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June 30, 2005

Bicentennial Barn, turning 30, needs a facelift

By Norm Wheeler
Sun editor

One of Leelanau County’s landmarks is preparing for a facelift. The patriotic paint job on the Bicentennial Barn near Good Harbor is fading, but hopefully the community spirit that initiated it is not. Owner Susan Shields and painter Dennis Gerathy are hatching a plan to restore it, and they are looking for volunteers to help.

A press release from 30 years ago sent to news media by Noble D. Travis, Chairman of the Leelanau County Bicentennial Commission, explains the original project: “The Commissioners enthusiastically endorsed the presentation of “Shalda Barn ‘76” (which is the painting of a full size barn with heroic murals) by Arlen and Sally Ramsay of The Leland Gallery. The Ramsay’s proposal had six specific points that contributed to its endorsement. First, it involved many people from all parts of the County. Second, it would be a lasting patriotic landmark. Third, it would be supported at little or no cost to the Commission by people who will share their resources with us. Fourth, the real benefactors would be the young people who actually make it happen. Fifth, it has the earmarks of being one of the state’s most outstanding tributes to our forefathers and the ideals of most Americans. Sixth, the condition of the barn and its location, on M-22 at County Road 669 in Cleveland Township, were perfect.”

With the approval of then-owner Mrs. Lewis Shalda, a huge community effort followed, but the project was carried out primarily by teams of art students from each of the county’s public schools under the direction of their art teachers. Mr. Ramsay’s original design featured “two wind blown flags, a historical map of the County, a portrait of George Washington; the south end of the barn shows the pioneer spirit of sharing the historic bounty of “The Little Finger,” and the today spirit of winter’s fun and summers blessing. He has integrated the silo into the design by painting it as a clump of trees, some with maple syrup buckets, and others with burnished red leaves that camouflage the red silo roof.”

Now 30 years of sun and storm have worn the burnish off the barn. The red-roofed silo blew down in the big wind of July, 1987, and was replaced with the unpainted concrete one. But the structure of the barn itself remains excellent. Jeff Reinhardt of Northport, “the barn guy,” has completed an inspection and recommended improvements. The doors, stairs, and some floorboards need work, but the foundation and all mortise and tenon joints are great. And the roof is in good shape. Susan Shields has slated the spring of 2006 for the interior improvements. But she hopes to begin the scraping and painting of the exterior this fall.

To the original six goals of the Ramsay proposal Susan is adding two more: to ensure that the future of the Bicentennial Barn is secure, especially for any rehabilitation required to ready it for its 50th birthday 20 years from now, and to ensure that the barn stays accessible to the public daily. “This barn belongs to the people of Leelanau County as a landmark, particularly to all of the people who have worked on it,” says Shields.

The barn is why Susan bought the property. A history and literature student from the University of Michigan, Shields was married in 1976 and honeymooned in Leelanau County. Through the years she frequently camped with her children at DH Day campground during the summer, and after her father’s death in 2000 Susan returned to “The County” to heal and rest. Father Bill told her one day as she cleaned the rectory in Empire that the property was for sale. “I bought it with hardly a glance at the farmhouse or the two cottages on Bass Lake that go with it,” she recalls. Of course it all needed work, and improvements to the house continue apace.

The plan for restoration of the barn is as follows: a design contest is proposed for the north wall. The names of the 1976 painters are no longer decipherable, so Shields hopes students will compete to create overlapping images about the future of Leelanau County. The east wall will remain the same, with George Washington and the flag restored. The south wall will retain its historical focus and include a combination of images, one showing the area’s settlement by Bohemians, and another picture representing the original Native Odawa/Ojibwe presence that the Tribe has promised to contribute. “The west wall will be images of the present in the county, sort of a you-are-here kind of thing,” Shields explains, “dunes, water, cherries, lighthouses, bears, those kinds of motifs.” And Shields has another creative idea: how about the silo as a spaceship? “We have an astronaut living in Suttons Bay, and many other scientists and authors who have made contributions to our culture live here,” Susan muses. “Perhaps we could find a way on the silo to celebrate the people we have ‘sent up’ to the world.” Ultimately the plan is to juxtapose the past, present and future of Leelanau County on the barn’s facades.

But who can make this happen? “Here’s the exciting part.” Susan says. While working on the gardens at Cherry Republic she met antique sign expert Dennis Gerathy. “He pulled up one day and said ‘I love that barn, let’s do something. You were born to buy that barn,’ he said, ‘and I was born to paint it!’” Gerathy is a member of a national group called the Letterhead Men. This professional association chooses one significant restoration project per year to which they dedicate their expertise, time and talent. “They don’t just use ordinary house paint,” Susan explains. “They have special matched colors and work with transparencies. We’ll have a jamboree when they come in June of 2006. It will be exciting to watch and to help them work.”

But the former images must be scraped off and the barn must first be primed. That’s where volunteers from around the county can pitch in. “We need to complete the scraping and priming if possible this fall,” Susan continues. “Anyone who was involved before or who wants to get involved now please contact the website www.restorethebarn.org or email me at restorethebarn@aol.com.”

Shields and Gerathy plan to host an organizational picnic on Labor Day, September 5, and call it the Labor of Love Day. Artists, painters, gofers, people with scaffolds and folks with paint scrapers are all needed for this effort. Please get involved in a project that will yield a big, tangible, colorful result for everyone to enjoy for many years to come.

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

Cedar Polka Fest gets ready for season number 24

By Pat Stinson
Sun contributor

The community of Cedar is abuzz this week preparing for its biggest annual event: the renowned Cedar Polka Fest which begins this year with a flag-raising ceremony on Thursday, June 30, followed by music, dancing and special events until 9 p.m., Sunday, July 3.

Merchants are busy stocking their shelves and volunteers are readying the village for anywhere from 10,000 to 15,000 festival goers who raise the usual pitch of polka fever in this peaceful Polish hamlet to fun and frenzied levels.

Sponsored by the Cedar Chamber of Commerce, the 24th annual festival promises the best in energetic polka music provided by talented Midwestern bands, dancing on one of the county’s biggest and arguably best dance floors, delicious Polish bratwursts, soft pretzels and beer, children’s games and activities, a parade, a softball tournament, and Sunday’s special Polka Folk Music Mass with Catholic Bishop Cooney and a polka band.

“We just work together to get it done,” says Polka Fest committee member Larry Bruckner, referring to a six-person committee assisted by interested Chamber members and a number of community-wide volunteers.

Using a Chamber-owned forklift to carry sections of dance floor from a storage area behind the chamber office to a designated spot under an enormous tent, Bruckner pauses long enough to point to an enormous bulletin board covered with pictures of past festivals and to share a few story nuggets. He says that today, one week before festival opening, is a more leisurely day for set up. Tomorrow, the real work begins. The dance floor still needs assembling, vendors will begin arriving, and all manner of details have yet to be finalized. Polka Fest Committee Chairman Frank Novak, whose duties are described as “everything under the tent,” coordinates with fellow committee members Ed Novak, Bob Dezelski, Judy Bugai, Larry Bruckner and Fred and Dan Peplinski, all of whom have been meeting once a month and contacting each other by phone for several months.

Bruckner, whose main duty is hiring the bands, also handles the festival parade. “A lot of people wait until the day of the parade to enter,” he says. “We don’t get excited. We just fit them in. We have a lot of old cars and jalopies, a polka band and lots of kids. Last year was our biggest; we had 30-something entries.”

When asked what his favorite festival event might be, Bruckner answers, “Once we raise the flag, and you hear the first drum beat, the music just makes it go.”

“I’m a polka (music) nut and that’s it,” he adds.

Though many young people attend the event and dance to polka music for a day or two, Bruckner says it’s debatable whether they will take the time to really learn how to polka. “Young kids are just happy to be out there jumping around, but to make them slow down, learn the beat…” his voice trails off.

The “old-style” beat is what drives polka music, with its accordion and concertina and now, the addition of brass. His concern is that the love of polka music and dancing could fade. While polka lessons are not offered during the festival, lessons are being given at the town hall in Cedar on June 24.

“Next year is our 25th,” he says. “We’ll have an extra special show band.”

Mark your 2006 calendar for Cedar’s Polka Fest, July 6-9.

For more information about this weekend’s Polka Fest, call 228-3378 or 228-5562. For information about the parade, call Greg at 922-1899.

POLKA FEST SCHEDULE OF EVENTS: JUNE 30 – JULY 3

Thursday, June 30
5 p.m. Flag-raising ceremony
5 p.m. to 1 a.m. Dancing with music by The Casuals of Eastlake,
Ohio, and Virgil Baker of Rockford, Michigan

Friday, July 1
10 a.m. Sidewalk Chalk Art – Meet at the Town Hall
2 – 5:30 p.m. Dancing with music by The Casuals of Eastlake,
Ohio
5:30 p.m. – 1 a.m. Dancing and music by Alvin Styczynski of Pulaski,
Wisconsin and Honkey Hoppers of Tonawanda,
New York.

Saturday, July 2
10 a.m. Face Painting – Meet at the Town Hall
Noon Parade – Downtown Cedar
2 – 5:30 p.m. Dancing with music by Alvin Styczynski of Pulaski,
Wisconsin
5:30 p.m. – 1 a.m. Dancing with music by Honkey Hoppers of Tonawanda, New York, and Cady Homel of Chicago, Illinois
Sunday, July 3
11 a.m. Mass with Polka Music – Celebrated by Bishop Cooney with music by Pan Franek & Zosia Polka Towners of Muskegon, Michigan
1 – 9 p.m. Dancing with Music by Pan Franek & Zosia Polka Towners of Muskegon, Michigan

Posted by editor at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)

Fine food in the heartland: North, Windows at Le Bear celebrate grand openings

By Norm & Jacob Wheeler
Sun editors

Windows at Le Bear
The chilly-looking whitecaps on Sleeping Bear Bay and the clouds blotting out the sun on June 16th weren’t the kind of postcard images that draw people up north, but the seagulls flirting on the boat launch at the end of Lake Street had a clear view of the Manitou Islands, nevertheless, as the chef of the new Windows at Le Bear resort, Randy Chamberlain, sliced up a yellow-fin tuna au poive for the restaurant’s long-awaited grand opening. Two weeks later, the hot summer weather is here to stay, and patrons are delighted to feast on the gourmet dishes that Michiganders have enjoyed for years at the original Windows on Grand Traverse West Bay.

But this location may be even better. Diners at Le Bear resort can take in amazing sunsets over Lake Michigan while submitting to the seductive powers of Randy’s char-grilled sockeye salmon or veal tenderloin Napolean. While the resort itself is private, Windows at Le Bear is s separate entity and open to the public. It is quite possibly the best spot in town to take a date. The restaurant will stay open year-round, seven days a week from 5-9 p.m., and hopes to strike a chord in the off-season with local residents. For that reason Windows at Le Bear held an open house for the Whose Who of Glen Arbor on June 15th, at which approximately 140 business owners and community leaders were treated to mouth-watering hours’d’ouvrs like smoked whitefish, curried shrimp, Portabella mushrooms and local Empire asparagus.

Randy Chamberlain (the chef) and Phil Murray (who runs the show at Windows in Traverse City) are the craftsmen behind this new jewel in Glen Arbor. Windows at Le Bear seats only about 30 people, so be sure to call ahead (334-2530) for reservations or e-mail windowslebear@charter.net

North
Greg Murphy and Nick Vanden Belt had a busy spring. They bought what used to be the Leelanau Country Inn, rolled up their sleeves, and commenced with major renovations. “There’s not much left of the old place,” says Murphy, the chef at La Becasse for the past 13 years. “We pretty much gutted it and started over.” Now the country eatery on M-22 near Little Traverse Lake, just west of Sugar Loaf Mountain, has a new boiler, a new roof and new insulation. “We raised the ceiling and created a new layout,” Murphy continues, “and we installed a gorgeous Australian cypress hardwood floor and a new 16-seat oak bar.” The restaurant opens July 1 with seating for 110 people.

Hungry guests will find that the new elegance fits nicely in the midst of the old country charm. Artwork from local painters, including Linda Hankes, adorns the walls, and the fence along the west side has been creatively painted and decorated with ceramic sculptures. All of the artwork will be for sale, and Murphy and Vanden Belt (also an alumna of La Becasse) intend to open a gallery in the front rooms upstairs. New lighting, new tabletops, and bone china complete the comfortable décor in this inviting restaurant.

“North” intends to be “family friendly but upscale,” promises Murphy, “a place with something for everyone. It will be pretty classy, but not a meal that has to cost over $50 per person.” There will be a children’s menu ($5) as well as appetizers ($6 – 14), a soup and salad menu, entrees ($14 – 29) and special desserts. “We have our own pastry chef and will offer 8 – 10 desserts nightly,” Murphy says. “Plus, we have 19 Italian gelatos and sorbettos. All are denser, richer than ice cream.”

The appetizers and entrees look to be well rounded. Seafood is flown in twice weekly and includes shrimp and crab cakes, tuna, lobster and salmon, as well as Lake Michigan whitefish. Murphy likes to include game or fowl on his list of meat specials, so expect to have a choice of elk chops, filet mignon or rack of lamb after you get the juices going with a dollop of liver mousse. Greg Murphy has distinguished himself as a local expert at concocting thick gumbos and pungent reduction sauces in the French country style, so everything on the menu will be worth a slow taste. Add to this a choice of over 100 wines, and “North” promises to be a rewarding culinary experience.

One special feature for early bird customers at “North” is a flat 20 percent discount off the entire bill for anyone seated at 5 and out by 6:30, “With that kind of deal a couple can enjoy three courses and a drink for around $25–30,” Murphy adds.

Call “North” for reservations, 228-5060

Posted by editor at 09:25 PM | Comments (0)

The Shirt

By Lois Beardslee
Sun contributor

“No. You can’t have the shirt.”

“But I want it.”

“I know. But you can’t have the shirt.”

“My friends will think it’s cool!”

“I know. But you can’t have the shirt.”

“It’s on sale, isn’t it?”

“Yes. But you can’t have the shirt.”

It is a camouflage design, in muted shades of military beiges and greens. The corporations that control America want to go to war again. And they are marketing children’s clothing as early recruitment…groundwork. The shirts are cheaper than any other shirts. They are in all the stores, and they are cheaper than all of the other shirts. It comes in other colors, that camouflage pattern. Oranges. Reds. Muted. Blending. Bloodlike.

“It comes in other colors, too. Look.”

“I know. But you can’t have the shirt.”

“Why?”

She wants to tell him.

“Why?”

She wants to tell him. But she knows that he is still too young to understand modern military operations. He is too young to understand death. He is too young to understand permanent loss of faculties, of limb. He thinks it’s cool. Blood and gore and stuff like in the horror movies. Like a Hallowe’en mask.

“It’s cool.”

Like a Hallowe’en mask.

“Mom. I said, it’s cool.”

“I know. But you can’t have the shirt.”

But nothing like a Hallowe’en mask.

“I could wear it for Halloween.”

“No, I wouldn’t let you.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want you to be a soldier for Halloween.”

“I could put fake blood on.”

“It’s called Hallowed Evening.”

“What?”

“Hallowe’en. It’s short for Hallowed Evening. And that means Holy Evening. It’s supposed to be a Holy
Evening.”

“Who cares…”

“I care.” It’s supposed to be about honoring the dead, she’s fairly sure, not just about gruesome ceremonies and an association with all things gory. It’s supposed to be about loving the dead, loving their memories. And scaring the kids is just a bonus. Because scaring kids a little bit is important to keeping them alive and safe. That’s why we’ve got stories about bad things. They are preventative stories. They are the true warriors’ stories. And it’s fun scaring the kids, too. It’s fun hearing children squeal with delight.

Ima Pipiig’s mind is wandering. It is taking her away from the urban development fringing the once-small town of Traverse City, Michigan. She is in small graveyards in the woods. Small patches of history and intertwined lives. She is sprinkling tobacco on the graves, following her mother, glad for the opportunity to toss and scatter something wildly with her young arms that beg for wide and simple motions without consequence.

She is hiding bundles of fresh sweetgrass behind the gravestones of Indian soldiers, where the white people will not see them and take them away, as souvenirs attesting to the quaintness of northern Michigan’s remnant Native inhabitants. The boy is sprinkling tobacco on the graves, following his mother, glad for the opportunity to toss and scatter something wildly with his young arms that beg for wide and simple motions without consequence.

“But I want it.”

“No. You can’t have the shirt.”

“Why?”

It is a camouflage design, in muted shades of military beiges and greens. The corporations that control America want to go to war again. And they are marketing children’s clothing as early recruitment…groundwork. The shirts are cheaper than any other shirts. They are in all the stores, and they are cheaper than all of the other shirts. It comes in other colors, that camouflage pattern. Oranges. Reds. Muted. Blending. Bloodlike.

He cannot have the shirt because, because… there is nothing in our oral and written history prior to the advent of the fur trade that refers to protectors being recuited as warriors. There is nothing in our stories, no cultural precedents for the concept of children recruited for future disposability in the form of corporate warriors. Once enlisted, these children are endlessly deployed until death or dismemberment. There is no Anishnabe word for this. There is no Anishnabe concept for this. This came with the fur trade, and our success at adapting to the warfare you brought upon us is being used to recruit us right now.

Ima Pipiig has seen the government posters, distributed in the Native American communities, the ones that talk about Indian warrior traditions. Ima Pipiig knows at this time that the boy is to be protected from the idea of protector as warrior, until he is old enough to know that dead is forever, until he is old enough to know that dismemberment is not cool, until he knows that one must carefully choose what one protects.

“Mom. I want the shirt.”

“I know. But you can’t have it.”

Posted by editor at 08:30 PM | Comments (0)

The Season of Strawberries

By Nancy Krcek Allen, CCP
Sun contributor

There is an old story about a strawberry that Zen Buddhists like to tell. A tiger is chasing a man. The man runs to the edge of a cliff and in his haste, he slips. He finds himself hanging on by only a tree root. He looks down to see a ravine far below with jagged rocks and a raging river. Up above, the tiger growls and paces hungrily. The man looks at the tree root and notices one perfectly ripe wild strawberry sitting within reach of his hand. He plucks the berry and eats it.

A Buddhist might say that this story represents life and how we are caught between birth and death with no hope of escape. The strawberry is a metaphor for how we must enjoy the fleeting present moment despite birth and death on both sides of us. When I first heard this story all I could think about was the taste of that berry.

Although my family lived in a small suburb of Detroit, where houses sat on lots a fraction of the size of a baseball diamond, my parents always grew strawberries. (At 85, they still have a small patch.) In fact, my earliest memories include awakening on sweet summer mornings in the mid-50’s to a bowl of Rice Krispies with milk and freshly picked strawberries. My mother sliced them into red hearts that would pinken my milk and make it all the more desirable.

It was here that my flavor instincts revealed themselves. My brother liked to fish his strawberries out of the milk and eat them first. Foolish heathen. He’d then be forced to eat the cereal naked. I delighted in the taste of these three substances together on my spoon. I thought that the intermingling and contrasts of the flavors and textures—the sweet-tartness of the berries, the creaminess of the whole milk and the crispy snap of the cereal—were a perfect taste and textural balance. I discovered the combination again when I ate my first strawberry shortcake. Today, simple but powerful combinations of flavors like this remain my biggest culinary delight.

Do you find yourself complaining that you are too busy to cook? The pure flavor of the Buddhist’s wild strawberry is a perfect metaphor for slowing to enjoy life. (After all, strawberries are in the rose family.) Slow and simplify your life by purchasing locally grown food and taking the time to really taste it. Fresh food that hasn’t been shipped from elsewhere is filled with big flavor; it needs no elaborate kitchen trickery—just simple flavor combinations.

There are many varieties of strawberry, but only two important types: the firm and almost scentless and tasteless shipping berry and the local tender, big flavored berry. Michigan strawberries might seem homely compared to California imports, but the California berries are mostly just a pretty face. You’ll recognize our own berries before you see them by their hypnotic perfume. Local berries share their rose brethren’s intense fragrance—a rich aroma that fills your senses. Let it entice you past the boxes of shapely California berries to buy our ripe, red, robust Michigan berries. If you want to know where to buy local (and organic) produce, check out the Michigan Land Use Institute’s website for contact information and local farmers: www.LocalDifference.org.

Search out local berries picked the morning you buy them. As a Zen Buddhist or my mother would tell you, local strawberries might last a week, but their flavor and texture are never better than the moment they are picked.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp
Serves 4 to 6

Topping
1 cup unbleached white flour
1 cup old-fashioned oatmeal
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 pound unsalted butter, diced

Fruit
1 pound trimmed rhubarb (no leaves), diced
1 pound hulled strawberries, sliced
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup unbleached flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 350F. Place the topping ingredients into a food processor or a bowl and cut in the butter with small pulses or with a knife until it is in small pea-sized pieces.

Set the topping aside. Toss the strawberries and rhubarb with sugar, flour and cinnamon.

Pour the fruit mixture into a 9-inch glass pie dish set on a sheet pan. Sprinkle the topping over the fruit. Bake the crisp until the fruit is bubbly and tender and the topping is brown, about 40 minutes. Let it cool to warm before serving and top with Shetler’s whipped cream or Moomer’s vanilla ice cream.

June is peak Michigan strawberry time but you can serve both of these biscuits with local fresh fruit like blueberries or peaches any time of the year. Make a double recipe and freeze them. In the midst of a dessert panic, haul them out and slather them with berries. I’m partial to organic berries from Wares Farm. I slice and mix these juicy gems with a little sugar for a minimum of 30 minutes, to a maximum of overnight.

Fluffy Shortcake Biscuits
Adapted from The Joy of Cooking
About 6 large biscuits

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) unsalted cold butter, cut up
3/4 to 1 cup (more as needed) whipping cream or whole milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, optional
Strawberries with a little sugar or maple syrup
Shetler’s whipped cream

Preheat the oven to 400F. Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl or food processor. Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or in the food processor with short bursts. Dump the mixture into a bowl if you are using the food processor. Stir in the cream (or milk) and vanilla lightly with a fork until the dry ingredients are evenly moistened. The lesser amount will produce a rollable shortcake dough that you can cut with a round cutter. The larger amount of cream will produce a droppable biscuit.

If you want to roll the dough, turn it onto a lightly floured counter and knead gently and quickly, making 8 to 10 folds. Roll it out with a rolling pin to the desired thickness and cut out with cutters dipped in flour. Place them on a sheet pan. If you decide to drop the biscuits, drop them by spoonfuls onto a sheet pan, evenly spaced. Bake the shortcakes until they begin to color, about 20 to 30 minutes. Serve the biscuits warm, split in half with loads of berries and whipped cream.

Chocolate Shortcake Biscuits
6 to 8 shortcakes

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup sifted unsweetened cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 to 3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) unsalted cold butter, cut up
1/2 cup or more semi-sweet chocolate chips or chopped chunks of dark chocolate
1 to 1 1/2 cup (more as needed) whipping cream

Preheat the oven to 375F. Mix the dry ingredients together in a bowl or food processor. Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter or in the food processor with short bursts. Dump the mixture into a bowl if you are using the food processor. Fold in the chocolate chips or chunks. Stir in the cream (or milk) lightly with a fork until the dry ingredients are evenly moistened.

Drop the biscuits onto a sheet pan evenly spaced. Bake them until they begin to color, about 15 to 20 minutes. Serve the biscuits warm, split in half with loads of berries and whipped cream.

Enjoy local fruit all year long—wash, hull and freeze berries in plastic baggies. Then you can use them for smoothies. Smoothies are a great way to start a summer day. If you have a digestive or drinking problem, the addition of kudzu in this drink might help. A Chinese study of almost 300 alcoholics found that consumption of kudzu reduces alcohol cravings and, after a month of daily intake, 80 percent no longer craved alcohol. You can add or substitute a tablespoon of whey protein for more of a boost.

Strawberry Kudzu Smoothie
Adapted from Tonics by Robert A. Barnett
Yields almost 2 cups

1 heaping teaspoon crushed kudzu (available at Oryana)
1/2 cup milk or soy milk
1 cup hulled and washed strawberries (frozen or fresh)
1/4 cup plain or vanilla yogurt
1 tablespoon maple syrup, to taste
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Mix together the kudzu and milk until the kudzu is dissolved. Pour the strawberries, yogurt and a little of the maple syrup into a blender or food processor. Puree until smooth. Scrape the kudzu-milk mixture and the vanilla into the fruit. Taste the smoothie and add more sweetener if you like.

This fruit granita is an adult version of a popsicle. You can boost the flavor by substituting fruit juice for the water (but take care with the sugar). Simplify this even further by pureeing frozen berries with a little sugar and fresh lemon juice. You’ll find the granita quite refreshing on a hot summer day. Make it early (4 to 5 hours before) in the day for dinner.

Strawberry Granita
Adapted from Delia Smith’s Summer Collection
Serves 8

4 heaping cups ripe strawberries, rinsed and hulled
2/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 cups water
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

Blend the berries to a puree in a food processor or blender, add the sugar and puree, blend again and then the water and lemon juice. Puree this mixture until well mixed.

To make this a fine-textured granita, set a fine-meshed strainer/sieve over a bowl and pour the strawberry puree into it. Scrape the purée through the sieve. Pour the purée into a 8 inch by 8 inch glass baking dish and freeze for two hours. The mixture will start to freeze around the edges. Mix the frozen parts into the unfrozen and freeze the mix again for another hour. Mix again and freeze for another hour and mix a last time. You should have a frozen snow of ice crystals, ready to serve. It will remain at this stage in the freezer for about 3 hours but will freeze hard after that.

Serve in glasses so you may show off the wonderful strawberry color

Posted by editor at 07:35 PM | Comments (0)

A newcomer's Taller, Thinner, Fitter experience at the Glen Arbor Athletic Club

By Jane Greiner
Sun contributor

Fitness has never been my strong point. But at 59, I had reached a point where I knew it was time to change the progress from “bigger, fatter, slower” to “taller, thinner, fitter.” Or else.

So I checked with friends about the Glen Arbor Athletic Club. What was it like? Was it fun? Did it help? Was it worth it? And most of all, did it feel strange to go there and bounce around in front of strangers?

My friends assured me that it was a friendly, non-threatening place. Actually, they said, it was “kind of fun.” You do a circuit similar to “Curves” moving from one machine at a time to the next, and the next, and so on until you have tried them all.

I decided to go and see the place for myself and try to make a decision on joining.

One thing is for sure: the people at the club are not strangers, at least not for long. From the moment I went to inquire, I was greeted warmly by the owners and staff.

On the first day the woman at the desk welcomed me and offered to show me around and explain things as best she could. She started with the machines on the women’s side of the main floor. The whole main floor is divided into two large rooms, with women’s equipment in a “Fit Express” circuit workout on one side and various weight machines, ellipticals, bicycles and treadmills on the other side for general use.

She invited me to try out the equipment while I was there or come in anytime for a free “circuit” on the ladies’ exercise machines.

I was glad that one side of the building was set aside for women. I knew I would feel exposed and on display doing exercise in public, and even more so if there were men hanging around watching us.

The facility seemed small at first, and crowded with exercise equipment. But the old school rooms, with their high ceilings, walls of windows and worn wooden floors, soon won me over and made me feel right at home. I was told that during the summer members will sit at tables out on the deck and drink coffee and turn the place into a social setting. In addition, there are a couple of groups who meet in the morning and walk together, followed by exercise at the club and coffee at the Leelanau Coffee Roasters.

Fortunately, only a few people were there when I arrived, and I did not feel “on-display” at all. So I followed the helpful staff person and tried out the circuit machines. She explained how the routine works and how you move on to a new exercise each time the recorded voice who they have named “Leroy” says “Change stations.”

I took home some information on membership costs plus the few, simple rules on use of the club. The important rule seemed to be to bring clean, sand-free gym shoes to the club to avoid tracking grit onto the wooden schoolhouse floors or onto the exercise equipment.

The next day when I came in, there was a message for me that one of the owners, would not be in until later, but that I should feel free to try out the equipment, do an exercise circuit if I liked, and she would see me on my next visit. I was impressed that communication was sound enough that the owners knew a new person had left me a message.

I had my clean gym shoes and was ready to have a go at the circuit. The desk person showed me the locker room, shower and bathroom and found me a place where I could “park” my tennis shoes when I was finished so that I would not have to carry them back and forth every day.

When I was ready to exercise, she suggested a place to start on the circuit and told me it was normal to do the circuit three times, which takes about 30 minutes. She showed me a couple of things about the machines, reminded me that she was right there at the desk if I had any questions, and left me to it.

Music with a pronounced bouncy beat was playing and Leroy interrupted every 40 seconds to tell us to “Change stations.” I had chosen to start out on one of the two-foot square cushioned platforms and jogged gently in place until Leroy beckoned me to the next piece of equipment.

Another woman was moving through the circuit when I started, so we talked a little and I watched how she moved from exercise to exercise. I followed her pattern, and in no time I was doing the circuit like any other old-timer.

At first it felt real easy. I barely had time to feel fatigued from one exercise before I was moving on to the next. I tried keeping time to the music, which helped give me a peppy workout.

But by the time I had completed one circuit I began to feel like this was more exercise than it had seemed like at first.

By the middle of the second circuit (about 15 minutes altogether), I was beginning to wonder if I would even be able to complete the expected three circuits. But I stuck with it, telling myself that if other woman could do it then I should be able to as well, and gratefully completed three circuits.

I walked around a bit and grabbed a towel from a cart by the desk, feeling pretty good, knowing that I had taken a step toward making myself fit.

On my second day of exercising I completed the club membership paperwork with Marcia Walters, one of the owners. She was very pleasant and welcoming, and immediately introduced me to other members who were doing the circuit. In fact, both Marcia and Linda Gretzema (another owner) make an effort to introduce new people to anyone already active on the circuit. I found that very helpful, as it broke the ice and I was able to chat with the other ladies, which made the time fly by much faster.

As part of the joining process I was given a free Glen Arbor Athletic Club t-shirt — even one in my size. I was also offered a free half hour with a staff personal trainer named Judy Briggs, who I had met on the first day.

Completing the three circuits became a little easier the second day, especially since I had someone to chat with. Nevertheless, it required effort, and I was glad when the workout was over.

By my third day, completing the three circuits really wasn’t a problem. Sure, I worked up a sweat and breathed a little harder during the jogging and stair-stepping stations, but I no longer doubted that I could finish.

The circuit is carefully arranged so that you constantly move from upper body exercises, to leg exercises, to arm exercises, to stomach exercises, to thigh stretches. You never really burn out on any movement before Leroy says “Change stations” and you move on to something else.

After attending the club for a week or so I had improved my stamina enough to know that I could always complete the three circuits. The challenge then became to work a little harder on each exercise. The arm lifts, for example, could be sped up. The faster I pushed those bars, the greater the resistance from the machine. So it was very easy to make the workout more challenging simply by accelerating the movements and putting more emphasis on the jogging-in-place intervals.

By this time I had also begun to recognize some of the regulars and had even learned a few names to go with the faces. I already appreciated that if I chatted with someone while exercising, the time went much quicker. I was afforded the double benefit of forgetting that I was exercising while also meeting new people.

Gradually, I began adding treadmill walking to my circuits workout. I worked up to a mile or two each day. I have been in the club for about three months now, and lately I have switched from treadmill to elliptical machine, which is more of a full body workout and easier on the knees. I have been working my way up from a starting time of only five minutes to my current level of 20 minutes. The elliptical along with the three circuits take me about one hour of gym time, and I feel great afterwards.

That is one of the unexpected benefits I have discovered from the exercises. Even if I feel low in the morning, if I get myself down to the gym and complete my workout, it’s like a booster shot of cheerfulness. Not only do I feel better physically for having exercised, I also feel mentally uplifted, not to mention some sort of pleasant social interaction with another person.

In short, it’s a win-win-win situation.

I have chatted with other members of the Glen Arbor Athletic Club to learn about their experiences.

I had already met “Mickey” Barr and remembered her because of her unique nickname. Mickey joined the club last December at age 80. She said she had been having a lot of back problems and “could hardly walk.”

So she worked with physical therapist Mark Candiff for 10 sessions. “He’s real good, and it helped me a lot,” Mickey recalls. “I can walk!” The day of our interview she was working her way around the circuit, seemingly without difficulty.

Mickey does her own routine on the circuit. She skips the jogging and stair stepping stations and opts instead for the exercise machines because she has already walked on the treadmill. She likes to come in when the club isn’t busy, which usually means mid-morning.

Mickey’s son is Tim Barr — owner of Glen Arbor’s world famous Art’s Tavern.

Another member who joined recently is Misty Sheehan, 60, of Empire. Misty said the reason she joined was that she “just finished building my house and now I want to get healthy.

“It’s been great,” she said. “Judith, the personal trainer, showed me around the first day and how to use everything. So I hope I’m doing it right. I am doing this and I am walking on the beach also. Trying to come in every day except Sunday, and doing the circuit five times.”

Misty has worked her way up to five circuits after starting with three. Now five circuits seems easy to her.

I arrived early one day to catch up with the early morning ladies who have been coming to the club for over a year.

Mary Turak of the Yarn Shop treks to the club every day using her walking poles — special fitness equipment similar to ski-poles. Her son-in-law Pete Edwards sells them, and she carries them at her shop. Mary is usually there when the club opens at 7 a.m. She will do about a half-hour routine and then moves on her way, walking with her poles, back to the Yarn Shop.

Ruth Conklin, of the Conklin Gallery, is also enthusiastic about the club. “It’s a wonderful thing – it’s the best thing that has ever happened to Glen Arbor. I dropped my cholesterol 100 points!”

Ruth joined a year ago. She is also there when the doors open at 7. She uses the elliptical machine for two miles and then exercises 15 minutes on the circuit. “And every other day I do two of the weight machines,” she added.

Ruth’s husband is also a regular member of the club.

Numerous area residents have found the Glen Arbor Athletic Club to be a great place to go for exercise and fitness, or as a social event. That has certainly been my own experience. I feel good each day when I come home from exercising. I have more energy throughout the day, plus it feels as if the exercise acts as a kind of anti-depressant. I have come to think of the club as a “happy place.”

Now that I am an old-timer at the club (I have been there all of three months), I think I can say that I have grown fitter, thinner, and yes, even taller. I feel both physically and mentally better. How could I not stand taller?

Posted by editor at 06:43 PM | Comments (0)

Sea lampreys ruined many a picnic

By Helen Westie
Sun contributor

When I was growing up in the 1930’s in southern Michigan, our family summer highlight was always a camping trip. Our favorite camp spot was the state park on Green Lake in Interlochen. It was an idyllic camp spot under stately pines near the beach and the shelter house. The Interlochen music camp had been in existence for just a few years. Dr. Joe Maddy of the School of Music at the University of Michigan and founder of the Music Camp would often come to our camp site and give us free passes to the concert that night. Many years later when I was a student at the University, I met Dr. Maddy at a reception in the School of Music. I asked him if he remembered giving us the passes to concerts. “I certainly do,” he replied. “We really needed audiences in those days.”

I recall how much we enjoyed the International Youth Orchestra which often played familiar classics as we sat in the original Interlochen Bowl. I admired the camp uniforms which consisted of Navy blue corduroy knickers, blue shirts and red sweaters, which are standard issue to this day. Red mittens were part of the regulation uniform and they were needed in July and August here in the north country. Of course, as students played their instruments, those had to be put aside.

The nights were very cold in the 30’s and 40’s, and those campers who were better equipped (some even had mobile campers) would often Good Morning us with “Nice sleeping last night!”. “Humpf” would be our reply, “We froze”.

We always camped at the same place. Later, after I married and had two boys, my husband’s work took us to the Philadelphia area, but July or August took us back to camp at Interlochen. My brother Charles’ family would camp near us. My sons loved being with their cousins. Lately, they recalled the strains of Liszt’s Les Preludes, which always marked the end of the summer camp season as it still does today.

Through the years, my parents who still lived near Detroit would come to visit us at camp. The rigors of tenting did not appeal to them, so they rented a cabin nearby. Mom would bring her large cast-iron frying pan, some lemon, butter, Crisco, and perhaps a few spices. The most delectable of Michigan fish, the Lake Superior lake trout, would be bought in Traverse City. Mom would pan-fry the trout steaks and would serve corn on the cob and sliced very ripe tomatoes with it. Sometimes there were little new potatoes buttered and parslied. Dessert was a bowl of berries. What delicious dinners Mom prepared for us year after year. Then one year the lake trout became prohibitively expensive and the next one it was not available at all. That scourge of the Great Lakes, the sea lamprey, had decimated the whole industry!

I have never seen a sea lamprey, but from bulletins of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife and the National Park Service, I can visualize this reprehensible, disgusting sea animal. It is snake-like and it has a protuberant sucker-like strong mouth and teeth which can penetrate the tough skin and scales of any big fish. This parasite bores a hole in the side of the host fish and lives on its blood and body fluids, and the host fish usually dies.

The habitat of the sea lamprey is the Atlantic Ocean and not the Great Lakes. With the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaways some lampreys came in with ocean liners. Niagara Falls provided a barrier, but then with the opening of the Welland Canal in 1919, the lampreys gradually increased so that they have killed off the lake trout and other large fish.

In the 1940’s and 50’s the United States government spent millions of dollars in research programs to control the lamprey. Cooperation with Canada and much study has gone into programs to eliminate this predator. Various mechanical barriers were invented. An effective one was an electric fence, which did not allow lampreys to enter but did allow other fish to go through. This was put across streams where the lampreys go to spawn and which feed into the big lakes. In recent years, two lampricides have been developed which can attack the lamprey larval stage. At last, because of the application of these lampricides, the lamprey population has gone down and the lake trout is increasingly more available as time goes on.

Tom Rose of Empire is an avid fisherman and reports that now and then a Lake Michigan fisherman will reel in a lamprey on a salmon/ The fisherman will immediately take the lamprey in to the DNR office for whatever use this will be in the solving of the lamprey problem.

Steve Yancho, chief of Natural Resources for the Department of the Interior, whose office is in the National Park headquarters in Empire, and Dennis Lavis of the Fish and Wildlife Services in Ludington have provided helpful documents about the sea and lamprey problem and the steps in its solution. These documents are now on file in the Glen Lake Community Library in Empire. David Diller, librarian, has placed these in the records room for public use.

Posted by editor at 04:12 PM | Comments (0)

Creativity Abounds at "Imagine That"

By Ashlea Walter
Sun contributor

Invited to a Baby Shower? Having a Baby? Want to pamper a new mother? Or maybe you have aspirations to be the best aunt or uncle, grandmother or grandfather around and need the perfect present? If you’re affected by the recent Baby Boom, look no further than Glen Arbor’s own “Imagine That. Eclectic Arts & Gifts” shop to help you fulfill your gift-giving needs. You’re sure to find something memorable, whimsical and personal.

Shop-owner Carolyn Brown, long-time summer visitor to the Glen Arbor area, hopes that customers will find items in Imagine That which “make you smile each time you look at them or feel good each time you use them.” A few moments spent inside the shop reveal just that: countless inspired items for the young or even the young at heart … fairies, jewels, flowers, handmade clothing, bedding, home furnishings, toys, puppet theaters, furniture and more. As one customer in Imagine That esteemed, “the more you look, the more you see.”

So how does one create such an inspired atmosphere that is so inviting and yet full of flair and wonder at the same time? By testing it out on your relatives first. The seeds of Imagine That were planted in gifts that Carolyn would make for family and friends, and in helping design and create items for the baby nurseries of her friends. She made her first puppet theater for her lucky niece and nephew and they continue to be the guinea pigs for Carolyn’s many creative designs.

Some of Imagine That’s other featured items this summer include Oprah’s favorite line of perfumes, bubble bath, candles, and crèmes called Lollia. The Lollia line is exquisite and the perfect gift to pamper a new mother or even yourself. Other finds include original paintings and sculptures by several different artists from the Greenville, South Carolina area. Carolyn calls Greenville home for the winter months and thankfully brings a good dose of southern charm and a laid-back flavor with her to her shop in Glen Arbor for the summer. Remember, summer’s short, so visit Imagine That often. It is located next to Petoskey Pete’s on Western Avenue, and open Monday-Friday from 10-6, Saturdays from 10-7 and Sundays from 12-5. When winter comes, Carolyn heads south with the rest of the snowbirds. But don’t worry, you can still find a treasure in cyberspace at www.shopimaginethat.com.

Posted by editor at 03:17 PM | Comments (0)

June 16, 2005

County native’s medical training takes her to rural, poor Mayan clinic

Liz Martin says three-month experience changed her life
By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor

Part two in a two-part series on locals doing humanitarian work in Guatemala

RIO DULCE, Guatemala – In a setting as meager as the Ak’tenamit project site, located in the jungle of eastern Guatemala, a hike and a motorboat ride away from the nearest road, Dartmouth medical student Liz Martin learned that you make do with the resources you have available. That could mean reaching a diagnosis without the benefit of x-rays or cat scans; stitching up a serious wound without anaesthesia; or comforting a teenage girl by candlelight as she prepares to go into labor.

The daughter of John, a realtor at The Martin Company, and Wendy, a schoolteacher at Glen Lake, Liz is best known in northern Michigan for having lit up high school basketball courts in the mid-90’s. But in Guatemala this spring is where she and her boyfriend Dan made a difference that really counts. The two doctoral candidates volunteered at the Ak’tenamit clinic for three months, receiving Q’eqchi’ Mayan Indians, some of whom had walked for days, for medical help that we in the rich, developed world take for granted.

Officially, their role was to support Maria, the director of the clinic who speaks both Spanish and Q’eqchi’, and 10 volunteers. The two Ivy-Leaguers also trekked twice a week to surrounding villages, carrying huge backpacks full of medicine and setting up impromptu clinics by hanging sheets to make walls and sliding benches together. They would often spend a night there, dine with local families in their homes and see as many as 250 patients in a couple days. But the experience was reciprocal, Liz maintains.

“It’s really not that admirable,” she said over the phone after returning to the United States. “I took away so much more from my time there than the people I served in the clinics.

“In fact, we were still in school and didn’t have that much practical experience. The permanent workers there have lots of experience with common infectious diseases (like malaria or Giardia).”

Nevertheless, at least one family will always remember what Liz for them when it mattered most. On a day she will never forget, a 14-year-old pregnant girl named Marta arrived at the clinic with her mother, just hours shy of going into labor. Having a child that young is not all that uncommon in Mayan culture, but her mother had an anxiety disorder and couldn’t be present for the birth. Enter Liz, who had learned just enough Spanish during five weeks at the Probigua language school in touristy Antigua, to comfort Marta, by candlelight, as she lay in wait. “I was up every three hours to check on the poor woman,” Liz remembers. In the morning, she found Marta with her mother and sister in the room, overjoyed and relieved that the pregnancy had gone well.

The healthy baby’s name: Lisa, after the kind, white-skinned foreigner who had comforted Marta through the ordeal.

Years later, Liz says she will be tempted to return to Guatemala and check up on Lisa.

Other experiences at the clinic didn’t always have happy endings, or they were marred by logistical challenges and cultural differences.

“I had to speak to men about their wives’ health problems, even if a woman came in with months of vaginal bleeding,” Liz remembers. “Because only the men spoke Spanish. That’s why we wanted the girls from the rural areas to get better education.”

Another time a man arrived from the plantation after nearly chopping off his ear with a machete.

“This happened on a weekend, and one of the health promoters was running around, yelling ‘Emergencia!’ We walked in, and this guy’s ear was hanging from a thread. The nearest hospital was hours away, so we gave him 23 stitches on the spot.”

Liz added that, had the man traveled to the modern hospital in the Caribbean port of Puerto Barrios, he may have lay there for two days without getting any medicine.

After all, Mayan Indians are all but outcasts on their own land. Though Guatemala’s 22 indigenous tribes represent a majority of the country, it is the land-owning white oligarchy who have the power and the riches. Most of the victims during Guatemala’s brutal 36-year civil war were the Mayan Indians of the western highlands, who suffered one massacre after another at the hands of the U.S.-backed and trained military.

The Q’eqchi’ people are also native to the western highlands, but the armed conflict forced many of them to resettle in other areas of the country, or take refugee status in Mexico or the United States. Thus, the Ak’tenamit project was established 12 years ago near the Rio Dulce to care for a population of 7,000 relocated Q’eqchi’ Indians. In addition to the clinic where Liz and Dan treated people for malaria, births, machete wounds, scabies, lice, cellulitus and ulcers (stuff the Dartmouth students had never seen before), the “Proyecto” has a boarding school for children from surrounding villages, a conservation branch teaching self-empowerment, and its own lancha, or motor boat, that picks up volunteers or transports patients to a hospital.

Posted by editor at 11:38 PM | Comments (0)

Glen Clark’s Trailing Edge Art

By F. Josephine Arrowood
Sun contributor

Visitors to Empire’s Glen Lake Library may have seen two posters that appear to be of 1930’s vintage, touting the glories of Sleeping Bear Bay and the Empire Bluff in muted blues, taupes and charcoal hues. Yet these retro-chic artworks are new, original creations of Traverse City native Glen Clark and his Outernet Arts company.

Of Sleeping Bear Bay, the first in the series, the self-taught artist says, “In my mind, I saw a white pine with island and beach — an iconic image that I’d wanted to reproduce for years.” For Glen, trees personify the spirit of this wild place. White pines in particular, he reflects, “draw us into the ‘zoosoul’ of the region, and remind us that we’re only here for a short time.”

“I feel like an archivist,” he says somewhat ruefully, trying to pass on images that may soon vanish forever from the Leelanau landscape. He has noticed more trees of our boreal forests that appear sickly or dying, possibly from high plywood factory and paper mill emissions in Wisconsin traveling across Lake Michigan.

His attraction to what he terms “trailing edge technology” of the mid-20th century led him to study vintage Swiss and French travel posters, and inspired his use of simple, stripped-down shapes and bold blocks of colors, meant to be viewed at a distance. In a nod to modern printing methods, he produces the posters on a wide-format printer from his computer, where he creates the original artworks.

One sign of Glen’s success in recreating the romantic atmosphere of bygone northern Michigan vacations came on the first day his work appeared in Glen Arbor’s Forest Gallery. A visitor saw them and said delightedly, “Oh, you had these old posters reprinted!”

In addition to the annual poster series, Glen is hard at work on Stereograf, a unique three-dimensional photographic project that allows the viewer an eye-popping take on some of the most gorgeous landscapes and scenes of the area.

Utilizing more retro technology that harkens back to 19th century physicist Sir Charles Wheatstone and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Glen photographs two images at slightly different angles, which are mounted side by side, then viewed through a device that draws the object together in the mind to create a scene with incredible depth and sense of immersion. “There’s a huge amount of visual syncopation the brain will accept,” Glen notes, although his low-tech approach with a single camera means that timing can be crucial in capturing images with similar light quality. He also jokes that he’s now starting to see everything stereoscopically.

Each postcard-sized Stereograf packet features five views and the folding, mailable viewer. Current offerings include the Leelanau County/Grand Traverse Bays packet and a Mackinaw Straits/Eastern U.P. series, while future works will feature wildflowers, champion trees, farmsteads of Sleeping Bear, and private commissions.

Glen Clark’s work is available at the Leelanau Historical Museum in Leland (256-7475), DeYoung’s in Traverse City (946-8021) and the Forest Gallery in Glen Arbor (334-3179). For more information, contact Glen at 342-0684 or e-mail him at outernet@charter.net.

Posted by editor at 10:09 PM | Comments (0)

A refined Leelanau School is Ripe in the Land of the Sleeping Bear

By Norm Wheeler
Sun editor

Is your school overcrowded and boring? Are the classes dull and generic? Is everybody separated into isolated cliques, and none of them feel comfortable to you? Are you learning little more than how to hide and slide between the cracks because they want you to be a square peg in a round hole?

Dude, there are so many more ways to learn!

Are the teachers too busy to give you all the help you need? Do you know you could achieve a lot more if there was just some structure and stimulation? Do you have a different way of learning that’s better with more hands-on activities and individual attention? Would school be cool if you could play around the dunes, in the Crystal River, and along the Lake Michigan shoreline every day? Check out the Leelanau School right here in Glen Arbor.

The small, college prep boarding school with the pristine campus just northeast of Glen Arbor on Sleeping Bear Bay is focusing on students who learn differently. The high school already has a 76-year history of helping young people of all abilities who needed a fresh start, a structured setting, small classes, and more intimate and individualized instruction in order to be ready for college. But the vicissitudes of the world and the marketplace require some refinements. Leelanau School president Richard Odell remarks, “The number of high school age students considering boarding schools is decreasing, so the competition for students without social or emotional issues intensifying. The number of private day and charter school options across the country has almost doubled in the past 15 years.” Parents in the post 9/11 world seem to want to keep their children closer to home, even if they’re struggling in school. So what does Leelanau School, located in a gorgeous outdoor educational laboratory that is remote from the big metropolitan areas, do?

The school’s board of trustees hired a nationally-known admissions consultant last fall. After discussions with students, faculty, staff, parents, alumni, trustees and other independent school placement consultants, it was clear that the Leelanau School should refine and emphasize its focus on students who “learn differently.” Odell says, “Twenty-five years ago this type of child would be described as someone who either could not retain what he or she read, or who mixed up words, or who could not remember the process for solving math problems, or whose mind wandered while reading, or who could not sit still for very long, or who needed lots of attention. There are many more descriptors,” he adds, “but today these same students are diagnosed as having language-based learning differences such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia. Many also exhibit attention deficit disorder (ADD) or attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity (ADHD).”

So the school year that just ended has been full of new initiatives and training. A marketing plan is hatching with the help of Crane Metamarketing, Ltd. of Atlanta, GA. Odell continues, “When we open this fall, all faculty will have been trained to use University of Kansas research-based and tested strategies to guide the child who learns differently. Some faculty will also have been trained to use Mel Levine’s All Kinds of Minds materials. We will also be adding four teaching specialists to support the academic growth of each student individually and in small groups every day.”

The college preparatory academic offerings will remain the same, but the curriculum is being made more integrated and experiential. “We expect to continue placing all graduates in college,” Odell assures. “Today there are over 250 colleges that have programs specifically designed for students who are non-traditional learners.”

Some of the Leelanau School’s proven ways of accommodating different learning needs will continue. Several students are part of Up North Show Jumpers and train with Melissa Hirt at Northern Pines Farm near Maple City. They travel to frequent horse shows all over the country, but they take their homework with them and stay in close touch with their teachers via email, fax, and phone calls. Jessie Miltz of Glen Arbor is one of those star show jumpers. She spent several weeks in Florida this winter training and competing, and Jessie just gave a graduation speech for the class of 2005. Her father, Bill Miltz, is chairman of the school’s board of trustees. “Our best chance of success is to serve families who have kids who learn differently,” Mr. Miltz explains. “They need non-traditional approaches and an environment and staff trained to understand how to help them be successful. That’s what the Leelanau School provides.”

The students, faculty and staff at the Leelanau School are like a tight-knit family. Everyone’s special talent is celebrated, and everyone’s special learning style is recognized, accepted and made into an asset. So if you’re not looking forward to dealing with your old school in the fall, don’t despair. Visit the Leelanau School while you’re here. You’ll find out: there are so many more ways to learn. (Call 334-5800 or check out www.leelanau.org).

Norm Wheeler is in his third decade teaching English and astronomy at the Leelanau School. He also runs the school’s Lanphier Observatory on the beach of Sleeping Bear Bay, which is open to the public during the summer.

Posted by editor at 09:12 PM | Comments (0)

A barber and his dog keep a bygone era alive

By Thomas Benn
Sun contributor

American males who hire someone to cut their hair can be divided into two indistinct classes. On one hand are those who go to a traditional barber shop, usually identifiable by the barber pole out front. And on the other hand are those modernists who patronize a styling salon, in the company often of womenfolk undergoing some form of beautification.

I can remember my father’s taking me to the neighborhood barber shop long ago as an important rite of passage toward manhood. The only women were in the well-worn pages of the Police Gazette on the magazine table. Those drawings of under-dressed, wonderfully mature ladies made the wait in turn worthwhile. If any of them were fitted out with hair curlers, I must admit that it escaped my attention.

With its enduring sense of the past, it is appropriate that the village of Empire should have one of those old-style shops and the more suave, sophisticated Glen Arbor should not.

For the last 13 years, Rich Gum has been commuting 22 miles each way every working day from his home in Frankfort to operate the vintage barber shop in Empire. During much of the year, the drive through the national lakeshore is a relaxing break before and after the day’s labors. Sometimes in the winter, however, when road conditions on M-22 can be treacherous, Rich may complete the journey without seeing another vehicle. His co-pilot on the trip, sitting alertly at his side in their pick-up truck, is his dog Sparks.

Sparks is a Vizsla, a russet-colored Hungarian gamebird-hunting breed. Once the shop opens for business at 8 a.m., Sparks settles onto his pillow next to the door. Unless and until one of the regular customers arrives with a goodie, which happens quite often, this is a non-hunting dog content to snooze away much of the day while shaggy strangers pass by. The shop is located at the end of a small strip mall on M-22, a block south of the flashing lights. Two or three times a day, the hair cutting comes to a brief halt while Sparks is let out to satisfy nature’s call. Rich says the dog won’t cross the highway or the side street but has been known to sneak around the corner of the building and down an alley “in pursuit of a girl friend or something.”

Four doors away is Jo Lynn’s Hair Affair, and down the highway to the north is Diane Aylsworth’s Hairstyling Studio, both of which cater to both women and men.

Rich’s barber shop cuts hair, period. Don’t call for an appointment, because there is no telephone. Don’t look for the shampoo cup, because there isn’t any. Nor are there any gels or coloring potions on the premises. He does trim beards.

The differences in clientele would appear to be:

(1) Generational — Rich estimates that 85 percent of his customers are retirees. His oldest customer is 95.

(2) Related to the abundance of a subject’s hair and how particular he is about how it looks. The movement to the styling salon commences, an unscientific study would seem to indicate, as the teen-ager first becomes interested in girls and eases off as the balding process sets in.

There is a jar of suckers on Rich’s shelf for the pre-school and early-school children who may be brought in by one of their parents.

But the bulk of his trade is elderly men for whom the barber shop is a social center. Barbers were the priests and medicine men of ancient societies. Primitive man believed that evil spirits could enter the body through the hair and could be driven out only by cutting it. The Greeks exchanged news and gossip at the barber shop. It’s still that way today. A coffee pot is kept warming in the small anteroom behind Rich’s shop. His customers like to linger, hanging out with their friends and neighbors, even when they aren’t there for any other reason.

They talk about the old days and how times have changed. They talk about hunting and fishing and fixing machines. They talk about politics, though Rich often finds it difficult to remember the barber’s cardinal rule, which is to stay out of any discussion of either religion or politics. And, just like the women at Diane’s and Jo Lynn’s, they talk about medical problems. “You can’t imagine the number of hips and knees,” Rich says. “It seems like all of a sudden everybody needs a new hip or knee.”

Being in possession of the cutting instruments, the earliest barbers were also responsible for the medical blood-letting, supposedly the significance of the color red on the barber pole. The more essential role for today’s barber is as father confessor and psychotherapist. “Better to be a good listener than a good talker,” Rich has found.

He brings an unusual claim to fame in Empire. His distant cousin, Frances Gumm, changed her name not to Gum but to Judy Garland, a.k.a. Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. Rich Gum was born, raised, and married in Frankfort. A graduate of the barbering school in Flint, he was drafted into the Army during the Vietnam War. He then worked at barber shops elsewhere in the state before returning to a factory job in his home town. The factory closed around the time Empire’s legendary barber Jack Lambkin hung up his shears. Lambkin’s shop, complete with gun collection and Ronald Reagan’s picture on the wall, was located in an old building no longer standing on Front Street. Rich’s wife, Christine, had a secure job, their three children were in the Frankfort schools, and that city already had four active barbers, all of which made the Empire commute tolerable.

The pace and variety of activity are unpredictable. If it rains, he can be sure of two things. The ceiling will leak. And farmers in this part of the country will decide to have their hair cut. One of the pleasant surprises that he had not anticipated was the considerable business emanating in the summer from the several campgrounds in and around the Sleeping Bear Dunes national lakeshore. Once in a while one of the touring bicycle riders will stop off for a trim. Some years ago, a middle-aged cross-country cyclist arrived in raw, rainy weather with no place to stay overnight. The shop has a toilet in the back and a sink with running water up-front, so Rich invited him to unroll his sleeping bag and spend the night in the shop. The next morning, before moving on (and before Rich had arrived) the biker decided to take a sponge bath. One of the barber’s friends happened by while the naked traveler was inside, a sight that the coffee group had fun interpreting the rest of the week.

Now 55 years old, Rich is no longer the ardent skeet shooter and hunter that he once was. In his spare time, he likes to take his two-year-old grandson, Jacob, with him pan fishing from his pontoon boat in Crystal Lake. Although his business drops off as much as 65 to 70 percent due to the seasonal exodus of the snowbirds, he says he has never regretted the Empire venture.

Approaching 5 p.m. closing time, Sparks begins to stir impatiently. Rich sweeps the gray hair on the floor into a garbage bag, and the twosome heads back down the highway toward home.

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

We Did Not Come Over Here on the Mayflower

By Lois Beardslee
Sun contributor

We did not come over here on the Mayflower. We did not come up the Cumberland Gap. We did not follow Daniel Boone or De Soto or a black-robed priest. We came from the tops of tall trees that softly bent down and laid their boughs upon the earth so that she would not be lonesome. We came from the clouds, life-giving mist and sky. We came from the soil itself, from crevices that opened up and gifted us to the open air. We came from the rich mud at the bottom of the waters to mingle with the other life forms and make them complete.

We followed Cranes here. We followed Turtles here. We followed Ravens and Frogs and Catfish and Sturgeon and Deer, Caribou, Moose, Otters, Bears… We followed the stars here. We followed the Northern Lights here. We followed rivers and streams and shorelines and horizons here. We followed the wind and the very air we breathe here. We did not follow you here.

So you stop telling those stories about us not traditionally being here. And about us being only a historic presence here. Like we were too dumb to fill up this place with life and culture, until after you nearly killed us off and then let the survivors linger, huddled together for warmth and solace, in the tiny, cut-off hamlets that you call our historic presence here. Yeah, you, lady from the Park Service. I’m talking to you.

You’ve got to stop telling the Indians the stories that you white folks at the Park Service keep telling yourselves. For instance, that one about the Ojibwe migration myth. You see, it takes a whole lifetime to learn that story about the migration myth, and even then, one only grasps a piece of it. Because it takes many, many lifetimes to learn that story about the migration myth. And the only way one can even begin to understand that story about the migration myth is to be in a room full of people who have spent lifetimes learning that migration myth and to be in a community full of people who have spent lifetimes learning that migration myth and to be in a culture full of people who have spent lifetimes learning that migration myth. Then one can understand it, a little bit.

But simply pulling out tiny snippets of that migration myth is ignorant and dangerous behavior. You pulled out the little pieces that sounded good and that met your needs. You took the parts that suggested that we were not always here and did not always use and need this place. First of all, you suggested that we all only got here a few hundred years before you did. And you left out the part of the migration myth that says that most of us were already here before those Indians whose latest migration myth you borrowed got here. Like they came to a giant empty space. Like there was this archaeological record just chucky-chock-full of cave men without caves and hunters without decent homes and storage facilities and accumulated knowledge about survival in this place…and then, poof, some Indians arrived who really aren’t from here anyway and have no greater claim to this place than recent migrants like you have to this place. Convenient. Very convenient.

You left out all of the parts of the migration myth that included merging and scattering and forming new groups and identities as the environment demanded of us. You left out all of the parts of the migration myth that included following the Cranes, the Turtles, Ravens and Frogs and Catfish and Sturgeon and Deer, Caribou, Moose, Otters, Bears… You left out the parts about how we followed the stars here. We followed the Northern Lights here. We followed rivers and streams and shorelines and horizons here. We followed the wind and the very air we breathe here. We did not follow you here.

We came from the tops of tall trees that softly bent down and laid their boughs upon the earth so that she would not be lonesome. We came from the clouds, life-giving mist and sky. We came from the soil itself, from crevices that opened up and gifted us to the open air. We came from the rich mud at the bottom of the waters to mingle with the other life forms and make them complete.

You need to stop telling those stories you tell about how we got public education from you white folks through treaties. We already had public education. We had it in our teaching lodges. We had specially educated and certified specialists, teachers. Teachers were such an important part of our society that we deemed them one of the five categories of people that communities and cultures need to survive. We had a special curriculum for those teachers; and the body of that knowledge took up an entire fifth of our totem system. We had special buildings, special teaching tools, even books with written lessons and important historical events. But you continue to rename these things as spiritual, as paraphernalia to a lesser religion, rather than what they were, schools and books and tools, fine arts curricula, literary curricula, math and science and medicine. You rename these things as archaeological sites and as mythology and as artifacts. How absolutely ignorant and boorish of you!

To continue to force your versions of our history upon us is oafish and uncivilized. It forces us to unteach what you teach. It challenges your concept of public education (which still fails to meet the needs of minorities), and it elevates ours. It challenges your terminology, and it elevates ours. It challenges your version of one tiny slice of our migration story, and it elevates ours.

We did not come over here on the Mayflower. We did not come up the Cumberland Gap. We did not follow Daniel Boone or De Soto or a black-robed priest. We came from the tops of tall trees that softly bent down and laid their boughs upon the earth so that she would not be lonesome. We came from the clouds, life-giving mist and sky. We came from the soil itself, from crevices that opened up and gifted us to the open air. We came from the rich mud at the bottom of the waters to mingle with the other life forms and make them complete.

We followed Cranes here. We followed Turtles here. We followed Ravens and Frogs and Catfish and Sturgeon and Deer, Caribou, Moose, Otters, Bears… We followed the stars here. We followed the Northern Lights here. We followed rivers and streams and shorelines and horizons here. We followed the wind and the very air we breathe here. We did not follow you here. We are the very essence of here.

Posted by editor at 07:19 PM | Comments (0)

For local hoops star, a championship game, a spot on US national team, and beyond

By Sudsy Cheroot
Sun sports writer

Pete Schimpke replaced a northern Michigan basketball coaching legend when he took over Ted Swierad’s Glen Lake girls team in 1999. Never easy to replace a Hall of Famer, the transition was a lot easier when he first laid eyes on a rapidly budding superstar, sophomore Liz Shimek. “You could see her potential from the first day,” he remembers.” She was hard working, a quick learner, and I had no doubt she would be successful eventually at the highest level of the women’s game.

“Many players have God-given abilities,” he emphasized,” but what separates Liz is maximizing her abilities by always outworking everyone, whether it was in the weight room, last one to leave practice, or just leaving everything on the floor for games. She was a coach’s dream.”

Speaking of dreams, 2004-05 Michigan State University women’s basketball season was a dream season, as the Spartans reached the National Championship game before losing to Baylor, and in the second installment of this two-part series on Liz Shimek, we focus on her still-fresh memories from this memorable year.

Over the past few years when you talk dynasty in women’s college basketball, the University of Connecticut and coach Geno Auriemma is where you start, and when the Michigan State Spartans traveled to Connecticut for an early-season game, they faced a Herculean task. The team from East Lansing had cracked the top 10 in the national polls, but few gave them much of a chance against the perennial national power, the Huskies.

“We were so focused in the pre-game shoot-around,” Liz remembers, “we attacked them and before we knew it we were up by 21. It was a great game and we were excited to win, and after that we really started to believe in ourselves.”

Liz had other full-ride scholarship offers coming out of high school, including the University of Michigan and Indiana University, but after meeting with Coach Joan McCallie at MSU she was sold on the Spartans. “Coach McCallie has such a passion for the game, but also wants her players to succeed on and off the court.” Liz added that “the family atmosphere was very important too.” Rolling through an incredibly tough Big Ten Conference schedule playing nationally-ranked teams such as Ohio State, Purdue and Penn State toughened the Spartans. “We attacked teams offensively, and our match-up zone defense got better and better. The team really made the commitment to doing whatever it took,” she said.

The Big Ten Championship and a number one seed in the NCAA Tournament were the next successful stops on the quest for a national championship. When Liz looks back on the tournament run, the win over Tennessee stands out in her mind. Assistant coaches Al Brown and Semeka Randall had both been part of Pat Summitt’s staff at Tennessee. The most successful coach in NCAA basketball history – men or women – and Brown and Randall instilled confidence in the team that they could beat Tennessee, a team that awed everyone.

“Beating Tennessee was the best part of the season,” Liz gushed. “That proved to us that we could do anything.” An eventual loss in the National Championship game did nothing to diminish Liz’s enthusiasm and happiness over the dream season.

But not long after the dream season ended, it was back to work for Liz Shimek. She was recently in Colorado for tryouts for the US national team which will compete in Turkey for the world championships later this year. Liz made the first round of cuts, and pending what happens in August, has made the team, at least for the time being. She will counsel at Michigan State basketball camps this summer, and then the whole team, including the new freshman recruits, will start summer school and regular practice at the end of July. When asked what she will be working on individually this summer, Liz replied, “I will continue to improve my ball-handling and shooting off the dribble,” then added, with self-assuredness, “and solidifying my three-point shot.”

With her senior year still to come, and listening to the quiet confidence in her voice, this reporter will not be surprised if a national championship and WNBA career are not in Liz Shimek’s future.

Posted by editor at 06:29 PM | Comments (0)