Encore March 2014

March 2014

Secondhand News

Resale shops are on the rise

Northside Ministerial Alliance Writer

Michael Loyd Gray

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March 2014

southwest michigan’s magazine

Secondhand News

Resale shops are on the rise

Northside Ministerial Alliance Writer

Michael Loyd Gray

Publisher

encore publications, inc.

Editor

marie lee

Designer

alexis stubelt

Photographer erik holladay

Copy Editor/Poetry Editor margaret deritter

Contributors

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zinta aistars, kit almy, theresa coty o’neil, margaret deritter, tiffany fitzgerald, christine webb

Contributing Poets

elizabeth kerlikowske, lynn pattison

Advertising Sales krieg lee celeste statler kurt todas

Office Manager ron dundon

Encore Magazine is published 9 times yearly, September through May. Copyright 2014, Encore Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Editorial, circulation and advertising correspondence should be sent to: www.encorekalamazoo.com 117 W. Cedar St. Suite A Kalamazoo, MI 49007 Telephone: (269) 383-4433 Fax number: (269) 383-9767 E-mail: Publisher@encorekalamazoo.com The staff at Encore welcomes written comment from readers, and articles and poems for submission with no obligation to print or return them. To learn more about us or to comment, you may visit www.encorekalamazoo.com. Encore subscription rates: one year $27, two years $53, three years $78. Current single issue and newsstand $4, $10 by mail. Back issues $6, $12 by mail. Advertising rates on request. Closing date for space is 28 days prior to publication date. Final date for print-ready copy is 21 days prior to publication date.

4 | Encore MARCH 2014

March

FEATURES Secondhand News

‘Green’ and thrifty shoppers are fueling the uptick of resale stores in Southwest Michigan.

Faithful Allies

The members of the Northside Ministerial Alliance put aside racial and religious differences to strengthen their community.

Not Famous Yet

Novelist Michael Loyd Gray tries to keeps a low profile in spite of success.

24

CONTENTS 2014

DEPARTMENTS

Up Front 8 Kalamazoo Growlers — Kalamazoo newest baseball

18

enterprise is hoping for a hit with fans.

10

High Flyer — Balloonist Ron Centers’ passion is more than just a lot of hot air.

12 Savor

30

Galesburg Meat Co. — Modern-day butcher is proud of his traditions and “phenomenal” products.

14 Enterprise

Tooling for Growth — Downtown development is a boon for 147-year-old Hoekstra Hardware.

16 Good Works

Youngest Grievers — The program Journeys helps kids and families cope with losing a loved one.

46 The Last Word

‘Warbirds’ are testament to the value of listening to the past.

ARTS

34 Lamb of God

Inspired leader Jen Randall felt a calling to bring this Easter oratorio to Kalamazoo.

36 Jean Stevens

Visual artisit Jean Stevens offers an intimate look at the natural world.

38 Janet Ruth Heller

The poet’s new book puts a modern spin on biblical themes.

On the cover: Vintage wares are especially popular treasures sought by resale store shoppers. Photo by Erik Holladay.

40 Events of Note 41 Poetry

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CONTRIBUTORS ENCORE

Zinta Aistars

Kit Almy

Theresa Coty-O’neil Margaret DeRitter

Zinta, the writer who explored secondhand shopping for this issue, is the creative director of Z Word, LLC, a writing and editing service. She is the founder and editor-in-chief of the online literary magazine The Smoking Poet (www.thesmokingpoet.com) and the author of three published books in Latvian — a poetry collection, a story collection and a children’s book.

Zinta lives on a small farm in Hopkins, where she raises chickens and organic vegetables, wanders the woods between writing assignments and clatters away on the keyboard writing a novel.

A regular contributor to Encore, Kit has been bringing us interesting arts features for the last several months.

This month she talks to visual artist Jean Stevens and writes about the Easter oratorio Lamb of God. Kit is a multifaceted writer who also tackles creative nonfiction and poetry. Born in Michigan and raised in suburban Chicago, she is a proud Kalamazoo College alumna who volunteers at the Kalamazoo Nature Center’s DeLano Homestead, teaching pioneer programs.

The writer responsible for this month’s feature on author Michael Loyd Gray, Theresa has contributed to Encore on and off for more than 20 years, a relationship she says “has given her countless opportunities to meet inspiring people and appreciate the generous community” in which she and her family live. In addition to being a freelance writer, Theresa is a short story author and online writing instructor. She and her husband are deeply involved in their three children’s twin passions — music and sports — and she continues to engage in happenings at her two alma maters, Kalamazoo College and Western Michigan University.

Tiffany Fitzgerald

Erik Holladay

Christine Webb

Tiffany is relatively new to Kalamazoo, having moved here from Colorado two years ago. We have kept her busy getting to know her new environs — this month she is responsible for our Savor, Enterprise and Good Works stories as well as a feature on the Northside Ministerial Alliance. Tiffany brings a fresh set of eyes to Southwest Michigan and says she has learned fascinating things about the community through her writing for Encore. In addition to her journalism (her work has also appeared in the Denver alt-weekly Westword), Tiffany writes advertising copy — chances are, if you peruse the Internet long enough, you’ll be brainwashed by her marketing genius.

6 | Encore MARCH 2014

Like many of our contributors, Erik is a storyteller — he just tells his stories through a camera lens. Most of Encore’s intriguing images are the result of Erik’s photographic genius.

Erik admits he wanted to be a tattoo artist until the first time he developed one of his own photos in a darkroom as a high school student. He spent the better part of the last 25 years working as a photojournalist across the state of Michigan, working for the Grand Rapids Press, Flint Journal, Jackson Citizen Patriot and Kalamazoo Gazette.

Now a freelance photographer, he tells amazing stories for commercial, media and wedding clients.

Christine, a junior high English teacher by day and writer by night, was born and raised in Kalamazoo and graduated from Michigan State University. She is happy to be back in Kalamazoo after living in Nevada for the past few years. Her first book, The Elsie Files, was published in 2013

by Tate Publishing. Her story in this issue on balloonist Ron Centers is the first time she’s been published in Encore, but she has previously written magazine articles for Greenprints and Twins. In her spare time, she likes to cook and spend time with her family, which consists of her husband, Rex; her dog, Elvis; and her evil cat, Elsie.

A freelance writer and editor, Margaret has a strong background in the arts and literary worlds of Southwest Michigan. After all, she worked in those areas for more than two decades at the Kalamazoo Gazette. This month she writes about author Janet Heller’s new poetry book. In addition to writing feature articles, Margaret works her editorial magic on Encore copy and serves as the publication’s poetry editor. A poet herself, she is currently working on a book manuscript.

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UP FRONT ENCORE

New Team in Town

Growlers bring baseball back to Kalamazoo by

Theresa Coty O’Neil

D

uring the team name announcement for the Kalamazoo’s newest baseball team. in the middle of a welcoming speech by Dick Radatz, founding owner and president of the Northwoods Baseball League, a fire alarm went off.

Radatz waited patiently until someone turned it off. No fire, but a dramatic way to unveil the team’s name, Kalamazoo Growlers, and mascot, a growling black and blue bear clutching a baseball over the golden skyline of Kalamazoo.

At first, the connection of the name Growlers to Kalamazoo may seem confusing.

Where are there bears in Kalamazoo? OK, so this writer is a little slow on the uptake — the name is for the half-gallon containers used to transport microbrew beer. The name, at least according to one Wisconsin brewmaster, came from buckets of beer given to factory workers before their stomachs began to “growl” from hunger.

“We wanted the team to have a name that was unique and different,” says John Bollinger, a Growlers’ assistant general manager. ‘’We wanted it be the community’s team because we know that the best teams in the country succeed because the community

8 | Encore MARCH 2014

embraces them.

Kalamazoo is a big microbrew city, but we didn’t want to be too beer-friendly.

When we got the votes, we were just blown away with the percentage. This community embraces the culture and history of the microbreweries and the name pays homage to this.”

Lest the Growlers seem too beer-friendly, their business model is based on providing family entertainment for an affordable price with a wide variety of options, including a Kid Zone with inflatable bouncers and slides and plenty of themes, guests and giveaways. Park entertainment will include visitors like the Cowboy Monkeys, monkeys who ride dogs and herd sheep. There are also rumors of a special opening-day national-anthem singer.

In addition to large giveaways and Friday fireworks, there will be themes like Bark in the Park and Star Wars Day. The park will also include Bell’s Beer Cave, an indoor/outdoor

Kalamazoo Growlers’ field manager Joe Carbone speaks at the team’s opening event.

suite for hosting parties, business meetings or special events.

“We’re providing entertainment at every single game,” says Shane Stout, assistant manager for sales and services. “A year from now you may not remember who won and lost the game, but you’re going to remember who you were with and how much fun you had. That’s what we want to provide our fans.”

The highly respected Northwoods League sponsors summer collegiate baseball with the top players in the country. Teams will pull players from their region first. The first new Growler players announced are Brett Sunde of Madison Heights and Jared Kujawa of Temperance, both of whom play for Western Michigan University. Joe Carbone, former head baseball coach at Ohio University, was named field manager. Cody Piechocki, Kalamazoo Valley Community College’s baseball coach, has also joined the Growlers as an assistant coach.

Quiet, Comfortable, Affordable Choice Aged Steaks A natural rivalry with another Northwoods League team, the eight-year-old Battle Creek Bombers, is also developing at a rapid pace. The Bombers’ mascot is — get this — a mosquito! Bollinger is looking for sponsors (think exterminator) to attack the Bomber mascot. “We’re already talking smack on social media,” he says. The Growlers will play the Bombers eight times during the season, four times at each field, including the opening game. If fans purchase Growlers season tickets, they automatically get Bombers season tickets.

The Growlers follow an iffy Kalamazoo baseball legacy. There have been three baseball teams in less than the past two decades: The Kalamazoo Kodiaks were the local team from 1995 to 1998 and the Kalamazoo Kings, played from 2001 to 2011.

Some blamed the departure of the Kings on the location of Homer Stryker Field, which is in Mayors’ Riverfront Park on the city’s East side.

But Bollinger and Stout are optimistic.

They say the location is safe (with plenty of parking attendants) and easily accessible from the I-94 business loop. And, really, with a name like Homer Stryker Field? You can expect plenty of homers (for ‘da Growlers) and lots of strikes (for da’ Bombers). And there are hints that city revitalization is moving northeastward, such as the new Arcadia Brewing Co. under construction just up the street at the intersection of Michigan and Kalamazoo avenues.

No doubt the Growlers are trying to brew up support and enthusiasm for their new family- and beer-friendly baseball venture. In 1963, the city of Kalamazoo built the baseball stadium, then called Sutherland Field, with big hopes. It was renovated in 1995 and renamed in 2002 to honor the founder of Stryker Corp.

Homer Stryker Field is Kalamazoo’s field of dreams. If you build it, they will come. The Kodiaks came and the Kings came (2001 to 2010), and now the Growlers have come and hope the spectators do too.

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up front encore

High Flyer

Balloonist Ron Centers not coming down anytime soon by

Christine Webb

How does a guy go from being a villain on

stage to running a hot-air balloon company?

Just ask Ron Centers, a hot-airballoon enthusiast and owner of Michigan Balloon Corp. of Kalamazoo.

Centers began ballooning in the 1970s, and he came about his vocation in an unusual way.

“Well, I was a theater major,” he says with a laugh. “That’s basically it.”

Centers was 22 years old in the summer of 1975 and had moved home to Michigan after spending a few months in New York City trying to make it as an actor. The Consolidated Gaslight Players in Jones, Mich., had offered him a role as a villain in their upcoming theatrical production. Centers had been cast as a villain multiple times with that company, and he was not sure he wanted to play one again. The theater’s owner really wanted Centers to come work in Jones, though, so he sweetened the deal by offering to let Centers pilot the hot-air balloon he was buying to attract tourists. He paid for Centers to get his balloon pilot’s license, and Ron Centers the aerialist was born.

The next 10 years were a whirlwind of adventure for Centers. He flew balloons in Jones for a few seasons before moving to Albuquerque to fly the Budweiser balloon.

10 | Encore MARCH 2014

He carried a banner over the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y., flew over the North Pole and helped start a scenic-tours business in the Cayman Islands. He even spent some time designing and flying blimps, which was not his favorite thing to do. “Test flying was a bear,” Centers recalls. “Blimps are so difficult to fly.”

He moved from flying blimps to working as a trainer for American Airlines, but he did not really like that job either. So he decided to get back to his love of flying balloons and moved back to Michigan in the late 1980s.

Centers started Michigan Balloon Corp. with just a couple balloons, but his Portagebased fleet has grown to about a dozen over the years. Not all are airworthy at any one time, but fixing and refurbishing the balloons is a hobby that Centers enjoys. What he enjoys even more, however, is taking people up flying. “When I’m giving people rides, and just … the smiles on their faces,” he says.

“They’re so happy and so appreciative of the A balloonist for more than 35 years, Ron Centers created the High on Kalamazoo balloon festival, which attracted more than 10,000 spectators its first year.

Courtesy/Ron Centers

Your Custom Resource Hardwood Flooring, Cabinetry and more… experience.” Making people’s once-in-alifetime dreams come true on a daily basis is “very fulfilling.”

Centers gets his own thrill out of flying and gets a faraway look when he reminisces about breathtaking views of Lake Michigan, flying over forests and watching deer and rabbits play, and flying so low over trees that his passengers can pick leaves. One of his favorite trips is to fly through vineyards.

“You can just smell the must off of the vineyards,” he says. “It’s magic.”

Centers has found another way to share his passion for flying — by starting the High on Kalamazoo balloon festival. The first such festival was last September and marked the 50th anniversary of when the national hotair-balloon championships took place in Kalamazoo in 1963. Centers’ festival, held at the Kalamazoo Air Zoo, drew more than 10,000 spectators who came over the course of the weekend to watch the 30 balloon pilots from around the Midwest compete in a balloon race.

Centers plans to make it an annual event;.

This year’s festival is scheduled for Sept.

19-21.

“We’re hoping to get a little more land for the spectators next time,” Centers says, “because it’s going to be even bigger this year.”

Despite the work involved in planning such an event, Centers doesn’t let it get in the way of what he truly loves — flying his balloons. He flies year-’round and is constantly looking for new adventures or feats to accomplish. He says has been contacted about possibly doing a reality TV show about balloons, he may help his friend set up a balloon tourism business in Africa, or he might just stay in Portage and hang out with his wife, his kids and his grandkids.

One thing is for sure: He has no plans to come down anytime soon.

“Yeah, …it’s been fun,” he admits.

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Fairy variations from Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella and other selections featuring Barry Ross, violinist.

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SAVOR encore

‘I Made That Bacon’

Galesburg butcher proud of his traditions by

Tiffany Fitzgerald

When was the last time you picked up a

piece of meat at the grocery store and knew where it came from and who butchered, cured, smoked and packaged it? Possibly never. That, says Mark Christian, the owner of Galesburg Meat Co., at 58 Mill St., is the advantage to buying your meat from him.

“Grocery stores basically open a box, take meat out and put it in on a shelf,” he says.

“We’re buying live animals from local farms — choice beef cattle or hogs — and cutting it all up ourselves, starting right from the beginning and working all the way through to the end.”

It’s an old-fashioned tradition for customers to be able to go to a butcher shop for meat, but that’s not the only tradition

12 | Encore MARCH 2014

Christian’s been maintaining. His father, Richard Christian, bought Galesburg Meat in the late 1970s, and he and Mark worked together in the store for about 35 years.

Richard died in 2012 at the age of 81.

The front of the store is simple — a counter and three large refrigerated coolers filled with different cuts of meat, such as smoked ham, sausage links, jerky and bacon. The majority of the building is in the back and is dedicated to curing, smoking, processing and butchering. There’s a large smokehouse that’s operating “24 hours a day, seven days a week,” and a dry-aging cooler, another of Christian’s traditions.

Almost no one dry-ages meat anymore.

The traditional way to age meat, dry aging

uses the meat’s natural enzymes to break down the connective tissue and keep the meat from spoiling. Given the money and time required to dry-age meat, most meat companies wet-age meat, meaning the meat is packaged in a vacuum-sealed bag for two to three days. One of the main reasons meat producers use wet aging is that the moisture stays in the meat. More water in the meat means more weight, and more weight brings a higher price for the meat. According to industry sources, almost 90 percent of beef is wet-aged.

Mark Christian, owner of the Galesburg Meat Co., employs traditional butchering techniques such as dry aging meat and and curing and smoking his ham and bacon.

“The faster you can get that animal vacuum-packed, the more times,” he says. Another way is by expanding his catering business moisture you can retain, so weight is definitely a consideration,” to include weddings. Catering by GMC is a division of Galesburg Christian says.

Meat run by longtime friend Jerry VanderWeele and his wife, Tammy.

Christian sticks to his traditions in other areas of meat production Tammy explains that even though the company has been catering too. He uses only meat to make his lunch meats — no fillers or fats — for more than 20 years, it wasn’t until the last five years that she and even in bologna, the most notoriously processed meat. And Christian her husband approached Christian about doing weddings. Since then, sticks to the old ways of curing and smoking too. business has exploded, something she attributes almost completely “Whole hams in the (grocery) store have a lot of unnecessary to the food. product added to them, like phosphates and water,” he says. “This “Our food is good, and it’s all made from scratch,” she says. “But the is a real cured ham, smoked in real smoke, not just run through a No. 1 thing that gives us an edge over other catering companies is the steam cooker or liquid-smoked. meat. It’s fresh and it’s smoked, It makes a big difference for the which is the craze right now. But flavor.” no one can smoke as good as “This is a real, cured ham, smoked in It makes such a big difference us. Mark has an amazing touch. real smoke, not just run through a steam that people keep coming into There’s not one meat we put out Galesburg Meat instead of that isn’t phenomenal.” cooker or liquid-smoked. It makes a big conveniently picking up their In fact, the meat is so good that difference for the flavor.” meat at the grocery store. In VanderWeele says she’s spoiled addition to single-serving cuts — she tries bacon whenever she - Mark Christian in the coolers, Galesburg Meat dines out and has almost always also offers meat “bundles” and been disappointed. Except on one “boxes” that range from $50 to occasion. “I went to a restaurant $282. Each bundle has a mix of different meats in it, from hot dogs I’d never been to in Comstock not long ago,” she says. “When I tried to country-style ribs. the bacon, I told my husband, ‘Oh, my God, this is good bacon!’ I didn’t “These bundles are a lot more accessible to most customers know where they got it from until I asked. They got it from us.” because they can come up with $100 for a month’s worth of meat, The ability to produce the best of something is exactly what keeps where they might not have been able to come up with $800 before Christian interested in his business year after year. “If you’re great for a whole side of beef,” Christian says. “And how many freezers at something, you want to do it,” he says. “This is about starting do you have? Having more than one freezer is expensive, and most something from the beginning and taking it to the end. I know the people just don’t have the space for a lot of meat anymore.” farms I’m getting the animals from — every single one is going to be Bundles, processed meats and even more cooked meats are some the best. That bacon — I made that bacon, and I know it’s the best. of the ways that Christian breaks tradition by “changing with the That’s why I do this.”

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Enterprise ENCORE

Tooling Up for Growth

Downtown development a boon for Hoekstra’s Hardware by

Tiffany Fitzgerald

Even with a 147-year history, Hoekstra’s

Carol Paris

True Value Hardware on Portage Street isn’t stuck in the past or even relying on its legacy as a go-to hardware store to propel it into the future. Instead, Hoekstra’s is a forwardmoving business linked to the revitalization of downtown Kalamazoo, helping to lead the way from recession to renewal.

One of the main reasons Hoekstra’s has stayed the course through the economic downturn, instead of folding as many independently owned small businesses have done in the last six years, is its location on the fringes of downtown Kalamazoo, co-owner Phil Ippel says.

“We do a lot of business with both the businesses nearby and the people who live in the surrounding neighborhoods,” Ippel says. “If you live out farther, in the suburbs surrounding downtown, there are big-box hardware stores like Lowe’s or Home Depot.

But if you live here in the city, you have to drive out to those stores. We’re more convenient.”

It’s not just convenience that helps Hoekstra’s stay in the game. It has gained a reputation for having everything, even the most obscure type of tool, like a cabinet scraper, Ippel says. And this winter’s polar vortex helped too.

“We are quite weather-driven,” he says. “The snow we’ve had helped us sell snowblowers, ice melt and shovels, but it also pushed our repair business. Co-owner Ciissimi, occusdae volupti doluptam facerum ipsapelent fuga. Et ea prem que officidellum quiae pa ipsaperor simet volorrore cuptam apidunt ullupit pro berita

14 | Encore MARCH 2014

Phil Ippel, front, and Tom Izenbaard, co-owners of Hoekstra Hardware, say the building boom downtown has been good for their business.

as president of Hoekstra’s in 2007 due to health problems (he has since recuperated), and Ippel and Izenbaard now run the store together.

Aside from the transitions in ownership, the store also has gone through extensive physical changes since the two took over in 2007. Almost all of the old shelves and

“People always ask us, ‘Why don’t you move?’ We feel like this is where we’ve been, and this is the place to be.

We’ve been here so long we just feel like this is it. This is home.”

- Phil Ippel displays from the 1950s have been replaced, and the outside of the store has been remodeled.

As Izenbaard and Ippel look to the future of their business — and hope for snow, wet springs and hot summers — they want to continue to grow and develop with the area surrounding the store.

“The neighborhood seems a bit blighted, but we also see that this area is going through a transformation,” Ippel says.

More business accounts have been opened at Hoekstra’s as downtown construction has increased, Ippel says, and he and Izenbaaard are counting on that trend to continue with Kalamazoo Valley Community College’s plans to build a $42 million culinary and wellness campus near Bronson Methodist Hospital.

“With the KVCC project, which is investing millions of dollars into the downtown area, we’re seeing a lot of interest in this area,” Ippel says. “We’re hoping it’ll bring more people, and that we’ll be able to not just pick up more business from people moving here, but also from construction companies.”

With all the changes in the area, Ippel says he and Izenbaard are looking forward to the future.

“There’s still a future for the independent, local hardware store,” Ippel says. “And to me, that future is a good one. People always ask us, ‘Why don’t you move?’ We feel like this is where we’ve been and this is the place to be.

We’ve been here so long we just feel like this is it. This is home.”

Carol Paris

Tom Izenbaard, who works doing the repairs, hardly had a chance the weeks after the first snow to even eat lunch.”

While snow drives winter sales up, the hot summer sun brings customers in to buy fans, air conditioners and hoses, and a wet spring can help sell pumps and lawn mowers.

Overall, Ippel says, the weather plays a big role — particularly when selling seasonal items.

“Our other business just sort of churns along,” Ippel says. “You need some of the weather extremes to really push it.”

Hoekstra’s opened in 1867 as a general store and remained under Hoekstra family operation until 1946, when the Hoekstras passed the store to their longtime employee, Henry Hoogerheide. Jim Ippel and John Izenbaard joined the store as employees not long after and ended up joining Hoogerheide as Hoekstra’s owners for the next several decades. Hoogerheide died in 1990, leaving his son Dan to become co-owner with the elder Ippel and Izenbaard.

They died in 2011 and 2013 respectively and passed their ownership of the store to their sons, Phil Ippel and Tom Izenbaard, who both started working at Hoekstra’s in the late 1960s while still in high school.

Dan Hoogerheide retired from his position

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good works ENCORE

The Youngest Grievers

Journeys program helps kids, families cope with loss Theresa Coty O’Neil

Courtesy/Tina Kaiser

by

Dr. Michael Kaiser poses with his children Evan and Alanna on the first day of school in 2011. He died five months later.

W

Nico Studios

hen Tina Kaiser’s husband, Dr. Michael Kaiser, died from cancer in February 2012, she began a new life as a single mother to her two children, Evan, now 8, and Alanna, now 7.

While both of Kaiser’s children were able to talk about their father’s death, she found that her son, in particular, would sometimes hold in his sadness because he didn’t want to make her sad too. She wanted a way for her children to find support in their grief and to learn about ways to support them herself.

“After the death of someone close, it can take all of your energy to physically get up in the morning to take care of your family and household,” says Kaiser, who also has two college-age stepchildren, Megan and Danielle. “You don’t have the energy for anything else. Just because the kids are at school and you’ve actually showered that 16 | Encore MARCH 2014

day, and you look OK on the outside, it doesn’t mean you are exactly OK.” Her husband spent his last few days with hospice services, and she felt fortunate to learn through them about Journeys, a support group for grieving children, teens and their families started by Hospice Care of Southwest Michigan in 2002.

Journeys, which meets the second and fourth Tuesdays and Wednesdays of each month at Grief Support Services at Oakland Centre, 2255 W. Centre Ave., offers an ageappropriate support program for preschool and school-aged children and teens, along with their caregivers, who may also need help recognizing and understanding the symptoms of grief in their children.

“At school, kids who have experienced a death may have 20 kids surrounding them, but they don’t have any idea who has lost

someone important in their life. Here they can look around them and know and see others who have lost someone,” says Amy Embury, a grief support counselor with Journeys. “We give kids a language they can use about what it is they’re going through. One of the things kids say they want is to be told the truth. We talk about death and what it’s like, and we help caregivers answer questions about what it’s like. They can go beyond, ‘I don’t feel well.

I’m sad.’”

Journeys isn’t just for people who have used hospice services, as many might assume because it’s under the Hospice Care of Southwest Michigan umbrella; it’s for any caregivers and any children who have lost someone close to them, whether a parent, grandparent, sibling, aunt, uncle or friend.

“Support groups like Journeys help normalize grief too,” says Laura Latiolais,

Character Counts! director of Community Relations and Development with Hospice Care of Southwest Michigan. “One of the things you hear all the time is that children are so resilient, but children don’t grieve the same way as adults and often don’t really talk about it. It doesn’t mean that they aren’t grieving. Their feelings may come and go. There is no time limit, no set pattern.”

Journeys is structured so that each meeting involves an informal family meal and time for socializing. Children and caregivers then attend age-appropriate groups where the focus is often on a particular aspect of grief.

They may create a craft, share their experience of loss, or participate in an expressive activity, such as making music or movement.

“They do a really good job at remembering the person and honoring the person,” Kaiser says. Seeing a collection of candles, each dedicated to a specific loved one, can help kids feel empowered and less alone. Art projects that help memorialize their loved one give kids an opportunity to let memories surface that may sometimes get lost among the demands of daily life.

“And sometimes it’s just about being in a group of people who understand,” Kaiser says. “You don’t always need to talk about the death to feel comforted. There are very few places where my children now have peers.

But this is one place where they have peers, people who can really understand what it is they’re going through.”

After attending Journeys for a year and a half, Kaiser has met many people for whom the death of a loved one is new and raw. “I take comfort in helping the newer people,” she says. “When you know you can help someone, it helps ease your pain. Not only are you getting the benefit for your children and yourself, but you are able to help someone along in their journey. It makes it easier to bear.”

For more information about Journeys, please send email to journeys@hospiceswmi. org or call the Journeys grief counselor at 269-345-0273. More information is also available at www.hospiceswmi.org.

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Faithful

Northside Ministerial Alliance promotes community

Allies by

Tiffany Fitzgerald

photography by

ERIK HOLLADAY

I

Members of the Northside Ministerial Alliance: from left, front row, Pastor Bobette Hampton, Rev. JohnL Jackson, Charles C. Warfield, Michael T. Scott Sr., Bishop T.D. Lockett, Pastor Donald H. DeYoung, Elder William Mandella Roland. Second row, from left, Rhonda Edwards, George Huffsmith, Pastor Lenzy E. Bell, Pastor Gloria J. Clark, Deacon Joe Schmitt. Third row, Chaplain Theda McBryde, Rev. J. Barrett Lee, Pastor Strick Strickland Sr., Rev. Ben Schaefer. Fourth row, Rev. Robert Rasmussen, Rev. Samuel Cornelius Christian and Elder Della Spurlock-Redding.

n 1976, when the Northside Ministerial Alliance was formed, Kalamazoo was still reeling from the backlash against integration.

People protested, conflicts happened regularly in schools, racially motivated violent crimes occurred throughout the city, and schools often closed down for days to calm the fighting between black and white students, according to a 1977 U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report that focused on Kalamazoo Public Schools.

Eventually, in 1971, the school district was ordered by a court to desegregate because its schools remained predominantly populated by students of a single race.

Charles Warfield, a retired professor of education at Western Michigan University and the current president of the Metropolitan Kalamazoo Branch of the NAACP, was the president of the Kalamazoo Public Schools Board of Education in 1974. He said in the 1977 report that desegregation had a positive effect on the community. He cited some examples at Lincoln School, which had been an all-black school. The school had its floors cleaned the day after a white parent said they were the â&#x20AC;&#x153;filthiest things

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 19

Charles C. Warfield, at left, started the Northside Ministerial Alliance 38 years ago. Michael T. Scott, paster of Galilee Baptist Church, is the organizationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s current president.

20 | Encore MARCH 2014

she had ever seen,” and a dangerous window at the school was repaired the day after it fell on a white student. The integration of the community may have brought a lot of strife, but it also started a movement toward a more functional, integrated community and city.

In the North Side neighborhood, a group of pastors and community leaders decided to band together and put aside racial, denominational, ethnic and religious differences to try to make a difference in the community — to counter the racism, injustice and poverty they saw sickening the neighborhood around them. Warfield was one of the people who helped start the Northside Ministerial Alliance, and, 38 years later, as one of its education committee cochairs, he’s proud of the work the Alliance has accomplished.

“One of the things the Alliance did was break down the barriers of denomination,” he says. “It’s opened up the community, not just to the pastors who serve the Northside, but to other ministers in the community, as well as organizations whose primary responsibility is to impact areas were there are large numbers of poor, and particularly African-American, people.”

Aside from connecting nonprofit organizations with the community and attempting to get services to those who most desperately need them, the Alliance is also an action platform for members to reach out to the community directly. The Alliance provides numerous services to the Northside community, including youth and community services, a recovery center for those dealing with substance abuse, and advancement services for parents, helping to support parents of children under 5 years old prepare for grade school.

When the United Way decided last July to pull more than $267,000 of annual funding from the Douglass Community Association because of the Association’s dire financial problems, the Alliance came together with other community groups and helped to prevent the more-than-90-year-old Northside organization from shutting down, Warfield says, thus saving an integral part of the community.

Michael Scott, the pastor of Galilee Baptist Church in Kalamazoo and current president

of the Northside Ministerial Alliance, says outreach programs are what defines the Alliance and helps it stand out from other interdenominational organizations.

Scott has been the Alliance president for a year and is set to serve for a two-year term.

He says the Alliance is currently made up of more than 70 members from 20 churches in the Kalamazoo area as well as community leaders who help bridge the aid structures of the community to meet the needs of Kalamazoo residents.

Although the Alliance was created to respond to the inequality, racism and discrimination of the 1960s and ’70s, its

Alliance reaches out to the community, Scott says. “One service we are particularly proud of is the Emergency Crisis Fund. We took note of the number of apartment fires that occur in this area and that a lot of the victims are displaced,” Scott says. “We’ve decided to raise money to help them. So far, we have raised over $10,000. We don’t touch that money until there’s an emergency or catastrophe.”

Scott, who moved to Kalamazoo from Maryland two years ago with his wife and children, says he’s been in several alliances before, but the Northside Ministerial Alliance is different from the rest. “Kalamazoo

From left, Warfield, Pastor Strick Strickland and William Mandella Roland serve on the organization’s executive committee.

mission has shifted in more recent years, Scott says. Now, thanks to the NAACP and ISAAC (Interfaith Strategy for Advocacy & Action in the Community) — another interfaith organizing group within the Kalamazoo community — the Alliance is able to branch out.

“The issues of racism and inequality, discrimination and prejudice are still a concern,” Scott says, “but we don’t have to be limited to those concerns, thanks to these organizations. We have an obligation to help people, and this Alliance is an avenue to make a greater impact in the community.”

Community service, resource networking and fundraisers are some of the ways the

doesn’t know how good it has it,” he says.

“The partnership in the Alliance is second to none. Every week we get together. You don’t see that often.”

Scott also says that the Alliance isn’t just a way for him to give back to his community through service, but an organization from which he also receives support. “I think the three loneliest jobs are being the president, a judge or a minister,” he says. “The load you carry and the politics that go with it can weigh you down. This Alliance gives me a place to grow and talk with other ministers.

I believe I have a gift to minister to other ministers, so it gives me a chance to use that gift as well.”

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 21

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Two of the major programs the Alliance plans and hosts annually are the Community Prayer Breakfast in October and the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration in January. This year will be the 17th year for the breakfast; it was the 29th year for the MLK Celebration.

Both events feature keynote speakers, focus on the growth of community in Kalamazoo and establish a place for the Alliance as a part of the local community.

The Rev. Donald DeYoung, diaconal ministry coordinator of Bethel Reformed Church and an active member of the Alliance since it began, says that connection with community is what the Alliance has always been about. “We are not created to be separate,” he says. “We have distinctions that grow into differences and separation, but we are all a part of one family.”

When DeYoung moved to Kalamazoo in the mid-1970s from East Harlem, N.Y. to join Second Reformed Church, it had just moved out of the North Side. DeYoung joined the Alliance to maintain supportive ties with and to attempt to address the flight out of the neighborhood. “This was a way of maintaining a ministry within the community,” he says. “When everyone was moving out, including the church, this was a way to establish ministry throughout the city.”

Although the Alliance started in the North Side and meets there, it’s open to the entire Kalamazoo community and many of its members come from the broader Kalamazoo area. Different races, denominations, ethnicities and areas of expertise are represented by the membership, which includes police officers, politicians, nonprofit leaders and pastors. Most members have been involved for a while, but some, like North Presbyterian Church Pastor Barrett Lee, are brand new.

Lee, who moved to Kalamazoo in midSeptember from upstate New York, was told about the Alliance when he arrived. The previous North Presbyterian pastor, the Rev. Linda MacDonald, had been a part of the Alliance, and Barrett was expected to step in. He says he didn’t know how much the membership would mean to him at first.

“I was told before I moved that I would be one of the only white pastors in a primarily (continued on page 43)

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dhan SeconNews

‘Green’ and thrifty shoppers fuel growth of resale stores

ERIK HOLLADAY

hrift stores, secondhand stores, vintage stores. Call them what you will, but stores selling gently used items — from clothes and furniture to children’s gear and building materials — are popping up everywhere. In Kalamazoo alone, an Internet search will turn up nearly 50 listings of secondhand stores, from shops that sell items on consignment to those that sell donated goods.

And this trend is happening not just in Southwest Michigan but nationally.

According to the Association of Resale Professionals, the business of selling secondhand goods has become a $13-billion-a-year industry in the U.S., expanding about 7 percent per year over the last two years and attracting shoppers from all economic levels. According to America’s Research Group, a consumer

24 | Encore MARCH 2014

The Clothing Connection’s window features a mix of fashionable, vintage resale clothing.

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 25

research firm, about 16 to 18 percent of Americans will shop at a thrift store during a given year, and 12 to 15 percent will shop at consignment or other resale shops. That’s compared to 19.3 percent who shop at retail clothing stores and 21.3 percent who shop at major department stores.

To define terms, a thrift shop is run by a notfor-profit organization and takes donations to fund charitable causes; a consignment shop pays the owners of the merchandise a percentage if and when the items are sold; other resale shops buy merchandise from individual owners to resell.

So, what’s driving the demand for secondhand stores? On one hand, hard economic times have forced many people to find bargains where they can. On the other, generations have grown up on the “reduce, reuse, recycle” mantra and may just be exercising their ‘green’ philosophy.

“I’d say it’s a little of both trends,” says Lauren Worgess, owner of Loved Boutique, an upscale clothing resale shop at 116 W. South St., in Kalamazoo. “I’d definitely factor in the green aspect, but our clientele is very price-savvy.”

Thrift stores and other resale stores are not a new concept. What is new, however, is the rise of the thrift store shopper. “There was a stigma that’s been disappearing as thrift shops become more boutique-y,” says Michael Gold, founder of TheThriftShopper. com, a Vero Beach, Fla.-based directory of charity-based secondhand stores.

26 | Encore MARCH 2014

Janice Penny ,dressed in a vintage dress and hat, laughs with her mom and co-owner Barbara Howard.

At right, Christy Lansom’s furniture consignment store Christy’s is moving to a larger location in the Oakwood Plaza next month.

On consignment

Among those “boutique-y” shops are local stores such as Loved and Clothing Connection that specialize in selling clothes on consignment. Typically, most consignment stores offer 40 to 50 percent of the sale price to the consignor. Most also have criteria for clothing being seasonal, clean and without any stains or tears or odors such as cigarette smoke while offering discounted prices to customers the longer the item has been on the rack. Often, items remaining unsold after a given time, usually around 90 days, are donated to area charities.

Loved is one of those shops. “We focus on higher-end brands,” says Worgess, who stocks items from consignors not only from Kalamazoo, but from across the country, especially the Los Angeles area, where she has shopped herself.

“They wear a designer outfit once, and they’re done with it. We may carry a Ralph Lauren dress from such a consignor that cost $1,600, but we cut the price by 50 or 60 percent,” she says.

Worgess’ clientele ranges widely, from the college student looking for a special-occasion outfit on the cheap to the downtown professional woman shopping for a business suit at a savings. Loved recently stopped selling men’s clothing because Worgess

found that men don’t bargain-shop the way women do.

“We just moved to our new location next to Something’s Brewing downtown, and it was a good time to drop the men’s line,” Worgess says. She chose the new location, she says, because it would better showcase her clothing and jewelry. The jewelry is new and often created by local artists.

Each consignment shop in Kalamazoo fills a niche uniquely its own. “There are a lot of us, but we all offer something different,” says Janice Penny of Clothing Connection, at 4011 Portage Road, in the Milwood Shopping Center. She is manager and partner with shop owner Barbara Howard, and the motherdaughter team has been in business for 32 years.

“My mom was a teacher in the Paw Paw schools and worked part-time at the Clothing Connection for about 10 years,” Penny says.

“When the original owner retired, she offered it to my mom, and, of course, Mom bought it.

I was working for the city of Kalamazoo back then, but 14 years ago I lost my job in layoffs.

I’ve been here ever since.”

Clothing Connection’s niche is vintage clothing. When the store brought in five pieces of vintage clothing and the pieces got grabbed up right away, a new vision was born. Today, Penny says, the store carries about 50,000 vintage pieces.

Resale Resources There are more than 50 resale, consignment and thrift stores in the greater Kalamazoo area that sell everything from used records and books to clothing, toys and furniture. This list is a sampling of them: Books Kazoo Books Two locations: 407 N. Clarendon St.; 2413 Parkview Ave. Friends of the Kalamazoo Public Library Bookstore 315 S. Rose St. Building materials Habitat for Humanity ReStore 1810 Lake St. CDs and records The Corner Record Shop 1710 W. Main St.

“Women scoop it up, that old quality,” Penny says. “You remember the old Gilmore’s, Jacobson’s. That kind of quality in clothing is hard to find now. Manufacturers have been sending clothing out to countries where they can get cheap labor and cheaper fabrics. I say they are shooting themselves in the foot. People are sales-minded today, yes, but they want quality too. We offer both.”

Vintage is trendy too, Penny says. Younger generations enjoy putting on clothing from the 1980s or even earlier. Baby boomers, meanwhile, are at the point in their lives that they are cleaning out their closets and attics of clothing that now qualifies as vintage.

“Clothing Connection stocks the unusual, the romantic clothing like that hand-woven sweater of the ’70s. We also offer personal shopping if you want assistance putting together an outfit,” Penny says.

Home decor

Clothing, however, is not the only item up for secondhand sale in the area. Furniture is in demand too, and it’s not the sofa with squishy cushions and cat-scratched arms one might find at the garage sale down the street. Kalamazoo Kitty, at 4217 Portage St., offers not just sofas but a design service to help buyers place sofas to their best advantage in their living rooms.

“I find that shoppers are in my store for several reasons,” says Kitty Copeland, namesake and owner of Kalamazoo Kitty. “Some shop consignment due to a tight budget. They know they can get more for their money that way. Others shop consignment for quality. They know that older pieces of furniture are well-made and will last longer than newer, mass-produced pieces.”

Kalamazoo Kitty fills 11,000 square feet with furniture treasure, and it’s the treasure hunt, Copeland says, that draws some of her customers. “There’s a group of shoppers that just love the hunt. They like to see what comes in each day, and then they find something that they just can’t live without. One of my customers said it was just like walking through Pinterest,” she says, referring to the popular online pin board where users “collect” favorite images and websites.

Green Light Music & Video 47167 West KL Ave. Consignment shops – children’s clothing Once Upon A Child 643 Romence Road Second Childhood 6784 S Westnedge Ave. Consignment shops – clothing 360 Consignment 4618 W. Main St. Clothing Connection Consignment Boutique 4235 Portage St.

Consignment shops – furniture and home decor Christy’s Furniture on Consignment 3015 Oakland Drive Kalamazoo Kitty 4217 Portage St. Simple Treasures 3721 S. Westnedge Ave. Thrift stores American Cancer Society Discovery Shop 4502 W. Main St. Goodwill Industries of Southwest Michigan Three locations: 420 E. Alcott St., 5609 W. Main St. and 411 Milham Road Kalamazoo Gospel Mission Thrift Store 131 E. Harkins Court NuWay Thrift Store 211 E. Cork St. Salvation Army Thrift Store 5117 Portage Road Second Impressions Upscale Thrift Store 3750 S. Westnedge Ave.

Double Exposure 7067 S. Westnedge Ave.

St. Vincent DePaul Society Thrift Store 513 Eleanor St.

Hand Me Down Rose 5462 Gull Road, Suite 11

St. Luke’s Thrift Shop 5117 Portage Road

Loved 117 E. South St. Plato’s Closet 6392 S. Westnedge Ave. Styles for All Seasons Mall Plaza, 157 S. Kalamazoo Mall

To put her sales to best use, Kitty Copeland offers decorating services, assistance in home staging and new construction, kitchen and bathroom remodeling, window treatments and flooring.

“The green aspect plays a big part as well,” Copeland adds. “More and more people are intrigued with the idea of repurposing, reusing and redoing a great piece of furniture rather than buying brand new.”

Older furniture, she says, often is built to last.

No argument from Christy Lansom, owner of Christy’s, at 3015 Oakland Drive, in the corner of Oakwood Plaza (soon to be at 3017 Oakland Drive as Christy’s will move to a larger location in the

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 27

A welcome sign constructed of various building materials and manager Joe Madden greet customers to Kalamazoo Valley Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore.

same plaza next month). Lansom has been selling consignment fine furniture since 2005. Along with furniture, Christy’s sells artwork, accessories, lamps, crystal and collectibles.

“You know, I never thought the consignment trend was because of a bad economy,” Lansom says. “I’ve never heard a consignor say, ‘I’m selling this because I need the money.’ Older furniture was better made, and my customers gravitate toward that higher quality. I have a lot of regulars who come in just to see what’s new. One of my regulars admitted that coming here was ‘dangerous’ for her wallet.”

“It’s the hunt,” she says, echoing other consignment shop owners.

For Lansom, opening a consignment store for furniture was a natural step after her years in design at Welling, Ripley & Labs Furniture on Stadium Drive in Kalamazoo and after being exposed to

the world of retail as a child, when her parents owned Ruggles, a gift shop in Battle Creek.

“I’m a risk taker by nature,” Lansom says. “There was a gift shop at this location before, so when I saw it open up, I liked the neighborhood feel of this strip mall. I went to the bank, borrowed the money and opened for business in 2005.”

Lansom says she sees an average of 40 customers per day. As for the popularity of consignment shops of all kinds in Kalamazoo, “it’s friendly competition,” she says. “We’re all different. It’s kind of like car dealerships all building one next to the other.”

Like the owners of clothing consignment shops, Lansom offers a 60/40 split, but she gives the larger part of the split to the consignor.

Accessories are sold at a 50/50 split.

“We probably carry about 100 consignors at a time,” Lansom says.

There’s a demand for fine furniture, she says, while there is also a need for furniture at still lower prices. “Grapevine Furniture had a great run,” she says about the store on Portage Road that sold used furniture for about 25 years but closed in September. “They were more for the college student, while our customer is usually in the 35-on-up-to-75 age range.”

Building materials

What people find attractive about secondhand furniture — quality that lasts — is also something they look at when building or remodeling a home or building. One outlet for finding reusable household goods is the Kalamazoo Valley Habitat for Humanity ReStore, or KVHH ReStore, at 1810 Lake St., in Kalamazoo, west of Juliana’s Restaurant.

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ReStore is an outgrowth of Habitat for Humanity, with about 700 locations throughout the United States and Canada. All proceeds

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from these retail outlet stores help fund Habitat for Humanity construction.

While many people are familiar with Habitat, not as many know what happens to the building supplies left over from projects or donated by individuals and companies.

“The KVHH ReStore opened in October 2005.

Since that time, we have recycled almost 3 million pounds of items and materials to new users and consumers. That’s 3 million pounds of stuff diverted from local landfills,” says Ann Kilkuskie, director of community relations for Habitat for Humanity in Kalamazoo. “We also recycle scrap metal through the ReStore, and cardboard.”

“Last year alone, we saved 9.3 million pounds from landfills across the entire state of Michigan,” adds store manager Joe Madden. Michigan, he says, has a total of 50 Habitat for Humanity ReStores.

Madden walks through the store he manages, moving through 10,000 square feet of aisles divided into two large areas.

He employs nine part-time employees at the store, but it is mostly run by volunteers, with anywhere from 10 to 20 volunteers lending a hand each week.

The ReStore, he says, is a very affordable home-improvement store. It’s not a consignment shop but more of a secondhand or outlet store, often selling new items that are donated as irregular or leftover, such as rolls of carpeting in odd sizes left over from jobs or boxes of floor tiles remaining after bigger jobs or leftover roofing materials.

“Many of our customers shop the ReStore to buy items they need to repair and improve their homes and furnish and decorate them at discount prices,” Madden says. “We see a lot of landlords wanting to improve their rental properties at a discount. Tenants too.

Our bestselling item is paint. It’s called ePaint, short for Everybody’s Paint, and it’s made from recycled paint.”

The recycled paint is remixed into a rainbow of fresh colors and sold for $10.99 a gallon. “It’s actually better quality than the expensive stuff you buy at the homeimprovement store,” Madden says, and he should know. He worked many years for a big-name home-improvement store but feels this is the job for him. It has heart. (continued on page 43)

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 29

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30 | Encore MARCH 2014

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Not Famous

keeps Novelist Michael Loyd Gray ess a low profile in spite of succ

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ay is fascinated by shades iction writer Michael Loyd Gr 13), Canary (Bottom Dog Press, 20 e Th , ok bo t es lat s Hi e. m fa of cart Prize, explores two sh Pu a r fo d te ina m no s which wa the t and Ernest Hemingway, in ar rh Ea a eli Am , es ur fig nic ico s. His previous novel ar ye e ag en te eir th of ts en pre-fame mom s wers Press, 2011) examine To e re (Th e or ym An s ou m Not Fa rks rse” as a famous actor emba the “American dream in reve me behind. on a journey to leave his fa

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 31

“My interest is linked to my own personal perceptions about fame,” Gray said recently in his “office” at the Water Street Coffee Joint on Oakland Drive, where he has worked daily for the past four years churning out four novels.

“Fame is dangerous,” Gray warned. “With fame can come a loss of perspective, or a loss of true identity. Yet fame seems to be what a great many Americans desperately want, which is why so many people willingly make utter fools of themselves on realitytelevision shows. Of Hemingway and fame, poet Archibald McLeish wrote, ‘And what became of him? Fame became of him. ’” In Not Famous Anymore, actor Elliot Adrian, a notorious drinker, emerges from rehab with a desire to return to anonymity and his tiny hometown of Argus, Ill. The novel reflects on how fame can be an obstacle to knowing one’s true self.

The Canary, which is garnering strong reviews and also was nominated as a Notable Michigan Book, features Earhart and Hemingway striking up a brief friendship in the environs of Chicago, where they both lived and may well have unknowingly crossed paths.

“I have always been more interested in people before they were famous than who they are after they become famous,” says Gray, who has been intrigued by Earhart for years. “When I saw her mentioned, I’d always kind of linger and wonder who she was and, of course, what happened to her.

The great mysteries of the world are always interesting.”

Then Gray learned that a research team had investigated an island where, in 600 feet of water, they discovered an object that was possibly an airplane. “The evidence suggested that not only had somebody inhabited the island, but that it very well might have been her.”

He began fictionalizing an account of Earhart on that island when, in his research, he discovered she had moved to Chicago in 1914 to Hyde Park to finish high school. Just a few miles away in Oak Park, Hemingway, Gray’s own personal muse and a writer with whom he deeply identifies, was in high school. Why not bring them together?

“Here they were at a time when Amelia had no interest in flying. Hemingway, at

32 | Encore MARCH 2014

Covers from three of Michael Loyd Gray’s books, including The Canary, which was nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

15, had an only vague interest in becoming a writer. But they exhibited a lot of charisma and potential. People would have recognized it at the time.”

Historical fiction, particularly when a writer takes great liberties, can be a gold mine for the imagination. “Writing historical fiction means getting the history surrounding your characters right, but it’s also an opportunity to not be shackled by history,” Gray recently wrote in an essay published in Hope Clark’s FundsForWriters newsletter. “Your goal is to tell a great story and not merely to document history.”

Gray was born in Jonesboro, Ark., grew up in Champaign, Ill., and discovered writing at a young age. “As far back as high school, I wasn’t really good at school, but I could always write.” After college, he became a staff writer in Arizona and Illinois for 10 years.

Like Hemingway, Gray began to find the limits of storytelling within reporting “too restrictive and narrow. I found myself putting in color and details that the editors would take out.”

A point came when he wrote a story with a unique angle and narrative that his fellow reporters praised but that his editors wouldn’t run. “I realized that I was capable of steak, and they wanted raw hamburger,” he says. “So I just had to go. And it was probably one of the best decisions I ever made.”

At 40, he took a leap of faith and applied for the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing program at Western Michigan University. He hasn’t looked back.

“It was liberating to go to Western and suddenly be around people who were asking the same questions I was and who wanted to write. It was like going to another planet,” he says. “I realized that no one was particularly going to teach me how to write, but I was in a place where writing and experimenting were so natural I would be a fool not to do it too.

I was living in an environment where writing was a prized endeavor.”

Gray says if he could pass on one piece of writing wisdom, it would be, “Don’t quit. Just keep writing, day after day.” This work ethic has served him well.

He was the winner of the 2005 Alligator Juniper Fiction Prize and the 2005 Writers Place Award for Fiction for his short story “Little Man.” Gray’s novel Well Deserved won the 2008 Sol

Books Prose Series Prize, and he was awarded a grant by the Elizabeth George Foundation.

His young-adult novel King Biscuit was released in 2012 by Tempest Books. He also has written a sequel to Well Deserved called The Last Stop and another novel called Blue Sparta.

Gray also teaches as a full-time online English faculty member for South University, where he is one of the founding editors of the student literary journal Asynchronous and sponsor of an online readings series

“If I suddenly became famous, I would like the freedom that the money would bring, but I would really chafe at the rest of it.”

-Michael Loyd Gray featuring fiction and poetry.

He is planning a novel about Elvis in Kalamazoo titled The King of Kalamazoo.

Those post-death sightings of the King may have been wishful thinking on the part of a few area diehard fans, but Elvis actually visited Kalamazoo several times during his life because of the Gibson Guitar factory, and the story is loaded with possibilities, Gray says.

Gray also has ambitions to tackle larger subjects, like a Vonnegut-esque farce he is working on called The Manual to Complete Enlightenment.

“I would like to write something bigger, something sprawling, something that seeks to solve the mysteries of life.”

As for Gray’s personal take on fame, he covets his privacy and anonymity.

“If I suddenly became famous, I would like the freedom that the money would bring, but I would really chafe at the rest of it.”

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arts encore

Responding to a Calling

Inspired leader brings faith community together for Lamb of God by

Kit almy

When

Jen Randall and her business partner named their technology company Maestro, it had nothing to do with Randall’s penchant for music; rather, they saw themselves conducting an orchestra of individuals and agencies to meet their clients’ needs.

According to Randall, it is entirely coincidental that she is now a maestro in the musical sense. In fact, although she is the driving force behind the performances of the Easter oratorio Lamb of God planned for March 21 and 22 at Chenery Auditorium, she would be the last person to call herself “maestro.”

Instead, Randall is mounting the production as an act of faith; it is something she felt God called her to do. “Last March I went to a 34 | Encore MARCH 2014

Jen Randall leads the cast in a recent rehearsal for Lamb of God, which will include a 55-piece orchestra, 142 choir members, 13 soloists and two narrators.

performance of Lamb of God to surprise a friend who was appearing in it,” she says, “but it was I who was surprised — at its beauty, its majesty and its astounding power to move and transform.”

Written and composed by Rob Gardner, Lamb of God is described on the production’s website as “a sacred musical retelling of the final days of the life of Jesus Christ, His atonement and Resurrection.”

Drawn from the text of the King James Bible, the story is told through the eyes of figures who were close to Jesus: Peter, John, Thomas, Mary and Martha of Bethany, Mary Magdalene, and Jesus’ mother, Mary.

Randall attended a second performance and was struck, she says, with a divine inspiration. “I actually felt at that moment that I needed to bring this to Kalamazoo,” she says.

She immediately questioned the impulse as impractical, but she couldn’t stop thinking about the music. “I purchased a CD and I listened to it, and then I was singing it in the shower.”

Although the thought of launching such a production was a little daunting, she says, “I felt that if I was being asked to do that, then I had to make the first steps to see if it was viable. And as I made those first steps, then doors just started opening.”

Randall does have musical experience — she played clarinet and saxophone in school bands from sixth grade through college and has directed her church choir for several seasons. But more than that, producing Lamb of God has called for the ability to orchestrate a host of players, as Randall does at her business.

The oratorio requires a 55-piece orchestra, 140 choir members, 13 soloists and two narrators. To find performers, Randall contacted about 250 churches and networked with organizations such as the Kalamazoo Philharmonia community orchestra.

Most of the singers and many orchestra members have come from area

congregations. “We have just some amazing talent from churches all over, which was a big part of my goal,” Randall says. “I don’t want this to be about any one church. This is

about all the Kalamazoo community coming together to celebrate their faith in Christ.”

The company features professional musicians as well as skilled amateurs. The instrumentalists include members of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra, and two of the vocal soloists have appeared on Broadway: Jeremy Koch, of Farmers Alley Theatre, and Angela Hecker, of Greenville, S.C., with whom Randall once worked at Johnson & Johnson. Explaining why she is bringing someone from so far away to be a part of the production, Randall says, “When I first heard

this, when I heard the role of Mother Mary, I heard Angela’s voice.”

The performers are scheduled to have seven weekly rehearsals leading up to the two performances at Chenery.

During church choir rehearsals, Randall has frequently been so moved by the music that she finds herself sobbing. “Music in my opinion just opens this clear channel for the Spirit to be able to touch you,” she says.

She hopes others are as touched by Lamb of God as she was. Accordingly, tickets are being sold through www.lambofgodkalamazoo. com at the nominal cost of $5. “I want as many people to come as can come,” Randall says. She also will work with churches to provide complementary tickets for anyone who cannot afford them.

In recruiting performers, Randall asked people to “come be a part of the miracle.”

“It will be through (God’s) hand that we’ll be able to accomplish the things that he’s asked us to do,” she says.

“If it’s the Lord’s plan, it will be (successful).

If it were just my merits, if it was just my talent, then I would fall flat on my face, but it’s not me. I’m doing everything that I can that I know I need to do or I know how to do, and then … every day I’m on my knees asking for guidance and help, and that’s really the story.”

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arts encore

Glimpses of Nature

Jean Stevens’ paintings offer intimate look at natural world by

Kit Almy

The painting A Field Guide to Backyard Birds will be part of the exhibit Field Guides by painter Jean Stevens.

A few years ago Kalamazoo artist Jean

Stevens was working on a large painting of fall leaves, but it wasn’t working out. She had the wood panel she was working on cut into squares to use for smaller paintings, but before she got a chance, she made a discovery.

“I was just going to paint the backs, but then I started fooling around with them,” she says. “I laid them on the floor, and I started

36 | Encore MARCH 2014

moving them around, and I really liked it.”

Stevens decided to test the concept of a “faceted” work, entering her idea in a competition to create a large-scale work for the St. Thomas More Catholic Student Parish.

Her proposal won, and the piece now has a permanent home at St. Tom’s.

Memoria is a 16- by 14-foot cross composed of 34 panels depicting close-up views of nature scenes and manmade objects

that represent memories Jesus might have had in the last moments of his life. Stevens liked the fragmented nature of the assembled panels. “For me it felt more like the way we experience the world in glimpses,” she says.

Now she has applied the concept again in a show titled Field Guides, which will be on exhibit March 3 to 29 at the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo and will feature her usual subject matter: the natural world.

Every composition in the exhibit is a grid made up of 16-inch-square oil paintings, each representing a single species or variety of plant or animal. Each panel features a magnified detail of the subject, and the panels are arranged to create abstract patterns.

In setting out on the project, which is supported by a Kalamazoo Artistic Development Initiative grant from the Arts Council, Stevens studied field guides to learn about different aspects of nature. “I’m not very knowledgeable about nature,” she says.

“I’m appreciative, I’m interested, I love to go on walks and notice a beautiful yellow flower, but I’ve never known what it is.”

She learned to identify all kinds of plants, birds, butterflies and clouds and became more aware of humans’ impact on the environment. Inspired to take action, she planted a butterfly garden and had her yard certified as a wildlife habitat by the National Wildlife Federation.

She also learned more about seeing. “I realized that by being more of a naturalist, by having books, by looking around more and noticing the details of things, I actually see more,” she says.

Stevens, who took up meditation a few years ago, has long appreciated spending time in nature, and many of her paintings have what she describes as a “gazing ball” quality.

Field Guides What: An exhibit of paintings and prints by Jean Stevens When: March 3-29, with hours generally from 9 a.m.-4 p.m.

Monday-Friday but 9 a.m.- noon only on March 14; part of March Art Hop, March 7, 5-8, p.m.

Where: Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo, in the Epic Center, 359 S. Kalamazoo Mall Also: Can be seen during the May 2 Art Hop at Suite 421 of the Park Trades Center, 326 W. Kalamazoo Ave. “If you gaze at something like the patterns of branches or light on water, it often quiets your busy mind and allows other, deeper aspects of your life to come out,” she says. “And it’s so good for your brain to have that spaciousness.”

She also has found that painting small panels has been an antidote to her tendency to spend too much time reworking her paintings and striving for perfection. “I think dividing it like this was a way to not have the painting that you’re working on be so precious and important,” she says. She tries to spend no more than a day or two on each panel, sometimes completing one in a few hours.

“The faster I go, the better I do. If I work quickly enough, I’m done before I have a chance to start judging it or fretting about it or going over and over it,” she says. The result is “more fresh and lively,” and since the paintings and the time invested in each one are small, if she doesn’t like one, she doesn’t have to use it.

Stevens has been experimenting with zooming in on her subjects even closer. By including the right details of a particular flower or butterfly, for example, “I could crop in much more and the whole

Jean Stevens among the small paintings and resources she used in creating the Field Guides exhibit.

thing could be much more abstract and you’d still know what it is,” she says.

She is currently making prints combining fragments of existing paintings to create new images. Some of these prints will be included in the Field Guides exhibit.

Stevens will give a talk on Field Guides at noon March 18 for the ARTbreak series at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. After its KIA run, the exhibit will return to her studio in Suite 421 of the Park Trades Center, where it can be seen during the May 2 Art Hop.

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arts encore

Ancient Stories Made New

Poet puts modern spin on biblical characters and themes by

Margaret DeRitter

W

hen Janet Ruth Heller was studying modern Israeli literature in college, she came across a poem that would inspire her own poetry for the next four decades.

The poem, “His Mother,” by Chiam Guri, was based on the biblical story of a Canaanite general, Sisera, who lost a battle with the Israelites and never returned home because he was killed by a woman who drove a tent stake through his temple. According to Jewish legend, Sisera’s mother cried a hundred cries for him.

Guri’s poem reimagines the biblical story with Sisera’s mother at the center of it, empathizing with her grief. Its mournful tone contrasts with the celebratory tone often found in Bible stories about the killing of Israel’s enemies.

“It’s written from the perspective of a modern Israeli person who regrets the killing of Arab soldiers,” Heller says. “That really struck me because I thought it was original and so daring to write a poem that is so sympathetic with a very different perspective.”

Heller began writing poems in which she reinvented or reimagined biblical characters through a modern perspective. Now, after about 40 years of working on these poems, they have been published in her new book Exodus, released in January by WordTech Editions. She’ll be reading from the book during a Friends of Poetry event March 18 at the Portage District Library (see box).

“I started the book when I was an undergraduate and worked on it through 2012, so it represents about four decades of my life as a writer,” says Heller, a Portage resident who is 64 and has retired from a long career of college teaching, including at Western Michigan University.

Many of the poems are dramatic monologues in the voice of a biblical character. “I’m Jewish, and I’m interested in updating aspects of the biblical stories and filling in the gaps,” Heller says.

38 | Encore MARCH 2014

Janet Ruth Heller, at left, spent four decades working on her book Exodus, beginning when she was an undergraduate.

The first poem in the book, “Jana” — which turns the biblical trying to figure out how she thought,” Heller says. “I don’t necessarily character of Jonah into a woman — grew out of a painful experience sympathize with her ideas, but I was trying to figure out what her in early adulthood. “I had a relationship with a young man, and I perspective might have been.” thought it was going to wind up in marriage and it didn’t,” Heller says.

In fact, says Heller, she tries to identify with all of the characters she “I was really upset when the young man broke up with me and ended writes about, even when their actions are terrible, as in the case of the up marrying the next person he dated. The poem is about coming rapist Amnon. “For many of these poems I’m exaggerating something to terms with this and all the that’s inside of me, in some psychological elements.” cases making it pathological.”

In the poem, Heller writes, Heller says she tried for Poetry Reading “The whale thrashed me onto years to get poetry collections shore. published that combined What: Fairytales, Legends and Myths, a free Friends I had gotten so used to living both religious and secular of Poetry event alone themes, but she had no luck.

Who: Janet Ruth Heller, Hedy Habra, Kathleen amid the ribs and thwarts of “Many publishers are not at all McGookey, Lynn Pattison, Judith Rypma and Julie its belly interested in poetry that has Stotz-Ghosh that the trees of the island any whiff of religion,” she says.

When: 7-8:45 p.m. March 18 seemed to gesticulate When she decided in 2010 to put menacingly her secular poems and biblically Where: Portage District Library, 300 Library Lane and the wind threatened to based poems into separate More information: 329-4544 knock me down.” books, she found success. A Heller’s difficult experience, chapbook of secular poems however, did have a positive titled Traffic Stop was published impact. “I started writing poems to help myself cope. I got into the in 2011, and a full-length book containing those poems and more was habit of writing frequently, and I started revising more and taking published as Folk Concert: Changing Times in 2012. myself more seriously as a writer.”

Heller has titled her new book Exodus, she says, because “I see As a feminist, Heller is particularly interested in writing about it as representing all of the changes in our lives, including new women characters. In her poem “Leah,” she imagines the first of relationships, taking risks, new jobs, new experiences, getting out of Jacob’s four wives as a modern woman whose husband is cheating your comfort zone, taking risks and making changes in your life. To on her. In a poem about Jezebel, “a woman considered evil, I was me, the Exodus is sort of a symbol of that.”

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POETRY encore

Cabin Fever We hung flannel sheets over the windows, but that was not enough. Andrew taped them to the walls. “Cheap damn duct tape.” Willow turned the oven on but felt guilty, so the baking began. Outside, the temperature plunged to minus 13. We put outfits on over our outfits.

The space heaters and humidifiers ran constantly.

Andrew’s eyes were dollar signs. We urged the cats to sit on us, lie on us. We were all in the deep freeze together. Deer quit showing up in the yard, so the snow was unbroken. The wind chill was minus 40. We reduced heat the light bulbs threw. Brownies, cakes. The coffee

Science Experiment: egg/milk bottle/candle

steamed and within minutes was cold. Going to work

Joan, Linda, Chester, and the rest of us

was something we looked forward to because there was

shoulder to shoulder around the table,

heat. If we could get there. Then they closed the world.

exhorted to watch carefully but never told

Snow walls lined the streets. The mail stopped. No work.

exactly what to learn. The flame dies

Just the television telling us to stay home, stay off the

inside the bottle, and peeled egg gives, squishes

the livable rooms to three. Willow was grateful for the

roads as the reporters drove around hoping to catch a slide-off. There were three windows we could look out.

through the narrow neck and drops.

The trees buckled from the snow, and we couldn’t do

Perhaps this lesson is about what happens

anything. Meat pies, baked potatoes. Icicles were absent

when we run out of resources. How a fire,

on the eaves because no heat escaped because there

not fed, flickers out. The teacher whispers oxygen,

was no heat. This lasted for weeks. For January. Willow

vacuum, pressure. But how to explain

wanted to cut herself for something to do. Andrew wrapped himself in more blankets and watched Judge Judy. The weatherman said there would be a break, and

that we fall just when we believe we’re well supported, slip into emptiness

there was: one day. February 1st the next storm was

without warning? Not sure—did we fall

due. We called our coupling Polar Vorsex, the least but

or were we pushed?—and no way back.

warmest thing we could do.

— Elizabeth Kerlikowske Kerlikowske is an English professor at Kellogg Community College, in Battle Creek, and serves on the board of Friends of Poetry. Her chapbook Last Hula was the winner of the 2013 Standing Rock Cultural Arts Chapbook Contest and is available at Michigan News Agency.

40 | Encore MARCH 2014

We stare at the bottle that refused to be empty.

The rubbery egg that has recovered its shape lies mute inside.

— Lynn Pattison Pattison, a former educator with Kalamazoo Public Schools, is the author of three poetry collections. Her work has appeared in The Notre Dame Review, Rattle, Atlanta Review, Rhino and other journals. She serves on the board of Friends of Poetry.

PERFORMING ARTS Plays Chapter Two — Neil Simon comedy about a man coping with the death of his first wife while initiating a new romance, 8:30 p.m. March 1, 7, 8, 14, 15, New Vic Theatre, 134 E. Vine St. 381-3328.

The Firebugs — A Max Frisch absurdist comedy, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 27; 8 p.m. March 1 & 2, Balch Playhouse, Kalamazoo College.

Good People — A look at the “haves” and “have nots” and how twists of fate can determine one’s path, 7:30 p.m. Feb. 28, March 1, 6, 7, 8, 14, 15; 2 p.m. March 9, Parish Theatre, 426 S. Park St. 343-1313.

The Cat in the Hat — The Civic Youth Theatre’s play based on the classic Dr. Seuss book, 7:30 p.m. March 14 & 21; 1 & 4 p.m. March 15; 2 p.m. March 16; 9:30 a.m. & 12 p.m.

March 19 & 20, Civic Auditorium, 329 S. Park St. 343-1313 Musicals & Opera 9 to 5: The Musical — Three friends team up to get even with their sexist boss, 8 p.m. March 13–15, 20–22; 2 p.m. March 23, Shaw Theatre, WMU. 387-6222.

The Fantasticks — A tale about a boy, a girl, their meddling fathers and the wall that divides them, 8 p.m.

March 14, Miller Auditorium, WMU. 387-2300.

Pinkalicious! The Musical — Based on the popular children’s book, 7 p.m. March 14 & 21; 11 a.m. March

15 & 22; 2 p.m. March 15, 16, 22, 23, Farmers Alley Theatre, 221 Farmers Alley. 343-2727.

Million Dollar Quartet — The recording session that brought together Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins, 7:30 p.m. March 18 & 19, Miller Auditorium, WMU. 387-2300.

Dance Midwest Regional Alternative Dance Festival — Wellspring Cori Terry & Dancers host this festival featuring dancers and troupes from around the Midwest. Multiple events are held, March 14–16. For details go to www.midwestradfest.org.

Fairy Tales and Other Stories —Ballet Arts Ensemble presents its spring concert, featuring selections from Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, with special guest Barry Ross, 2 & 7 p.m. March 29, Chenery Auditorium, 714 S. Westnedge Ave. 387-2300.

Symphony Kalamazoo Philharmonia — This community orchestra’s program will include the Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 2, featuring pianist Weilyn Chen, 8 p.m. March 8, Dalton Theatre, Kalamazoo College.

337-7070.

The World of Schubert — The Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra explores the life and times of Franz Schubert, 6 p.m. March 9, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU. 3497759.

The Music of Led Zeppelin — The KSO presents an orchestral

interpretation of this classic rock band, along with vocalist Michael Shotton, 8 p.m. March 22, Miller Auditorium, WMU. 349-7759.

University Symphony Orchestra Pops Concert — 3 p.m. March 23, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU. Chamber, Jazz & Bands St. Lawrence String Quartet — A quartet known for its energy, imagination and teamwork, presented by Fontana Chamber Arts, 8 p.m. March 1, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU. 382-7774.

Pink Martini — An internationally acclaimed group that blends classical, jazz, pop and movie music, 7:30 p.m. March 11, Miller Auditorium, WMU. 387-2300.

Dalton Wed@7:30 — A series of WMU School of Music concerts: Birds on a Wire, March 12; Western Wind Quintet, March 19; Dither Quartet, New York-based electric guitarists, March 26. All concerts at 7:30 p.m., Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU. 387-2300.

Classics Uncorked — An evening of chamber music favorites performed by members of the KSO, followed by a coffee-and-dessert reception, 8 p.m. March 14, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, 314 S. Park St. 349-7759.

Western Invitational Jazz Festival Concert — Featuring the University Jazz Orchestra and the outstanding band and combo from the annual festival, 7:30 p.m. March 15, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU. 387-2300.

Guest Artist Recital — Dal Niente, a Chicago-based contemporary music collective, 7:30 p.m. March 18, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU. Free.

Among Friends — Chamber ensembles drawn from the Kalamazoo Junior Symphony Orchestra perform works by Haydn, Schubert and more, 7 p.m. March 23, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU. 387-4861.

Distinguished Alumni Series — Evan Conroy, bass trombone, 7:30 p.m.

March 25, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU. Free.

Dublin Guitar Quartet — Fontana Chamber Arts presents this classical guitar ensemble, 8 p.m. March 28, Wellspring Theater, Epic Center, 359 S. Kalamazoo Mall. 382-7774 One Night of Queen — A live concert recreating the look, sound and showmanship of Freddy Mercury and Queen, 8 p.m. March 28, Miller Auditorium, WMU. 387-2300.

Vocal Southwestern Michigan Vocal Festival Concert — Featuring the high school festival chorus, honors choir and University Chorale, 7 p.m.

March 13, Miller Auditorium, WMU. Invitational Vocal Jazz Festival — Featuring Gold Company and other participants in the festival, 8 p.m.

March 22, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU. Collegium Musicum — A free concert by this WMU early-music ensemble, 7:30 p.m. March 27, Dalton Center Recital Hall, WMU.

w w w.encorekalamazoo.com | 41

Miscellaneous All Ears Theatre — Live radio-theater performances for later airing on WMUK 102.1-FM: The Adventures of Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective in “Water Cooled,” March 8; Alice’s Adventures in Through the Looking Glass, March 22, 6 p.m. First Baptist Church, 315 W. Michigan Ave. Free.

Raising Elijah: Protecting Children in an Age of Environmental Crisis — A lecture by Sandra Steingraber, 8 p.m. March 13, Dalton Theatre, Kalamazoo College.

Environmental Impact — An exhibit examining pressing environmental issues, through May 4.

Inside Steinway: Photographs by Christopher Payne — This New York photographer documented the process and artistry of Steinway, through May 25.

Cultural Encounters: India, Burma and Tibet — Photographs by Larry K. Snider featuring people and their environments, through July 5.

Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me! — This self-described “oddly informative news quiz from NPR” comes to town, 7:30 p.m. March 20, Miller Auditorium, WMU. 387-2300.

ARTbreak — Free presentations on art-related topics: John Muir in the New World, a documentary, March 4 and March 11; Field Guides: An Unfolding Path, a presentation by local artist Jean Stevens, March 18; Kalamazoo River: Evidence and Omen, a 1994 local documentary

by Wes Knollenberg, who will speak after the screening, March 25.

Guests may bring a lunch to these noon sessions.

VISUAL ARTS

LIBRARY AND LITERARY EVENTS

Richmond Center for Visual Arts 387-2436

Kalamazoo Public Library 553-7879 or 342-9837

Barbara Ellmann — Painting exhibit that allows viewer interaction with a grid of works, through March 21, Monroe-Brown Gallery.

Music and Make Believe: The Perfect Purple Feather — Five sessions featuring music by a KSO string quartet, story and crafts for children ages 3–6 accompanied by an adult, 9:30 & 10:30 a.m.

March18 & 19, Central Library; 10:30 a.m. March 20, Oshtemo Branch. Register in advance online or call 553-7804.

Puppet Up! Uncensored — A live, uncensored variety show featuring 80 Henson puppets, for adults only, 8 p.m. March 15, Miller Auditorium, WMU. 387-2300.

Trace & Gestures Print Portfolio — Prints exploring how things that may seem insignificant can generate changes, through April 17, Netzorg and Kerr Gallery.

Kalamazoo Institute of Arts 349-7775 Young Artists of Kalamazoo County — An exhibition of student works submitted by art teachers, March 8–30.

Bookworms — A book club for kids and their grown-ups discussing Bunnicula, by James Howe, 4:30– 5:30 p.m. March 27, Central Library.

Portage District Library

NATURE

All Ears Theatre — Performances of The Golden Bird by the radio theater troupe, 2 & 3:30 p.m. March 15.

Kalamazoo Nature Center 381-1574

Sundays Live! — Live music by Ginny Parnaby on hammered dulcimer and Jennie Miller on recorder, 2 p.m.

March 16.

Fairytales, Legends and Myths: A Poetry Reading — A Friends of Poetry reading featuring Hedy Habra, Janet Heller, Kathleen McGookey, Lynn Pattison, and Judith Rypma, 7 p.m.

March 18.

Miscellaneous Conrad Hilberry — The notable local poet launches his new poetry collection, Until the Full Moon Has Its Say, 2 p.m., March 15, Olmsted Room, Mandelle Hall, Kalamazoo College.

MUSEUM EXHIBITS & EVENTS Kalamazoo Valley Museum 373-7990

Maple Sugar Tours — The tours start indoors and are followed by a 45-minute hike to the sugar shack, 1 & 3 p.m. March 9.

Maple Sugar Festival — An annual two-day festival with hands-on activities plus demonstrations, food, tours and wagon rides, 9 a.m.–5 p.m. March 15 & 16. A complete listing is at www.naturecenter.org.

Vibrant Vegetable Gardens: Plan, Prepare and Plant for Success — Learn innovative ways to utilize your home gardening space, 6 p.m. March 20.

Boomers and Beyond — Learn the art and science of converting sap into maple sugar, for adults over 50, 11 a.m.–1 p.m. March 25.

Kellogg Bird Sanctuary 671-2510

How People Make Things — Learn firsthand about tools and processes used to make everyday objects, through May 26.

Purple Martins: Backyard Aerialists — Learn about these graceful and entertaining backyard birds, 7-8:30 p.m. March 11, Kellogg Bird Sanctuary, 12685 East C Ave.

Michigan’s Heritage Barns: An Artist’s Perspective — A photography exhibit showcasing Michigan’s agricultural heritage and the wide variety of barns, through June 15.

Birds and Coffee Walk — A short hike to search for birds, followed by coffee and discussion, 9-10:30 a.m.

March 12, Kellogg Bird Sanctuary, 12685 East C Ave.

Music at the Museum — Kalamazoo Fretboard Festival Play-In Contest, part of Art Hop, 6–8 p.m. March 7; Dragon Wagon, Fretboard Festival Kickoff Concert, 7 p.m. March 21.

Audubon Society of Kalamazoo 375-7210

Local History Program — A discussion of Public Transit in Kalamazoo, 1:30 p.m. March 23.

Piping Plovers — Wildlife biologist Vincent Cavalier discusses efforts to increase piping plover numbers in Michigan, 7 p.m. March 24, People’s Church, 1758 N. 10th St.

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Faithful Allies (continued from page 22) African-American community,” he says. “It’s been a steep learning curve for me, but it’s been eye-opening too. I’ve realized how ignorant I’ve been about what racism is.

“Being one of the few white faces in a room, and having to be a learner and a listener, has taught me how much racism is still a live issue. I’ve also been amazed at the open-hearted welcome I have received in this group.”

The realization that struggles continue to exist on the North Side and that issues of race are still prevalent doesn’t escape Charles Warfield either. Although he’s proud

to be a part of the Alliance and supportive of everything the Alliance accomplishes, he wants to see more progress still. The future for the Alliance, Warfield hopes, is one of forward motion.

“I applaud what the Alliance has done, but I don’t think it’s flexed its muscles yet,” Warfield says. “I was born and raised in Kalamazoo.

My father was the pastor of the Second Baptist Church. I was active in the civil rights movement. My ministry is the community, and so I keep pushing the Alliance to reach even further into the community as well.”

Warfield estimates that 70 percent of the community that needs the help of the

Alliance does not set foot inside the doors of the churches that make up the Alliance.

That’s why Warfield wants to see the group continue to broaden its reach outside of the churches, so the services of the alliance will help more people in need.

“The Alliance needs to stretch itself even more,” Warfield says. “The reason it’s so successful is that it’s made up of leaders and men and women of faith, and people tend to listen to them. I’d like to see that strength pushed even more, but we’re making strides.”

Secondhand News (continued from page 29) “These are really hard-working people here,” he says. “There’s a common misperception that we’re giving houses away.

Those families work for what they get. And the people working here, half the staff have a place to live because of their jobs here.”

Also found at the ReStore are hand and power tools, bathroom and kitchen fixtures, lighting, appliances and televisions, drywall, doors, windows, vinyl siding, cabinets and wood trim.

“Donations have to be a certain level of quality, of course,” Madden says. “It has to be something we can sell. Our donors are homeowners, stores and often colleges, getting rid of dorm furniture. Western

Michigan University gave us a lot of extra building supplies when they were building the new medical school.”

KVHH also works in partnership with other consignment and thrift stores. Donated items that don’t sell at the ReStore are given to Goodwill.

“Sometimes we receive donations of quality items that are a bit more upscale or pricey for our average ReStore customers,” Kilkuskie says. “We then place these items on consignment at Kalamazoo Kitty to try to sell them at a better price. We also receive donations from Kalamazoo Kitty.”

What comes around goes around, and thrift stores often benefit from higherpriced consignment stores, taking leftover or

unsold items and giving those items yet one more chance to find a new owner. Longtime charity-based thrift stores in the Kalamazoo area include Goodwill, the Salvation Army Family Store, the St. Vincent DePaul Society Thrift Store, the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission Thrift Store and Nuway Thrift Store. Such thrift stores often donate proceeds to the needy. Others provide job opportunities to the disadvantaged.

Whatever type of store they choose, savvy shoppers looking for discounted clothing or products have become not only common but trendy. It’s not just about saving a dollar. It’s about conserving resources and discovering lost treasure.

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encore The Last word The Last Word (continued from page 46) accounted for and headed home. I feel the pilot’s thoughts return to the place where he would most like to be at this moment: with his hands on the blanket that covers and warms his children until he returns. Reality takes over as the bird needs to be put back on a ship that is pitching wildly in 7-foot seas.

The pilot focuses in on the chatter that will guide him in.

The relief of the landing gear touching the steel deck is cut short by the arresting cable that brings the mission to a sudden halt. A quick prayer of thanks is all the pilot has time for because the next plane is right behind him. He breathes a short sigh of relief that quickly gives way to the realization that the war is not over, just the flight.

As the pilot climbs from the cockpit, the chaos of the deck crew takes over once again as they prepare for the next mission. Before leaving the flight deck, the pilot drops to his knees in more formal communication with his maker. He gives thanks for being held in the palm of the Almighty’s hand while

executing the devil’s game plan. There is no time to make sense of what needs to be done to supposedly make the world a better place; he just knows and does his duty.

I’m brought back to the present and the realization that I’m lying on the floor underneath a jet fighter when another attendee says, “Oh, the stories they could tell!”

“Oh, the stories they do tell if you listen!” is my response. I put myself upright, in a more normal viewing position, and see on the wings of that plane all the things I have in terms of freedom, opportunity and outlook.

The only regrets I have are my inability to join the chatter on the airways and the fact that I wasn’t there to say thank you to all the brave men and women who thought enough of my future to risk theirs.

The warbird sits quietly in its new cage. It seems to whisper, “I’ll be here as a testament to the futility or the glory of war. You decide which. But there will never be a question about the bravery or the commitment of those who rode along.”

Alex Lee, a proud U.S. Navy veteran, is the executive director of communications for Kalamazoo Public Schools. He lives in Kalamazoo, which he refers to as “the small city with the gigantic heart.” Outside of his job, Lee writes as a hobby.

Have The Last Word Have a story to tell? Non-fiction, personal narratives about life in Southwest Michigan are sought for The Last Word. Stories should be no more than 1,000 words. Submit your story and contact information to editor@encorekalamazoo.com.

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THE last word encore

Listening to The Warbird by

G. Alex Lee

I

am lying on the cold, hard concrete floor of what feels like a giant cage. In the distance I can hear a voice describing the ancient wonder of the universe and its stars. I feel that sense of wonder as I stare up at a giant warbird parked directly above me. I’m at the Kalamazoo Air Zoo. While the rest of the invited crowd is nestled in the front corner of this magnificent place, I have let the 10-year-old still firmly entrenched in me take over and wander to a darkened part of the facility where visitors aren’t expected in the after-hours part of the evening. I position myself in a manner that I believe will let me hear the history, the ghosts and the stories now locked in this place.

I can hear the chaos of an aircraft-carrier deck crew preparing this massive beast to impose its will. I can hear the soft thoughts of a pilot as he focuses on his bride and young children half a world away. I can feel the irony of this man’s

46 | Encore MARCH 2014

concern for the family of the enemy he’s about to engage.

I feel the violence in being hurled from a short steel runway by a catapult that overcomes all the shortcomings of an airport floating in a hostile sea. I imagine the calmness that follows as the pilot floats in a nighttime sky above an endless ocean.

I hear the pointless chatter on the airwaves designed to make a mission seem routine. I hear the tones change as the enemy or the target has come within reach. I wonder how the cold and deliberate execution of one’s job can be so matter of fact in the face of an experience that offers only life or death as the outcome.

I feel the bird becoming suddenly lighter as it deposits its payload of fiery destruction and then balances its wings against the horizon of a suddenly peaceful sky. I feel the chatter calming with the recognition of each voice, until all those who left are (continued on page 45)

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