On a cloudy afternoon this past winter, as we stood in the muted, gray light of our kitchen, I said to my wife, “When I die, just put me in the ground, maybe wrapped in a shroud—or in a pine box, or something like that—and let nature do its thing.”
Filtering by Author: Joshua B. Kay
Pickleball Is Life-- Fun, Friends, and Finesse at Wolverine Pickleball
Pickleball, said to be the fastest-growing sport in America, has a signature sound: the hollow pop of a hard paddle striking a plastic, Wiffle-like ball. You can’t miss it as you approach a game in progress. You’ll also hear the squeak of sneakers, whoops of delight and amazement, laughter, the occasional groan of defeat, and a light clack as players head to center court at the end of a game to tap each other’s paddles and say, “Thank you.” Christy Howden and Leslie White, co-owners of Wolverine Pickleball, never tire of this soundscape. To them, it signals pure joy and is a siren call to come and play.
Bowling, Documentaries but not (yet) bowling documentaries
Donald Harrison’s office has a bowling lane in it, at least part of a lane. The gleaming slab is from the leading edge of an old, decommissioned bowling alley and forms the top of Harrison’s elevated desk at 7 Cylinders Studio. It is the first thing he points out as I enter his bright, airy workspace in a renovated building across from the AATA bus depot in Ypsilanti.
Spinning Dot Theatre Performs International Plays for Young Audiences, and Everyone
Spinning Dot also creates theater by kids. Actors ages 8 to 12 make up the Youth Company… These young actors stay together for the entire school year... During that time, they develop an international play and devise an original work inspired by folk tales from around the world. They don’t shy away from challenging subjects, either.
Against Civic Apathy: Mary Morgan and the CivCity Initiative
Launched in November 2014, the nonpartisan CivCity Initiative works to promote year-round civic responsibility and involvement by encouraging and educating citizens to participate in all aspects of governance.
Crafting Beer, Creating Community
"I never imagined a time when craft beer would become so mainstream,” said Rene Greff, co-owner of Arbor Brewing Company brewpub in Ann Arbor and ABC Microbrewery in Ypsilanti. In 1995, when Rene and her husband, Matt Greff, opened the brewpub on Washington Street, craft beer was anything but mainstream. A few brands were paving the way, including Samuel Adams in Boston, Sierra Nevada and Anchor Brewing in California, and Bell’s Brewery in Michigan, but American beer sales and consciousness were dominated by light, insipid lagers produced by mega-breweries like Anheuser Busch, Coors, and Miller.
Grasslands
I learned firsthand that grasslands can dance when I was sixteen or seventeen. Sure, I had heard as much, and probably had read it, too. Yet growing up in Southern California, such things seemed mysterious and distant, evocative of vast plains and wagon trains. I was hiking with Lee in the Santa Monica Mountains near Los Angeles. We had puffed our way up the Chumash Trail, a dusty climb without switchbacks from the sea into the coastal hills.
Where the Beers Are: The New Blue Front
An interview with Adam Gottschalk, owner of the Blue Front at State and Packard. Gottschalk is a Certified Cicerone (sommelier of the beer world) and took an old party store in a fresh direction when he opened the new Blue Front as a fine beer and wine shop in July 2014.
Fishing for Papa
There are three ponds on my in-laws’ property in northern Georgia. Each was stocked decades ago with largemouth bass and bluegill, and since then, the fish populations have flourished. I’ve seen them from the water’s edge, sleek shapes among the weeds, under overhanging branches, and near the pilings of the old dock.
The Quiet Season
With a decisive “click,” the storm windows lock into place, and the quiet season begins. The sounds outside fall distant, muffled until mid-spring. The days are cool, the nights dip toward freezing, and the easy, outdoorsy time of summer and early autumn has passed. The leaves have turned. Snow will come soon.
