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November 10, 2005
Dirt piles dwarf Empire no more
By Norm Wheeler
Sun editor
Darlene Friend at the Empire Village Office says Front Street will be paved by November 15, the opening day of gun deer season when the asphalt company closes down. “We really wanted to have the asphalt done by winter, and they’re pretty close to being on time. When the water sample we sent on Halloween is approved by the Great Lakes Water Quality Lab in Lake Ann,” Darlene continues, “they can build the well house and start connecting homes to the system.”
Joe Sullivan, superintendent of the water main and storm infiltration project for CJ’s Excavating, says everything should be done by December 1. “You always find things in the ground you didn’t know was there in these old towns,” Joe tells me. “But nothing worth anything. The village DPW and the people have been real patient, and that helps a lot. Now there’s a new water main and big storm infiltrators under the street. The storm water will percolate down into the ground and not into the creeks and lakes.”
The Village of Empire received a grant of $242K from the Clean Michigan Initiatives and got a $650K USDA Rural Development loan. The last water system project was in 1980. Empire’s first village water system was a used one purchased from the village of Lake Ann in 1895 after a big fire there.
Darlene continues work on the M-22 road project slated for Fall 2006 or Spring 2007 when the big dirt piles will return to Empire. They will come with a $650K MDOT grant just signed by Governor Granholm that includes infiltrators, new pavement and sidewalks, and a green space as part of the M-22 Heritage Route designation.
Posted by editor at 11:33 PM | Comments (0)
Serene Autumn
A bird's eye view of the D.H. Day farm and Lake Michigan displays the full splendor of fall.
Photo by Don Miller
Posted by editor at 10:39 PM | Comments (1)
The Unwatch
By Anne Marie Oomen
Sun contributor
This essay was previously published in Traverse Magazine
As small children, my siblings and I made a tradition of watching for Santa on Christmas Eve. Five restless kids waited at the single-paned, north window of the old farmhouse, tugging pajamas, poking ribs, fighting for space at the glass. We breathed away thick frost so we could stare through frostholes to watch Santa land. We placed our hands on the glass and melted handprints on the window until we were scolded. We tumbled against each other like puppies, too young to think how our watch must have paralleled the shepherds.' Too young to think of the silliness of such a thing.
When we become, to our surprise, adults, the watches fade, replaced instead by “unwatches.” Now, we are too cool to admit that we still delight in “watching.” Over time, we develop its opposite, the “unwatch.” These unwatches evolve after we leave the farm, when we have gone away to college, jobs, travel, and various adventures such as marriage or politics. Just as our parents decide to clean out our rooms, we do what most kids do—we come back, especially at the holidays. We drive the blue highways skirting our Michigan orchards to the old white farmhouse where for years our parents, having pretty good survival skills by then, sponsor the unwatch.
Rule One: We have to arrive home on Christmas Eve in time for midnight mass. We come, drifting in with our boyfriends and girlfriends, our fiancés and spouses. We drink hot cider punch.
Rule two: We attend midnight mass together, crowded into two long pews where we are only occasionally reverent. We sing our own version of carols, reinventing verses that would have shocked the choir if they could have heard the words we mutter just loudly enough for those in close proximity to hear. “Oh, little ton of battered ham…” was typical of these fractured carols. Despite our mockery, we cannot miss mass. We may be irreverent but we know our roots. And besides, mass is the rite of passage that leads to the Unwatch Breakfast which occurs, not in the morning, but in the middle of the night, beginning as soon as we arrive home from midnight mass.
Rule three: We are not, wouldn't be caught dead, watching for Santa. Santa is a mercenary figure invented by nineteenth century card companies to turn a quick profit, didn’t we all know? Santa is the propagation of commercial enterprises that take advantage of small children and old people. We are above all that. While we were NOT watching for him to show up, we try to catch each other watching. This behavior produces conversations that border on the ridiculous.
“Hey, Dad, how come you're up this late?” I ask
“I'm keeping company with your mother.” He winks.
“I think you're watching for Santa.”
“No, I'm flirting with your mother.”
“You're sure you're not waiting for Santa?”
“Look at this woman. Do I need to think about Santa?”
“You're right, Dad.” I know when I've lost.
Or my brother Tom asks my sister, “Hey Marijo. Why you staring out the window? Watching for Santa?”
“Just looking at the stars.” Very coolly.
“You're looking for the reindeer, aren't you?”
“I'm looking at the big dipper.”
“Star light, star bright, where's that guy you were starry about last night.”
A chorus of groans would follow.
“Hey, you're singing Christmas carols.” Rick accuses Patti.
“I like them.” Patti’s humming.
“You're trying to lure Santa.”
“With this voice?”
“You got that sinus infection again?”
“Right.”
We sit around the oak table, eating homemade venison sausage and scrambled eggs with green pepper and Velveeta. We talk until dawn, covering everything from the price of cherries to the price of a wedding dress, from making mulled wine to making babies. We make coffee and pour eggnog laced with the last of Dad’s whiskey. We linger and yawn and wait and pretend not to wait. Through this long unwatch, we have been together. The mask that we didn’t care to watch out for a bearded myth in red or for each other would fall away. We had come again to the single-paned window, breathed away the frost, looked through the glass into our own small darkness, poked each other in the ribs and placed our hands on the cold. Sometimes we see stars, but mostly we find our own and each other's breath, a miracle we never grow out of, that we need only the smallest of guises to reenact as something it is not.
Anne Marie Oomen chairs the Creative Writing Department at the Interlochen Art’s Academy. She lives near Empire.
Posted by editor at 09:42 PM | Comments (0)
A Whale's Story
Fine beer brewed from local landmark’s inspiration
By Daniel Herd
Sun contributor
On a cooling fall day, the sharp wind catches hold of a few remaining gold leaves, tearing them from an oak that sits on the eastern slope of the whaleback. Covered with evergreens, the front of this dune is soon to turn white in the coming winter winds. The Whaleback has been painted, hiked, climbed and storied. And at least once it has changed someone’s life. With its sweeping view of the islands, the Manitou Passage and Good Harbor Bay it is not surprising that the solace and sustenance of this perched dune has inspired another unique piece of the Leelanau experience.
The fish-like silhouette of this beach-blown formation brought entrepreneur and local transplant Charles Psenka to develop a beer that fits the land’s natural beauty. Born of all natural ingredients and an old world process, Leelanau Brewing Company’s first beer, “Whaleback White” attempts to find a harmonic place among the roadside vegetable stands, hiking trails, cold summer nights and lengthy beach days. But this is not your everyday beer, as the originator explains, “when you are sitting on whaleback, in that place, with this beer, it can be a ‘planets-aligned’ moment … but this beer isn’t for everyone: it’s a wine drinker’s beer.” True to this statement, the beer is presented in 750ml bottles, just like wine. With its sharp, tart start and citrus-apple flavor, the beer drinks more like a pinot gris than an ale, but the Barbasol head and fresh, yeasty aroma remind you that it’s still a true brew. A Leland native who now lives in Ferndale, Michigan with his wife Robin and seven-month-old son Charlie, Psenka developed this beer to specifically match what he felt about the location and the local need for a completely unique beer.
Just as the blustery cold winds and crusty snow keep many would-be residents warm in southern climates, this beer appeals to only a portion of beer drinkers. But Psenka never intended to create just another good lager: this brew evolved from a personal obsession with beer, a location-led vision and a few good connections.
Psenka was introduced to the area when his parents acquired the Snow Bird bed and breakfast in Leland and so, 20 years ago, when tourists were scarce, the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore was young, and housing still affordable, Charles Psenka fell in love with the area and its unique character. During a phone interview, he wistfully recalls how there were only a few wineries back then and there were no breweries: “there was a vacancy for beer here”. While this observation may sound odd from someone who was then almost a decade shy of the drinking age, Psenka recounts how he became interested in beer at an early age. “I was 12 or maybe younger when I inherited a large beer can collection, and I kept collecting them after that.” With this aluminum history for support and Leelanau County’s beauty for inspiration, it only took a chance encounter for the now southern Michigander to follow through with his desire to create a brew to fit the locale.
From the age of 19, Psenka has been an entrepreneur, developing several companies, attending college and even teaching classes for those interested in becoming self-starters. This collection of skills later coalesced into a technology position where Psenka matches those in need of web design with web-based content developers. But while the job became more permanent, it also drew him away from the area. “This isn’t something I could do in Leelanau County … yet” he muses. But while working with a wine seller, he saw a way he could be more connected to the place he loves: he could make a special beer for a special place.
Serendipitously, not too long after that, Psenka met Ron Jeffries, the brewmaster for Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales, based in Dexter, Michigan. In Jeffries methods, Psenka found the artist to make the masterpiece. With 14 years of experience and a devotion to traditional methods, Jeffries was the medium though which Whaleback White would be born. “I’m not a brewmaster,” said Psenka. “It takes a lot of time and devotion to getting it all perfect, Ron has that.” Then, like an excited six-year-old recounting the details of his Lego land, Psenka launches into the specifics: “We use open fermentation and old oak vessels … I just purchased a custom built, 1200 liter French Oak barrel from a German cooper.” This new barrel is the start of the next big thing.
In working to get a more permanent foothold in these sugar sand bluffs, Psenka plans on turning a family barn into the new home of Leelanau Brewing Company. There is no fixed timeline for this endeavor, but he sees it as a way to bring his love of beer and the area together. Just as the wineries moved in and became a fixture, Psenka hopes to make Leelanau Brewing Co a local pride with national reach. “It is important that it is locally loved, but right now most of my sales are outside the county.”
To match this goal of expansion, he is also working on another brew. “When people taste Whaleback, they expect something they’ve had before. It isn’t. The new beer (Good Harbor Golden) will be a lot more recognizable.” This news should please Cedar City Market’s stalwart steward, Phil Thiel who sells Whaleback. Thiel remarked that, “it is an excellent example of this kind of beer, but it has a sharp flavor with a lot of orange and citrus, so for a lot of people it is very different than what they are used to.” And that may be part of the enjoyment.
Like the Whaleback, that evergreen-skinned icon of the Manitou Passage, like the stone-littered shores that frame our inland sea, and like those falling, golden leaves, Psenka’s beer is just enough past ordinary to be as special as the Leelanau hills. Maybe just like the land from which it was born, not everyone will appreciate it, but for those that do, nothing in the world will ever come close. One can almost feel the planets starting to align.
Posted by editor at 08:48 PM | Comments (0)
When the world came to Empire
Remembering a Cold War outpost in the middle of nowhere
By Codi Yeager
Sun contributor
The quaint village of Empire is nestled in a valley between rolling hills to the north and south, with Lake Michigan lapping gently at its western shore. To the south looms a hill a bit taller than the rest, certainly prouder. Atop its peak sits a dome that crests the rise like a crown, its white facade gleaming in the sun as it gazes over the land with superiority. Of course, some call it nothing more than a glorified golf ball. But this white dome is no oversized sports ornament. It is a radome — one of the last standing reminders of a time that has passed into history.
The United States Air Force came to Empire in November of 1950, bringing with it about 300 military personnel, nearly doubling the population of the village at the time. The base was strictly an early warning radar system. The big scare was that the Soviets would send missiles up over Canada, so a line of radar stations spread across the northern U.S. and Canada, designed to warn us of an attack. The home of the 752nd Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron was placed on one of the hills to the south of Empire, and it comprised of an Officer, NCO and Bachelor quarters, one dining hall, a recreation hall, a commissary, a BX (Base Exchange), a dispensary, operation buildings and usually two to four radomes. Many of the officers with families rented housing in Empire or in nearby Dorsey Trailer Park.
Dave Taghon, who was a local teenager at the time, remembers that the Commanding Officer of the base would always rent out the house next door to his family’s home on Front Street. “When one CO would move out, the next one would move in. I got to meet all their lovely daughters,” he remembers with a laugh. Taghon also recalls watching movies in the Rec Hall every once in a while with the kids from the base — a rare treat when trips into Traverse City were scarce. “We even had a colored fellow once. He always wore a penny tied to a string around his neck and was a really good basketball player,” says Taghon, “We had never had someone like that before, and we thought of it as a novelty.”
While hosting the base was new and exciting for the citizens of Empire, (especially for all the local girls) the small town off the beaten path must have seemed like the middle of nowhere to the GI’s, who came from all over the country. “One GI later told me that when he first came to Empire and saw a kid practicing a cornet in the gas station, he knew he must really be out in the boonies … the kid was me.” confides Taghon.
However, the hunters and fishermen soon took advantage of the benefits of living in the ‘wilderness’ and set out to enjoy South Bar Lake and the forests of Leelanau County. Water skis and boats could be rented from a recreation area on Little Glen Lake, also used as a picnic spot, while other pastimes took the forms of boxing and baseball and basketball teams.
“Sometimes we would be invited to ‘agitate the dogs’,” says Tom Ford, who was stationed at the base from 1957 to 1969. Two guard dogs were always ‘stationed’ at the base during its first few years of operation. To train the dogs to attack, volunteers would put on heavily padded suits, agitate the dogs and then run away. The handlers would let the dogs go and call them off after a quick, and hopefully harmless, attack. “One of the dogs must have had really long fangs because it would bite right through the padding,” Ford remembers. “So if you antagonized the dog too much, you would get puncture marks on your arm.” Another dog was deemed too friendly since it let the GI’s pet it, so it was put to sleep. Eventually, the dogs and their handlers were sent off the base because they were no longer needed.
Even so, security was far from lax. “When you first got to the base, you would be stopped at the gate and asked for your orders. If you didn’t have orders, you didn’t get in,” says Gene Zoyhofski, who was also stationed at the base. Newcomers were given identity badges that they wore to enter and exit the base as well as the operation buildings. Once inside the base, there was no need to leave again other than for recreational activities. The base’s exchange store sold necessities such as cigarettes, razors, uniforms and jewelry while the commissary sold dry goods. “We were really a self-contained little city,” reminisces Zoyhofski. However, many GI’s did their grocery shopping at Deering’s Market, often signing a book for credit. On payday, everyone who owed money to either Deering’s or Taghon’s gas station would go traipsing down into town to pay their debts. “I remember my dad had a whole drawer full of pocket watches for things that probably never quite got paid off,” remembers Taghon.
The radar in place at the base was of two different types: a parabolic antennae and a height finder. These antennas were enclosed inside of the radomes and picked up aircrafts from all the way inside Canada. The early radomes were metal frames with tough rubber stretched over their exterior. The air that kept them inflated was pumped in using power from the small power plant on the base. “I remember that one time the power went out and you could see the radar antennae rotating around and making a dimple in the rubber,” says Pat Hobbins, who worked as a civilian for the Federal Aviation Administration. If this happened for too long, it could puncture the rubber.
The operation buildings, where the information gathered by the antennas was sent, were low brick buildings with no windows. They were kept completely dark inside at all times. The jobs of the radar operators varied; they could rotate through as many as eight jobs during the course of a day. For example, the path of each plane would be charted on large, clear grids. Each person would be responsible for a specific area of the grid. When a plane flew into their coordinates, they would chart its progress until it left their area and entered another section.
When the Air Force left in 1987, given that Soviet missiles over Canada were no longer considered a threat, the FAA took control of the radomes, using them for air traffic control of commercial airplanes by sending the information to Detroit, Chicago and Minneapolis. “There were certain checks that we had to do every month, checks for every week and checks for every day,” says Hobbins. Twelve FAA personnel were stationed in Empire, and that number gradually decreasing as technology became more advanced. “It’s pretty much all software-run now,” says Hobbins. There are currently three FAA personnel working at the lone remaining radome. The base itself has been mostly torn down, and the FAA shares the buildings that are left with the National Park Service. Lake Michigan’s waters rose during the year that the base was dismantled, and much of the rubble was taken down to the beach and spread over with dirt and sand.
Although the base is gone, many of the men who were stationed there are not. When asked why he chose to stay in Empire, Gene Zoyhofski, who was originally from upstate New York, summarized, “Hunting and fishing. Why would I leave?” Quite a few of the former airmen married local girls and stayed to raise families. That’s why, local families that have lived here for generations share the community with families with roots in Illinois, downstate Michigan and Wisconsin — all because of the Air Force base. In the words of Dave Taghon, “ It brought the world to Empire.”
Posted by editor at 07:54 PM | Comments (1)
Local companies produce area’s first fair trade/organic gift sampler
Press release
Local businesses with a socially and environmentally friendly focus have joined together to offer consumers an organic and fair trade gift sampler produced here in northern Michigan. Grocer’s Daughter, By the Light of Day, Higher Grounds Trading Co., and Food For Thought, along with Leelanau Trading Co. and Third Coast Design have developed a sampler pack of some of the areas best handcrafted gourmet goodies!
The Northwoods Sampler will include:
• Fair Trade Chocolate and Caramels from Grocer’s Daughter in Glen Arbor/Empire,
• Fair Trade and Organic Tea from By the Light of Day in traverse City,
• Fair Trade, Organic, and Shade Grown Coffee from Higher Grounds Trading Co. in Lake Leelanau,
• Gourmet Organic Preserves from fruit grown locally by Food for Thought in Honor,
• Hand-printed Wine tags printed on an antique printing press, using soy-based inks, on all-natural papers by Third Coast Design in Empire.
With a focus on fair trade and organics, the Northwoods Sampler aims to offer consumers a nice locally produced gift that is easy on the environment and benefits the farmers who produced the goods.
Fair trade directly links small-scale farmers with consumer markets while paying a livable wage and ensuring safe and healthy conditions for workers in the developing world. Without Fair Trade, farmers are often caught in a cycle of poverty and debt. With little or no income between harvest months, farmers many times have to sell their next crop in advance to middlemen who paid far below the harvest's value. The middlemen would then sell to the large corporations and pocket the profits.
Organic agriculture protects the health of people and the planet by reducing the overall exposure to toxic chemicals from synthetic pesticides that can end up in the ground, air, water and food supply, and that are associated with health consequences, from asthma to cancer. Because organic agriculture doesn’t use toxic and persistent pesticides, choosing organic products is an easy way to help protect yourself.
Each company involved in the project agrees that paying farmers a fair wage and preserving our environment through organic agriculture and using recycled materials is an easy way to preserve our natural environment. As Jody Treter, of Higher Grounds Trading Co., stated “The Northwoods Sampler is a local gift inspired by the rolling dunes of Benzie and Leelanau County, the sparkling waters of the lakes and rivers near the Sleeping Bear Dune National Lakeshore and mother nature’s abundance here in ‘Up North’ Michigan.”
The Northwood Sampler is available by calling Food for Thought at (231) 326-5444
Grocer's Daughter Chocolate moves to Empire
Mimi Wheeler and Carlene Peregrine, co-owners of Grocer’s Daughter Chocolate have renovated a building on M-22 across from The New Neighborhood in Empire. This will primarily be a production site but you are welcome to stop and say hello and see the production. There are plans for chocolate-making workshops and an open house and Christmas party on December 10 at 5 p.m. Everyone is welcome!
Posted by editor at 06:58 PM | Comments (0)
Local artist is best of show
By Norm Wheeler
Sun editor
Batik artist Jennifer Flynn of Empire won Best of Show in Fiber/Fabric at the Ann Arbor Michigan Guild Summer Art Fair. The popular art show includes entries from all over the United States and Europe. The award recognized Jennifer “for bringing the best in fine art and contemporary crafts to the community”. There are two best of show awards given at the art fair where 420 members exhibit on two streets. Jennifer was one of 100 fiber artists from all over the world to exhibit at the show, and now she has a huge blue ribbon to show off at the Empire Gallery on Front Street.
This is the second summer for the gallery located in the Blue Heron building. Featured are 60 local and Michigan artists. “We’re encouraging emerging local artists to promote all ages in their creativity,” Flynn notes. “We have work from 80-year-old photographers to 10-year-old metal sculptors.” Jennifer’s husband Don Flynn’s picture framing and wood turning skills are on display and include great wooden bowls. There are fish carvings by Duncan Ramsay of Benzonia, and also an amazing cherry and maple hand-carved artist-designed desk by Dan March of Bear Lake. (Dan is now in Iraq with his Army Reserve unit.) “Dave Tyrell, who manages the EZ mart shop by the blinker in Empire, just started doing jewelry after admiring it here all last summer,” Flynn adds. “Now he brings new jewelry every week and is one of our best sellers.”
So if you’re a local artist or craftsperson, or just a shopper looking for cool stuff, don’t miss the Gallery of Empire. Look for the Blue Heron on the building, or call 326-2083. Several of Jennifer’s and the gallery’s works can also be seen at www.jenniferflynngallery.com, or you can email her at jflynnart@bignorth.net or call 882-4765.
Posted by editor at 05:02 PM | Comments (0)
Crystal River land officially under auspices of National Park
Book closes on 20-year saga
Press release
The journey to preserving the beloved Crystal River near Glen Arbor is over. In mid-October, federal funds appropriated for the river’s transfer into the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore came through. Closing documents were signed on October 20, and the river — 104 acres and 6,300 feet of river frontage — is now and forever under the wing of the National Park Service.
The majority of the land and its accompanying river frontage that is being protected is sensitive “dune and swale” topography. The area is recognized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as “globally rare habitat”.
The journey to protection took nearly 20 years and had as many twists and turns as the river itself. When The Homestead resort proposed building a golf course along the river back in 1986, a group called Friends of the Crystal River formed that would tenaciously oppose the course for nearly two decades. Many other individuals and groups joined in the effort to save the river, from politicians, to units of government, to the Leelanau Conservancy.
The transfer of the river was a complicated transaction that took nearly two years to negotiate and complete. Congressman Dave Camp and Senator Carl Levin helped to pass legislation that expanded the Park’s boundaries and pushed to acquire the needed funds for the National Park Service. Twenty-two acres, including one of the most scenic stretches along County Road 675, was purchased by the NPS in November 2004. Six weeks later, the NPS acquired an additional 23 acres. But because the NPS couldn’t fund all 104 acres, the Leelanau Conservancy stepped in to buy and hold 59 acres until federal appropriations were available. That meant taking out $4.85 million in loans — not an easy task, and not without substantial risk.
“It’s been a group effort to protect this fragile resource,” says Conservancy director Brian Price. “The Friends of the Crystal River, the Conservancy and the Park Service each had a distinct piece of the puzzle. And within each group, key individuals worked tirelessly and often behind the scenes to make sure that, one day, this stretch of the river would be protected. The Conservancy’s role was to bring people and resources together to bring about this final solution.”
“I didn't think I would ever say this, but seeing the last 59 acres transferred to the Park was well worth the wait,” said Congressman Camp. “I can't thank the Leelanau Conservancy’s Brian Price and Sleeping Bear Superintendent Dusty Schultz enough for their leadership on this effort. Their dedication to the land deal coupled with the federal funds we were able to secure in Washington guarantees this pristine tract of land will be enjoyed by generations to come. It was tough to imagine Sleeping Bear getting any better than it already was, but I have to admit that I think we improved it quite a bit.”
“The National Park Service at Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore is very excited that the remaining 59 acres of the Crystal River property have been acquired from the Leelanau Conservancy,” says Park Superintendent Dusty Schultz. “The lands harbor a variety of habitats and species, and provide a natural setting for recreational river users. We sincerely appreciate the assistance of all who helped make this purchase happen. It is especially remarkable that the entire transaction, from legislation to receiving the funds and closing on the property, happened so quickly, thanks to the dedication and perseverance of those involved. The Lakeshore plans to schedule a spring cleanup on the newly acquired tracts.”
“Friends of the Crystal River are delighted that the River is finally where it belongs, in the Park, preserved forever!” says Vik Theiss, vice president of the Friends group. “We are most grateful for the extraordinary efforts of the Michigan Congressional Delegation, the National Park Service, the Conservancy and most especially for the perseverance and dedication of our own loyal members in making this a reality. I still pinch myself from time to time to be sure I am not dreaming.”
Posted by editor at 04:05 PM | Comments (0)
Glen Lake Community Library holds seventh annual book drive
Donations accepted November 14 through December 14
Press release
A special holiday tradition continues as we kick off our annual call for children's books. The Friends of the Library, in cooperation with Glen Lake School’s “Parenting Communities” program (formerly the “Way To Grow” program), are seeking donations of new books for children in our community whose families are in need of assistance this holiday season. Kathy Bartell, the coordinator for the “Parenting Communities” program for Glen Lake School compiles a “wish list” of boys and girls from preschool through age 11. She calls on such groups as Head Start and the Glen Lake Elementary School as well as her own “Parenting Communities” program for names of families that need assistance. Any family can find themselves in hard times, and the goal is to make sure the kids still have some holiday joy in the form of a special book. The list is available at the Glen Lake Library in Empire and at the Cottage Book Shop in Glen Arbor. Donors are asked to purchase a book for a child on this list and deliver it gift-wrapped to the library by December 14. The Cottage Book Shop in Glen Arbor will kindly provide a 20 percent discount on any books purchased for this program. Last year, over 100 books were donated. The list grows longer every year, so please help us bring the joy of books to these children for the holidays.
Posted by editor at 02:08 PM | Comments (0)
The Irrepressible Educator
By F. Josephine Arrowood
Sun contributor
When I heard in July that Glen Lake Community Schools’ bus driver Chad Kahler had been hired as the new middle school science teacher, my first thought was, “Brilliant!“ My second thought was, “From bus driver to middle school teacher? That seems like leaping from the frying pan into the fire.”
I had already suspected that Chad was unusual, even among Leelanau County’s well-known cadre of casual individualists and eccentrics. On a school field trip to the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore’s Port Oneida District several years ago, I boarded Chad’s bus to discover an amazing classroom on wheels. He had transformed the segmented walls above the vehicle’s windows into a diverting, entertaining, and yes, educational calendar of facts and figures, such as, “On this day in 1944…” or, “Water consists of two molecules of hydrogen and one molecule of oxygen.”
I thought, “This is not a normal bus driver.” My impression was confirmed later that day when students touring a historic farm’s silo were met at the barn door by our docent and interpreter: Mr. Kahler.
On a sunny day at the end of August, Chad took a break from his preparations for the upcoming school year to share some of the experiences that have informed his lifelong journey as an educator.
“I graduated from Michigan State University with a teaching degree in environmental education and earth sciences in 1982,” he says, adding somewhat ruefully, “In the ‘70s, the environment was supposed to be the coming trend. Now, that part of my degree is considered mostly useless,” from the state’s teaching certification viewpoint – although he continues to find value in the ecological approach to both teaching and learning.
Chad describes his first experiences as a student teacher in Battle Creek as a trial by fire. “In the mornings, I had a seventh grade class whose teacher introduced himself on the first day, told me he’d be in the lounge, and I never saw him after that. Then I had eighth graders in the afternoons with a nurturing mentor of a teacher. She allowed me to take three or four days to go to the school’s outdoor center, where I could teach in a hands-on way.”
“Every day was a trying time,” he continues, “but I learned that I wanted to do more teaching.” After a stint in Algonac, where he taught seventh grade earth science as well as drama, both he and Kari, his college sweetheart, were pink-slipped, and decided to try their luck up north.
Kari found work at Northwestern Michigan College, running the residential East Hall, while Chad became a regular on the substitute-teacher circuit, commuting to districts as diverse as Suttons Bay, Kingsley, Kalkaska, Glen Lake, Buckley and Traverse City.
“I learned a lot in substitute teaching,” he exclaims with a laugh. “I really honed my skills, especially at Forest Area, where I subbed a lot. The philosophy at that time was ‘open schools,’” and the district applied the idea literally, with both the library and the principal in the center of a huge room with no walls, and only a few pieces of freestanding furniture.
“I was uncomfortable there at first because of the building layout,” Chad explains. Social studies was next to typing, for example, and the administrator was always looking over his (and everyone else’s) shoulder. “As a teacher, it took a lot of adapting. I found out how different people teach, and whether I even wanted to [continue to] teach.”
In addition to his day job, Chad was also back in a student role himself, earning a biology degree through Grand Valley, with many of his classes at NMC. He began to teach snowshoeing and softball in 1986, and in the summers taught at Camp Innisfree (now Camp Leelanau-Kohana), owned at that time by Gus and Paula Leinbach. Gus had been a legendary middle school science teacher in Ann Arbor, Chad’s hometown, and he finds the connection, while ephemeral, significant.
After three years as a substitute teacher, Chad parlayed his interest in photography into commercial work with John Robert Williams of Traverse City.
“I thoroughly enjoyed working for him, honing my darkroom skills. John loved teaching, and he also did a lot of color work outdoors, which I loved.”
As Kari was promoted several times at the college, the pair became East Hall’s residential advisor tag team, living in the dorm, overseeing staff and students, and handling situations at any hour of the day or night. Then Kari became pregnant with the couple’s first child, Cori, and they began looking for a more permanent home in Leelanau County. Once Kari’s maternity leave was over in the fall of 1990, the Kahlers made the decision to live frugally on her salary, while Chad would become a full-time, stay-at-home dad.
“It was painful to leave my photography job,” he relates. “At first, I didn’t want to be seen in public during the day,” He continues, “It’s all an attitude, a mindset. I feel that Kari and I are flexible, adaptable people. And family is a real priority for us. We were a one-car family for seven years, and I really learned the BATA schedule. I would bike with Cori over to the daycare at Glen Lake Reformed Church. In the winter, I’d put her in a box on a sled. Then Casey came along in 1994, and that prolonged my stay-at-home time.”
However, education was still in Chad’s sights. Since 1993, he’s taught volcanoes and mountain building, and dinosaurs, at NMC’s Extended Education Summer Classes. He began to tutor at the college’s just-opened Center for Learning; team-taught outdoor workshops at Glen Lake School with Alice Van Zoeren, including the fourth grade’s annual all-day fieldtrip to the school’s Benzonia Trail property; and worked on the high school’s Envirathon with biology teacher Karen Richard. He also began to drive a bus for Glen Lake as a substitute, primarily in the afternoons.
“I had to learn certain techniques to survive,” he laughs. “I learned what worked and what didn’t, what’s fair and honest. As a sub, students know you’re vulnerable,” he continues. “You’re concentrating on safety, the roads, controlling by the rearview mirror. I’m not one to yell or get upset. I’d pull the bus over; I’d say, ‘I’m getting paid by the hour, we can be here as long as it takes.’ In the beginning, we pulled over a lot. The school would call me, ‘Is the bus running late?’ I’d say, ‘No, we’re just learning how to be human beings today.’”
In 1999, he became a permanent driver, taking a big route that stretched from Burdickville through Empire. Seventh grader Danny Kornelis, a regular rider on Chad’s route, recalls, “Mr. Kahler was pretty cool. Sometimes he would pull the bus over and we’d have a quiet ride home. On the walls, he had quotes, stuff in history — then in the middle of the year, he put up magnets of prehistoric animals.”
“I had the 94B Bus Library,” Chad laughs, savoring the memory. Other on-board teaching tools included dictionaries, clipboards, pencils and books, so students could do homework on the long rides through the west side of the county. “We had a pretty good community on that bus, and it hurts to leave it,” he concludes.
He fully expected to be in his driver’s seat this fall, before hearing of Dick Plowman’s retirement after 33 years in the middle school science department.
“I thought, that’s the job I’ve always wanted,” he says. “I don’t have a big ego, so I was surprised when I got the job. I really enjoy the staff, I’ve felt so welcomed by them; it touches me so much. At the school open house, all the school bus drivers came down for a tour of my classroom.”
He continues, “Chad has the enthusiasm of someone much younger than himself. He’s committed to the same qualities [that Glen Lake espouses]: the environment, education, and the character-building of our kids, attributes you don’t often find.”
With colleague Heidi Barber, the new faculty member plans to teach an integrated course of study to seventh and eighth graders that will include a blend of life, earth, and physical sciences, so that, by year’s end, students will be fully immersed, and understand the connections between the sciences.
“The beauty of my environmental education allows me to tie everything together. I want students to see the big picture, to know that we’re all interrelated.” Chad plans a variety of approaches, utilizing textbooks; classroom models, displays, and projects; websites such as NOAA, NASA, and Stars and Telescopes; State of Michigan educational benchmarks; and especially, hands-on learning, using the school’s outdoor resources at Benzonia Trail, Port Oneida and Bow Lake.
Chad notes, “This summer, I came across my old geologist’s pick that I got in 1971, engraved, ‘Happy 16th Birthday, signed, Mom and Dad.’ That was the year my dad turned 50, and I got this job when I turned 50.” He regards it as a good sign.
“This was my dream job,” he says, one he has been preparing for in so many ways over the past three decades. “I’ve always been a teacher — I can’t hold it in!”
Posted by editor at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)
Delight of Life’s Falling Leaves
By Cindy Kendall
Sun contributor
As my dad would say, “It’s been said: There is a good purpose to every season; every season’s fruit is nourishment for another season.” I smile to still hold the fruit of my father’s sharing after all these years. The memory of my parents is alive in Leelanau’s Sleeping Bear. No matter where I am, I can be still inside, feeling the wind off of the water, hearing the waves caress the shore, nourished by all the meaningful ideas we explored together.
It’s no surprise that some local maps are graced with the words “Leelanau” – “The Land of Delight.” Henry Schoolcraft, the first translator of Ojibwa native legends, was the man who named this area “Leelinau”, later spelled as “Leelanau”. “Leelinau” was an Ojibwa legend that Schoolcraft translated while with Lake Superior Ojibwa people.
My mother told me that we descend from Ojibwa Chief Wabojeeg whose people lived near Lake Superior. While reading George Weeks’ book, Sleeping Bear: Yesterday & Today, I learned that Wabojeeg is the grandfather of the woman who married Henry Schoolcraft. When Schoolcraft and his wife traveled from west of Lake Michigan, he named this peninsula “Leelinau”, after the Lake Superior Ojibwa Leelinau legend, at which point the translation of "Leelinau" was changed from “the lost daughter” to “delight of life.”
A stream of color graced across the sky from Alligator Hill to Pyramid Point on the day I first stood on the sand in Glen Haven this year. I fondly remember visiting this shore as a little girl who could barely reach my father's hand as we walked through the dark, listening to the sound of the waves. That night my dad pointed into the sky and described the Big Dipper. I could not see it. Dad turned on the flashlight and pointed it at the ground. He poked his finger into the sand seven times and called the holes 'stars'. Sliding his finger through the sand, he connected the ‘stars’ and called it “The Big Dipper.” He turned off his flashlight and told me to let my eyes get accustomed to the darkness. Within moments I saw “The Big Dipper” clearly in the star-filled sky, amazed that I had not seen it before.
That single moment of realization is still alive in me today. There is nothing like my dad’s joy upon successfully teaching me a new idea.
Reading the legend of "Leelinau", I was surprised to learn that it is about a daughter who loved exploring Nature. Her parents saw her lack of interest in other things as an indication that she needed to be married in order to find happiness in the things they thought should bring her joy. When she ran away, marrying Nature, she was considered to be 'lost' to her people.
My dad introduced my mom to this area in the 70’s. We spent every summer vacation near Leelanau’s Sleeping Bear. We loved listening to my dad’s childhood Camp Leelanau stories. We grew up hiking all over and around Sleeping Bear and swimming in Lake Michigan off of the beach just north of The Homestead where we rented a cabin until the shore was protected by the National Park. Mom told the legend of Sleeping Bear as Mother Bear on the beach, watching over her cubs swimming in the water. That legend is alive to me, not something that happened and is memorialized.
We always called this place "God's Country". It was a surprise to find other places in the world that people call "God's Country." Having been away from Leelanau’s Sleeping Bear for so long, returning has been to find the fruit from my childhood that is nourishment for all the seasons of my life. I find gratitude for my parents who delighted in Life and nurtured that love and joy for Life in me and my brother as they did in themselves. I find it fascinating that Schoolcraft brought to Sleeping Bear the legend that he discovered on the other side of the lake, identifying something beautiful and active as opposed to something lost and gone.
I returned to Leelanau’s Sleeping Bear last year and hung out all summer in a local campground, writing. When it came time to lift my head from words, I visited my family's favorite places, listening to the joy and inspiration we found and celebrated together.
One day on a charter boat before dawn, I enjoyed my first experience watching the sunrise from beyond Sleeping Bear Point and South Manitou. I took hundreds of pictures that morning, taking a break for a 30-minute marathon of catching salmon. It was a delightful change of pace as Captain Bill Winowiecki thrust a flexing rod into my hand and taught me how to reel in the fish, patiently correcting me when I forgot his instruction. When I left Glen Arbor for the winter, I enjoyed working with him on his website.
This past summer Bill and his son Billy took me out on the Watta Bite Charter Fishing boat. I sat back and watched father and teenage son, recognizing the patience of experience interacting with the 'eagerness to help while responding to constantly changing circumstances'. At one point Bill handed the bending pole to me and reminded me how to reel in the big fish. The fish was a real fighter. It seemed forever before we netted that fish. Surprised by their burst of enthusiasm, I had to ask “why?”
Captain Bill told me "that is a rare fish" as he pointed to the 12-pound Brown Trout that had a hook jaw. "The hook jaw forms for the season when it needs to protect its nest. When the nest no longer needs protecting, the hook jaw disappears." I pondered the Nature lesson in that phenomenon while Billy kept the boat straight so his dad could set the lines again. Could it be that Nature provides what is needed, when it is needed?
I think about the last 20 years and see those times when an armor of protection was suddenly there and then gone because it was no longer required, like holding to a truth to counter an error. I think about my seven times great grandfather who was chief of his people at a time of great change. I think of my mother bringing us kids up here, believing that flowers need the opportunity to bloom freely in Nature. I think of my father lovingly teaching me many things that even now continue to blossom in understanding. I think of the people who grace my path, reaching out to me, patient with the daughter who loves to learn. I think of rediscovering Delight of Life’s Sleeping Bear, finding that the protective coating of my heart and soul and mind is really just the leaves that are falling away to make room for unfolding petals.
Posted by editor at 12:14 PM | Comments (0)