Remembering a Cold War outpost in the middle of nowhere By Codi Yeager Sun contributor The quaint village of Empire is nestled in a valley between rolling hills to the north and south, with Lake Michigan lapping gently at its western shore. To the south looms a hill a bit taller than the rest, certainly […]
It was my first tropical winter, and the culture of New Orleans had me in slow motion shock, writes Andrea Maio, a filmmaker who lives in Benzie County. I arrived there on Christmas Day, after a tough boat trip down the Mississippi river. My boat had broken down in a nearby town and left me stranded from my family for the holidays, so I rented a car and drove with my dog into the city. There, I found a dingy bar on Decatur Street offering free Christmas dinners to all of their customers. They didn’t mind dogs in the bar, so I brought in my lab mix Butch and sat, and drank with the regulars. When the levy broke and New Orleans started to enter its nightmare, all I could think about were the dogs. The wild pack on my block, the puppy left in the park, the neighbors chained up rottie, all seemed more helpless than the thousands of people who were suffering. I know it was a crazy reaction, but it must have been easier than thinking about the true scope of what was happening. The truth was that thousands of people were suffering due to the inhumanity of people towards other people. For years we knew what could happen. For years nothing was done.
By Helen Westie Sun contributor When I was growing up in the 1930’s in southern Michigan, our family summer highlight was always a camping trip. Our favorite camp spot was the state park on Green Lake in Interlochen. It was an idyllic camp spot under stately pines near the beach and the shelter house. The […]
By Lois Beardslee Sun contributor We did not come over here on the Mayflower. We did not come up the Cumberland Gap. We did not follow Daniel Boone or De Soto or a black-robed priest. We came from the tops of tall trees that softly bent down and laid their boughs upon the earth so […]
By Helen Westie Sun staff writer These days, when half of a mobile home is transported down a highway on a flat bed truck, people rarely give it a second glance despite the ominous presence of an escort vehicle with a WIDE LOAD sign. But when an entire highway is taken up by a house […]
By Helen Westie Sun contributor In the midst of the Great Depression, American families harvested the cherry crops here in northern Michigan. They were the forerunners of the migrants who came much later. It was 1931 and I was 13 years old when my family camped in the orchard of huge cherry trees (the trees […]
By Susan Pocklington Sun contributor “We’ve been driving by this house for 20 years…we love it,” beams one woman who couldn’t be older than 35. A gentleman positions his tripod in front of the orange poppies blooming in the side yard. He grins at me and pauses. “I’ve taken many trips out here and have […]
By Kristin Seitz Sun contributor “A handful of pine seeds will cover mountains with the green majesty forests. I too will set my face to the wind and throw my handful of seed on high.” Fiona Macleod For generations people have thrown their own seeds to the wind in this beautiful region. With blood, sweat […]
By Lois Bearslee Michigan State University Press, published 2003 Lois Beardslee, author of Lies to Live By, is an accomplished Native American artist, teacher and writer in Leelanau County. She practices many traditional art forms, including birch bark biting, quillwork, and sweetgrass basketry, as well as painting and illustration. In publishing these excerpts from Lies […]
By Thomas Benn Sun contributor Nestled alongside the highway opposite the Apple Blossom Drive entrance to the Leelanau Orchards top-of-the-line real estate development stands the more modest former seasonal residence of the Chavez and Campos families. Their names are still legible on the doors of the small cinder-block quarters for Mexican migrant workers who were […]