William J VandenBerg

Happy Birthday William J! Enjoy your ride today, wherever you are. 

(Photos: mid-1950s, probably Fremont, Michigan.)

4

5
6

7

8
9

10

11
12

13

14
Post settings Labels william j,VandenBerg,fremont,Michigan, No matching suggestions Published on 12/6/19 7:31 AM Links Location Options Post: EditLoaded more posts.

Catching up during the pandemic

We've been self-isolating (more or less) for eight months now and even though Susan's mom is in full lockdown at Pilgrim Manor we're thankful she is healthy and in good spirits. While we are greatly disturbed by the direction our country has been heading these past four years, a trend we see little sign of abating any time soon, we're fortunate to have a nice home, good food, a little money in the bank and good health when so many are without. 

That said, here's a quick look back at our (few) outings during the past several months. 

Besides the Mackinac Island adventure and a couple of patio dinners at Patty and Paul's home in Grand Haven, we've taken a trip to Meijer Gardens. We've gone to Søvengard on the west side for Susie's birthday (rained out) and then back again for our anniversary (it has superb outdoor dining and the sour beer fries are incredible). 

A group of us in Eagle Ridge Court got together in our driveway to remember a wonderful and generous neighbor, Daryl Kaufman. Susie and I (OK mostly Susie) laid the pavers on our new patio. 

One gorgeous afternoon we drove over to Lake Michigan to pay a visit to one of Susie's favorite childhood haunts, Meinert Park, located just north of Muskegon. 

Although we missed their version of the Eiffel Tower we passed through Paris, Michigan on a day trip up north. 

Finally, we made a quick trip to Susie's old stomping grounds, Fremont, Michigan. Filled with great memories tarnished only by the prolific number of Trump signs. 

Now we await winter's arrival and wish safety and health to all.

k

2nd CRC

529 Iroquois 

Second Lake

Back from the Precipice - for now

 

Rue Montorgueil with Flags (1886) by Claude Monet

The Day of Days leads to . . . waiting

Susie and I returned home from working the polls at a little after 10pm last night. 
 

It had been one long day.   

We arrived at 6am, helped set up until the polls opened at 7am. When the doors opened we probably had at least 40 people waiting and remained steady for the next two hours or so. By midday the traffic lessened considerably; the numbers arriving to vote remained steady but manageable for the rest of the day. The expected late evening rush before closing at 8pm never materialized. 

Susie and I, like the other five poll workers on our team, rotated jobs: checking IDs, prepping ballots, helping with the tabulator. We sat down twice for maybe 20 minutes or so each time to grab a bite to eat but otherwise we were up and at it. Everyone was cordial, pleasant, and patient with no personality clashes or untoward behavior. Aside from a few technical glitches the day went off well indeed. Oh, and the people we worked with:, Joyce, Jim, Lorraine, Geoffrey and his mother Barbara, precinct chair, were friendly, funny and a genuine pleasure to spend 15 hours with. 

Although the polls closed at 8pm our work wasn’t done. We all had to put things away, pack things, up, tally things up; and there were a lot of things. The machines had to be shut down, tables put away, equipment broken down, things to be sealed up and put away. The various ballots and precinct paperwork — of which there was a lot — had to be gathered up, tallied up. Most importantly, the results from the electronic tabulators had to be (1) printed out three times and then (2) sent electronically via a special modem to the servers in downtown Grand Rapids, the county seat. We hit a snag when the results were transmitted but no receipt was printed out and the machine hung up completely refusing to shut down and refusing really to do anything at all. After a hour or so, the township clerk — already dealing with scores of similar problems no doubt at the other precincts— showed up and the problem was soon fixed. 

By a little after 9pm everything was ready to go to the next and final stage in this process, dropping all the materials off at the township hall. Since Susie and I were the token Democrats we had to accompany the precinct chair for this part and stand/sit around and wait to have all our voting materials crosschecked and properly processed for moving on to wherever all that paper was destined to go. 

Once done, we headed home, poured a short glass of red wine and talked about our experience during the day. As we went to bed we wondered, like you no doubt, what Wednesday morning would bring. All we could now was wait.

Donald Wade Soper Sr

My dad loved his sons, his wife, Helen, and his many friends, all now long gone.

He was a man all about love. It defined him and carried him through 94 years.

 

 He's been gone since 2004 but he's always with me. . . every day.

And he loved this music: 

Thanks Pop! I love you!

Election Day 2020

I want to lead this post with an image that evokes complete calm, one that’s been a favorite of mine for some years now, Berthe Morisot’s stunning LeBerceau/The Cradle. 

This lovely 1872 portrait of her sister Edma and Edma’s newborn child, Blanche. God knows, or should know, we need all the sense of calm we can get at this moment.

Speaking of this moment, it’s been some time since I’ve posted an update — the last faux pas notwithstanding, of course. Today, Tuesday, 3 November, is the Day of Days here in the United States and I just couldn't let this go without saying something.

Originally Susie and I were planning on staying at home during the election but some weeks back talked ourselves into finding some way of participating in the election process. And so we are now officially poll workers, at the 4th precinct in Grand Rapids Township, Kent County, Michigan. 

We did our poll worker training about three weeks back and then a followup session on using the computer, which serves as the official poll book. Monday, yesterday, we stopped by to help set up at our polling station which is located at the Ada Bible Church off Knapp Street. 

 

The plan is we arrive at 6am, the polls open at 7am and we work until closing at 8pm. We hope to be home sometime around 9ish or so. The word from the township office is about half of the township has already voted by absentee ballot and the number of those voting is predicted to be record-breaking. 

Whatever the outcome, Tuesday is only the beginning. 

There is a long road waiting for us all, not just here in the USA but around the world. The growing spread of Covid-19 matched by increasing unrest joined by incompetent leadership does not bode well. We either work together to repair our climate, our society, our health, or we don’t. 

It’s really that simple.

On the more mundane side of life, Susie continues to bake and blog, we continue to provide a Sunday dinner for her mom at Pilgrim Manor and a Panera sandwich on Thursdays. As for me, I finished, at long last, the four volumes of biographical sketches of the men of the 3rd Michigan Infantry, which are now available on Amazon. And just last week donated all my Civil War research materials to the Grand Rapids Public Library Historical Collections. Lastly I  completed my 3 volumes of the Guide to the Earliest Burials in Père-Lachaise Cemetery and hope to have that uploaded to Amazon later this week.

Be well, be safe and be at peace.

Self-isolating in Grand Rapids, on and on

Happier times, happier folk.

 

Hip, hip, hurray! Artist festival at Skagen, 1888, by Peder Severin Krøyer.

Wikpedia: The colony of painters who worked in Skagen, Denmark, have gathered in a garden for a celebration. From left to right: Martha Johansen, painter Viggo Johansen, Norwegian painter Christian Krohg, P.S. Krøyer, Degn Brøndum (Anna Ancher's brother), Michael Ancher, Swedish painter Oscar Björck, Danish painter Thorvald Niss, teacher Helene Christensen, Danish painter Anna Ancher and Helga Ancher. Owner: Original painting owned by Göteborgs Konstmuseum.

Nervous anxiety or just puzzled?

You decide. She already knows.

The beach hat, detail, 1914, by Robert Cozad Henri

Mackinac Island day 3

Our second full day on the island began leisurely. We didn’t arise until well after 8am, got dressed and headed downtown to Starbucks where we grabbed our morning coffees. We strolled back to the hotel and relaxed (the operative concept at work for us here) for an hour or so.  

Across from our hotel was a bike rental agency — one of a half dozen or so near town — and we picked up a pair of “cruisers” for our tour around the island. Indeed, our singular goal for the day was to ride the 8.2 miles of Michigan state highway M-185, the one and only highway in the state closed to motorized vehicles and that goes right along the coast around the island. And so we did. 

Lots of road erosion for the first half or so of the trip but the second half was smooth and clean. We stopped at Arch Rock, or rather the base of it, and cruised on to British Landing, a point of no small historical value for you enthusiasts of the War of 1812. You can find out more about Mackinac Island’s part in the War of 1812 on the Mackinac State Parks website.  There’s also a set of restrooms at the Landing and it’s a major junction for those wanting to head inland. 

We completed the circumnavigation of the island in just about 90 minutes. After dropping off our bikes we walked back into town and stopped at the Pink Pony in the Chippewa Hotel for lunch. Table service was full but the bar was wide open so we opted to do self-service at the bar. Like Panera they give you a number and bring the food to your table. No muss, no fuss. Susie had soup and sandwich and I went for the whitefish tacos. Quite good all ‘round. 

After lunch we both headed back to the hotel. While I took a nap Susie went back out for a stroll around the nearby East Bluff. We met up a couple of hours later downtown for coffee at Moomers and hung around downtown for a bit. Returning to the hotel I caught up on my travel notes and prepped photos for the soon-to-be-published blog notes. 

That evening we had a late dinner (7:45) at nearby 1852 Grill in the Island House, probably 200 yards from our hotel. The atmosphere was lovely, we had a table at the front with a gorgeous view overlooking the harbor and beyond. The food was scrumptious: we shared a plate of BBQ shrimp with cheddar grits followed by the walleye for Susie and the wienerschnitzel for me.

A wonderful, relaxing way to spend our final day on Mackinac Island. It’s been probably 25 years since we were here last and the pace (and place) hasn’t really changed much at all.

Arch Rock from M-185

quite a lot of road erosion

British Landing

The Bridge, one last time. . .

 

Walleye

Wienerschnitzel with spaetzel and cooked red cabbage

BBQ shrimp with cheddar grits

Mackinac Island day 2

On Wednesday, our first full day on the island, we languished a bit in our room before heading over to the main building for coffee and breakfast. Since all the breakfast offerings were one form or another of prepackaged food we just focused on the hot brown water followed by a couple of bananas. Fortunately there’s a Starbucks just up Main Street where we made up for the bland coffee offering of the hotel. 

Since we had to remain close by the hotel in order to be ready to move into our new room we just strolled through town: first downtown and then back east, just past our hotel, we popped into Saint Anne's Catholic church. Madame Laframboise was instrumental in helping to found the original building and upon her death in 1846 she was buried, per her wishes, beneath the altar of the church. Once back onto Main Street we headed east along M-185 briefly until we reached Mission Point Resort before returning to the Harbour View. We then had lunch at Bill’s Grill outside our hotel — light sandwiches — before settling in to our new room and relaxing before heading off to afternoon tea at the Grand Hotel.

About 3:30 we called for a taxi and headed off to our destination. Our taxi driver drove right past the “guard” at the entrance so we didn’t have to pay the $10 entry fee for nonresidents of the hotel. We made our way upstairs to the main level, found a comfortable place to sit and settled in for the afternoon. Susan had the tea and I just sipped a “champagne” label for the Grand Hotel. No idea where it came from. 

Susan gave the tea experience a grade of C-, and indeed it didn’t look very impressive. But the harpist playing nearby was superb, her choices of music wonderful and we hung about until everything closed down, at 5pm. We made our way out of the hotel along the long porch and up West Bluff Street before turning back to the hotel and then down into town for dinner.

We ate at The Village Inn, a place run by a Jamaican chef and while Susan had a crispy, fresh salad, I opted for the house specialty, “planked whitefish”: Lake Superior whitefish surrounded by Duchesse Potatoes and perfectly prepared vegetables. Tasty and spot on!

After dinner we meandered through town and ended up back at the hotel where we sat out on our patio with a glass of Nocino from Long Road Distillery in Grand Rapids (we brought a small bottle with us).

 

view from our room - can't get enough of the water

Memorial Park off Market Street

note the last two lines. . . 

note the sign on the fence

just outside of town on the west side of the island, along M-185

interior of Saint Anne's - madame Laframboise is buried beneath the altar

entrance to Mission Point

across the road from Mission Point

M-185 in front of Mission Point

Bill's Grill, on the grounds of the Harbour View Inn

taxi driver

tea service area

The Porch

sunset viewing area

looking back at the GH from West Bluff

presumably takes you down to M-185

yep, it's grand alright

color change already

memorial to Woodfill Park