All work done well deserves our utmost respect

In 1974, an important book about an obvious yet quite overlooked subject was published: Studs Terkel’s “Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do.” An NPR piece on September 6, 2004, called it “the quintessential book about Labor Day.” Terkel, the renowned Chicago radio broadcaster, interviewed more than 130 “ordinary men and women about their jobs,” NPR reporter Susan Stamberg said. Thanks to Terkel’s deft interviewing and storytelling, the ordinary turned out to be extraordinary. Indeed, people often don’t realize how interesting their work is to others, no matter how mundane it might appear to be at first glance. At the time Tim Mulherin read Working, back in the mid-eighties while working full time on an English degree in nonfiction writing, he was a bar manager in Indianapolis. He had also remarried and had two small children. Indeed, he had a visceral understanding of what working was all about.

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The Finchers’ Labor Day reflections

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When Labor Day pops up on the calendar, people respond in a variety of ways, maybe sad that summer is ending or just happy for a day off. When Glen Arbor resident Russ Fincher reflects on Labor Day, he begins with the story of his parents. Harold and Edith grew up in Corbin, Kentucky, where coal companies were the major employers, and work was hard to find. Both of them had friends or family members who had been injured in the mines. When the people in southern Kentucky spoke up to demand safe working conditions, they were often beaten or fired. Those are the people that come to mind when Russ thinks about Labor Day.

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Witnessing a rebirth. Park releases Piping Plover chicks into the wild

Sleeping Bear Dunes wildlife biologist Vince Cavalieri has taken part in dozens of piping plover chick releases. “They are always special as they represent the culmination of hundreds of hours of work by a lot of different people and, of course, offer a second chance at life for the birds,” he said following the release of five captive reared plovers at Glen Haven on Wednesday, Aug. 20. “This one was a little extra special as I had actually been present at the hatching of two of the five chicks in the vehicle I was driving.”

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The dogs of New Orleans: 20 years after Hurricane Katrina

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In Tremé, life always seemed to teeter on the edge. Heat and humidity pressed down until it broke loose in sudden bursts: a fight, a chase, gunshots, sirens. Violence could turn savage without warning. And yet, on Sunday afternoons, a brass band would come down Villere Street, horns lifting the air, and for a while the same pressure fed joy instead of rage. That tension seeped into me, writes Andrea Claire Morningstar. When Hurricane Katrina arrived on Aug. 29, 2005, the levees broke, and the city slipped into nightmare on my television screen in Michigan, all I could think of were the dogs—the pack roaming my block, the puppy abandoned in the park, the neighbor’s chained rottweiler. I cried for the dogs. Where was my downstairs neighbor with her bandaged fist? Had the water reached the second floor with its shattered glass windows? The old man singing along to The Wizard of Oz? The second line band that graced Villere Street on Sunday afternoons?

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Mighty Tundra Tones take on Leelanau

Residents and visitors to the county have not one, not two, but three chances to catch one of the region’s favorite bands this coming week. The little big band Tundra Tones, f.k.a. Jazz North, will be performing Aug. 28 at Leland, Aug. 29 at Music in the Park in Northport, and Aug. 31 at Little Traverse Inn.

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Hit me with your best shot: the underrated value of one good pic

When I pulled into the Alligator Hill Trail parking lot, it was just me, writes Tim Mulherin. Then the heart-rousing ascent did the trick. When I arrived at the Islands Lookout’s panoramic northern view of the Manitou Passage about 30 minutes later, I ignored the impulse to immediately pull out my iPhone and begin snapping photos. Instead, I just looked. And looked. Then I sat down on the bench and looked some more, imprinting the breathtaking scene for future reference. There would most always be an iPhone in my pocket whenever I felt the need to point and shoot. This moment of my being there, however, would not repeat itself. So, for a change, I wanted to be fully present, not somewhat removed by staring through my smartphone screen’s viewfinder. More participant, less observer.

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A quest for learning: Green Door Folk School’s roots

Kristina Schnepf left the corporate world in 2019 in pursuit of a simpler, more fulfilling life by becoming a business consultant and operating their family business—the Traverse City franchise location of Peace, Love, & Little Donuts. In 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Schnepfs moved to Interlochen full time, replacing the small cottage they had originally bought in 2012. It was here that Kristina’s quest for learning sparked the creation of the new Green Door Folk School, located in Cedar.

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Standout voice in local fiction, Goethals debuts novel “The Doublewide”

Candy Schein—the protagonist of Ann Goethals’s debut novel, The Doublewide—has always stayed quiet and kept her head down. Now age 28 and living in a modest apartment above a pizza parlor, Candy has spent years saving for a dream most people take for granted: a place to call her own. When she finds a “mystic blue” doublewide manufactured house, it sparks something bigger than a dream home—a journey towards self-acceptance and courage that forces her to leave behind the comfort of invisibility. This novel speaks to anyone who has ever felt overlooked, underestimated, or uncomfortable in their own skin. Goethals will hold a reading and Q&A on Saturday, Aug. 30, at 3 p.m. at the Glen Lake Community Library in Empire.

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Celebrating songs of Leelanau: The Accidentals’ “Michigan and Again”

Our story series celebrating songs inspired by Leelanau County and the Sleeping Bear Dunes continues with The Accidentals’ ballad “Michigan and Again”—a love song for the band’s home state. The song’s music video features footage of the Sleeping Bear Dunes along Lake Michigan. “I started writing ‘Michigan and Again’ in the backseat of the van when I was probably 19 or 20 years old,” band member Sav Madigan told the Sun. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘Great state, what state am I in?’ and writing that down in a little notebook I always kept in my jacket. A few minutes later I thought, ‘Michigan and again and again and again and again …’ and realized that the two lines kind of rhymed.

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Making merry on the riverside: an alternative view

We live in what we perceive to be an entirely human-centric world. As a result, there is often no consideration for the others—for wildlife, writes Tim Mulherin. Our society is increasingly estranged from nature. Author Richard Louv expressed his concern for this regressive phenomenon in his seminal work “Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder”. Our apathy for wildlife is a key indicator. When the calendar turned to July this year, this new awareness became acute. Fireworks were being set off nightly by can’t-wait patriots in anticipation of the commemoration of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Bang! Boom! Domestic pets, especially dogs and cats, trembled whenever the faux bombardment began, desperate to escape the sharp reports punctuating the air. Yet my immediate thought when seeing our aging, red-coated Pomeranian pacing frantically, demanding to be picked up and consoled, turned to wildlife, whose well-being rarely factors into the human experience.

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