The Mill and Brewhouse, Almont, Michigan

In the village of Almont, Michigan is a building set back from the road inviting a visit. It was built in t 1843 as a mill of some sort and the building is not possessed of a single solitary straight edge or even surface so, of course, it is easy to fall in love with it even if it were standing empty. Which it is not. The Mill & Brewhouse is a study in reclamation:


One walks into a room with a gas fire before a pair of small, paisley-clad benches that face what at first looks like a store front with glass windows above wooden wainscoting on the right and left with two pair of massive doors mostly covered in flaking ivory and gold paint; between the pairs of doors are another pair of windows side by side. On closer inspection one notices the doors are not matched and what looked like store windows are actually curved window sashes rescued from some building that no longer exists and suspended from the ceiling of exposed lumber is a long axel strung with wheels of the remaining mill workings.

Walking through this front one is greeted by long tables keeping company with rows of mismatched chairs, chests of drawers and trunks and boxes and bits of linen, lamps pictures, the pipes of an organ that has tired of tootling, rusted pieces of metal that have aged beyond their intended uses and into the vague-but-kinder world of sculpture. Every surface is laid out in careful vignettes of objects that are related but not crowded; the space is rather more like the home of an eccentric great-aunt expecting a lot of company rather than a typical antique store.

Grab a sturdy, hot Americano and begin your ramble; this is a place worth visiting and keeping in mind as a place in which to hold your special events should you find yourself in this part of the world. Keep an eye on www.circa1843.com for updates on the transition from antique shop to coffee bar and event space.
SPM

Almont Mill and Brewhouse

In the village of Almont, Michigan is a building set back from the road inviting a visit. It was built in t 1843 as a mill of some sort and the building is not possessed of a single solitary straight edge or even surface so, of course, it is easy to fall in love with it even if it were standing empty. Which it is not. The Mill & Brewhouse is a study in reclamation:

One walks into a room with a gas fire before a pair of small, paisley-clad benches that face what at first looks like a store front with glass windows above wooden wainscoting on the right and left with two pair of massive doors mostly covered in flaking ivory and gold paint; between the pairs of doors are another pair of windows side by side. On closer inspection one notices the doors are not matched and what looked like store windows are actually curved window sashes rescued from some building that no longer exists and suspended from the ceiling of exposed lumber is a long axel strung with wheels of the remaining mill workings.

Walking through this front one is greeted by long tables keeping company with rows of mismatched chairs, chests of drawers and trunks and boxes and bits of linen, lamps pictures, the pipes of an organ that has tired of tootling, rusted pieces of metal that have aged beyond their intended uses and into the vague-but-kinder world of sculpture. Every surface is laid out in careful vignettes of objects that are related but not crowded; the space is rather more like the home of an eccentric great-aunt expecting a lot of company rather than a typical antique store.

Grab a sturdy, hot Americano and begin your ramble; this is a place worth visiting and keeping in mind as a place in which to hold your special events should you find yourself in this part of the world. Keep an eye on www.circa1843.com for updates on the transition from antique shop to coffee bar and event space.

When Everything Was Neighborhood

Muriel is a customer of mine at the Magic Bean Café who was 2 ½ when the family moved to 711 Cherry Street from 5th street. Muriel’s parents (Clotilda and James A. Ellis) and two siblings, both older, shared the house on Cherry Street. (“Used to be 111 when we moved there. Then they changed it. I remember it so well. Back about 1928, somewhere in there.”) I am lucky enough to chat with Muriel almost every morning and one morning I asked a few questions (in parentheses below) which were rewarded with a glimpse into the past of the neighborhood in which she grew up and where I now live.

“My folks lived there until 1970, I’d say. Then moved out to Carrollton. Four bedrooms and when we first moved there it had that humongous furnace. Coal. There was a coal bin they shoveled into. And when we first moved there, there was a cistern and dad took it out. I remember it scared me because I was small.

Dad had it all painted and remodeled. It had French doors between the living room and the dining room. The chandelier in the dining room was just gorgeous; it looked a lot like the one at the Temple Theater – all prisms – and I hated cleaning it. The living room went clear across the front of the house. With a fireplace, and there were two chandeliers in the living room, two of them, smaller than the dining room. Behind the dining room was a little breakfast nook. There was an open stairway. Both the living room and the dining room had framed in panels of rough plaster and both rooms had purple velvet drapes. I hated those things – they were hard to clean.

My dad had all this decorating done, and then the Crash came, so there was no decorating done for years and years. They ran out of money, I guess.”

(Did you have your own room?)
“When I was young it was in the back, later in the front. We had boarders, two men, who stayed the front bedroom. We took boarders in the hard times. The boys (siblings) had the other back room and my folks had the middle bedroom.

(What was it like living in the neighborhood at that time?)
“It was gorgeous. It was a prosperous neighborhood. It wasn’t like Washington Street, or anything, with all those big houses, but it was a nice, nice neighborhood. It was close to three schools; I think that was why my dad chose it. And it was close to a restaurant he had.

My dad’s restaurant was called Jim’s Lunch. It was on the corner of Federal and Weadock Streets.”

(What do you remember about it?)
“Well. I hated it. I had to work in it. They closed it in 1943, the year I graduated. But it had good food. We always had food. Just ordinary home-made food: roast chicken, roast pork, meatloaf, those kinds of things. A whole plate full of food for twenty-five cents – no tax – I remember taking the cash. My father was Greek (my mother was not Greek), so he was with all the Greek restaurant owners, they were buddies. We had a lot of Greek restaurants. I think almost all the restaurants downtown were Greek somehow at that time.

I remember when they were working on that Post Office (remodeled and rededicated in 1937), and when they were taking up the trolley tracks out of Genesee Street. We had all those workers in for lunch.”

(What was Christmas like?)
“Oh, the stores were all beautifully decorated and once a week the stores all changed their window displays. Once a week – the stores closed at 5 or 6 o’clock – my mother and I would walk and window shop. Morley Brothers had the most beautiful window displays. Saturdays everyone would go downtown to do their shopping. The busses would be running. We had a thriving community, such a beautiful downtown.”


(When did you leave the neighborhood?)
“In the ‘50’s, probably, when I got my own place.”

(What do you miss about that kind of neighborhood?)
“I miss the type of neighbors you had back then. They were all nice people. Baums were on the one side of us, I guess he was a mayor years and years ago. Perry’s Grocery store was right next to Baums’. It was a convenient area to live in because it was close to everything there was. We had everything close by: schools, libraries, drugstores, busses. Everything was “neighborhood” at that time. Neighborhood stores, neighborhood everything.”

It is sad to think that so much that was wonderful has vanished through short-sighted efforts to curb what is called urban blight, but it is a delight to report to Muriel and others like her that a strong sense of community and neighborhood still survive and that we who live near St. Mary’s Cathedral hope to keep this kind of neighborhood alive in the structures and streets and people that remain of the place they once called home. It is still the most wonderful place in which to live. I hope it always will be.
SPM

Streetlights: A column for the Bay City Times

It had been a long, hot day. The market had offered sounds and smells and tastes that were new to me, and I had paused more than once to take things in. The people I had met while bumming about with Julie had been friendly and tried to make me feel welcome with hand gestures and facial expressions since I couldn’t understand their other language.

Then we bumped home in a taxi. The driver had to take us nearly thirty miles before dropping us a couple of streets from the house. He charged us about nine pesos and shuddered off in a thick fog of exhaust thinking he’d ripped us off. Julie and I stood there a moment and shared a chuckle: Nine pesos for thirty miles. That’s, like, a dollar-ten.

The air was cool and heavy, and the streets were not very well lit. The streetlights were so far apart that the darkness settled thickly between them creating spot-lit vignettes of the city. We passed a group of musicians, (guitars and hand percussion) under one light getting warmed up for an all-night jam session. A young man and woman, oblivious of the other activities on the street but obviously not immune to the music, were enjoying each other under another light. The next several lights presented empty sets until we came near the streetlight nearest Julie’s parents’ house.

In that light stood a little girl about eight years old, tiny for her age. Her shoulders were shaking with sobs kept quiet by one delicate hand against her mouth. She was dressed in grubby shorts and a blue T-shirt, and her small-boned feet were bare on the pavement.

Julie crossed over to her and asked what was wrong in words that conveyed concern, but no meaning, to me. The girl told Julie that she had accidentally left the water running in the chicken house and she was waiting for her father to get home and beat her for it.

Julie tried to reassure her; she tried to make her believe everything would be fine. She bent down, and, not noticing the dirt, pulled the child to her and hugged her close as she patted the little back and smoothed the long, dark hair. Everyone concerned knew there was nothing any of us could do. The girl’s father would come home and beat her, (Didn’t he, always?), but at least – in that moment – a respite could be offered where a sanctuary could not.

                                                      ……~.~.~.~o'O'o~.~.~.~……

So much has happened since that trip down into Vera Cruz; so many things have changed, but that little girl standing in her own pool of light still comes back – just as she was that night – to make me pause and think. I cannot forget the time I suddenly saw life through those eyes. A life not marked by happy birthdays and merry Christmases, but by tears and beatings in a long night shot with bright spots that show the best better and the worst just as it is. I remember. And I pause. For just a moment. Then I move on painfully grateful for each happy child-life I am so blessed to witness in my life.

Originally published in the Bay City Times in 2005, SPM

After Katrina and Christmas: Column for the Bay City Times

(Note: This piece is very specific to an event that is very much out of our headlines currently, but I decided to drop it into this blog because I am reminded of late of other things that are slipping from our headlines: Hurricanes in subsequent years, the BP oilspill that has left parts of the Gulf of Mexico dead, the earthquake in Haiti that still is not recovered from. I am reminded that just because things are no longer considered "newsworthy" does not mean they chould be forgotten. Forgetting is just another way of wearing ourselves until one day a disaster that does not immediately impact us personally fails to awake in us any compassion for those who are impacted. So it is good to remember. SPM)

Holidays bring different sorts of memories and associations to each individual. The day after Christmas is for many a great anti-climax that is hard to recover from, while for others it is a relief to be able to look back on another holiday rather than forward to one; depending on the holiday, I can see both points of view.

This New Year, post-Katrina as well as post-Christmas, is one that holds a great many unknowns for all who have been fortunate to survive this past year to see the new one in.

Many have spent holidays in ways and places they had not expected and the New Year is not being brought in with the typical resolutions because this year is full of uncertainties beyond many of the years preceding it.

We in Michigan are not immediately, obviously impacted by Katrina, but for many in the South there are questions more pressing than any resolution: Where will we live if there is no home to return to? How will we live? Will my family always be separated? Will I ever feel safe or at home again?

There are certain places in this world that bring images and half-memories to even those who have never physically visited them: Paris with its art and romance and rain. Istanbul, Gate to the East. Jerusalem with the Temple Mount and the Wailing Wall. New York City with its Stock Exchange, the Statue of Liberty and the Brooklyn Bridge. And, ever and always for some, New Orleans with its fourteen-foot ceilings, its Latin Quarter, its Mardi Gras and – oh, most of all – its music.

They are the places that we share with each other; places we all know a little about, places that are a subtle part of our human identity. They break the ice in public and inspire dreams in private, and the world is more wonderful because they simply exist.

I have to believe that New Orleans will recover because it is such a part of the whole that it will leave a great void if it does not. Never mind Mardi Gras; parties come and go. The music, the art, the architecture and the bizarre and delicate tolerance of the Crescent City are too valuable to let pass without the greatest struggle. There are far too many things that only survive in memory and photograph, too many ‘used-to-be’s, for this not to be so.

We need New Orleans just as we need every one-horse town and steamboat stop along the sultry Gulf Coast. Wherever we may be from in this country, whatever may come, they are a part of who we are, and we cannot forget them just because they are beginning to slip from the headlines.

A disaster of this magnitude is not over because we are tired of hearing of it. Rather, it will go on, impacting further daily, like a deep flesh wound that must heal from within before it can be made truly whole again.

This healing is going to take time and it is important that we continue as we have begun and exercise patience and generosity, not because we have to, but because we were spared and are able.

Even when – having grown up in the South I cannot bear to write the word ‘if’ – New Orleans is placed upon its feet again, there is a great deal of distance between a place that has never changed and a place that has been restored, no matter how loving the restoration. The loss of life and way of life as well as the loss of property and the displacement of commerce cannot be reversed, but they can be lessened.

Some hold that there is another life in which we settle our tab from this one, and others hold that the present life is the only one we can be quite sure of. Either way, it would seem wise to use this life very carefully.

Whether one is an optimist or a pessimist, whether the glass is half full or half empty, the contents are what we have; this New Year is the one we have to work with and, though eating less and spending more time reading are admirable resolutions, let me challenge you to another this year: Purpose to pause now and again and simply remember.

Remember the simple and often taken-for-granted boons of your small children about the house and your old people around the table; neither will be there always and it is impossible to tell what this year may bring.

As you are remembering and counting blessings, don’t forget those whose children were old enough to go to war and may not be coming back as well as those whose old people may not have been fast enough to escape Hurricane Katrina. Remember and do what you can; no one could ask more.

(Originally published in the Bay City Times, December, 2005, SPM)

Le Cour des Miracles: Column for the Bay City Times

Hundreds of years ago in Paris, France the area around Place du Caire was inhabited by beggars, gypsies, prostitutes, thieves and rag-and-bone men. By day many of these plied their fellow citizens with strange wounds, maimings and crippled children; by night wounds were wiped off, maimings became whole and crippled children laughed and romped. The place became derisively known as ”Le Cour des Miracles”, (The Court of Miracles).
I remember the first time I had heard of that place and realized that each of us have our own “Court of Miracles.” A place we go when we need to be who we are and not what we have to be to survive. In that place we have friends who know, and do not judge us for, our weaknesses. They are our people, these friends, and we come together with fair regularity to escape the myriad stresses and expectations of the day.

One such place for me is the coffee house on Saginaw Street. I know that on any given day I can amble in and be among friends, or, at the very least, away from stresses. There I can engage in intelligent conversation on the interesting trivialities that make up my world or quietly put thoughts together into stories, paintings or bindings.

This afternoon the coffee house was filled with members of the Saginaw Bay Symphony Orchestra and the piano kept us all company as we worked or chatted on this or that until the time came to go to the evening concert in Wenona Park.

I stopped for a moment today as the piano played – sitting with a cup of joe – and thought of a few past moments: Ba’b and the Spur-of-the-Moment Fur Coats, Helen and the Saga of the Man-Eating Mini Dog, Amandrew and the Naughty Bowels, Naseem and The Many Queens, Chadwick and The Next Sarcastic Thing, Erica and The Swearing Tuesdays, Judith and The Soggy Quiche, Mark and The Dangerous Tambourine, Sean and The Porkchop Hooker . . . .

I cannot begin to number the griefs shared, the stories swapped and the laughs enjoyed in that place; they come, do what they do, and leave our lives that much the richer for having brought us all closer for those few moments. After such times, we gather the tools of our various trades, adjust our countenances for the rest of the world and leave our Court of Miracles until the next time we meet, each able to better cope with the day because of the respite had and the respite anticipated.

(Originally published in the Bay City Times, 2005, SPM)

The Cow

I was told once that there are always three sides to any story, his, hers and what actually happened. This story not ending in cake and confetti, I only have the “his” bit to offer with all of its flaws and possible errors. I’m not saying it’s fact. I’m not saying it’s fiction. I’m saying it makes me feel better, so here it is:

I was engaged to a woman once. Sort of. She was from Houston, Texas and I met her through giving her and her niece violin lessons at a local music store before moving to Michigan to grow into myself. This girl had blue eyes and an electric, somewhat crazy grin, she wore cowboy boots in all weather, or wedges that were denim or cowhide and she liked many of the same things I did for completely different reasons.

After many, many letters, emails and all-night phone calls we decided we might make a good – or at least a solid – marriage between us and she should come to Michigan for an extended visit to see if what worked on paper and over wires worked in person. I think it possible that lack of sleep might account for an awful lot of what finally fell out.

She arrived in town with a good amount of luggage and a fixed sort of expression that implied she might have done some thinking during the flight, but that it was too late to turn around now. After some initial chat we headed to the friends’ who had offered to let her a room during her stay so she could get settled for the next five or six weeks.

In the ensuing days we had some fun catching up on mutual acquaintances, sharing meals and introducing her to people. We began to run thin on activities in about a week because it is a small town, and it was cold, and we had no clue how to proceed after we ran out of new things to talk about. I think we actually had a conversation sitting on a bench once that went,

Me: “What a wonderful tree.”

She: “Yes, yes it is.”

That was it. For two hours. Eventually, we decided kissing could be a good thing to look into if we were to spend the rest of our lives together since there might not always be a tree to discuss.

She had never kissed a guy before and I felt since my experience was only with other guys the conversation might have gotten awkward if I tried to offer advice. Her sister had told her that chocolate made first kisses more interesting, and we figured it was worth a try while we were spending time in my studio after dinner and watching “Ten Things I Hate About You.” She put a piece of chocolate in one of our mouths and then leaned in slowly to begin kissing. That’s when I realized she had gotten a bar of chocolate with dried blueberries inside.

I have to agree that trying to kiss around melting chocolate did sound interesting in theory, but given the newness of the joint activity the addition of dried fruit might not have been advisable.

The girl went from gentle lip pressing to eating my face; actually eating it. Her teeth were trying to pull my lips from my face much the same way they would have pulled meat off an over-cooked short rib.

The intensity of her approach caught me off guard and I inhaled a dried blueberry and began choking. She did not notice the difference between a return of passion and a desperate struggle for life, and the realization hit me: “I am going to die asphyxiating on a blueberry watching Heath Ledger drill a hole in some nerd’s text book while a woman enthusiastically chews my face off.” Shit.

I was finally able to swallow during a brief tactical error and survived our first kiss, but – for a now-confirmed gay man – things don’t get any more real than that moment and I still class blueberries amongst unconventionally deadly things like tire irons and cast-glass door knobs and socks filled with pennies.

I remember on a weekend I’d gone to the house where she was staying to see what she was thinking of doing with the day, knocked on the back door and waited. And waited. I called her cellular phone and got no response so I knocked again and finally heard steps in the house as I was about to leave. She answered the door in whatever she’d woke up wearing with her mouth set in a firm line and moved aside to let me into the kitchen. She was clearly peeved, and I wasn’t sure why. (This being early in our relationship as a couple, I had not yet realized that trying to run her mood through logic wasn’t a productive use of time.)

On the butcher block table (which now lives in my own kitchen) were two place settings, one used, in front of the two stools that lived there and on the stove was a sheet pan bearing what appeared to be baked rocks. I sat down at one of the stools and waited for something to develop.

“Here,” she said in a flat-line voice putting two rocks on my plate with a thud and a clink. “You were supposed to be here earlier. I made breakfast. My mother used to make these when my sister and I were growing up.”

Did her mother make rocks for breakfast when they were growing up to let them know they’d behaved too badly for mere bread and water? Would I have gotten rocks for breakfast if I had come when anticipated? Did I have to actually eat the rocks, or just regard them mournfully and wait for a change of topic? Pending conversation, I sipped tea and made a tentative attempt to cut into one of the rocks.

I later learned the items in question were Scotch Eggs which consisted of a boiled egg rolled in uncooked sausage, then in breadcrumbs and baked until brown. Her eggs had sat meditating in the oven long enough they resembled the handiest tool of a street fight.

From that point forward, things began curdling between us more often than sparking and because everyone knows confined spaces soothe hostile situations, I thought a road trip to one of my favorite places might be fun. Sort of like Camp David, but without warring Middle Eastern factions or the involvement of even one Bush.

An hour and a half north of where I lived in Michigan is a national forest, and in that national forest is a spot called Iargo Springs. The springs are not a spot commonly known even to people who live in the area because most people think the spot is only another scenic overlook of the Au Sable River.

Next to the overlook platform are over 300 stairs descending to a place where the world seems to stop and time doesn’t exist. It is a heavily wooded place of babbling springs – clear as a fine day and cold as an angry woman’s stare – criss-crossing each other twisting around mossy stones and fallen trees to the river. It is possible to look out across the water at the outside world but there isn’t a building or power line to be seen in any direction.

We had a very quiet drive north until we reached the parking area near the top of the stairs and began to descend. The place had more than the effect I had hoped; I hadn’t realized that having grown up far away, she might not be familiar with this type of terrain at all and just might find it both interesting and possibly a little alarming.

We wandered, and then settled in one of the seating areas overlooking the springs where I took out a note book and began doodling and she sat with a book in her hands looking at the springs and woods until she nudged me and asked with barely-subdued alarm, “Is that a cow!?”

I looked at her very seriously and after reminding her that we had come down over 300 hundred steps asked her if she thought a cow, even a wily, devious and blood-thirsty cow, could do that. Once she agreed this was not likely I looked in the direction she had thought she’d seen a cow: The cow was actually a bear cub ambling casually into a clearing.

When I told her that the cow was really a bear she wondered aloud if it were safe to pet the animal. I was left with the distinct impression that she would never in a million years approach a cow with such familiarity, but a bear – that was different; stuffed bears were given to children all the time, so how dangerous could they be?

Part of me, the petty, bored part, wondered what would happen if I said she could, no, should – even – pet the bear, but then I recalled we were alone and there were bound to be questions if a girl from Texas got mauled petting a bear in the woods of Michigan while her boyfriend watched, so I suggested we take pictures and sit tight.

When the bear’s larger mother arrived, the girl looked at me again as if to ask if now it were alright to approach. I hesitated, but said it was best to leave the animals be.

I think now of the ensuing arguments, episodes of depression and bewilderment, the exchanges of non-compatible wants in life, the confused bartenders, bag ladies and friends and the irrevocable damage done to an innocent vacuum cleaner and I can only shake my head. In retrospect it might’ve been simpler to have just let her pet the cow, but I was hardly to know that at the time.

(This piece was finished on a bus to Patras, Greece.)
SPM