Midwest Guest

Midwest Guest partners with select companies through affiliate ad network

Midwest Guest partners with select companies through the CJ  Affiliate Ad Network

Much as we enjoy creating the content for Midwest Guest, it takes a fair amount of effort and resources to support the blog throughout the year. Cameras, computers, server space, photo storage space, a SmugMug gallery and more are all necessary tools of the trade, which we help pay for through ad income or fees earned from our freelance writing or photography gigs.

We're excited to announce a new partnership with Midwest Guest and a select group of ad affiliates working though the CJ (formerly Commission Junction) Affiliate Network that allowed us to hand-pick advertisers that we love and use ourselves, and that fit into the mission of Midwest Guest to share stories about the types of travel we love or have a strong tie to Midwestern companies and products.

We'll receive a small commission for purchases readers make by linking to our affiliate advertisers from here that will help offset our expenses, and it's our hope that you'll find some great Midwest products and advertisers that you'll love dealing with as much as we do.

Let us briefly introduce a few of the companies we're partnering with through CJ Affiliate and tell you how we decided to partner with them:

 

 

 

 

Life is Good-I've long loved Life is Good and their casual T-shirts, hats, socks and other items featuring their cute graphics. Their hockey- and motorcycle-themed shirts and hats are particular favorites with us, and my most recent purchase from them came after Tim asked for a Life is Good motorcycle hat after seeing one on someone else around town.

 

Revzilla-This is a particular favorite with Tim. He purchased a lot of accessories for his motorcycle after his return to motorcycling after a 40-year absence from it. You'll find some reviews at Midwest Guest about gear he's purchased and enjoyed through Revzilla. Particularly impressive to me? Tim tells me fellow bike riders say Revzilla is particularly attentive to the needs of female motorcyclists seeking gear that fits correctly. I also had a good experience ordering gifts from the company for Tim and appreciated that fact that they allowed me to assign a discount coupon I earned with my purchase to Tim for his own use.

 

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BedandBreakfast.com-Why not give the gift of travel? We are big fans of staying in Bed and breakfast inns, and this site is a great way to find unique B&Bs from around the country, and around the world, so you can plot your own adventure or give a loved one their own gift  certificate towards their own unique stay.

 

 

 

 

Meredith Publications-One of my favorite publications when it comes to travel is Meredith's Midwest Living magazine. Plans for many of our trips started to take shape as I read about some great Midwest destinations in the pages of Midwest Living magazines or books.

 

 

Speaking of books, we also continue to have an affiliate relationship with Amazon, which we often use to help folks find books from some of our favorite Midwestern authors like Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli (a northern Michigan author releasing a new book from her Nut House Mystery series this month and a book from her new Little Library Mystery series next summer), Mardi Link (another Michigan author who primarily writes true-crime and other non-fiction books based in Michigan) and Deanna Adams (Cleveland-area author of Rock 'n' Roll and the Cleveland Connection and several other fiction and non-fiction books). Enter through our Amazon affiliate link and search box on our front page to access these books as well as well as a world of other books, music-related or household and hobby-related products.

Coming up later this month, we'll introduce a few more of our affiliate partners that specifically feature Midwest companies and products.

Meanwhile, thanks so much for supporting Midwest Guest by considering doing some of your holiday shopping here!

©Dominique King 2015 All rights reserved

Banned and Challenged Books-Midwest edition

Banned book Week (September 27 - October 3) will soon be upon us, and it's interesting to see what books draw challenges, or outright bans, with some of them drawing fire year after year.

 

 

I remember my junior high school social studies teacher wanting our class to read "Manchild in the Promised Land" by Claude Brown. The autobiographical novel told the story of Brown's childhood growing up in a Harlem tenement during the 1940s and 1950s as the son of former sharecroppers who migrated from the South.

Some parents, concerned that the book was a bit more mature than our seventh grade minds could handle, complained to the local school board. The school board had misgivings about the assignment and reached a compromise that said the teacher could not require the class to read the book and that students wishing to read the book needed a signed permission slip from their parents in order to do so.

My mom, not a fan of censorship and knowing her child quite well, said she'd sign the permission slip as she figured I'd find a way to read the book anyway if she didn't.

That is my only recollection of attempted censorship of my reading, but a check of the American Library Association's web site finds plenty of instances of challenges and bans throughout the years, with many of them revolving around books meant for children and young adult readers.

When I noticed the multiple challenges the books of Toni Morrison faced throughout the years, I began to wonder how many other authors born in the heartland, or authors somehow connected to the Midwest, faced such challenges.

Here is a list of Midwest authors that wrote books, some of them considered real classics that faced challenges or bans from library patrons or school districts over the years:

Toni Morrison-born Chloe Ardella Wofford on February 18, 1931 in Lorain, Ohio. Morrison's books often appear on listings of challenged books, including seeing her book, The Bluest Eye, appearing on the ALA's  list of top ten most frequently challenged books of 2014.

 

 

Brian Vaughan-born July 17, 1976 in Cleveland, Ohio also appeared on the ALA's list of top ten most frequently challenged books of 2014 for "Saga", a comic book series deemed as, among other things, "anti-family".

 

 

Ernest Hemmingway-born July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois and spent many summers in Petoskey in northern Michigan. Books like Hemmingway's The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms and For Whom the Bell Tolls appear on the ALA's list of challenged classics.

 

 

Gary Paulsen-born May 17, 1939 in Minneapolis, Minnesota best known for writing coming-of-age stories set in the wilderness and partly based on traumatic incidents in his own life. His name appears on the Top 100 Banned/Challenged books for 2000-2009.

 

 

John Michael Green-born August 24, 1977 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Known as a novelist and video blogger who produces online educational videos. He is the author of about a half-dozen novels, and his first novel, Looking for Alaska, appeared on the ALA's 2013 list of Top Ten Banned/Challenged books.

 

Mark Twain-born Samuel Langhorne Clemens on November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri. Best known for books like Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn more than 100 years ago, but the book still regularly appears on listings of Top Ten  Banned/Challenged books into the 21st century.

 

 

Kate Chopin-born Katherine O'Flaherty on February 8, 1850 in St. Louis, Missouri. Chopin moved to Louisiana after her marriage at age 20. She set many of her stories and books in that state, but moved back to St. Louis after her husband's death. Her mother died shortly afterwards, and a physician friend suggested that writing might be a means of healing for her. Chopin's second novel drew heavy criticism because of its early feminist themes, and it appears on the ALA's list of classic books most banned and challenged.   

 

 

Phyllis Reynolds Naylor-born on January 4, 1933 in Anderson, Indiana. Her series of Young Adult fictional books about "Alice", a motherless child making her way through life, became one of the most frequently challenged and banned books in libraries.

 

 

R.L. Stine-born Robert Lawrence Stine on October 8, 1943 in Columbus, Ohio. Readers may best know the prolific writer in horror fiction and children's literature for his Goosebumps series for kids. Stine appears multiple times on lists of banned/challenged books, including on the ALA's list of Top 100 Banned/Challenged books: 2000-2009.

 

 

Theodore Dreiser-born August 27, 1871 in Terre Haute, Indiana. Journalist and novelist best known for Sister Carrie and An American Tragedy, this Pulitzer Prize nominee in Literature appears on the ALA's list of banned classics.

 

Ray Bradbury-born August 22, 1920 in Waukegan, Illinois. This noted science fiction writer authored the book Fahrenheit 451 in the 1950s, which tells about a future in American where books are outlawed, banned and burned--a book which became the subject of multiple challenges and is listed on the ALA's Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009.

 

 

Dav Pilkey-born David Murray Pilkey, Jr. on March 4, 1966 in Cleveland Ohio. The annual Thanksgiving Day parade in Detroit isn't over until the large Captain Underpants balloon flies onto the scene, so I think it's appropriate enough to end this list by spotlighting the author/illustrator of the popular kids' series. The frequent challenges only seem to spur the popularity of the series while would-be censors question Pilkey's work because of perceived potty humor and the thought that the books encourage children to question authority. (I'll bet that the questioners are probably the same sorts of people responsible for the complaints that fueled the fast-growing popularity of the musical group Barenaked Ladies during the 1990s!)

 

 

So there you have it...read a challenged book, support a Midwest writer or just check out a great way to enjoy a few fall afternoons!

(Note: Indie bookstores aren't so easy to find any more, but we do like to go the Schuler Books--where I got the button pictured at the top of this article--when we head out to Grand Rapids or East Lansing, Michigan)

© Dominique King 2015 All rights reserved

Exploring Chicago Blues with Rosalind Cummings-Yeates

Normally I might tell folks I hope they don't get the blues for the holidays, but when it comes to great blues music, I'd certainly change my tune.

One of my favorite travel memories is of visiting Chicago was heading over to Buddy Guy's Legends nightclub for a show starring contemporary blues great, Shemekia Copeland.

It was a special pleasure then to reconnect with the electrifying Copeland while revisiting the Windy City's historic and current lively blues scene via a virtual guided tour by reading the new book, Exploring Chicago Blues: Inside the Scene, Past and Present by Chicago journalist (and fellow travel blogger) Rosalind Cummings-Yeates.

 

 

I loved this enthusiastic and knowledgeable exploration of the Chicago blues scene with Cummings-Yeates. Her book certainly rekindled my desire to revisit Chicago for another taste of the city's rich blues heritage and contemporary blues musicians carrying forward the musical torch of the blues today.

I particularly liked the way that Cummings-Yeates organized her book into two major parts.

The first part gives readers a good grounding in the history of the blues in Chicago, and this is as far as many other books I've seen on the subject go.

The second part of the brings readers up to date with the city's current blues scene, including advice about noteworthy new blues artists, the best clubs for hearing the blues, how to enjoy attending a blues festival in the city and the best places to score a little soul food as you embark on your tour for a taste of the blues.

Cummings-Yeates has the gift of making her prose read like a personally guided tour of the best of the blues music, artists and clubs. Reading her book may be the next best thing to heading out to tour the Chicago music scene with a knowledgeable BFF.

Can't make it out to Chicago any time soon, or don't know where to start with your exploration of this richly historical music scene and its most exciting newcomers? Check out the section at the end of the book that offers more than a dozen suggestions for single CDs and CD sets that will give you a good basis for understanding and appreciating Chicago's blues, past and present.

I enjoyed reading Cummings-Yeates assessment of Shemekia Copeland, a young up-and-coming blues artist who is definitely a favorite with me.

Copeland officially assumed the title as  "Queen of the Blues" during the Chicago Blues Festival in 2011. Koko Taylor, who Cummings-Yeates says kept the blues alive for generations of blues women, previously held the title as "Queen of the Blues" until her passing in 2009.

Copeland's shows mix powerful performances of familiar blues anthems and standards, as well as newer songs like one of my favorites, "Sholanda's", which tells the humorous tale of a local beauty salon where women meet, primp and share the latest gossip.

 

 

Love the music of artists like Copeland, Howlin' Wolf, Etta James, Willie Dixon, Koko Taylor, Memphis Minnie and more? You'll love this book.

Look for Exploring Chicago Blues by Rosalind Cummings-Yeates at your local bookstore or on Amazon.

Want to learn more about this book and the Chicago blues scene? Check out the Exploring Chicago Blues page on Facebook.

To learn more about Rosalind Cummings-Yeates and her work, check out her resume and more at her Web site.

You can also connect with Rosalind Cummings-Yeates, a self-described journalist, author, blogger and word wrangler, on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Thank you to The History Press for providing me with a copy of this book for review purposes.

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

Midwest reads: More great Midwest-related books to give or receive!

Here are a few more Midwest-related books that, although they deal with pretty serious subjects, I've enjoyed reading recently:

Washed Away: How the Great Flood of 1913, America's Most Widespread Natural Disaster, Terrorized a Nation and Changed it Forever by Geoff Williams-So, this isn't the most cheerful holiday reading, but this book certainly contained all sorts of fascinating stories about a flood I've seen mentioned from time to time as I've traveled around the Midwest. A series of tornados (particularly centered in Omaha, Nebraska) and floods spreading out across the Midwest with Dayton, Ohio as the flooding epicenter was one of the country's most far-flung natural disasters up until that time. We've often seen evidence of the 1913 floods (most recently in a flood gauge painted on the wall of mill near a canal in one of the Toledo Metroparks in northern Ohio), but it was still shocking to hear about how many people were trapped by the floodwaters or how many people lost their lives to the floods.

The failures to deal with the natural disasters at this time led to the wide-spread adoption of the city manager form of local government and the rise of disaster preparedness policies for years to come.

 

 

The Children's Blizzard by David Laskin-Blizards blasting across the northern prairie states with little or no warning on January 12, 1888 led to a series of tragedies that took the lives of hundreds of school children as they struggled to find their way home from school as the storms struck. The day dawned sunny and mild, but violent winds and storms struck at the time when many school children in places like the Dakotas, Nebraska and Minnesota were heading home at the end of their school day. Stories of children and others who literally froze in their tracks or lost limbs or died from frostbite suffered during the storm are balanced by still more stories of the heroic young teachers (many of them female) who survived the storms as they saved many of their young charges. It is interesting to see what significant changes and improvements in the state of the then-primitive weather forecasting and reporting followed the storms.

 

 

Kansas City Lightening: The Rise and Times of Charley Parker by Stanley Crouch-This one is about a different type of storm as it details the early and turbulent life of noted jazz saxophonist and composer Charley Parker. Crouch apparently conceives this biography as a two-book set and started seriously researching Parker's life and music more than 30 years ago. Crouch sets the scene of Parker's early life in an almost Impressionistic way, drawing his story across the broad brush strokes of the pre-World War II culture, politics, racism and music of the time starting with Parker's childhood in the 1920s and through the 1930s as Parker became a pursued his music with a single-minded passion. Drugs took over Parker's life early on, and the book only covers his life through 1940, when he returned from New York City to attend the funeral of his father. Crouch leaves the rest of the story of Parker's life through his 1955 death for another, and while he hints at some of the problems that derailed Parker's life, he doesn't come to a definitive answer about the real roots of Parker's problems. Crouch opts instead for what seems like more of a personal tour through an earlier era, setting up the reader for a tour that will cover the inevitable fall after the Rise of Charlie Parker.

 

 

Ida: A Sword Among Lions by Paula J. Giddings-I waited for a while before tacking this book because, at 600-plus pages and its focus on Ida B. Wells' anti-lynching work in the late 1800s and early 1900s, it is definitely not a light read. The subject of Wells' life work and her exile to Chicago from her Mississippi and Memphis homes for expressing her anti-lynching views make for difficult reading. Wells experienced push-back, not only because she was a woman, but because she was a woman of color in a time when neither one of those attributes conferred much power or respect in our society or culture. Orphaned as a teenager and struggling to keep the rest of her younger siblings together, she managed to establish herself as a teacher and an activist/journalist against tough odds. Wells' perseverance makes for some inspiring reading, even as the story infuriates and aggravates the reader at times with its unflinching look at the life and society of that era.

 

 

What are your favorite books by Midwestern authors or about the Midwest?

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

Midwest reads: Great Midwest-related books to give or receive!

Here are a few Midwest-related books that I've enjoyed reading recently:

Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And all the Brilliant Minds Who Made the Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic by Jennifer Keishin-What made this 1970s television show set in Minneapolis such an enduring classic? This show inspired Oprah to pursue a career in television and inspired many more women with the idea that they could do anything they wanted to do in their lives. Folks watching reruns of this show today may think that they are watching a typical 1970s sitcom, but many of us watching this show during its first run had the idea that we were watching something far more revolutionary. The Mary Tyler Moore Show was one of the first to have a female lead character who was a "career woman" making her own way in life without relying on a man to carry her through life. I remember loving this show for its "family" of characters and for the idea that housewife, teacher or nurse might not be the only viable career options for girls growing up at the time to consider (says the girl who had a high school counselor tell her she should consider taking cooking instead of an advanced Geometry class because it cooking would surely be more useful than math in her future). It was fun to learn what later happened to the people who created the show and played the characters and how the show changed the television industry...for good.

 

Mrs. Lincoln's Rival by Jennifer Chiaverini- I featured the historical novel, Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker, on one of my book lists early last year. This is another engrossing Civil War-era story from Wisconsin writer Chiaverini. This time, Chiaverini bases her novel on the life of Kate Chase, the "Belle of Washington", who engaged in a fierce rivalry with Mary Todd Lincoln for primacy in the Washington D.C. social and political scene. The book runs through the end of the Civil War, President Lincoln's assassination and the first year of Chase's contentious marriage to William Sprague (Rhode Island's "Boy Governor"). Chase loved her husband, but his alcoholism, infidelity and abuse made remaining married to him impossible. In real life, after the time period covered by this novel, Kate took the then relatively rare steps of divorcing and taking back her maiden name. The end of her life was rather sad as a son committed suicide and Kate lived the rest of her live as a poverty-stricken recluse. I'm curious to read a good biography of this woman, and I'm also curious to learn more about her younger sister, Nettie, who I later learned authored and illustrated children's books.

 

The Spymisstress by Jennifer Chiaverini-Another engrossing historical novel from Madison, Wisconsin author Chiaverini. This time, the novel focuses on the tale of Union loyalist Elizabeth Van Lew who lived in Richmond and served as a spy during the Civil War. The book gives you a real sense of the despair, poverty, wartime casualties and prisoners from behind Confederate lines up until the day that Richmond finally fell to the Union Army. Van Lew experienced the wartime poverty, as well as the ostracism and suspicions of her neighbors as she carried on her work with other Union loyalists to get essential information to the Union forces. I later read a biography of Van Lew (Southern Lady, Yankee Spy by Elizabeth R. Varon) and found that Chiaverini's fictionalized version of the story hewed pretty closely to the events and spirit of Van Lew's true life story).

 

Capitol Park: Historic Heart of Detroit by Jack Dempsey-Michiganders know that the beautiful state capitol building is in Lansing, but how many people know that the first capitol building was in Detroit, Michigan? This book is an interesting history of the location of a little known Detroit landmark and the city's history as Michigan's first state capital.  I found Dempsey's writing style a little stilted and flowery and thought that the inclusion of so many entire documents and event transcripts bogged the book down. Still, I found the book valuable as I learned a lot of interesting things about Michigan's early days as a state.

 

Come back later this week as I share my thoughts about other Midwest-related books I've read recently.

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

Family matters at the Allen County Public Library and Genealogy Center in Fort Wayne, Indiana

I first discovered that Allen County, home to Fort Wayne, Indiana, has an extensive collection of online genealogy materials and resources while I researched a story about an old church with an interesting cemetery that we spotted along the Lincoln Highway a couple years ago.

I put the Allen County Library's Genealogy Center on our Midwest bucket list, hoping to see the more of the county's genealogy and history research resources, and we finally got the opportunity to check it out the center during our most recent visit to Fort Wayne.

The Genealogy Center's Manager, Curt Witcher, met us and took us on a tour of the center, which houses the nation's largest public genealogy collection.

Witcher was a genial host and generated an infectious enthusiasm for genealogical research and a love of history that made for an especially enjoyable visit to the center for both me and Tim.

The Genealogy Center is on the second floor of the 367,000-square-foot main branch of the Allen County Library in downtown Fort Wayne.

The library opened as the Fort Wayne Public Library in 1895 with 3,606 volumes in a room at City Hall. Today, as the Allen County Library system, it includes the main library in downtown Fort Wayne as well as more than a dozen branch libraries around the county in northeastern Indiana.

The library established the Genealogy Center more than 50 years ago as an outgrowth of the interest of one of the librarians in genealogical research and serving the needs of people searching for information about their ancestors.

Only the collection at the Family History Center in Salt Lake City, which is a private institution, exceeds Allen County's genealogical research holdings in the United States.

The Center houses over 370,000 printed volumes, 513,000 micro form items, 55,000 volumes of compiled genealogies that include research on many families in North America and Europe, plus other physical items like city directories from around the country, military records dating back to the 1700s, passenger lists of ships entering the country, census records and other items for a total physical collection of more than 1.1 million items.

The collection is always growing. Witcher estimates that the Center adds an average of 1,200 to 1,500 items to the collection every month.

Much of the Center's collection is available online, but genealogical researchers going to the Center in person will find free access to even more databases, many available only to libraries by subscription and licensed genealogical databases that would normally cost an individual hundreds of dollars to access all of them.

Genealogical researchers can also access other databases at the Center that include the Salt Lake holdings, census records for 1790 through 1930 with some individual state and territorial records, specialized databases of Native American and African American records and records from other countries like Canada, the British Isles, Ireland and  Germany. There are also many local and regional history resources for Allen County and the surrounding area.

One of the most valuable resources at the Center might be a staff that specializes in genealogy and history. It's possible to schedule a short one-on-one consultation with an experienced staff member if you run into a problem or are not sure where to go next with your research.

The Center's staff estimates that they see about 100,000 visitors each year

The Center also hosts meetings and programs of the Allen County Genealogy Society of Indiana where beginning genealogists can learn about topics like Genealogy and Technology. You can connect with the ACGSI, at their site and blog, on Facebook or on their Pinterest page (where I ended up going off on a tangent while looking when I found a link to an interesting article about the Find-A-Grave website, which I frequently use when researching stories on Midwest Guest).

Witcher tells budding genealogists that they can begin with just the facts that they personally know about their families and begin building their own family tree and history from there.

Staff at the Center suggests that prepping for your in-person visit before you arrive will help you to make the best use your time, especially if it is your first visit to the Center.

A good number of researchers were at the Center during our visit on a weekday afternoon. We enjoyed seeing the different resources available and how organized everything seemed. The Center's moving book shelves particularly fascinated me with how they collapsed to take up a lot less space, yet expanded with the touch of a button to reveal rows and rows of more volumes.

Hours at the Genealogy Center coincide with the library's hours of 9 a.m. until 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. Friday and Saturday and noon until 5 p.m. on Sunday. The building is closes on Sundays from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend and on major holidays like New Years Day, Easter, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

You can also connect with the Genealogy Center on Facebook, Twitter or on the Center's blog.

Thanks to Visit Fort Wayne for sponsoring my recent visit to Fort Wayne, Indiana, providing lodging, meals and help arranging interviews and tours of area attractions for my review, with no further compensation. I was free to express my own opinions about this stay and experiences, and the opinions expressed here are mine.

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

Oddball Michigan takes readers off the beaten path

Regular readers at Midwest Guest know that I have a special affection for quirky roadside finds.

So, it's easy to understand when I read Jessie's review of author Jerome Pohlen's book, Oddball Michigan: A Guide to 450 Really Strange Places, I thought it would be a great guide to take with us on our travels around Michigan.

Pohlen seeks all that is weirdly wacky and wonderful in the Mitten State, often serving up the descriptions of his finds with a seriously sizeable side of snark.

Do you like animals? Pohlen suggests visiting polar bears at the Detroit Zoo's superb Arctic Ring of Life exhibit or heading up to Traverse City to stop by the grave site of champion milk cow, Colantha, or to smooch Randolph the Moose. If you want something even kitschier, stop by Cheboygan, to see the shell of a man-killing clam at Sea Shell City.

 

 

Pohlen also shares many sites where you can learn about Michigan's rich maritime history, including Detroit's Dossin Great Lakes Museum, where you'll find part of an anchor from the Edmund Fitzgerald or the Old Mission Point Lighthouse on the 45th parallel at the tip of Michigan's Leelanau Peninsula, which is also a favorite spot for us to visit.

Music looms large in Michigan history, and Pohlen suggests checking out Detroit's Motown Museum or checking out the found-object artwork of Stuart Padnos, who has a great "metal band" display at Grand Valley State University in Allendale on the west side of the state.

 

 

 I've also got a special affection for bridges and unique architectural structures. Pohlen shares that enthusiasm, encouraging readers to take in the beauty of the Mackinac Bridge that connects Michigan's two peninsulas, walk across Midland's Tridge, visit the Pickle Barrel House in the Upper Peninsula's Grand Marais or see the Kaleva Bottle House in the northwest Lower Peninsula.

Pohlen also spotlights unique museums like: The Henry Ford in Dearborn, where visitors can see a vintage Wienermobile; the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids for a kaleidoscopic view of the politics, fads and fashions of the 1970s; Kalamazoo's Gilmore Car Museum and Ann Arbor's Kelsey Museum of Archaeology.

Looking for a unique way to observe the Christmas holiday? Pohlen suggests visiting the town of Christmas in Michigan's Upper Peninsula, checking out Bronner's in Frankenmuth for holiday decor, stopping by the Plymouth Historical Museum to learn more about the fabled Red Ryder BB gun so wanted by Ralphie in "A Christmas Story" movie or heading out to Blake's Tree Farm in Armada (which happens to be where we buy our Christmas tree every year!).

 

 

Places listed in Pohlen's book range from the seriously goofy sites like Da Yooper Tourist Trap in Ishpeming, to the more serious sites like a shrine and statue in the Upper Peninsula honoring Michigan's "Snowshoe Priest" Bishop Baraga, the birthplace of the Peace Corps in Ann Arbor, sculptor Ed Dwight's "Gateway to Freedom" statue honoring the state's Underground Railroad connection on the bank of the Detroit River or Detroit's infamous "Joe Louis Fist".

Exploring might make travelers hungry. Pohlen suggests visiting places like the kitschy Dogpatch restaurant in Munising, Cherry Republic in Traverse City for all things cherry, the home of Jiffy mix in Chelsea, Grindstone City in Michigan's Thumb (my tip: check out the giant ice cream cones at this town's general store) or the site of the first roadside table in Saranac. Visiting the Cherry Bowl Drive-in in Honor is also an option if you're craving some classic movie concessions fare.

 

 

Thanks to Pohlen, we added several sites to our oddball-sights-seen list as we drove through northern Michigan during our travels last week. We checked out an eight-foot-tall ice cream cone in front of a turkey dinner restaurant and the large beer bottle sitting beside the Big Buck Brewery restaurant in Gaylord, plus we stopped by to see a couple of sights near Traverse City that included a giant piece of fudge sitting atop a store in Acme and an eclectic sculpture garden created by Dewey Blocksma in Beulah.

 

 

Pohlen warns readers that some of the more off-the-wall and lesser-known sites can easily disappear, especially those on private property or in smaller towns that don't draw a lot of tourist traffic. We didn't find this to be any real problem as Pohlen's Oddball Michigan book came out earlier this year, so it's pretty up-to-date. I might suggest checking out some of the smaller attractions and roadside oddities online or by calling ahead before driving a great distance to see them for just this reason, though.

Oddball Michigan is one of a series of Oddball-themed books for various states written by Pohlen.

If I'm going to pick nits here, finding Sarah Palin referred to as "Sara" Palin in the book tripped me up for a second, although I rarely find any book without some sort of typo these days, and while I'm glad to see that the series includes volumes for states I also often visit like Ohio and Indiana, at least a few of them are more than a decade old, so I'm assuming they're in serious need of updating,

Bottom line: Oddball Michigan is a fun book to leaf through and a great guide to take with you on a Michigan road trip.

Thank you to the Chicago Review Press for providing me with a copy of this book for review purposes.

© Dominique King 2014 All rights reserved

Midwest reads: Great books that make great last-minute gifts!

Check out these Midwest-related books that I've read recently:

The Bird: The Life and Legacy of Mark Fidrych by Doug Wilson-Living in the Detroit area during 1976 meant you could hardly escape the story of a quirky ballplayer who quickly rose to Major League Baseball fame, and who just as quickly saw it all end when his pitching arm went dead. Wilson talks with Fid's family and old friends, people who know him during the heady days of Birdmaina and who loved and appreciated him before and after his quick ride to fame and back. The author contends that Fidrych was likely victim of sports medicine's inability to correctly diagnose and correct the physical problem with his pitching arm during the late 1970s and that later advances in the field might have been able to save his pitching arm. The book was a little sad for me as I knew the ending, but it still brought back some fond memories.

 

 

Hank Greenberg: The Hero of Heroes by John Rosengren-This is a great look at Detroit and baseball in the 1930s and 1940s, and I remember my mom saying that he was one of her favorite players when she was a young girl. Greenberg's story is one about life as the first well known Jewish professional athlete and as a real role model for his young fans, particularly those in his religious community. It is also the story of overcoming the difficulties of dealing with vicious anti-Semitism and reconciling a devotion to baseball with a devotion to faith and his family. The author makes the case for Greenberg as one of baseball's greatest players and feels fans today might better remember him had his playing days not been interrupted by his service in the armed forces during World War II, forcing him to finish his career with a late-life comeback.

 

 

City of Scoundrels: The 12 Days of Disaster that Gave Birth to Modern Chicago by Gary Krist-July of 1919 was more than eventful for the Windy City, starting with a spectacular crash of a flaming blimp into a bank building and culminating with a violent race riot. Other events examined in this book include the murder of a young girl, a transit strike that paralyzed the city, and the machinations of a political machine pushing the fortunes of Mayor Big Bill Thompson and his vision of Chicago as a thoroughly modern city. The blimp crash was one of the first major aviation disasters, and the race riot was one of the worst urban incidents up until that time.  The book is fascinating, but a bit depressing in what it reveals about the mindset of people of that era and their motivations. The events over that 12-day span had a lasting effect on Chicago, its character, the way it did business for the years to come and the largely unrealized dream of famed architect Daniel Burnham and his plan for Chicago as a City Beautiful.

 

 

The Supremes at Earl's All-You-Can-Eat by Edward Kelsey Moore-Chicago writer Moore tells a story based on childhood memories of his older female relatives and a desire to celebrate enduring friendships. The central characters in this novel are three women who meet as high school students in southern Indiana during the 1960s. The book follows them through more than four decades of love, heartbreak, hardship and joy as the thread of their strong friendship binds them together and supports them through the years. "The Supremes" earned their nickname from Big Earl, the owner of the uniquely named "All-You-Can-Eat" restaurant where the trio holds court every Sunday afternoon through the years at a window table.

 

 

The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin-The Indianapolis-born author, who currently lives in Chicago, offers this fictionalized biography of Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Anne, much better known as wife of famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, was also a pioneering aviatrix and writer. This is also the story of a woman whose life revolved around her husband and his career. The man who was the first to fly cross the Atlantic Ocean alone in 1927 comes across here as cold, unfeeling and who isn't able to understand the nuances of human behavior and relationships. Even as his reputation suffered in later years, tarnished by his enthusiasm for the isolationist cause during World War II and his anti-Semitic views, Anne stood by him. She also supported him even as she learned about his many extra-marital affairs and the seven children born of those relationships. Still, Anne never seems to lose her love for Charles and his legend and sees a hint of his heart even as she discovers herself, her own career, and a late-in-life lover along the way. Particularly interesting to me were the parts of the book covering the scandalous kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh's first child in the 1930s and its probable effect on the couple and their later life choices.

 

 

Alice I have Been by Melanie Benjamin-The Indianapolis-born Benjamin bases this novel on the life of Alice Liddell, the model for Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland". The real-life Alice was a free spirit born into a strict and proper Victorian-era family. Alice lived with her family at Oxford, where her father was president of the university. She formed a friendship with a teacher and photographer there named Charles Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis Carroll). Alice became his muse and photographic subject. The young girl's family misunderstood the friendship between the two at best, and the relationship, as it reads in this book, became discomforting and seemingly inappropriate in some way. The book certainly left me with questions about whether both Liddell and Dodgson wanted more out of it. Several other historical figures don't come off well here, either. Benjamin's book tells of Alice's life beyond her ill-fated childhood relationship with Dodgeson and her eventual embrace of the fictional Alice in Wonderland and her part in creating that story.

 

 

Clark Gable in Pictures: Candid Images of the Actor's Life by Chrystopher J. Spicer-I didn't know about the Midwest connections in the life of legendary actor Clark Gable's life before picking up this book. The first chapter details Gable's birth and earliest days in Cadiz, a small town in south eastern Ohio near the West Virginia border. It was also interesting to learn that actress Carole Lombard, one of Gable's true loves who he married and then lost when she died in a plane crash while doing World War II support work, was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Gable also had many cool cars over the course of his life, and I remember reading about the Duesenberg cars he drove during the 1930s when we visited the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum in Indiana. It was fun to see a couple of those cars here in the book's "Fast Life" chapter. This book is mostly photos with detailed captions, but it is an especially fun read for fans of the Golden Age of Hollywood.

 

 

© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved<br

Great Midwest reads to warm up your autumn

Here is yet another list of great Midwest reads I've come across in recent months:

• A Woman Like Me by Bettye LaVette-Born in Muskegon, Michigan, LaVette's early promise as a soul star quickly dissolved after a series bad breaks left her struggling to find an audience...or to even get an album made. A recent video of a performance of the Who's "Reign o'r Me" at The Kennedy Center's awards show, which moved Roger Daltry and Pete Townsend to tears, went viral online setting the stage for the singer's amazing late-life career comeback. LaVette's story, told in her uniquely celebratory and slightly profane voice, is a great read for music fans and those who appreciate seeing a never-say-die spirit triumph.
  
  
  
• Forgotten Landmarks of Detroit by Dan Austin-Austin's tales of some of the city's great landmarks lost to time and neglect is a follow up to his Lost Detroit book. The mostly long-gone structures in this book live on in vintage photos, veteran Detroiter's memories and the tales Austin shares with readers. Seeing photos of places like Detroit's Old City Hall, the City of Detroit III steamship and the Graystone Ballroom is a grim reminder of the treasures we've lost to time and a reminder to treasure the many magnificent architectural gems that still exist in the city.
  
  
  
• Revolution Detroit: Strategies for Urban Reinvention by John Gallagher-This is a follow up to Detroit journalist Gallagher's Reimagining Detroit. The book further explores Detroit as a shrinking city and possible strategies for moving ahead within that new reality for Detroit by sharing examples of the success of other troubled cities here and abroad. Among the ideas Gallagher champions are encouraging urban gardening on a commercial scale (after seeing some success with community urban gardens in building community, feeding people and fighting blight and crime) and viewing currently blighted and vacant land as an asset, rather than a liability.
  
  
  
• Me, the Mob and the Music: One Helluva Ride with Tommy James and the Shondells by Tommy James with Martin Fitzpatrick-Tommy James shares the tale of his roller coaster ride from the Midwest to fame with Roulette Records (with 1960s hits like Mony Mony, I Think We're Alone Now and Crimson and Clover) and witnessing the label's executives' fall from grace in a hailstorm of arrests for multiple FBI charges of scams and tax evasion. The effect of the record execs woes on James' career was complicated and catastrophic in many ways, but this is the tale of an industry survivor who signed on with the label as a naive teenager born in Ohio and living in west Michigan at the time, rose to fame and lived to tell the story.
  
  
  
• Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson-Anderson's classic is a loosely connected collection of stories largely following the life of writer George Willard and other residents during the early 1900s in small-town Ohio. The book, first published in 1919, landed on more than a few banned book lists for its candor in depicting pre- and extra-marital sex. I found it slow-moving and depressing picture of too many people saddled with unfulfilled dreams and wasted potential. Women especially seemed to lead sad, stunted or shattered lives while living in unhappy marriages or spending their lives pining for someone who dumped them long ago. Anderson based his tales on his memories of growing up in Clyde, Ohio and on friends he knew as a young man while living in a cheap Chicago boarding house and writing his first novels.
  
  
  
• Color Blind: The Forgotten Team that Broke Baseball's Color Line by Tom Dunkel-This is the meticulously researched story of a semi-pro baseball team fielded by a Bismarck, North Dakota car dealer named Neil Churchill during the 1930s. Churchill wanted the best players for his team and recruited a good number of stars from the Negro Leagues banned from playing for the strictly segregated major leagues at that time. African American baseball stars like Satchel Paige, Quincy Troupe, Ted "Double Duty" Radcliffe and Hilton Smith played for Bismarck, and Dunkel's account makes the reader wonder if Major League baseball might differ had these players if the majors allowed them to play. The Bismarck team folded near the end of the Great Depression and about a decade before Jackie Robinson's Major League debut as the league's first African American player in the modern era (although a few baseball players like Moses Fleetwood Walker played for Major League teams in the very late 1800s).
  
  
  
• Rocket Girl: The Story of Mary Sherman Morgan, America's First Female Rocket Scientist by George D. Morgan-Mary Sherman Morgan developed the chemical cocktail to propel the United States' first rocket, the Explorer I satellite, into space. Born into an impoverished North Dakota family, Mary struggled to be able to attend school as a young girl and immediately left home after her high school graduation at age 19 to attend college. Lack of money to continue school forced her to accept a job offer to work testing explosives for a chemical company near Sandusky, Ohio during World War II. Mary lost her job at the end of the war and she next landed a job as a chemical analyst for a California aviation company. Even as the only woman working on the engineering floor, and one of few without a college degree, her reputation for brilliance as an analyst led to a her appointment to work on a top secret and top-priority rocket project in the wake of the Russian launch of Sputnik. Mary's son George found his mother's story obscured by a shroud of security and her own reluctance to share the story with her children or anyone else. He takes some literary license in this work and shares the fact that conversations, names and some events in the book are re-creations. I still think he succeeded in sharing the gist of his mother's fascinating life story and saving the story of this space pioneer from complete obscurity.
  
  
  

© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved

More great Midwest-related reads for spring and summer

Are you starting to put together your summer reading list? Check out this list of Midwest-related books perfect for a lazy day in your hammock or at the beach!

The State Fair-John Minnis and Lauren Beaver-One of my cousins entered her collections and artwork in competitions at the Michigan State Fair for several years, and I drove her there each year and so she could check out her prize ribbons and share her successes with me. She lives in California now, but we both have fond memories of our trips to the fair, so I sent this book as gift to her late last year. Reading this volume was bittersweet, as former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm shut down one of the nation's oldest and largest State Fairs a few years ago, and Detroit's Big Stove, a long-time fairgrounds landmark, burned down after a lightning strike shortly after the book came out. Still, it was fun to recall some of the great memories I have of Michigan's State Fair.

The Boy Governor: Stevens T. Mason and the Birth of Michigan Politics by Don Faber-Named one of "Michigan Notable Books" of 2013, this is the story of Michigan's first governor. Mason was a fresh-faced teenager when his political career started in Michigan during the 1830s. Mason was a visionary in many ways, but his meteoric political rise, and equally swift fall from grace that ended in death at the age of 31, makes for a fascinating, yet tragic, look at the rough and tumble politics and history of Michigan's earliest days. History, fortunately, treated Mason far more kindly then most of Mason's contemporaries did and this book explains why. I found Farber's language a little too flowery and stilted for my taste, although I recently heard him give a great, enthusiastic talk about the book and Mason's life at a history conference.

The Last Runaway by Tracy Chevalier-I read this book shortly after writing a story about 19th-century Quakers in central Indiana. This historical novel about a young Quaker woman 19th-century Ohio comes from the author of Girl with a Pearl Earring (a historical novel about a woman who modeled for the great Dutch painter Vermeer, which I've also read). This book's main character, Honor Bright, emigrated from England to a new Quaker community near Oberlin, Ohio with her sister in the early 1850s. Honor's sister wanted to join her fiancé and marry him, while Honor sought a new life after her own romantic disappointment back in England. An unexpected tragedy changes everything as Honor begins a new life in Ohio, becomes involved with the Underground Railroad and decides whether to follow her principles or follow her heart.

Mrs. Lincoln's Dressmaker by Jennifer Chiaverini-This historical novel tells a story about the events of the Civil War, President Lincoln's assassination and the aftermath of those events from the point of view of Elizabeth Keckley. The real-life Keckley was a remarkable woman, born as a slave, who worked many years to purchase freedom for herself and her son before starting a successful dressmaking business in the nation's capitol. Keckley became Mrs. Lincoln's favorite dressmaker and confidant. It's ultimately the sad story of a broken friendship and Mary Todd Lincoln's personal and financial struggles throughout her life. Author Chiaverini graduated from Indiana's Notre Dame and the University of Chicago and currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

Four Blue Stars in the Window: One Family's Story of the Great Depression, The Dust Bowl, and The Duty of a Generation by Barbara Eymann Mohrman-I'm always checking out book reviews online for Midwest-related reads, and I found a review of this title on the Nebraska Outback blog. The chance discovery of a forgotten box in a basement that contained family memorabilia sparked a young girl's interest in tracing her family's history from the late 1920s. Mohrman's family survived in the face of the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl and numerous sacrifices during World War II. Published early this year, the book has some great reviews and sounds like one I need to include on my to-read list.

Rust Belt Chic: The Cleveland Anthology edited by Richey Piiparinen and Anne Trubek-I read Amanda's review of this collection of essays book late last year on her Clue Into Cleveland blog. The book, billed as an insiders' view of the city from some people familiar to me like the always irascible and irrepressible Harvey Pekar and author and chef Michael Ruhlman who frequently guested on Anthony Bordain's television shows, and many other voices that share the unique stories of renewal, successes, disappointments, and all that is Cleveland. The electronic version of this book sounds like the one to get as it includes an additional 12 essays not in the print version.

Whiskey Island and " target="_blank">Cleveland Creep by Les Roberts-Amanda's blog also clued me into the existence of two new mysteries in the Milan Jacovich series by Les Roberts. I've featured Roberts' books here in the past as I got Tim hooked on them after picking up the first two books in the series at a bookstore on my way home from a writers conference in Ohio. Cleveland Creep made its way under our Christmas tree last year, and I suspect Tim will get the latest book in the series, Whiskey Island, the next time we visit Ohio.

Are there any other Midwest books I should suggest to readers?

© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved