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HeartWood
A blog about cultivating
creativity, connection and contentment
wherever you are

How YOU Spent Your Corona-cations

5/20/2020

8 Comments

 
In the last installment of HeartWood, I wrote about some of the ways I've been filling my unexpected free time during the weeks of social distancing and Stay Home - Stay Safe. In this installment, I'm giving other folks a chance to share what they've been doing. And what a variety of things they've come up with!

Check them out!

Tonya Howe
Croton, Michigan

​I've been puttering around with a few drawings and one of Eldon eating soup.
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Laura Bailey
​Hartland, Michigan

I'm still working half-time at U-M (currently from home), but with the extra time I've been taking my dog Eleanor for long, meandering walks around the farm fields and vacant land and building sites surrounding our home in Hartland. Unfortunately, the ticks are out like mad, so we can't go off trail as much as I'd like. 
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Eleanor and Laura
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Eleanor sporting sportswear
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Eleanor recuperating from a strenuous outing

Eileen Kent
​Croton, Michigan

I’ve been out weeding the garden - staring into space - sitting on the outdoor swing and watching the river - baking too much!  Ahhh, lethargy!  There was a moment of inspiration though - I pulled out some fabric scraps and made a table topper for upcoming Memorial Day.  Now back to staring into space . . . 
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Eileen's table topper

Cindi McDonald
​McKinney, Texas

We have been watching too much TV, Netflix and Amazon Prime.  Also, managing to work out at least three times a week. ​

And we're enjoying housebound happy  hours with the help of our new margarita maker!
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A little TV time, well-deserved after a workout.
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The margarita machine, ready for happy hour

Kendra McKimmy
​Croton, Michigan

​I have joyfully been working in my garden (look how big the garlic is already!) and last week canned a couple gallons of maple syrup. Keeping very busy around here even though my regular artsy muse took off for parts unknown.
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Kendra's impressive garlic crop
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And maple syrup!

Emily Everett
​Grosse Pointe Woods, Michigan

I’ve never been a jigsaw puzzler but a friend sells them so I bought some to support her local business. It’s hard for me to focus on anything for very long during stressful times but I get lost in a puzzle, every time. Even writing this for Nan makes me feel like I took a happy pill.
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Emily's choice of puzzles reflects her passions: yoga . . .
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. . . and Frida Kahlo!

Brenda Huckins Bonter
Newaygo, Michigan

A great time to create. In my walks in the woods I find so many "tree spirits." They fascinate me, so I've finished ten so far. I do a quick sketch on site, then add sharpie and watercolor. Now working on grad gift caricatures.
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Janet Glaser
Fremont, Michigan

I've been working on learning how to bake bread. I tried early in my marriage, but too time consuming and nothing would rise!! I think the yeast has improved because I've had success in baking loaves of bread AND in making pizza crust.

My husband "designed" the one with the wreath of pepperoni slices and lots of onions. Mine was not so carefully thought out. Anyway I made the sauce too! It was fun. 

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The pepperoni-wreathed pizza
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And Janet's free-form creation. Both look yummy!

Phyllis Flanigan and Mike King
​Farmington Hills, Michigan

We’ve got a quilter friend who went into auto overdrive, sewing masks and scrub caps for healthcare and front-line workers. So we are her crew, turning right side out and ironing everything she sews. Last week we topped the 4,400 mark (just the two of us).  With our small group, we’ve topped over 10,500.

So that has been keeping us busy. Trying to get in some daily yoga and weight lifting. We also started going to wave at Mom every Monday morning at 10. That’s fun. ❤️
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Some of the masks Phyllis and Mike have helped make

Kathy Misak 
Newaygo, Michigan

Last Tuesday was a special Covid day. I got to hang out 2 loads of wash and get out the very quiet weed whip and head down to the river for some enjoyable work. I also got the clippers out and cut the grasses out of the iris bed.

Many games of Scrabble have been going on in our house, and each night now we seem to gravitate to The Newshour on PBS. Making a call to a friend or family member is an almost daily event. Meditation is becoming a regular part of my day and I hope it continues.

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The Muskegon River behind Kathy and Rod's house

Jan Ross
Arcata, California

I have been forced to become a walker rather than a swimmer the last few months. My dogs love it and it has been spectacular watching everything come to life this spring. So very grateful to live where I do.
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Arcata Community Forest
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Jan's very willing walking buddies, Kip and Nixie
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Ray Pokerwinski
Croton, Michigan

When I'm not patrolling the area in my role as self-appointed neighborhood watchman, I've been spending time in my workshop. My latest project is making hand-turned bottle stoppers.

I also created a fairy fire station for Camp Newaygo's Virtual Enchanted Forest event last month.

And like Cindi and Dale, we're enjoying home-centered happy hours, too.
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This one even lights up, for a little romantic ambience
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The Fairyland fire station
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Happy hour, backyard style

Laurel Sercombe
​Seattle, Washington

Editor's note: Laurel is an ethnomusicologist and the most devoted Beatles fan I've ever known.
​One thing I spent too much time on was adapting my (famous) lecture on the Beatles for an online popular music class at the University of Washington using Zoom - weird not to be able to engage directly with the students. Also, I gave blood.
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Laurel in 2002 at the Abbey Road crosswalk made famous by the Beatles

Sally Wagoner
Croton, Michigan

​After initial quarantine tasks such as cleaning out drawers and closets, the promise of birth, growth and renewal overcame the need for order. We talk everyday: me and these little giving friends who awaken like babes from a nap. They give me hope.

And 
every morning I take a barefoot walk into my "woods" - about a dozen trees at the end of our drive - to see how my shady native plants are faring.
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Gloria Switzer
​Fremont, Michigan

I have a designated recipe and cookbook cupboard in my kitchen, filled with recipes from my now deceased mother and mother-in-law as well as my own recipes, some in small wooden recipe boxes, although most were loosely scattered all over the cupboard. Plus, there was a multitude of recipes I had cut out from magazines, newspapers and the back of packages, for at least the last 4 decades or more!

I took the whole mess out of the cupboard and put them on the kitchen table with great intentions of getting them and that cupboard organized! It took a very long time (think weeks not hours) to go through them, reorganize or throw them away or rewrite the ones that were so stained and tattered they were useless. We ate on TV trays many times during that extended project!

​In all of that mess I found a delightful surprise; a recipe in my Grandmother's handwriting for Sour Cream Cake, that I swear, I had never seen in my life! The cake was tasty! She would be 132 years old this year. 
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Project in progress
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Gloria ready to try the cake recipe
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The recipe

Valerie Roberts
​Durham, North Carolina

What I missed most in isolation is playing with my 3-year-old grandson, Roman, so in addition to FaceTime on the phone with him a couple times a week, I wrote him an adventure story. I mailed him a chapter every two days. Each chapter introduced three new animals, all of which live in north America. I sent a link of the story to my neighborhood list serve and was gratified to read thanks from parents and grandparents anxious for activities. It was fun for me to create, fun for him to read, and according to his parents, fun for them to read aloud.  

Read and download "Isolation Adventure" here.

Sandy VandenBerg
Fremont, Michigan

Editor's note: Sandy and her native plant garden were featured in a 2018 HeartWood blog post. This spring she has been giving away extra plants to friends, via social-distancing pick-ups.
Stay home and stay safe was a gift in some ways. My gardens have never been so well tended. Really enjoyed knowing the plants are going to good homes.
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Sandy's plants, potted up and ready for pick-up

Katherine Myers
Claremore, Oklahoma

 I've always been active in the gardens, but I've increased just walking--and have lost 10 pounds during the shutdown. I'm happy and my doctor is too! Though I don't have a blog, photos for my Lily Hill page force me to stop gardening and appreciate the views, far and close up,
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Lily Hill, a gardening hobby that grew and grew
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And iris
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A little early for lilies, but not for peonies
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So lovely!

Kay Cummings
Newaygo, Michigan

Hiking is one thing I’ve been trying to do to be active, in addition to yoga about 3 times a week.  Beyond that, I’ve been continuing my piano lessons (on my own), and planning my wedding, which was last Saturday and was quite different than the one we originally planned!  Much simpler, with only 10 people, but very nice just the same.
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Proper wedding attire, 2020-style
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Kay and Bob, unmasked

Rebecca Howey
Rochester Hills, Michigan

Editor's note: Rebecca's "one or two sentences" came in at 774 words. I didn't want to cut a bit of it, though, because there's a lot of good stuff here! (I keep telling her she should have her own blog.) I just gotta say, it's a good thing I didn't ask for pictures to go with it.

The most beneficial thing (much better than vacuuming, which I have not done) has been the free Coursera from Yale called "The Science of Well-Being." It's really about what makes us truly happy and how to get there. Spoiler alert: it's not what our culture tells us.
 
Also, these days it's a bit disconcerting to see the non-virtual students sitting close to each other and hear them coughing!  (Has anyone else been yelling at their tv screens? It can be the most innocuous old sitcom and I'm all, "Don't shake hands! OMG, now you're hugging each other! OMG, OMG, OMG!" I'm better at this now, but it was rough for a while there.)
 
I have been knitting up a storm - charity knitting, mostly with "legacy" yarn I inherited from a friend's stash. I also made miles and miles of chain stitch cord and mailed it off to a friend who is converting her fabric stash into face masks she's giving away. (She and housemate totally ran out of elastic, old t-shirts and potholder loops. Their dining room is like a small factory.)
 
I think doing things for others is especially good just now, though it was more than sobering to consider that the hats, sweaters, and ponchos I was making for the Navajo school kids might . . . well, you know.
 
I dusted off my elderly Kindle and learned that, with a newer software download, it is Way Less Annoying. I've read and read and read!
 
I have been going through my DVD collection and Watching All The Bonus Features. The directors' commentaries for Bend It Like Beckham, Seabiscuit, and Monsoon Wedding were almost better than the films.
 
This last one might seem counterintuitive.
 
It started when a Facebook friend (a friend of friends in real life, one of the few FB friends I've not met) shared a post from the Holocaust and Humanity Center in Cincinnati. They were having a virtual book club. First up was Elie Wiesel's Night, which I had never had the courage to read by myself. Being part of a group was helpful. The next book was Anne Frank's diary, which I had read, so I fired up the Kindle and read Francine Prose's book about the book and its author. Wow! I learned all kinds of stuff.
 
I also learned how much I swear when figuring out the arcane magic tricks of the multiple websites required to borrow e-books not owned by my library.
 
I did not, however, curse during any of my several calls to the library staff who helped me gain access. I think one of them wanted to, though; that episode was something goofy in the library's circ software.
 
It was all worth it in the end, though, AND WHAT ELSE DID I HAVE TO DO? A jigsaw puzzle of Easter eggs, shaped like an egg. Also coloring, knitting, and - OK! - vacuuming, like that's gonna happen.
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This organization, the Holocaust and Humanity Center, offers all kinds of online sessions. There's one later this week about preserving your family artifacts: photos and other things. (They have a website and multiple FB pages.)

AND, because I attended a bunch of those, I got invited to a series of Holocaust survivor presentations from a community college in New Jersey that is absolutely inspiring. They tell the tale, but the focus is on resilience.  
 
Also MSU Extension "Cabin Fever" presentations. The most hilarious thing there is that I forwarded the follow-up email with its many citations to a cousin, who replied, "I was 'there' too!"  
 
And the mourning dove chicks on the front porch have flown the coop. Stupid birds! But I did learn that just before they fledge, a normal human being will be convinced that their no good rotten birdbrain parents have abandoned them. That was good to know, because it was gonna be one Huge Moral Dilemma whether I fed those things or not. Last I saw them, they (two of them) were standing up in the flower pot under the porch light and looking like it was time to steal the car keys and light out for the Dairy Queen.
 
WHAT WOULD WE BE WITHOUT THE INTERNET IN ALL OF THIS? Mostly insane. I might even be vacuuming.
 
Another thing I have done is re-read Salinger's story "For Esme - with love and squalor" or whatever it's called. The whole thing is online as a pdf.
 
It has come up in multiple conversations (because I MAKE IT), because I firmly believe that the ONLY thing that we must do during this time is "survive with our faculties intact." Job One, right there.  ​
8 Comments

Our Egg-citing Life

3/4/2020

13 Comments

 
​It all started with a gadget in a catalog. 
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​​No, it really started before that, when I was deciding what to take to a potluck. A salad? Nah. There’d probably be a lot of those. Dessert? Probably too many of those, too. Deviled eggs? Perfect! 

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​So I boiled up a batch of eggs, plunged them into ice water to loosen the shells, and started peeling. Well, “peeling” isn't quite the right word. More like “mutilating.” The shells clung to the inner membranes. The inner membranes clung to the whites, big hunks of which tore off, no matter how carefully I tried to separate shell from white.

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​There was no way I was taking that mess to a party. So I made egg salad for lunch and whipped up a pan of brownies for the potluck.

​After that fiasco, I took a scientific tack, reading up on egg cooking and peeling and following all the tips: choose older eggs rather than fresh ones, add baking soda to the cooking water, make the ice bath icier. No good. Peeling was still tedious and disastrous. 
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​Then I saw it—the gadget in the catalog: The NEGG® Easy Hard-Boiled Egg Peeler. It’s a simple cylinder with bumps on the inside and caps on either end. You remove one cap, pour in a little water, drop in a hard-boiled egg, replace the cap, give the whole thing a few vigorous shakes, remove the egg, and voila! the shell slides right off. The online video made it look so easy, with the whole shell slipping off in one or two pieces.

​Of course I had to have one! Ray obliged by getting me one for Christmas and even let me pick the color (yolk yellow, naturally).
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​​Now let me say right here that I am not being paid to endorse the NEGG® (which stands for Naked Egg, in case you were wondering). Nor am I turning this blog into a product review. My intention is not so much to praise the product as to celebrate a simple pleasure.

​Because that—along with un-mutilated eggs—is what we’ve gotten from this little gadget. Admittedly, it took us a few batches of eggs to get the technique down. I even emailed the company, asking for tips, and got a reply from none other than Bonnie Tyler, NEGG® inventor and CEO (Chief Egg Officer), advising me to roll, pinch, and push the shell, rather than picking at it.
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Less picking
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More rolling, pinching, and pushing

​​Now, Ray and I have a ridiculous amount of fun boiling up eggs and taking turns peeling them with our handy little egg shaker.  
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​That’s when we look at each other and say, “We really need to get a life. We used to ride motorcycles for fun. Now we’re peeling eggs?”
​But you know what? Anytime you can find joy in everyday activities, I think that’s a good thing. Especially when the result is a tasty snack! 
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​What simple, silly thing gives you a lift?
13 Comments

The Art of the Field

2/15/2017

16 Comments

 
PictureFeed a starving artist!




​​What do farming and art have in common? A lot more than you might think, say Mike and Amanda Jones of Maple Moon Farm in Shelby, Michigan. To underscore the connection, they're sponsoring a FEED THE STARVING ARTIST contest with the theme, "Local Food and Local Farms" and a prize of a $250 gift card to the farm.

PictureAmanda Jones of Maple Moon Farm
​"The idea was really born out of a desire to increase community connections," says Amanda. "One of the reasons we farm is, we really enjoy having that direct relationship with the people who eat our food. Another element is, we feel that we ourselves bring an artistic element to farming. We wanted to draw on that bond with other artisans, whatever their art form, to create connections and a stronger community."

PictureThe Joneses with freshly-picked greens
​Artists and artisans have until March 4 to register, either by emailing Mike and Amanda at maplemoonfarm@gmail.com or by stopping by their booth at Sweetwater Local Foods Market in Muskegon, Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon. Anyone planning to enter needs to let the Joneses know the type of art and the size of the piece, so they can plan for enough display space at the market on March 11, when voting will take place. If registering by email, please send a photo of the entry. 

PictureAmanda assists a farmers market shopper
​The entries themselves may be dropped off at the farm or brought to the market on the 11th, when market shoppers will cast ballots to select a winner. "We just ask that anyone bringing their art on the 11th have it there by 9 a.m., when the market opens," says Amanda.

PictureFarming from the heart
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​Entries of all sorts are welcome, she adds. "When someone is practicing something from the heart and really putting an element of themselves into what they create, we view that as being an artisan. We wanted to leave the definition broad to be as inclusive as possible." The only criterion is that all works should be related in some way to the theme of local food and local farms.

PictureHarvest time
​The winner will be announced at the market's close on the 11th and will also be featured on Maple Moon's Facebook page.

​"The winning piece, we will keep in exchange for the gift certificate," says Amanda. Other entries should be picked up at the market after results are announced on the 11th.

PictureMaple Moon produce at the market
​For budding artists and coloring enthusiasts of all ages, there's a coloring contest, too! Coloring pages are available from Mike and Amanda on market days at Sweetwater Market. Market shoppers will also vote on coloring contest entries on the 11th, and the winner will receive a generous gift basket from the farm.

PictureAt market
​The couple hopes the contests will forge new connections between local food producers, artists and other members of the community. "We're hoping this will draw in people who haven't been connected with their local farmers market and that others who identify as artisans will connect with this local resource and see the parallels in what we do. Our community thrives when people are able to do what they truly love. It makes us happier people and benefits everybody as a whole. If we are able to support each other in doing what we love, it's a win-win for everybody."

PictureAll fresh and local


​​Love is a big part of Mike and Amanda's approach to farming, says Mike, who grew up in Newaygo County family that gardened and raised animals. "We believe growing plants is an art form more than a job. We treat every plant with respect to get the best-quality produce . . . Everybody talks about their grandparents' garden and how they raised the best-tasting tomatoes. There's a reason for that: the plants were getting all the love and attention they had. When you're putting that kind of attention into the food, you get the best quality."

PictureOn the farm

​​Maple Moon has used organic growing practices from the beginning and is currently certified organic. Though the farm's output has grown in the seven years since its beginning, Mike and Amanda want to keep it small enough that they can still be hands-on, rather than hiring other people to do the work. 

PictureHeirloom tomatoes
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​"If we stay small, we can have more control over how plants are loved," Mike says. "Our primary goal is to grow things that taste the best."


​​The Joneses grow "most vegetables you can think of," including "lots of heirloom tomatoes," but specialize in greens and herbs, both culinary and medicinal, says Amanda, who grew up in suburban Detroit, but took an interest in food and farming in her late teens. She arranged to work for six weeks on Nothing But Nature farm in Ohio and ended up staying more than three years.

PictureSpinach




​​Consumer interest in organic and locally-produced and foods is on the rise, but with those foods increasingly available in supermarkets, many shoppers don't visit farmers markets. Amanda wants to remind them there are still good reasons to buy directly from growers. 

PictureGood food!



​"You're not only getting fresher food, but you're also creating a relationship with the person," she says. "I know our food has to be good and clean, because I know the people who are going to use it. I see their children. I've watched babies grow up on the food. Sometimes when I'm out in the field, harvesting or working on a crop, I think of the people who come to the market who love it. That creates better connections and better health for everyone involved."


Sweetwater Market operates at the Mercy Health Lakes Village, 6401 Prairie St., Norton Shores, and is open Saturdays from 9 to noon.
 
Maple Moon Farm is located at 1224 S. 144th St., Shelby, Michigan. Phone: 231-861-2535
​

Photos courtesy of Mike and Amanda Jones
16 Comments

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

3/2/2016

15 Comments

 
PicturePoster advertising Arcata, California's Jambalaya
In high school, it was the parking lot of Griff's Burger Bar. In college, the Starlight Terrace, a terrazzo-floored, sky-lit space filled with café tables on the student union's fourth floor. In my mid- to late-twenties, it was a homey Northern California bar called Jambalaya that hosted poetry readings and plays, as well as the house band's rollicking music on weekends.
 
I remember these places not so much for their physical features (though I can still picture Jambalaya's homemade tablecloths and the compass design in the center of the Starlight Terrace floor) as for their feelings they evoked. Each place, in its time, was the place to go and find a sense of belonging. You could always count on running into at least one person you knew, but more often, a whole crowd of friendly faces. And because these were all public gathering spots, there was also the chance of meeting someone new and exciting.


PictureThe tennis court in American Samoa
When I moved with my parents to American Samoa for a year in my mid-teens, I wondered if any such place existed for kids my age to connect. The driving age was eighteen, and even if we younger teens had been allowed to drive, there were no burger joints with parking lots where kids could hang out. But, as I discovered within a week of my arrival, there was the tennis court. By day, it was nothing but a rectangle of pitted concrete surrounded by rusty chain-link fencing, but every evening, it was the place to make the scene and socialize.


Here's how I describe that social scene in my unpublished memoir, Mango Rash: Survival Lessons in the Land of Frangipani and Fanta:  
          Girls in Bermuda shorts and summer tops clustered together, alternately whispering and shrieking, glancing over their shoulders at the older boys, who hung back in the shadows, cigarettes dangling from their lips. A couple of younger kids, not yet in their teens, rode Sting-Ray bikes in figure-eights, slicing through the crowd like swift fish through a reef. A Samoan boy shinnied up a palm tree and threw down coconuts; someone cleaved off the tops and passed around the unhusked nuts for drinking. Not exactly lime Dr. Pepper, but I'd give it a try.  
          The night had the feel of a midsummer evening in the small-town America of my childhood, where all the neighborhood kids drifted out of their houses after supper for a game of Kick the Can. Without cars or other signs of status, we weren't adolescents posing as adults; we were just a bunch of big kids who'd come out to play under street lights and stars.
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Some of the usual tennis court crowd
That tennis court was where I met the motorcycle-riding, cigarette-smoking bad boy who would be my romantic interest (and my father's bane) for most of my stay on the island. Now, many decades later, I'm not looking for romance when I head to a gathering place; I'm just looking for conversation and connection. Some days, not even that. Some days, it's enough to sit quietly, tapping on a laptop or writing in a notebook, in a cozy, familiar place where others come together.

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Often, the place my friends, neighbors and I choose is Hit the Road Joe Coffee Café, a comfy eatery five minutes from my house. Local artists' ceramics, jewelry and metal sculptures (all for sale) decorate the walls, and more than seventy species of birds have been spotted at the feeders outside the windows. On Monday mornings, after class at nearby Woodland Yoga, a group of ten, fifteen, or more women (including me) crowds around the big, corner table and shares tidbits about local goings-on, recently-read books, herbal remedies, Netflix movies, and the proper undergarments to wear beneath clingy knits. On Tuesday mornings, the men's yoga class—a smaller and less rambunctious group—holds court after their hour of down-dogging, Warrior II-ing and Savasana.

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Multi-media art by Kendra McKimmy
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Metal fish by Paul Deur
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A selection of Kendra's ceramic cups
PictureOne of Tracy's culinary creations

Once a month, the café owner's eldest daughter Tracy Murrell, an award-winning  chef, stokes her creative fires to produce a six-course dinner. At other times, the café hosts readings, talks and films on topics ranging from beekeeping to human trafficking. In winter, there are weekly domino games and twice-a-month euchre parties.



PictureHit the Road Joe Coffee Café from the parking lot


Hit the Road Joe is the hub of our little community, but that didn't just happen by chance. Owner Linda Cudworth and her sister Kendra McKimmy, a mixed-media artist whose wares are displayed there, filled me in on the story during a recent post-breakfast chat. 
 


The sisters' commitment to community-building began nearly 20 years ago, when both women were part of a collective that operated an art gallery in downtown Newaygo. Until then, "there were all these kind of freaky people living out in the middle of the woods, but we didn't know each other," says Kendra. The gallery and an adjacent coffee shop owned by graphic designer Pat Brissette drew creative types, and connections grew. Eventually, Linda, who worked at Pat's coffee shop, began to dream of owning her own café closer to home.

"She wanted to be able to walk to work," Kendra explains. Linda envisioned an old, funky space, where customers would feel at home. When she couldn't find anything that quite fit the vision, Linda, her husband Chris, Kendra and a contractor built Hit the Road Joe next door to the farmhouse where Linda and Chris lived at the time, and they proceeded to funk-ify it with a tin ceiling, counter, tables, chairs and anything else they could glean from a Grand Rapids bar that was being demolished.

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Hit the Road Joe under construction
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Linda takes a break from working on the interior
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The counter was salvaged from a bar slated for demolition
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Chris and Linda on site
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Hit the Road Joe in its early days
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Linda in 2000: the café opens!
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Linda: ground is broken in 2008 for an addition
PictureNan and Ray on a later visit to Hit the Road Joe
With an emphasis on fresh, local food, Hit the Road Joe soon attracted customers, but it was Linda's outgoing nature that kept them coming back. I remember the first time Ray and I visited the café, soon after we bought our house down the road. We knew hardly anyone in the area and didn't know how locals felt about outsiders, so we were timid about venturing into what looked like a hangout for local folk. Would we be welcomed or met with hostile glares? We needn't have worried. Not only was our waitress friendly, but before we'd finished our coffee, Linda emerged from the tiny kitchen, wearing something tie-dyed I'm sure, and made her way to our table to get acquainted. From then on, she always remembered not only our names, but other details about us and our lives, as well as our drink orders and food preferences.

Linda never has had qualms about using the restaurant as a forum for discussions of controversial issues, such as proposed developments and the pumping of water for bottling from a local spring. 
 
"She has a commitment to these kinds of things," says Kendra. "Maybe it's not always the best business decision, but she has stuck by it." Ultimately, some people on opposing sides of the issues have become loyal customers, not necessarily won over to a different viewpoint, but won over by Linda.

Nowadays, you may not always see Linda when you visit Hit the Road Joe. Her youngest daughter Keeva Filipek has taken over managing the restaurant, and Tracy and middle daughter Vanessa Farrel work there every other weekend. Still, the café that many customers refer to as "Linda's" has the welcoming feel she fostered over the years.
 
Where do you feel welcome? I'd love to hear about your favorite hangouts, recent or remembered, and what makes them special to you.
 
15 Comments
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    Author

    Nan Sanders Pokerwinski, a former journalist, writes memoir and personal essays, makes collages and likes to play outside. She lives in West Michigan with her husband, Ray.

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