Jim and Lois Richmond with Friend Emma Pitcher Live Nature Love the Arts
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$3 • FEBRUARY 2006 Jim and Lois Richmond With Friend Emma Pitcher Live Nature Love the Arts Talkin’ to Kalamazoo Life Is All “Play” Strummin’ for Fun Preserving History Lori Moore Nate Melvin Rex Bell Arle Schneider or the ultimate in creative and functional design Kitchen & Bath Design Studio xperience the quality of custom cabinetry inspired by today’s lifestyle. Designed just for you by Kirshman & Associates, a design team you can trust. • Custom and semi-custom cabinetry. • Countertops in solid surface, granite, quartz, concrete, marble, cultured marble, laminate, & more. • Bath & Cabinet Hardware — one of the largest selections in the area. O Bill Kirshman, CKD See our showroom in The Shoppes at Parkview Hills 3325 Greenleaf Blvd. Kalamazoo, MI 49008 Open Monday thru Friday, 9:00 – 5:00 • Saturday and evenings by appointment (269) 353-1191 View our showroom online at www.kirshman.com “85 people work for me. Greenleaf Trust works for them.” A secure, well managed retirement plan is difference. Greenleaf meets with my employ- one of the most important benefits a company ees, provides the thorough education and provides to its employees. But many people information needed to help them make good who worked here didn’t understand the decisions, and deilvers it all with responsive- importance of saving for retirement, or the ness, patience, personalization and respect. importance of appropriately investing their My employees always give me their best. With Greenleaf Trust, I’ll be doing the savings. So I brought in the retirement plan Financial Security from Generation to Generation services team from Greenleaf Trust. What a same for them. 100 west michigan avenue, suite 100 kalamazoo, mi 49007 www.greenleaftrust.com 269.388.9800 800.416.4555 FROM THE PUBLISHER So many of my friends had related to me the great joy of being own lives. Then, lo and behold, they marry, have children, and a grandparent that I could hardly wait to have grandchildren take a job in another state, or even another country. And, I of my own. The thought of being able to play with and “spoil ask, just how do they expect to come for Sunday dinner every them rotten” — and then send them home week when they live hundreds of miles away? — raised my level of anticipation to unre- Obviously, they won’t be bringing the kids to Sunday din- alistic heights. There would be nothing ner regularly, and, as it turns out, it’s easier for the grandpar- negative about this next phase of my life ents to make the long, tedious trip to their homes. I have posi- because having none of the worries or tioned myself behind the wheel of the car on many late responsibilities of being a parent, just the Thursday afternoons and driven well into the night and early joys, seemed like a proper reward for hav- morning for the pleasure of a long weekend with the little ing raised two sons who were about to start ones and their parents. Driving 12 hours isn’t so bad (I tell their own families. myself tiredly), considering the alternative of fighting my way Rick Briscoe I pondered the times, nearly a half cen- through multiple airports and spending hours holed up in ter- tury ago, when, as a child, I interacted with my own grandpar- minals or sitting in planes. ents. I recalled the regular trips to their house for Sunday din- Technology to the rescue! Since Christmas I have been ner, and I remembered the summers — when I would spend a able to sit down in front of my webcam-outfitted computer week alone with them. It was very relaxed, we played games, and enjoy entertaining and inspiring face-to-face conversations and my grandfather and I walked in the woods with Sparky, with the always-eager youngsters. Now, I have decided, this the black cocker spaniel. It was idyllic, although I couldn’t fig- grandparenting thing is pretty cool after all, even if it has to ure out, in those days, why my grandparents ate Cream of happen long distance. And when summer comes, it will be a Wheat and stewed prunes for breakfast every day. Just what bit like yesteryear when the old-fashioned, in-the-flesh, week- you did when you got old, I surmised. long visits occur like in the 1950s, except I don’t eat Cream of Well, I’m here to tell you, grandparenting is everything I Wheat and stewed prunes for breakfast — yet. thought it would be except for one little complication. Now I’m not complaining one bit about my lot in life — I have five very bright and delightful grandchildren. 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David Weissert Financial Consultant Financial Consultant Financial Consultant Financial Consultant Financial Consultant Sandra Wooldridge Brett Plew Greg Seiler Shane Thompson Jim Reslock Financial Consultant Financial Consultant Financial Consultant Financial Consultant Financial Consultant 425 West Michigan Ave. Kalamazoo, MI 49007 (269) 349-4600 2006 A.G. Edwards & Sons, Inc. • Member SIPC [24778-v1-0241] A-1101-0107 CONTENTS MAGAZINE 8 Publisher Richard J. Briscoe JIM and LOIS Editor RICHMOND actively Penny H. Briscoe support their interest in Contributing Editor Cherri L. Glowe the environment Assistant to and the arts. the Publisher Ronald Dundon Senior Writer Tom Thinnes 33 Issue 6 February 2006 Volume Contributing Writers Kaye Bennett Tom Chmielewski Theresa Coty-O’Neil Shawn Hagen Terry Hagen Larry B. Massie Dan Pettee Joel H. Reinoehl, MD 18 Christopher Rogers, DO Robert Weir A scheduling error in DEPARTMENTS Contributing Poet high school started Brent L. Larson LORI MOORE on the 5 FROM THE PUBLISHER Cartoonist Craig Bishop path to her career. 10 TRIVIA PurZOOt Feature Photographer Michigan Fun Facts John Gilroy Designer 26 ARTIST PROFILE Brakeman Rex Bell Encore magazine is pub- 38 30 PLEASIN’ THE PALATE lished nine times yearly, NATE MELVIN September through May. Quality Cheese Can Make a Copyright 2006, Encore Publishing Group, Inc. All isn’t following a path Recipe Sing rights reserved. Editorial, in life, but he’s sure circulation and advertising 31 STAY TUNED correspondence should be going places. sent to 350 S. Burdick, Heart Disease: Suite 316, Kalamazoo, MI Plumber vs. Electrician 49007. Telephone: (269) 383-4433. Fax number: (269) 383-9767. E-mail: 32 GUESS WHO Publisher@Encorekalamaz oo.com. The staff at Encore 34 EVENTS OF NOTE welcomes written com- 52 ment from readers, and articles and poems for sub- Who better to write 46 MASSIE’S MICHIGAN mission, with no obligation Early Detroit No Haven to print or return them. To the history of Vicksburg learn more about us or to than retired veterinarian for Runaway Slaves comment, you may visit ARLE SCHNEIDER, www.encorekalamazoo.com 59 HERITAGE PRESERVATION Encore subscription rates: DVM? one year $21.00, two years Building on Tradition at $41.00, three years $60.00. Tillers International Current single issue and newsstand $3.00, $8.00 by mail. Back issues $5.00, $10.00 by mail. Advertising POETRY rates on request. Closing date for space is 28 days 25 The Outdoors prior to publication date. Cover photo of Jim Richmond, Emma Bickham Pitcher Final date for print-ready and Lois Richmond courtesy of the Richmonds. copy is 21 days prior to publication date. Guess Who photography by John Gilroy. FEBRUARY 2006 • ENCORE 7 INVESTING IN COMMUNITY By Dan Pettee WMU College of Fine Arts Dean WO CENTURIES AGO, back to the school and the community Margaret Merrion, Art School Director Phillip VanderWeg, Lois William Wordsworth wrote in a truly significant way. Their gift of Richmond, College of Fine Arts that “The world is too much $2.5 million toward a total $12 million Development Director Kate Barnes with us — getting and project (all raised through donations) is and Jim Richmond break ground in May 2005 for the Richmond Center T spending, we lay waste our helping to make that new center a reali- for Visual Arts. powers.” Some say those words are truer ty. today than ever. But not for everyone. Mind-boggling generosity, you For Jim and Lois Richmond, not getting might say — and you’d be right. Yet, and spending — but giving and invest- you’d only be scratching the surface of ing — are ways to increase our powers.