Celebrating “Empire anchor” Mike Vanderberg with Dunegrass originals

From staff reports
A benefit for the family of Mike Vanderberg and a celebration of his life will take place at two locations in Empire on his birthday, Sunday, September 30, with music from noon until 10 p.m. at Johnson’s Park and an early dinner at the Town Hall beginning at 2 p.m. The main dish will be supplied; in the spirit of a community potluck, please bring a side dish to pass; donations for food and entertainment are encouraged; items (including memorabilia from past Dunegrass Festivals) will be auctioned and raffled off. Local musicians and artists — including Third Coast, Cabin Fever, Wrangler, Song of the Lakes, the Jelly Roll Blues Band, the Corvairs and the Beach Bards — many of whom performed at early Dunegrass Festivals in the mid-‘90s, will entertain the crowd all day-long. Vanderberg, who passed away on August 11, founded the popular annual Dunegrass Festival and was the instigator behind numerous aspects of Empire life.

The following is local Emily Lanier’s favorite memory of Mike:
I want to share this important story, for it’s about an angel who recently found his way home. I had been working at the gas station in Empire, this “one-flashing-stoplight-town,” for a few months during the off-season, and though it was a boring gig, I enjoyed being the new girl in town because I got a chance to meet many of the town’s locals.
The reason we moved here and escaped from the concrete jungle was because we loved the area so much as well as the small society around us. It was so eclectic, and everyone worked side by side despite their social differences; this place seemed to be about humanity at its purest form: every type of colorful character, all in this beautiful place in the dunes.
Of course, being the new kid, I got stuck on the night shift, so things were extremely lonely during the long, dark winter months … and I learned what everyone in the small town smoked, drank or drove before even learning their names. It got to the point where I got excited when I met a customer, any customer, which meant a brief intermission from the solitude that most of my shifts consisted of.
One particularly gloomy night, I was propped up behind the counter listening to my burned CDs and drinking coffee, trying to pass the time, when Mike Vanderberg, one of the locals, came in for his usual pick-me-up. I liked Mike. He was a kind, middle-aged man who seemed to be a big part of the local color. He didn’t really seem to know who I was, but he was always kind, and I liked listening to him talk about whatever he was up to that day. He especially enjoyed making little creations around town, ice sculptures mostly, but he was always up to something for fun, for the enjoyment of others.
As I rang him up, he randomly asked me, “Hey … do you remember when you were still in school, and for Valentine’s Day you had to get those boxes of valentines and give them to the kids in your class?” I chuckled, remembering those days, as he continued, “I think as adults we should all still have to do that now.” Mike always came up with these random thoughts. I don’t know if it was the long, depressing winter getting to me, but I flashed back to how much I hated having to do that, and told him why.
“Well Mike, there were always two reasons that this had the potential to suck. And I speak from experience … either you were the one who got the valentine from the class dork, or you were the class dork, and I always fell into both those categories.” We laughed, and he went on his merry way. This conversation came and went in my mind, and I returned to my music and my coffee, and tried to pass the time away, “thinking spring.”
A few weeks later, the day before Valentine’s Day, one of the local kids was hanging out in the store picking out candy and chatting with me about which of his favorite horror and action movies I had seen (he was just as bored in the middle of winter as the rest of us), when in Mike came. He walked up to us in one of the aisles, and asked me “Hey, do you work tomorrow?” Seeing no relevance as to why he was even asking, I answered with a smile, “Nope! I got the day off.” Mike immediately pulled this pale blue piece of folded construction paper out of his coat, handed it to me and skipped away quickly behind the aisle where he pretended to be shy, peeking out from the shelving. I was so confused. All I could do was laugh as I looked down … and what I saw was cool. This man in his mid-fifties had remembered our conversation from weeks before about the valentine cards, and had made me a valentine out of construction paper and a glue stick. Half of a heart was glued to the front of it with a band-aid over it made out of crafts, and it said “I’m Half FAST without you” … and on the inside, “PLEASE Be Mine! Signed, The Class Dork”
I started crying. I don’t know why, but no one has ever done anything like that for me. It was so awesome, so random, and it made not just my day, but my entire winter. Mike beamed with happiness because he knew he had done something good. Though I was only the new gas station clerk in town, he put effort into doing something that made me feel like the most special person in the world, even if just for a moment. And the best was how he acted like the class dork, hiding behind a rack of juju bee’s while I realized what he’d given me. What a heartwarming way for him to say, “welcome to the neighborhood, kid … you’re one of us now.” I went home that night with a ray of sunshine, and that valentine was placed on the fridge, where it stayed until about a month ago, making me smile every time I looked at it.
Since the long winter shifts at the gas station, we have come to learn a lot more about Mike Vanderberg and his family. They have a large family, many blood-related but many just family by association, because that’s the kind of people they are. They live in a house right in the middle of Empire, a town that seems it would lack something without them there. No parade, it seems, has ever rolled down Main Street without at least one colorful and fun float built by the Vanderbergs and friends. The Dunegrass Festival, which only took place in Empire because of Mike and his family, was a major part of his life.
Every single person in Empire has a story like mine — a valentine given just to them, a smile that was sent their way from Mike just when they needed it most. He seemed to live for his kids and wife, and for making people happy. He had the heart of a child, and the spirit of an angel. He became a very special part of my life, and I looked forward to my run-ins with him. I even got to introduce him to a friend at Empire’s Asparagus Festival (where, of course, Mike and friends were busy making asparagus heads out of cardboard and green tissue paper for them to wave around or wear in the parade).
After learning of Mike’s passing I spent the next evening with some mutual friends, drinking and toasting to his life, laughing and crying together about how he touched the lives of us all. I came home, drunk and exhausted from the emotions, and on my counter I found the valentine. There it was, smiling at me the way Mike always smiled.
Now you drive through quiet Empire going north on M-22, and off to the left you see the field, only weeks ago filled with happy people, music and tents, and now just covered in flowers. How ironic — or how fitting — that his life ended in the very field where one of his life’s passions took place every year.
I am told that every year on September 30, Mike’s birthday, he would jump in Lake Michigan. And so this year, we’ll all jump in with him.