The Glen Lake Library will once again host their “Ode to Asparagus” as part of the upcoming Empire Asparagus Festival, on Saturday, May 20. Participants should submit their asparagus-themed poems by Thursday, May 18, along with their name and contact information.
What it was like for this diehard baseball fan to watch the seventh and deciding game of the 2016 World Series last Nov. 2, between my beloved Chicago Cubs and the Cleveland Indians, and the literary armageddon that followed.
Scared, scared, scared. Three of them hold hands. Of the three holding hands, one is Thai international, one is Native American in transition (from female to male), one is white, also in transition. Among the others, one is bi, one is gay, one is trying to figure it out. They are bright — a few are brilliant. They are all generally kind, generally hard-working, opinionated, funny, eager, quirky, often silly, tousled, sometimes-in-need-of-a-shower secondary students. Some have pink hair, or maybe blue this week. Some have tattoos and piercings. Some have creatively decorated their uniforms in such a way that there is no general sense of uniformity. They all understand that this election affects their future.
Nature abhors a vacuum. The same can be said for creative writers without an outlet for publishing their work. And that, dear reader, is one way of explaining how The Dunes Review, a local literary journal, came to be.
I found out about the storm from the owners of the cabin that my wife and I had reserved for the end of August. Our Central Ohio media hadn’t picked up on this news, so I went to the Internet to see what was up. The photos were dramatic, but I figured that it was limited to a small area, nothing that would keep us from making the trip.
I walk into the library and smell it: paper, pages, ink, sometimes leather and glue—the scent of books, the old and new stories. When I open a book, a word odor wafts up with a love tale, war epic, a medieval ballad of loss, or the aroma of an essay on food so good you want to eat it. That’s the first love of a library, that scent. My love of literature started with libraries, with that scent, the spirit of story.
Libraries are the great equalizer in America. Not everyone can afford to buy a book or a computer, but almost everyone can afford to go to the library. Libraries are the cornerstone of democracy. Free access to information is what democracy depends on in order to have an intelligent population.
“You can’t go home again,” according to author Thomas Wolfe. I say Oh! Yes! You can … If you lived in Glen Arbor for 21 happy years! So we return each summer for two months of tender loving care from so many friends. This happy reunion in this happy place is an annual reminder of lives well-lived in a naturally beautiful environment.
It looks like your standard-issue National Park sign, a chocolate brown square with white type affixed to a wooden post. Upon closer inspection one discovers that this isn’t your Uncle Sam’s signage. This summer, nature poems masquerading as official park signs can be found in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and the four other Great Lakes national parks at trails, vistas and beaches as part of the National Park Service centennial celebration.
