An Anchor from the depths is cause for celebration

By Helen Westie
Sun contributor
Empire’s biggest event of the year, the Anchor Day festival, will be held, as always, during the third Saturday in July, which falls this year on July 16. The celebration commemorates the raising of the village’s famous anchor from the depths of Lake Michigan in July of 1977, and its placement at the entrance to the Empire public beach. Who among the longtime residents of Empire will ever forget that exciting day? After all, news does spread like wildfire in a small town like ours.
Two weeks before the first Anchor Day, locals Doug Manning and Michelle Stryker discovered the anchor while canoeing off the shore. They saw the prize clearly in 18 feet of water and reported the rare find to Dave Taghon, who was village president at the time. Doug asked if the museum could use a freighter anchor attached to a large wooden beam. Taghon knew that any relic found in Great Lakes waters belongs to the State of Michigan, so he called the Dorsett Maritime Academy and Oberlin College with his dilemma. He was assured that, if the anchor was properly displayed, Empire could have it, and plans were made at once to raise the anchor.

Manning, Taghon, Tim Barr, Don (Skeet) Welch and John Preston (household names in these parts) collected barrels, chains and wood to construct a raft. Fred Arnold, a grandson of Mrs. Clagett, the dowager who lived on Storm Hill, and his friend Craig Hampton, were experienced divers, and they not only secured the anchor with ropes, but took underwater pictures. Upon seeing the raft for the first time, Chuck Westie arrived with a pole and an American flag to put on top it.
But as it turned out, the one-ton anchor and chain were too heavy to sit on the raft, so the anchor was attached underneath and floated to the shore that way. Taghon’s pontoon boat, meant to transport the anchor, was used to ferry the workers instead.
Jim Johnson, who owned a thriving business in Empire called Case Tractor Sales, loaned a bulldozer to Charlie Bennett, who dragged the anchor and beam the rest of the way on the beach.
Taghon filmed the whole saga with his eight-millimeter movie camera from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., at which time the sunburned men posed alongside the anchor at its final resting place. The film was later converted to 16-millimeter tape, and a short video of the anchor raising will be shown this coming Anchor Day weekend from 2 to 3 p.m. at the Empire Museum, just north of town on M-22.
The high point of Anchor Saturday is always the parade. Even though it has grown in size and color, the parade still passes through town twice. The way it works is that the Empire Business Association chooses a theme, and notifies every business in town, encouraging them to provide a float. Recent themes include: “It’s a small world”, “Clowns”, “We’re Dune better than ever”, “Everything silver (for the 25th anniversary)”, “Celebrating the Great Lakes”, “Sailing”, “Millennium madness” and “Vote America”. This year we’ll celebrate (duh) “Everything about the Anchor”.
Events during the two-day festival include the Fun Run, a Pancake Breakfast on each day, a Farmer’s Market, a model airplane show, various activities at the library, kids games and races at the beach, a barbecue chicken dinner, a sailing regatta, and last but not least, the Anchor Day Street Dance and raffle.
Throughout Anchor Day’s history, Carol Vanderberg has organized the kids’ games and supervised them at the beach. Her husband Mike, of Dunegrass Festival fame, has served on numerous committees such as that of the Anchor Day dance.
The parade has drawn visitors from communities near and far. There are floats; there are horses; there are decorated bicycles; there are walkers in costume. To the delight of the children, many of the floats throw candy. To the delight of housewives, large double rolls of toilet paper are tossed from Jerry Decker’s “honey wagon” pumping truck. Sometimes, a sign on the pumper reads, “Your fudge is our sludge”.
For years a bright green antique car owned by Gil Haley of Glen Arbor has represented Michigan State University. Especially offensive to Ann Arborites and U-M fans is the desperate sign, “Michigan State is THE University of Michigan. This journalist happened to own a 1970 Ford Thunderbird, which was bright yellow with white leather seats. It was a Florida car and in mint condition. I would never have bought such an ostentatious car if it had not been such a bargain, at $1,500. Dubbed “The Banana Boat”, my ride was a counterweight to Haley’s ride. For two years I covered it with bright blue ribbons and “Go Blue” signs. Michigan State was once known as State Agricultural College. A sign on the Banana Boat read: “Cow College is now the udder university of Michigan”.
Every Empire stalwart remembers Chuck Westie’s disreputable, moth-eaten pelican, which appeared in the Anchor Day parade for many years. Chuck was fond of pelicans because of the myth that a mother pelican pierces her own breast and allows the blood to drip into the mouths of her babies, thus nourishing them. He had found this bird in a secondary store and often displayed it with a hat announcing the given year’s theme. Even after Westie’s death in 1994, the pelican kept appearing. His daughter, Libby Westie Brattin, wore a sandwich board as she pulled a wagon, in which sat the moth-eaten pelican. On the sandwich board read the old rhyme:
Oh what a bird is the pelican
His beak holds more than his belly can
He can hold in his beak
Enough food for a week
And I don’t know how
In the hell he can.
Dick Owen, who coordinated the Anchor Day parade until passing the torch on to young leader Ryan Deering two years ago, has the old bird in storage, and perhaps it will make an appearance in this year’s parade.
Upon further review, the staff of the Glen Arbor Sun reluctantly admits that Michigan State University does offer a decent education. – the Editors