Remembering Michael Buhler, a man of impeccable taste, curiosity and talent
By Jacob Wheeler
Sun editor
This week’s edition of the Glen Arbor Sun is a special one. It was written and produced by a publishing team caught between shock, mourning, and the will to persevere—even as the print edition of this paper hit the streets of Leelanau County a week late. Tears that rained down on the keyboard helped write these words—tears that may yet dampen the newsprint of the print edition.
For 20 years, Michael Buhler was co-editor of the Sun. He designed its pages, adeptly arranged advertisements like Tetris blocks, and placed its stories and photos. Mike helped turn our rag into an attractive, full-color newsprint magazine with ads and images that pop, and stories that educate—a true asset of our vibrant community.
But no longer. Mike died suddenly on the afternoon of Thursday, Aug. 16. He leaves a void in our hearts the size of the Manitou Passage.
His final hours in this world were proud ones. “Uncle Mike” invited Dorian and Severin, the teenage sons of his good friends the Brotschuls, to lunch at the Shipwreck Cafe in Empire. Dorian had just earned his State of Michigan driver’s training permit, so Mike let Dorian drive the convertible. They talked, laughed, and enjoyed a splendid August afternoon as they drove down M-109 past the Sleeping Bear Dune Climb. (I saw him at the cafe, too. He gave me an authentic Mike hug and asked me what on the menu looked good.) They returned to Mike’s house after lunch, the boys went home, and he passed away sometime after 3:30. Michael Buhler was 57 years young.
Of all the testimonials posted on Mike’s Facebook page since Aug. 16, the words of his longtime friend Sylvia Duncan seem particularly poignant: “This wonderful man meant so much to so many,” she wrote. “He was a man of impeccable taste, insatiable curiosity, and had an incredibly wide range of interests and talents. He utilized both his right and left-brain strengths to run the gamut from the highest levels of appreciation of the arts to the problem solving depths of technology. In our over 30 years of friendship, he constantly amazed and amused me.”
Mike’s skills were multifaceted. He could master a computer program, meticulously design a newspaper, develop a strategic business marketing plan, tinker with his convertible in the garage, perform a poem at the Beach Bards Bonfire, write a creative story (his novel about teenagers growing up in a Midwestern town was never published), and then hit the road to repair a coffee machine at some far-flung northern Michigan restaurant. As long as he made it home to watch the Michigan game, accompanied by a glass of single malt scotch, this was all in a day’s work for him.
A native of Grosse Pointe, Mike attended high school at the prestigious University Liggett School, got his undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan and his MBA at Wayne State. He taught for a stint at Shattuck-St. Mary’s School in Faribault, Minn., where Heidi Matthews Kapacinskas remembers that Mike “introduced me to Fitzgerald and Hemingway and instilled in me a love of literary-based critical thinking, made late-night Dairy Queen blizzard runs for us girls at St. Mary’s Hall, and set the bar very high for preppy dress standards.”
Leelanau years
In 1987 Mike landed at the Leelanau School, the private boarding school next to The Homestead resort which, at the time, was moving away from its Christian Science roots and had just brought Ed Paquette aboard as its president and headmaster. Ed soon asked Mike to take over admissions and bring the school’s enrollment to full capacity. Leelanau School’s student body doubled from 52 to more than 100 students in the late ’80s. “Mike was more than a fantastic employee,” wrote Paquette. “He was a great advisor to me, and to our faculty and student family.”
Mike joined Leelanau the same year as another southern Michigander, Jeff Miner, who would become a lifelong friend. (Miner will deliver the eulogy at Mike’s funeral on Saturday, Sept. 1, at 9:30 a.m. at St. Paul on the Lake Catholic Church, 157 Lake Shore Rd., in Grosse Pointe Farms; a celebration of Mike’s life will also be held at the Glen Arbor Town Hall on Sunday, Oct. 21, at 4 p.m. The Glen Arbor event is a potluck, BYOB.)
Buhler and Miner were on parallel career tracks: they both left Leelanau in 1990 to get their Master’s degrees, then returned several years later. To those of us in the student body, they were inseparable during those happy ’90s: clad in preppy Polo shirts or plaid shorts, Mike in a bowtie, and bonding over U-M sports, golf, goofy humor, and good scotch.
To the school community they outwardly portrayed a “grumpy old men” dynamic. “He’d make jokes about my weight, I’d make jokes about his lack of hair. The thing I always had over him was that I had twice made a hole in one on the golf course, and he never did,” laughed Miner. “But beneath it all was love and a caring friendship.
“He was my Michigan football guy, my ‘up north’ guy, my car guy, and also my politics guy. He could talk about politics and be rational, which so few people can do. So many people have said he was one of their best friends—and not just surface friendships. He was your friend, your guy, he had your back.”
Glen Arbor impact
Mike left Leelanau School in 1997 and immediately began to impact the greater Glen Arbor community. As a consummate booster for the County, he became a driving force behind this region’s coming of age as the tourism scene began to boom here in the late ’90s. Mike served as a volunteer fireman and emergency medical technician (before Glen Arbor transitioned to a professional staff); he worked with Bob Sutherland from 1998-2000 and helped grow the Cherry Republic empire; he served in township government and on numerous local boards of directors, including the Glen Arbor Art Association (now the Glen Arbor Arts Center, GAAC) from 2008-2014, including terms as treasurer and president. When Mike joined the GAAC he told director Peg McCarty that when he had first moved to Glen Arbor in 1987, local arts pioneer Suzanne Wilson became one of his first local friends, and that he took delight in continuing her vision.
“Mike was an important member of our ‘Art Grows Here’ capital campaign committee, bringing his customary enthusiasm and can-do spirit to fundraising for the building project,” wrote McCarty. “Mike truly loved the GAAC and showed it in so many ways by being a constant ambassador for the organization. He generously provided scholarships to several area families so their children could take summer art classes and begin to love art the way he did. He lent his support to artists by frequently purchasing art at our exhibits and at the Plein Air Weekend events. Mike Buhler gave generously of his time and talent to continually strengthen the community he loved so much.”
Linda Young remembers the instrumental role Mike played in other community fundraising initiatives.
“I met Michael in 2007 when he introduced himself and suggested, more like he already decided, we should co-chair the campaign for the Glen Arbor Garden [and public restrooms],” wrote Young. “This was the beginning of a friendship that lasted for 12 years and two additional campaigns. When I agreed to chair the [Glen Lake Library] campaign, he was my first call. He said yes in a blink which wasn’t surprising. Michael had a huge heart and soft spot for any effort that helped our area. He knew everyone! A loyal and true friend with a huge capacity for maintaining friendships.”
Mike joined brothers John and Steve Arens as co-owners of the Leelanau Coffee Roasting Company until retiring at the end of 2017. His natural knack for marketing and catchy slogans (“We’re roasting up here”), and his personal charm—whether fixing a customer’s coffee machine 90 minutes away or sauntering through the cafe and engaging people in conversation—helped Leelanau Coffee become another Glen Arbor business success story.
“Mike was quick to smile and laugh—which we often saw around the old coffee shop—and his insights were creative, artful and wise,” said John Arens. “His enjoyment of life, with all of its textures, celebrations and possibilities was a rare gift, indeed. Mike’s involvement in our little town was wide and broad, and his much-too-early absence will be felt for many years to come.”
“Uncle Mike”
Mike is survived in the Grosse Pointe area by his loving mother Maureen “Mickey” Schaefer, his brother Kurt Buhler, and his three nephews.
To many in the Glen Arbor community, Mike also felt like family. He was here, there, and everywhere—as omnipresent as the dunes or the lake itself.
He was a fixture at local restaurants, either joined by a local or an old friend from downstate, like perhaps his Grosse Pointe buddies Clay Vandenbussche and Mark DeClerck. Bartenders at the Western Avenue Grill, Randy at Blu, Paul at Art’s, or the staff at Funistrada all knew what drink to pour the moment he arrived:
“Johnny Walker black on the rocks,” said Funistrada mainstay Sarah Ash Dilley. “No matter who he was with, it was a great time, always smiling, cracking jokes, quick wit, spreading love, having fun. Down to earth beautiful soul.”
Mike’s laughter and charm were ubiquitous. Kathy Young was working at the Coffee Roasters when she remembers bonding with Mike over their shared sense of snark and sarcasm, and utter love of words and grammar … and the movie The English Patient. “He was the only person in the world I called ‘honey’,” she said. “He will never be forgotten or replaced. A true original, a lover of art and travel, and a community-minded hero.”
To Stephen and Amy Brotschul, whom he had met when they taught together at the Leelanau School, and their boys Dorian and Severin—and to Dan and Anne Shoup, and their daughters Sonya, Katja, and Talia—he was “Uncle Mike”. When the families visited Leelanau County each summer (the Brotschuls currently live in Pennsylvania; the Shoups are in Colorado), Mike was important as family.
“When I told the boys about [the death of] Uncle Mike, Severin’s first response was, ‘Momma, he was our connection to everyone’,” wrote Amy Brotschul. “I think that sums up our feeling about Michael. He was also our rock. As we’ve moved around the country, Michael was always our Michigan home. In the beginning we stayed at his house, then we got the cottage and he took care of it for us when we were away. He always opened the windows in the summer and turned up the heat in the winter for our arrival.
“We knew we could never repay him for his time, so we spent as many cocktail hours and movie nights as we could with him. … He loved teaching the boys whatever he could. He shared his books and his movies. He would often Google some obscure song with one relevant lyric, and make us listen to the whole thing, of course.”
“Mike was a sounding board, and a shoulder to cry on when needed,” said Dan Shoup. “He was there to share the ups and the downs. He was there with a smile and a laugh in the fun times—oh, that Buhler laugh—and with words of support and encouragement in the tough times. And he was always there with a big Buhler hug every time and all the time.
“From day one of their lives, Buhler declared himself ‘Uncle Mike’ and loved to dote on the girls. He loved to bring them presents, and he couldn’t resist anything with flashing LED lights. He would always say, ‘Uncle Mike has to take care of his girls! (And LEDs are just FUN!)’ Buhler was generous, and kind. He loved and appreciated nature, literature, the arts, and creativity. … Though he never claimed to be an artist, he was a wonderful writer and an orator—whenever there was occasion to request his recitation of ‘Rindercella and her Prandsome Hince’ he would enthusiastically oblige … and it only got funnier after a couple of cocktails!”
“He regularly gifted the girls summer art classes at the GA Art Center, and graciously contributed to every creative outlet that they endeavored—whether camp tuition, a necessary tool like a camera or computer software, or a needed musical instrument.”
Good scotch, cheeses and meats were always nearby.
“Michael and I bonded over good scotch and good cheese many years ago, and continued that tradition,” said Dan Shoup. “When making a dinner to honor Uncle Mike after his passing, we told the girls we would make a meal of foods Michael would love and enjoy them for him, in his honor. Without dropping a beat, Sonya’s response was, ‘So we are all going to drink whiskey and eat cheese?!’”
And classy cars, too.
“He loved to troubleshoot things and fix things,” said Shoup. “Buhler loved learning about how things worked. He loved cars and working on his cars, but always knew when to take it to the shop. I always figured Taghon’s must have appreciated Buhler whenever he brought a car in, because he would always tell them what was wrong with it before they even had it on the lift! Michael often let me spend cold nights working on my car in his garage, where he loved to help me figure things out and hand me wrenches, always reminding me that we could still get it to Taghon’s.”
Rainbow flag, political moderate
Hailing from a conservative family, Buhler was a Republican when he came to Glen Arbor. He voted for Reagan and the Bushes. But he called himself a “Milliken Republican” who championed political moderation—territory that is quickly washing away as this country moves dangerously toward the polar extremes.
In our recent political conversations, he spoke glowingly of both Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (Republican) and, during the Primary election two years ago, both Ohio Gov. John Kasich (moderate Republican) and Senator Bernie Sanders (Democratic Socialist). He felt that Michigan would be in good hands if either Gretchen Whitmer (Dem.) or Brian Calley (Republican) becomes our next governor—but not Bill Schuette, who won the GOP nomination earlier this month).
In the summer of 2008, Mike initially sported a John McCain sticker on his car (he had met the late Republican Senator and American hero at a fundraiser years before). But I will never forget my correspondence with Mike when I was in Denver covering Barack Obama’s nominating coronation at the Democratic Convention that August. The moment Obama mentioned gay rights in his speech, I received a text from Mike saying “I’m voting Obama!”
Mike was a political moderate who could intelligently argue from both sides of the aisle. He could sit with a liberal and extoll the virtues of the free market; he could also help a conservative understand the need for a social compact. I think sometimes he delighted in defying stereotypes and playing devil’s advocate.
Nine days after Obama’s speech in Denver, my wife Sarah and I got married outside the Port Oneida Schoolhouse in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Our “getaway car” en route to the wedding reception was Mike’s MG convertible which he had leant us for the occasion. There were no longer any political stickers on the back of the car: only a rainbow flag.
Mike was openly gay. He flew a rainbow flag just below the Stars and Stripes next to his garage at his home on M-109. It’s likely, in my opinion, that he helped some in Leelanau County on their personal journey to embrace gay rights and equality—not through persuasive dialogue, just by being a community leader, a consummate neighbor, and an ideological moderate.
I recall another text conversation with Mike on June 26, 2015, the day the Supreme Court announced it would legalize marriage equality. We were both happy, of course, but disappointed and surprised that Chief Justice John Roberts hadn’t sided with fellow conservative Anthony Kennedy in ruling for gay marriage rights across the land.
“He liked to joke in private that he was the girls’ ‘gay Republican uncle’,” laughed Dan Shoup. “He truly was always just ‘Uncle Mike’. He liked to call himself a ‘Milliken Republican’. He was fiscally conservative, but socially liberal. Openly gay, but didn’t flaunt [his sexuality], and was there as a pillar of support for many who were still quiet about it themselves. Michael loved to talk, but would also listen and let you know he truly cared about what you had to say.”
A Facebook testimonial by Keith Maurer following Mike’s death recalled that Mike was one of the very first people who Keith told that he was gay. “He knew I had been struggling, and invited me to his home to help paint and hang out. When I went to leave he gave me a hug and I started crying. He helped me understand I wasn’t broken, I wasn’t wrong, and that I’d be O.K. That one evening had a profound effect on the person I’d become.”
Sundays at Boonedocks
In recent years Mike was seen around town most often with his dear friends Cameron and Kate Kerr and Corinne Cochran. In fact, they set aside Sundays to be together, to bike around the Glen Lakes or to hike Alligator Hill, and always to drink a cocktail at Boonedocks—sometimes followed by dinner at Corinne’s house.
“Cameron and I are both ‘old souls’,” said Kate (the daughter of Glen Arbor Arts Center director Peg McCarty). “Many of the people we are closest to are 20 or more years older than us, but no one was closer to us than Michael. Our friendship was unconventional. Michael was the MC at our wedding, and we went to concerts together.”
“Michael was a mentor, a voice of reason, a sounding board, someone who laughed at (almost) all my jokes and one of the most generous people I have ever [known],” Cameron added. “There are many memories I have of him that I will hold closely, like the satisfying sigh he made every time he ate an overly large piece of cheese, his never ending passion for all things U-M, the fact that he was always right—even when I proved he wasn’t.”
Corinne jokes that Mike was her “gay boyfriend husband”, her platonic soulmate. She estimates they saw each other, or talked on the phone, nearly every day. She first met him 30 years ago when her father, Leelanau School board chairman Phil Cochran, and Ed Paquette hired Mike to come aboard. But they didn’t become close friends until she moved to Glen Arbor full time six years ago. She and Mike had dinner together several times a week and always included cocktails and watching Jeopardy, as well as Michigan football, or classic movies like Tea with Mussolini.
The Aug. 2, 2015, storm that rocked Glen Arbor traumatized Corinne, and she has struggled with storms ever since then. “After the storm, every time it got stormy and windy and dark, Mike would call and ask if I wanted him to come over,” she said. “He just did nice things for people. That was his heart. He always wanted to see people succeed.”
She knows that the coming months will be difficult. She’ll miss him at 7:30 every night when Jeopardy comes on. She’ll miss him coming early for a party and lighting the candles or filling the ice bucket—“doing the boy things”. She’ll miss being able to call him for computer technical help or to watch a movie or make dinner.
The other day Corinne came home and found a bat napping inside the screen next to her door. She picked up the phone and was about to call Mike for help. Then she regained her composure, grabbed a Tupperware container and a manila folder and tied her hair up in a knot (just in case) and carried the bat outside to the patio. She used the dog’s frisbee to coax it away. Slowly it opened its wings and flew away.
“Michael would have been proud of me though he likely would have told me a better way to have gotten rid of it because, you know, he was always right.”
Carrying the torch
“We all owe it to Michael to carry on his unfinished business,” wrote former Leelanau School colleague Sylvia Duncan on his Facebook testimonial wall. “Please keep tabs on a wide range of people and, when you are with a person, give him or her your full attention.
“Bear hug. Tuck a friend on your sofa with a blanket and a piece of freshly baked cherry pie and/or a scotch on the rocks. Buy a big, beautiful TV and install a good sound system for your friends to gather and watch the games. Adopt a classy looking dog and teach it to dance for ice cubes and to know no strangers.
“Ride your bike. Eat good steaks or none at all. Laugh with others and at yourself and know the joy of being silly and playful. Embrace your sexuality. Travel and look for old friends when you go places. Reconnect. Find a place to call home and work to make it the best it can be.
“Most of all, see the potential in everyone and everything and celebrate when that potential is realized. I plan to honor my dear friend in these ways. If we all make an effort to emulate what made Michael special, the world will not have such a big hole in it.”
Mike died four days before we were scheduled to go to press with our Aug. 23 (pre-Labor Day edition). BIG thanks to Jordan Bates and The Betsie Current in Frankfort for stepping up and helping design and produce this edition of the Sun in Mike’s absence. Community newspaper solidarity!
See you on Sunday, Oct. 21, at 4 p.m. at the Glen Arbor Town Hall for a celebration of Mike’s life.