Learning Endless

A fair chunk of my boyhood was spent lying in the grass of our home on the corner of County T and Maple Tree Road, observing caterpillars or admiring cocoons. I would watch the big, furry guys slink onto the road, embarking on a perilous journey to the other side, where treacherous boys weren’t lurking. Come nighttime, I would watch the moths and June bugs flutter around the yard lights, or swarm the yellow, fluorescent tube lights at Thumb Fun, where my dad worked.

Despite the endless hours of observation, I still know little about these creatures – or at least I didn’t until reading Charlotte Lukes’ contribution to this magazine on page 60. That’s one of the great things about this job: the endless barrage of new information, of learning, of rediscovering the ins and outs of the community I’ve spent nearly my entire life soaking in.

As an Egg Harbor boy, the town across the peninsula was practically nonexistent save for Little League baseball games. In this issue, Ben Jones acquaints us with what it was, and what it has become, in his piece about the rebirth of Baileys Harbor on page 36.

During those days obsessing over caterpillars, I knew of eagles only from schoolbooks and pelicans only from the vacation photos of those who visited exotic places like Florida. On page 28, John Mielke tells the story of the return of the bald eagle and the emergence of the pelican on the Door County landscape.

Yacht clubs to me were the exclusive domain of the rich, but Sara Rae Lancaster shares, on page 20, the story of the Ephraim Yacht Club’s youth sailing program and the scholarship fund that has helped get 250 young sailors on the water during the past 11 years.

I’m fortunate to sit in this seat: one that demands that I learn something new every day about the places and people around me. But I hope this summer I get a chance to clear my calendar, head back to the corner of County T and Maple Tree Road, and lie in the grass of my parents’ yard. Then I’ll look around to find out whether the caterpillars still risk their lives in the journey across the road.