The Future: Gene Logsdon Is Optimistic

April 2013

That’s what I keep reminding myself as I drive along Leelanau County roads this spring, my eye continually drawn to ravaged ash trees. The emerald ash borer only reached us this past year, but now it is clear that large numbers have arrived, with appetites intact. What Fall 2013 will look like without the subtle, varied, yummy colors of ash leaves? Will the species recover? Gene Logsdon, as I say, is optimistic, and while I’ve written about Logsdon and ash trees before, here is his hopeful forecast again, from A Sanctuary of Trees, for those who don’t want to follow my link backwards.

I have enough dead ashes in my woodland to supply all the firewood I will need for the rest of my life. But when foresters and landscapers tell me to kiss the white ash goodby, I lead them by the nose into my woods. Right along the path to the barn, there are two patches of ash seedlings – scores of them. I exchange greetings with them several times a day. They are my good friends. The tallest of them is about five feet now, growing slowly in the partial shade, the top sprig nipped off last winter by a deer, but none the worse for it. It is three years old and still only the diameter of my finger. Obviously it is not yet old enough to interest a borer. It will take six to eight years anyway for these seedlings to reach borer-food size, during which time the borers, running out of bigger ashes, will start to starve. I hope.

Another thing I tell myself over and over and have voiced once or twice to David, also, is that I’m glad I started noticing the fall colors of the ash trees a few years back. What if I’d not been aware of them, if their glory had vanished and I’d never known it?

October 2012

But according to Logsdon, it is not too late. If there are no tall, stately ash trees adding their fall color to October’s landscape, look carefully along the roadsides and around the edges of the woods. Look for the whippersnappers. Those little darlings! In time – we may hope, along with Logsdon – they will be tall, stately trees themselves.

Look to the young of our own species, too, for when we are gone, it will be their world. What kind of world will they inherit from us? Here is the Leelanau Children's Center in Northport, on parade Friday, April 26.

"Day of the Young Child"

The days are getting longer. Morning comes early. It’s spring, and it’s good to be alive. Don't you feel a little younger today, no matter how old you are?

Wild leeks in the woods

How It Will Be This Year

Warm, dark morning

Warm enough for bare feet

Moonlight through black walnut branches early Tuesday. Dark fading to light behind the eastern woods. Morning in my world—another strangely warm morning, unseasonably warm, given that it’s the first week of December. The other day I saw lilac buds at a neighbor’s house looking as if they were preparing to open--not a good sign if the orchard trees follow suit. But all we can do about the weather is to take what preparations we can for severe storms and then wait and see what comes.

In other areas of life it’s possible to do more. The local committee calling itself “Best for Kids” will once again host a Holiday Bake Sale and Bazaar at the Willowbrook Inn this coming Saturday to benefit the Leelanau Children’s Center. In addition to cookies, cakes, candies, and holiday breads studded with fruit and nuts, there will be vendors offering all manner of handmade craft items and local food products. The sale will run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Mill Street.

Dog Ears Books has had a table of books at the bazaar for the past two years, but this year we are participating in a different way. Instead of trying to guess ahead of time what kind of books might be popular as holiday gifts, I’m opening my entire store to benefit the Leelanau Children’s Center. My “annex” to the bazaar will run both Saturday and Sunday, for the convenience of workers and vendors who will be busy at the Willowbrook all day Saturday.

Here’s how it will work:

There will be a table at the Willowbrook for Dog Ears Books, but at that table, instead of books, will be cards for shoppers to bring to the bookstore. (I’ll have a few at the bookstore, also, for anyone who doesn’t make it to Mill Street.) New books and used books, notecards, posters, and calendars—on Saturday and Sunday, anyone making a purchase at my bookstore and filling out a card can direct 20% of dollars spent on anything I have in stock to the Leelanau Children’s Center. My hours on Saturday will be 10 to 5; Sunday hours 11-4.

I’m hoping that holiday shoppers will be encouraged by the wider variety of bookstore inventory this system will make available for the benefit. You can find book treasures in your own hometown, support local business, and support a good cause, all with one visit to 106 Waukazoo Street on Saturday and/or Sunday, Dec. 8-9.

Another reason to stay in town after the Willowbrook closes is that the lights on the big tree on Nagonaba Street will come on Saturday evening. (Do you remember last year?) And of course, if you’ve gone to the Leelanau Children’s Choir and Youth Ensemble Madrigal Concert on Friday night, you’ll already be primed for holidays.

By late afternoon Tuesday the wind was coming from the north again, as it should, and air temperature dropping. Winter is coming back, and that’s okay. That’s the way it should be. (Don't stop here--there's another paragraph following the photo!)

Warmer light, much colder air--can you feel it?

Personal P.S. I must say--. (There’s no “must” about it; you’re being self-indulgent. So what? It’s my blog!) There are lots of times when publicizing local events, even my own bookstore events, diverts me from what I’d rather be writing about if I consulted nothing but the Writer Within. Reality, however, dictates that the Writer Within be nourished by the Bookseller Without and the Community Member-at-Large. Publicity, public service—today they’ve had their turn. In my next post, however, the Writer Within and the Bookseller Without will collaborate, as once again the blogger lets loose with a passionate opinion. Please stay tuned....

Another Full Weekend Gone By

Friday: Parade Serendipity and Poetry Mystery

Leaving my bookstore to walk to the post office on Friday morning, at the last minute I grabbed my camera. Good impulse! Right up at the corner of Waukazoo and Nagonaba I encountered an unexpected surprise: the Northport Children’s Center on parade! The occasion for the parade was the fund-raiser auction to be held on Friday evening.

Another surprise greeted me at the post office. Remember the mysterious poem someone sent me in the mail? The p.o. box held a second poem from H., again typed on lined paper folded to form its own envelope and bearing interesting stamps. John at the post office deciphered “Metroplex” and tells me that means the poem was mailed from somewhere in the Detroit area. More than that he could not determine.

Here is the new poem:

Saturday: One of My Old Favorites Finds a New Home, Booksellers on Holiday Visit Northport, and Wildflowers Bloom in the Woods

Was it only coincidence, or was it the magic of touch at work again? Coming to the bookstore on Saturday, I’d picked up one of my favorite books (one my son and I enjoyed many times over when he was little, though not this copy) and photographed it for my blog, and that very day someone bought the book.

Silly Petunia thought owning and carrying a book around made her wise. The beginning of true wisdom came with her realization that she had to learn to read.

Any surprise it was a grade school teacher who bought Petunia?

There is no telling on any particular day who will walk in the door and what they will buy, though it’s always obvious which ones are the dog-lovers, and Sarah (I’m a little embarrassed to admit) is quick to detect which pockets hold dog treats. Only after one couple had been thoroughly and shamelessly—and successfully!—propositioned by Sarah did I learn that they were colleagues of mine from Ohio. Yes, real, dedicated independent bookstore proprietors everywhere in the world see each other as colleagues, not competitors. It was very pleasant making shop talk with Joe and Linda Diamond from Beehive Books in Delaware, Ohio. Joe and Linda travel the same way I do--from bookstore to bookstore. Here they are with Linda’s purchase (yes, I strongly recommended the book), Benjamin Busch’s Dust to Dust: A Memoir. Since their store sells all new books, I didn’t want them to miss this one.

Before they got out the door, while Linda and I were still chatting, Joe stopped by the April poetry table and picked up Jim Harrison’s Songs of Unreason. He bought that book before he left. Good choice! It made me happy to have two excellent Michigan writers (Jim used to live here, and Ben, not a native, lives in Michigan now) finding a new home and new fans in Ohio.


When we got home later in the day, Sarah and I went out in the woods. That was good, too, as it always is.

Sunday: Morels, Laundry, and (Always) More Books

The morels were only two in number, gift of a friend, so rather than mixing them with our cheesy scrambled eggs, I sauteed them separately and posed them atop a dollop of light sour cream on top of the eggs. It was a good way to start a busy day. I had a lot of laundry to do and a sunny day to hang it out on the line. I also had half a book still to get through before a discussion group meeting in the evening. But the garden beckoned: Its edge needed cutting back. Weeds needed removing. Soil needed to be worked up. And seeds begged to be planted! But it all got done, and a little housework besides. (Will miracles never cease?) And now, as I post this past weekend's highlights, it's already Tuesday. How did that happen? The usual way, I suppose. More another day on my reading of Annie Dillard's Living By Fiction and continued reading about Americans in Paris and the Hellenistic Period in the Old World.


For today, Happy May Day, everyone!