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.
