A Father’s Day story: Bob Sutherland remembers his dad, Dale

By Bob Sutherland

Sun contributor

Cherry Republic is heading into its 30th year. It amazes me every day that this niche business has survived with me leading it, as I personally have more weaknesses than Popeye without spinach. Every major accomplishment in the past 15 years has been implemented by talented staff like Roni Hazelton, Jason Homa, Kathy Baarstad and especially, my partner, Todd Ciolek. Much of our success can also be attributed to customers and friends who continue to support us through the myriad of growth and change.

I often give credit to so many people for Cherry Republic’s success: to my wife Steph’s steadiness and support as the company gets far bigger and more challenging to run, and to my siblings who have businesses of their own and plenty of inspiration and good advice to share. I don’t go a day without telling a story of gratitude for my mother Mary, who has been there from the beginning.

But I never talk about my father—the person who has had more influence than anyone over my life and over Cherry Republic and whatever success has been achieved. Since it’s nearly Father’s Day, I was asked to share a few words about my father.

Dale Edwin Sutherland was born in 1927 to a poor hardscrabble family in Troy, Mich. He was the first in his family to go to college. To show his Bachelor’s degree wasn’t a fluke, he picked up three Master’s degrees from three other colleges. His career and passion were children, and I—number four out of six—was blessed to see him all day as I rode with him to school at Glen Lake, where he was my principal.

He was a listener, and his favorite question to ask prospective Glen Lake teachers and coaches was, “do you love children?” Teachers would send “problem kids” to his office to get punished and 30 minutes later, they’d come looking for their student and find the boy on my Dad’s lap happily telling my Dad his problems and dreams.

When my Dad did talk, he kept his words subtle and simple. There were two very strong messages that were instilled in me over my time as his son.

“Have fun” and “be good”.

Everything we did with him was fun. He left a good job in Detroit in 1970 for a job up here in Glen Arbor that paid half what he had been making because he knew we’d have more fun. He was a teaser and a trickster and had a flair for keeping the most mundane task entertaining. We’d do some chores, but thankfully, not nearly the chores my father had to do during the Depression at the old farm where he grew up. Mostly we played in the National Lakeshore and did “work” projects like building rickety decks and slabwood sheds to hillbilly up our house. He could play like a kid and we’d play baseball, football and tennis and made-up games.

He also knew the limitations of education and was constantly filling us with more learning experiences. Business is something he taught us through a Petoskey stone stand we created in front of our house on Manitou Blvd. Every activity surrounding that stand was fun—from finding the stone, to sorting, to greeting customers that stopped by. Probably our most iconic moment of our childhood was a photo taken by a tourist that to us could have equally been a National Geographic photographer on assignment in Glen Arbor.

Fun was a mantra with him. And whenever we came in from some time outdoors without him, the first thing out of his mouth was, “Did you have fun?” Over the years, I’d come back from high school sports games and school plays and other performances, and Daddy would say, “Bobby, I had so much fun watching you.” And then he followed with his questions; “Did you have fun? Tell me about it.”

His advice to just “be good” was a little more difficult to work into our daily conversations. Mostly, it would come out when we were challenging some rule or pushing our boundaries. Here’s a recent and flamboyant text message from my brother Paul talking about our father’s push to be good: “The main thing that Dad taught me is this. ‘You do the right thing because it is the right thing to do.’ No reason just because it is the right thing to do. It is probably the main statement that guides my life, and has guided my life since I was young. He told me this when I was giving him excuses and explanations for a behavior that was not consistent with that statement. I was a bit stubborn, so I think he probably had to tell me that statement a thousand times before it sank in.”

I also had Dad’s voice echoing in my head all day exhorting me to be good, but it was easy for me as I was a pleaser as a kid. And my father was so good at reinforcing good behavior for me. Daddy didn’t even have to say anything. He’d just look at me with his contented eyes and glow love and belief in me and my budding goodness.

And I loved to make him proud. All my success in high school-—All State basketball and tennis, school president, lead in the school play, editor of the school paper—all that success, it felt like Dad and I were doing it together, like we were a team. When I graduated, I had this plan to keep on working with my Dad as I went to college and started my career and …

Then, just two weeks before I headed to college, my father died.

I thought I was ready for his death because he died after a brutal year-long battle with adrenal cancer. The day he died, I thought I’d take a week or two to cry and mourn, and then go off to college with this new sense of responsibility of independence.

And I did, but after two months at Alma College, I quit. Then, I started a career job working with my brother and quit. I went to Michigan State University and quit. Then, I quit at Columbia College. My carefree successful stride was wrecked.

All my life, I had lived to make my Dad proud. When he died, I lost my motivator, counselor and believer. And so I was drifting around my entire 20s not knowing how to put life all together into a balance of work, hobbies, family and friends. I felt that if my father were alive, I would not have this problem. Together, we would have found a career for me and a wife and a home and my father would have been so proud.

But instead, he was nowhere and I was searching.  I spent my 20s looking for something worthwhile to do with my time. Oh my God, I had way too much free time. Then it occurred to me—like a whisper from my father—have fun.  I’d answer my father’s nearly forgotten question every night before bed, “Did I have fun today?” More and more I was able to answer, “yes”. I’d play basketball and tennis everyday. I’d hike and bike and collect morel mushrooms, and in winter I’d ski. And I’d write, I’ve always loved to write.

I started doing these giant wilderness trips. I once was alone and lost in the Canadian wilderness for two long days. I had misread a map and paddled deep into a swamp for eight hours and then about dark, I dead-ended into a series of hills instead of the lake I was looking for. And so, that next morning after a rough sleep, I put my canoe over my head and headed as straight west as I could across the hills and wilderness in the most exhausting blind portage over boulders, fallen trees, scrub bushes and trees growing so tightly that they would squeak against the sides of my aluminum gunwalls. But miraculously in the late afternoon, I came to my campsite from three days previous. The biggest wave of bliss and joy washed over me.

And that bliss became my pursuit. I’d chase adventure and overcome physical challenges in the wild and get to astounding places that would make me so happy. The bliss I’d feel from this extreme fun would happen at home as well. I’d be skiing down some steep, untracked hill in the National Lakeshore and hit a bump and find myself flying headfirst for the ground. But a funny thing happened. I landed and rolled harmlessly in giant snow pillows of powder and my blood literally bubbled with joy.

My fun wasn’t only happening in the outdoors and on the courts. I started humble business ventures to chase the summer tourists. From a t-shirt and knick-knack shop called Petoskey Pete’s, to day camps like the Sleeping Bear Cub Club and the Rockhopper Club. I had a little ski wear business one fall—of course it was the warmest fall on record. And one year, I cut 100 Christmas Trees from Anderlik’s old tree farm and tried to sell them door-to-door in East Grand Rapids. It started out so fun. I loved dreaming of success and chuckling with my buddies while cutting and bailing the trees and then, after trying to sell them and quickly learning that it was a stupid idea, belly rolling over my stupid door-to-door Christmas tree business all the way home.

Business can be so fun. Dreaming up an idea. Adding about three more ideas to it. Then, hitting your first obstacle and overcoming it and the laughs it creates. But ultimately, what was going on in all those business attempts was that my carefree attitude had returned and grown and it was leading me somewhere.

I finally found a school that was more fun than work. My last years at Northern Michigan University were my best years of college. I was 28, and school was easy by now. I didn’t have to study to make grades. I could hike all over the Upper Peninsula, and played in men’s basketball tournaments in nearly every high school gym above the Mackinac Bridge on weekends. I got a degree in 1989, the same year that I started Cherry Republic ever so humbly with a simple t-shirt, whose motto was Life, Liberty, Beaches and Pie.

I was the Glen Lake Yacht Club manager that summer. I had an exciting idea, and it was thrilling to work with artists, graphic designers, screen printers and retail store owners all over northern Michigan. There were more challenges that first year that I could ever dream of, but I light up when I face a challenge.

The voice of my father’s that continuously whispered “have fun” into my ear was so important because it counterbalanced the other voice of my father that was so loud from the moment he died. “Be good.” Sometimes I think I played those words of wisdom a little too loudly in my mind. I didn’t eat sugar for seven years. I didn’t drink a drop of alcohol until I was 34. I almost joined a monastery. One year, I volunteered in Chicago at a cancer prevention place, a Salvation Army, a feed-the-poor group, and a downtown hospital. I worked with kids—some of the most challenged—and I became a storyteller and went into schools and loved to make kids laugh.

A decade after high school, and two decades after starting my first business, I launched Cherry Republic. My first food product, the Cherry Boomchunka Cookie, had this sentence printed on every label: “Part of all Profits to the Leelanau Conservancy”. I’ve never thought about it like this, but one of my biggest risks to profits concerned me trying to be good. Using Cherry Republic to generate money to donate to good causes runs against the norm. There is already a daunting lineup of expenses working against businesses, and I was going to volunteer more?

Then I spent a weekend with Yvon Choinard, owner of Patagonia, and soon I was donating 1 percent from every sale to the environment and community. The day I committed to that program, I was so worried I would let myself (and my Dad) down. But it worked out fine and we are nearing 20 years of managing this program…

About 15 years ago, I did something even more unconventional in recognition of my father’s words of advice to do the right thing. It was something unheard of—adding a 1 percent refundable tariff to our store customers’ purchases to help area farmers preserve their beautiful land as farmland forever, and to help new farmers with training, fencing, and other support. When I implemented the 25-cent tariff (on average), I worried that customers might stop shopping at Cherry Republic. But phew, it seems 99 percent of our customers love supporting farmers in this shared way.

And so Cherry Republic turns 30 years old this year and I can safely say that Cherry Republic got my life back on track after my father’s death sent me off the rails. But if I look back over these years, this little local company was molded to recreate my father back into my life. I don’t speak of him because I still have little control over my tears, but it isn’t over a sense of loss anymore. I cry in gratitude for all the tools and advice he gave to me that helped me survive and in some moments, even thrive in life.

But it’s time, whether I cry or not, to recognize my father and all the good and fun he has left in Glen Arbor. He was a great man and if I personally have done anything in my life, it’s been to keep his good legacy alive.