Not too long ago I learned of the passing of a woman I’ve known for nearly three decades. Mary Tummonds was one of those tireless, selfless people who shared her time, talent, and energy with the rest of us, with no motive other than to make the world a better place. She was one of the first people I met 27 years ago when we moved to Whitmore Lake, and for all those years she was a ray of sunshine at every event the local Kiwanis was involved in. Her warm smile was unforgettable. The news that this modern-day hero has left us made me think of this column I published thirteen years ago.

While the reference to “The Sopranos” is kind of dated, it feels like the rest of it holds true now more than ever.

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When we first moved to our lake here in Michigan, there was a yearly event called Winterfest. Aside from Christmas, this was hands-down the best part of that long, gray, slush-up-your-pant-leg, toe-numbing, car-door-rotting, sniffles-producing chunk of our year that Winterfest is named after.

The first official ritual of Winterfest came in early January when everybody around the lake would dispose of their Christmas trees by simply dragging them out onto the ice and leaving them there. Before long, friendly oversized gremlins wearing parkas and sturdy boots would come along and take them away. These were members of the local Kiwanis Club, who would use our trees, gallons of green dye, snow shovels, ice augers, and a little imagination to design and build an Ice Golf course right out there on the frozen lake.  Continue reading →

Here I sit on Christmas day, feeling well-fed, lazy, and blessed. Instead of watching play-by-play coverage of the ongoing dumpster fire in Washington, DC, I have the Vince Guaraldi Trio on the stereo playing all the cuts from the Charlie Brown Christmas Songs. We fried a turkey, and it turned out to be the best one we’ve ever done. Yeah, I know, I always say that. But still…

I’m not sure why Christmas day feels like this, but it does. That mellow and reflective mood might be all about peace on earth and good will toward all men, or it might have something to do with all the turkey and Jamison. Either way, it’s pretty nice to spend a day just feeling good and thinking about the year gone by.

Back in November Kitty Donohoe, Reverend Robert Jones, and I spent a week writing songs with twenty teenage girls at Vista Maria. These young women are in foster care at Vista because their lives have been scarred by abuse, neglect, violence, and addiction in the outside world. Quite a few of them were trapped in the horror of modern slavery known as  human trafficking. At the end of the week we all went “on stage” in a beautiful chapel on the Vista Maria campus and performed our work.

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Yurts

Some of my friends spend their extra time and money abandoning their comfortable homes to spend weekends in small tents filled with mosquitos and sweaty children. They call this “camping.” The idea of leaving your 60” high-def television behind and  voluntarily hanging out under a piece of cloth draped from a couple of poles always puzzled me, because it didn’t make any “sense.” 

When I asked a few campers why they do it, I got answers like, “Communing with nature lets us bond as a family,” and, “We really enjoy eating pancakes that smell like kerosene.”

OK, I can see that. Also, just about any Urgent Care will give you a group rate on treatment for chiggers. But I still could never get into the idea of making a home, even for a weekend, in one of those drafty little tents.

Then it struck me – I could have it all, just by living in a Yurt!

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 A Little Cash In Your Pocket

Cash. Remember the stuff?

Not long ago I went to the Apple Store to buy a case for my iPhone. For those of you who have never been in an Apple Store, the place is pretty much what moviemakers back in the 1970s thought the future would look like, except just about everybody keeps their clothes on. It’s filled with huge pale oak tables covered with iMacs, iPhones, iPads, and a bunch of other iCrap that I probably couldn’t afford, even if I had any idea what it was. 

I stumbled around the store for a while, wending my way through a crowd of self-assured 30-something customers who were scientifically evaluating their potential purchases by taking duck-face selfies and watching Youtube videos of fat guys falling off ladders. Eventually I found the case I wanted and looked around for the check-out counter. 

Important advisory note – Apple Stores don’t have check-out counters. 

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