A Door County Author

We arrived at the Lake House the evening of  July 2, and on July 4 we walked into Gills Rock for a reading and book signing by Patricia Skalka, a fellow Chicagoan who put down roots in Door County. She's written two murder mysteries set in Door County, With a grieving and tormented former Chicago cop as the main character (Dave Cubiak - DC, get it? She had to tell us about that, because I wouldn't have noticed it), The stories are sort of a combination of Robert B. Parker's Jesse Stone books and the movie "Feed the Fish." But they're good.

Patricia talked about her writing process and what motivated her to write the books. It was really interesting. But I'll tell you, after hearing her talk and reading the books, I'm surprised no one did this before. I mean, think about it. The Peninsula Players have been having a good time putting on over-the-top murder mysteries for years. I saw them put on "Sleuth" in the 1970's, and I noticed how people chuckled at the lines, but also at the very conventions of the murder mystery genre. Audiences up here love that sort of thing. They'd accept villains and intrigue even more in a Door County setting.

Anyway, I can't say much about the stories themselves without being a spoiler, but I enjoyed them a lot. I recommend them. She even got me thinking about trying to write fiction. (The people who sponsored the reading, Write On Door County, are all for encouraging people to do that sort of thing, too. Or even encouraging them to write blogs like this one).

Sadly, since that reading, we've had two incidents in Door County in which successful men who had places up here disappeared. One was found, apparently a suicide, but no one knows for sure yet. The other is still missing. We have dozens of murders a month in Chicago, but up here, even a single mysterious death makes big news. That's why I think the choice of the detective who came to Door County to get away from tragedy makes a compelling idea.

Anyway, here's a link to Patricia Skalka's site, where you can find out more about her books.

http://www.patriciaskalka.com/

Summer Home Neighbors

One thing that we’ve learned since we bought the Lake House is the importance of having good relationships with the neighbors. It’s not a bad idea even in the city, but out here it can make life a lot easier. But even beyond the  practical value, knowing your neighbors and having pleasant exchanges with them makes the summer home experience more pleasant and satisfying. So even when we have occasional quibbles with them, we try to make the best of things.

Minor quibbles in our condo association pretty much center around the common areas, especially parking and the dock. But we also have a unique setup here, with a common laundry house and well, but holding tanks that are either for a single unit, two units, or three units (ours). Since we’re located on the side of a bluff, all of these arrangements  - parking, utilities, and holding tanks - are constrained by our physical layout.

Things have gone pretty well so far. Our neighbors include some senior citizen grandparents, some couples with young children, and some empty nester couples like us. Some of them are related to each other, and some have known each other for years. One is even the seller that we bought our unit from – who owned two units before that. They all have their own stories, their own personalities, and their own taste in flower bed plantings and tchotchkes (lots of hostas and lighthouses). But they all share a love of Door County and the lake, a sense of family continuity, and a willingness to be part of a group that maintains this little former resort as a hideaway from modern stress and trouble. Our dogs make friends with each other. We figure out how to stay out of each others’ way when we park our cars, dry our lifejackets, or do our laundry. We bring each other up to date on news that takes place between the Memorial Day condo meetings. We humor the owner who doesn’t like woodpiles covered with Visqueen that “glistens in the sun.” (I had to go and look up what Visqueen might be. Apparently it’s a British trade name for polyethylene plastic sheeting. You learn something new every day). We got past that one, because the woodpile maker moved the pile, Visqueen and all, behind his unit. We stagger our showers, our laundry loads, and our power washing, so we disturb each other as little as we can. We hear kids playing and hollering on the dock as pleasant instead of annoying. We tone down the Fourth of July fireworks for the benefit of nervous dogs. We look out for each other, and move fallen tree branches and report damage to each other. Some of us even share Wi-Fi.

One thing that helps keep us working together and getting along with each other is the fact that none of us are wealthy. This is a very middle-class property, and only being a “cooperative” enterprise allows people of such means as we to own property on a stretch of shore where the average price tag is over half a million dollars, and up to several million. Eleven of us, pooling our resources, can jointly own a few hundred feet of shore (with the most magnificent view in Door County), a marina with slips for each owner, and acres of prime Door County cedar and birch woodland, in addition to our modest and cozy little cabins, with their individual histories and individual characters.

Another common factor drawing us together is the dock, which is a big reason for the resort’s having been built in the first place. The dock, being on the tip of the Door County mainland, takes a beating in all seasons. Like our cabins, it’s built on a narrow shelf of glacier-carved rock –one  that extends out only about 50 feet underwater before dropping off to a depth of over 100 feet in the Death’s Door strait. The dock was filled in and built using combinations of rock, cedar timbers, corrugated steel, and concrete. When we bought our place, there was a 20-foot gap in the outer break wall where ice and storms had destroyed the structure and the waves were pouring in. The first year we were here, we watched Door County’s finest dock repair people (from Barnowski Lumber and Death’s Door Marine, who have the greatest logo since the Grateful Dead) work over most of a year to rebuild it. They brought in truckload after truckload of huge
limestone boulders as rip-rap to protect the outer walls, then dozens of huge cedar timbers to frame the crib and more rock to fill it, and finally tons of concrete to finish the top (and create a new ledge on the outer edge to give the seagulls a place to perch and to help shield the dock from crashing waves). Even with all their work, we’ve noticed the rip-rap has moved (or maybe that’s an illusion because the lake has gotten three feet deeper). And one storm tore up the gravel area that was never covered in concrete, throwing hundred-pound rocks around like gravel, and moving the gravel to the opposite side of the dock). Mother Nature is not a lady to be messed with, here at Death’s Door. But someone got a nice guy with a Bobcat to push the rocks pretty much back where they belonged, and someone else rebuilt the fire pit, so we’re back in business.

Even more charming was that a couple of the owners raised the flagpole again, and someone else bought a flag, and finally the lady above us bought some pennants that proclaimed our humble dock as a “yacht club.” We had some good laughs about that, quoting “Caddyshack” and exclaiming, “Ahoy, Polloi!”

And that’s just our neighbors in the condo development. We also have neighbors nearby, though they are definitely more well-off than we. But we share a love of the place and most of us walk our dogs out on the road, dodging cyclists in some seasons and curious tourists in others. Most of them are older than we are, and it’s kind of sad to hear them talking about having to sell their places that were their dreams of decades ago, and think about moving to retirement homes.

One thing that doesn’t cross the 45^th parallel is people’s political views. Everyone seems to keep that to themselves. Which is for the best.

Anyway, in our third year here, we’ve already managed to get a pretty good sense of the rhythms of the seasons, and feel relaxed and happy to see our neighbors. That’s a pretty good lesson for life in general.

Speak Not Ill of the Norb

As most people who hang out in Door County probably know, Norbert Blei died about a year ago. Norb was one of those people who was regarded as a central figure of Door County life. He came to the county in the 1970's after growing up in Chicago and working as a newspaper writer. His first Door County book, "Door Way," was a series of interviews with and profiles of local community members and business people like Al Johnson, Bill Beckstrom, "Uncle Tom" Collis, and Freddie Kodanko. It won praise from Studs Terkel, and became one of those books that every shop in Door County had on its small bookshelf. In a way, it was a tremendously valuable book, in that it documented those Door County personalities who made the county what it is. The problem, to me at least, was that the portraits of those personalities were filtered through the personality of Norb Blei himself.

I have to confess that I never met Blei, and haven't read any of his books other than "Door Way," but I've read interviews with him, and I've read a lot of the content that he posted online during his last few years. From all of that material, I get the impression that Norb sort of enjoyed being a dick. By that, I mean that he enjoyed making people feel uncomfortable, and used their discomfort as proof of his own uniqueness. He took "crusty" to a new level, and kind of dared you to find fault with his views because it would show what a narrow-minded and conventional person you were. Ironically, though, he was really a fairly conventional thinker himself.

Norb made himself sort of a caricature of a writer, conjuring up a little Mark Twain, a little Ernest Hemingway, a little Studs, and a little Mike Royko (with whom he worked in Chicago). He smoked a pipe, worked in a rundown chicken coop crammed with enough books, papers, and assorted junk to merit an entire episode of "Hoarders," regularly parked himself at a few favorite watering holes, and grew a walrus mustache that made you itch just looking at it.

Blei made a big splash a few years back with an essay called "Shut the Damn Door," in which he rhetorically advocated closing the bridges leading onto the peninsula to keep the tourists out. Of course, it triggered a storm of controversy, but it really wasn't all that original a rant. Sydney J. Harris, another Chicago newspaper columnist, had written a similar rant over forty years ago, in which he complained about the "gooks" coming to the county. (He must have realized when he wrote it that the term would sound like an anti-Asian epithet, especially since this was during the height of the Vietnam War, so he made sure to explain that a "gook" is someone who's "looking for the action.")

As an aside, I only saw Sydney J. Harris one time in Door County... At the Thumb Fun amusement park. Hypocritical, I must say.

At any rate, Norb Blei always struck me as one of those people who knows when they're pushing people's buttons and get a kick out of doing it. Which I suppose could endear him to some people. Probably the same people who love those Vegas comedians who pick people out of the audience and make fun of them.

So, rest in peace, Norb, and be assured that you have achieved immortality along with Al Johnson and the other people you wrote about. And every little bookshelf of essential Door County books will still include "Door Way." Just not mine.

Welcome to the Lake House Blog!

Two years ago, while we were vacationing in Door County, Wisconsin, we were out for a walk and saw a lakeside condo for sale. I went back to look closer, and fell in love with the view. We had to think long and hard about it, because (first) it's small - only 500 square feet - and (second) it was very dingy and run-down, and needed a lot of work. But after a second trip up to take a closer look, and much discussion, we decided to try to buy it.

We'd always wanted a place in Door County, since I've been coming up here almost every summer since my parents bought a cottage on Lake Michigan east of Sister Bay when I was in high school. After I got married and had kids, we continued to visit Door County for most of our vacations - first to visit my parents, and then (after they sold their cottage and then had to sell their townhouse when my dad became ill) by renting places ourselves. We had always figured that a place in Door County might be out of our price range, and I'd pretty much given up on the idea of waterfront property altogether, after seeing prices shoot through the roof over the last thirty years.

We'd looked at vacation properties in different areas around the Midwest over the past ten years, including central Wisconsin (deer flies and green lakes), southern Michigan (beer coolers and speedboats), and northern or central Indiana (little lakes with a million houses crowded around them). We decided that northern Wisconsin (around Minocqua) and northern lower Michigan (around Traverse City and northward) were nice areas and would suit our style well, but they are just too far to get much use out of while living in Chicago.

But we kept looking, now that our kids were on their own and I'd recently inherited some money after my mom passed away. And spotting this place at the tip of the Door County peninsula was suddenly an exciting find. It was actually in our price range, and the travel time (while a good long drive) was only slightly longer than what I was used to with the Sister Bay trips to my folks' places.  The downsides included the condition of the place (gloomy darkened cedar paneling, ancient appliances, dingy smelly carpeting, rotten window frames, and a patio door with water condensed inside), very small bedrooms (8.5 x 9 feet), and a steep hill to get down to the place. There were also no washer and dryer in the place - they were up the hill in a laundry house - and the boat dock in front was severely damaged by ice (as in the middle section was gone).

So to make a long story short, we bought the place in November of 2012 and spent most of 2013 cleaning, painting, and fixing it up. By the end of the summer, we had a place that suited us well, and now, in 2014, we can enjoy it.

The purpose of this blog is to give me a place to reflect and tell some interesting stories about our vacations here, and eventually about our retirement. I'd always liked the idea of a guest book when we stayed at other people's places in Door County and elsewhere, so I wanted a sort of online version of that plus a journal. I also enjoyed a book that my parents had, called "Your Piece of the Peninsula" by a Chicago guy who was a longtime summer resident. In addition to his (now somewhat outdated) advice, he also recounted his own routines and way of living here, including his regular get-togethers with his drinking friends, whom he dubbed "The Cliff Swallowers." I feel like an updated version of such a journal is probably long overdue, so maybe this will serve... As long as I avoid the dreaded "TL:DR" trap (which my son usually accuses me of... Too Long: Didn't Read).

I'll also try to be careful so someone doesn't try to infer when it would be a good time to burglarize the place (or our Chicago home, for that matter), so I'll keep things rather vague. But there aren't too many condo developments at the tip of the peninsula, so I have to risk revealing some hints. After all, that's part of the appeal of the place.