Granger Does It Magazine | July/August 2014 | Web Version

Granger does it

July | August 2014

Bold. Elegant. Granger.

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the flying man

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Granger Does It P.O. Box 832 Granger, IN 46530 Advertising Inquiries media@grangerdoesit.com Comments and Feedback info@grangerdoesit.com www.GrangerDoesIt.com www.Facebook.com/GrangerDoesIt All content herein is produced by Granger Does It staff or used with permission from the original artists. No part of this magazine may be reprinted without written permission from the publisher. Š 2014 by Granger Does It. All rights reserved.

jetpack for sale Ever think the day would come?

Named as one of Time magazine's Top 50 inventions back in 2010, the Martin Jetpack is the world's first practical jetpack. It weighs 132 lbs. and uses a V4 two-stroke gasoline engine with two ducted fans to propel you up to 8,000 feet in the air, according to Martin Aircraft Company.

Based in New Zealand, Martin Aircraft Company is currently developing the jetpack for use as a first responder vehicle. They initially see the aircraft as a means to provide searches and rescues, disaster recovery, border security and other emergency services.

The jetpack is the brainchild of Glenn Martin, a resident of Christchurch, New Zealand. He started work on the jetpack in 1981. Now, more than 30 years later,

Martin Aircraft Company expects the first responder jetpack to be commercially available sometime this year.

As for the personal jetpack, the company promises it will only be produced when all internal and external safety and reliability standards are met, including a fully reliable training protocol. The personal jetpack is expected to be available in 2015 at a price tag of around $150,000.

In the meantime, anyone intrigued by the thought of owning a personal jetpack can join the waiting list by contacting sales@ martinaircraft.co.nz.

What do you think? Instead of driving to the store when you need something, just strap on the jetpack and float over the trees?

Sounds like something from the future. It might just be the near future.

Granger Does It | 1

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THE FLYING MAN

Y

ou know those people in the flying machines that come out in summer and early fall?

We finally tracked one down.

Chances are you’ve seen him. He’ll be in the northeast sky, floating slowly over the distant trees, minding his own aerial business.

We see him every summer. A few others too.

And every time, we think: what in the world are they flying?

It sounds like a lawnmower. Kind of looks like one too. It’s basically just a wing attached to a seat with a small motor. Not a plane. Not a helicopter. Just a small aircraft. A flying machine.

Well, we just had to look into this. So we

asked around. It took a few months, but we finally tracked down two of the people you’ll occasionally see flying around our local skies.

Ultralight aviation Brian and Diana Taylor live down the road from Granger in Cassopolis, MI. They own and operate a company called Ultralight Sport Aviation, LLC (USA), specializing in manufacturing and connecting people with ultralight aircrafts.

In case you’re new to personal aviation, an ultralight aircraft is a general term given for any single-engine, fixed-wing aircraft that meets certain criteria. In order to qualify as an ultralight in the eyes of the Federal Aviation Administration, the governing authority over aviation in the U.S., ultralights can only weigh

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so much and must meet various fuel and speed restrictions. Beyond that, you’re pretty much free to do what you want. You don’t even need a license.

Yeah, you read that right. You can buy yourself an ultralight, bring it home and take it for a flight over the neighborhood. All in the same day. Meeting all local, state and federal regulations.

At first, this might sound absolutely crazy.

But Brian helped us understand it another way.

“Flying isn’t as dangerous as people think,” he said. “The more you know about the principles of flight, the safer it becomes. The FAA knows that if an aircraft only contains so much fuel, only weighs so much, and only goes so fast, the chances of you getting hurt are pretty low.”

For example, a stalled plane or aircraft isn’t as dire as it may seem. That’s because, even if a plane’s engine suddenly quit, the plane wouldn’t just stop and plummet to the ground.

Like Wile E. Coyote when he runs off a cliff.

Instead, the motion of the plane continues. “To keep the aircraft flying, you need to maintain a certain speed. So even if your motor quit on you, you can keep your flight speed by tilting the nose downward just slightly. In the case of an ultralight, if the engine was to somehow

stop, you’d still have plenty of flight time to land it.”

And being that ultralights only go so fast and have such small gas tanks and motors, you have to really mess up when landing to hurt yourself. Of course, this isn’t to say that people haven’t gotten hurt when flying ultralights.

Flying certainly comes with a risk. Just not as big of one as most people think.

Powered parachutes and WWII trainers Brian has been flying ultralights since the late 80s. Like many pilots, his introduction to personal aviation was via one of the simplest aircrafts of all: the powered parachute. This is essentially a parachute with wheels and a motor. It goes about 30 miles per hour and can take you up to 10,000 feet in the air, the legal limit.

“A lot of people get into flying with powered parachutes,” he said. “I remember seeing about them in the news. I thought, ‘that looks cool. I’ve never seen anything like that.’

The next thing I know, I’m driving home with one in the back of my truck.”

After a while, Brian was ready to take the

The sun shines over Brian and Diana's Yak52, a Soviet military trainer plane powered by a 360 horsepower radial engine. The Taylors also own a Meyers "Out to Win" WWII trainer plane built by Meyers Aircraft Company in Michigan.

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next step in aviation. He traded his powered parachute for a single-seat, fixed wing ultralight aircraft. These come in all shapes and sizes.

There are trikes, powered paragliders, powered parachutes, powered hang gliders, autogyros, fixed wing aircrafts and even homemade vehicles that the FAA calls amateur-built aircrafts.

As long as it meets the basic FAA criteria for ultralights, you’re free to build your own flying machine.

Brian is trained to fly many different makes and models. “After I learned to fly the ultralight, I liked it so much that I became an instructor. From there, I earned my private pilot’s license.” Over the years, as his interest in aviation grew, Brian earned more and more pilot ratings that enabled him to experience flight in various forms. He introduced several to us during our tour of Taylor’s Flight Park at his home, including a Russian Yak-52 and a rare WWII biplane trainer (Meyers OTW) that was built in Michigan in 1940.

The motorcycle of the sky Still, in all his years of flying, and all the various ways to fly, the ultralight is his favorite.

“I tell all my student pilots, the ultralight is like the motorcycle of the sky. If you really want to experience the freedom of flight, the ultralight is the way to go.”

Brian took us up in an orange and green M-SQUARED Light Sport Trainer. Diana calls it the ugly pumpkin. This particular ultralight has two seats, a larger gas tank and other modifications that require additional pilot ratings. It’s the aircraft Brian usually uses when training pilots to fly.

So let’s get down to it. You’re probably wondering what it’s like to fly in an ultralight.

To be honest, it’s hard to articulate. You start on the ground, buckled in. There are no doors, so you stare almost hypnotically at the grass just beside your feet as the aircraft gains speed.

Your eyes are glued to the ground while you

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The view of southern Cassopolis (you can see Granger in the treeline) from 550 feet in the air. We spent about 15 minutes flying in an M-SQUARED Light Sport Trainer, one of many different aircrafts available for personal aviation.

wait for that magical moment when the wheels of the aircraft leave the grass.

Then it happens. Within sixty seconds, you’re above the trees. It’s a surreal experience.

Exhilarating. And definitely a little terrifying.

Even though Brian explained the basics of flight safety clearly and optimistically, it’s hard not to look down your side when you’re up in the sky and feel overwhelmed with the distance between you and the ground. And we were only 550 feet up. By comparison, a passenger airliner flies at about 35,000 feet. But flying in an ultralight is nothing like, say, a Boeing 747. At least, not as a passenger. It’s like comparing a bus to a motorcycle. With the ultralight, you feel the air around you. You see birds. The tops of trees. People fishing in lakes. So many thoughts and feelings and observations rush into your head as you experience the majestic feeling of flight. And of course, there’s the fear. The terror of knowing

6 | Granger Does It

what will happen if you fall.

“Once you get over your initial fear,” Brian assured us, “everything changes. For me, there’s no better way to relax after a long day than going for a flight in the ultralight. You can have a bad day, a stressful day, and after a short flight, all the cares of the world just go away and you come back refreshed, feeling like a new man. It’s a magical feeling.”

Introductory flights In 2004, Brian and Diana decided to take their love for aviation to the next level by launching Ultralight Sport Aviation, LLC. Most of their business involves the manufacturing and sales of ultralights for enthusiasts around the country, as well as training aspiring pilots on everything from powered parachutes to ultralights and planes. They also provide introductory flights for $60 to anyone who just

wants to experience what flying in an ultralight feels like.

“When people learn how quickly you can learn to fly, they’re usually amazed. When I first learned to fly a powered parachute, the saying was learn to fly in two hours.” Today, Brian says most people only need about 10 hours of training to safely fly a basic ultralight.

If you’ve ever been interested in personal aviation, or aviation in general, Brian recommends looking into the Experimental Aircraft Association. “The EAA Elkhart chapter is a great resource for pilots of all skill levels. They have regular meetings and events about various aviation topics. It’s a great way to meet other aviation enthusiasts in the region.”

If you attend one of these EAA meetings about ultralight flying, you'll probably meet a few people who will recommend Brian at Ultralight Sport Aviation. His love and passion for aviation is well known in the local flying community.

“There’s a beauty and simplicity to ultralight flying that is hard to describe.

You really have to experience it. We’re not flying massive, heavily instrumented jetliners. When you’re soaring over the trees in an ultralight, you’re experiencing the freedom of flight the way the Wright Brothers did in the early 1900s. It gives you a completely new perspective of the world. There’s nothing else like it.”

To learn more about flying ultralights, feel free to contact Brian via Ultralight Sport Aviation at 574-606-9797 or visit www.ultralightsport.com.

Experience the freedom of flight!

Locally owned and operated, Ultralight Sport Aviation, LLC specializes in ultralight aviation, including simple demonstration flights to aircraft maintenance and pilot training!

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574-606-9797 ultralightsport.com ultralightsport@yahoo.com Granger Does It | 7

8 | Granger Does It

ONE OF GRANGER'S BEST KEPT SECRETS

B

ack in the 1930s, John and Gladys Karacson owned a few acres of land in the northeast corner of St. Joseph County, what is now Granger. They grew corn, tomatoes, cucumbers, broccoli, you name it. Today, 80 some years later, that same farm is still in use.

And by the same family.

“It’s our little slice of paradise,” said Lydia Karacson, the granddaughter of John and Gladys. “We love fresh, local produce.”

Not just growing it, either. Lydia’s particularly passionate about access to local produce. “You can’t get any fresher than vegetables that were picked from a farm just down the road that very day.”

For years, Lydia has wanted a place in Granger where she could get locally grown produce without making ten trips to ten different farms. So she and a friend worked together to make it happen. “My friend

What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?

– Langston Hughes, 1951 Marianne Christy and I went around to several growers in the area and shared our idea for starting a small farmer’s market. It caught on pretty fast. In May of 2010, we set up shop under a pavilion at Princess Way.” With support from families who value farm-to-fork principles, the Granger Farmer’s Market quickly expanded. In 2012, they relocated indoors to Bittersweet Centre.

Everything was going perfectly.

But that was about to change.

Crossroads It started as a good problem. “We’d grown too big again,” Lydia said. “We didn’t have enough space. Things were just crowded.”

Then it got worse. “When we moved in, the location at Bittersweet Centre was a milestone for the market. We’d finally made it indoors. But over time, we realized that the location wasn’t as ideal as it had first seemed for our particular needs. We were having

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The expression on this farmer's face captures the general tone of frustration that many independent farmers feel in the face of competition against large-scale farming practices that value profit over quality.

trouble keeping up with utilities and people weren’t seeing us from the road the way we’d thought they would. Plus, we were bursting at the seams.”

Lydia and the other vendors began the search for a new location: one large enough to accommodate more vendors and stands, efficient enough to keep utility costs affordable, and prominent enough to be easily seen from both directions of SR 23.

It was a tall order. “We searched everywhere, drove up and down every street, asked around, talked with landlords and property owners, did everything we could think of. But there just wasn’t any place available that we and all the vendors in the market could agree upon. We operate like a co-operative. We weren’t going to move to a new location unless everyone was on board.”

To make matters worse, the clock was ticking. “Our lease at Bittersweet Centre was almost up, and we had to give a 30-day notice

10 | Granger Does It

if we were moving, otherwise it would restart.

We knew we had to move, but we didn’t have anywhere to go. By April, we were starting to accept the likelihood that the Granger Farmer’s Market would have to shut its doors. At least, for now.”

It was a mundane observation that changed things. Driving down SR 23 one morning, Lydia happened to glance out the window at the white historical barn at Granger Commons Shopping Center. “I noticed their windows were bare. The stuff in them was gone. So I called the owner and left a message to see if, by chance, the barn was available. He called back and said, ‘it’s funny you asked.

Just yesterday the current tenets told me they were moving.’”

The barn was four times as big as the Bittersweet Centre location, retro-furnished with insulation, and prominently located in the heart of Granger. And best of all, available.

“It was serendipity,” Lydia said. “Right when

we were about to shut down, we found the perfect home.”

Perfect, indeed. There’s probably no more befitting a home for a farmer’s market than a barn – the icon of the American farmer.

Farm to fork Speaking of farmers, buy any potatoes lately? Depending on where you bought them, they could be up to a year old. Seriously. To be fair, this doesn’t mean they're bad potatoes.

Just… old.

This is because it’s common practice for large-scale growers to treat potatoes with a growth inhibitor called isopropyl. Once they’ve been treated, producers can store them in warehouses for up to a year before shipping them to grocery stores. This information comes straight from the United States Department of Agriculture. And it’s not just about potatoes.

“Here in the U.S.,” the USDA states plainly on their website, “apples generally ripen between August and September.

They pick the apples when they’re slightly unripe, treat them with a chemical called 1-methylcyclopropene, wax them, box them, stack them on pallets, and keep them in cold storage warehouses for an average of 9-12 months.”

Now, there is a reason for treating produce with chemicals like isopropyl and 1-methylcyclopropene. It was initially designed to make it possible to enjoy fruit and vegetables throughout the offseason. The problem is: this practice is growing to the point where, even during the ripe seasons, a lot of produce is still at least half a year old.

This might not bother you, which is perfectly fine. But for Lydia and anyone raised on farm-to-fork values, freshness is important.

“All of us at the market have a passion for fresh, minimally processed food. Most of our produce is picked that day. Our baked goods came out of the oven that morning. It’s a true farm-to-fork market.”

Sweet revenge The story goes like this: while waiting at a South Carolina military base to be deployed

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to the Vietnam War, two soldiers became good friends. On weekends, they would visit the one soldier’s grandmother. His parents had died in a car crash, and his grandmother was the last living member of his family.

Just before being deployed, the grandmother asked the other soldier to bring her grandson home safely. Two months later, he was killed.

The young soldier brought his friend home to South Carolina so the grandmother could lay him to rest. He stayed with her through the services. Afterward, as he was preparing to go back to the war, the grandmother gave him a box of peanut butter molasses cookies. It wasn’t until he was already overseas that he realized there was something at the bottom of the box.

The grandmother had given the soldier a ledger of her family’s recipes, dating all the way back to the Civil War. Along with a letter. In it, she wrote: even though I’ve lost my grandson, I’ve found another one.

When the soldier returned home from war, he put the box away and went on with his life. He got married. Started a family. Forty years passed. Then one day the soldier’s son,

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Michael, found the book while going through a box of his war memorabilia. The soldier read the recipes, thinking about his friend, what had happened to him, and what his friend’s grandmother had asked.

After all this time, the soldier decided to take one of the recipes and share it with the world. The one he chose was Sweet Revenge, an authentic Southern barbecue sauce.

The soldier’s name is Rick Lee. He lives in New Carlisle. Rick is one of the vendors at the Granger Farmer’s Market, where he sells Sweet Revenge barbecue sauce in honor of his friend Marshall. And Grandma Emma.

There are many incredible stories behind the vendors you’ll meet at the Granger Farmer’s Market. Sweet Revenge is definitely one of them.

A dream deferred The Granger Farmer’s Market started with three produce growers and a baker.

Today, it features a wide range of produce grown right here in Granger, a variety of locally roasted nuts, organic dairy products from nearby farmers, grass-fed beef free of growth

hormones and preservatives, locally produced laundry soap free of additives like sodium lauryl sulfate, raw honey from neighborhood farms, free-range pork, and more.

And the market plans on growing much more. Although not in the way you might expect. “We’re not trying to be another South Bend Farmer’s Market,” Lydia said.

“That’s been around for 80 plus years and is a wonderful venue. But our goal is not to get as big as we possibly can, per se. We pride ourselves on small-batch artisanship. Our goal is to provide a convenient way for people in Granger and Edwardsburg to enjoy as many locally-made artisan foods as possible.”

In order to do so, Lydia says that helping local farmers and producers goes hand-inhand with growing the market. “It’s about providing more venues for artisan foods. I’d love one day for the market to be in a position to provide funding for our vendors. For example, I’d love to help a local baker get into a community kitchen, help a farmer purchase

a greenhouse, or help a soap maker get new equipment.”

Just as we were leaving the Granger Farmer’s Market, Lydia said something that really stuck with us. “This area has a rich agrarian history, but you don’t meet many young people who dream of becoming a farmer when they grow up. Maybe by shifting more emphasis on farm-to-fork values and making locally-produced, artisan foods more prevalent and available in our community, we can improve our overall quality of life and get back to our agrarian foundation.”

Lydia’s right. We need to support our local, independent farmers. We need to celebrate how important they are to our community. We need to embrace the role of independent farming so that – amid the prevalence of chemically treated, warehoused crops – the option of fresh, locally grown produce doesn’t slowly disappear altogether, but rather, grows. This is a dream that we as a community can’t afford to defer.

MILITARY HONOR PARK & MUSEUM Take a trip through history at Michiana’s only Military Honor Park, featuring restored military jets, planes, tanks and other heavy artillery weapons, a memorabilia gift shop and a war museum with items dating back to the Revolutionary War. Located at 4300 Veterans Drive near the entrance to South Bend Regional Airport. Call 574-232-4300 for more information

- never forget -

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HANGING OF A HERO

C

ountries don’t age like dogs.

This year, the United States of America turns 238. That’s an infant in country years. Still, it’s taken a lot of brave men and women to make it this short distance. Since 1776, the U.S. has fought thirty wars. And the more time passes, the more distance there is between the people who make up this country today and those who fought for it in wars past.

Today the words never forget are celebrated as a means to remember our military heroes. But these words have little meaning unless they are followed through with action. So, in celebration of this great country, we’d like to shorten the distance between now and America’s first war by remembering a 20-year-old hero who exhibited the kind of courage and loyalty that should never be forgotten, no matter how much time passes.

Back then, the entire population of the newly declared United States of America was only 2.5 million. That’s about the number of people who make up northern Indiana today.

In New York, which was then limited to the

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southern tip of Manhattan, General George Washington and his Continental Army were preparing for another battle against British forces. They’d already forced General William Howe and his British army out of Boston, but now Howe was focusing on New York City.

In preparation, General Washington wanted soldiers to sneak behind enemy lines and collect information about what the British were planning. It was a deadly mission.

And according to most accounts, of all the soldiers in Washington’s army, only one man volunteered: Nathan Hale, a 20-yearold teacher with no military experience.

On Sunday, September 8, 1776, Nathan disguised himself as a Dutch schoolmaster and boarded a Ferry across the Long Island Sound. For the next two weeks, he spied on British soldiers, knowing full well that the only people who could protect him if he was caught were on the other side of the river.

His punishment, if caught, would be death.

For centuries, much of Nathan’s story was told through more folklore than fact because most of it took place on the British front, where so few details were recorded at the time. Then, in 2000, the U.S. Library of Congress received a packet of letters that would help give credibility to the legend.

It turns out, a New England storekeeper who had sided with the British during the war had taken first-hand accounts of many battle stories that took place on the British side.

Among them was a two-page manuscript of Nathan Hale’s experience behind enemy lines. Although it’s still unclear to us how exactly a storekeeper by the name of Consider

Tiffany bore witness to what happened, the devoted historians at the Library of Congress are convinced of its accuracy. So we default to their judgment.

Apparently, while performing reconnaissance on the British, Nathan befriended another American spy. Being that he was a lone soldier behind enemy lines, Nathan sought refuge with the man to combine their intelligence.

The other spy was actually Colonel Robert Rogers of the British Army. As the story goes, Rogers invited Nathan to dinner one night to talk about what they’d observed.

That evening, British soldiers took Nathan into custody. He’d been tricked.

The next morning, Nathan Hale was hanged.

Some historians argue that Nathan made a series of judgment errors that led to the failure of his mission. Perhaps if he’d played his cards closer to his vest, he wouldn’t have given himself up so easily. But the significance of Nathan is not encapsulated by the way he died. On the contrary, it is much larger.

The story of Nathan Hale is an example of victory through defeat. He failed in his mission, but today we remember him for his incredible courage, his unwavering loyalty and his ultimate sacrifice. He was the only soldier brave enough to cross that river, and it cost him his life. Perhaps most impressive of all are the last words he purportedly spoke just seconds before his death: I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.

We remember you, Nathan. Thank you for your heroism.

"I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country."

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16 | Granger Does It

functional art in michiana•

M

ichelangelo said that art is everywhere. You just need to reveal it.

A good point there.

After all, take away the paint from his work on the Sistine Chapel and what do you have? A ceiling. He turned a ceiling into one of the most well-known works of art.

The paintings in the Sistine Chapel weren’t really intended to be artwork that’s enjoyed in its own right. Like the Mona Lisa, for example. Instead, it was meant to serve a function; to enhance the overall experience of the chapel. This is an important detail because it directly contradicts the way many people regard art today.

Here’s what we mean. If you want to take your family to see some art, what’s the first place that comes to mind? The museum, right?

Us, too. That’s interesting. Because museums might actually be the most unnatural way to enjoy art.

Think about it. Art is displayed at a museum like items in a catalog. You look at one at a time. You don’t go to the museum to look at all the art from a bird’s eye view and enjoy the collective experience. You go to take in individual pieces of art, one at a time, like a slideshow.

We’re hard-pressed to think of another venue where art functions so independently.

The most organic way to enjoy art seems to be via the influence it has on the space around it. Take, for example, that painting in your living room. How often do you go up to it and examine all of its individual beauty? Don’t you enjoy it more peripherally? The way you might a pretty ceiling in a chapel?

Fire hydrants and abandoned homes Large-scale examples of functional art, as we’ll call it, are few and far between. Probably the most well-known in the U.S. took place in the 1970s. You can still see it around certain

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A design by students at the South Bend Career Academy for the Spring Forward Project, which helped beautify the window and door coverings of vacant and abandoned homes in South Bend.

parts of South Bend – fire hydrants painted like historical figures. It was part of the nationwide celebration of the country’s 200th birthday. In this case, the function of the painted hydrants was to enhance the community’s sense of national pride. Individually, they weren’t masterpieces. But together?

The reason we're bringing this up is because functional art has seen a sharp spike around Michiana in recent years. There are even plans in the works for a project in Granger. So we talked with one of the artists behind it.

Chris Stackowicz is a 1994 Penn High School graduate. Today he makes a living via functional art. His CV alone is pretty inspiring.

Chris is one of the few artists fortunate enough to land a coveted position as a tenured professor.

He taught art at Bethel College after receiving

his MFA from Stony Brook University in New York. But he decided to walk away from it all to become a full-time artist.

Only Chris did something different from many other artists. Instead of seeing art as singular objects of beauty, Chris saw it as a means to help solve problems. He came up with cstackstudios, a visual and spatial transformation art business that focuses on addressing forgotten and neglected public spaces.

The “Spring Forward” project in South Bend is a perfect example. It made national headlines. Spearheaded by Chris, about 900 volunteers worked over the course of a weekend to replace the doors and windows of local dilapidated homes with artwork. It was inspired by a similar project in Cincinnati that resulted in a 20% decrease in vandalism and petty crimes around the repainted structures.

“About 27 of the homes we targeted were near Muessel Primary Center. Every day children pass these homes on their way to and from school, and in the process they slowly become more and more accepting of boardedup homes. We wanted to do something about that. It’s not a permanent solution, but the effort drew positive attention to a public problem and gave hundreds of young people an opportunity A before-and-after photo of one of the abandoned to do something about it.”

He did the same thing with the pedestrian buildings Chris Stackowicz and 100s of volunteers bridge that runs over US 933 between Angela targeted for the Spring Forward Project.

18 | Granger Does It

Ave. and Northshore Blvd. In conjunction with Memorial Hospital, Chris and nearly 1,000 volunteers transformed the bridge into a more positive gateway into the city. “We tore down walls of poison ivy, filled in cracks in the concrete, treated years of calcification buildup, removed the old sign advertising the now defunct College Football Hall of Fame, and painted the entire area in a mural featuring notable architecture from the area.”

In this case, the art serves to enhance the first and last impression of people entering and leaving South Bend via the underpass.

Coming this fall… hopefully Chris’s next big venture is a proposal to paint a massive mural over the stretch of train bridge that runs from South Scott St. to United Dr. behind the southwest corner of Coveleski Stadium. It’s not set in stone, but Chris is coordinating with the SilverHawks, Union Station and city officials to make it happen.

“I love the Cove, especially all the amazing changes that have taken place over the last two years. But I don’t like walking around that area of town. I think other people feel the same way. That might change if we could enjoy the area surrounding the Cove a little better. Our Union Station proposal is simply a step in that direction.”

If approved, the mural will cover the western side of the bridge and feature two frame-by-frame progressions: one of a child pitching a baseball; the other of a child at bat.

Each frame in the two progressions will show a slightly older version of the children, until both are SilverHawks-aged ball players. Chris says if the project is a go, each frame will be modeled after a real person in Michiana. “We’d like to model the player in the first frame in the pitching sequence on a 9- or 10-year-old lefthanded pitcher from Granger. For the batter, we’re looking for a ball player from Mishawaka.

It’s just another way for us to engage the community with this kind of art.”

RE-ELECT MIKE GRZEGOREK SHERIFF OF ST. JOSEPH COUNTY Thank you for allowing me to serve our community as the St. Joseph County Sheriff since 2011. We have made some lasting improvements to the department over the past three years and have many more planned. I ask for your support in the general election on November 4th, 2014 so that my team and I can continue to improve the St. Joseph County Police Department for a safer St. Joseph County. I am grateful for your support of our department and our officers.

Sincerely, Mike Grzegorek Paid for by the Committee to Elect Mike Grzegorek for Sheriff - Ken Gradeless Treasurer

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The stretch of train bridge that runs between South Scott St. and United Dr. in South Bend (on the southwest side of Coveleski Stadium) that Granger artist Chris Stackowicz hopes to beautify with a massive baseballthemed mural.

Functional art in Granger The only limit of functional art seems to be the artist’s imagination of how it can be used. It doesn’t always have to address a public eyesore. “We’re working with Granger Paths and local schools to coordinate a walking event in the fall that will raise awareness for the fight against Lupus,” Chris said. Part of the plan includes Granger-PHM school kids designing the mile markers that’ll be posted along the course.

“My wife has Lupus. We’re trying to use art to make a difference. Will it find a cure?

Of course, not. But I believe this kind of art provides an easy opportunity for people of all ages to make a positive difference.”

Power of imagination We have a special place in our hearts for people who want to pursue art. After all, we’re writers and designers and photographers ourselves. And we can admit that it does take a certain amount of courage. The odds are against you, and people are happy to remind you. Over and over again.

“When I chose art for my college major, my dad said, ‘how are you ever going to make money?’ He made a good point, too. Unless you know a friend who owns a hotel and commissions you to make all the paintings for the rooms, you’re probably going to struggle.

To make a living as an artist, you have to change the way you see the purpose of art. You have to

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find commercially viable applications for it.”

Chris’s success shows that perhaps the best function of this kind of art is that it opens the door for young people to a whole new world of artistic options. But to open it, you have to be more than just creative in terms of your art. You have to be imaginative in the application of it as well.

This notion of functional art isn’t new.

Pope Sixtus IV commissioned it back in the 1470s. But for some reason, it’s been undermined by the idea that art is designed to function independently. Maybe one of the consequences of this is the common stigma now associated with the dream of pursuing art as a career. How you gonna make a buck? Ironically, it’s a great point. How are you gonna make a buck as an artist when you limit its potential?

Just think about all the great works of art that don’t exist because the artist who would’ve created them decided to choose a more economically stable career path. That’s a sad song. We can make it better by replacing the stigma of the starving artist with the reality of the functional one who sees art as a means to a greater goal.

“Art is a strength that every community has access to, but I don’t think most realize it.

Why not take advantage of that strength to help promote, protect and preserve our community?

If you always do things the same way, you’re doomed to fall behind the times. But when you utilize the power of imagination to address problems, all of a sudden the actual nature of change changes.”

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Join us for Worship Service on Sundays at 10:30 a.m. Located at 1021 Manchester Dr. in South Bend (between Edison and McKinley). Reception hall and kitchen facilities available for your special events. Office hours are Mon/Wed/Fri from 9am-1pm.

574-232-9418 gslc.sb@att.net

Serving Granger - South Bend - Mishawaka for over 55 years

Reminder for Hoosiers The Indiana State Health Commissioner is reminding you to protect yourself, your family and your pets against ticks. This year, the tick population is high, which presents a greater risk of infection of Lyme disease in the region.

Not all ticks carry the disease, and the likelihood of transmitting Lyme disease if bitten by an infected tick is low if the tick is removed within 24 hours. Still, the health commissioner recommends taking proactive steps to protect your family against the risk of tick-spread illnesses.

For the state’s official recommendations, visit www.Indiana.gov/dnr.

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Sleep, unsolved•

F

or nearly two decades, psychologists have been trying to convince the public that sleep deprivation is a national epidemic. At the forefront of the effort is James Mass, Ph.D. He’s kind of a big deal in the world of sleep psychology.

He’s even credited with coining the term power nap.

“We have a sleep crisis in America,” Dr. Mass writes. “At least 50% of the American population is chronically sleep-deprived.”

That’s a lot of people. But it wouldn’t really be a big deal if sleep deprivation was simply a matter of feeling tired the next day.

Unfortunately, it’s not. At the risk of setting off any alarms, sleep deprivation has dire health consequences.

For example, researchers at the University of Luebeck, Germany found that people who sleep only six hours lower their resistance to

viral infection by fifty percent. Imagine walking around with your immune system working only partially. You might be. In 2013, Gallup – one of the most credible research organizations in the country – reported that 40% of American adults get six hours of sleep or less each night, which is at least two hours fewer than needed for optimal health.

It gets worse. Another study found that people who sleep six hours or less each night nearly double their risk of heart disease. And just this year, a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience showed that sleep deprivation caused irreversible brain damage in laboratory mice. Sure, you could argue the researchers were only testing on mice, but really, is permanent brain damage a risk you’re willing to take?

The point is: sleep deprivation is much more serious than people think. Dr. Mass calls healthy sleep the “single most important determinant in predicting longevity. It is more influential than diet, exercise or heredity.”

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Walking zombies It’s easy to think of sleep as a dormant, inactive state. Really, it’s much more than that. There’s a LOT going on in your body when you’re asleep. So much, in fact, that much of it remains a medical mystery.

What we do know, however, is that during the course of a good night’s sleep, your body repeats several cycles, each consisting of distinct stages. For a better understanding, we talked with Tom Cripe, a registered polysomnographer technologist and Director of the Sleep Disorder Center at Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center.

“Most people have been sleepdeprived for so long that feeling lousy has become their version of normal,” he said.

“It comes down to two things: quality and quantity. Under optimal circumstances, your body goes through four different stages of sleep. The key word here is optimal.

You can get eight or nine hours of sleep, but if you’re tossing and turning, or if you have issues like sleep apnea or severe allergies, it’s the same as getting only a couple hours of really good sleep.”

That’s because the order and timing of sleep stages is critical. And not guaranteed simply by falling asleep. Technically you can sleep a full eight hours without even making it past stage 3. And that final stage of sleep is vital to learning and memory, something particularly important for young people.

When you consider, for a moment, that most teenagers need about ten hours of sleep to function optimally, you can imagine what’s at stake for those who get, say, only six. Dr. Mass goes so far as to call most high school and college students “walking zombies”.

sleep that lasts about a half hour. During this stage, your body temperature drops and your breathing slows as your body prepares to enter a very deep sleep.

Have you ever taken a nap and woken up even more tired? It’s because you woke up during stage 3 sleep. This is your deepest sleep, and it’s when most of your physical rejuvenation takes place.

Your body releases growth hormones, your kidneys filter blood, your intestines transport excrements, your organs detoxify, your mineral losses are replenished, and billions of cells restore themselves. This is why power naps are short. You want to wake up before you reach deep sleep.

Then, about an hour or so into your sleep cycle, you enter the final stage: rapid eye movement, or REM. This is a precious stage of sleep that deserves its own subhead.

The precious REM stage

REM is when you get most of your mental rejuvenation. It’s also when you do most of your dreaming. By nature of their order in the cycle, deep sleep (stage 3) is easier to get to than REM sleep (stage 4).

Under ideal conditions, it’s simply a matter of time. But suppose an interruption wakes you during stage 3. If you don’t fall back asleep pretty quickly, the entire cycle starts over. So, in order to reach the REM stage, you need to fall asleep and stay asleep.

Even if you manage to do so, you’re not in the home stretch. See, in the first cycle of your night’s sleep, the REM stage usually only lasts for about 10 or 15 minutes. As you repeat the sleep cycle, the REM stage gets progressively longer. By morning, assuming you’ve slept well through the night, your final REM stage lasts up to 45 minutes. This is probably the biggest reason why so many people unknowingly suffer The 90-minute sleep cycle from health consequences related to sleep Under perfect conditions, it takes your deprivation. That really important REM body about 90 minutes to complete a full stage is particularly difficult to reach. If you cycle of sleep. As Tom explained, the first continually sleep less than 8 hours each stage is “a transition between wakefulness night, you’re pretty much guaranteed to and sleep.” For most people, stage 1 lasts suffer health problems that could’ve been about 20 minutes. Then you enter a light easily avoided.

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K-complexes and sleep spindles Sleep is a perfect example of just how incredibly complex and mysterious the human brain is. And considering the major role that sleep plays in a person’s life, researchers actually know very little about it.

In 1937 an American researcher by the name of Alfred Loomis discovered high amplitude waveforms in sleeping patients while conducting studies in his private laboratory. More than 70 years later, these waveforms, known as k-complexes, still baffle

scientists. All they seem to know for certain is that k-complexes occur during stage 2 sleep and take place in the cerebral cortex, the same part of the brain where most information processing takes place.

Another mystery half-solved is something called sleep spindles. Like k-complexes, sleep spindles are brainwaves that occur during stage 2 sleep. Matthew Walker, Ph.D., a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of California, Berkeley, conducted a series of studies that suggest sleep spindles are directly associated

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"What animals dream of I do not know. A proverb for which I am indebted to one of my readers claims to know, for it raises the question: 'What does the goose dream of?' The answer being: 'Of maize!' The whole theory that the dream is the fulfillment of a wish is contained in these sentences." - Sigmund Freud on the nature of dreams

with learning.

A 2012 study published in the journal Clinical Neurophysiology attempted to clarify some of the mystery behind the significance of k-complexes and sleep spindles. They didn’t get too far. “Sleep spindles and k-complexes are features specific to non-REM sleep that may be related to sleep homeostasis and memory consolidation,” the researchers concluded. They admit that “the full extent of brain regions active during their occurrences is not known.”

You can bet researchers are racing to be the first to shed more light on the significance of k-complexes and sleep spindles. Whoever does will secure their legacy in the ongoing quest to better understand the complex workings of the human brain.

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Time will tell Regardless of the enigma of sleep, the most important thing to know is clear: sleep plays a monumental and profoundly underestimated role in a person’s quality of life, health and longevity. It’s a message that Dr. Mass, Tom Cripe and many others have been touting for years. But for some reason, it hasn’t caught on. So we’re happy to echo it.

If you’re one of the 150 million sleepdeprived people in the U.S., recalibrating your understanding of sleep can easily add years to your life, prevent you from developing a host of common illnesses, and save you countless money in medical treatments over the course of your life. Basically, if you want to live longer, sleep longer.

Unique Art Classes & Projects Cstackstudios is a locally owned and operated art studio specializing in all forms of unique art instruction, art therapy, large scale beautification projects, and unique visualization projects. With over 15 years of experience teaching art at all levels, our studio artists work directly with you to design the classes and projects you want!

chris@cstackstudios.com samantha@cstackstudios.com www.cstackstudios.com

• New classes for kids, teens, adults, and couples starting September 1st!

• Private lessons, group instruction, and personalized art events • Schedule of classes available August 1st at cstackstudios.com • Refer a friend and receive 10% off your next month’s classes • Art lessons beginning at ages 5 and up!

cstackstudios

corp speak! a craft of B.S. and deception

coming next issue Granger Does It | 27

PROJECT LOON balloon-powered internet

T

wo thirds of the world’s population doesn't have internet.

Considering the ubiquitous role that the internet plays in everyday life nowadays, this is a valid problem. One that Google is currently working on solving.

It’s called Project Loon. It’s basically a network of balloon-floating internet service providers. Launched in 2013, Google hopes Project Loon will connect people in rural and remote areas, help fill coverage gaps, and bring people back online after disasters.

Project Loon balloons float in the stratosphere, on the “edge of space,“ as Google describes. The balloons provide connectivity signals to a ground area about 25 miles in diameter at speeds comparable to 3G service.

People connect to them from Earth using a special Internet antenna. The signal bounces from this antenna up to the balloon network, then back down to Earth. That's the goal, anyway.

Project Loon began with a pilot test last summer in New Zealand. Thirty balloons were sent into the stratosphere over South Island.

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Google says the initial launch successfully beamed internet to a small group of pilot testers on the island. Since then, Google has expanded these tests to a greater number of people over a wider area. The company says the results are being used to improve the balloon technology. More tests are currently underway in California’s Central Valley.

“We believe it's possible to create a ring of balloons that fly around the globe on the stratospheric winds and provide internet access to the Earth below,” Google states on whether the project is realistic or not. They admit that the nature of balloons presents some “really hard science problems.“ One of these “problems”, you might imagine, is controlling where the balloons float. In May of 2014, one of Google’s internet balloons crashed into a power pole near Yakima, Washington. The crash resulted in power outages at several local homes, as well as some bad P.R. Despite this setback, the internet giant remains optimistic, saying in a statement: “Since launching Project Loon in New Zealand last year, we’ve continued to do research flights to improve the technology. We coordinate with local air traffic control authorities and have a

team dedicated to recovering the balloons when they land.”

Other than this, Google hasn’t issued many details about upcoming plans for Project Loon. “Looking ahead,” they said, “Project Loon will continue to expand the pilot tests through 2014, with the goal of establishing a ring of uninterrupted connectivity around the 40th southern parallel, so that pilot testers at this latitude can receive continuous service via balloonpowered internet.”

Naturally, since the crash, many people have raised questions about how the company plans to prevent similar accidents in the future. “We’re working on creating a balloon design that can reliably last for 100+ days at a time in the stratosphere,” Google responded.

“We control the balloons by raising and lowering them to an altitude with winds blowing in the desired direction of travel.

We plan to take our balloons down over preselected, safe recovery zones so we can easily collect them to reuse and recycle their parts. In the event of an unexpected landing, every Loon balloon is equipped with a parachute to slow its descent.”

The Project Loon team also includes recovery specialists who track and collect landed balloons using GPS technology.

As for any risk that these balloons could interfere with commercial and passenger jetliners, Google says the balloons fly twice as high, and emphasizes again that they coordinate with local air traffic control to monitor all flight paths.

Project Loon is certainly an ambitious goal. If the company can work out all the bugs and successfully lobby the world’s support, who knows? They may just solve a big problem. For now, the research continues. Google is currently looking for partners who can help “iterate on the technology.” They don’t mention exactly what this means, but they provide an online form for volunteers to get involved with Project Loon. You can find out more at www.Google.com/loon.

Dear friends, They say that strength is determined not during times of happiness, but during times of challenge.

As you know, on April 24th, Copper Creek Cafe of Granger was damaged by a fire.

Since then, we’ve received countless emails and letters from people in the community expressing condolences and support while we work hard to repair the damage.

We can’t fully express how much your words and patience mean to us. These last few months have been difficult, but your compassion and support helps give us the strength to persevere.

With the help of many people, we’re making great progress and will announce our grand re-opening soon. For now, the work continues.

From all of us at Copper Creek Cafe, thank you for your kindness, loyalty and support. It means everything. the team at

Sincerely,

Copper Creek Cafe 12634 SR 23 Granger, IN

574-217-7764 TheCopperCreekCafe.com

RE-OPENING SOON! Granger Does It | 29

THE INDOOR CITY

Imagine being able to go to work, meet a friend for dinner, catch a movie and do some shopping – all without stepping outside.

People in Montreal have this luxury. At least, those who live near the Indoor City.

The actual name of the Indoor City is La Ville Souterraine, or RÉSO, a homophone for the French word reseau, which means network.

And that’s just what it is. Instead of an actual city, RÉSO is more like a massive mall. Imagine if you took University Park Mall, expanded it for about 20 miles, put it underground and connected it with hotels, businesses, offices, apartment buildings, restaurants, banks, libraries, Notre Dame and IUSB. We’d have our own version of RÉSO. The Indoor City is the largest underground complex in the world. It draws about 500,000 people underground every day.

Most work and live in Montreal, but RÉSO is also one of the city’s biggest tourist attractions.

In our initial research, the name Underground City kept coming up. But from what our Canadian friends tell us, you’ll give yourself up as a tourist pretty easily if you ask

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a native how to find the Underground City.

Indoor is a more accurate term.

RÉSO began in 1962 with the construction of Place Ville Mari, Montreal’s first modern skyscraper. The building was radical in design, partly because it included an underground shopping center. Today, there’s no doubt it was a good architectural move. The climatecontrolled Indoor City connects some 200 restaurants, 1,700 shops and 30 movie theaters, and continues to expand. In addition to being a well-deserved source of pride for Montreal, the Indoor City also helps maintain tourism to the second largest city in Canada.

Even without RÉSO, Montreal is a gorgeous metropolis full of unique attractions like the Basilique Notre-Dame, the Biodome and the Biosphere, and a public bicycle rental system and pedestrian infrastructure that might be of particular interest to Granger, which is well on its way to becoming more pedestrian friendly.

At any rate, if you make the 785-mile trip to Montreal, be sure to check out the Indoor City. We’d love to hear about it.

spicy gazpacho vs. mint avocado soup Hands down one of the best lunches we’ve had in a long time. It’s a two-part lunch. Like a duel, but with food… really, really fresh food.

The first part is spicy gazpacho, a chilled Spanish soup that’s a little like salsa. If we told you the original recipe for gazpacho, you probably wouldn’t make it: stale bread, water, garlic and vinegar, all mashed together in a bowl. It was Spanish peasant food. But as the legend goes, when Christopher Columbus brought tomatoes back from a voyage to South America, the rather dull dish (which was white because of the bread) turned red. And popular.

Today there are many variations of gazpacho, some that even include watermelon.

The recipe below is one of the simpler versions, but with a kick that gives the entire meal its charm. Just take about 6 tomatoes, a red onion, a red bell pepper, a clove of garlic, 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar, 1/4 cup of olive oil, a little

Chile sauce and some salt and pepper. Blend the ingredients to the consistency you like and chill it in the fridge. Part one, done.

Now it’s time to make the mint avocado soup. This dish doesn’t have a cool back-story like gazpacho. But it doesn’t really need one. Its charm comes from the way it chills your mouth with the flavors of cold cucumbers, mint and avocados after the spice of the gazpacho. Just take 2 cucumbers, 2 avocados, a red onion, 2 cups plain Greek yogurt, 2 cups cold water, 1/2 cup of cilantro, 1/2 cup of fresh mint, 2 tablespoons of lemon zest and some salt. Then, like the gazpacho, blend it all together.

The beauty of this little combo lunch has to do with its order. A small bowl of gazpacho spices things up, and the chilled mint avocado soup cools you off. It’s simple, inexpensive, light, healthy and most of all… refreshing. A perfect summer lunch.

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JUST ASK “Where do I get my ideas from?“ Kurt Vonnegut once said. “You might as well have asked that of Beethoven. He was goofing around in Germany like everybody else, and all of a sudden this stuff came gushing out of him. It was music. I was goofing around like everybody else in Indiana, and all of a sudden stuff came gushing out.“ When thinking about the same question, we can't come up with an answer as entertaining

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as Mr. Vonnegut's. The truth is: most of our ideas are inspired by the very people for whom we write: the Granger community. You. We'd like to take a moment to thank all of you who've written to us, telling us what you'd like to read about. Bitcoin, Michiana psychics, Granger Paths, the deep web, local UFOs, the Granger Farmer's Market... and a few secret topics we're saving for next issue. All of these ideas came from you. And we appreciate the inspiration.

Keep em' coming, as they say. It's a big world out there. Lots to talk about, especially in Granger. It's a budding area unlike any other community in Michiana. There are a lot of things happening right before your eyes, some you might not know about; some we might not know about. But all of them will, in one way or another, affect the way Granger develops over time. So let's keep the conversation going.

Bottom line: if you have something you want to read about, let us know. You'll hear back.

Photo Credits Motorized Hang Glider Aniuszca Child Flying Kite Blue Yonder Jetpack Martin Aircraft Company Paraglider in the Air Jorg Hackman Frustrated Farmer Yobro10 Fish-Eye Cow Rolffassbind Vietnam Tunnel Howard Breedlove Hangman's Noose Craig Colvin Window Gkuna Deep Sleep Sherif Mohyeldin Doggie Sleeping Mathew Thorn Sigmund Freud Ferdinand Schmutzer Project Loon Google Indoor City This_is_bossi Avocados Hel080808

owl-ways grateful Owl-ways be grateful. Sounds like advice a wise old owl might offer.

We believe in this. It took the help of a lot of people to inspire and produce this issue. We're grateful to all of you, including Tom Cripe at the Sleep Disorder Center at Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center, James Mass, Ph.D.; Brian and Diana Taylor, Lydia Karacson, Jodi Ferro, Jodi Short, Rick Lee, Chris Stackowicz, the U.S. Library of Congress, Google,

Wikipedia, tourisme-montreal.org, The Federal Aviation Administration, Martin Aircraft Company, Langston Hughes, Kurt Vonnegut, Nathan Hale, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, all the photographers who contributed work, the many wonderful local businesses for supporting us, and most of all, the entire Granger community for inspiring us to be better. From all of us at Granger Does It, thank you.

Owl Face Peter Emmet Blue Green Door Scott Griessel All necessary image licenses are provided at GrangerDoesIt.com.

That kind of art •

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