was no resort for the wealthy, or condominiums knocking down one’s door. ‘Development’ and ‘real estate’ were unfamiliar terms to Northern Michigan. After all, nearby Glen Arbor was still recovering from an ice age, and only lumberjacks and fishermen were tough enough to brave such a wilderness.

Then the inevitable slowly happened. Parents picking up their boys, and girls beginning in 1940, from the rugged school then located at the mouth of the Crystal River, didn’t want to leave and drive south quite yet. So Art and Helen fixed up a few rooms in rustic cabins for the parents, and charged them $5 a night.

“We didn’t realize then that we were laying the groundwork for a resort,” says Helen. “More and more people came, and the Homestead just evolved.”

Today, of course, The Homestead is an enormous property of 700 condominiums, a downhill ski hill, a golf course, three outdoor pool complexes and home to some of the most luxurious estates in the Midwest. The resort is considered la destinacion for plenty of upper middleclass folks who have built Glen Arbor’s economy from the ground up. The Homestead has also weathered 20 years of controversy, with buzz words like Crystal River, golf course and land swap ringing all over town. But this giant is definitely the reason behind Glen Arbor’s economic boom of the last two decades.

“If it wasn’t for The Homestead, I wouldn’t be in business,” Linda Ihme, owner of Leelanau Vacation Properties, stated in a Glen Arbor Sun article two years ago. “The Homestead has made this area more upscale.”

Of course, Art and Helen Huey couldn’t foresee what would become of the land they worked and harvested, so to speak, saving a school and leading Leelanau into its “glory days” of the 1950s when enrollment reached nearly 200 students. Post-war rises in salaries and building costs all but forced them to split their life project into three entities. In the late 1960s The Leelanau School became a non-profit venture and moved to its current location just south of the Crystal River’s mouth. The camp was still operated as a limited partnership, and The Homestead was effectively born.

Wishing to retire, Major and Helen sold the resort in 1972 to their son Richard and Jim Stephens, who turned around and sold to Robert A. Kuras, Inc., The Homestead’s current owners. Costly roads and utility systems were built, upgrading The Inn and converting Tall Timber, formerly an apartment complex, into a condominium. The resort weathered that decade’s poor economy, as rooms could be had for as low as $14 a night, according to Kuras, and shot up especially in the 1980s.

“We really didn’t promote The Homestead as a resort, it just happened,” says Major Huey. “In fact, people weren’t even resort-conscious in those days. They didn’t stay indoors, spending all their time on the beach instead.”

Helen admits to missing the wild land on Sleeping Bear Bay and many old historic buildings on Homestead property that have since been condemned and removed. During those days, she says, there was little to do in Glen Arbor. They played “kick the can” on Friday nights and just floated down the river on makeshift rafts any other day of the week.

But the graceful older couple holds no regrets and would not do much differently if they had their lives to do over again.

“You can’t be bitter. You’ve got to remember the good things,” she said. “Progress can’t be stopped. People say, ‘Don’t make this area so big, we want to retire here.’ Well, don’t come if you think it should retain is original form.”

Posted by editor at 10:11 PM | Comments (0)

Riding the Black Horse Carriage LLC with Tom Cyr

By Norm Wheeler
Sun editor

Max and Maria, the two kids, climb up onto the seat next to teamster Tom Cyr, who gives the reins a touch before letting the kids hold them. We jolt into motion as the eager geldings Buster and Stash clip clop down M-22, cut over to Lake Street past the pock-pock of tennis balls, and head for Big Glen Lake through dappled shade on a hot summer evening. Mary Lerchen of Empire and I chat with Tom about the busy summer, how everything seems to go too fast, as we gradually relax to the easy staccato rhythm of the hooves. The huge, black, beautifully harnessed Percherons seem to be taking us on a trip back into simpler, slower times.

Tom Cyr sold the Village Sampler mini-mall in Glen Arbor four years ago to devote himself full-time to his hobby: draft horses. During the winter this means low impact logging. “The horses only leave a 12 inch-wide skid trail in the woods,” Tom explains. “They don’t damage the other trees the way big skidders do.” Tom’s pride in this team of 17 year olds, Buster and Stash, is obvious. “We did a four horse job last winter by Platte Lake, and they really got into it,” Tom laughs. “They outworked another guys’ three horses and two of my mares!”

For the summer evening carriage rides Tom alternates this pair of geldings with the team of mares, Stella and Rosie. They come by trailer from the ranch on Plowman Road to Glen Arbor to the former bus garage behind Old School where the carriage is kept. When they are beautifully harnessed (the gear comes from a shop near Mesick) and hitched to the cool carriage (made north of Montreal, Canada), Tom sets up next to the deck at Boondocks (Tuesday through Saturday). The musicians playing on the deck give away a few tickets, which otherwise cost $6 for a ride. The big, gentle horses are magnets for kids, who flock to pet them and pepper Tom with questions. “We ride two different routes, both of them two miles long,” he says. “Either down Lake Street to Big Glen Lake and back, or down Forest Haven, past the Christian Science Church, up to Art’s, and over to Lake Michigan by the boat launch.” The carriage rides are a popular and fun opportunity. “Last Friday the team went 18 miles on a hot night, and they were just as fast on the last trip as on the first!”

Where Lake St. dead ends at Big Glen, Tom murmurs “Step, haw, step, haw,” as the team expertly backs the carriage around to the right so we can prance back to town. “They have acute hearing,” Tom explains, “so you need only speak low. When you get excited they pick up on it and then they get wired. If you can keep your voice low, half the battle’s won. When you get stuck in the woods between a tree and a log, you need a responsive team.” At the stop sign in front of Art’s Tavern, Buster and Stash are hard to hold back. The busy traffic doesn’t seem to bother them. “Usually they figure they’ve got the right-of-way and just go!”

Tom Cyr also has a beautiful white Vis a Vis Amish carriage that he uses for weddings, and he does sleigh rides in winter. “It’s a hobby,” Tom repeats. “If I can make enough to pay liability insurance and buy a bit of hay, I’m tickled. And it keeps the horses in shape.” The ride is so pleasant that it seems to end too soon. You want to stay in that slower time zone where the horse’s hooves punctuate easy conversation and the sway of the carriage soothes the jangled traveler. Do yourself a favor, Take a break from the frenetic twenty-first century and go for a carriage ride.

Posted by editor at 09:14 PM | Comments (0)

Travels with Women Friends

By M. Leth-Soerensen
Sun staff writer

In the midst of our busy lives -- buzzing traffic, too many visitors and our children’s, partners’ or employers’ needs -- we seek the company of other women and escape to a quiet place for the purpose of respite. We wish to have fun, talk well, and long for serene and beautiful landscapes.

I travel with two women friends to my camp in Ontario, Canada. One is a painter, the other a master gardener and knitter; women with an eye for landscape, beauty and good laughter. We leave the highly developed Michigan coastline and travel north on I-75 past simple dwellings of people who often need two jobs to make ends meet. Behind us is Mancelona, and fresh memories of a luscious wedding on the Pine River and a reception in an almost century old, un-remodeled schoolhouse surrounded by only gravel roads, fields and trees.

Within a few hours we pass two stunning and powerful bridges, symbols of human endeavors and powerful engineering. I always enjoy crossing the Canadian border and explaining to the customs officer that I’m going to my camp while showing him my passport. As a Dane this is a reminder of my status: “alien spouse” of an American. When I come back an American officer will look at my green card, though after 22 years, the picture doesn’t look much like me anymore. The thought always crosses my mind that I in my 80s will still show this same picture of a young 20th century immigrant in her mid 20s, and everyone will believe that this is still me.

We travel a rocky and winding rough road past dark pink fireweeds and patches of ripe delicious looking raspberries calling to be picked. When we arrive at the camp we do all the “manly things” like hooking up the refrigerator and building a sauna. We jump in that delicious lake in our birthday suits, one of us hesitantly so, but convinced by the spirit of the moment. There is no one else here but the neighboring beavers, the loon couple, and a mink that lives under the sauna building. All these creatures don’t mind human nakedness. The water is smooth and rich. My biologist daughter calls this water eutrophic. It’s full of life and some would likely find it unappealing given the richness of microbiology, and would rather frequent the chlorine-altered swimming pool. Despite our love for this simplicity we dine on freshly made pesto and honey-roasted ham and drink Greek Retsina wine. The view is stunning from the screened porch on our little cabin. We see three islands in the lake and only one other cottage quite far away. A loon swims up to our dock, and my friend excites in watching this graceful bird so close up. A large bird with a tremendous wingspan swoops down over the lake and we know that we have seen a young eagle.

One of my friends has recently gone through cancer treatment and her body is just growing hair again. She looks beautiful in her colorful scarves, and her slim body entering the water projects life wisdom through hard-learned lessons. I’m enamored by this woman’s ability to paint what she perceives. One of her sketches will adorn the log cabin and remind us of this visit. My other friend knows the flora of the bog around us and points out the surrounding edible plants.

“This place is only ours to steward and share and not to keep” the former owner of this paradise wrote in his welcoming note to us. Our partner wrote a lovely note in the guest book while visiting the privy in the woods the first time we came here, which was possibly significant in their deciding to sell this place to us.

We also started the tradition of a guest book when we purchased this place a year ago. I brought a group of suburban teenage girls here last fall and they contributed loving notes about new experiences and a rarely found camaraderie.

We especially enjoy artists and youthful souls visiting. A young family painted a cabinet that needed restoration, and their daughter Jessie’s fourth birthday was celebrated here. She and her brother’s foot and hand prints adorn this piece of furniture. We carry few worries when we are here, and only submit to nature. We ask everyone to leave footprints that offer any kind of small token or a gift to improve this place for others.

Being with trusted women in an intimate setting such as this is a powerful experience. Revelation and vulnerability is expressed and we feel free to discuss and share what comes to mind. We strategize about the issues we struggle with in our families or with our mates at home, and find listening ears. This intimacy can be challenging and emotions we do not yet master may get the better of us. Unexpected reactions do arise. We talk then and later and exchange emails, phone talks and cards among us.

Having recently joined the ranks of women in their 50s, I wish to stretch my comfort-zone and will seek emotional growth while moving into a phase of my life where the mirror reveals a new era and where new challenges lie ahead. This trip is a helpful steppingstone to ease and celebrate this transition.

Posted by editor at 08:16 PM | Comments (0)

FATHER AND SON BASEBALL PILGRAMMAGE HITS THIRTEEN

by Norm Wheeler
Sun editor

It starts innocently enough during a game of catch or a ride in the car listening to Ernie Harwell or Bob Ueker broadcasting the game. Your son is around 10 and hasn’t been to a major league park yet. “Let’s go see some ball games,” you say, “maybe we can see two games in one day!”

My son Jacob and I have been attending worship services at the Church of Baseball for thirteen years now. We started by seeing the Cubbies in the afternoon and the White Sox at night on the same day in 1989 when the scheduling allowed both teams to be at home at the same time. You could just hop on the Elevated train outside Wrigley Field and be at Comiskey Park in half an hour. (That day game is recounted by our baseball buddy Tom Martinsen later in this story.)

The 1989 night game was in old Comiskey Park, where we sat in left field and just missed getting a home run ball. It was “pudge” Carlton Fisk’s last season, and the old ballpark was about to be replaced by the new one. Over the years we also said goodbye to Tiger Stadium in Detroit and County Stadium in Milwaukee, and we reacted with mixed skepticism and acceptance to the new parks built to replace the old ones. The new Comiskey seemed sterile and characterless at first, with the chi-chi latte shops and sushi stands under the corporate boxes getting more of our attention than the exclusive restaurant behind the black windows in right field or the over-stimulating giant TV screen/ boom box of a scoreboard in center field. But you can walk around the promenade and see the game from any angle, and the crowd retains the feel of the Polish working class lunch bucket neighborhood that has always been home to the Sox.

Comerica Park in Detroit bosts the great monuments to Cobb and Greenberg and Kaline, and the walk-all-the-way-around mezzanine resurrects the idea that you can watch a ball game standing, from the “stands.” Nothing can replace the pure baseball ambiance of old Tiger Stadium, as I am reliving in the pages of Tom Stanton’s celebration of fathers and sons and baseball in his book The Final Season.

This year we made it to the new Miller Park in Milwaukee after watching it emerge (like something from an outer space scene in a Stanley Kubrick movie) next to County Stadium over several seasons. We were there a few days after the huge crane twisted and toppled over the wall of the new park, killing several workers. It was impossible to imagine how the spaghetti-like tangle of steel could be removed and repaired, but now you can walk inside the tall erector set of a stadium to see the monument to those fallen workers in back of right field. Upon first entering the stadium, one has an otherworldly astonishment and distaste for the scale of it. It doesn’t feel like a baseball park. But the crowd is the same friendly batch of “salt ‘o the earth” working people you sit with at Comerica or Comiskey, and once you focus on the thrill of the grass between the white lines, it’s just baseball again after all.

The biggest problem with all of these new parks is the relentless bombardment of noise and images being spewed from the enormous megatron scoreboards. If people wanted to watch television they would stay home. I say turn them off (or at least turn the sound down), get a Wrigley Field style board just for scores, and rehire the organist and the brass bands to entertain between innings.

Wrigley Field remains the Mecca of baseball for us, the altar to which we must journey and at which we must genuflect each season to renew our faith, if you will. The brick and the ivy, the scoreboard and the organ, the bleachers and the rooftop fans all conspire to give Wrigley Field that pure ethos of baseball as myth, history and immediate entertainment. The crowd may be more yuppie, the beer and brats more expensive, and the babes more aloof, but Wrigley Field has the magic that never seems to fade. (As for inept play and bad records, all of these teams in Detroit, Chicago, and Milwaukee are about on par this year.)

One season we made this annual pilgrimage the occasion to celebrate four generations of baseball lovers in our family. We took my wheelchair-bound grandfather, Peter Brondyke, and my mother, Anna Jean Wheeler, to the new Comiskey and the old Tiger Stadium during the 1992 season. One of the trips was on Grandpa’s 92nd birthday. He had taken me to see spring training in Florida when I was eight, and I still have the autographs of the 1959 Tigers, White Sox, and Milwaukee Braves. He passed away on his 94th birthday while Jacob was at baseball camp at Grand Valley State University. It was great family bonding for the four generations and is now part of the family lore. As Tom Stanton reminds us in his book, baseball is about family, too.

Despite the meteoric rise in player’s salaries and beer, brat and ticket prices, and despite the annoying browbeating mega-noise scoreboards, there is still something about going to a major league ballpark. The players change, the owners convince the public to pay for new state-of-the art ballparks, the fortunes of the teams ebb and flow. But the magic of the green grass, the crack of the bat, the hook slide, the double play, and the home run continue to enchant us and give us a common denominator of delight. We reckon we’ll keep going to the ballpark.

Here’s the reminiscence of baseball buddy Tom Martinsen of Milwaukee, who, with his sons Jon and/or Tony, has joined us on many of our baseball pilgrimages:

The Friendly Un-Confines?

It was probably 1988 or 89 when you suggested that you, your children and Bill Pierce (The Bear) could meet me outside Wrigley Field, and that we could see a Cubs game together. I was skeptical about the prospects of meeting people outside a stadium in a city of several million people, but I didn't know much about "The Friendly Confines”.

As remarkably easy as it was to identify you and your kids under an El stop near Wrigley, the game itself was more remarkable. The pitching matchup was legendary; Maddux vs Hershiser. (Yes, Greg Maddux was a Cub once. The story goes that they let him go for the same reasons they traded Rafael Palmeiro. Both were young, and both were good.)

Maddux pitched a shutout. The only grumbling I heard from Cub fans throughout the contest involved the official scorer awarding a sacrifice to a batter who advanced a runner on what looked like a drag bunt -- a bunt that was fielded by a hard charging second baseman. The only run in the contest was scored on a double over the head of Dodgers' right fielder, Mike _______ (last name I cannot recall, but if memory serves me well, he was reputedly romantically attached to Belinda ________ another last name unremembered, a woman who sang with "The Go Go's")

The Bear couldn't get off work. You and your kids had to start your drive home immediately after the game. The Bear promised to meet me at a McDonald's restaurant near Wrigley field an hour after the game. I had an hour to kill. I answered a pay phone.

The person who called the pay phone asked if I was Bill. I told him that my name was not Bill and that he had called a pay phone. He asked me if the pay phone was just outside Wrigley Field. When I said yes, he asked if I had seen the game. When I said yes to this, he seemed to get enthusiastic about our conversation.

The unknown caller pretty much took me back through the game: the few hits, the numerous strikeouts, some good defensive plays -- from time to time he would ask me to hold while he fielded questions from what sounded like a growing number of people in the area of the telephone from which he was calling.

Then came the question that convinced me that the call had been placed from an office. Was the hit that won the game a clean double or did Mike Marshall turn the wrong way on a fly ball that could have been caught? "

I had to think a minute on that question. Eventually I said that it looked to me like he initially turned the wrong way, yet I couldn't say for sure that the ball could have been caught. "I would have scored it as a double," I answered somewhat reluctantly.

"Great," the caller almost shouted, "and thanks a lot, pal."

"Enjoy the rest of the afternoon," or words to that effect, I closed, and put the pay phone back on the hook. Within a few steps I realized that some mad Cub fan

probably called that pay phone after every afternoon game when he was stuck in an office. I didn't mind reliving the game with him.

Posted by editor at 07:18 PM | Comments (0)

Cowboys, music & remembrances at Empire Museum: Where everything old is new again

By Writefish
Sun staff writer

“Over here is our new music box,” says volunteer Dave Taghon as he steps to a table in front of the bar, just inside the front door of the Empire Area Museum. Dave is one of many volunteers who have dedicated his “free” time to keeping history alive at the museum since Empire Heritage Group members Jo Bolton and Julia Dickinson acquired the first exhibit in 1971.

Running a hand over the cover’s smooth surface, he explains that this is a Mira, the Rolls Royce of music boxes. “The top was in rough shape with dings and scratches so I restored it, but the rest is original.” The beautiful deep, red tones of the wood lead him to believe it’s made of mahogany, although another volunteer offers that it could be made of cherry wood, a natural assumption from a resident of a land that boasts sweet Montmorencys, Queen Annes and tart Balatons. This box is a gift from Charles and Ellen Johnson who, Dave says, probably picked it up in Florida. (Charles’ brother, Jimmy, owned the Case Tractor building where the State Savings Bank sits today, across LaCore Road from the museum.)

An 18-1/2” metal disk labeled “Narcissus Song,” one of 21 such disks that came with the box, is queued up and ready to play. Dave cranks the handle, sets the pin and steps back as a beautiful melody churns from a cabinet the size of four desktop printers. According to Dave, this Mira was probably manufactured sometime around the turn of the century, between 1895-1900. The mechanism inside the box weighs 80 pounds, and many of the music boxes were sturdy floor models built with a storage area for disks beneath the player.

We’re touring the museum today to uncover the latest acquisitions, and Dave is so enthusiastic while telling his stories that even my shorthand writing becomes abbreviated. I find it hard to believe he’d been resting in a hammock just a few moments earlier, a sign of his early retirement from Taghon’s Corner, the family’s service station business they sold earlier this year.

Dave hustles over to an exhibit on the opposite side of the room and stops in front of a display of catalogue covers retrieved from Baker’s Western Wear in Cadillac. The sign at the top of the board reads “Chuck DeHaan,” and the action scenes on the covers (taken from his paintings) are so vivid that you can almost smell the leather and sweat of the Old West. In one scene, a cowboy lassos his cattle against a backdrop of red mesas and desert floor. In another, the cowboy’s steed rears when an angry bear emerges from its rocky den. The brave cowboy holds on to the reigns with one hand, while swinging a lasso above his head with the other.

DeHaan, who resides in Texas, is well known for his action paintings and limited edition prints of cowboys, Indians and horses and, more recently, for his sculptures. Not as widely known, however, is his two-year stint here in Empire as a horse trainer for Lloyd and Vera Baker at the site of Golden Valley Woods Ranch on M-72. Dave heard that DeHaan built the rodeo arena at the ranch sometime in the 50s and “broke” some colts for Lloyd. He also heard a tale of the time that DeHaan traded one of his paintings for a truck.

“That was probably my Uncle Ivan’s truck,” says Empire Township resident Ron Fisher, grandson of Lloyd and Vera. Lloyd’s brother Ivan owned Baker’s Western Wear. Fisher summered at the ranch for years, tending to 38 “school” horses and taking people on trail rides. As he grew older he lived there year-round, working and riding with DeHaan while attending school. He remembers that DeHaan did a lot of good training with the horses and that DeHaan’s favorites were the quarter horses, which he also loved to paint.

“I spent a lot of time with him,” Fisher said, remembering how DeHaan loved to draw and paint. “He was a free spirit and never had many anchors anywhere. He was really great. Very talented.” When asked to describe what DeHaan looked like, Fisher says he was “blonde, tall and heavyset… and was always in western attire… all the ladies liked him.”

One local lady in particular remembers the cowboy artist. “I used to help Vera Baker exercise horses in the winter time,” says Grace Dickinson, owner of Dickinson’s Photo Gallery and daughter of Julia Dickinson, one of the founders of the museum. “Chuck and his young wife had a brand new baby; he was a young man then. When I would go into his house, his hat was thrown back on his head, his legs were slightly bowed, and his spurs would jingle when he walked… he was outgoing and handsome… just such a cowboy!”

Dickinson’s voice gives her away. As a horse lover and fellow artist, young Grace was clearly moonstruck by the charismatic cowboy painter.

“He lived in that little house near M-72 at the ranch. Whenever I went over there, he was always painting and had paintings around him. He was just launching a career and was outstanding (as a painter)… He pursued his love of horses through his paintings.”

Grace remembers the murals he painted on the walls of what were once the cook’s kitchen (or “grub shack,” as Fisher calls it, using his cowboy lingo). The kitchen later became a garage that was torn down this year… but the murals were saved and are on display in the Billy Beeman barn on the museum grounds.

Speaking of the Beeman barn, Dave says there’s a certain curtain taken from the Glen Arbor Township Hall that I simply must see, but it’s hanging in the barn behind the main building of the museum. He leads us downstairs and we pause in the cool air, but not for long, to check out the first snowmobile ever purchased in Empire, a 1967 SnoJet on “indefinite loan” from Dave’s brother-in-law, Ron Novak. To one side of the sled is the Taghon collection of gas pumps and office replica, removed from the service station before it was sold. On display are Dave’s “Spinning Crown” pump, circa 1924; a Tokheim, ca. 1937; a Bennett, ca. 1948, and a 1905 fuel dispenser… a one-gallon can beneath a spigot on a drum. Things were more sophisticated in 1912, as evidenced by a one-gallon pump with nozzle on a pedestal stand.

Dave and I are on a mission, so we don’t tarry. Outside, under the shade of maples in the backyard of the museum, sits the Billy Beeman barn. Dave raises the door to reveal several old wagons. He points to the north wall. A colorful curtain hangs from the rafters, stretches past the northeast and northwest corners of the barn’s interior. It’s easily 12’ x 26’ and painted on the canvas, in greens and blues and yellows and browns, is a panorama of the Dune Climb, Alligator Hill and the forested hills beyond Glen Lake.

According to Len Thoreson, who pulled it from the basement of the Glen Arbor Township Hall this spring, the curtain was raised and lowered on a rope and often stored rolled up. When he retrieved it, the painted canvas had been folded into a four-foot square for almost 40 years. “I was surprised. I thought all the paint would fall off (when it was unfolded). It’s in good shape,” he said. Dave says he fell in love with it as soon as he saw it.

Rich Quick of Glen Arbor remembers the curtain from his school days in the early 50s, when students from the schoolhouse (now the Old School Hardware building) would march across the street to present their spring play for parents and grandparents, under the direction of the Principal and English teacher. Asked if he remembers any play in particular, Quick quips that his only “starring role” was at graduation when the salutatorian couldn’t give the required speech and Rich had to “stand in”. He also recalled the curtain being rolled up for those times when the town hall was used for basketball games and funerals.

Beneath the curtain’s panoramic painting is an advertising section with 29 business names. The Daly brothers, who were in their mid-thirties and living in Glen Arbor at the time, reportedly spent hours and hours painting the canvas back in 1950. Township people solicited ads for the curtain from area businesses, at a cost of $15 or $20, which was a lot of money in those days. Quick recalls that the curtain was taken down sometime in the sixties when business names began to change and new businesses moved to town… and there wasn’t room on the curtain to list their names. The township board made the decision to replace it with more traditional draperies.

A few years younger than Quick, Carol Bumgardner (“Moon” to her friends) remembers the curtain quite well. “My first memory of it was when I was in the second grade. I always loved that curtain.” She recalls that the town hall was used for basketball games, roller-skating (when skates had wooden wheels), proms, graduations, feather parties, variety shows and the high school play. When she was in seventh grade she played the part of a half-deaf, old woman in a “hillbilly play, like the Hatfields and McCoys,” and remembers other roles played by Earl Leman, Ed Schmidt, Jean Basch, Eva Elmer and… Rich Quick.

Around the first of November, when the men were “probably off hunting” leaving behind only wives and kids, the town hall was the scene of “feather parties,” a local pseudonym for illegal bingo games, raffles of turkeys and chickens and fundraisers for school trips. “I remember Duane Richardson, he was real little then, maybe six or seven, he won three or four turkeys, and that’s when we started thinking, ‘Hey, maybe this thing is rigged,’” Bumgardner says, laughing.

What she loved best, though, were the Glen Arbor variety shows, usually held in February or March when the snow was deep and people felt a need to “break up the winter.” The shows included beauty pageants, music and skits. She remembers when Beaner Egeler (Martin Egeler, Jr.), Bennie Barszak, Major William Olson (commander of the Air Force Base in Empire) and her uncle Bill Day donned women’s dresses with grapefruit and oranges underneath, high heels and wigs. Beaner, dressed as a French waitress, sang songs, and Major Olson was crowned Miss Empire Air Base.

“We had jumping music, too: Bill Smith, Donny Petroskey with his accordion and Ward Craven on his Les Paul guitar… lots of people came to our shows.” There was the time her brother, George, dressed up as Elvis… and Marion Harriger fell instantly in love with him. (Since Marion’s last name is Harriger and not Bumgardner, we can only assume that her love for the Elvis look-alike faded along with the town hall curtain.)

The curtain, DeHaan display, music box and other interesting historical items can be seen daily in the summer, from 1-4 p.m., (the museum is closed on Wednesdays), at the corner of M-22 and LaCore, near the State Savings Bank in Empire. An annual Heritage Day (to be held Oct. 12 this year) features volunteers dressed as pioneers making apple butter, cider and syrup. Call the museum at 326-5568.

Posted by editor at 06:21 PM | Comments (0)

Local Perma-Fudgie Writes Book on Summer People

By Jane Greiner
Sun staff writer

Author Aaron Stander visited with the Empire Book Club to talk about his new book, “Summer People.” Stander, who was himself one of the local summer people, now lives year-round on campus at the Interlochen Arts Academy where he consults and teaches creative writing. He is a bike rider and spent many summers riding all over Benzie and Leelanau counties. “Summer People,” a murder mystery, takes place in this area where a series of seemingly unrelated murders has the sheriff baffled.

Stander said that he began writing the book in 1989 when he was ordered to take two months of bed-rest for a bad back. One of the ways he entertained himself was reading mysteries by P.D. James. This was his first extended exposure to murder mysteries and he discovered that he enjoyed the genre. His background and training was in English, but formal, nothing like the modern murder mystery.

“Just for fun,” Stander told the book group, “I wrote a murder scene.” Somewhat to his surprise, his daughter and others who read it were impressed. That seems to have been the spark that lit the fire.

Although his book itself is not a true story, it is based on many local settings and composites of local people and Stander’s friends. “The murders are all fiction,” he said, but the locations are real. “I can take you to the scene of my murders,” he said.

Lake Michigan, summer people, townies, two-tracks and the dunes all became part of the scenery of the novel. Some businesses or local characters are camouflaged and given new names. Some are incorporated as is. For example, he remembers he used to pass a “Biker’s Church” on some of his bike rides. It had a sign out front that said “Jesus Loves Bikers.” This bit of local color became a part of “Summer People”.

His book touches on several current issues such as religious fanaticism, wife abuse, rape, racism, gun control and the good old boy network. He commented that he likes the way P.D. James writes entertaining crime stories but explores contemporary issues as part of her story, and he tries to do the same in his books.

Having published “Summer People,” Stander is working on another “with a working title of ‘Color Tour’, or it could be ‘Fall People’,” he quipped, flashing a wonderful sense of humor not prominent in his book. That could be followed by ‘Winter People’ and then ‘Spring People’, “ but then he would run out of titles, he said, and what if he had more books?

Asked whether he planned how his story would end before he wrote the book, Stander said that he did not know who did it until he got there; “the ending came at the ending. I wrote several endings because I couldn’t figure out who did it.”

In addition to Summer People, which was published in 2001, and a sequel, which is about half finished, Stander has completed two other books.

Aaron Stander has a website at www.aaronstander.com and his book can be purchased at The Cottage Book Shop in Glen Arbor.

The Empire Book Club (which has no official name yet) meets the last Wednesday of each month at 10:15 a.m. at the Glen Lake Community Library in Empire.

Posted by editor at 05:23 PM | Comments (0)

GLEN ARBOR OPEN FEATURED INTENSE, ENTERTAINING TENNIS

By Darryl Lick
Sun sports writer

When four diverse local organizations work together to benefit our area people and visitors, and produce THE athletic and social event of the summer, it is well worth mentioning. Such was the success of the 2002 Glen Arbor Tennis Open, held on July 27 and 28.

Those organizations (rarely mentioned in the same sentence) include The Glen Lake Yacht Club, The Leelanau School, Glen Arbor Township and The Homestead. With almost 70 players involved in three different divisions, the biggest problem is always tennis court availability. Thankfully, all these organizations offered courts, which allowed tournament directors to hold their biggest tourney ever.

Eight o’clock on Saturday morning couldn’t come early enough for most of the competitors in the tournament as director Jim Buck welcomed all the entries. Not only does the size of the tournament increase almost every year, but the quality of play is amazing, as witnessed by hundreds of fans, family members and friends that stopped by top watch on a hot and humid day.

This year’s tournament consisted of a 16-team Men’s Doubles division, a 13-team Mixed Doubles event and, new this year, four teams playing in the Junior Mixed Doubles.

The Men’s Doubles draw featured some of the most entertaining tennis seen this side of Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe. When local legends like Paul Kokowicz, Alan Reed and Bob Sutherland are involved, there are fireworks everywhere. When everything shook out, Glen Lake tennis coach Mike Sutherland and former college player Mark Midgely defeated Homestead pro Tim Buck and Glen Lake Yacht Club pro Tim Sutherland in a hotly contested (imagine that! –Ed.) semifinal, 6-3, 6-4. The other semifinal featured a 6-2, 6-2 victory for Jim Buck Sr. and Jim Buck Jr. over the father-son team of Rich and Mike Schonhols. An arm injury to father Rich contributed to this outcome.

In a well-played final on the clay courts at The Homestead, Sutherland and Midgely prevailed 7-5, 6-3 over Buck & Buck. Tournament umpire Tim Sutherland complimented the players on their quality tennis on a swelteringly hot day.

With Justine Buck making her tournament debut all the way from Vero Beach, Florida alongside her husband Jim, playing local legends Betsy Netherton and Mike Sutherland, the mixed doubles final made for some lively, exciting action. Sutherland and Netherton defended their title with an 8-4 victory, also on The Homestead’s clay.

The Junior Mixed Doubles was a new event this year and a huge success. In a well-played final, Jen MacKenzie and Paul Finnegan defeated Caroline Martin and Reed Pierce, 8-5.

Tournament directors want to thank sponsors Western Avenue Grill, Le Bear and Cherry Republic for their prize donations. All proceeds from the tournament go to the Glen Lake High School tennis program, 2001 Regional Champions.

Posted by editor at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)

August 01, 2002

LUXURIOUS LE BEAR RESORT A GIVEN ON LAKE STREET

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

All eyes are on quaint Glen Arbor.

Two summers from now a gigantic, $40 million luxury resort including 14 fractional-ownership condominiums will occupy the pristine land by the boat ramp on Lake Street where Le Bear restaurant and a couple giant parking lots are today. Current restaurant owners Janet Niewold and Nancy Wright will sell the land to developer and Homestead resident Dominic Moceri, a partner in the Auburn Hills-based Moceri Cos., this fall barring any unexpected roadblocks.

Moceri is one of, if not the, biggest developers of luxury homes in Michigan. He will raze Le Bear restaurant to make room for what he calls his opportunity of a lifetime – an elegant, yet rustic three-story, timeshare resort on Lake Michigan modeled to fit the Grand Resort Lodge era. Fourteen residential units ranging in area from 2,200 to 2,700 square feet each will house wealthy patrons who will also have access to a recreational club both indoors and outdoors. A year-round pool including a jacuzzi and a heated deck will tempt vacationers outside even in the winter’s frigid months. Moceri will build an Olde English Conservatory gourmet restaurant on the Lake Street side of the building, capable of seating 30 and open to the general public.

“Glen Arbor will flourish because these units won’t be single ownership,” says Moceri, who has owned homes at The Homestead for 12 years and considers himself a local. “Le Bear Resort won’t mean just 14 new owners giving local business a lift. Fractional ownership means a constant flow of patrons to enjoy the four seasons and financially benefit Glen Arbor year-round.”

Local merchandise will accessorize the resort’s insides and Moceri plans to use whimsical art décor in every unit to make Le Bear Resort a part of the community. Around-the-clock concierge service will give residents the option of ordering pizza from Riverfront, or food from anywhere else in Glen Arbor, if the veil cutlet seems too succulent. Because making himself a part of the community and showing Glen Arbor that his intentions are sound are important to Moceri, who has four boys ranging from ages 5-13 with his wife Maria.

“This is a charming town where I know more people than I do downstate” Moceri told the Glen Arbor Sun from his luxury home at Manitou Shores, the private area just north of the Beach Club at The Homestead. “Here you don’t have to shave on the weekends.

“We’re sensitive to the community’s needs and desires, especially the environment. I have a home on Sleeping Bear Bay as well.”

GoslingCzubak, an engineering firm working with Moceri, made the following assessment of the current property behind Le Bear restaurant: “Though it does have a scattering of white pines, most of which will remain, the site consists mostly of gravel-surface parking lots, which are bisected by an unimproved private drive that serves the neighborhood to the east, plus a mound septic system located near the east property line. In its present state, this is a barren site that lacks sensitivity to the adjoining neighborhoods.”

Moceri’s acquisition and design plans passed through local government without any major hurdles as the Glen Arbor Township approved sight plans unanimously last December. Le Bear Resort will sit 94 feet from the high water mark, says Moceri, “far within all zoning regulations”.

But a large population of the Pitcher’s thistle – a plant species listed by the Department of Natural Resources as threatened both federally and in Michigan – that grows on the relevant property just north of the current Le Bear restaurant has forced Moceri to work with the DNR. The developer now has a permit to transplant them elsewhere on the property.

“We did agree after negotiations with him to reduce the size of his deck and move some Pitcher’s thistle,” said Pat Lederle, Endangered Species Program Coordinator at the DNR. “Moceri has agreed to transplant them in a protected area and do some educational stuff like making his patrons aware of the plant.

“The Pitcher’s thistle may actually be better off in this case, as there will be less disturbance in a protected area.”

Moceri, himself, called the Pitcher’s thistle a “non-issue”, and Lederle confirmed that Le Bear Resort has cleared any environmental related hurdles. The developer should be ready to break ground this winter, 18 months before he plans to open the resort on Memorial Day, 2004.

Questions of parking and sewage have some local residents worried that Le Bear Resort may have adverse effects on Lake Street, however.

Bob Jones, who tipped off Lederle at the DNR about the Pitcher’s thistle, is worried that the threatened plant may not survive in an area also occupied by more than a hundred part-time residents.

Becky Thatcher, who runs a thriving jewelry store – an integral part of the community -- just down the street from what soon will be Moceri’s property, already sees the area filling up and questions whether Le Bear Resort will be able to handle the influx of people it will bring to its timeshared 14 condominiums. “I’m very concerned about parking,” she says. “It’s all taken up by boaters even now. I come to work on Saturday and there’s nowhere for my customers to park.”

Le Bear’s plan easily meets all Township zoning requirements. The site will provide 15 garage and 15 uncovered residential parking spaces and 12 restaurant spaces. That’s roughly two car spaces for every condominium – which promise to be full nearly all the time – and two vehicles for every five people dining at the restaurant (open for dinner only with the exception of Sunday brunch) when filled to capacity. Employees of the resort, as well as boaters and charter fishermen using the ramp on the lake, would have to park on Lake Street. Whether there is enough space for all these activities remains to be seen.

“The township needs to take a hard look at its zoning,” says Thatcher, the owner and proprietor of Becky Thatcher Designs for the last 20 years. “If we keep developing this town to the maximum, we will soon have problems. We need to consider a moratorium on full build-outs.”

Thatcher is also concerned about the well and septic system that Le Bear Resort will put in what is now the restaurant’s back parking lot, just before Sheridan Lane, and cover with a grassy area. “I’m very concerned about the septic field in a timeshare situation. I don’t think the laws have been tested for that kind of density.”

“I question whether the township (which would inherit liability if something goes wrong, Thatcher says) really wants to take on such a big responsibility.”

Moceri and his developing team are top-of-the-line professionals, though, adept at quelling public relations fears. Moceri told the Glen Arbor Sun he’s learned from the mistakes of local developers in the past, who haven’t gotten on the good side of the general public. He is no celebrity, listing his name in the phone book, participating in Glen Arbor’s Fourth of July parade, reciting at the Beach Bard’s Bonfire, and frequenting local restaurants.

“I exceeded all the DNR standards and have presented a sound plan,” Moceri said. “This is right in the heart of the business district, and we always reside in our own development.

“Le Bear Resort is a great opportunity for others to enjoy their own piece of heaven in Glen Arbor. Just think, there are no homes on Sleeping Bear Bay for sale right now.”

Posted by editor at 10:28 PM | Comments (0)

Fire Hall Debate Heats Up

By Darren Mohn
Sun Contributor

August 6th is the date of the Primary Election, and on that ballot Glen Arbor voters will be asked to approve a new $1,760,000 Public Safety Building. As usual, Glen Arbor’s residents have a variety of views on the subject.

Built in 1952, the existing fire hall housed some modest equipment for a modest town. Over the decades the township has grown, and the fire and rescue department has grown along with it. But while the equipment and personnel have become more sophisticated, the actual fire hall has not.

“We’ve run out of room,” explains Chief John De Puy. “We have no choice: we can’t improve this location, and we have to move.”

Many of those “improvements” are rather basic. The septic system has been failing for years, but because of space requirements, can’t be rebuilt. The water well is contaminated and low flowing, but can’t be redrilled because it is out of compliance with the septic field.

Most residents are aware that not all of the necessary equipment fits in or is stored at the current fire hall, and even the casual observer can see that the cobbled shelves and storage units in every bay are filled to capacity.

Four years ago, the Emergency Services Advisory Committee (ESAC) began to research the alternatives. Merging with another department, such as Empire, was found to impair the response times, since personnel and equipment would be spread over too large an area. Studies were made of where the volunteers live, where the population center of town is, and where the center of the fire and rescue calls is. The center for all three was discovered to be the downtown area of Glen Arbor, so a search was begun for a site within a one-mile span of the current fire hall.

A number of sites were reviewed, and the National Park Service was approached, but none could fulfill the specified 5-minute response time, the need for access and egress, or were even for sale, according to ESAC reports. When the Woodstone development was announced, ESAC quickly approached The Homestead to see what might be possible.

The Homestead redesigned its site to accommodate a new fire hall on three acres (the current site is less than a half-acre), offered to take care of the site plan and landscaping, and accepted the appraisal presented by the nonprofit Glen Arbor Fire & Rescue Association (GAFRA).

GAFRA President Matt Davis explains, “If the Township were to get this property—ideal property, we were going to have to act quickly. Several donors helped us put up the money, and GAFRA was able to secure this land for Glen Arbor without a penny of cost to the Township.” While GAFRA was able to put down $200,000 on the land, it took out a $175,000 short-term mortgage for bridge financing.

The proposed Public Safety Building would increase the number of bays from four to six, add living quarters for ‘round the clock Advanced Life Saving (ALS) personnel, provide a training room that can accommodate the 27 volunteers, and add such amenities as a decontamination area and showers.

“Right now, when you return from a run sweating in your turnout gear, there is no way to wash it or yourself off,” explains new firefighter Mike Buhler. “I was keeping a clean shirt and towel in my bag, but they got mildewed, since they sit on the floor by my boots. It’s kind of pathetic.” Says another firefighter who wishes to remain anonymous,“ After a fire my clothes will be ten times as smelly as from a campfire, and many times more toxic. To be able to change at the station and not bring that into my car or home to my family would be nice.”

Most people interviewed did not want to go on record. “I just think that’s a lot of money,” said one local, echoing the view of several opponents. Others voiced concerns about the disposition of the present fire hall. “It seems logical to sell the old fire hall and use the money towards a new one. I’d like to know what would happen to the old one before I vote for a new one,” explains Bob Sutherland.

Trustee Kent Kelly agrees. “I hope I’m wrong, but I am worried that we’ll have problems selling the (idea of a) new station if we can’t sell the old one first.” But at a Township Board meeting, the members split on a proposal to sell the land, leaving that question in limbo. Many in town, including Supervisor John Soderholm, think that the voters, not the Board, should determine the old fire hall’s fate. “I feel that the future of that property needs to be put to a vote of the people of Glen Arbor — it’s that important.”

To finance the new building, voters are asked to approve a 25-year millage, with year one at .52 mills (52¢/$1,000 of assessed property value), and the remaining years at .42 mills. In the ESAC example, a $400,000 home assessed at $200,000 would pay $104 the first year, and $84 each of the remaining years. Notes one property owner, “$84? Heck, you pay that for dinner!”

The financing does appear to have a silver lining that may make it even less expensive. The Emergency Services millage, levied since 1995, was voted in at 1.75 mills. Through various rollbacks, it is at 1.114 mills this year. Since Empire has contracted their EMS with Glen Arbor, that millage will fall further, as the two communities are now splitting several costs. New housing construction has and will continue to add to the tax rolls, further dropping all Township millages. Thus, even with the new building, the total tax may never approach the total voted in 1995.

Still, this vote is no slam-dunk. John De Puy notes, “In my 30 years the community has always supported what we’ve asked for. They know that we only ask for something when we need it — and now we need it.”

And what if the millage is turned down? “You hate to have to think like that,” says Davis. “GAFRA is not in the position to own property, so in good conscience we’d probably be forced to sell the land and return the money. Of course, we’d still need to build a new structure, but then it would be even more expensive.”

Posted by editor at 09:35 PM | Comments (0)

DUNEGRASS FESTIVAL DANCES INTO TENTH YEAR

from staff reports

Get ready for some country jammin’ folks. The 10th annual Sleeping Bear Dunegrass & Blues Festival is upon us, and the facilitators don’t have to find a new location for the daylong party this year.

Show up early on Saturday, August 3, at the big field next to the ???? Church, off of M-22 in downtown Empire. The music and dancing last from 10 a.m. to nearly sunset, interspaced by eating breaks and trips to the nearby Empire beach. The shuttle bus as well as the usual vendors and arts and crafts fair will be there. The Beach Bards poetry troupe will MC us through the day as always. Advanced tickets cost $15, and can be picked up at various locations including Deerings Market in Empire, New Moon Records or Oryana Natural Foods in Traverse City, or by calling 326-5287. Tickets cost $20 at the gate.

Here’s the list of bands, with plugs from Amelia Vanderberg, enthusiastic environmentalist, current organizer and daughter of the festival’s founder, Mike Vanderberg:

Open mic, 10-11:30

Ryan Bodiford, 12-1
“Darn talented solo acoustic guitar player from Gaylord.”

Les Dalgliesh 1-2
“Local singer-songwriter who evokes joyful tears with his gentle voice.”

Green Sky Bluegrass 2-3
“fun people from Kalamazoo – great dancing music.”

Planet22 3-4
“band from Pennsylvania that has come to Dunegrass for years as kids. Creative musicians who play innovative music. Now it’s there turn to perform.”

The following bands are Dunegrass veterans.

Cabin Fever 4-5
“terrific folk-bluegrass band that has been here since beginning. These are locals who get ‘creepy’.”

K-Jones and the Benzie Playboys 5-6
“Cajun band fresh of a mighty performance at Bliss Festival three weeks ago.”

Mobile Cheifing Unit 6-7
“an up-and-coming reggae band from Kalamazoo that includes festival organizer Amelia Vanderberg.” What’s up with the name, Amelia?

Super Strain 7-last call, whenever we get tired!
“the best jam band currently on tour. Check ‘em at www.superstrain.com.”

Amelia was only 8 years old when the first Dunegrass Festival fell into place on the big field across M-72 from the Empire Visitors Center. Almost no one expected the festival to see its ten-year anniversary, especially two years ago when Dunegrass was not able to lease the original field any longer. Amelia credits her mother with asking the Empire Village Council for help in placing 1,500 people and an entire music festival – which generates plenty of money for the local community -- somewhere else in town. “It worked out well that the Deerings graciously allowed us to have the festival on its current sight,” Amelia says. “Things generally seem to fall into place with this festival, and we don’t have to worry about anything.”

Posted by editor at 08:38 PM | Comments (0)

RUMBLES ON ICE MOUNTAIN

By Chase Edwards
Sun staff writer

On a warm July day in Northern Michigan’s rural Mecosta County an Amish carriage drives by the Ice Mountain spring water plant. The simple black carriage juxtaposed against the $100 million bottling facility, a Nestle subsidiary that pumps 400 gallons of spring water per minute and bottles it for sale throughout the Midwest, manages to make the scene pastoral. Peaceful at least.

If it’s a bit surreal, so is the rest of the scene. On July 22 a group of protesters locked together block the plant’s entrance while others carry signs reading “Stop Ice Mountain.” Meanwhile, a handful of Mecosta County Police assigned to keep order chat politely with the protesters. For activist Holly Wren Spaulding of Cedar, it’s an opportunity to educate the officers as well as everyone else. “Education is an important tactic. A lot of people don’t understand the issue, but once they do they see how grave it is,” she says.

There’s a hint of frustration in Holly’s voice as she talks, and it’s with good reason. The issue is complex. At the local level, citizens from around the state and country who tried to keep the plant out through referendums, worry that Ice Mountain has the capability of draining the aquifer, drying up area wells. Unlike other businesses that use water but recycle it back into the groundwater system, Ice Mountain water is gone for good. But the issue gets bigger and more crucial. Ice Mountain takes its water from a spring that feeds into the Great Lakes basin. And that, the protesters fear, is setting a dangerous international precedent for the sale of Great Lake’s water. “The thought of corporations taking over our water is horrible,” says Tiffany Teneyck, from the nearby town of Mount Pleasant.

Teneyck and her fellow protesters aren’t the only ones who see a fight brewing over Great Lakes water. Given the insatiable market for bottled water in a water-starved world, what will stop other large corporations from removing water from the Great Lakes Basin? There’s little doubt that the 20 percent of the world’s freshwater stored in the Great Lakes will look more and more appealing to a world in which, the World Bank estimates, 2 billion people already live in areas where water is scarce.

Could the six quadrillion gallons of water in the Great Lakes really run dry?

Environmentalists simply point to the Aral Sea in Russia. It was once filled with fresh water the size of Lake Superior, but courtesy of the Soviet government’s abusive environmental practices, it is now dry.

Envisioning an arid Lake Michigan is a bit of a stretch, however, for Brendan O’Rourke, the manager of the Ice Mountain facility in Mecosta County. “I still haven’t gotten the whole reason behind the protest,” he says. Indeed, the company insists that what they’re doing is absolutely safe. According to the company’s web site, Ice Mountain hires Natural Resource Managers who rely on sound science to insure that its operation won’t affect the water supply.

The company also promised the creation of some 95 jobs in economically depressed Mecosta County. Tiffany Teneyck, for one, understands how important those jobs are. “My dad told me he wanted to get a job at the new plant. For my family, and other working class families, the opening of the plant also meant bringing in new jobs, which was a plus. I look at the people who need jobs and I can understand their support. But I still want the plant to shut down regardless,” she says.

To the Engler administration, the company’s policy of sound science coupled with the potential new jobs was reason enough to grant Ice Mountain $9.5 million in tax abatements. Reasonable as it may have seemed, however, that move was an about-face for Michigan’s Governor on the subject of Great Lakes water diversion.

Beginning in the late 1990s Engler stepped out strongly against Great Lakes water diversion. When an Indiana city found high fluoride levels in its water, and wanted to tap into the Great Lake’s basin, Engler objected. Later, he said no to the diversion of groundwater from a Wisconsin mine. And in Ohio he would only agree to a diversion that guaranteed all water would be returned to the basin in ideal condition.

A year ago this spring, in the village of Webster, New York a very similar situation arose. Webster decided to bottle water from a village spring that was hydraulically connected to Lake Ontario. When Governor Engler heard about it, he was disturbed enough to write to the mayor, “Webster is located within the Great Lakes Basin. Even though the water in question is ground water, it appears to be hydraulically connected to Lake Ontario. If this proves to be the case, then the diversion or export of this water out of the basin will require the approval of each governor from the eight Great Lakes states.”

The truth is, the rules for Great Lakes water diversion aren’t clear, and that became painfully evident in 1998 when a Canadian businessman came up with a plan to export tankers of Great Lakes water to Asia. The plan was eventually nixed, but the eight Great Lakes governors, as well as the Canadian government became so alarmed that they began to work together to firm up the Great Lakes Charter, the 1985 agreement between the United States and Canada to manage the Great Lakes -- to prohibit water diversion, among other Great Lakes issues. The new proposals are known as the Water Security Pact or Annex 2001.

Meanwhile, some environmentalists believe that Michigan laws already exist on how to deal with the Perrier/Ice Mountain situation. In September 2001 the controversy reached a climax. A lawsuit was filed by the Michigan Citizens for Water Conservation in an attempt to guard against the privatization of Michigan’s water.

But, as of this summer, that lawsuit is still pending. The Great Lakes governors and Canada missed a deadline earlier this summer due to internal disagreements.

For the moment, the hubbub over Ice Mountain seems far away. Another Amish carriage rolls by the plant, while inside, one more bottle of Mecosta County water rolls out of the plant. The protest comes to a peaceful end, and even the police help clean up with a smile. The plant was slowed down for seven hours. As for Spaulding, she would have liked to have seen more protesters and the plant shut down completely. Nevertheless, she points out: “People were willing to stand up for the cause.”

Posted by editor at 07:41 PM | Comments (0)

"These Calories can do you no harm"

By M. Leth-Soerensen
Sun contributor

There is a little green gingerbread building in the midst of Glen Arbor with its door beckoning you to enter. The signs posted announce tea and pastries, and you are visiting “Thyme Out”. You walk into a lovely space filled with delicate pastries, cakes, tortes and other edibles as well as colorful and fun ware reminding you of summer celebrations and entertainment. This little place is tastefully restored and the transformation over the last five years has raised many questions in the community about the fate of the building.

Carol Worsley bought the place 12 years ago and rented it out for some years to help finance the purchase. There was a video store here and later a wine shop. When the transformation started all-wooden surfaces were scraped and refinished or painted. A local contractor suggested wallboard, but Carol vehemently defended the rustic woodsy cottage look and preserving what was already there. The name relates to Carols’ wish to provide her customers and community friends with an escape from busy life as well as her love of the herb Thyme.

Carol Worsley is an attractive Scandinavian-looking woman of Finnish descent who say’s she is “filling in the gaps” with delectables in our little community. She has sought a niche and is not seeking to compete with her business neighbors. She has been here summers since she was a young woman in the 1960’s when she and her husband bought 5 acres of land on Miller Hill. My morning meeting with Carol is over freshly brewed latte with a sprinkle of cinnamon and a delicious and crisp tasting lemon poppy seed cake. We sit at one of a couple of tables in her shop looking out over the busy street of the town while in our minds we travel to several continents with Carol telling me bits and pieces of her life, her vision of this shop, and future plans.

Behind the building is her lovely little garden where guests are invited and encouraged to sit among the purple lavender and giant hostas and admire the giant blazed roses and the hydrangea tree while listening to flowing water, birdsongs, or the distant street sounds. This is, like her shop, a true little oasis. She is also the owner of “the old farm house”, known to some as the former antique store The Brotherton House. This building serves presently as a warehouse for this little shop. Future plans for this -maybe the loveliest of Glen Arbor’s houses- is a bed and breakfast that hopefully will open next summer.

Like her Finnish grandmothers, Carol believes in using the best ingredients in her food. As a little girl growing up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan she helped pick seasonal berries and learned to make fresh pastries without ever consulting cookbooks. Her local pastry chef Susan McConnel shares the same vision and uses less sugar and shortening but an abundance of fresh ingredients to provide most flavors and attractive looks. Carol, with the help of Martha Ryan and other talented cooks, creates the cakes, scones, bars and cookies as well as making you a specialty coffee, a low calorie very fruity smoothie or providing you with regular coffee or tea. The creative team also experiments with making bruchetta and other delicacies.

The display of sweets includes luscious looking tart cherry tarts in pastry shell with hazelnut crusts, mascarpone and white chocolate fruit tart with chocolate crust, lemon cheesecake tarts, cherry clafouti with cherry cabernet, walnut caramel nut bars with chocolate glaze, coconut lovers bars and espresso mousse. On the counter is a display of a variety of truffles and shortbreads and the shelves display a variety of specialty jams, sauces, salad dressings and salsas. Thyme Out is also a place where you can find unique gifts. Here are picnic baskets with all you need as well as colorful and artsy gift items and paper products for fun eating.

From mining towns in northern Michigan and simple living, Carol’s marriage to a naval officer took her to Japan where she studied fine cooking with the chef on the naval base. Later she familiarized herself with Provence, France and the regions food culture. Here she met and befriended the famous cookbook author Julia Child. Carol traveled Europe many times with her husband and her three children, studied food, and developed a love for antiques wherever she went. Her family settled in Birmingham, Michigan where Carol’s commercial kitchen served as a teaching kitchen for many years for a number of cooking classes. Here she cooked for friends and family and participated in amateur theater. She would bring her children up to Glen Arbor summers, providing them with the informal life of wearing swimsuits and sneakers all day in contrast to the formality of affluent Birmingham. Today a new generation has made their footprints and grandma Carol allows her four grandchildren treats from the store when they visit on the days the store is closed. Her grandson has named her his winter Grandma, referring to the much more time he’ll spend with grandma in the off-season. Carol seeks to spend more time in the Leelanau community she so loves. She plans to stay open as late as possible in the fall and will have her business open weekends through Christmas.

The taste of Carol’s flowerless chocolate torte brought lines of this Jerome Stern poem “The Taste of Life” to mind:

“These calories can do you no harm, these are the calories of life, that nourish the soul, enrich the psyche, and help you make it through the daily round at the mill with the slaves. These are not the dangerous empty calories of nutritionist’s nightmares. Empty calories are empty of thought, of attention, of concentration. Empty calories are those sticky wads people are stuffing into their mouths while they are arguing about the lawn."

August 15th will be a day of painting in the garden where Joanne Wilson from her studio Creative Corner will host a workshop and Carol will provide gourmet food for participants. The event will take place at the Arbor Inn (next to Glen Arbor township Hall) from 8:30 am to 4 pm. Coffee and pastry will be served in the morning and later a lunch. Any art media and people with all level of skills are invited. A demonstration of floral paintings and techniques will be shared. Please call Joanne at 334 6120 before Tuesday for reservation.

Posted by editor at 06:44 PM | Comments (0)

UNDERATED MICHIGAN WINES

By Ian Richardson
Sun contributor

I think Michigan wines have gotten a bad rap. Often I hear “That’s a pretty good Michigan wine” or I am asked, “How do Michigan wines compare to those from California?” and I wonder, “How does an apple compare to a banana?” To compare Michigan wines to California wines makes no sense.

First of all California has a long growing season and a mild, steady climate that varies little from year to year, so even in a poor vintage year they can still produce good wines. It would be more fitting to compare Michigan wines to the wines of Germany or France that grow along the 45th parallel. These are the places with which Michigan has the most in common.

Another consideration is that the Michigan wine industry is still quite young, with most of the growth happening in the last 10 years. Compare these wines to the California wines of 15 or 20 years ago and you are closer to understanding where we are. Wine age is another factor. The best wine comes from old vines, and many Michigan wineries are using very young fruit.

The Michigan wine industry is experiencing an exciting period. More wineries pop up every year, it seems. We now have 12 wineries on the Leelanau Peninsula, and the number of wine grape-producing vines is even increasing. Along with the growth comes monetary investment, and a lot of newer wineries are producing very good wines in a short period, causing some older and more established wineries to step up quality and not rest on their laurels.

While Michigan’s climate limits what we can produce in the way of wines. There are some great examples of these styles. Our short growing season favors white wines such as Chardonnay, Riesling, and Pinot Grigio. Reds require a long, warm growing season to fully ripen the grapes, so if you are looking for a full-bodied Cabernet Sauvignon, best look somewhere else. However, pinot Noir, Cabernet franc, and merlot can be found although some can be pricey since production is small and most go into blends.

Go and visit one of the many tasting rooms around the area and discover some of the hidden treasures that abound in the Michigan wine industry. In equal fairness to all the local wineries, I am not going to single out any in this issue.

Ian Richardson is the owner, proprietor and wine extraordinaire of J&I Wine Shop, on Lake Street in Glen Arbor.

Posted by editor at 05:51 PM | Comments (0)

LEARNING HOW TO PLAY GOLF

By Lee Houtteman
Sun Contributor

At our Learning Center at Bay Meadows we get a lot of people who are just starting out in golf. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing a new golfer take up the game the correct way…. WITH A LESSON. Having taught golf now for close to 17 years to all ability levels, from professionals to beginners, I can tell you the hardest thing for all golfers to do is to break bad habits. Lessons form good habits from the start.

I personally started golf by picking up a club and firing balls at our local playground, one after the other, without any help from someone who knew the game. Actually, my big brother helped me in my early years, as he was a great athlete (professional hockey). Unfortunately for me, he was a 20-handicap golfer. Even today, I am still trying to “unlearn” his well-intended advice.

Learning golf the correct way means learning the fundamentals of the grip, posture and how far to stand from the ball. As the swing starts, there are only a few things that a new golfer must remember. Simply stated, a golfer needs to create the proper wind-up throughout the backswing and maintain one's posture throughout the swing. If you make a good backswing, it is hard to mess up the downswing. The problem with trying to learn a motor skill like the golf swing on your own is that everyone interprets advice differently. This advice can come in many forms; the most common way people get advice is through tips in magazines. Yet trying to incorporate a golf tip from a magazine into your own swing is probably the single worst thing a new golfer can do.

The old adage, “you get what you pay for,” also holds true in golf. A tip from a $3.00 magazine may cost you hundreds of dollars in lessons down the road.

The best advice I can give is to go to a PGA professional for instruction. The pro will build your swing through sound fundamentals. And most facilities will use high-speed video analysis. Professionals who do not use video support have to rely on the naked eye to detect swing errors, and this is very difficult, considering the average swing moves at close to 90 miles per hour. With video, you get instant visual feedback and can check your progress in real time. Video technology will make learning faster, and the game much more enjoyable.

The last bit of advice for beginning golfers is, when your spouse, friends or children offer counsel, run the other way. Advice like, “keep your head down”, “you’re looking up”, or the most popular, “slow down, you’re swinging too fast” may sound like good information during a stretch of rough holes, but believe me, the cause of the problem happened earlier in the swing than your companions realize. Phil Rodgers, a great tour player in the 60’s, who was my mentor during my years of teaching in Orlando, always said, “99 percent of the problems in a golfers swing happen at setup, the other one percent occurs during the first foot of the backswing”.

“I will never take a lesson”

If you absolutely cannot, or will not, take a golf lesson, there are a few things that you can try with your setup that will help you towards long-term improvement. The first is to check your distance from the ball. Research on the top hundred tour players revealed that they addressed the ball within a small variance from player to player. With a standard length 5-iron (38 inches is standard), the professionals were 23.5 inches from their left toe to the ball, plus or minus .5 inches. Remember, this is only with a standard 5-iron! This setup distance will force your body into the correct posture. You want to feel this same posture for every club in the bag. Next time you hit balls, extend a tape measure to this distance. Typically, our students stand too close to the ball, sometimes by four to five inches. Standing this close significantly limits how your lower body can clear through impact. Most people will compensate with their upper body when the lower body cannot function. Big mistake!

The research with tour players also revealed that the ball position remained constant from club to club. Play the ball just inside the left heel (1-2 inches) for all the irons. With the driver, move the ball to the arch of the left foot. The right foot is the only one you want to adjust as you switch club. A good rule to follow is, with the 5-iron the right foot should be shoulder width, with the 9-iron the right foot should be 2 inches inside the right shoulder, and with the driver the stance should be 2 inches outside the right shoulder. Good ball position at address will help develop the proper weight shift throughout the swing.

“Nothing beats a lesson”

If you feel intimidated or cannot afford a private lesson, get your friends together for a series of group lessons. Taking lessons in a group sometimes is better than private lessons. The person next to you might have the same problem you have. Watching them try to shift their weight a certain way, or get into a certain position, may trigger an image in your game that will help you with your swing.

“Golf is not Easy “

Many professional baseball, hockey, basketball and football players take up golf after they retire. When asked to compare golf with their sport, most professional athletes will agree that golf, by far, offers the most challenges. Its difficulty, and the inability for anyone to master it (except for perhaps, Tiger), are the reasons golf has become the most popular of the recreational sports. Golf is not an easy sport to learn, however, if you are planning to start, do yourself a favor, and get professional help.

Lee is director of the Lee Houtteman Learning Center at Bay Meadows golf course in Traverse City, which employs three PGA pros who are available for lessons. Ina Davis and Jeff Dean, along with Lee can be reached at 231-946-7927.

Lee spent twelve years as a senior instructor at the Grand Cypress Resort in Orlando, then directed golf schools at The Homestead Resort and Grand Traverse Resort. From 1997-2001, Lee was the director of the Compusport World Headquarters in Las Vegas.

Posted by editor at 04:52 PM | Comments (0)

CLOSE TO HOME: GROUND ZERO PEACE POLE PRODUCED LOCALLY

By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

Six weeks from now all of America, and the entire world, will stop and remember that awful day last Fall that changed our lives forever, shattering the bubble of security for many, and stealing a loved one or a friend from tens of thousands.

In Lower Manhattan, especially, where Al Quaeda hijackers perpetrated the crimes that have sought to overshadow everything since last September 11th, New Yorkers will gather to mourn the losses of more than 3,000 victims and remember their city’s skyline when it was still intact. Eventually, they will get around to rebuilding the sight where the World Trade Center towers stood, with memorials for the fallen and, inevitably, office buildings to capitalize on the most expensive piece of financial real estate in the world.

One of the memorial symbols making its way to “Ground Zero” is a Peace Pole, handcrafted locally by the company’s shepherds Kate Reedy and Dave Moffat, longtime Glen Arborites who now run the business out of their new pole barn on Wheeler Road. The Peace Pole intended for the World Trade Center sight will be assembled in early August and sent to the headquarters of the World Peace Prayer Society in Armenia, New York for its official unveiling on August 17. The WPPS will then present the Pole to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on the anniversary of the worst terrorist attacks in world history.

But when and exactly where the locally made Peace Pole will stand in Lower Manhattan is uncertain at this time, due to disagreements between numerous factions in New York City including the victims’ families and the mayor’s office. As The New York Times’ Edward Wyatt put it on July 22, “For better or worse, the developments of the last week have turned the process of deciding what will replace the World Trade Center into an old-fashioned New York brawl, pitting outspoken community groups against developers in a fight that is refreshingly reminiscent of life in the city prior to Sept. 11.”

However, Vincent Guerriero, Sanctuary Director of the WPPS, and Reedy and Moffat’s liaison on the East Coast, is confident that the Peace Pole will soon find a home at whatever kind of memorial is built on the sacred ground, though it may wait until after the dust settles.

“The idea has not yet been approved by the mayor’s office,” said Guerriero. “We will present it to the mayor with or without prior approval.

“This was a heartfelt idea that didn’t require any research (or waiting for the politics to play out). We felt compelled to submit the Peace Pole -- not as a proposal, but as a gift.”

Much more lavish than the average four-sided Peace Poles seen all over Leelanau County, this one will reflect in price and design the immensity of what it represents for New York and the world. The Society of World Peace in Japan (which granted locals Carol and Joe Spaulding -- the original Maple City Peace Pole Makers -- the right to carry on the trade in the Western Hemisphere about 16 years ago) will foot the bill of roughly $30,000.

The September 11th Peace Pole will be a 12 foot-high hexagonal obelisk with the standard line “May Peace Prevail on Earth”, written in gold on a quarter inch of aluminum silver background, running down its six faces in 12 different languages -- those of the victims in the attacks. Their letters will spell messages of hope from the familiar: English, Spanish and German, to the ironic: Arabic and Urdu. Joe Spaulding will construct the point of the hexagon, two feet of stained glass sporting the six colors of the prism.

At the urging of Guerriero and the WPPS, which Kate Reedy credits as the brainchild of the idea, the pole will be left hollow inside so that people can insert letters and messages into slits left open on each side. After all, it will be on display for the people.

Just after the September 11th attacks, the nearby United Nations moved the Peace Pole that Reedy and Moffat had just built for them to Ground Zero, on which people wrote messages or hung photos of missing loved ones. One day a handful of doves were released over the Peace Pole from a draped American flag.

And yet war continues. As the Glen Arbor Sun interviewed Reedy and Moffat in their pole barn, George W. Bush emerged as background noise to claim on National Public Radio that the Taliban had been routed but that the United States would continue its war in Afghanistan until Al Qaeda ceased to exist. The calls for war and the calls for peace were both direct results of the terrorist attacks.

“Maybe peace is an ideal dream,” says Moffat, who admits he joined the Peace Pole partnership for the business, though he’s proud of being part of the peace process. “Humans have always fought wars. But anything we can do to push the peace process along is great.”

“I just hope we can help in the victims’ families’ healing process,” says Reedy, who doesn’t know yet how she will react to meeting them when they travel to New York for the unveiling and the presentation in a few weeks.

Reedy says that through the business they have met plenty of people who lost family or friends, leading to a 50 percent increase in sales since September 11. They built a Peace Pole for Basking Ridge, New Jersey, for instance, a town that lost 53 people on that day.

More than anything, the terrorist attacks still reverberate far beyond their geographical targets, and not just because they led this nation into an ongoing war or because our imaginations can’t stop seeing those airplanes explode through the twin towers like a Hollywood movie on constant repeat mode. “It’s amazing how those events travel so far,” says Moffat, who used to tend bar at Art’s and now helps heal people who grieve over the new century’s failure at peace.

Posted by editor at 03:55 PM | Comments (0)