The Next Cool Place

by Dave Balcom

  “Oh, no; she doesn’t know me. I am a retired newspaper guy, and I had thought I would just introduce myself. I expect Thursday’s a pretty slow day for her?”

  “After the paper’s back, she’ll be here, and you’re right, that’s pretty much her down time of the week.”

  “I’ll stop by then, perhaps. Meanwhile, I’d like to take a look in the library, thanks.”

  “Help yourself.”

  The library was part of the greater Michigan lending system, which means a resident in Mineral Valley would have as much access to the great works as a reader in Detroit or Lansing or anywhere in the state. I was impressed that folks here were serious about literature, the arts and life-long learning.

  I browsed back copies of the Record, and it took only minutes to find the March 24 edition with Mickey’s accident on the front page.

  Developer found dead

  at site of single-car crash

  By Patty Patterson

  Staff Writer

  The company developing what has become known as Penny Point on Copper Creek has vowed to push the project forward despite the death last week of the project’s principal owner.

  Real estate developer Mickey Buchanan, 50, was declared dead at the scene in the early hours of Friday, March 18, following a one-car crash on the Mineral Valley Road half way between M-66 and the village.

  Sgt. John Fish of the Michigan State Police accident reconstruction team told the Record that Buchanan’s car, a 911S Porsche traveling at an estimated 100 mph collided with the Cross Creek culvert. The driver was killed instantly, he said.

  “There were no skid marks, no indication that he tried to stop,” Fish said. “It’s probable that he had fallen asleep.”

  Fish estimated the time of the crash to have been after 1 a.m.

  Buchanan, who first came to Mineral Valley in the spring of 1992, had been instrumental in planning for Penny Point, an exclusive residential golf and outdoor lifestyle development.

  In 2003, he married Charlotte Davis, managing member of Next Cool Place Development, L.L.C.

  Prior to the crash, Buchanan had reportedly left a business meeting with his wife and several unnamed investors at Schaeffer’s. Witnesses at the restaurant reported Buchanan and his wife had argued loudly during the dinner, and that he had left alone shortly afterwards.

  Sgt. Fish said he would wait for the medical examiner’s report, but he thought the crash may have been related to the St. Patrick’s Day holiday. “There was a strong odor of alcohol in the vehicle,” the investigator said.

  Mrs. Buchanan was unavailable for this story, but Next Cool Place issued a brief statement that the widow was under a doctor’s care since learning of the tragedy. The statement also promised that the company would proceed with Mr. Buchanan’s dream of making Mineral Valley “a destination for the kind of people who would only add to the area’s vitality and culture.

  “My grief is only compounded by the way we said good night,” Mrs. Buchanan said in the press release.

  Private funeral services were held earlier this week in Lansing, where Mr. Buchanan maintained his permanent home. A full obituary is pending with the James R. Searcher Funeral Home of Traverse City.

  The March 31 edition didn’t have Mickey’s obit in it either, and there was no further mention of Mickey’s death except for an editorial in the April 7 edition.

  It was a short and pithy comment:

  No need to keep that dream alive

  While it is always in poor taste to speak ill of the dead, it would be hypocritical to the extreme for the Record to pretend that the death of Mickey Buchanan doesn’t call for an end to the fantasy that Mineral Valley will be better off with Penny Point than it would be left to grow based on its own merits.

  The plan to make Mineral Valley just another “Next Cool Place” for jet setters and coupon clippers has no upside for the people who live here now or in the future who come to provide support services for the Richie Riches who would build their McMansions at Penny Point.

  Anyone who has researched other such destinations – and the country is plagued with them from the Colorado enclaves at Vail, Jackson Hole, or Telluride to once-homey cities such as Bend, Oregon – the negative impacts are plain to see. Even in places such as Traverse City, the working people who create all the amenities for visitors and seasonal residents are forced to live somewhere else because the rents are out of the question for working people.

  The old saw, “Half the pay is in the view” is not good enough for the people who call Mineral Valley home. The real estate speculators who bought into Mr. Buchanan’s dream should take their marbles and go home.

  I just figured that by the time they received the obituary from the funeral director it was too late to be of any use to them or their readers.

  I became intrigued as I followed the debate on the Penny Point project as it worked its way through the city and county planning process, grinding its way, actually. I was also caught up in Rainbow fever following the boy’s basketball team’s fortunes in the state tournament, and admired the weekly outdoors coverage which kept locals abreast of fishing, hunting and other pursuits in the region.

  By the time I was ready to leave, the light was long and a full spring evening hush had settled on the village. You could actually hear the river as a steady background. I let myself out of the library and made sure the lights were off. I didn’t see any activity in the Record’s quarters so I let myself out the front door and checked to be sure it locked behind me, which it did.

  I thought about a place where strangers were welcome to come and go as they pleased from the library and newspaper offices. I smiled and shrugged, “Who would want to change that formula?”

  I also thought about Mickey’s last St. Patty’s Day. I had never known him to drink on that day or New Year’s Eve. “Shit, Stanton,” he told me once, “I don’t drink with amateurs.”

  9

  On Tuesday morning, I really walked. Dressed in wind pants and cross trainers with a long-sleeved pullover up top against the early morning chill, I was three miles up the road, past the mouth of Copper Creek and headed into the heart of the national forest by six a.m. I saw no cars during that 45 minute outbound walk.

  With a good head of steam worked up, I started interlacing my “sprint walks” with the slow-motion forms of the t’ai chi. These solo forms are the basis of a healthy regimen that has been practiced in China for thousands of years. Like a surreal dance, the moves focus on understanding balance, leverage and peace of mind.

  Taught to a new recruit the forms were all we did for months, until we had captured the essence and practicality of the t’ai chi ch’uan. We were aware of our pulses all the time, and we could control our breathing, our pulse, and even our adrenaline.

  Then they taught us to fight, using that awareness. “It’s all about being soft, Stanton,” the instructor coached during our “hand pushing” drills. “Soft and sticky, like sushi rice, Stanton. Meet my force with your softness, roll with the punches, but keep hold of me, and then just follow your forms…”

  And it had worked the only times I had ever been called on to use it. Drilled to the point of instinctive reaction, the regular exercise of my forms – both slow and quick, short bend or tall – had left me lean and flexible even as I was committed to never using the real fighting skills again.

  That morning the effort worked the confinement of the past few days out of my system, and then as I headed back to town, I started enjoying the walk.

  Accustomed as I was to walking in the hills of Eastern Oregon, this extended flat stretch of land was a novelty. I was listening to the sounds of the wild world waking up, gawking at woods just starting to blossom in ferns, shrubs, and new leaf growth. It was just getting light enough for me to see into the forest when I approached the Copper Creek bridge, and I started seeing the No Trespassing signs, spaced every 20 yards or so – a case of visual litter, it seemed to me.

  “Private Property,” t
he signs screamed in 6-inch-tall, red-on-white letters. Then, in smaller type, it said, “Absolutely no unauthorized entry for any purpose. These grounds are patrolled by armed guards. Survivors will be prosecuted.”

  And then, in really small letters I had to be near to read, “Copper Creek Owners Association (616) 773-2119”

  I stood there noting that my breathing was coming back to normal, and I listened to the gurgle of the creek and the birds coming to life with the morning. There was no sound of humans, just the timeless noise of this world as it had always been for me as a youngster.

  “Survivors?” I thought. “Survivors?” Somebody in the association had a sense of drama if not humor. I stepped back on the road and resumed my 12-minute-mile pace back to the River Inn.

  Big Mike had the coffee on. Breakfast consisted of orange juice, a selection of cereals, fruits, yogurt and freshly baked pastries. The blueberry muffins were still in the oven that morning as I let myself in the kitchen door. Mike was hunched over coffee, sitting in one of the two bar-stool-sized chairs at the kitchen’s preparation island. Sitting in the other chair across from him was a young woman who was also studying her coffee. Mike was in a robe and slippers; the woman was fashionably dressed, makeup in place, obviously dressed for a day of business.

  “Mr. S,” Mike said as he raised his head. “How was your walk?”

  “Beautiful, just what I needed after a few days of sitting and eating.”

  “Please meet my daughter, Rhonda. Rhonda, this is Mr. James Stanton from Oregon, staying with us this week.”

  When she smiled you were treated to a whole different picture of Big Mike’s daughter. She became beautiful right before your eyes. I realized she resembled him in repose, but that smile changed her, I guessed, into the image of her mother.

  “How do you do,” she said warmly. “I heard all about you yesterday from Ellen. You’re the mystery man from the library. She said you were doing some kind of research and never came up for air until everyone had left.”

  “Ellen McGee is an insufferable gossip,” Big Mike offered. “Rhonda works at the Record; she sells advertising.”

  “So, Mr. Stanton, what brings you to Mineral Valley?”

  “Just wandering some old haunts,” I said. “I grew up in Michigan, and used to fish and hunt all through this part of the world, but I have been gone for years. I had some business to attend to, and thought I’d just reminisce a bit.”

  “Well, you picked an ideal time of the year. Will you fish while you’re here? If you need a guide, I know several good ones who advertise with me.”

  “No, I don’t think so. I think I’ll just hunt some mushrooms and remember other times this trip.”

  “Dad, you should take Mr. Stanton ‘shroomin’ this week. He won’t be sharing your secret spots with anyone here. Your secrets would be safe, and you wouldn’t be wandering around the woods alone.”

  Mike was back in his coffee cup, and didn’t respond.

  “Dad?”

  “I’ll take that under consideration,” he finally said, but the look he sent my way reminded me that nobody in Michigan was going to share a secret morel spot with anyone other than family, ever.

  “I don’t think we want to put Mike on the spot that way,” I said. “Maybe, if I find some morels today, I’ll take you to my spot, Mike.”

  With that, I took a cup of coffee up to my room, to shower and dress.

  By the time I was back downstairs, Rhonda was gone. I had noticed that all the other rooms were empty. Mike was dressed and the muffins were cooling on the island.

  I opted for juice, berries and a muffin with my second cup of coffee.

  “All this for just me today?”

  Mike shrugged, and then smiled. “I have a couple of neighbors who’ll be here as soon as their youngsters are off to school. It’s my day. We have coffee together most days, settle all the local and world problems, you know. Keep up with the news. You’re going hunting this morning?”

  I acknowledged I was, and then told him about the wording on the signs along Copper Creek.

  “Oh, yes. Those folks do take themselves quite seriously.

  “I used to work in service to a family in San Francisco,” Mike said. “Beautiful family. Old money, for sure, but the generation I knew and helped raise was making new money all the while too. Serious money such as that creates certain issues that the rest of the world can’t fathom.

  “There’s a certain paranoia that befalls some wealthy families. They start thinking that kidnappers are constantly stalking them and the ones they love. Too often that fear drives them to extreme caution. They don’t fly commercial. They don’t visit the Grand Canyon. They hire a helicopter and fly through it, never exposing themselves to the world or its creatures. And, in some instances, they buy up vast expanses of the planet, and then hire thugs to patrol it like jailers.

  “The Copper Creek Owners Association has made this part of the world one of their gilded jails, I’m afraid. I would take the threat in that sign quite literally, if I were you.”

  “I would never trespass. I can’t imagine how people do that. I would think the fun of hunting, fishing or just the beauty of the place would be ruined if you were constantly looking over your shoulder in fear of the owner showing up and kicking you off. I have never done that.”

  I asked him more about his life in service to the family. It was a fascinating concept to me, and of all the people I have interviewed, I had never met a real butler, and that’s what Big Mike had been for most of his adult life.

  He had graduated from City College in New York, realized he loved the trappings of real wealth but would never afford them, so he applied for a job in service to a family that had it. He started as a handyman, gardener, and driver for a family with a summer house on Long Island. The family spent winters in the south of France and left him and a maid to maintain the summer house while they were gone.

  “It was beautiful, that house,” he said wistfully. “Every stick of furniture in that place, this was forty-five years ago, mind you, had been there, some of it quite old already, when Theodore Roosevelt was president. And I was allowed to live there. I was paid to live there! I knew then that was the life for me.”

  A history major in college, he became a life-long student of antiques. By the time he was 30, he had met and joined the family of Randolph Webb, as butler for their mansion in San Francisco.

  “They were wonderful people. So gracious and genuine. I never felt anything but friendship from mister or missus. And their three children were all cut from the same cloth as the parents. A beautiful family.”

  He had met his wife, Delores, there, and they had raised Rhonda in that environment. “The Webbs treated her as family, too. Paid for her college education at Cal, took us on their holiday vacations to the islands every year… we were working, to be sure, caring for them, but Rhonda was just another of the young people that Delores tended.”

  The River Inn had been a retirement gift from the Webbs for Mike and Delores after 30 years in their employ. “We started refurbishing it on vacations, and then moved here and started our business to live happily ever after, and for five years we did just that.”

  After Delores had died, Mike struggled along, and I knew that feeling. When Rhonda came home in retreat from a bad marriage and ugly divorce, the inn once again felt like his home.

  “But you’ve made this place work for you,” I said, waving my hand at the kitchen and home.

  “Oh, dear no,” he said. “The inn is just a hobby. I buy and sell antiques. That’s my business. I became interested while putting the inn together, and found I could be a player from my study. I can shop and market around the world via the World Wide Web. My specialty is early twentieth Century American.”

  “And that works?”

  He gave me a knowing smile, “It’s very rewarding. Very.”

  The phone rang. Mike listened for a minute, and then handed the instrument to me. “It’s for you.”


  “Mr. Stanton, this is Jan Coldwell of the Record. Ellen McGee of my staff told me you were in town, and then Rhonda told me you were staying at the Inn, and, well, I thought I’d find out if you were available for dinner tonight.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Dinner. It’s a custom here that after a hard day of work, many of us take in food about six p.m. or so, to stave off the hungers that can build during the hours of darkness. You’re from here; have you forgotten?”

  “I’m familiar with the custom,” I said, “it’s the invitation coming out of the blue, as it is, from one of the leaders of the community that I was grappling with.”

  She laughed a rich and throaty sound that made me smile. “Mr. Stanton, I too am a Central Michigan University journalism grad. You’re a legend there, and I’m among your biggest fans. It is my intent to ply you with good food and better liquor and induce you to tell me all kinds of stories about your career and life that I can then in turn share with my breathless readers. You might be surprised at how big a name you are in this part of the world.

  “Mineral Valley is not a big place, but we have avid readers, and many of them are familiar with your work.”

  “Fascinating.”

  “So, how about it? Six at my house?”

  “Sure. What can I bring?”

  “See, you are from here. We’ll be eating venison, pick the wine you like with that, and I’ll see you at six.”

  I was about to ask where she lived, but the connection was gone, and I’d have been asking a dead receiver.

  Big Mike was all smiles. “She’s a piece of work, as they say here. A dynamo is what I’d call her.”

  “Well, she’s running a good newspaper. Have you known her long?”

  “Ever since I came here. She wasn’t running a newspaper then. She was an entertainer. We first saw her perform at the Schaeffer’s. She plays piano and sings. Quite good, actually. Then, the next thing I knew, she had started the Record. Some kind of feud with the chain that owns the newspaper in Traverse City, I don’t know that whole story… Delores was sick then. When I came out of the fog, three years later, the Record was a staple in the area. Then Rhonda came and had to have something to do, so she answered an ad in the paper for holiday season sales help… been there six years now.”