An editorial from the Early July 2013 North Woods Call
As summer kicks into high gear and outdoor temperatures escalate—along with gasoline prices—garage doors roll open and increasing numbers of would-be wild ones emerge on their two-wheeled cruising machines.
They clutch the chrome handlebars, twist the throttle and roar off down the open road in search of freedom and camaraderie. There’s nothing quite like the joy of acceleration and the feel of a warm wind in your face. We get that.
What we don’t understand, is why so many motorcycles—particularly, it seems, Harley Davidsons—have to be so doggone noisy. After all, aren’t there ordinances in most communities that prevent any person or group of people from disturbing the peace?
Yet, we’ve often been walking along a quiet roadway contemplating pleasant thoughts when one or more of these vibrating vehicles come sailing by, breathing fire from their lungs and bellowing like medieval dragons on steroids.
What’s that all about? We’d likely get a ticket from some irritated neighborhood constable if we did something similar with our automobile.
Don’t get us wrong. We like the whole idea of motorcycles—their “stick it in the man’s eye” independence, fuel efficiency and most everything else they represent. In the often spirit-crushing culture in which we live, we need something to help us get in touch with our rebel souls.
So go to it easy riders. Feel free to get your motors running, head out on the highway and look for adventure—whatever comes your way. Some days we wish we could throw on a brightly colored bandanna, tight leather jacket and pair of stout boots, and climb aboard for the ride.
But is it too much to ask that you add an effective muffler to your list of essential gear?
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
Powering up sans fossil fuels
An editorial from the Early August 2013 North Woods Call
As the world debates climate change and contemplates ways to reduce the use of fossil fuels, President Obama says he wants to spend $7 billion to bring electrical power to rural Africa.
The president, of course, is not talking about coal-fired power plants, but rather developing new sources of clean energy to benefit those who currently live off the power grid.
This is a worthy goal, although one wonders if we yet have the technology—or money—to accomplish it without fossil fuels.
Energy use has jumped exponentially around the world as people everywhere plug in, turn on, and demand even more of the electronic devices and 21st Century conveniences that eat energy like hungry wolves. The world’s population has grown by leaps and bounds. Air and automobile travel are at record levels. And consumer goods and agricultural projects are being shipped to even more distant markets.
One idea that has been floated by the president’s team is a soccer ball that generates electricity when kids kick it around, storing up energy for later uses, such as powering home light bulbs, or charging phones. Ideas like this may be a testament to mankind’s ingenuity, but are we really going to electrify the world and meet our growing energy needs with such inventions?
Excuse our skepticism, but maybe this is just one more way to launder U.S. tax dollars for other purposes—such as special-interest payoffs and perpetual political campaigns.
Whatever the motivation—noble or otherwise—we probably have a long way to go before we solve the fossil fuel problem.
As the world debates climate change and contemplates ways to reduce the use of fossil fuels, President Obama says he wants to spend $7 billion to bring electrical power to rural Africa.
The president, of course, is not talking about coal-fired power plants, but rather developing new sources of clean energy to benefit those who currently live off the power grid.
This is a worthy goal, although one wonders if we yet have the technology—or money—to accomplish it without fossil fuels.
Energy use has jumped exponentially around the world as people everywhere plug in, turn on, and demand even more of the electronic devices and 21st Century conveniences that eat energy like hungry wolves. The world’s population has grown by leaps and bounds. Air and automobile travel are at record levels. And consumer goods and agricultural projects are being shipped to even more distant markets.
One idea that has been floated by the president’s team is a soccer ball that generates electricity when kids kick it around, storing up energy for later uses, such as powering home light bulbs, or charging phones. Ideas like this may be a testament to mankind’s ingenuity, but are we really going to electrify the world and meet our growing energy needs with such inventions?
Excuse our skepticism, but maybe this is just one more way to launder U.S. tax dollars for other purposes—such as special-interest payoffs and perpetual political campaigns.
Whatever the motivation—noble or otherwise—we probably have a long way to go before we solve the fossil fuel problem.
Of people and climate change
An editorial from the Early August 2013 North Woods Call
Here’s something sure to irritate those who swoon over carbon taxes and plead for ever more U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations. But it has to be said.
The President of the United States recently declared war on climate change—especially coal-fired power plants—and signaled that he would prosecute that war with executive orders and bureaucratic decrees. To heck with Congress, or anyone else who belongs to the “Flat Earth Society” and isn’t smart enough to know that human activity is the primary cause of this “crisis.”
The simple fact that many politicians, scientists and environmentalists know this “inconvenient truth” is apparently enough for them to force even the most draconian and costly actions on society to correct the problem.
Never mind that some other scientists disagree with these conclusions, and that a large portion of the population isn’t yet “enlightened” enough to understand that fossil fuels and industrial activities will soon render the earth uninhabitable.
And never mind that the nation is broke, or that many of its hard-working citizens are unemployed and financially stressed.
More taxes, more spending and more government mandates are the remedies for all our woes, they seem to believe.
We’ve said before that we don’t know how to sort through all the conflicting testimony in this matter. If the climate is indeed changing—and there’s some short-term evidence, at least, that suggests it may be—what is the real cause?
The president and Al Gore, among others, tell us unequivocally that it’s our fault. We drive too much, manufacture too much and generally live beyond what a finite earth can sustain. Maybe so.
But why should we believe THEM? After all, they’re politicians and they’ve demonstrated repeatedly that they routinely lie about almost everything.
If this is such an urgent matter that requires the emergency subversion of our representative republic to correct, why does the president seem to be in the air more than he is on the ground—burning hundreds of thousands of gallons of high-octane jet fuel during never-ending campaign and vacation trips? Why doesn’t he and other advocates of global warming and climate change model the behavior they demand that we adopt?
The same question might be posed to members of often left-leaning and self-righteous environmental groups, who seem to drive, fly and consume fossil fuels as much as anyone else.
We don’t claim to be Nobel Prize-winning climatologists. Nor do we claim—as so many others do—to know the absolute truth about this contentious issue. But we think it deserves a more honest, serious and much less politically influenced conversation.
The way forward, in our opinion, is for those who embrace the notion of man-made climate change to offer clear and easily understandable arguments—backed by verifiable science—that will convince the naysayers of the validity of their position.
As it is today, there’s way too much mocking and demonizing of those who prefer a more careful examination of such evidence—pro and con—before agreeing to further line the pockets of politicians, crony capitalists and bureaucrats who seem to be much more interested in themselves than in saving the world.
Friday, July 5, 2013
Trapping tourists
By Mike VanBuren
From the early July 2013 edition of The North Woods Call
Summer has officially arrived in northern Michigan, along with the annual influx of tourists looking for recreation and quality outdoor experiences.
Summer has officially arrived in northern Michigan, along with the annual influx of tourists looking for recreation and quality outdoor experiences.
The
vacationers have been greeted, once again—as they have for many decades—by legions of
gargantuan figures that stand solemn guard over many state highways. These figures are easy to spot, posing
rigidly along the roadways while waiting to accept star billing in somebody’s
photo album, home video, or slide show.
Inevitably, a road-tripping family from Flint, Detroit, or Grand Rapids
will come along, careen off the blacktop in their mini-van and slide to a dusty
halt amidst flying gravel. The
kids will jump from the car and race to strike a giddy pose for Dad, who will peer through the
viewfinder of his camera and capture the special moment for posterity.
Then they’ll all head for the gift shop—there’s usually one close by—in
search of fake Indian-bead belts, tiny birch bark canoes, or some other cheap
and inauthentic trinket from Asia to help them remember the occasion.
As for me, I
generally turn away in callous indifference and keep driving. I’m too old to get excited about
incredible hulks of hardened plaster spread over wood and chicken wire
frames. Besides, if I want,
I can always visit them on the way back.
The elephantine forms will certainly be there for a while, waiting
patiently for the next carload of money-toting tourists to come whizzing by.
These herculean dust collectors range from bearded folk heroes to
domestic and wild animals. They
are often brightly colored and magnified many times by dimensionally challenged
craftsmen. If I didn’t know
better, I’d think an army of jumbo knickknacks had invaded the north country.
Without a doubt, one of the most popular northern creations is Paul
Bunyan—an overgrown, ax-wielding lumberjack who can sometimes be seen standing
next to his beloved companion, Babe the Blue Ox. A cute couple, to be sure, and one that I confess posing
alongside a time or two when I was a child traveling between state parks with
my parents and sister.
Large
inanimate bears and moose are also popular among the prodigious artisans who
build these towering monuments to the north woods. Throw in some antique
automobiles, and perhaps some stuffed deer hunter mannequins, and you have a
recipe for upper Michigan intrigue.
Back when I worked in Kalkaska during the late 1970s and early 1980s,
the village seemed to be rich in candidates for the yet-to-be-established
Monster Statue Hall of Fame.
Anyone who drove through the village in those days was greeted by a rich
variety of cyclopean replicas.
There was a chicken, a jumping trout, a pink hippopotamus and a foraging
bear—not to mention the obese toddler balancing a double-deck hamburger at the
southern end of town.
Further north, about halfway to Mancelona, an entire colony of
mastodonic critters has resided for years in the forest along U.S. 131. Last time I checked, there was an
elephant, an eight-foot-tall rabbit, and a host of other stiff and hollow
mammals. Tucked away in the trees,
as I recall, was even a small replica of Noah’s Ark, which I suspect the
animals use whenever it rains.
Mt. Mancelona may not be as majestic as Mt. Ararat, but nobody seems
quite sure where Noah’s floating zoo actually came to rest. I think I know.
At one
time, I thought that Kalkaska County—once known for lumber and more recently
for crude oil—might attempt to become the nation’s leading producer of Goliath
souvenirs, designed for and, of course, sold to money-oozing tourists from
Brobdingnag and beyond.
It would have been the natural next chapter to the local development
story. With badly twisted logic
caused by attending too many Economic Development Corporation meetings, I
figured the county could well emerge as the only community anywhere in the
world to manufacture northern Michigan souvenirs for visiting giants—beings
long associated with abnormal growth.
And there I was in the middle of it all, never having taken a ceramics
class.
Monday, June 24, 2013
Friday, June 21, 2013
Last call for Shep & Mary Lou
By Mike VanBuren
From the late June 2013 edition of The North Woods Call
The stacks of loose paper, piles of books and racks of charred smoking pipes that defined Glen Sheppard’s basement office are gone now. The well-used ceiling maps have disappeared and the built-in gun cabinet is empty.
From the late June 2013 edition of The North Woods Call
The stacks of loose paper, piles of books and racks of charred smoking pipes that defined Glen Sheppard’s basement office are gone now. The well-used ceiling maps have disappeared and the built-in gun cabinet is empty.
Only a couple of steel file cabinets and the legendary conservation writer’s laminate-topped desk remain—and they’ll soon be hauled away.
Nearby, at the opposite end of the basement, Shep’s fly-tying paraphernalia, fishing reels and extensive collection of tools have been cleared from the wooden work benches. Only a few stray items are left to remind us of the many years he inhabited this space as an avid outdoorsman and longtime publisher of The North Woods Call.
Up a narrow spiral staircase on the main floor of the Turkey Run home south of Charlevoix, Michigan, the rooms have been emptied in preparation for a series of estate sales in the large garage and nearby pole barn outside, which are now stuffed with a lifetime of memories. Furniture, outdoor clothing, fishing and camping gear, inflatable boats, hand and power tools, assorted household items, several prints by wildlife artist Jim Foote and a large collection of cribbage boards—some of which Shep made himself—are on display, along with numerous other personal items that are available for purchase.
My wife and I are here to load and carry away 40-plus years of unbound newspaper archives that are stored in boxes, plastic bags and random stacks in Shep’s basement, as well as in the still-cluttered upstairs office once belonging to his wife and business partner, Mary Lou.
The former business office is located just inside the back door, a few feet from the now barren kitchen dining area where Shep once held court for governors, Michigan Department of Natural Resources officials and field staff, fellow journalists and assorted other visitors—including yours truly—who made regular pilgrimages to the wooded drumlin on which the Sheppard home sits.
Mary Lou kept track of the books, circulation figures, advertising, phone calls and most everything else with which Shep did not want to be troubled—including Shep himself—while he did the reporting and writing.
The feisty scribe passed away in January 2011 at the age of 74 and Mary Lou followed not long after in late December 2012. Many conservationists have called it “the end of an era.”
So this is a somewhat wistful and reflective day for those of us who are walking in their rather large footprints. Yet the sad and decidedly dark cloud that hangs over the reason for our being here is brightened by the general cheerfulness of Mary Lou’s daughter, Jackie Anderson, who has the unenviable task of cleaning everything out and organizing the estate sales. One sale was held a few weeks ago, while the second is occurring today.
Anderson says she expects to hold at least one more sale—maybe more—before she is finished clearing things out and puts the house and accompanying 11-acres on the market.
It’s a grim task and nature is already reclaiming Mary Lou’s once-immaculate flower and vegetable gardens. Two picturesque wooden swings where the couple reportedly sat to enjoy their outdoor Shangri-la are hanging overgrown and unused.
But Shep would likely scoff at any latent sentimentality. “He lived, he died and he’s gone” is the only epitaph needed, he once told a friend, and he insisted on no memorial service to celebrate his life and times. The same is apparently true for Mary Lou.
Both were cremated upon their deaths and their ashes scattered in locations meaningful to them. A bit of Shep resides for posterity in the woods surrounding his former home, according to Anderson, and the rest will likely be placed soon in the “Holy Waters” of the Au Sable River, a place dear to the hearts of both Shep and his father.
Mary Lou, on the other hand, loved to travel and requested that family members take her ashes along on trips, leaving portions behind at various special locations. Her wishes have already been carried out in Hawaii, Ireland and the United States, Anderson said, and there are more of her remains waiting to be scattered whenever other family members feed their wanderlust.
As for my wife and I, we elect to honor their memories by visiting one of their favorite restaurants—The Front Porch in nearby Ellsworth—where in later years Shep and Mary Lou are said to have eaten lunch nearly every day. I was here with Mary Lou twice myself after she sold me The Call.
As the nonprofit ministry of a local church, the small eatery will provide just the kind of nourishment we need on a day like today, when we say our final goodbyes to these tenacious friends and defenders of the north country.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Mothers' Day lessons
By Mike VanBuren
From the early June 2013 edition of The North Woods Call
Last month’s Mothers’ Day celebration at our house was blessed with a magnificent display of nature’s beauty.
In addition to the majesty radiated by women who have fulfilled the duties of motherhood with great honor, selflessness and dedication, we were reminded of God’s own glory by a colorful display of birds at the feeders in our back yard.
There were bright-red cardinals, sunny yellow goldfinches, red-bellied and hairy woodpeckers, blue-gray nuthatches and two pairs of rose-breasted grosbeaks—all at the same time—among assorted other avian critters.
Not bad for a collection of hanging feeders that for one reason or another have been largely bereft of life over the past winter.
Such gracious exhibits of outdoor wonder always cause me to pause and consider the architect behind this resource-rich planet on which we live. There is such incredible artistry, mathematical precision and divine order behind all that we euphemistically call “Mother Nature.”
And some would have us believe that it is all the result of random happenstance.
The Christian holy book, however, instructs otherwise: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse (Romans 1:20).”
Every man and woman, of course, is free to choose whether to accept that instruction, but individual refusal to believe something doesn’t make it any less universally true. I, for one, don’t entirely understand how so many of my fellow sojourners can miss something so obvious, but I know that many do.
How can one not be humbled by the supernatural bounty that we see all around us—not only in the awesome appearance of winged creatures, but in all the richly diverse living things that populate the natural world? The microscopic complexity of a single cell is in-and-of-itself enough to cause me to embrace intelligent design and reflect upon its meaning.
But the purpose here is not to debate theology—or even reality—but simply to express appreciation for all that we have been given by our earthly mothers and beyond.
Fathers’s Day will be here soon, and with it yet another opportunity to count the blessings that emanate from caring parents and a loving home. Far too many children these days grow up without the safety, support and encouragement that an intact family provides. And for that we’re all the poorer.
I assume that the colorful birds I see at our back-yard feeder do not contemplate such weighty issues. Their lives and personal responsibilities are hard-wired into them to be carried out without much argument.
But men and women have been given a choice—to internalize the truths and lessons so loudly proclaimed by the natural world, or to ignore them at our peril.
We have been allowed to use our creativity and intellect to solve many pressing problems and invent numerous life-improving devices. For that we can be grateful.
Yet, while we boast about these great achievements and celebrate the glory of our own minds, we are daily fouling our collective nest. We are abusing our resources, polluting our spiritual lives, tearing apart the world’s social fabric, and crushing the God-inspired institutions that have given structure and purpose to the human experience.
Looking beyond the sunflower seeds, cracked corn and suet that hangs outside our windows and nourishes our feathered visitors, I’m not sure the choices we are making are the right ones.
Are you?
From the early June 2013 edition of The North Woods Call
Last month’s Mothers’ Day celebration at our house was blessed with a magnificent display of nature’s beauty.
In addition to the majesty radiated by women who have fulfilled the duties of motherhood with great honor, selflessness and dedication, we were reminded of God’s own glory by a colorful display of birds at the feeders in our back yard.
There were bright-red cardinals, sunny yellow goldfinches, red-bellied and hairy woodpeckers, blue-gray nuthatches and two pairs of rose-breasted grosbeaks—all at the same time—among assorted other avian critters.
Not bad for a collection of hanging feeders that for one reason or another have been largely bereft of life over the past winter.
Such gracious exhibits of outdoor wonder always cause me to pause and consider the architect behind this resource-rich planet on which we live. There is such incredible artistry, mathematical precision and divine order behind all that we euphemistically call “Mother Nature.”
And some would have us believe that it is all the result of random happenstance.
The Christian holy book, however, instructs otherwise: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse (Romans 1:20).”
Every man and woman, of course, is free to choose whether to accept that instruction, but individual refusal to believe something doesn’t make it any less universally true. I, for one, don’t entirely understand how so many of my fellow sojourners can miss something so obvious, but I know that many do.
How can one not be humbled by the supernatural bounty that we see all around us—not only in the awesome appearance of winged creatures, but in all the richly diverse living things that populate the natural world? The microscopic complexity of a single cell is in-and-of-itself enough to cause me to embrace intelligent design and reflect upon its meaning.
But the purpose here is not to debate theology—or even reality—but simply to express appreciation for all that we have been given by our earthly mothers and beyond.
Fathers’s Day will be here soon, and with it yet another opportunity to count the blessings that emanate from caring parents and a loving home. Far too many children these days grow up without the safety, support and encouragement that an intact family provides. And for that we’re all the poorer.
I assume that the colorful birds I see at our back-yard feeder do not contemplate such weighty issues. Their lives and personal responsibilities are hard-wired into them to be carried out without much argument.
But men and women have been given a choice—to internalize the truths and lessons so loudly proclaimed by the natural world, or to ignore them at our peril.
We have been allowed to use our creativity and intellect to solve many pressing problems and invent numerous life-improving devices. For that we can be grateful.
Yet, while we boast about these great achievements and celebrate the glory of our own minds, we are daily fouling our collective nest. We are abusing our resources, polluting our spiritual lives, tearing apart the world’s social fabric, and crushing the God-inspired institutions that have given structure and purpose to the human experience.
Looking beyond the sunflower seeds, cracked corn and suet that hangs outside our windows and nourishes our feathered visitors, I’m not sure the choices we are making are the right ones.
Are you?
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