Editors Notebook (or The Talk Downtown)

The Pig, the Winter, and Ladybugs
by Norm Wheeler
Sun editor

It’s November 4, almost Election Day, sunny, windless, in the 60’s again. On November 1, 2000, John Arens and Michael Buhler played 18 holes of golf in t-shirts. They hit no low flying grouse nor woodcock and raised no blisters. They played, in fact, their best rounds of the year as they were not distracted from the task at hand by either the fudgies, the snowbirds, nor any other trunk bangers. All of the leaves are down but for some brown oaks and a few tenacious yellow poplars, and the slanting light bounces up from the orange maple-floored woods to butterscotch the amazingly mild air. It was so balmy on November 1 that I jogged the beach north from the Observatory, waded the mouth of the Crystal (where the slow black coho with their rotting white fins shouldered into the river for one last push against the current before they die), on up past a flotilla of 37 mute swans, and passed the Thorson Road turnaround to where the rocks stopped me. And then I jogged back, breaking a sweat in the astonishing heat, to a quick swim, by far the latest swim of the year ever in Lake Michigan. The water wasn’t even that cold!
I’m not the only one who has been taking advantage of this mildest year ever. Rob Karner runs the same stretch of beach almost daily, but on crutches, his golden dog loping alongside. His parallel pockmarks punctuate the beach-edge like the pacings of some modern day Ahab waiting for a glimpse of Moby Dick. The whole month of October has been warm. In fact, while talking with some of my homies around town, I am reminded that it has been mild since February. The spring seemed to last forever, the summer never got hot, and now the autumn has been lovely, endless, the colors coming late and staying. It was “tangerine trees and marmalade skies,” as the Beatles sang, for a month.
What can this strange mild weather of 2000 portend? Is the global warming really kicking in? Should I be planting lemon and orange trees in Echo Valley to be on the front edge of the future Leelanau County citrus crop? Are we in for a serious, determined, Al Gore kind of winter, or another lightweight without enough snowflakes to even bury a Bush? I interview everyone in town to find out.
On Saturday, November 3, at noon, smoke billowed up from a big pig roaster in the west bound lane of Lake Street in front of Art’s. At the same moment Jerry Decker’s honey wagon could be heard whining over the rooftops from another part of town, and the two aromas sort of scrapped and tangled on the breeze, providing something different for each nostril. (Garbage in, garbage out!)
Though the orange traffic cones and yellow police ribbon marked the big smoking pig-roaster as a place of tragedy, (indeed, the pig turning inside was dead), the activity around it revealed a celebration. Tim Barr was getting ready to give the town a gift, a first annual pig roast, and the day crew of Marsha and Sean and Bonnie stood around the source of heat like poets at a bonfire. “The pig dressed out at 220 pounds,” Tim reported proudly. “It was marinated in garlic all night, and inside it are 6 full-sized American chickens, 60 oz. of garlic, along with apples, oranges, onions, and plenty of whole mushrooms. It’ll all cook down to about 175 pounds finished. We’ll start serving at 5 o’clock.” Tim and the Art’s crew prepared for a big bash. The free food included baked beans, potato salad, sauerkraut, apple sauce, and Sam Barr’s garlic cheese biscuits. Everything was homemade and delectable.
Though Glen Lake had lost the district football trophy to Kingsley the night before in the last two minutes, the town was upbeat about the pig roast and the mild day. Sean Barr replied to queries about a mild winter with “Flip a coin! The warm lake the last few years didn’t translate into lots snow the way they predicted. Who knows? Twice as bad as last year would still be mild.”
Marsha said, “It will be harder than the last three.”
Dave Mofat said, “Another garbage winter.”
Tim Sutherland: “An easy winter for the mobile single people.”
Said Bill Miltz: “It’ll be a hard winter – we’re due after 3 mild ones. The Homestead will be open for skiing 6 days a week, snow will be great for Glen Arbor, the town will be hoppin’!””
At Dobson’s Amoco I questioned Noel and Bill Thompson. Bill summarized the year: “It’s been spring since February! The bad weather and price of gas kept people away. Oh sure, people came to their cottages, but the day trippers stayed away. We finally got caught up in August. Now we need snow ‘cause we need water! The lakes and the river are too low. So I hope we have a real hard winter. Noel has a thick beard, maybe that means the winter’ll be heavy.” Noel Dobson is hoping for a serious winter to resuscitate his plowing business which has been slower than an 80’s modem for three years. He brought out a graph made several years ago by Don Wilson of Absolutely Accurate Predictions, Inc. of Glen Arbor. Based on data fed into Don’s computer since 1955 it shows the “valley” of the past few winters, and it predicts a nice spike for the winter of 2000 with about 200 inches of snow. (See attached). Noel scratched his thick beard with crossed fingers.
But honestly, it wasn’t the football game nor the coming winter nor the election the town talked about the first Saturday in November. The Subarus of a few vegetarians could be seen heading for Traverse as the downtown area grew more redolent with the aroma of roasting pig, but on the mostly vacant streets people talked about ladybugs. The warm October and now November weather has hatched them by the thousands. “I heard those Asian beetles were released to attack the gypsy moths,” said Bill Miltz. “Last week my house was blanketed. I had to have an exterminator spray it down, ladybugs were crawling in everywhere.” Bill Thompson was even more perplexed. “They crawl in around closed windows. Then they cluster in the corners in big clumps and have orgies. It’s disgusting! How can people still call them “ladies”?”
So close those windows, folks! Prepare to cluster in warm corners and keep each other warm! We’re fortified with pork and warmed by long autumn. When the winds howl off the big lake and the snowflakes fly like shards of ripped bedsheets, remember these brown, balmy days at the end of the mildest year ever.