J's Portraits in Duct Tape: NOLA Jazz & Zydeco Musicians

Dear George,

On our December family visit to New Orleans, we were excited to see our son J’s most recent artwork.  For some time he’s been creating elegant portraits by using layers of multi-colored duct tape on plywood which are cut and peeled away to create photograph-like images.  J has concentrated particularly on New Orleans jazz, rhythm and blues, and Zydeco musicians, and over two dozen of his works are being shown from April 1 to 30 at Gallery Treo in Mid-City in New Orleans (3835 Tulane Ave.).  I’ve posted a sampling of the exhibition pieces here, along with brief biographical blurbs of the musicians.  The full set of portraits plus contact information for the artist are available at J’s website (nola-tape-art.weebly.com).  If readers will be in the vicinity, I hope you get to see the show in person.  

Love,

Dave   

Louis Armstrong (1901-1971), Trumpet, Cornet, Vocals

Louis Armstrong was born on Aug. 4, 1901 in New Orleans.  He grew up in the Storyville legal prostitution district, listening to the bands in brothels and dance halls.  Armstrong developed his cornet skills at age 13 in the band of the New Orleans Home for Colored Waifs, then played trumpet in brass band parades and learned from Bunk Johnson, Kid Ory, and Joe “King” Oliver.  Armstrong joined King Ory’s band in 1919 and became the most influential figure in jazz over the next five decades.  

Danny Barker (1909-1994), Banjo, Guitar, Ukulele, Vocals

Danny Barker was born to a family of musicians in New Orleans, Jan. 13, 1909.  He began his career with the street band, the Boozan Kings, and subsequently became the rhythm guitarist for some of the best bands of the day, e.g., Cab Calloway, Benny Carter, Lucky Milliner.  Barker formed the Fairview Baptist Church Marching Band in 1970 which is credited with producing many renowned musicians, e.g., Wynton and Branford Marsalis, and ensuring the longevity of jazz in New Orleans. 

Professor Longhair (1918-1980), Piano, Vocals

Born Henry Roeland “Roy” Byrd in Bogalusa, LA, Dec. 19, 1918, Longhair learned to play on a piano which was missing several keys, resulting in his distinctive style.  He first recorded with the Shuffling Hungarians in 1949 during the heyday of early rhythm and blues.  Professor Longhair later became a staple of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.  He is credited with important influence on Fats Domino, Huey “Piano” Smith, Allen Toussaint, and Dr. John.  

Fats Domino (1928- ), Piano, Vocals

Antonio “Fats” Domino, Jr., was born in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward to a French Creole family on Feb. 27, 1928.  He began his career with Billy Diamond’s band, the Solid Senders, at the Hideaway Club in New Orleans. “The Fat Man,” released in 1950 by Imperial Records and often cited as the first rock and roll record, sold a million copies, and Domino went on to have 37 Top 40 singles, including his top hit, “Blueberry Hill”.  Fats Domino appeared as himself in 2012 in the HBO series, Treme.  

Boozoo Chavis (1930-2001), Cajun accordion, Vocals

Wilson Anthony (“Boozoo”) Chavis was born in Lake Charles, LA, on Oct. 23, 1930.  He was a singer, accordionist, and prolific writer of Zydeco songs — music created by Louisiana’s French-speaking Creoles.  Chavis learned to play the button accordion at age nine, and he is considered one of the fathers of Zydeco music.  His single, “Paper in My Shoe” (1954), is considered to be the first modern version of Zydeco.  Chavis was crowned “The King of Zydeco” in New Orleans in the 1990s.  

Earl King (1934-2003), Guitar, Vocals  

Born Earl Silas Johson IV in New Orleans, Feb. 7, 1934, Earl King was an important figure in New Orleans Rhythm and Blues music.  King started playing guitar at 15, and, when his idol Guitar Slim was injured in an auto accident in 1954, King was recruited to continue Slim’s band tour, pretending to be Guitar Slim.  His 1955 recording of “Those Lonely, Lonely Nights” reached #7 in the Billboard R&B charts.  King composed blues standards recorded by many fellow performers, e.g., Dave Edmunds, Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Professor Longhair.  

Allen Toussaint (1938-2015), Piano, Vocals, Composer, Record Producer 

Born on Jan. 14, 1938 in New Orleans, Toussaint grew up in the city’s Gert Town neighborhood, where he learned to play the piano as a child and performed as a teenager with guitarist Snooks Eaglin in a band called the Flamingos.  At 17 he stood in for Huey “Piano” Smith with Earl King’s band and was introduced to a group of musicians who played regularly at the Dew Drop Inn in Uptown New Orleans.  A prolific songwriter, Toussaint produced hundreds of recordings including “Right Place, Wrong Time” by Dr. John and “Lady Marmalade” by Labelle.  He was known as “one of popular music’s great backroom figures.”  Toussaint was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Obama in 2013.  

James Booker (1938-1983), Piano, Organ, Vocals

James Booker, the son and grandson of Baptist ministers, was born in New Orleans on Dec. 17, 1939.  Highly skilled in classical music, Booker’s rhythm and blues playing combined elements of stride, blues, gospel, and Latin piano styles.   Dr. John described Booker as “the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced.”  His flamboyant style led to his nickname as “The Black Liberace.”  Booker died at Charity Hospital from renal failure associated with heroin and alcohol use. 

Aaron Neville (1941- ), Vocals

R&B Singer Aaron Neville was born in New Orleans on Jan. 24, 1941.  His first major hit,“Tell It Like It Is,” topped Billboard’s R&B chart for five weeks in 1967 and sold over a million copies.  Neville has had four Platinum-certified albums and four Top 10 hits.   He has also recorded with his brothers Art, Charles, and Cyril as The Neville Brothers.   Neville left New Orleans when his home was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina but returned in2008, resuming the tradition of the Neville Brothers closing the Jazz and Heritage Festival.  

Irma Thomas (1941- ), Vocals

Born on Feb. 18, 1941, in Ponchatoula, LA, Irma Thomas is known as the “Soul Queen of New Orleans.”  Thomas sang with a Baptist church choir as a teenager and auditioned for Specialty Records at age 13.  Her first single, “Don’t Mess with My Man,” reached #22 on the Billboard R&B chart in 1960, and a string of successful releases on Imperial followed, though Thomas never attained the mainstream commercial success of contemporaries like Aretha Franklin or Dionne Warwick.  Thomas appears annually at the Jazz and Heritage Festival and she and her husband own the Lion’s Den Club near the French Quarter in New Orleans.  

John Boutté (1958- ), Vocals

John Boutté was born into a Creole family in New Orleans on Nov. 3, 1958.  As a teen, he formed an a cappella group that sang on New Orleans streets.  After service in the army, he began working for a credit union until Stevie Wonder persuaded him to pursue a career in music.  He and his sister Lillian, a jazz and gospel singer, toured in Europe, and they recorded an album together in 1994.  In recent years Boutté has worked with ex-Cowboy Mouth guitarist and singer, Paul Sanchez.  One of Boutté's compositions is the theme song of HBO’s Treme series, and Boutté appeared in the first three seasons of the show.   

Kermit Ruffins (1964- ), Trumpet, Vocals

Kermit Ruffins was born on Dec. 19, 1964, in New Orleans.  Influenced by Louis Armstrong and Louis Jordan, Ruffins began playing trumpet in junior high school in the Ninth Ward and co-founded the Rebirth Brass Band in 1983 while attending high school in Treme.  Ruffins’ bands perform New Orleans jazz standards, though he also composes many pieces and accompanies his songs with his own vocals.  Having learned to cook from his grandmother, he is known for cooking on a barbecue during his shows.  

Bruce “Sunpie” Barnes (1963- ), Accordion, Harmonica, Piano, Percussion, Vocals

Sunpie Barnes was born in 1963 in Benton, Arkansas.  A park ranger, TV and film actor, former H.S. teacher, and former NFL player for the Kansas City Chiefs, Barnes has played his own style of blues, Zydeco, and Afro-Louisiana music with his group, Sunpie and the Louisiana Sunspots, in festivals and concerts in New Orleans, across the US, and in over 35 countries.   Deeply involved in New Orleans parade culture, Barnes is Second Chief of the North Side Skull and Bone Gang, one of New Orleans’ oldest existing carnival groups.  

Wynton Marsalis (1961- ), Trumpet, cornet, flumpet, flugelhorn

Wynton Marsalis was born on Oct. 18, 1961, in New Orleans.  His father Ellis (piano) and brothers Branford (saxophone), Delfeayo (trombone), and Jason (drums) are also jazz musicians.  At age 8 Marsalis performed in the Fairview Baptist Church band, and he debuted with the New Orleans Philharmonic at age 14.  After studies at Tanglewood and Julliard, he joined Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.  Currently the director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Marsalis has won 9 Grammy Awards and is the only musician to have won Grammys for both jazz and classical records.  

Sources of biographical information: www.wikipedia.org; www.wwoz.org

The First Ever Marinette Trivia Quiz

Dear George,

Marinette, Wisconsin, and Menominee, Michigan are twin cities, separated and connected by the Menominee River.  If the river hadn’t been a state line, they would undoubtedly be a single community.  In fact, in the early days the three separate villages near the Menominee River mouth — Marinette, Menekaunee, and Menominee — shared a single postal address: “The Menominee”.  Though Menominee was my home town, Marinettee also had a lot of importance to my youth.  The M&M Football game between Marinette and Menominee High Schools was the biggest local event of the year, generating a lot of fervor.  My parents took me shopping at Lauerman’s Department Store and Goldberg’s Men Store in downtown Marinette, and my mother liked the Bell Store.  I got my annual high school yearbook photos at Conant’s Studio on Main St., and I worked next door at my grandfather’s Rexall drug store during my teenage years.  As kids, we regularly went to weekend matinees at Marinette’s two downtown movie theaters, and later my friends and I patronized the Highway 64 drive-in.   As teens we cruised the loop and stopped at the A&W, Schloegel’s, or Mickey-Lu’s.  In more recent decades we’ve spent lots of vacation time searching for bargains at the Goodwill and St. Vincent de Paul or consuming soft serve sundaes and burgers at Culvers.  With all this personal history, it’s little wonder I’m fascinated by Marinette trivia.  I think if a reader can get twenty out of thirty questions correct in the quiz below, they are doing very well.  The answers are given at the end. 

Love,

Dave

1. Marinette’s Menekaunee neighborhood was originally a separate village that was known for:

(a) potato farming; (b) fur trapping; (c) logging; (d) fishing

2. Wells St., Merryman St., Carney Blvd., and Ludington St. in Marinette are named after:

(a) church leaders; (b) politicians; (c) lumbermen; (d) football players

3. How many motor vehicle bridges connect Marinette and Menominee?

(a) Two; (b) Three; (c) Four; (d) Five

4. Marinette is named after:

(a) a French nobleman, Duc Jean d’Marinette

(b) a city in Belgium

(c) a Catholic saint known for her dedication to the oppressed

(d) a Menominee Indian chief’s daughter who ran a trading post

5. The Marinette Marine shipbuilding corporation began by producing:

(a) barges and tugs for the war effort in World War II

(b) yachts for wealthy Great Lakes boatmen

(c) coal and lumber freighters used in the St. Lawrence Seaway

(d) white pine and oak furniture

6. Compared to the U.S. as a whole, Marinette has:

(a) more snowfall; (b) more rainfall; (c) more sunshine; (d) all of these

7. Marinette’s first church was the _____: 

(a) First Christian Science Church

(b) Pioneer Presbyterian Church

(c) St. James Lutheran Church

(d) Holy Family Parish

8. How many synagogues existed in Marinette in 1903?

(a) Zero; (b) One; (c) Two; (d) Three

9. Which of these county, state, or federal highways is NOT located in Marinette?

(a) Hwy 180; (b) Hwy 64; (c) Hwy 35; (d) Hwy 41

10. Marinette was incorporated in:

(a) 1847; (b) 1867; (c) 1887; (d) 1907

11. Which species of fish might be caught by a Marinette fisherman on Green Bay?

(a) Chinook salmon; (b) northern pike; (c) rainbow trout; (d) all of these

12. The historic homes of Marinette's lumber barons are mainly located on:

(a) Riverside Avenue; (b) Carney Boulevard; (c) Hall Avenue; (d) Main Street

13. The University of Wisconsin-Marinette began its first classes to 25 students in the Marinette High School on Main Street in:

1935; (b) 1950; (c) 1965; (d) 1980

14. Marinette exceeds the national average in:

(a) low health care costs

(b) physicians per capita

(c) air and water quality

(d) all of these

15. Marinette’s first railroad, built in 1871, was:

(a) the Escanaba and Lake Superior Railroad

(b) the Wisconsin and Southern

(c) the Chicago and Northwestern

(d) the Tomahawk Railway

16. Marinette County is known as the ______ Capital of Wisconsin.

(a) Snowmobile; (b) Deer Hunting; (c) Whitefish; (d) Waterfalls

17. The Marinette Chautauqua Assembly, established in 1897, was located at:

(a) Pine Beach; (b) Red Arrow Beach; (c) Memorial Beach; (d) Victory Beach

18. Marinette and Menominee currently share:

(a) a Chamber of Commerce

(b) a daily newspaper

(c) a regional health center

(d) all of these

19. What percent of current Marinette residents are foreign-born?

(a) 2.5%; (b) 6.1%; (c) 11.3%; (d) 17.9%

20. The mayor of Marinette in 2016 is:

(a) Axel Baumgarten; (b) Ken Keebler; (c) Steve Genisot; (d) Shirley Goffman

21. The Lauerman Brothers Department Store was established by Joseph and Frank Lauerman in:  

(a) 1890; (b) 1905; (c) 1920; (d) 1935

22. The M&M game is one of the oldest interstate public school football rivalries in the nation (1894).  Which school’s team leads in games won?

(a) Marinette Marines, 63-41-4

(b) Marinette Marines, 53-49-6

(c) Menominee Maroons, 51-50-7

(d) Menominee Maroons, 61-44-3

23. The first house made of lumber in Marinette was built for:

(a) Isaac Stephenson; (b) Queen Marinette; (c) Stanislau Chappu; (d) William Farnsworth

24. How many murders occurred in Marinette in the 5-year period between 2009 and 2013?

(a) 0; (b) 3 (c) 8; (d) 17

25. True or False?  “In 2012 a majority of Marinette voters voted for Barack Obama over Mitt Romney.” 

(a) True; (b) False 

26. Which group is largest in Marinette County?

(a) Catholics; (b) Mainline Protestants; (c) Evangelical Protestants; (d) No religious affiliation

27. Compared to its twin city of Menominee, Marinette has more:

(a) hotels and motels; (b) cemeteries; (c) people in jail; (d) all of these

28. The most common ancestry in Marinette is:

(a) French; (b) German; (c) Irish; (d) Swedish

29. How much does the city of Marinette’s daytime population change due to commuting?

(a) +11%; (b) +19%; (c) +31%; (d) +54%

30. According to the 2016 White Pages, there are currently nine bars in the city of Marinette.  How many were there in 1900?

(a) 3; (b) 9; (c) 16; (d) 30

31. The most common occupations in Marinette are in the category of:

(a) food preparation and serving; (b) sales; (c) production; (d) construction

32. How many lakes are in Marinette County?

(a) 39; (b) 111; (c) 229; (d) 442)

33. Marinette’s public library was built from funds donated by:

Isaac Stephenson; (b) Augustus Spies; (c) Charles Ogden; (d) Dr. John Hall

ANSWER KEY:

l.d. Menekuanee is known for fishing

2.c. Streets named after lumbermen

3.b. Three motor vehicle bridges 

4.d. A Menominee Indian chief’s daughter, Queen Marinette

5.a. Marinette Marine began with WW II barges & tugs

6.a. More snowfall than average 

7.b. Pioneer Presbyterian Church (1870) 

8.d. According to Wikipedia, there were three synagogues in Marinette in 1903

9.c. Hwy 35 is in Michigan 

10.c. Incorporated in 1887

11.d.  All of these — salmon, pike, trout in Green Bay

12.a. Lumber barons’ homes on Riverside Ave.

13a. UW-Marinette began in 1935

14.c. Above average in air and water quality

15.c. Chicago and Northwestern R.R. first

16.d. Known as the Waterfalls Capital

17.a. Chautauqua located at Pine Beach

18.d. Twin cities share C of C, newspaper, health center

19.a. 2.5% foreign-born

20.c. Mayor Steve Genisot

21.a. Lauerman Bros. established in 1890

22.a. Menominee Maroons lead by one, 51-50-7

23.c.  Queen Marinette

24.a.  Zero murders

25.b.  False: 51% Romney, 48% Obama

26.d. No Religious Affiliation (52%) 

27.d. Marinette has more hotels/motels, cemeteries, prisoners

28.b. German ancestry is most common (31%)

29.d. 54% increase due to commuting

30.d. 30 bars in 1900

31.c.  Production occupations (40%)

32.d. 442 lakes in Marinette County

33.a.  The Stephenson Public Library

SOURCES:

www.bestplaces.net, “Marinette, Wisconsin”;  (Sperling’s Best Places) 

www.city-data.com, “Marinette, Wisconsin”;  

www.marinette.wi.us, "History of Marinette"; 

www.memory.infosoup.org, "A Brief History of Marinette for Children"; 

www.rootsweb.ancestry.com, “Marinette County, WI: Geneaology and Local History”; 

www.sites.google.com, "History of Marinette, WI"; 

www.wikipedia.org, “List of synagogues in Wisconsin”; 

www.wikipedia.org, “Marinette, Wisconsin”;

www.wisconline.com, "Marinette County, Wisconsin"

Archive: Menominee Postcards (#7)

Menominee County Courthouse and Jail

Dear George,

Every few weeks I post a vintage postcard image of my hometown, Menominee, Mich., in the sidebar of this blog.  Because each gets deleted a week later, I’m posting a batch of these postcard images here as a permanent archive.  Earlier Menominee Postcard archives (posted on 6/26/10, 2/5/11, 6/17/11, 1/11/12, 7/28/12, and 10-3-13) can be accessed by going to the blog’s righthand column, scrolling down to “Labels”, and clicking on “Archives”.  There are also archives of Marinette postcards there (Menominee’s twin city), as well as of my dad’s family photos taken in Menominee in the 1940’s and 1950’s (“Vic’s Photos”).  

Love,

Dave

A Birds' Eye View of Downtown Menominee

According to an 1883 encyclopedia description: Menominee is located on the delta lying between the Menominee River and the shore of Green Bay, extending from the railroad bridge to the river's mouth and one and a half miles along the bay shore.   The population approached 10,000 in 1883, and 2,000 men were employed in the many large lumber mills, cutting 160,000,000 feet of lumber each year.  The county was organized in 1863, the first newspaper (the Herald) was issued in 1863,  the Menominee River Manufacturing Co. (lumber) was incorporated in 1866, the First Presbyterian Church was erected in 1868, the railroad from Fort Howard (Green Bay) was completed in 1871, and the city's first blast furnace opened in 1883.

Fishing on the Menominee River

Here is a lone fisherman on the Menominee River in the early 1900’s.  His craft looks more like a raft than a boat.  The river as seen in this photo is narrower than it was at our house, and I wonder if this is the river channel that ran behind Pig Island along the Marinette shore.  As kids, we did a little fishing for perch and sunfish, but we didn't have much success.  The Menominee River is a popular location for anglers today, and I guess that was true a hundred years ago as well.  

Snowstorm, 1909

This photo was taken along Main St. (later Sheridan Road and now First St.) in Menominee in 1909.  We'd have snowstorms of this magnitude once in a long while during my childhood, and it was always an event filled with wonder and endless possibilities for play and adventure.  Frankie St. Peter and I would build a snow fort in front of our house on the west side of Sheridan Road, a couple of other neighborhood kids would build theirs across from us on the east side, and we’d lob snowballs at one another for hours.  

Durow’s Resort, M-35

Durow’s Resort was located along the Green Bay shore on M-35, roughly a quarter of a mile north of the O’Hara’s home near Turtle Creek (if my memory is correct).  Elroy Durow, whose family owned the resort, was a high school classmate of mine, and we were members of the Air Scouts together. 

SS Ferdinand Schlesinger Great Lakes Freighter

From its earliest days Menominee, with its location on Green Bay and the Menominee River, has been a significant Great Lakes shipping port.  This real photo postcard from 1908 documents the visit of the SS Ferdinand Schlesinger from Milwaukee.  The ship was built in 1891, and Menominee was its winter headquarters.  On May 16, 1919, the Schlesinger foundered southeast of Passage Island in Lake Superior, and, though the ship was lost, her crew of 22 was saved. 

Train wreck, 1910s

This train wreck occurred in Menominee County in the 1910s.  The lumber and mining booms in the latter half of the 1800's led to the expansion of railroad lines in the the U.P.  The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad line from Fort Howard (now Green Bay, WI) to Menominee was opened in December, 1871, and the line from Menominee to Escanaba was completed a year later.  From there it extended all the way to Lake Superior.  Menominee's railroad bridge was built in 1872.

The Grand Department Store

A.L. Sawyer (1911) reports that Adolph E. Guensburg, born near Prague, came to Menominee in 1893, and he and his brother Emil, who joined him in 1898, operated the Grand Department Store in Menominee.   According to the American Cloak and Suit Review, Vol. 10, the Grand Department Store was sold in 1915 to the Wilson-Henes Co., the members of which were Walter Henes, Otmar Henes, and A. M. Wilson.

Tourist Haven Cabins

Menominee is the entry point to the Upper Peninsula via Highway 41 from Milwaukee, Chicago, and other points south, so lots of tourists passed through or stopped for a while.  I don't recall the Tourist Haven Cabins myself, though they were on M-35 where lots of our family friends lived.     

Wells Lumber Company Fire, 4-13-31

The J. W. Wells Lumber Co. burned down on April 13, 1931, with a loss of over $1 million.  The fire spread to nearly 50 other buildings in the community, and sparks were carried across the river to Marinette.  Firemen reported smelling kerosene at the site of the fire, and company president, A.W. Wells, said he believed that the fire was caused by arson.  The fire ended a century of sawmill operations on the Menominee River.

Mystery Ship Seaport

The Alvin Clark was a 105-foot, two-masted schooner that was constructed in 1847 and that sank off Chambers Island in Green Bay in 1864.  It was salvaged in 1969 and put on display at the Mystery Ship Seaport on the Menominee River at the foot of Sixth Avenue.  While the ship was in near-perfect condition when it was raised, no plans were put in to effect for its conservation.  It rapidly deteriorated, and its remains were destroyed in 1994 to make way for a parking lot.  A group of our family members visited the Mystery Ship Seaport in the 1980's, and we were pleasantly surprised to find that one of our cousins was the tour guide.  

Home Comfort Inn, 1940s

I think that the Home Comfort Inn was along the Green Bay shore on M-35, but I can't swear to it.  There were a couple of tourist auto courts there in the 1940's while we were growing up, and my parents used to put us up at one when we came home for family reunions in the 1970’s and 80’s.  

Cyril Quever’s Beer Garden, 1942, Meissner banquet

The owner of this postcard reports that Meissner’s Miniature Bowling Banquet was held on May 13, 1942, at Cyril Quever’s Beer Garden in Menominee.  According to ancestry.com, Cyril Quever’s Bar and Meissner’s Beer Garden were located on 13th  Street in Finn Town in Menominee.  Cyril Quever was born in 1903 and died in 1951. 

Whittier Trail, Henes Park

Henes Park, a 50-acre park on the Green Bay shore, was donated to the city in 1907 by local brewer John Henes.  Its wooded nature paths are named after Schiller, Goethe, Longfellow, Shakespeare, Whittier, etc.  The park was designed by landscape architect Ossian Cole Simonds, well-known for nature-based parks including Palmer Woods in Detroit.  We spent many happy times on the Henes Park trails in our childhood, and now our grandchildren and their cousins go there when visiting Menominee.      

F. C. Nowack Coal and Ice Yard

When I worked as a clerk at my grandfather’s Marinette Rexall drugstore, we’d get regular deliveries of both coal and ice to the store, though I don’t know if they came from Nowack’s.  One of my occasional tasks was stoking the furnace with chunks of coal.  I believe that the blocks of ice were cut from Green Bay in the winter and then stored under sawdust through the summer months, though it’s hard to imagine how this was possible. 

The Green Bay Shoreline

Green Bay, a huge bay off of Lake Michigan, is 10 to 20 miles wide and 120 miles long, extending from Green Bay, Wisconsin, at its south end, and up to Escanaba in Michigan’s Delta County to the north.  Menominee's main shopping district is spread out along the Green Bay shoreline on First St., and most city parks are on the bay as well.  A number of our family friends had homes or cottages on the shore, e.g., the Mars, Sargents, Caleys, O'Haras, Jacobsens, Sawyers, and others.  We spent many childhood hours swimming in the bay, hiking along the beach, and occasionally fishing off the breakwater pier. 

Gateway Café

Though it doesn’t exist any more, I have pleasant memories of the Gateway Café as one of the significant gathering places of my teenage years.  It was located on Ogden Avenue, just across the street from the St. Joseph-Lloyd hospital.  From age 16 onwards (i.e., the year that our driving privileges began), our teenage peer group would get together at the Gateway after Friday night football or basketball games and the post-game dance at the high school.  Our favorite order was a cheeseburger, fries, and a coke or chocolate shake.  However, it was often difficult to come up with that much money, and one might have to settle for an order of French fries instead. 

Pine Trees, Menominee, Mich.

The immense logging industry that was centered in the Menominee and Marinette region in the latter half of the 1800’s dealt mainly with the harvesting of white pines, which were then floated down the Menominee River to local sawmills.  We had majestic Norway Pines in our front yard at river house, and the pine tree is one of the iconic images of our youth.