Peter Phinny remembers Jim Harrison

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By Norm Wheeler
Sun editor

When word spread in late March that Jim Harrison, the poet, novelist, master of the novella, memoirist, gourmand, and long-time Leelanau County resident had died at 78 in his casita in Patagonia, Ariz., while writing a new poem, friends and fellow writers responded with instant shock and grief. Jimmy Buffet, Tom McGuane, Phil Caputo, and local luminaries Mario Batali, Doug Stanton, Michael Delp, Jerry Dennis, Pamela Grath, and others soon posted their recollections of the conversational brilliance, the Rabelaisian lust for life, and the prodigious literary output and talent of one of the most unique and gifted humans any of them had ever known. The Glen Arbor Sun published several of these testimonials at that time (see our Memorial Day edition), but one notable great friend to Harrison whom we missed was the writer, rancher and local Glen Arbor character Peter Phinny.

Phinny attended Camp Leelanau for Boys north of Glen Arbor already as a 5-year-old, so he really does qualify as a local. After high school at the Salisbury School in Connecticut, he attended Wesleyan University and studied with renowned poet Richard Wilbur, and there Phinny’s fascination with writing and literature began. He had been raised in Fremont, Mich., with cousin Dan Gerber, another excellent Michigan writer and friend of Harrison’s. Still a rancher, Phinny’s love for writing is matched by his love of horses. “My cousins and I would sneak out to ride our parent’s horses that they thought were too big for us to handle,” he remembers with a grin. “The horses just took care of us because we were kids. It wasn’t pretty, but we learned!” Phinny went on to write two books with the successful horseman Jack Brainard: Western Training: Theory & Practice, and Training the Reined Horse. “I wanted to learn more about the horses, and Jack was more than just a horseman. He was a reader, he was articulate, and he was a great man.”

During college Phinny worked at Leelanau School in the summers, and after he earned his degree in Anthropology in 1972 he came back to settle here. In the early ’80s he helped Suzanne Stupka Wilson and Molly Phinny start the arts magazine The Small Towner. A high quality, meticulously produced anthology of paintings by Molly and Suzanne, and poetry by Dan Gerber and many others, The Small Towner enjoyed a meteoric success for a few summers, and old copies are now collectors items. Phinny was also a founding member of the Glen Arbor Art Association and helped the fledgling arts organization to get off the ground.

Peter Phinny met Jim Harrison when he was 15 through cousin Dan Gerber when Gerber and Harrison were friends at Michigan State University. Together they started the Sumac Review in the mid-60s. Phinny and Harrison reunited in Leelanau County when Phinny’s stepdaughter Morgan was a friend of Harrison’s daughter Anna at Leland School. “We coincidentally shared an affinity for Patagonia,” Phinny explains. “I spent time there on the Papago Reservation while studying for my anthropology degree, and Jim had fallen in love with the place when he was there with a poets-in-the-schools program. Jim would always elbow me about which one of us was going to get back to Patagonia first.”

When Phinny sold a horse for a good price and the economy was down he got a good deal on a big house with a casita on property south of Patagonia. “When Jim sent his wife Linda down to sniff out a place she stayed with us. We offered the casita, they bought it, and then we lived on that same property next to Harrison’s for 20 years or more. That cemented our friendship.” That was a great time for both the Phinnys and the Harrisons. “The casita was on the creek, so Jim would work his way up and down in his waders. He took full advantage of the flora and fauna. I know that place enriched Jim’s life as his friendship enriched mine.”

Both men befriended a rancher north of the property, Bob Bergier. “Bob was a real good guy but a marginal rancher,” Phinny laughs. “It was comical how aggravated Jim would get over the malpractice of agriculture he saw. Bob was really a painter forced to tend his father’s hardscrabble desert ranch in the foothills of the Santa Ritas. It was named the Hard Luck Ranch. Jim was the son of a county agricultural agent, so he noticed every questionable decision Bob made. Even though we both loved Bob, Jim would get exasperated by what went on. But it was thrilling and entertaining for both of us to watch those guys move cattle.”

Phinny needed a place to write away from his own house, and Bergier had an empty bunkhouse cabin. He offered to lease it to Phinny for a pittance. One month later Harrison found out about it and came to Phinny with his hat in his hand to humbly ask: “Can I write there too?” Phinny and Harrison shared the same writing shack for 16 years.

Peter Phinny now remembers Jim Harrison with a tear in his eye and a crack in his voice. “He is without a doubt the most curious human I ever knew. He’d want to find out what everybody’s story was. We could be at a table in Sonoita, and Tom McGuane or Phil Caputo would show up. But suddenly Jim would be gone. He didn’t miss a thing. He would hear another conversation across the room, and before you realized he was gone, there he’d be at a table of strangers in the full bloom of conversation. It’s a credit to his humanity that he wanted to hear everybody’s story. There’s a reason his head was large: there was a tremendous brain in there!” Harrison had a reputation for being gruff and sometimes difficult, but Phinny explains that it was his way of creating space. “He was always nice. He did enough to keep people away from him so he could work, but he had a heart as big as Dallas. I can’t imagine a less jealous poet. He was competitive without being jealous. Jim was pretty opinionated, but frankly, he was always right!”

Peter Phinny adds that the women in Harrison’s life, his wife Linda, daughters Jamie and Anna, and secretary Joyce Bahle, deserve a lot of the credit for his affection for human beings and his sense of self. “Jim had a big, soft heart. I remember once we saw a really poor family and he started to cry. There’s a life force in poets like Jim Harrison. Some few creative people are part of the world but are not delivered from it. Jim’s real friends were truly loyal. Past the big talking, the real stuff would come out. Jim had a huge heart. I miss the man.”

Correction: an early version of this story reported that Peter Phinny attended “Westland University” when in fact he attended Wesleyan University. He also attended Camp Leelanau for Boys, not Camps Leelanau & Kohahna. We regret the errors.