Posts

WCMU to broadcast new documentary on Leelanau County Poor Farm

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WCMU Public Television will air Saving the Barn: The Leelanau County Poor Farm, a locally produced documentary on the history, preservation, and future of the Leelanau County Poor Farm/County Infirmary. The film is a multi-year project of the Leelanau County Historic Preservation Society (LCHPS) and videographer, Joe Vandermeulen. WCMU Public Television has scheduled three broadcast times in March for Saving the Barn: The Leelanau County Farm: Sunday, March 17, at 6:30 pm; Thursday, March 21 at 5 am; and Saturday, March 23 at 10:30 am. The film will be subtitled. Click here to view a 30-second preview.

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Empire hosts Songs and Stories of Sleeping Bear, Library hosts Climate Change presentation

This Sunday, Jan. 28, the Friendly Tavern in Empire hosts an afternoon of music, stories and poems highlighting the history of the Sleeping Bear Dunes area. Anne-Marie Oomen and Norm Wheeler will present “A Stone That Rises,” a dramatization of pioneer life in the settlement of Port Oneida, while Chris Skellenger and Patrick Niemisto will perform various songs inspired by local lore. The performance is presented by the Empire Area Community Center, with donations accepted to support their emergency relief fund. Join the fun from 4-6 pm at the Friendly Tavern in Empire.

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Glen Arbor Arts Center features “Talk About Art” with Manitou Winds

The Manitou Winds bring song and good conversation to the Glen Arbor Arts Center on Sunday, April 22, a 2 p.m. in the next installment in the GAAC’s “Talk About Art” series. Leelanau County musician Norm Wheeler leads the conversation with the members of this chamber music group. The event is free and open to the public.

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Art Association’s “Talk About Art” features Fleda Brown

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The Glen Arbor Art Association’s (GAAA) “Talk About Art” series continues with host Norm Wheeler in conversation with Traverse City poet Fleda Brown on Sunday, May 7, at 2 p.m. at The Leelanau School in Glen Arbor. There is no charge.

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Apocalypse of Trees

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“Where were you when . . .?” None of us will ever forget, and so now we will always trade our stories of this shared local tragedy. Waiting for Kelly McAllister to make me a malted, I gazed through the windows of McCahill’s Crossing Dairy Bar at the Glen Lake Narrows to see the eerie white cloud front race at terrific speed eastward across Little Glen Lake. Instantly the air was a greenish blue-black chaos of horizontal hail, thick rain, and leaves. Heedless of the danger, we gawked out the big windows at plunging power lines, frantic trees, and the growing line of cars refusing to cross the narrows and the bridge they couldn’t see because the lake was airborne. When the lights went out for good Kelly calmly called Consumers on her cell. We only had to inch around one tree as we drove homeward on Benzonia Trail minutes later. Countless others were not so lucky, and their stories have been our daily bread for a frantically memorable, strange, and communal cleanup of a week.

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Beach Bards bonfire turns 25

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On Aug. 9, the Beach Bards bonfire rounds out its 25th season of by-heart storytelling, poetry and music. The festival is held every Friday night from mid-June until early August at The Leelanau School beach one mile north of Glen Arbor. Children’s hour begins at 8 p.m. with slapstick, sing-along performer James “ Fuzz” Foster and the occasional appearance by Cherry Republic president Bob Sutherland.

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Tim Barr turns 60!

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Art’s Tavern owner Tim Barr turned 60 years young on Feb. 16. Nearly 100 Glen Arbor locals came out to the tavern to celebrate him. Riverfront Deli owner Sue Nichols baked these cupcakes in Tim’s likeness (photo below), and Beach Bard Norm Wheeler recited the following poem for Tim (adapted from Stone Circle founder Max Ellison’s poem “50”):

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Introducing “Glenwinkle” the Northwoods moose

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We’ve now owned Northwoods Hardware for 13 months, and in that time we’ve come to realize just how significant our moose is to our customers. Dee and I originally thought after closing on the purchase last July that we’d remove him, as neither of our families are hunters and we felt “bad” about the moose. But we soon realized in casual discussion that we would have many unhappy customers, and that kids “like” our moose.

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Lanphier Observatory, the most beautiful classroom on Earth

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It’s almost 10 p.m. and the hottest July 20th on record here since 1977. Undaunted, humans are thicker than mosquitoes on the deck above the beach at The Leelanau School’s C.H. Lanphier Observatory.

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‘Cosmos’ shines brightly — Grand Traverse Insider

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This fall marks the 30th anniversary of what has been called “the most widely watched PBS series in the world.” According to one of the show’s co-writers, almost a billion people worldwide have watched “Cosmos: A Personal Voyage” and gained an understanding of humanity’s place in the universe, and the paths taken by early astronomers to achieve that knowledge. For 26 of those years, Norm Wheeler has shown all 13 television episodes of “Cosmos” to his high school science students at The Leelanau School in Glen Arbor.

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