Adventures of "Tom" and "Huck"

By Mike VanBuren

From the late March edition of The North Woods Call

    The coming of spring always brings back memories of growing up in rural Michigan, when roaming the freshly awakened woods and wetlands was relatively safe and uninhibited.
    My friends and I were free to do most anything we wanted in the Great Outdoors, as long as it was legal and we were home by suppertime.

     It was a time—in our lives, at least—when it didn’t take government programs and environmental activists to make sure that “no child was left inside.”  That was the last place any self-respecting kid wanted to be.

   Richard Louv’s 2005 book, “Last Child In the Woods,” was decades away from being published and nobody in our orbit gave much thought as to where we would spend our days.  It was simply assumed that we would be outside wading streams, climbing trees and generally burning off the youthful energy that many of us wish we still had today.

    The  mother  of  one of  my friends often referred to her son and me as “Tom and Huck,” reminiscent of the adventurous Mark Twain characters, Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.  We even tried to build rafts, as I recall, to float down tiny Spring Brook after the spring rains came.

     Those were the days when parents didn’t have to worry so much about their kids being kidnapped, murdered or otherwise harmed by criminal weirdos with ill-intent, although we were routinely warned to be wary of strangers before we headed out of the house.

    Truth be told, the entire neighborhood kept watchful eyes and ears on us, and news of any misdeeds or trouble was likely to reach home before we did.

    It was a time when we didn’t lock our houses—unless the family expected to be gone for several days—ignition keys were always left in the cars and our garage door was seldom closed, day or night, from April through October.

    And  nothing  ever  came  up missing.

     In short, it was a glorious era  to be growing up before the widespread lawlessness, violence and general disrespect for the rights of others metastacized and became the cancer on our society that it is today.  No child that I knew needed to be coddled and sheltered within the walls of a protected home or day-care facility.

     So we roamed pretty much at will—camping, fishing, hunting, swimming, biking, wrestling, playing ball, building forts, catching frogs and exploring our world—from the time the morning chores were done until the skies darkened, night fell and we dragged our weary bodies up the stairs to bed.

     The benefits were obvious.  We strengthened our muscles, tested our endurance and got more exercise in one day than most children addicted to television, computers and electronic games get in a month—or more.

     Even our most inactive moments (every kid needs to rest from time-to-time) still involved much social interaction with friends and neighbors—playing croquet on the front lawn, participating in marathon front porch games of  Risk, or plotting our next outdoor adventure.

     And the related discoveries were legion.

     We might huddle beneath a trestle of the CK&S Railroad and feel the earth shake as the trains passed overhead, hike a few miles down the tracks to buy candy at the small store on Riverview Drive, dig spent lead from the sandy hillsides at nearby firearm target ranges, or search for lost arrows in the weeds behind straw-bale targets at the local rod and gun club.

     Once, “Tom” and I found a pile of unopened mail along a side road.  It had been stolen from a local seed company and we thought we had found a great treasure—especially when we ripped into the envelopes and retrieved several dollars in illegitimate cash that our parents promptly made us give back.  That was OK, because we got something even better—a coveted ride in a patrol car when a sheriff’s deputy came to investigate the incident.  

     Sleeping out at night—under the stars or in a canvas pup tent—was a special summertime treat and we did it as often as possible.  Escaping the valley where we lived to ride our bicycles five miles into the village of Richland also fueled our wanderlust and growing desire for greater freedom.

     It’s sad to think back on those times and realize what so many of today’s children are missing.

     Thanks in part to Louv’s aforementioned book, many people are now realizing this disconnect and legislative efforts are being made to amend the 2001 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (No Child Left Behind Act) to include environmental education.  Several states have already passed their own bills aimed at re-aquainting children with nature.

    Such laws were largely unnecessary in our neighborhood when I was a child, but most things now seem to involve some kind of government action.  Even so—like almost everything else—the political debate has been polarizing.  Critics claim such legislation will be ineffective and is intended to spread a political agenda to children.  Supporters insist that there are countless benefits to including environmental education in elementary and secondary schools.

     With the deceitful and corrupt nature of  modern politics, who knows what to believe?

     One thing that’s clear, however, is that children learn much and benefit greatly from being in the out-of-doors.  And the best education comes when this experience is unencumbered by too many rules and regulations.

     It’s all about freedom—to explore, learn and absorb the rhythms of nature at one’s own pace.

      Maybe  if  we  just  turned  the television off and put down our myriad electronic gadgets, our children could better see and taste  the world around them.

    Only then will their own curiosity lead them outside into the lives of fresh-air adventure that we all need for a more healthy and balanced life.

Water wars

By Mike VanBuren
From the early March edition of The North Woods Call

   When I was a boy, my grandmother sent me a postcard from Arizona. It was covered with pictures of desert plants and animals. There were cacti, jackrabbits and rattlesnakes—each well adapted to the harsh climate.
   My grandmother was well adapted, too—having lived in Phoenix for many years. But her needs were different from the coyotes and roadrunners that populated the countryside. They'd learned to get by on less. She—like the rest of us—was dependent on generous supplies of clean, fresh water.
     The Southwest, you see, is a thirsty place. The sun is bright and hot. And the land is dry. It's enough to send a Gila monster out for a tall glass of cold sarsparilla. And it has made many misguided public servants cast greedy eyes on the Great Lakes.
     The reasons are simple. Water is critical to life, and to many social and economic activities. In some areas—such as Arizona—water is in short supply.
     The Great Lakes Basin contains about twenty percent of the freshwater on the surface of the earth. Why not just redistribute it so everyone has enough?
     Some profiteers—and politicians with dry tongues—like this idea.  But I don't.
     Water is already being pumped in and out of the Great Lakes on a relatively small scale. Fortunately, no major diversions are currently planned. But some public officials and environmental leaders say it's just a matter of time.
     The population is expanding in many parts of the country where water is scarce. Recent census results show that some of the fastest-growing states—Arizona, California, Nevada and Texas—are also among those most in need of water.
    The census also shows that those states will gain seats in Congress, while the Great Lakes region loses seats. That means that it could be harder to win a congressional vote to restrict the sale of Great Lakes water.
     Siphoning lake water makes perfect sense to those who don't know—or care—about ecosystems. But scientists say such activity could harm plants and animals. It could upset the balance of nature, lower groundwater levels, reduce water quality, and even impact the climate.
     And what happens if you have to shut the spigot off for some reason? Who's going to tell the folks in Sun City that the well is dry?
     My home state of Michigan is almost entirely within the Great Lakes basin. We have everything to lose and very little to gain if water is taken. Our economy is tied to shipping, fishing, agriculture, recreation and tourism. These activities depend on the Great Lakes being healthy and vibrant.
     That's why we all need to conserve water and develop strong policies to prevent raids on the resource.
     Now, I love Arizona and I'm pleased my grandmother could live there. But if she had wanted to drink from the Great Lakes, she probably should have moved back to Michigan.

           *           *           *

    This column originally appeared as a commentary on National Public Radio’s Living on Earth program and on Michigan Public Radio.

Big Elk: Indian herbalist

By Mike VanBuren
From the late February edition of The North Woods Call

    When Herbert Gleason Mingo was born on February 22, 1851, Millard Fillmore was president of the United States and Abraham Lincoln was still a prairie lawyer nine years from the White House.
     It was the year that Yosemite Valley was discovered in California, Herman Melville published his classic novel “Moby Dick” and abolitionist Sojourner Truth addressed the first Black Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.
     By the time Mingo died on February 25, 1957—at the enviable age of 106—automobiles and airplanes were in widespread use, America was rushing headlong into the space age, and the mighty  Mackinac Bridge would soon make Michigan’s Upper Peninsula more easily accessible to hunters, fishermen and tourists.
    Better known as Big Elk, Mingo was a Native American medicine man—a skilled herbalist whose extensive knowledge  was based in years of hand-me-down mentoring from tribal elders, and an expert eye for wild plants and potions that were proven cures for human ailments.
     I have vague memories of Big Elk—perhaps because I may have seen him once as a small child, but more likely from family stories about his legendary powers as a traditional healer.
     I have clearer memories of visiting his home south of Stanwood with my parents and sister in the years following his death, and talking to Mrs. Arnold—Big Elk’s longtime assistant, understudy and housekeeper—who at the time was still dispensing herbs to legions of loyal customers who came to her door.
     On one such occasion, Mrs. Arnold was angry with the medicine man because, she said, he had appeared to her when she visited his grave at the White Cloud Cemetery and told her there was no reason for her to do so.
     “I’ll never go back,” she said.
     Our family became acquainted with Big Elk when my great-grandfather, Phillip Spalla—a Sicilian immigrant with asthma who used to spend the annual pollen season picking fruit on farms in the Traverse City area—learned of the herbal healer and sought help with his breathing problems.  Spalla was so satisfied with the results that he began referring friends and relatives to Big Elk.
   According to my father, my grandmother was once so deathly ill with an unknown malady that  medical doctors had given up on fixing the problem.  Spalla and other family members wrapped her in a blanket, put her in the back seat of a Model A Ford and hauled her to northern Michigan.  There Big Elk brewed a concoction of herbs and had her drink the aromatic liquid as hot as she could stand it.  A few hours later—after napping and sweating out the illness—she was feeling well enough to drive part-way home.
     Big Elk liked my great-grandfather and other family members, and sometimes would cook up several of the large catfish that he raised in a small pond behind his house on Mecosta County’s 177th Avenue along the old Pennsylvania Railroad tracks.
     He was reportedly a soft-spoken and friendly man of relatively few words, who stood tall and straight, even as an old man.  I remember an over-sized wooden chair at his home that seemed—to a small child, at least—to have been built for a giant.
     Even as he neared his 101st birthday, Big Elk was “surprisingly agile, hears remarkably well, reads without glasses and retains his own teeth,” according to a February 20, 1952, story in the Big Rapids Pioneer newspaper.
     He told the reporter that he expected to live significantly longer, thanks to “the strength, faith and trust sent to him from his friends in various parts of the world, consumption of his own herbs and faith in the Great Spirit God.”
    Big Elk knew the land on which he lived and the medicinal quality of the plants he found there. He gathered them in the woods and fields surrounding his house, then dried, milled and packaged them in another small building next door.  His office was usually closed on Mondays while he searched for the herbs.
     Today, the beginnings of a residential housing development have appeared in the nearby woodland  where the medicine man found his plants.  And Morley-Stanwood High School and football stadium occupy the property just across the railroad tracks from the two-story clapboard house where Big Elk lived for the last 27 years of his long and storied life.
     Born in Mashpee, Massachusetts—the son of a Pequot chief—Big Elk was already nearly 80-years-old when he settled in Mecosta County.  Prior to that, he had reportedly traveled over most of the American continent, as well as portions of Siberia, Australia, China, Japan, Africa and the South Pacific islands.
  As a young man, he was a courier from Fort Simcoe, Washington, traveling to Wanatchee, the Powder River basin, Okanagan in British Columbia, and Penderilla—a route of about 700 miles.  It was a six-week trip that he usually made on horseback over Indian trails through wild and hostile country, requiring significant physical strength, endurance and courage.
     There is little else I know about Big Elk—or his life and times—except that his house still sits at the dead-end of 177th Avenue between Morley and Stanwood, along what is now the White Pine Trail Linear State Park.  Another family lives there now and I wonder whether they are aware of the rich legacy of herbal medicine that their home represents.
     It’s a fine history of a memorable man—connected in a small way to my own family’s story.
    I think there’s still much to be learned from Herbert Mingo, as we journey through life and seek to heal our own bodies and souls.

Early March edition

Hot off the press!  The early March issue (Vol. 60, No. 7) of The North Woods Call goes in the mail March 6, 2013.  (electronic subscribers have already received their copies).  See stories about Great Lakes water levels and dredging, the continuing wolf-hunting debate in Michigan, "Cops in the North Woods" (conservation officers), and much more.  Subscribe now and don't miss a single issue!