Looking Back: Winter poems and Hall of Fame coaches
CHARLEVOIX — Is the constant news of people in civic positions nationwide being sacked because of their political persuasion, no matter how competent and effective they might be, getting you down? It’s only been going on for decades.
Charlevoix Sentinel, March 22, 1873: “The County Surveyor.—The question just now occupying the minds of the people of the county is: ‘Who shall be our next surveyor.’ It is indeed a question which must be settled at an early day. From the fact of a scarcity of qualified engineers in the county, the question is a perplexing one. For four years Wm. Miller, of Marion (township), has discharged the duties of the office faithfully and well. His ability has been unquestioned, and his record is unsullied.
“The question suggests itself, why make a change? The reason advanced by our Republican County fathers is that he is under the political ban of their party—in short he is one of the ‘Democracy of yore.’ (In other words, a Democrat.) If the office in question were State or Congressional, we would consider it sufficient reason. (Sentinel editor/publisher Willard A. Smith was a staunch Republican himself, but this politically based chauvinistic idiocy was even a step too far for him.) But inasmuch as the boundaries and subdivisions of our county could not be placed in hands equally capable, we advance his re-election. Objections to him on political grounds are but the promptings of prejudiced minds.” Three cheers for Willard, always brave enough to tell it like it is.
Fifty years later, the March 21, 1923 Charlevoix Courier announced that at last, by unanimous city council decree, the paving of Belvedere Avenue, was about to commence, if only from Bridge Street east to Alice Street.
“The contemplated pavement will be either thirty or twenty-eight feet and will include a curb and gutter.” The avenue had been a dirt street for only about 40 years. Plans to begin depended on upcoming fairer weather.
That same issue, on the front page, included this poem, titled “Walt, You’ve Sure Said a Mouthful.” It was not mentioned who Walt might be. Edited for length: “I’m tired of snow, I’m tired of sleet, I’m tired of both together;/I’m tired of storms that save the wheat, I’m sick of wintry weather./To find some joy in everything is always my endeavor;/but how can one rear up and sing, when winter lasts forever?
“Each day I think the cold will break, the winter be exhausted;/and every morning when I wake I find my whiskers frosted./I’m tired of chilblains in my toes, I’m tired of influenzy;/ I’m tired of every wind that blows from back of the McKenzie (river in Canada)./I’m tired of grates and easy chairs, when I’d (prefer to) be out choo-chooing (being able to ride a train);/ this climate’s built for polar bears, and hence my loud boohooing.” Some days it only feels like that. Take heart.
Fifty years ago, Courier editor Bob Clock editorialized on the era’s inflationary problem in words that could have been written today. March 14, 1973: “THE GOOD OLD DEPRESSION. Do you feel like bawling like a calf every time you walk past the meat counter in your favorite grocery store? I do. In fact, any kind of grocery shopping puts me into a state of catatonic shock that sometimes lasts for hours. I still have nightmares about that little steak lying there under the glass of the meat counter proudly proclaiming that it cost $2.08 a pound. For all I know, it could have been one of the crown jewels, a rough-cut ruby perhaps.
“We have now reached the point where meat is more a flavoring for other foods, rather than a mainstay of the diet. I sat down and worked a little algebra on comparative salaries (between then and the Great Depression) and the price of hamburger. Unless you have a take-home pay of $132 a week, you would be better off buying hamburger at Depression prices on Depression salaries than you are today. But goodness knows we are not in a Depression. At least no one has called it that.” Right on, Bob.
Next to that column appeared a letter decrying our choice of a faux-French fishing look for downtown, featured last June 3 in Looking Back. “French Motif In Poor Taste. A short time ago the Courier printed a picture of the first Charlevoix business sign in a French motif. . . . a sign of the future. Charlevoix, someone has decreed in a moment of romantic fetishism, shall become a French seaside village. The scheme is esthetically, architecturally and outrageously absurd. The heritage of the name Charlevoix is indeed French. The heritage of this community most definitely is not. It seems an attempt in poor taste at the sophistication of the ‘alpine-chalet village’ nonsense that has been assaulting our cedar forests and sensibilities in recent years.” This last is a jab mainly at what Gaylord, which has nothing to do with the Alps, had done to its downtown.
“The police force will don berets and become incompetent, two-piece bathing suits only will be allowed on all beaches, a coat-of-arms must be designed, streets will be rue-d and the Palace (movie theater) will begin showing those subtitled movies. If we all co-operate maybe we can begin to create the proper atmosphere and save tourists a trip abroad. Hopefully we’ll ignore it and it will go away.” It didn’t, but the slanted facade overhangs applied, in imitation of a French roof design never found on a French fishing village wharf, are slowly disappearing from Bridge Street.
Finally, in the next week’s Courier, it was reported that our legendary, much admired 1928-1950 football and basketball coach Ray Kipke, after whom Kipke field is of course named, would be inducted into the Michigan Coaches Hall of Fame on March 24, 1973. No one deserved it more.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Looking Back: Winter poems and Hall of Fame coaches
