Splittin' The Mitten's leisurely trip through the Lower Peninsula

With the advent of the interstate highway system, many Americans forgot about the beauty of rolling through small towns connected by old state highway systems. Michigan has approximately 57,000 square miles of land, but many Michiganders miss out on vast expanses of beautiful land while hurrying along I-69, I-75, I-94, and I-96.

Splittin' The Mitten: Get Your Kicks On Michigan's Route 66 takes its readers back to a time before the interstate highway system. The book's authors, John and Becky Schlatter, focus on Michigan's state highway M-66, a road running north-south from the Indiana border to Lake Michigan, literally splitting the Lower Peninsula, aka the Mitten, in half.

The Schlatters write in a conversational tone, and the book feels more like a travel memoir than a guidebook as a result. They highlight each town and major landmark along the 273 miles of M-66. With a population of 52,000, Battle Creek is the largest city along the journey. The rest of the towns along M-66 are much smaller, but they all seem to have the same two things: at least one ice cream shop and an old bank building at the town's main intersection.

The End of Best of the Net

One of my goals when I started this blog was to spread the word about the good things happening in the state of Michigan. For the past several months, I have written Best of the Net, a weekly (sometimes biweekly) summary of the best news stories from Michigan.

The bad news is that this feature has not attracted readers like I had hoped it would, so I have decided to cease writing it. The good news is that my other features are attracting more readers (and I am thrilled that people find my original content to be more interesting than summaries of other news stories), so I will continue to write my own stories about Michigan. Writing Best of the Net was time consuming and hopefully discontinuing it will allow me more time to write my own stories.

Since there are so many easy ways to access and follow news about Michigan, I assume that most people who would be interested in Best of the Net were not reading it because they had already seen its stories on Twitter or other social media. I encourage people to follow me at https://twitter.com/LLMichigander and to follow other Michigan news sources (both major newspapers and smaller independent media) for positive Michigan news stories. I regularly tweet links to positive stories and my own content and feel like Twitter is the best way to share stories that other people have written.

Finally, I recently reviewed a book and a documentary and would be interested in reviewing other books or films about Michigan. I also am interested in writing about startups and nonprofits throughout Michigan. Please contact me at jeff@lifelongmichigander.com if you would like me to write about your business, nonprofit, book, movie, or any other positive Michigan news stories.

Burn: A must-see movie

Photo courtesy of Burn

I generally despise calling something a "must-see movie" because the media and movie studios overuse the phrase and apply it to blockbuster action movies that no one really must see. However, sometimes a film comes along that everyone should see. Burn: One Year on the Frontlines of the Battle to Save Detroit is such a film. The documentary follows the lives of the firefighters of Engine Company 50 on Detroit's East Side.

The movie opens with firefighters huddled together outside the door of a burning brick house. Flames outline the door until one of the men pushes the door in with his axe, causing a fireball to explode outward from the home. As the camera focuses on the inferno inside the house, the company's Field Engine Operator Dave Parnell's voice utters, "I wish my head could forget what my eyes have seen in thirty-two years of firefighting." After watching this film, the audience will not forget what their eyes have seen.

For the next hour and twenty minutes, filmmakers Tom Putnam and Brenna Sanchez give their viewers an awe-inspiring perspective of the lives and struggles of Detroit firefighters. The action includes footage of firefighters entering the depths of houses with fire raging all around them and no idea what dangers lie ahead. The firefighters of Company 50 explain that Detroit firefighters fight the fire from the inside and that observers would be more likely to see them shooting water out of a house instead of the usual image of firefighters shooting water in.

Best of the Net 3/19-3/31

A dog, a child, a family, a community

Some stories remind us of humanity's capacity for kindness while also reminding us of the unique bond between humans and dogs. The Battle Creek Enquirer recently featured one such story. Five-year-old David Facey was born with cerebral palsy and severely addicted to drugs, and doctors did not believe he would live past his first birthday. Despite his health issues, Arlen and Betty Facey fostered David and later adopted him. They then invested thousands of dollars to get Venture, a service dog, for David.

Venture and David quickly bonded. David learned to accomplish physical goals with Venture's help, and Venture alerts when David's oxygen becomes low. Unfortunately, Venture suffered a leg injury that would have made him unable to serve David. However, several charities worked to raise money for Venture's surgery. Thanks to the help of strangers, Venture is now helping David succeed again.

Rebuilding lives from crumbling buildings

Jewelry company Rebel Nell uses graffiti from crumbling Detroit buildings to make jewelry. As reported by PolicyMic, Rebel Nell's co-founders have partnered with the Coalition on Temporary Shelter (COTS) to hire women staying at shelters. Rebel Nell's ultimate goal is to help the women transition into permanent housing.

Q & A: Jean Scheffler, Author of The Sugar House

I had the opportunity to speak with author Jean Scheffler about her novel The Sugar House. The Sugar House is a gripping tale about Detroit from 1915 to the 1930s [for an in-depth review, click here]. The story’s protagonist, Joe Jopolowski, grows up from a young boy who follows his Catholic school rules to a young man who associates with Detroit’s notorious Purple Gang during Prohibition. The novel gives a rare view of Detroit and the real-life characters that populated it in the early 20th century. 

Shift Change at Ford (1910s). Library of Congress

What inspired you to write a book about Detroit in the early 20th century?

My grandpa used to tell me stories when I was growing up, and some of them were very shocking to me because I was a very naïve little innocent Catholic school girl. They were so shocking to me at the time that I remember a lot of them. I’ve also always had a love for history, and being a gerontology nurse, during my downtime, I went to my patients’ rooms and asked them to share their stories with me. I was extremely fortunate to have sat at the bedsides of such a great generation and to be lucky enough to hear the stories that made up their lives.  

I decided that this was a story I really wanted to write because a lot of people of my generation, much less my kids’ generation, don’t realize the amazing history of Detroit and the surrounding area. I felt that there weren’t many historical fiction novels about Detroit, especially that era or period, and I wanted to record it for future generations.

Have you always been interested in writing, and have you ever written anything before?

I always was interested in writing but I have not written before. I sat down and tried to write a novel a couple times, but it wasn’t the right time and definitely was not the right story. Once I found this was my story to tell, I hoped I would be worthy of the story. Once I did sit down to write it, it was very easy.

While I was writing the story, I went down to Mount Olivet and found my grandparents’ grave markers. I had already written the part about Joe and his little brother Frank, and I am sitting there on a beautiful sunny fall day looking at their gravestones, and I see there’s Frank. I had never known that my grandfather had a brother named Frank because he had passed away before I was born. I looked up at the sky and said, “Who is writing this story?”

Why did you choose to have Joe’s story revolve around the Sugar House Gang?

Because of my grandfather. When I knew him fifty years after this story took place, he wasn’t a gangster. He was a Polish grandpa. We had our Polish traditions, and he worked at McLouth Steel his whole life. I wanted to show how things were so different back then and that it didn’t necessarily make you a bad guy to be on the wrong side of the law. The story works for this day and age when people try to find themselves, and might not make the right decisions. But they try to come back to where they want to be, their families, their faith.