September 2013
The Spirituality of Sports
southwest michigan’s magazine
Liquid Therapy
SW Michigan waterways provide peaceful paddling
Ready to Rock
Academy teaches teens to rock n’ roll
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September 2013
The Spirituality of Sports
southwest michigan’s magazine
Liquid Therapy
SW Michigan waterways provide peaceful paddling
Ready to Rock
Academy teaches teens to rock n’ roll
Great flavor comes from deep roots.
Publisher
encore publications, inc.
Editor
marie lee
since 1985
Designer
© Bell's Brewery, Inc., Comstock, MI
alexis stubelt
bellsbeer.com
Plan your tomorrow Live for today
erik holladay
Copy Editor/Poetry Editor margaret deritter
Contributors
zinta aistars, kit almy, margaret deritter, tiffany fitzgerald, elizabeth kerlikowske, robert m. weir
Contributing Poets
robert haight, lynn pattison
Advertising Sales/Business Manager krieg lee
Advertising Representative
• Retirement Planning* • Estate Planning* • Financial Planning* • Estate, Divorce & Financial Settlements* • Retirement Rollovers*
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Office Manager ron dundon
Sandy K. Derby
CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ Chartered Financial Consultant™
8145 Valleywood Lane, Portage (269) 321-5047 Find a wealth of information, market news, tools and calculators at
derbyfinancial.net
*Securities and Investment Advisory Services offered through ING Financial Partners, Member SIPC. Derby Financial Associates, LLC, is not a subsidiary of nor controlled by ING Financial Partners. 4 | Encore SEPTEMBER 2013
Photographer
Encore Magazine is published 9 times yearly, September through May. Copyright 2013, Encore Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Editorial, circulation and advertising correspondence should be sent to: www.encorekalamazoo.com 117 W. Cedar St. Suite A Kalamazoo, MI 49007 Telephone: (269) 383-4433 Fax number: (269) 383-9767 E-mail: Publisher@encorekalamazoo.com The staff at Encore welcomes written comment from readers, and articles and poems for submission with no obligation to print or return them. To learn more about us or to comment, you may visit www.encorekalamazoo.com. Encore subscription rates: one year $27, two years $53, three years $78. Current single issue and newsstand $4, $10 by mail. Back issues $6, $12 by mail. Advertising rates on request. Closing date for space is 28 days prior to publication date. Final date for print-ready copy is 21 days prior to publication date.
CONTENTS
September
2013
FEATURES Liquid Therapy
16
The Spirit of Sports
22
Three Rivers couple’s canoe and kayak livery puts people to paddling.
Volleyball coach Jeanne Hess on finding the spiritual side of athletics.
Ready to Rock
Young musicians learn the ropes of being rock ‘n’ rollers.
At Home
What’s new in home remodeling? Our special section spotlights local renovation trends.
DEPARTMENTS
7 Upfront
9 Enterprise
32
Seeds Among the Stack —– Libraries’ seed lending programs are sowing gardeners. North Coast Window Works —– Peter Carroll is passionate about restoring old windows.
12 Savor
14 Good Works
46 The Last Word
27
Cottage Food Law —– Food entrepreneurs are cooking up new businesses. Annie’s BIG Nature Lesson —– Rain or shine, outdoors is students’ classroom during the weeklong program. Death’s Anniversary —– An unlikely Valentine’s Day encounter eases the specter of loss.
ARTS
36 The Poetic Psychotherapist
37 ‘Dog & Pony Show’
39 Events of Note
41 Poetry
Gail Martin’s award-winning new collection won’t leave readers “empty-handed.” Holly Hughes dishes on dogs in her upcoming Festival Playhouse performance.
Cover photo by Erik Holladay
w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 5
ENCORE Up front
Libraries Seeding Healthier Communities by
Zinta Aistars
Think libraries, think books, think seeds.
Come again? As state and federal funding for libraries gets pinched, librarians are getting creative with programming, finding new ways to serve their communities that go beyond lending books. For two small libraries in Southwest Michigan, that means preserving and lending seeds. Last spring, a small group gathered in a conference room at J.C. Wheeler Library, in Martin, to talk about a new program as gardening season began: seed lending. Heading the meeting was Alice Kelsey, a library board member, and John Edgerton, a longtime gardener and business partner in Harvest of Joy Farm, a CSA (community-supported agriculture) farm in nearby Shelbyville. Gardeners, new and experienced, gathered around the table, laden with packets of heirloom vegetable seeds. “Seed-lending programs are popping up at libraries across the country,” says Edgerton. “People are reclaiming their heritage. Faced with convenience, we tend to choose what’s quick and easy, but the slow-food movement and people getting back to organic food and farmers’ markets are renewing an interest in gardening.” Here’s how it works: A library stocks seeds that produce herbs, flowers or vegetables, usually heirloom vegetables rather than the more common hybrids sold in most supermarkets. Typically the seeds have not been genetically modified. Library patrons check out the seeds much as they would a book to read. They plant, water, grow, harvest, eat and enjoy, and then they save seeds from those plants,
dry them and bring them back to the library for the next gardener. “We had no idea about response,” says Kelsey. “Our first meeting was simply to see who would show up and what they would like from our seed-lending program.” Experienced gardeners around the table asked knowledgeable questions on topics such as the genetics of seeds and the complexities of composting, while beginners asked questions about when to plant, how far apart to place the seeds and what to expect next. Edgerton and Kelsey thoughtfully answered all questions, and the summer ahead would include workshops to give gardeners guidance throughout the growing and harvesting seasons. “We are offering three choices
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to gardeners,” Edgerton says. “Take a packet of seeds and start them on your own, return later for already planted seeds to transfer to your garden, or, return even later for plants already sprouted from seeds to transplant into your garden. What we want to do is maximize the success, to get people involved in gardening again. This isn’t really a new idea. There have been seed libraries in Europe for some time.” Hopkins District Library is also offering a seed-lending program to its patrons. Library Director Natalie Bazan obtained many of her seeds for the program from her parents, who own a greenhouse business. “I was also able to get many seeds as donations from seed companies just by asking,” she says. “We’re happy to collaborate with other libraries, and we have other gardening programs planned. We will be making a worm farm and doing ‘gorilla gardening’ — planting flowers around Hopkins in random places. We will also have a workshop on writing grants for community gardens.” While Martin has a community garden that is working with the J.C. Wheeler Library to save and trade seeds and transplants, Hopkins does not, but it does have a farmers’ market to sell the resulting produce. “What’s old is new again,” Bazan says. “People want to learn about sustainable and healthier ways of living, the way our ancestors did. Seed lending and gardening will help people understand food by growing it and the life cycle of plants by harvesting seeds and replanting the next year.” Edgerton explains the importance of encouraging seed saving: “Genetically modified seeds were developed to resist disease, insects and drought, but they limit the varieties of a crop, and they don’t work in all areas.” Limiting varieties is dangerous, he says, because if one crop is destroyed, or mutates, an entire food variety can be lost. Genetically modified seeds are still being studied for safety in human consumption and are banned in many European countries. Using pesticides and herbicides with these seeds is also not environmentally sustainable, Edgerton says. “It’s another way for your local library to be involved in the community,” Bazan says. “And,” she adds with a laugh, “there won’t be any overdue fees if you don’t return the seeds.”
ENCORE ENTERPRISE
Restorer finds opportunity in old windows by
Tiffany Fitzgerald
Peter Carroll of North Coast Windows Works repairs a window at the Ladies’ Library Association building in Kalamazoo.
P
eter Carroll can tell you the first rule of starting a business: “Don’t start a business in an industry you know nothing about.” But knowing the rule didn’t stop him from breaking it when he was laid off from Pfizer Inc. in 2007 and decided to go into window repair and restoration. “It’s been a pretty steep learning curve,” he says. “Brutal, actually.” But chances are you’ve seen some of his work at such places as the Art Deco-period Marlborough Condominiums building, on South Street, or the Ladies’ Library Association’s Victorian building, on South Park Street. Because his is a dying occupation, Carroll says, he’s now one of the few people who have the skill and expertise to work on historic windows in the Kalamazoo area. Carroll’s Kalamazoo business, formerly known as Old Home Rehab, is now called North Coast Window Works. “I’ll work on any home that’s pre-World War II,” says Carroll. “Most of my customers don’t w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 9
actually live in historic neighborhoods. Most of my customers just want to maintain the structural and architectural integrity of their home.” Maintaining the integrity of an older home can mean a complete window restoration, says Carroll, but most of the time a simple window adjustment or repair will do the trick. “If you look at the history of the wood and construction used in these windows, the workmanship is exquisite and the quality of the wood — just regular old pine — can’t be regularly found today,” says Carroll. “It’s a special wood that has proven to be highly decayresistant and stable. It might not look good anymore, and it might not work right, but we can come in and fix those things.” Why go through the process of fixing old windows rather than replace them with today’s more efficient, user-friendly windows? Carroll says that keeping old windows serves a homeowner’s best interests because of the craftsmanship involved. And most older windows can become as efficient as new windows with repair and reglazing, he says. “What’s amazing to me is that I can take apart a window that was made in the 1800s, put it back together, find every piece of hardware, and make it look like it was made brand new,” Carroll says. “I can’t do that with a window built in the 21st century. People call and tell me about rotted wood in a window that’s less than 10 years old, and I can’t do anything. Once you take the original window out, you are in a replacement window category — your option is to throw it out and put a new one in.” Pam O’Connor, who lives at the Marlborough Condominiums building and works as an independent historical consultant, says the fact that Carroll could help fix and restore the more than 900 windows in the Marlborough without throwing them into a landfill or creating a 10-year cycle of replacement was exactly why the building’s condominium association decided to engage Carroll in the first place.
“It wasn’t an easy decision,” says O’Connor, who has lived in the building for more than a decade. “The building is a 1920s-style, multilevel, mixed-use property. It’s a big building. Whoever did the project had to be able to organize with about 35 residents and three to four commercial tenants to get this massive project done.” O’Connor explains that Carroll has committed himself to completing the project and has allowed the Marlborough residents to get it done in stages in order to afford such a large-scale undertaking. “We wanted to give our money to a local business, like Peter’s,” says O’Connor. “And he’s been the perfect person for the job. If everyone ran their small business like Peter, we’d all be in good shape.” Aside from doing window repair and restoration, Carroll also helps preserve Kalamazoo’s historic charm by acting as the chairman of the Historic District Commission, a citizens’ group representing all Kalamazoo neighborhoods that helps approve renovation projects in historic districts. And he, along with the Michigan Historic Preservation Network, trains owners and apprentices in renovating and restoring homes and other buildings. Carroll says he wants more qualified and trained people in the business. “My biggest struggle,” he says, “is to find people who want to work doing what I do and work with me.” Why does Carroll commit so much time and effort to the historic dimension of Kalamazoo? Simply put, he thinks it is historic structures that keep the city tied to its roots. “Keeping old homes restored is important because it really binds the fabric of the community,” he says. “It’s important to maintain these structures so that there are opportunities for people who want to live in and take care of these structures to be good stewards of their neighborhoods.”
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savor ENCORE up front
Law helps entrepreneurs cook up food enterprises in home kitchens by
Tiffany Fitzgerald
Obitate dolesti am aspernatur sincto con commolo rruptatibus delente mquiatus et rat pel ipid magni des alia
F
or Kelli Eaton and Sara Main, owners of Fizzy Bread and Dips, Michigan’s Cottage Food Law has meant the difference between dreaming of success and obtaining it. The Cottage Food Law, enacted in 2010, makes it possible for people to produce food products within their homes to sell. There are guidelines, of course — producers have to sell face-to-face so they can answer questions about their products, and they can’t sell any products that require time or temperature control for safety, for example — but the law allows people to start a business selling foods without taking too much of a financial risk. Eaton and Main sell their bread and dip mixes at local craft shows. Under the law, they can produce these products without having to undergo the same kinds of licensing and inspections required by the Michigan Food Law, potentially saving the pair and their fledgling enterprise thousands of dollars. “When we started looking into selling at local craft shows, we figured we better get legal about it and so we started researching,” 12 | Encore SEPTEMBER 2013
Kelli Eaton, left, and Sara Main utilized Michigan’s Cottage Food Law to create the Fizzy Bread and Dips enterprise in their home kitchens.
Eaton explains. “There’s a lot of good info on the State of Michigan website about the Cottage Food Law which saved us a lot of money when we were starting out, so we learned as much as we could and then started complying.” Eaton and Main also took advantage of the Can-Do Kitchen, an offering of local organization Fair Food Matters located in the People’s Food Co-Op building, on Harrison Street in Kalamazoo. The Can-Do Kitchen routinely offers workshops on the Cottage Food Law presented by representatives of Michigan State University. “The Can-Do Kitchen ties into the Cottage Law for us because that’s where we’ve learned a lot about labeling, food safety and licensing,” Eaton says. “We’ve also been able to use the kitchen to make food samples for shows. It’s an amazing resource, and we’re blessed to have it right here in our community.”
The Can-Do Kitchen, in addition to hosting workshops and classes on community nutrition, food production, gardening and canning, provides a certified kitchen that can be rented out — a must for Main and Eaton, who need to prepare their sour-cream-based dip samples in a certified kitchen in order to serve them at craft shows. Lucy Bland, manager of the Can-Do Kitchen, looks at businesses like Fizzy Bread and Dips as indicators of the success of the Cottage Food Law. “I can’t think of any drawbacks of the law,” Bland says. “It’s really positive in that it gives people a chance — you don’t need a lot of start-up money to start producing food at home, and money can be a big challenge for people.” Bland says that since the law was enacted, she’s seen it enable many small providers to sell their products at farmers’ markets, fairs and craft shows. The State of Michigan and MSU have had a huge hand in helping people become more educated about the law and how to meet its requirements, she says. Joanne Davidhizar, who works with the MSU Extension in running the workshops, explains that the workshops are a part of the MSU Product Center’s mission to support and provide public education. “As part of the MSU Product Center, we provide both education and counseling to those who are thinking about starting a business,” she says. “We work with other specialists in food safety, and we talk about how to support a good business. When going into business, most everyone wants to make money, and we help people think about things they have to take into account. We cover the basics.” Bland emphasizes that the Cottage Food Law helps establish local food sources and thereby helps communities function in greener
and more healthful ways. And the law often leads small, part-time businesses to become full-blown successes, thus boosting the local economy. “Cottage Food Law producers often start looking to expand,” Bland says. “The Can-Do Kitchen can be a next supporting step for those producers. We love to talk to people who are looking to branch out, and we want to support as many local food producers as possible.” Eaton and Main have already started looking toward the future of their business. They’ve moved beyond the confines of the Cottage Food Law, becoming certified to sell more types of foods thanks to direction and support from the Can-Do Kitchen, and they’ve recently launched a website, www.fizzybreadsanddips.net, to sell their food directly to customers between shows. “We have full-time jobs, so this is a fun side job we do,” says Eaton, who is a buyer for an automotive company while Main is a college instructor. “But if we ever get to a point where we could get into a retail store, then the Can-Do kitchen has helped us evolve where we can do that. We’re a small business that has turned from doing it for fun to expanding into a bigger business. It’s all possible because of the Michigan Cottage Law. We wouldn’t be where we are today without it.” For more information about the Cottage Food Law, visit michigan. gov. To view an upcoming schedule of events at the Can-Do Kitchen or to find contact information so you can ask questions about the Cottage Food Law and the certified kitchen, visit fairfoodmatters.org/candokitchen.
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good works ENCORE
Kids Learn Big Lessons With Nature for a Classroom by
Kit Almy
As part of a weeklong program at the
Kalamazoo Nature Center, children are expected to sit quietly for an hour observing nature. According to Nature Center educator Elizabeth Rochow, teachers who are new to Annie’s BIG Nature Lesson, say, “Oh, no way!” when they hear this, but teachers who have participated in the program before tell them, “Oh, just wait!” Much more than a field trip, Annie’s BIG Nature Lesson transplants students from a typical week of school in the classroom to a week in the woods and environs of the Nature Center. The program is one of several “big lessons” designed by former Haslett elementary school teacher Margaret Holtschlag, who first created the BIG History Lesson in 1999 14 | Encore SEPTEMBER 2013
Grace, front, and Maizie, students at The Montessori School in Kalamazoo, write in their journals during a BIG Nature Lesson at the Kalamazoo Nature Center last spring.
to immerse her pupils in history by taking them on an interdisciplinary study trip to a history museum every day for a week. When Jerry and Betty Mason of Kalamazoo learned of the BIG History Lesson, they wanted to create a nature lesson in memory of Jerry’s daughter Ann Mason, who died in 2001. Ann Mason was a nature lover and environmentalist from Clinton County, where the BIG Lesson programs are administered by Holtschlag through the county Regional Educational Service Agency. The Masons worked with Holtschlag to develop Annie’s BIG Nature Lesson (ABNL), which has been
offered at the Kalamazoo Nature Center (KNC) since 2007 and is also offered in Lansing, Marshall and Ann Arbor. Holtschlag, who was named Michigan Teacher of the Year for 2000, has also created “big lessons” for science museums and zoos. Among the hallmarks of ABNL, which is open to second- through eighth-graders, is its cross-curricular design. “We want them to do all the things they would normally do in their classroom in terms of social studies and math and language and reading,” says Jenn Wright, KNC’s vice president for education, “but they do it around the context of nature.” The program puts education in a new light for the students, revealing that it’s not just what you do in the classroom, says Rochow, environmental educator and ABNL coordinator at KNC. “I give them lots of ideas of how they can use what they already have to learn in their curriculum,” such as measuring trees to learn about circumference in math. Teachers who use the ABNL program get two days of training to learn techniques for teaching outdoors and integrating their normal curriculum into nature study. The majority of the time the ABNL class spends at KNC is led by the classroom teacher, so there is great flexibility in what activities each class does. Classes have all of the exhibits and the entire grounds of the Nature Center at their disposal and can use its educational collections, of such things as fossils and furs, for hands-on learning. Each day includes a one-hour “expert lesson,” taught by someone other than the classroom teacher, often a KNC educator. “It also could be someone from the community. We’ve tried to promote that,” Rochow notes. Teachers have recruited art and music teachers, as well as parents with expertise on specific topics, to lead activities. For many students, an unlikely highlight of ABNL is a daily nature-observation session, in which they are given stools — and rain
ponchos, if necessary — to sit outside for an hour with journals, drawing and writing about their surroundings. Donna Judd, third-grade teacher at Kalamazoo’s Arcadia Elementary, says if you asked her students, “just about every one of them will say their favorite part of the week is hiking to their spot to journal.” After some first-day doubts, they quickly come to appreciate the rare opportunity to have time alone for reflection, she says. Sometimes children who struggle in the classroom will blossom at the Nature Center. “They get out here, where there (aren’t) four walls, and they have some freedom to move around a little bit, and they’re more active with it, and they settle right in,” Wright says. Kids who can’t seem to sit still at school happily journal for an hour and are “writing stuff that they’ve never written before,” she says. “I think that it really lends itself to different styles of learning.” ABNL is tailored to meet state education standards, and the lessons learned are meant to carry over to the rest of the school year. “I draw on that week so many times,” says Judd, noting that the direct experience with nature provides a frame of reference that many children have never had before. Grants and donations from the Masons and other individuals have so far made it possible for approximately 30 area teachers and classes to participate in ABNL each year at almost no cost to the schools. In recognition of this generosity, each class is encouraged to develop a service project to benefit the Nature Center, their school or another organization. “We really want the students in particular to understand the importance of what it means to give back to your community,” Wright says. At the end of each school year, KNC staff, participating teachers, Holtschlag and the Masons gather to share the ABNL experiences of the past year. This past spring Jerry Mason told the group his daughter would be delighted with Annie’s BIG Nature Lesson. “She was genuinely interested in nature and how it impacted our lives. We have a world where we need to encourage understanding of nature, and that would be Annie’s prime interest.”
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River Refreshment P a d dlers find peac e
e in helping ei s o others fl o at th r boats , p u rp
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photography by
16 | Encore SEPTEMBER 2013
ERIK HOLLAdAY
K
aren McDonald and Ernie Manges happened to see a brief TV commercial one morning about a canoe-and-kayak business in Three Rivers that was up for sale. The TV spot ended up turning the South Bend construction
workers into livery owners, and now they’re in their seventh year of putting paddlers on the rivers and lakes of St. Joseph County. “It was a three-second coincidence in our life,” Manges says. “We were eating breakfast at home, watching the morning news on TV w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 17
and having a conversation when we glanced up and saw this ad. because they found kayaking is becoming more popular among their customers, as it has nationwide. Other than that, we’d still be working construction.” The couple now spends the warmer months living in a camper at Manges, who’s 51, had spent 30 years doing residential and other Hidden Pond Campground, in Nottawa, to be closer to the construction, and McDonald, 49, had worked livery. in construction for three years and had her own landscaping business before that. They From grasslands to both loved paddling in their spare time, whitewa ter McDonald since she was a kid growing up on a lake in South Bend, Ind., and Manges since St. Joseph County has about a buddy invited him to take a trip down the 150 miles of navigable rivers and Dowagiac River about 15 years ago. creeks, more than any other county “The beauty and peace and tranquility in Michigan, according to the River was just awesome,” Manges says. “After 15 Country Tourism Council and the St. minutes, your shoulders would relax and Joseph County Conservation District. you’d forget about work, about bills, about “We’ll put you in on any of those on off people who bug you.” times,” McDonald says, “but during busy McDonald says she first took Manges times we stick with the closer ones.” out in a canoe when they were in high Kayakers and canoeists who use Liquid school, but he didn’t paddle on his own Therapy typically have their choice of five very much until shortly before they rivers. In addition to the St. Joe or the started dating. They’ve been living Rocky, they can paddle the Fawn, Portage together now for more than 10 years. or Prairie rivers. “My ex-husband didn’t like water,” Each river offers its own flavor of she says. “When Ernie and I hooked up, outdoor fun. The St. Joe is the largest of the I dusted off my orange canoe and we five, flowing wide and slow in the stretch Karen McDon al d an d Er from Three Rivers to Constantine and taking started paddling together. When we ni operate the Li quid Therapy e Manges canoe and ka paddlers under the longest covered bridge in worked for a construction company, livery in Three yak Rivers. the state, the Langley Covered Bridge, near we would go out after work and Centreville, built in 1887. The portion of the put the canoe on a little river by my river upstream of Withers Road seems a bit house. It was kind of like sitting on like the Everglades, Manges says — without your back porch, but the scenery kept changing.” The couple thought about starting a paddling business in South alligators, of course. The Rocky is the St. Joe’s opposite: a narrow, winding river with Bend, but then a friend told them about the Rocky River, which flows a short whitewater segment near the end that fearful paddlers can into the St. Joseph River at Three Rivers. They checked it out and portage around. It earns its name only in that final stretch; upstream thought Three Rivers was “a cool little town,” McDonald says.. The TV commercial gave them the final push they needed to venture it has mostly a sandy bottom. On both rivers, paddlers can opt for a two-hour or four-hour trip. out in a new direction. They contacted the real estate company that But sometimes paddlers stretch it out even farther. “One couple on ran the ad and then talked with the livery owner. The livery was located in a park owned by the city of Three Rivers, but the city had canceled the two-hour trip on the St. Joe camped out on an island for the its contract with the previous owner. After discussions with the city whole weekend,” McDonald says. The Fawn River weaves quietly through prairie fields and marshes and inspections of the boats that were for sale, the couple decided to buy their own boats. The city drew up a new contract that leases near the Indiana-Michigan border and offers opportunities for them the livery space and has them taking care of the city-owned birdwatching and an occasional glimpse of a muskrat or fawn. Conservation Park, located just south of the Main Street-Michigan Manges and McDonald are hoping to offer overnight trips on the Street intersection, along the St. Joseph River. (The former owner now Fawn River someday, but currently they offer a three-hour trip on the Fawn. runs a livery in northern Michigan, McDonald says.) The Portage and Prairie rivers are also narrow and winding, The couple gave their livery the name Liquid Therapy. Manges says they chose that name because “the liquid was the water and our traversing mainly woodlands. Paddlers who put in to the Portage River at Portage Lake, northwest of Three Rivers, paddle about seven refreshment, and the act of paddling was therapeutic.” McDonald describes the decision to start Liquid Therapy as a way hours before reaching the livery, but shorter trips are available. of getting off one sinking ship and gaining a fleet of better vessels. Paddlers who put in on the Prairie at Centreville, southwest of Three “We used to work for a construction company in Elkhart that was Rivers, and travel west toward the St. Joe can choose trips of two-, building trailers,” she says. “We saw that ship was sinking so we took three- or four-and-a-half hours. our 401(k)s and bought several ships.” They purchased 21 canoes McDonald says the Portage and Prairie rivers are especially good and nine kayaks, to be precise, and recently bought 10 more kayaks for wildlife viewing. She’s seen a raccoon sleeping in a hollowed18 | Encore SEPTEMBER 2013
Map of the Rivers
Portage River
iver Rocky R THREE RIVERS
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ep
s Jo t.
r ve Ri
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Prairie River
Fawn R
iver
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St. Jose
out log, an owl’s nest, baby owls, baby fox, osprey, eagles, herons, swans, turkey and deer, among other animals. She also says she likes having so many river options to offer paddlers. “If we have partiers, a church group and a newlywed couple on the same day, we can put ’em all on different rivers,” she says. The Rocky River is the most popular among kayakers, and the St. Joe among canoeists and large groups.
Rolling down the Rocky On a recent summer day, McDonald took Encore photographer Erik Holladay and me out for a paddle on the Rocky River. We had to skip the whitewater stretch to avoid getting the cameras wet, but we got a thrilling little taste of fast water even after we portaged the canoe around the rapids. McDonald and Manges like to take their dog Joy out on the rivers with them, and this day was no exception. McDonald chose a sit-on-top kayak and let Joy stand on top behind her. The dog lost her footing only twice on the two-and-a-half-hour trip, and McDonald was easily able to help Joy back on board by grabbing the handle atop the dog’s Outward Hound life vest. But McDonald chose to shoot the rapids without Joy, who whimpered for her owner on shore as her temporary guardian held tight to her leash. Asked if many paddlers choose to brave the whitewater, McDonald replied, “It depends on how much liquid courage they’ve had.” For most of the journey, a great blue heron stayed just ahead of us, searching for fish near the riverbank, then spreading its
wings and taking off downstream when we came closer. Bright-orange orioles and redwinged blackbirds flitted through the trees and grasses, and iridescent-aqua dragonflies landed on our boats and paddles. A few small turtles lounged on logs jutting into the river. The Rocky was easily navigable most of the way, with only a few tricky turns around fallen trees.
Clearing the way It’s a big job in the early spring and again in the fall for McDonald and Manges to make sure the rivers are cleared enough to allow for the passage of kayaks and canoes. “We go down in a canoe with a chainsaw and loppers and a handsaw,” McDonald says. “It can be hard, especially when the best place to cut is in deep water. We generally get in
the water. I wear waders, and Ernie wears a wetsuit. He cuts, and I pull stuff out of the way.” “The first year we were open I never ran a chainsaw in my life,” Manges says. “It was all learned experience. No one really taught me. I never lost a saw, but I came close. One time it took an hour and a half to get one out of the water.” The Fawn doesn’t require much work, and there’s nothing tall enough to fall all the way across the St. Joe, Manges says. With the other three rivers, they try to cut passages just big enough for a canoe and leave as much natural habitat as possible. “If you clear-cut a river, your fish will move out and then the heron that eat the fish,” Manges says. They also try to make sure the deepest sections of river are cleared because, as summer goes on, water levels drop drastically, especially as farmers begin to draw water from the rivers to irrigate their fields. But sometimes it’s impossible to cut through a really large tree that has fallen. “I’ll make notches in it so as years go by that will put a weak spot in it,” Manges says. “Trees don’t last long in the water.” In the meantime, he and McDonald warn customers that they’ll have to pull their boat over a tree or two.
Smiles are best reward Liquid Therapy attracts between 1,500 and 2,000 paddlers a year, according to Manges. Customers often come from campgrounds
Joy, outfitted in
a canine life ve st, is a constant on Karen McD companion onald’s kayak trips.
w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 19
in St. Joe County like Cranberry Lake, Hidden Pond and Camp Tavor, a summer camp for Jewish children and teens. Other paddlers come from Kalamazoo and Portage, and some from as far away as Chicago or Ohio. At the peak of the summer, Manges and McDonald work as long as 11 or 12 hours a day. McDonald generally works in the office, and Manges hauls the boats. They’ll put people on the water between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. any day between Memorial Day and Labor Day, but they might have to pick them up as late as 6 p.m. And as part of their agreement with the city of Three Rivers, they also work hard maintaining Conservation Park. “They mow, keep the park clean, paint when things need to be painted. I think they’re doing a great job,” says Terry Loomis, a secretary in the Department of Public Works who has worked for the city for 33 years. “I paddle myself so I know Karen and Ernie, and they’re always real pleasant to talk to. It’s really nice to have them here.” Liquid Therapy is open weekends from early April to Memorial Day, and again from Labor Day until late October, and takes reservations in the off-season. But business drops off suddenly after Labor Day. “It’s like a light switch,” Manges says. “There’s beautiful colors on our rivers, but we just can’t get a grip to get people to come.” During the winter, the couple do small construction jobs to make ends meet, mostly for family and friends, but they hope the livery will eventually support them yearround. “Our goal is to earn $50,000 to $70,000 a year,” Manges says. “We don’t have to have what the Joneses have.” When they’re not working, Manges and McDonald love to get out on the water themselves. But even when they’re back at the office or hauling boats, they still feel a great sense of satisfaction. “We’re not going to be millionaires or anything” Manges says, “but when customers come back laughing and smiling, that there’s worth its weight in gold itself.”
20 | Encore SEPTEMBER 2013
Looking for a livery?
If you live in the Kalamazoo area and don’t have your own canoe or kayak, it’s not as easy to find a livery as it used to be. In fact, the only liveries we could find still operating on the southwestern Michigan stretch of the Kalamazoo River are based in Saugatuck, Douglas and Holland. “I think the economy has had a big effect,” says Skip Lee, of Lee’s Adventure Sports, a longtime Kalamazoo business that sells and rents canoe, kayaks and paddle boards but does not offer transport services. “The upfront cost to buying equipment is fairly steep. To be competitive you have to have a decent price range for your rentals, and that doesn’t necessarily give you a fast payback. If economic situations take a turn or there’s funky weather, that can have a big effect on small seasonal businesses.” The Enbridge oil spill on the Kalamazoo in 2010 didn’t help either. Shady Bend Campground, in Augusta, used to offer canoe and kayak trips on the Kalamazoo but went out of business after 22 years because of the oil spill. And even though the spill did not affect the portions of the river from the Morrow Lake Dam, in Comstock Township, to Lake Michigan, Lee says, “I know for awhile people wondered whether they should be on the river.” A livery that used to put people on the Kalamazoo from D Avenue to Plainwell and on Portage Creek at Celery Flats stopped operating several years ago. Kayaker’s Run, in Plainwell, took over on the Kalamazoo, but that livery is now out of business, too. The owners of Kayaker’s Run, also owned the longtime business Old Allegan Canoe, and shut down both liveries at the start of this season. Nevertheless, if you’re willing to take a drive, you can still find many area liveries that will give you a chance to experience river paddling. Some are open only in the summer; some have limited fall hours. Check websites for hours, rates and other details.
ST. JOSEPH COUNTY En Gedi Campground River Resort 30321 Covey Road, Leonidas Twp. Phone: (269) 689-7490 E-mail: engedicampground@gmail.com Website: engediresort.com River: St. Joseph Liquid Therapy Canoe & Kayak Rental 221 S. Main St., Three Rivers Phone: (269) 273-9000 Website: liquidtherapycanoeandkayak Rivers: St. Joseph, Rocky, Prairie, Portage and Fawn
CASS COUNTY Doe-Wah-Jack’s Canoe Rental 52963 M-51 North, four miles north of Dowagiac Phone: (888) 782-7410 E-mail: info@paddledcri.com Website: paddledcri.com River: Dowagiac
BARRY COUNTY U-Rent-Em Canoe Livery 805 W. Apple St., Hastings Phone: (269) 945-3191 Website: urentemcanoe.com River: Thornapple Indian Valley Campground and Canoe Livery 8200 108th St., near Caledonia Phone: (800) 810-8579 Website: indianvalleycampgroundandcanoe.com River: Thornapple GR Paddling Based in Grand Rapids; offers guided trips in Barry County Phone: (616) 558-2609 Website: grpaddling.com Rivers: Thornapple, Coldwater
(continued on page 42)
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Jeanne Hess, Kalamazoo College volleyball coach and author of Sportuality. 22 | Encore SEPTEMBER September 2013 2013
ON ‘SPOR UALITY’ Jeanne Hess wants to change the th t he way we think about sports
by
Robert M. Weir
photography by
ERIK HOLLADAY
Sportuality (spor-choo-AL-i-tee) noun: the spiritual aspect of sport, a way of finding joy in the games. — Jeanne Hess
“I want parents to give their children messages of joy, of hope, of true competition. Of peace and of true religion. Not the idea of ‘us versus them’ or ‘us at the exclusion of them’ but ‘us and them.’” Those are the words of Jeanne Hess, volleyball coach at Kalamazoo College for the past 30 years, as she describes the concept of “sportuality,” a word she coined and uses for the title of her book Sportuality: Finding Joy in the Games, published in 2012 by Balboa Press. Just as John Lennon asked us to “imagine all the people living life in peace,” Hess has asked her student athletes over the years to look upon the players on the other side of the net as an integral and necessary part of the game, to find joy in their presence on the court. Her book asks all athletes, coaches, fans, referees and parents of athletes to view opponents, whether in youth programs or the big leagues, in the same light. The story of how Hess managed to bring together sports and spirituality began when she was just a tomboy on the cusp of Title IX, a portion of the Education Amendments of 1972 that gave female athletes rights equal to those of their male counterparts. While growing up in suburban Detroit, Hess fell in love with volleyball and baseball, especially the Detroit Tigers. She graduated from the University of Michigan, where she played varsity volleyball and was about to begin graduate courses in athletic training when she suffered a debilitating knee injury playing a pickup volleyball game with a group of male athletes. With that, “life as I planned it was over,” she says.
After the cast came off, Hess became a junior varsity coach at Father Gabriel Richard High School, in Ann Arbor. In that school’s gymnasium, she met Jim Hess, who would become her husband in June 1982. The couple came to Kalamazoo when he became the women’s basketball coach at Western Michigan University. Hess’ employment at Kalamazoo College came soon thereafter. Hess was raised as a Catholic and Episcopalian and defines all people as God’s children united in spirit. Religion plays an important role in all she does. Not only is she a coach, but she is also a physical education professor, chair of the Physical Education Department and associate chaplain at Kalamazoo College as well as a Eucharistic minister at St. Thomas More Catholic Church. For Hess, the marriage of sport and spirituality is the natural outcome of a long-term engagement, and in her various roles she finds joy in fostering the talent and “sportual” awareness of student athletes. “The concept was always on my mind. I would repeat ‘sportual’ concepts to my team over and over,” Hess says. But she also experienced — and wanted — more. “I would journal my ‘sportual’ thoughts and tell myself, ‘This is a book.’” That book started to take shape in January 2009. The next three years were filled with early-morning writing sessions, aid from a writing coach, rigorous volleyball and teaching responsibilities at K-College, caring for her aging parents, and watching her and Jim’s two sons, Andrew and Kevan, play professional baseball in the Detroit Tigers farm system, including for the West Michigan Whitecaps, based in Grand Rapids. “I don’t regret a moment of it,” Hess says. w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 23
In her book, Hess asks society to examine the modern definition of words commonly associated with sport such as competition, spirit, enthusiasm, sacrifice; words related to sport such as communication (signs and signals), community (fans), education (student athletes) and sanctuary (the fields, courts and diamonds on which games are played); and words that, by modern definition, might not seem linked with athletic games but that, at their etymological roots, are also bound to sport, words such as humor (to perform with fluidity and flexibility), religion (to link back and connect to the source of our strength) and holy (to become one whole, as a team). In spite of common beliefs, the words compete, competition and competitor do not really refer to a contentious rivalry in which the participants vie to defeat or even humiliate the other team or player but originate from the Latin competere, which means “to come together, to seek together, to agree.” Sportuality asks that we imagine athletes and everyone associated with sports agreeing that teams and players come together on the field or on the court to seek joy in the game and imagine opponents honoring each other for the skill they bring to the contest. It asks that we cherish an outstanding performance by one team or player as an impetus to elevate the performance of and bring joy to all. Since its publication, Hess’ book “has taken on a life of its own,” she says. On a local level, Hess has spoken about her book in local bookstores and to Kalamazoo College’s volleyball team and physical education students. She’s reaching national audiences through Internet radio broadcasts, speaking and book-signing engagements throughout the Midwest and in Denver, her website (sportualitybook.com) and blog (sportuality.authorsxpress.com) and promotional campaigns by Balboa Press and its parent company, Hay House Publishing. Sportuality has garnered a 4.5-star status on Amazon.com and has been reviewed by NCAA Champions magazine. Reception by audiences has been positive. “People come away with a new respect for and understanding of sport and what it really means,” Hess says. The principles of “sportuality” are also shaping Hess’ thoughts about her upcoming 24 | Encore SEPTEMBER 2013
encore career. Proud of having served as a mentor to women collegiate athletes for three decades, she believes the time is nigh for her to perform in a larger arena. Through her vision and conversations with Kalamazoo College, she is honing her skills as a public and alumni liaison for the college, marrying her love of the college with her zeal to promote “sportual” concepts. She’s fast realizing that having written Sportuality is just the beginning of several
The cover of Hess’ book.
writing endeavors that lie before her. One is the in-process creation of a children’s book titled Sportuality Goes to Birdville, a collaborative effort with Floridian Richard Lamson, an illustrator whose Birdville Art website proclaims: “We’re serious about smiling.” Hess says Lamson’s art features “truth in simplicity, and, like me, he finds joy in what he’s doing.” The Birdville book will be targeted to children ages 4 to 8 as well as their parents. Emphasizing the importance of reaching the young with her message, Hess cites a recent incident in Utah. “At a youth soccer game, a referee died after being punched in the face by a teenage player who had been given a yellow (warning) card,” she says. “The referee lost consciousness, went into a coma and died a week later. The youth is 17. He’s been charged with murder by assault and his life is changed forever, and there is a dead referee and his family in mourning. “You’ve heard it said that we can’t have peace on the planet until we have peace in our hearts. That’s what ‘sportuality’ is about. I want people associated with sport to ‘go with peace’ into the game, and I want people
in government and society and business to ‘go in peace’ to honor and serve others on the planet. “Teamwork is really the process of human beings working together — being competitive with each other — to create an outcome. That outcome can be peace or it can be war.” Hess’ recent conversations with the leader of the Fetzer Institute’s global council about “Sport and Embodied Spiritual Practice” have been particularly gratifying for her because, one, she’s seeing the concept of “sportuality” embraced and presented by this internationally renowned organization, and, two, the Fetzer Institute’s founder, John Fetzer, owned her beloved Detroit Tigers from 1961 through 1983, during her formative athletic years. As a coach and professor, Hess has promoted the cross-cultural and multipurpose message of “sportuality” to her teams. Now she’s stepping beyond the volleyball court and aiming to be a conduit for other people to present their “sportual” stories. “My K-College business card says ‘Professor of Physical Education and Volleyball Coach.’ My personal business card says ‘Author of Sportuality.’ The next card will say ‘Author of Sportuality Goes to Birdville’ as well as ‘Speaker, Teacher, Officiant, Connector.’” Yet even as she moves beyond the work she has done for three decades at Kalamazoo College, she acknowledges the important place the college will always have in her life and notes the common ground between the college’s philosophy and her own. “The college will always be my home,” she says. “It’s the place where these ideas were born, nurtured and now practiced. It’s a very ‘sportual’ place. “At Kalamazoo College, we send young people out on study-abroad programs so they can become enlightened leaders in a global society. Through Sportuality, I’m looking for the same result — enlightened minds, whether athletes or not, joining together for the greater good of all in a peaceful society.” Sportuality: Finding Joy in the Games is available on the Internet and at local retail stores, including the Kalamazoo College Bookstore, Gazelle Sports, Michigan News Agency, Kazoo Books, The Spirit of Kalamazoo and Sol Spring: Massage, Spa and More.
“You’ve heard it said that we can’t have peace on the planet until we have peace in our hearts. That’s what ‘sportuality’ is about.” — Jeanne Hess
w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 25
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When
it comes to renovations, homeowners in Southwest Michigan are adapting their living spaces for long-term comfort and style. Here are some of the trends local renovation and remodeling professionals are seeing:
Using existing space People are looking to make the most of their existing space rather than add more, says Jerad Dylhoff, of Kitchen & Bath Unlimited, at 6313 Stadium Drive. He says that trend is especially evident in kitchen and dining-room configurations, where more people are opting to use their formal dining-room space to enlarge their kitchens. “Families who have bought older homes, say from the 1960s and ’70s, find that they have a small dining room and a small kitchen, but combining them creates one big kitchen where they can be together as a family,” Dylhoff says. “They will put in a large island with a lot of seating around it instead of having a formal table.” At right: Making island seating bigger and using dining room space for other purposes is one trend renovators are seeing in kitchen projects. Photo courtesy of Kitchen & Bath Unlimited. Previous page: People are replacing decks and patios with screened porches, like this one by DeHaan Remodeling Specialists, that allow them to enjoy the outdoors without the bugs. Photo courtesy of Dehaan Remodeling Specialists.
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Does that come in ‘greige’? Painted kitchen cabinets are back in vogue, and one of the hot color trends is “greige” — a combination of gray and beige. Other popular colors are white, ivory and black. “About 60 percent of our customers are asking for painted cabinets over stained,” Dylhoff says. Painted cabinetry’s popularity has led to many cabinetry companies retooling to be able to provide cabinets in almost any color the consumer wants. “This has opened up new decorating options in a big way,” DeHaan says. “Our clients aren’t stuck with a few stain or color choices for their cabinets. They can pretty much have what they want.”
Hard as a rock
Showers, not soakers Say goodbye to those big soaking tubs of the past two decades. Homeowners are removing tubs and putting in showers, says Robert DeHaan, of DeHaan Remodeling Specialists, at 2805 W. Main St. “Customers are asking us how to adapt their homes to allow them to stay in place as they age, and the No. 1 way is by putting in a shower,” says DeHaan, who is certified as an Aging In Place Specialist by the National Association of Home Builders. Today’s showers are larger, usually walk-in or with a short edge at the bottom of the door. Popular features include handheld showerheads, grab bars and benches. And these showers must be as attractive as they are functional, says Angi Polderman, of PCW Design/Build, in Mattawan. “People are spending more money on tile, including elaborate tile patterns and richer color palates,” she says. “And these showers are glass-encased, allowing this beautiful tile to be seen.” The vast number of choices one has now when it comes to tile has allowed shower design to be more creative. One of Dylhoff’s clients, for example, put a cobblestone floor in the shower. “When you stand on it, it is like getting your feet massaged,” Dylhoff says.
Watch out, granite. You are about to be overthrown as the king of the countertops. Quartz is the new favorite for kitchen surfaces. Similar in price to granite, quartz composite has evolved greatly in the past decade, with new designs that make it hard to distinguish a piece of quartz from a slab of granite. But quartz’s uniformity in coloring and pattern as well as its no-maintenance and nearly bulletproof durability are rapidly attracting homeowners, DeHaan says. In addition, homeowners can look at small samples of quartz rather than have to pick out a large slab of granite.
At right: This glass-encased, walk-in shower, created by PCW Design/ Build has standard, rain and handheld showerheads and a bench. The glass enclosure allows the beauty of the glass tile to shine through. Photo by Erik Holladay. Above: Quartz countertops, as seen on this kitchen island, provide a more uniform look than granite and are quickly becoming as popular as granite. Photo courtesy of Dehaan Remodeling Specialists.
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The indoor-outdoor room Southwest Michigan homeowners want to be outside when they are inside but wish for the bug-free, temperate climates of inside when they are outside. These desires are being met by replacing decks and patios with screened porches and three- and fourseason rooms. Angi Polderman says her company has seen an increase in clients asking for these “transitional spaces that bridge being indoors and outdoors.” “People want to spend a lot of time outdoors, but they want to be comfortable when they do it,” she says. For one client, PCW recently completed a space that, with the click of a button on a remote, converts from a porch to a screened room as automatic screens roll down. Another PCW client renovated an existing screened room to become a four-season room with radiant concrete floors. A remote-controlled screen rolls down to turn this outside porch into a screened room. Above the fireplace is a reversing television system — the frame pulls out and the television can pivot to reveal either the screen or artwork. Renovation by PCW Design/Build.
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Reuse the old When something new goes in, such as cabinets and showers, the old has to go somewhere. For some renovators, that place isn’t the landfill. Finding ways to repurpose materials removed in renovations is as important to them as installing the new. DeHaan is a fan of the Christian Reformed Church’s Appalachia Reach Out project and sends usable cabinets and other materials such as sinks, tubs, faucets and appliances to the organization’s thrift store in Kentucky for resale. To do so requires a little bit more effort and care in the demolition process of a project. “You want to make sure you get all the little parts that are needed,” DeHaan says. Kitchen & Bath Unlimited sends its reusable materials to the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore for resale, Dylhoff says. Recently, when the company replaced a kitchen it had put in 15 years ago for the same client, it passed on the high-quality, gently used cabinets and other kitchen materials to the ReStore. “You’d just hate to see them end up in a landfill,” Dylhoff says, “and they still make a beautiful kitchen.”
Above: A view of the porch from outside, before the screens are rolled down. Photos by Erik Holladay.
ee Thr
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ns Ser ving Ka l am az oo
Information Sources: Robert DeHaan, founder of DeHaan Remodeling Specialists, which has been in business since 1979. Jerad Dylhoff, manager of Kitchen & Bath Unlimited, which has served Southwest Michigan since 1984.
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www.devisserlandscape.com
Angi Polderman, co-owner of PCW Design/ Build of Mattawan, a full-service building and remodeling company that has been in business since 1993. Special advertising section
32 | Encore SEPTEMBER 2013
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B
y the smokestack of the old Gibson Guitar Corp. factory on Parsons Street, there’s a wooden door with a guitar-shaped window. Behind that door, up three flights of concrete stairs and down a long hallway adorned with paintings is the Kalamazoo Academy of Rock. On most weeknights, there’s a full band shredding out a set list in this room. Today the academy is between sessions, and founder and director Jeff Mitchell is cleaning and jamming out to Boston’s “Rock and Roll Band.” Except that’s not Brad Delp belting it out, it’s 16-yearold Addisyn Furland. And Mitchell isn’t playing Boston; he’s playing a recording of the academy’s Tuesday Night Band. The production quality is impeccable. Andrew Buczek of Kalamazoo belts out a tune during an of Rock practice. | 33 w wAcademy w.encorekalamazoo.com
These kids aren’t fooling around, and this isn’t a Jack Black movie. The young musicians who comprise the Kalamazoo Academy of Rock commit to weekly band and individual practices, play live gigs at the end of each seasonal session, compose their own arrangements, record annually and put on charity events once a year to give back to the local community. Oh, and they’re playing complex, intricate songs like Springsteen’s “Born to Run,” Rush’s “The Spirit of Radio” and Paramore’s “Decode.” Since its founding four years ago, the academy has grown from just one student band to four bands plus a workshop band. It draws 20 to 25 students per session and has a staff of five. Mitchell will tell you the parents, kids, instructors and supporting businesses, such as Broadside Productions and the 411 Club, are the reasons for the academy’s success. But he’s leaving out the central reason: himself. Originally from Ohio, Mitchell spent most of his childhood in East Lansing, growing up in a musical family. His mom taught music at public schools, and his grandparents played piano and drums in barn-dance bands throughout the 1930s and ’40s. Music is in his genes. But it wasn’t just his family heritage that sparked his professional interest in music. “Although my parents were both very musical — there was a lot of singing in the 34 | Encore SEPTEMBER 2013
car and music at church — it was really being in my high school band program that influenced me the most,” he explains. “I got a lot of experience as a drum major with a really good program at East Lansing High School. My talent is from my parents, for sure, but as far as career-wise, more credit goes to my high school band director.” After graduating from Western Michigan University, Mitchell followed in his band director’s footsteps and taught high school band at Lakeview Community Schools. He eventually went back to school at WMU to earn a Master of Arts degree in counseling, which led to a job at Bronson Methodist Hospital. After being laid off from Bronson in the mid-1980s, Mitchell was at an impasse, and he turned again to his musical talent, this time freelancing as a piano teacher. His lessons became popular, and after a while he started to get creative with the structure of the recitals — one or two classical songs, one or two rock songs. Fast-forward a few years to the day when Mitchell saw the documentary “Rock Band,” about a man in Philadelphia who starts a school of rock for disadvantaged and misplaced youths. A light went off in Mitchell’s head, something academy co-director Adam Main remembers well.
Jeff Mitchell, center, interacts with Academy of Rock students during a practice session as Addisyn Furland looks on. Below, Owen Edwards plays saxophone while Ben Dunham strums behind him. Opposite page: Celeste Ely sings and plays drums during practice.
“I had met Jeff many years ago. We both worked at the same record store, although not at the same time, and I would run into him at shows and we’d go off on musical tangents together,” says Main. “He had started forming little bands with his students to perform recitals, and I was involved with that a couple of times, so I knew he was working in this direction. One day he just called me up and said, ‘I’m doing it! Are you on board?’”
That was 2009. Mitchell launched the academy with Main, pulling together instructors, recruiting his piano students and finding a space, fittingly, in the old Gibson factory. A true music lover, Mitchell lights up talking about the space: the guitars that have been made there, the music gods who have trod its grounds (both B.B. King and Eric Clapton have toured the factory). “I tell the kids Jimmy Page’s Les Paul (guitar) might have been made where they’re standing, and even kids today, who aren’t awed by much, are taken aback by that. And look at that backdrop,” he says, pointing to the floorto-ceiling multicolored factory window. “It’s crazy. I love it. It’s gritty and raw. It’s rock ’n’ roll.” It is, and it has a distinctly local flavor. Those rock posters on the wall, for example: The rock stars in them are actually Mitchell’s students. The music on the stereo: That’s his students too. Even when he’s not here, Mitchell is thinking about them. “I was driving the other day, and I was listening to The White Album (by the Beatles),” he says. “There’s a part where ‘Birthday’ fades into ‘Yer Blues.’ It’s a really cool transition, and I think it’ll be a great learning piece for the kids.” While he talks, he’s pounding a beat on his knee, humming, waving his hands, pulling ideas from the air. He’s already planning how to arrange the piece, how to break it down for the kids. That enthusiasm for teaching is something his students say they like best about him. Furland, of the aforementioned Tuesday Night Band, took lessons from Mitchell long before attending the academy. Like Mitchell, Furland comes from a musical family. She’s a talented vocalist, guitar player and pianist. And she likes that Mitchell’s teaching puts her in control. “If you have a song you want to learn, he’ll teach it to you,” she says. “Right now I’m learning classical and jazz. You can choose what route you want to go, and he’ll go with you.” “What I like about Jeff’s style of teaching is that he does all sorts of musical styles from day one,” adds Don Furland, Addisyn’s dad. “So kids don’t just know how to play notes on a page, but they understand structure and improvisation.”
Another academy veteran, 13-year-old Owen Edwards, echoes Addisyn Furland’s sentiments. “Jeff’s great,” says Edwards. “He basically taught me everything I know on the piano.” For Edwards, who plays keyboards and saxophone and sings, the academy has provided a space to grow as a musician. Edwards has a musician’s demeanor — a million thoughts a second — and, like Mitchell, taps out rhythms while singing a song or explaining arrangements. “I really like to play,” says Edwards. “If there’s something that happens in real life
riding a bike. He won’t remember when he wasn’t in a rock band. It’s a big part of his life.” Main knows the feeling. “I think most of these kids will stay involved in music,” he says. “It gets woven into the fabric of your life, whether you continue to perform or to be active. I know lots of people, including myself, who have tried to quit, but the roots are there. You always come back to music.” Perhaps that’s why Mitchell keeps coming back to teaching music. Maybe it’s because, like his own students, he comes from a musical family. Or maybe it’s because, for
that hits my emotions, I’ll go home and write a song about it. Music really affects me, and it’s really important to me. It’s all my life. I don’t know what my life would be like if I didn’t know how to play. It seems like the most important thing.” For Hugh Edwards, Owen’s dad, Owen’s development as a musician is tied directly to Mitchell’s teaching style. “He may do the rock thing, but he’s really a teacher at heart,” he says. “Jeff always prepares the kids. They play with a lot of confidence and verve. They’re still kids, and they act like kids, but they act like a band too. They banter with the crowd, and there’s band dynamics. It’s pretty interesting.” Owen’s mother, Jennifer, a piano teacher, adds that she’s seen Owen and his fellow students boost their chops in a big way. “The kids were already good when this started,” she says. “We used to think, ‘Wow! These kids are so good.’ And now we think, “Wow! They can really play! They are really good.’ The growth doesn’t stop. For Owen, it’ll be like
Mitchell, the academy is the realization of a dream. “I have the greatest job in the world,” Mitchell says. “Do I make the most money? No. But to have the contact I have with these super-bright kids is amazing. It’s important to me that even if they don’t go into music as a profession, and many of them won’t, that they’re getting this experience of building their own self-confidence and learning about responsibility and teamwork. And not to get too sentimental about it, but I don’t have any kids of my own, so my students become particularly dear to me.” It seems the families reciprocate that feeling. “We just love him,” says Melanie Furland, Addisyn’s mother. “He’s almost like family.” To listen to the bands or to check when the next live event will take place, visit the academy’s Facebook page or KalamazooAcademyofRock.com. w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 35
arts encore
The Poetic Psychotherapist
Gail Martin’s new collection wins Perugia Prize by
Margaret DeRitter
S
ince her first collection was published 10 years ago, Kalamazoo poet Gail Martin has been working as a licensed psychotherapist. That professional experience informs the work in her new book, Begin Empty-Handed. The new collection, to be released Sept. 15, won the Perugia Press Poetry Prize, competing against more than 500 entries by other women poets. While many of the poems in the book explore personal and family concerns, some deal directly with the stories of grief and loss that Martin hears on the job. In “The Therapist Watches Birds,” for example, the narrator writes of her casual interest in birds compared to the weight of responsibility she feels for her clients. The poem includes these lines: Today the nuthatches are in freefall, everything pitched to survival. And while this is also true for some people, mostly now, I do not see them in my office. And mostly that is a relief. Martin will read from her new book at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 3 at the Portage District Library. She’ll also read with Sean Thomas Dougherty at 7 p.m. Oct. 12 at the Kalamazoo Book Arts Center.
What I do is dream about them. The man who cut his hard cherry trees to pay his hospital bills—a man whose father, drunk, had lined them up in pajamas for Russian roulette,
whose mother hung him up on a hook in the barn for two days to calm down…
“It’s amazing what people walk around with and how resilient they are,” says Martin. “I want to bear witness to that and be present to that, but sometimes I just want to flee.” In Martin’s poem “First Session,” the narrator confesses to wandering off into her own thoughts as a new client talks of her daughter’s death. Martin says a friend remarked to her about that poem, “I appreciate how you’re not afraid to let yourself look bad.” But Martin says she thought, “Really? I think I just look human.” “I think it is so relieving for people to know that we all struggle,” she says. “When we’re honest, that really helps other people.” Martin became a therapist at age 51, after raising three daughters with her husband, George. She’s a Kalamazoo College graduate who returned to school in her late 40s, earning a Master of Social Work degree from Western Michigan University in 2003. As a therapist, she notices how we all create our own narratives about our (continued on page 43)
36 | Encore SEPTEMBER 2013
encore ARTs
‘Dog and Pony Show’
Holly Hughes part of Festival Playhouse’s 50th Anniversary celebration by
Kit almy
K
alamazoo College’s Festival Playhouse is having a Dog and Pony Show in September. Internationally known performance artist, 2010 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient and Kalamazoo College alumna Holly Hughes will return to her alma mater to present The Dog and Pony Show at 8 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 21 as part of the college’s Festival Playhouse’s 50th anniversary. After her performance, which is free, the audience will have an opportunity to talk with Hughes and ask questions, followed by a book signing and reception. Hughes’ show is part of the Festival Playhouse Diversity Guest Arts Series, which brings “culturally diverse and provocative” productions to Kalamazoo. The Diversity Series brings in “performers who speak to groups that have been marginalized in the mainstream of society,” says professor of theatre arts and Festival Playhouse director Ed Menta. “To make that free not only to our campus community but to the greater Kalamazoo (community), I think that that’s a real, real gift and service that we provide.”
Tickets for the show are available at the door on a first-come, first-served basis. “This Dog and Pony Show is kind of my personal journey through a midlife crisis in the key of canine,” Hughes explains. “It’s autobiographical, although I like to think of it as new and improved autobiography. Everything I say is true, and some of it actually happened.” Hughes, who was based in New York City for many years, is now on the faculty of the University of Michigan School of Art & Design. Hughes and her partner have six dogs which they show. “In the last 10 years I’ve kind of morphed from somebody who lived in downtown New York and traveled all over the country performing a lot of work about my identity as a lesbian to someone who spends a lot of time back here in Michigan doing dog shows.” Hughes has observed that in the past 20 years Americans have been “talking about their dogs more as they might have talked about members of their family, and this is often seen by some as the latest sort of
Holly Hughes brings her one-woman act to Kalamazoo Sept. 21.
perversion of the natural order…. But the closeness and the intimacy of living with our animals, I think, is actually something really (continued on page 43)
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OCT. 22 & 23 @ 7:30 p.m.
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encore events PERFORMING ARTS Plays Takeoff — Fancy Pants Theater presents a comedy/drama about love, loss, family and flying machines by local playwright Conor McShane, 8 p.m. Sept. 13, 14, 20, 21, 27, 28; 5 p.m. Sept. 22; 7:30 p.m. Sept. 26, Studio 246, 246 N. Kalamazoo Mall. 599-6437. The Dog and Pony Show — Kalamazoo College alumna Holly Hughes performs her one-woman show about lesbians and their dogs, 8 p.m. Sept. 21, Balch Playhouse, K- College. 337-7333. Glengarry Glenn Ross — University Theatre presents David Mamet’s drama about four real-estate agents and their cutthroat selling tactics, 8 p.m. Sept. 26-28, Oct. 3-5; 2 p.m. Oct. 6, York Arena Theatre, WMU. 387-6222. Musicals & Opera By Request — The New Vic’s original production based on audience requests for musical numbers from past productions, 8:30 p.m. Sept. 6, 7, 13, 14, 20, 21, New Vic Theatre, 134 E. Vine St. 381-3328. Ring of Fire — Musical about Johnny Cash with his greatest hits featured, 8 p.m. Sept. 20, 21, 27, 28, Oct. 3-5, 10-12; 2 p.m. Sept. 22, 29, Oct. 6, Farmers Alley Theatre, 221 Farmers Alley. 343-2727. Les Misérables — A new production of the popular musical, 7:30
p.m. Sept. 27, 28, Oct. 3-5, 11 & 12; 2 p.m. Oct. 6 & 13, Civic Auditorium, 329 S. Park St. 343-1313. Symphony Rachmaninoff Symphony No. 2 — The Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra kicks off its new season with the title piece as well as Strauss’ Horn Concerto No. 1, 8 p.m. Sept. 21, Miller Auditorium, WMU. 349-7759. Chamber, Jazz, Orchestra & Bands Gilmore Rising Stars Recital Series — Kuok-Wai Lio performs works by Bach, Schubert and Schumann, 4 p.m. Sept. 15, Wellspring Theater, 359 S. Kalamazoo Mall. 342-1166. Edgar Meyer — Fontana Chamber Arts presents this virtuoso double bassist in a solo appearance playing his own compositions and a work of J.S. Bach, 8 p.m. Sept. 28, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU. 382-7774. Dance chuthis — WMU Department of Dance presents choreographer Peter Chu and his ensemble, chuthis, 8 p.m. Sept. 27, Chenery Auditorium, 714 S. Westnedge Ave. 387-2300. Vocal Mall City Harmonizers – Kalamazoo’s male acapella chorus’ annual show will celebrate the Barbershop Harmony Society’s 75th anniversary, 7 p.m. Sept 21, Dalton Center Recital Hall.
VISUAL ARTS Richmond Center for Visual Arts, WMU, 387-2436 Division of Labor — An exhibition of works by artists Anne Wilson, John Paul Morabito and Fernando Orellana, Sept. 5-Oct. 11, MonroeBrown Gallery. Adriane Little: A Very Easy Death — The artist will display a series of projected and moving images using literature as a source of visualization, Sept. 5-Oct. 11, Netzorg and Kerr Gallery. Kalamazoo Institute of Arts 349-7775 For and Against Modern Art: The Armory Show +100 — An exhibition of the works featured in New York’s 1913 International Exhibition of Modern Art, also known as the Armory Show, through Sept. 29. Copley to Kentridge: What’s New in the Collection — The newest additions to the KIA’s collection are featured, Sept. 14-Dec. 1. Mountains and Waters: Landscape Paintings from China — Guest curator Joy Light has selected a number of paintings from the collection of Joy and Timothy Light for this exhibition, Sept. 21-Feb. 2. ARTbreak — A Weaverly Path, documentary about tapestry weaver Silvia Heyden, Part 1, Sept. 3; A Weaverly Path, Part 2, Sept. 10; David Spyker: Strange Wonder,
with the local artist talking about his work, Sept. 17; William Kentridge: Anything Is Possible, documentary about South African artist, Part 1, Sept. 24. Guests may bring a lunch to these noon sessions. Artist Lecture — Renowned artist Michele Oka Doner presents an illustrated talk, The Ocean as Inspiration, the Ocean as Fabricator, 5:30-7:30 p.m. Sept. 26. Miscellaneous Art Hop — View the works of local artists at various venues and galleries in downtown Kalamazoo, 5-9 p.m. Sept. 6. LIBRARY & LITERARY EVENTS Kalamazoo Book Arts Center 373-4938 Book Arts in Venice — An exhibit by students who studied book arts in Italy during the summer, 10 a.m.-4 p.m, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday through Sept. 27; special opening during Art Hop, 6-9 p.m. Sept. 6. Poets in Print — Poetry reading by Emilia Phillips and Anne Champion, 7 p.m. Sept. 28. Kalamazoo Public Library, 553-7879 or 342-9837 Music at the Library — Free concert by Detroit’s Chris Richards + the Subtractions, 7 p.m. Sept. 18, Central Library.
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Bookworms — A book club for kids in grades 1-3 and accompanying adults, discussing L. Frank Baum’s The Wizard of Oz, 4:30 p.m. Sept. 26, Central Library. Portage District Library 329-4544 Reading/Book signing — Author D.E. Johnson will read from Detroit Shuffle, 6:30 p.m. Sept. 5. Great Books Reading/Discussion — Adult reading group discussing selections from Great Conversations II, 2 p.m. Sept. 8. Old Man Rhythm — A classic musical film starring Betty Grable, 2 p.m. Sept. 21. 50th Anniversary Party — Celebrate 50 years of the library’s service with activities, music and art for all ages, 10 a.m. Sept. 28. MUSEUM Kalamazoo Valley Museum 373-7990 Eat Well, Play Well — Handson exhibit on nutrition,
fitness and making healthy choices, through Sept. 8. The Search for Freedom — The history and archaeology of the Michigan Underground Railroad and Ramptown, a small settlement of AfricanAmericans who found freedom in Cass County, Sept. 1 - Oct. 31. Decades of Dazzling Dresses — An exhibit of unique dress and accessories from each of the decades of 1880 to 1920, through Jan. 19.
Bird Banding Up Close — Visit the bird banders as they bring in birds, test your identification skills and learn new bird facts, 8:30-10 a.m. Sept. 7. The Wonderful World of Mushrooms — Meet Mr. Pete, the Fun Guy, as he teaches identification of and fun facts about mushrooms, 2 p.m. Sept. 15. Boomers and Beyond — For adults over 50; this month Stephen Hamilton, MSU professor and president of the Kalamazoo River Watershed Council, discusses the river’s health, 11 a.m.-1 p.m. Sept. 24.
Where Do the Children Play? — An award-winning documentary, followed by a conversation led by a panel of local experts, 1:30 p.m. Sept. 29. NATURE Kalamazoo Nature Center 373-7990 Monarch Tagging — Help catch and tag monarch butterflies and learn about these incredible long-distance travelers, 1-2:30 p.m. Sept. 3, 10 & 17.
Kellogg Bird Sanctuary 671-2510 Birds and Coffee — A short hike to search for birds is followed by coffee and a discussion, 9-10:30 a.m. Sept. 11.
2013.2014 SEASON Edgar Meyer, double bass
SAT, SEP 28, 2013 · 8 PM Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU
Nicholas Phan, tenor
Acts of Creation: A Celebration of Benjamin Britten SAT, OCT 19, 2013 · 8 PM Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU
Fretwork
Acts of Creation: A Celebration of Benjamin Britten SAT, NOV 9, 2013 · 8 PM Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU
Meredith Arwady
SAT, DEC 7, 2013 · 8 PM Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU
Becca Stevens Band FRI, FEB 7, 2014 · 8 PM Bell’s Eccentric Café
St. Lawrence String Quartet jACOB AND NAOMI STUCkI MEMORIAl CONCERT
SEASON CALENDAR Les Misérables September 27 – October 13
Peter Pan November 29 – December 15
Arsenic and Old Lace January 10 – January 25
Into the Woods January 24 – February 8
The Miracle Worker February 14 – March 1
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The Magical Adventures of Merlin
Acts of Creation: A Celebration of Benjamin Britten SAT, MAR 1, 2014 · 8 PM Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU
Dublin Guitar Quartet FRI, MAR 28, 2014 · 8 PM Wellspring Theater, Epic Center
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poetry encore
Swimming after Labor Day
In the distance, the Irvin’s horn In memory of Russell Pattison He knew them by the horns that sounded their positions, heavy
each stage of work as they dug the MacArthur, and later the Poe,
with ore or cement, stone or grain, long and low in the water. The Cort,
for the “thousand-footers,” loaded with taconite or limestone.
the Boardman, the Mina— From bed he can’t see them anymore
He’d seen the river’s every mood and color, fished the shallows,
and he can feel the terrain’s hold on him start to loosen.
barely racing squalls to shore with his sons—heads back, laughing.
Can’t see much ahead he wants. He loved the freighters
Nine decades of mournful calls out of fog and night, from upriver
that lumbered and scraped through the locks, marveled at the wall
or down. Like the freighter that turns to breast an impossible wave,
of water a boat’s bow could push before it. The Fitzgerald, before
he looks head-on into the storm’s sweep, gazes north, does not retreat.
she was lost. The Tregurtha, biggest of the stern-enders. He was there when they retired the Valley Camp, knew how the Bradley had broken her back and foundered in the storm of ‘58. In winter he’d walk to watch the Mackinaw churn out to break lake ice, then tramp home to shovel canyons deep as locks, tunnels to curb and garage. He logged
— Lynn Pattison Pattison, a retired teacher, is the author of the poetry collections tesla’s daughter (March St. Press), Walking Back the Cat (Bright Hill Press) and Light That Sounds Like Breaking (Mayapple Press). She serves on the board of the Kalamazoo organization Friends of Poetry.
They’ve disassembled the dock and stacked it under a blue tarp. Plywood boards lid the windows of the concession stand. The trash cans no longer cough napkins into the wind. Only gulls remain, soaring like lost silver kites along the shoreline, calling out to the gusts that flap the shredded flag. Waves rushing sand keeping time the old way water charged with autumn as I walk out into the deepening blue breathe in the cold air and dive. — Robert Haight Haight is the author of the poetry collections Feeding Wild Birds (released in May by Mayapple Press) and Emergences and Spinner Falls (New Issues Poetry & Prose, 2002). He teaches at Kalamazoo Valley Community College and directs the college’s visiting writers series.
w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 41
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Gail Martin (continued from page 36) experience, our own myths. “Part of the job of a therapist,” she says, “is to gently push on that and ask, ‘Well, is that really true? How might your life look different if you created a different narrative?” Similarly, in her poetry, Martin aims to acknowledge and explore life’s complexity — its beauty and sorrow, its joys and losses. Martin’s first book of poetry, The Hourglass Heart, dealt primarily with a daughter’s struggles with depression. Her new book ranges more widely in its subject matter, but it is clearly the work of a woman who knows how to hold happiness and gratitude in one hand, pain and disappointment in the other. “I’m not interested in writing poems that are not connected to the heart,” says Martin, now 61. “I like the voice to be complicated, with a little bitchiness, a little edginess, some heartbreak. “I hope this collection is an exploration of both the great abundance we have just walking through our ordinary days and the awareness we have as human beings that we’re all going to lose it, that it’s all going to be taken away, that it’s all transient.”
old and this is kind of a return to the central role that animals have played in our life as a species (throughout) most of civilization.” Despite that academic-sounding analysis, The Dog and Pony Show is not an academic piece, she says. “It’s comic, it’s a rant, it’s a satire, it’s poetic.” Hughes’ performance is just one of the many cutting-edge programs planned for the Festival Playhouse’s 50th anniversary, which kicked off in May. The season will also include a revival of one of the first Festival Playhouse productions, The Firebugs by Max Frisch, as well as two famous but seldom-performed modern dramas, August Strindberg’s A Dream Play and Henrik Ibsen’s Peer Gynt. In addition, two of the original actors of the Playhouse’s 1958 and 1963 presentations of Waiting for Godot will return this year for An Evening of Kalamazoo College Theatre Alumni Scenes during the college’s homecoming celebrations.
TRY
Holly Hughes (continued from page 37)
MUSIC LOCAL ARTS &NEWS w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 43
INDEX TO ADVERTISERS Alfieri Jewelers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Bell’s Brewery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Borgess Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Bravo! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Bronson Healthcare Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Cachet Gems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Centre Street Tap House . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 ChocolaTea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Cornerstone Office Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 CTS Telecom, Inc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Dave’s Glass Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 DeHaan Remodeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 DeMent & Marquardt, PLC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Derby Financial & Associates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 DeVisser Landscape . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Farm ‘N Garden—The Fence Center . . . . . . . . . . . 13
The Moors Golf Club�
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7877 Moorsbridge Road
•
Portage, Michigan 49024
Fieldstone Grill . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Fontana Chamber Arts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Food Dance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Four Roses Café . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 GiftLoft Furniture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
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269-323-8873�
Gilmore Real Estate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Great Lakes Shipping Co. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Greenleaf Hospitality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Greenleaf Trust . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Horizon Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 Hospice Care of SW Michigan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Integrated Smart Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Jac’s Cekola’s Pizza . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Kalamazoo/BC International Airport . . . . . . . . . . 47 Kalamazoo Civic Theatre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Kalamazoo Community Foundation . . . . . . . . . . 15 Keystone Community Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Landscape Arborist Services LLC . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Lawton Ridge Winery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Miller Auditorium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Moors Golf Club . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 Oakland Centre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
They’re having a good day.
Parkway Plastic Surgery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Jeff K. Ross Financial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Saffron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Sharp Smile Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
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A safe, welcoming environment 44 | Encore SEPTEMBER 2013
University Theatre . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 V&A Bootery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Van Andel Institute . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Varnum Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Vlietstra Brothers Pools & Spas . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 WMUK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 YMCA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
encore The Last word
The Last Word (continued from page 46)
asked what it was for. He sat back in his chair, searching many crannies in his 80-year-old brain to see if he could tell me — a new acquaintance and a woman — that he had a pain in one of his testicles. Lorain picked up the tab for drinks at our table and left the tip, just the kind of generosity my dad used to show. Back in my room, housekeeping had left a Valentine’s card and chocolates. My husband called. Last year on Valentine’s Day I slept on the floor in my dad’s living room because I wanted to be with him at the end. This year I spent Valentine’s Day in Bay City and met an intelligent, witty old man who was not my dad and who was my dad. Instead of sadness, I felt joy at the freedom of old men.
One of the last things my dad said was that he wanted to run away and join the circus. “I want to dance naked to show people a goodlooking older man,” he said. And when he died, that was what we told each other: “Bud ran away and joined the circus.” When I left the conference the next morning, I told Lorain, “My husband thanks you for making Valentine’s Day good for me.” Lorain pretended shock and said, “You told him!” We all hugged and said, “Maybe next year,” then split off in various directions, me heading west toward that Big Lake. It was an hour before I remembered I could be thinking about death, but I didn’t feel like it anymore.
Have The Last Word Have a story to tell? Non-fiction, personal narratives about life in Southwest Michigan are sought for The Last Word. Stories should be no more than 1,000 words. Submit your story and contact information to editor@encorekalamazoo.com.
Elizabeth Kerlikowske teaches at Kellogg Community College, in Battle Creek, and is president of the Kalamazoo organization Friends of Poetry. She’s a Michigan native and still loves driving despite the cost of gas. From age 3 on, after her mother’s death, she was raised by her grandparents in Grand Rapids. Her father, Bud, lived in Stevensville and was 87 when he joined the circus.
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THE last word encore
Death’s anniversary by
Elizabeth Kerlikowske
My dad died a year ago, the day after Valentine’s Day. This year, on the day before Valentine’s Day, I traveled across the Mitten for a three-day liberal-arts conference scheduled by folks who must no longer love their spouses. I was glad to not be around the familiar places of last year’s sadness, but I still couldn’t stop myself from that obsessive thinking about where I had been during the process of his dying. I remembered the clock times when changes occurred: when his hands stopped moving, when his breathing stalled. He died at 7:32 a.m. At the conference’s evening welcome reception, I recognized but couldn’t name many people. One friendly man in his 50s — Steve, his tag said — brought his father, who looked a little like the Old West sidekick Gabby Hayes, only not drunk. The man’s name was Lorain, which was a conversation starter for someone nosy like me. We talked a little, but I was tired and went to bed.
Our “Writing Initiative” presentation was the next day, and we had a small, lively session. I kept finding myself at the table with Steve and Lorain, enjoying light conversation about road kill, small towns, shipwrecks. I mentioned how I didn’t mind being gone on Valentine’s Day because my husband was so unromantic. (My husband did buy me 80 pounds of kitty litter and a gallon of gin; don’t pity me.) That night at the art show, Lorain pulled me aside and said, “See that rose over there?” He pointed, but people kept stepping between me and the flower. He steered me quite forcefully by my elbow through the crowd until I saw a rose on the receptionist’s desk. “That’s for you for Valentine’s Day,” he said. “You take that when we go.” It was exactly the kind of self-aggrandizing, stupid trick my dad would pull. Next stop, dinner. By now, Lorain and I were pals. He told me about Carole, this gal he sees every couple of weeks, but he has to be careful so folks don’t get the wrong idea. We talked about our medications. He mentioned a pill that couldn’t tolerate dairy on either side of its taking, and he calculated when he could take it after eating cheesecake. I (continued on page 45)
46 | Encore SEPTEMBER 2013
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that’s where
I got back to being me Sharon Wolverton Borgess Heart Institute patient
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