I have been waking up well before dawn this spring, and it is all my wife’s fault. No, she is not pulling the blankets over to her side on cool mornings, or sprawling across the bed, shoving me closer to the edge. Rather, it is a book that she gave me for Christmas, entitled Bird Songs in Love Read More…
Saugatuck/Douglas Commercial Record
Jump Into Summer
Seven local ourtdoor arts installations, including this one in Saugatuck’s Coghlin Park, are part of the Saugatuck Center for the Arts’ 20th anniversary celebration commencing this Friday with a free concert and more fun at the Center. Kelli Jacobsma gets in the spirit here. (Photo by Scott Sullivan)
July 4 show, revised, to go on
By Scott SullivanEditorIs an Independence Day free from threats possible? Saugatuck’s July 4 parade will go on, Mayor Garnet Lewis told city council Thursday, with her leading in lieu of the Saugatuck-Douglas Rotary Club stepping down claiming it could not furnish increased security per new public safety edicts.Rotary foundation chair Jim Sullivan presented the city Read More…
Pride Week lights up spectrum
By Scott SullivanEditorDouglas Poet Laureate Jack Ridl looked through chain links at Pride Week festivities — crowds, rainbows, music — like an outcast from life’s feast.John Porzondek, the Saugatuck guy who with-his partner-turned their home’s city-banned awning into a butterfly sporting “WTF” (“Wait, Think, Forgive” he said) signs was inside, having not cut his hair Read More…
Scrambled
You would almost think it was summer with so much ado — not only Community Pride festivities but the National Trails Day Trail Scramble at eight local sites, including Peterson Preserve (right) here.
Life as Performance Art
James Barrie, best remembered as the author of Peter Pan, also wrote a short play he called, “The Old Woman Shows Her Medals.” It is a sad tale of an elderly widow who would periodically go to the local train station, and if she saw a soldier home on leave from the Western Front in France Read More…
Bring back Civics classes, initiate term limits
I fear for our democracy. My fear is rooted in the fact that most citizens don’t really care about what is happening at their federal, state and local governments. Only fifty percent of us bother to vote, and once the vote is complete, we forget that part of our civic duty is to play watchdog Read More…
Armstrong new Ox-Bow development head
Former Columbus (Ohio) Area Arts Council executive director Kathryn Armstrong has been named new development director at Saugatuck’s Ox-Bow School of Art & Artists’ Residency. She will oversee fundraising and manage patron, sponsor and foundation relationships for the 111-year-old School of the Art Institute of Chicago-affiliated local institution starting June 6. Armstrong, who in 2009 Read More…
Does LHD plan single out owners’ land?
BY SCOTT SULLIVAN EDITOR The Saugatuck Township Planning Commission, wary of history repeating, May 23 declined activists’ urging to establish a Local Historic District at and around the Kalamazoo River mouth by a 2-2 vote. Saugatuck Dunes Coastal Alliance members and other neighbors of Northshore of Saugatuck LLC’s proposed 304-acre development north of where the Read More…
Blue Star
By Scott SullivanEditorIn AirI knew when I saw kids plant a redwood at River Bluff Park in just centuries salamanders would skydive from it. How? From a story in The Smithsonian.Like flying squirrels, Aneides vagrans or wandering salamanders stretch their tails and feet to glide limb to limb among redwood canopies. Alligator lizards in the Read More…