Artful thanks

We finished a late, full breakfast … pumpkin waffles, bacon, eggs.  After, I took the dogs for a much-needed walk.  Now I sit in Dad’s worn easy-chair with my laptop, next to the fireplace. The chair has the room’s best view of the lake. Cindy works a puzzle, Zach watches football and Meghan reads.

Thanksgiving Day at the cottage.

There’s risk in being here at times other than summer.  That’s because what has proved so magical over the years between May and September is far different the rest of the year … and so, perhaps, not as good.

But with this visit, different is good. 

First, the weather. Today’s a testament to its fickleness in November.  Yesterday, the sun poked through the clouds; temperatures were in the 50s – balmy for Northern Michigan.  By afternoon those clouds sunk low, a mix of fog and fine drizzle.  The lake was almost flat, the air nearly still. But by early morning Thanksgiving Day, winds rushed in from the north, beating back the timid, southern breeze.

So this morning, the waves are high, pounding the shore; howling gusts shake the birches. It’s cold and bracing outside, warm and inviting inside. A welcome contrast.

What you forget when you visit just once a year is that this place, and its people, exist year-round.  And the locals really own the entire experience; we merely sample it. Being here at Thanksgiving makes the point.

Last night we drove into Glen Arbor for dinner at Art’s Tavern. Along the way, we noticed how much easier it is to see through the woods.  The leaves are gone, the timber turned into fields of tall sticks – gray, brown and white.

Now we can see cabins and houses we never knew existed.  In some, the windows were lit – likely locals at home.  In others, the windows were dark, the buildings stark silhouettes.

Walking into Art’s is different, too.   In the summer it would be packed and loud, with even more folks waiting outside. Last night it was two-thirds full, the conversations more muted, but still warm and inviting. You could tell that most of the clientele were year-rounders.

Art’s owner moved from table to table, greeting friends.  His name is not Art; it’s Tim Barr. He’s a big-bellied man with white hair and a white beard and a cheery disposition. Last night, he wore a red shirt. A girl at the next table asked him if he was Santa Claus.  “Oh, no,” he chuckled.  Then he winked and said in a secretive voice, “But he’s my brother.”

Art’s is a tourist haven in the summer, with college pennants from every conceivable school wallpapered to the ceiling. I know where to find my favorites. 

But unlike other businesses that cater to tourists, Art’s doesn’t close up tight when the tourists go home.  Its rich, pine-paneled walls, its rustic booths and comfortable bar have served the locals well for years.

Few outsiders know how much history is in Glen Arbor. A touristy spot now, it was born of the lumber found in the heavy woods and the fish hauled from ice-blue Lake Michigan, which is just blocks away.

Settlers began coming here in the 1840s, doing trade with Native Americans camped nearby. But Glen Arbor really didn’t take shape as a fishing and lumber post until years later.

"By 1867, Glen Arbor Township had 200 people, three docks, two hotels, four stores, a blacksmith shop, and a cooper shop,” reports the Leelanau Historical Society. “Gordon Earle built a water-powered shingle mill in 1890, and J.O. Nessen erected a steam-powered lumber mill nine years later."

Frankly, Glen Arbor doesn't seem that much bigger these days. The population in the 2000 census was 788.  There's a main street – M-22 – and a smattering of quaint buildings on both sides of it.  The mills are long gone; small shops and newfound enterprises, such as food company Cherry Republic, dominate now.

Art’s Tavern is 75 years old this year. For years before that, it was called the Blue Goose Saloon by its founder, Frank Sheridan. It was renamed “Art’s” by Frank’s son, Art, who took over after his father was electrocuted in an accident in 1934.

Electricity has not been kind to the Sheridans. An electrical fire destroyed the tavern in 1950.  But Art rebuilt and reopened it the next year.  Tim bought the business in 2000.

Art’s, and all of Glen Arbor, takes Christmas seriously.  Tomorrow night there’s the township’s tree-lighting ceremony.  Tim has adorned the tavern outside with strings of lights, red-bulbed reindeer, a big “Happy New Year” and a giant peace sign.  Other businesses still open for the season also have decorated, though most feature simple white strands vs. Art’s eclectic, electric mix.

And there’s still plenty of cheer inside Art’s (beyond the paper "Ho Ho Ho!" affixed to the pine-paneled wall). Sure, times are tough in Michigan.  There are only 11,000 in this county’s labor force, and close to 1,000 are out of work – a rate of 9 percent.  But that compares well with the state’s overall jobless rate of 15 percent.

It’s the difference between summer and the rest of the year that is so good, so critical … that sustains Glen Arbor.  You see, tourist dollars flow heavily north in the summer, then recede.

Like the fishermen of old, the folks of Glen Arbor catch what money they can when the run is heavy.  And after, they come ashore and repair to Art’s, where they tip a few and watch the other seasons pass.

Last night, on Thanksgiving Eve, they seemed thankful to call Glen Arbor home.

When the couch proved cold

I was 12 years old.  It was 1966, and Dad and I had the habit of sitting on the couch in the living room in the morning, reading the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. He and I would sit starting at about 7 a.m.  He’d leave for work at about 7:30. Before 7, he’d share breakfast with Mom. Then read the paper, then  head to the job. I'd eventually head to school.

So the morning Globe was my morning ritual. Sure, the more prestigious, afternoon Post-Dispatch would arrive each day, though that was handled differently.  I might grab the comics after school, though the rest of the newspaper was untouched, unless Mom took a look.  Dad would collect it after work.

But the Globe -- reading it as the sun came up was how I acquired the newspaper habit.

I mention this for three reasons: 

One, as I find myself reading news feeds on my iPhone more and newspapers less, I feel both encouraged and guilty. More words, more sources … but my profession strains at the change.

Second, those moments on the couch with Dad were profound for me.  He’d sit on the far left of the couch, I in the middle.  He’d start with the sports section, then the front page, then the local section.  I’d read whatever he got through first, or whatever he hadn’t yet touched, in no particular order. 

That couch was my window on the world.

Third, we would read ancillary publications as well – magazines and such. And there is one in particular that haunts me to this day.  It was in Life Magazine or perhaps the Saturday Evening Post.  That’s foggy now.  But a magazine had published excerpts from the then-celebrated novel of Truman Capote, “In Cold Blood.”  I suspect the magazine sat on the coffee table in front of the couch, and I got hooked while waiting for Dad to give up a section of the paper.

If you don’t know the story, it’s gruesome and, ironically, somewhat local to me, now that we live in Kansas City:  Two drifters shoot to death a rural Kansas family, the Clutters. The 50th anniversary of the event is Sunday. Capote chose to explore each individual involved in the murders and the following investigation, and in turn produced one of America’s greatest literary works and perhaps the best example of the non-fiction novel, which ushered in so-called “new journalism.”

Of course, back then, I saw it only as a horrid tale of innocents being blown to bits by thugs in black leather jackets.  That Dad let me read the excerpts is interesting, though I can’t remember, ever, Dad or Mom telling me to not read something.

At the time, my bedroom was a small second-floor space to the left at the top of the stairs.  At each end were doors to an attic, on the same level, circling around my bedroom at the front side of the house like a tight belt.  The attic, as attics are, was dark, closed off, full of cobwebs and mystery.

The attic was creepy, sure. And after reading the Cold Blood excerpts, creepier still.  But I knew the threat wasn’t from someone behind those attic doors.  No, the threat was two guys in black leather, invading from without, then walking up the stairs of the house, armed, ready to blow my brains out. Exactly what happened to the Clutter family.

For months if not a couple of years, I had a ritual to prevent my own Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, at right, from climbing those stairs.  In hindsight, it was plenty odd.  But it did the trick. I’m alive, aren’t I?

You see, after the lights were out and I said my nightly prayers – which included requested blessings for all of my family, dog Judy and the guinea pig – I did this hand thing where I would stick my hand out like I was stopping traffic. I would bend the hand in different directions as I mentally tracked the path through my door, down the stairs, then right at the bottom of the stairs to the front door, then backtracking to the left at the bottom of the stairs to the back door.

The hand was my way of keeping evil from entering the house, climbing the stairs, doing the bloody deed.  My own “brick wall.”

Only after doing the weird hand motions would sleep come.

Clearly, Capote’s prose had chilled me to the bone.  If you read the book today, you’re struck by the succinctness of the author’s words, the ample-yet-tempered description, the obvious conviction on his part that the facts should tell the story, not the writer's thick prose. Check it out.

That a pre-teen could soak that up, enthralled yet terrified, to the point that I still vividly remember the details 42 years later, reveals the muscle, the fortitude of the written word, deftly done.

Dad was a voracious reader … of newspapers, magazines, and so many books. I’m sure he never knew of the profound effect Capote's excerpts had on me while I quietly sat to his right on the couch.

But I expect he’d approve.

That couch was my window on the world.  And the world isn’t always a nice place.