Post # 22

Friday, June 15, 2018
Quote for the day: "Those gulls that strolled the beach at Tawas Bay would eat anything. Anything. Anytime. Apples, hot dogs, smoked herring, Michigan dill pickles, Jewish dill pickles, garlic dill pickles, Name it, they'd eat it. They'd eat it even if it didn't have a name." Hazel Girard, Blow for Battens Corner, 1979.


Reviews


American Birding Association Field Guide to Birds of Michigan
By Allen T. Chartier

Casual and intermediate Michigan birdwatcher’s will find this American Birding Association Field Guide a must-have book. It will not only help make Michigan bird identification easier but is filled with a treasure trove of information that will make the reader more knowledgeable and a better-informed birdwatcher.

The three hundred species detailed in the book include all the birds that visit or nest in the state annually plus a few rarities that are seen with some regularity over the years. The fewer birds to sort through than the hundreds listed in a field guide to the eastern United States makes it measurably easier to pick a bird out of a smaller lineup. And because the book is aimed at the beginning and intermediate birdwatcher the birds are not always arranged under the usual taxonomy which sorts them via evolution and relationship, but rather by similar looking
groups.

The book’s introduction will be of special interest to inexperienced birders. Sections discuss bird habitat in the state, tips on how to identify species, several pages of illustrations detailing bird anatomy, and an introduction to field marks and how to look for them. I especially liked an essay on birding throughout the year that highlights what to look for each month. A list of the state’s best birdwatching sites and a map on the front endpapers showing the general locations of state game areas, state parks, state wildlife areas, and National Wildlife Refuges will tempt the beginning birder to go in search of birds other than those seen in the backyard.

Each individual bird listing gives its size in inches and both common and Latin name. The listing usually features more than one photograph of the bird, discusses its general shape and size as compared to similar birds, habitat, behavior, and field marks. The narrative often highlights an unusual or interesting idiosyncrasy of the species' life history or character. At the back of the book, the reader will find an index and a complete checklist of every bird ever seen in Michigan, including the extinct Passenger Pigeon.

The best field guide to date on Michigan birds with a wealth of valuable information on how to improve your birding skills.
American Birding Association Field Guide to Birds of Michigan by Allen T. Chartier. Scott & Nix, 2018, $24.95



The Soldiers of Fort Mackinac: An Illustrated History
by Phil Porter


One's second or even the third visit to Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island can be as interesting and fascinating as the first because of the island fort's outstanding scenic beauty, historical significance, and the overwhelming palpable sense that you are walking in the footsteps of history. I don't remember how many times I've walked up the steep incline to the fort's entrance and stepped back in time but if I ever go there again I want to take this book with me because it puts faces on the fort's history. 

From 1780 to 1895 over 4,500 British and American soldiers were stationed at the fort. It was built by the British to control the fur trade and the Native American tribes that were both military allies and important contributors to the area's economy. Early in its history Fort Mackinac was the most important post in the upper Great Lakes. 

The book devotes a page each to approximately 150 enlisted men and officers who served at or commanded the fort during its military existence. There is a portrait, sketch, or photograph of each soldier followed by a paragraph that covers his military career and the years when he was stationed on Mackinac Island. In a few instances, a photograph or painting of the soldier's family or home is also included in this abundantly illustrated book. A twenty-plus page introductory essay gives a concise but thorough history of the fort.

In addition to England and America, soldiers came to the fort from Prussia, Chile, Ireland, and Scotland. They were a diverse and interesting lot. Lt. Governor Patrick Sinclair was appointed Superintendent of Fort Michilimackinac in 1775 but didn't reach the fort until 1779. He immediately realized the old French-built fort on the mainland was vulnerable to attack by colonial rebels and began construction of Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island. He spent so lavishly on its construction he was recalled to Quebec to explain his expenditures. Sinclair is the only subject in the book without a likeness other than a silhouette. Major Henry Burbeck was the first U.S. commander of the fort. When he arrived in 1796 he wrote, "I find this place abounds with health, rocks, and fish, that's the most I can say for it."

Among other officers that caught my attention was the uncle of the famous painter James Whistler, Lt. Smith whose brutal punishment of enlisted men, that went well beyond the military code and was inflicted without trials, sparked the famous "Christmas Day Mutiny" of 1829.  Several officers who served tours on the island resigned their commisions to join the Confederate army during the Civil War, including Lt. Pemberton who rose to the rank of General in the Confederacy and punctuated the end of his military career by surrendering Vicksburg to General Grant in 1863.  Then there's Ordinance Sgt. David Marshall the oldest and longest serving soldier at Fort Mackinac. He spent 61 years in the army of which nearly thirty were at Fort Mackinac where he died in 1884 at the age of 84.


The author is the Director of the Mackinac State Historic Parks. His agency working with the Michigan State University Press have together produced a beautiful and historically important book. 


The Soldiers of Fort Mackinac: An Illustrated History by Phil Porter. Mackinac State Historic Parks and Michigan State University Press, 2018, $39.95





Tuebor:  I Will Defend: Anatomy of a Michigan State Police Trooper
by Robert Muladore

The author, a twenty-five-year veteran of the Michigan State Police explains why he wrote the book in the preface’s first paragraph. He wanted to give those considering becoming an officer a feel for what the job is about. Secondly, to pass along what he learned about law enforcement to new officers, and extend a “helping hand to experienced officers who may need a gentle reminder to help move them along on the path of a truly professional, caring, and effective police officer.”  Finally, to provide the public some insight into the daily rigors faced by police, to entertain, and pass along hard-earned life lessons. The author set high goals for himself and he clears the bar on every single objective.

Muladore divided his book into 40-plus short chapters. Each chapter recounts a traffic stop, an emergency call, an arrest, telling a family of a loved one's death, and routine duties that suddenly became potentially dangerous and deadly. The stories span the author’s career and he picked them because he considers they were learning experiences that made him a better trooper. They are also great examples of the narrow margin between life and death within which police do their daily job.

The stories in the book are riveting and cover the entire spectrum of emotional involvement. When Muladore had to inform parents their child died in a car accident the father performs an extraordinary act of kindness for Muladore. Realizing how hard it is to be a bearer of such news he relieves Muladore of his burden and in a way comforts him. Then there is the routine traffic stop in which the rich Grosse Pointe couple are both obviously drunk. When Mulaodore relaxes and lowers his guard the husband throws him to the ground and tries to take his gun.

Muladore is a very good storyteller and it is clear that he is the consummate police officer. What shines through almost every story is the author’s admonition to would-be police or rookie cops to never let your guard down, always be alert, and let your sixth sense guide you when something doesn’t ring true or seem right. It is a job of constant stress but the author repeatedly asserts a good cop never lets that get in the way of being respectful, compassionate, or apathetic toward the public.

It is also obvious that any officer who servers even a few years will develop PTSD. Muladore admits the faces of the dead are always with him and he has regular nightmares related to the job. He has been threatened with death by numerous men he arrested and even after retirement he is constantly on the lookout for familiar faces who might try to harm him or his family. Of note, in an afterward Muladore laments and condemns both the use of force that results in police shooting unarmed citizens and the cold-blooded murder of policemen.

This is an honest and revealing portrait of the professional life of one of Michigan’s finest.
Tuebor: I Will Defend: An Anatomy of a Michigan State Police Trooper by Robert Muladore. Principia Media, 2016, $16.99
 









  


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Post #21

Friday, June 1, 2018
Quote of the day: "[In Calumet] the company owned everything: the mines, the school, the library, the stores, the hospital, the coal supply, the water pumps, the garbage wagons, the church and the hymnbooks in the church. It owned the houses. It owned the red paint that added the identical finishing touch to every identical house. It owned the toilets." Robert Conot, describing Calumet during the 1870s in his book The American Odyssey.


Reviews


The Recipe Box
by Viola Shipman

This is a love story. Love of food, baking, family, generational traditions, orchards, the Grand Traverse and Leelanau Peninsula area, recipes, and even old fashion romance.

Sam Nelson’s family owns one of those destination orchards that rim Grand Traverse Bay and entice locals and tourists to stop for pastries, cider and donuts, jams and jellies, and the choice of u-pick the fruit or buy it off the shelf. The orchard has been passed down through several generations of Nelsons and traditionally it’s been the mother of each generation who became the innovator and driving force behind change and renewal of the family business. The wife of the orchard’s founding couple kept a box of her favorite recipes and began the tradition of giving her daughter a copy of the recipe box when she turned thirteen.  

Although she loved the area, the family business, and was a natural at baking, Sam couldn't resist a desire to broaden her experience and see if her talents were good enough to make it on her own. Sam attended a culinary school in New York before being hired by a non-cooking TV celebrity chef who takes all the credit while berating his staff. Sam finally reaches the point where she can’t take anymore, quits, and heads for home to re-evaluate her goals and career path. Her mother and grandmother, co-managers the orchard's pastry shop and store, hope she's home for good. This all occurs in the book’s first forty pages. It takes another 280 very entertaining pages for Sam to decide whether to return to New York or stay and leave her imprint on the orchard as her mother and grandmother have.

Sam finds new joy in baking with her mother and grandma from the recipes handed down through the ages. As her grandmother explains, “The recipe box is the story of our lives, of where we come from, how we got here, and where we are now.” When the women bake a family recipe the narrative flashes back to earlier generations and how they managed to keep the business afloat in the Depression or when all the apple trees died off.  The characters are well-drawn, likable, and the reader can’t help but be pulled into their lives and the connectedness to their land and orchard. When a possible love interest from New York arrives at the orchard for a visit Sam's conundrum becomes more difficult.

The “Pure Michigan” campaign couldn’t have written a more glowing and alluring description of the Leelanau and Traverse Bay region. The beauty of the bay and the land around it literally leap off the page.  The book also contains mouth-watering recipes from the fictional Nelson family. The author lifted many of the recipes from his grandmother who was a great baker, the rest came from friends. The author took his grandmother's name as his pen name as a way of honoring her.

Frankly, this is not the kind of book I’m drawn to but it hooked me within a few pages. And I continued wolfing it down like a piece of coconut cream pie from Jesperson’s in Petoskey, even though I was pretty sure of Sam’s choice by the book’s mid-point.

The Recipe Box by Viola Shipman. St. Martin's Press, 2018, $26.99



Notes from a Public Typewriter
edited by Michael Gustafson and Oliver Uberti

In 2013 the newly married Michael and Hilary Gustafson, against the advice of nearly everyone, opened the Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor. From day one an old manual typewriter was placed in a quiet corner of the store with an empty piece of typing paper in the roller. There were no posted instructions, or rules. The silent, non-judgmental, no password necessary, archaic instrument of social and business intercourse welcomed anyone’s thoughts, feelings, or concerns who sat down and began striking its keys.

Initially, Michael posted the more interesting or funny pieces on what became known as the Wall of Fame.  Then a few of the best were painted on the store’s outside wall in an exact replica of an old Smith-Corona’s font. And finally, for the benefit of those, like myself, who seldom if ever make it to Ann Arbor, Michael Gustafson teamed up with Oliver Uberti to collect, organize, and send the most memorable heartfelt notes, jokes, or observations out into the world between the covers of a book. The collection is divided thematically and each chapter is preceded by a short and thoughtful essay on subjects ranging from old typewriters to the true story of Ann Arbor’s Violin Monster and his act of kindness toward a boy who left him a message on the typewriter.

The notes are funny, sad, joyful, sarcastic, and thoughtful. The old typewriters (the store's patrons have worn out several) seem to bring out the best in people. The click-clack of striking the keys and the letters hitting the paper is the sound of the anonymous revealing their inner thoughts or playing with their sense of humor. Some of my favorites include:

“I walked in expecting to fall in love with books, not the person I walked in with.”
“I wrote a letter to Santa today so he doesn’t think we only talk to him when we want something.”
“My mom used to be a mime. I just found out. She never mentioned it.”
“In loving memory of my older daughter Rachel, who died of cancer at age 26, a year before this store opened. I would get her lots of cookbooks, but….       I can’t.”
“If I had to write a five-paragraph essay on this thing, I would withdraw from middle school.”

This copy will be thumbed through daily as I look for a connection (however tenuous) with anonymous writers who touch my heart, make laugh, or renew my faith in humanity by banging away at an old typewriter.
Notes from a Public Typewriter, edited by Michael Gustafson & Oliver Uberti. Grand Central Publishing, 2018, $18




Inside Upnorth: The Complete Tour, Sport, and Country Living Guide to Traverse City, Traverse City Area and Leelanau County
by Heather Shaw, Jodee Taylor, Tom Carr

I like the way the amount of information on enjoying, appreciating, and seeking out the unusual in the Traverse Bay area and the Leelanau Peninsula has been crammed into this fun and informative book with a shoehorn. The authors even boast that this is a "complete guide" and challenge the reader "to find one as thorough."

Within, the reader will find walking tours of Traverse City, Sleeping Bear Dunes, guides to area golf courses, restaurants, the best coffee houses, craft breweries, hiking and skiing areas, farm markets, orchards, natural areas, and historic sites of interest.  I especially liked the list of 63 summer festivals and concerts in the wider area. Then there are the many how-tos or instructional entrees such as: How to Pee in the Woods, (the following pun was avoidable but I couldn't) How to Harvest Leeks, How to Parallel Park, How to Cast a Fly-Line (which it fails to do), How to Plow Your Driveway, and, in a mere two pages, How to Build a Canoe.

The book warns that global warming may be the end of the area's cherry orchards and affect the production of Maple syrup. It seems warmer weather makes Maple syrup less sweet. Fifty years ago it took 25 gallons of sap to produce a gallon of syrup, today it takes 50 gallons. The danger of the Enbridge Pipeline also gets a few lines. 

Almost every page in the book has the potential to surprise. A lot of the surprises come from the authors' intimate knowledge of the area but some are the result of the book's strange organization and lack of an index. Thumbing through the book I came upon a nude beach but neither chapter headings or an index led me there or helped me find the page again. On one page the book warns that Lake Michigan can be very dangerous for swimming because of rip tides. Dozens of pages later there is a warning about the danger of the big lake's many sandbars. Their distance offshore can be misleading and often swimmers will find themselves in water over their heads long before reaching the shallower sandbar.  Poor swimmers can find themselves in dire straits. These two warnings should be on the same page. I was disappointed in not finding a guide to private campgrounds, Traverse City's food trucks, or a comprehensive listing of the best swimming beaches in the area. 

The greater Traverse City area and Leelanau County hold a world of adventure, an indelible scenic beauty, great food and drink, enough shopping to max out a Platinum credit card, and hordes of people who come for all of the above. If you don't believe it, just thumb through this attractive, entertaining, and one-of-a-kind guidebook.
Inside Upnorth: The Complete Tour, Sport, and Country Living Guide to Traverse City, Traverse City Area and Leelanau County, by Heather Shaw, Jodee Taylor, Tom Carr. Mission Point Press, 2018, $16.95



Leelanau by Kayak: Day Trips, Pics, Tips and Stories of a Beautiful Michigan Peninsula
by Jon R. Constant with Larry Burns

The author is a retired high school teacher and coach from the Traverse City area who became a devoted kayaker who with his friend, a more experienced kayaker, decided in their mid-sixties to kayak the Leelanau Peninsula in its entirety. Meaning the pair kayaked around the peninsula on Lake Michigan and Grand Traverse Bay and then apparently launched their kayaks on any body of water or stream big enough to float their boats.

The book is both the story of their grand adventure and a guide for kayaking either around the peninsula or any of its inland lakes and streams. For the novice kayaker, he lists the necessary equipment from the size of a kayak best suited for the big lake to all the esoteric paraphernalia needed for the paddler, including the paddle. The author fills nearly two pages on just preparing for a kayak outing and offers valuable safety tips which include being very cautious and conservative on the big lake, don't kayak alone, check and recheck the weather before leaving home, and stay close to shore. 

The kayakers grand adventure was accomplished solely by day trips over the course of three years. Each day trip is treated as a chapter in which the author gives a short introduction to the area being paddled. Then covers specifics such as the date of the trip, the location, access points for launching the kayaks, the planning, time and distance of the voyage.  Under the heading "Features," the author recounts the history of the villages, ghost towns, shipwrecks and other places of interest their kayaks take them. This section also includes vivid descriptions of the landscape and natural beauty that unfolds before them with every stroke. Accompanying the text is an abundance of photographs recording each day's journey.

Anyone considering kayaking this corner of Michigan should consider the book a must, and if the reader is not a kayaker they may well be tempted to give it a try after dipping into the book.

Leelanau by Kayak by Jon R.Constant with Larry Burns. Mission Point Press, 2018, $21.95


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