Tag Archives: Michigan tourism

Jeff Daniels Road Signs & RV’s

December 1, 2017 Dave Hoekstra Leave a comment

*Dave (L), Jeff Daniels in Michigan (Jon Sall photo)*

CHELSEA, MI.—-The liberation of the road presented a certain destiny for actor-songwriter Jeff Daniels. His professional life has been shaped by casting calls and curtains, but it is travel that has opened the most inspiring doors.

The Emmy-winning actor is most recently known for his work in HBO’s “The Newsroom” and has achieved a steady stream of acclaim in hit movies like “Terms of Endearment,” “Something Wild,” “The Purple Rose of Cairo” and the road movies “Dumb and Dumber,” “Dumb and Dumber To” and “RV.”

His musical career was born in the late 1970s. Daniels, 62, grew up in Chelsea, Mi., (pop. 4,950) where his father Robert Lee “Bob” Daniels was mayor. Daniels left Central Michigan University after his junior year to become an actor in New York. While hanging around the offices of the Circle Repertory Company, he met playwright Lanford Wilson (1937-2011) who won a Pulitzer Prize for “Talley’s Folly.”

“In 1978 I had my guitar and Lanford was listening,” Daniels recalled in a thoughtful late autumn conversation in his Chelsea recording studio. “I was writing songs, you’re 23 and 24 and there’s not a lot of depth. He goes, ‘Let me help you.’ And he gave me this poem ‘Road Signs.’ It was about a bus trip he took from (Springfield) Missouri where he lived as a young man to Chicago to work in an ad agency. After a year in Chicago, he went to New York to become a playwright.”

According to the fine new book “Lanford Wilson: Early Stories, Sketches and Poems” (Edited by David A. Crespy, University of Missouri Press) Wilson lived at 5316 N. Spaulding in Chicago from
1957 through 1962 before moving to 9 Walnut Road in west suburban Glen Ellyn, Ill.

“On that bus trip Lanford wrote ‘Road Signs’ which is about the people on that bus,” Daniels said. “It’s about America. It’s about diversity. Imagery. Only Lanford could write that that way. He handed it to me and said, ‘See if you can do something with this.’ They had a piano against a wall. All I’m good at is a minor, g and f. I put some chords to it. And the song has stayed with me..,” and his voice drifted away down autumn’s country road.

Daniels and cast mates John Hogan and Stephanie Gordon visited Wilson on his New Jersey death bed.

They played “Road Signs” as well as Steve Goodman’s “City of New Orleans,” another wonderful song
about travel that inspired Wilson’s “Hot L Baltimore.”

Wilson had tremendous empathy for his characters, often seen through the searching eyes of the retired bartender, the recruits from Fort Leonard Wood and the doo-wop girls on the Greyhound Bus ride out of Springfield, Mo. Wilson was always trying to examine the foundation that Daniels has been fortunate to maintain. In 2007 Daniels and Hogan recorded an evocative 8:30 version of “Road Signs” for their album “Together Again.”

The road has made Daniels appreciate his Michigan roots.

In 1986 he left New York to return to Chelsea to raise a family. During an October City Winery gig in Chicago Daniels announced he was going to be a grandfather for the first time. His son Ben plays in his band and his daughter-in-law Amanda sings in the band. “We’ve stayed close as a family on both sides,” he said in his studio. “That’s essential. I don’t regret the decision to not live in Hollywood or New York. Nothing against those people in the industry, but I need a break. There’s other things I want to do and other things I want to be other than an actor. There’s friends of mine who can drop the actor thing, too–but there’s many who can’t. I remember early on in New York being in rooms with actors and the joke was they can’t tell a story without standing up. I was always the Midwestern guy leaning in a corner thinking, ‘You told this ten minute story you could have told in two minutes and it really wasn’t that interesting.

“I’m in my fifth decade,” he continued as he counted them up with surprise. ‘With ‘Newsroom’ and post-’Newsroom’ I’m busier in this decade than any decade of my career. I’m being challenged more as an actor. I didn’t see that. When you move to the Midwest at 30, 31, you have six movies and you tell your agents, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep the movie career going,’ they wonder. I defied the odds. You drop back and be a supporting actor. You are no longer trying to be the biggest star in the history of stars. Because if you are, you can’t live in Michigan. I knew I was giving that up, which was okay. When you do ‘Dumb and Dumber’ that’s a career choice. And that opens up roles from ‘Gettysburg’ to ‘Dumb and Dumber.’ There’s a lot of jobs in between those two things.”

Jeff Daniels (L) and Jim Carrey, dumb road warriors. — *Jeff Daniels (L) and Jim Carrey with their “Dumb and Dumber” shaggin’ wagon.*

Chelsea is about an hour west of Detroit. The rural area also birthed Daniels’ keen interest in RVing.

In the late 1980s Daniels was part of a group of a dozen guys who wanted to travel to a weekend golf tournament.

“It was how much does it cost to rent one of these things, instead of driving up in five cars?,” he asked. “And how do you drive it? I had a ball. It was like a party bus with one guy staying straight and driving. Later it was a great way to transport the kids. The bathroom is right there and that was huge. Then we discovered RV parks, you get the right ones with the swimming pool and it becomes about the journey.

Daniels wrote a song “Recreational Vehicle,” based on a true story from the early 1990s when he rented a 28-foot Jayco with his young family. Daniels is a huge baseball fan and a long time Detroit Tigers season ticket holder. He embarked on a pilgrimage from Michigan to Cooperstown, N.Y., the birthplace of the game.

“We got to Erie, Pennsylvania to gas up,” he said. “I’m driving. They do not teach you how to drive it. They hand you the keys. There’s no training course. I’m figuring out how to flush the toilet. Why am I drinking water that tasted like urine, because I’ve got the wrong thing hooked up. Then you get into a truck stop in Erie, Pennsylvania and you’re stressed out because it is not easy to drive this thing. A trucker behind you goes, ‘Excuse me, are you Jeff Bridges? Can I have your autograph?’ Sure, ‘Best wishes, Jeff Bridges.’ Get me out of here. I get into the 28 foot Jayco, pull out merge on the highway and my son says, ‘Dad, where’s Mom?’. I left her at the truck stop. The song ‘Recreational Vehicle’ is a direct homage to Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant.”

Daniels has downsized to a jet black 22-foot Airstream sprinter van.

It sleeps two and there’s ample room for the family dog. “That’s all I need,” he said. “I went through about three or four (RVs). In the early 1990s I had a Dolphin (RV). The box RVs. I bought a used Gulf Stream, 42 foot diesel pusher. Gets seven miles to the gallon. It’s just huge.

“I don’t mind sleeping in truck stops or the corner of Wal-Mart. That whole world of RV parks. ‘Oh, it’s got a laundry-mat too! Oh, we’re going to that one.’ It becomes, ‘This is great! Laundry AND showers!’ Friends say, ‘You’ve got an RV?’ and I say, ‘Yeah.’ They say, ‘What’s George Clooney got?’ I say, ‘Well, Clooney’s got a private jet, but I got an RV. And I know how to drive an RV. I don’t want to learn how to fly a plane. I don’t want to be Tom Cruise. John Travolta is in the sky behind the steering wheel of a 747. Get me down on the ground. He’s an actor flying a plane.

“The Airstream we like, my wife can drive it. It’s souped up inside. Instead of going from the suite at the Ritz-Carlton, which the 42-footer was, you’re now in a very comfortable version of the space shuttle. We have Sirius XM Radio. When its 20 degrees out, you’re warm. With ‘Newsroom’ for three years we would load up the 42-footer on January 1, take four or five days and drive out to California. We’d park right next to Soundstage Seven on the Sunset Gower lot (Studios, circa 1934, former home of Columbia Studios) Pictures and it sat there for six months. That was my dressing room. They just did a movie in Vancouver and Matthew (McConaughey) stayed at an RV park
in his RV. I completely get that.”

Jeff Daniels, RV in the UP..in the winter. — *Jeff Daniels, RV in the UP…in the winter.*

Daniels is gifted with everyman Midwestern characteristics. He looks like a buyer at Meijer.

Daniels “sometimes” gets recognized at an RV
park.

“Kathleen (his wife) will go in and register,” he said.

“They might see me walking around overnight and the next day we’re gone. We don’t stay somewhere for a month and put up a little porch. It doesn’t make sense the actor they saw in ‘Newsroom’ would be in slot number 38. And then I get, ‘You know who you look like? The guy from ‘Newsroom.’ I get that all the time.”

No American actor has the string of wacky hit RV films like Daniels: “Dumb and Dumber” (1994) with Jim Carrey, “RV” (2006) with Robin Williams, “Dumb and Dumber To” (2014) back with Carrey. In its first weekend outside of America, “Dumb and Dumber To” made $13 million. It opened number one in Brazil!

“I did RV with Robin because I had an RV,” he admitted. “I would have paid them to do the movie. I felt I needed to be in that movie because of my 15 years of having an RV. Movies are all about caution. It was, ‘We need you to get to Vancouver, we got a week of driving where we train you.’ I have a 42-foot Gulf Stream, okay. So, ‘When is that?” They say, ‘May 15, we’re going to fly you and your wife out first class. Stay at the hotel and we’ll go into training for a week and start shooting in June.’ I remember sitting at a baseball game here in Michigan with my wife and saying, ‘Let’s just drive it and not even tell them.’ So we got in the Gulf Stream and started driving
from Michigan to Vancouver.

“Went to Mount Rushmore, it was an RV trip. They were calling us in Montana, ‘Where are you? We need a driver to pick you up at the airport.’ I said, ‘We’re in Montana.’ They go, ‘What???’ I say, ‘I’m going to Seattle, take a right and you better have somebody meet us there. So we got caravanned in. When they saw the building I was driving–I remember pulling into the studio lot in Vancouver and I hit the air breaks–phsssssssss–I opened the door. The first AD who was in charge of training me looked at me and said, ‘Cancel his training!’

Dave Hoekstra and shaggin wagon, Humboldt Park, Chicago--October, 2017 — *Dave Hoekstra and shaggin wagon, Humboldt Park, Chicago–October, 2017*

Daniels also drove the Ford conversion van (a.k.a. “The Shaggin’ Wagon”) that looked like a thirsty dog in the first “Dumb and Dumber.” Daniels’ character drove the motorized mutt for his dead end dog grooming job.

“When we did the sequel, it didn’t work,” he said. “The Farrelly brothers kept the first one and put it in an outdoor storage unit in Rhode Island–uncovered. It hadn’t moved for 20 years. They loaded it up on a flat bed and dragged it down to Georgia where we were shooting. You got into that thing, it was a like crawling into a coffin. It was ‘used’.

Daniels recalled getting the RV bug as early as 1988 when actor Don Johnson pulled into the Vermont movie set of “Sweetheart’s Dance” in a huge tricked out Prevost. “He had a driver,” Daniels said with a smile. “And a chef. I was looking at that going, ‘I can go to Lloyd Bridges Traveland (in Chelsea) and get a poor man’s version of that.’ So I got the 28 foot Jayco–not quite the same, but great fun. The independence, the anonymity. You’re not at the mercy of the airlines–especially now. There’s also the pioneer spirit of the RV’er. You get to pretend you’re like Lewis and Clark with a microwave and television. I love that I still have one.”

Van People

The Man Who Invented The Outdoors

July 22, 2016 Dave Hoekstra Leave a comment

*Inventing the Outdoors (Courtesy of Michigan Historical Museum)*

LANSING, Mi.—People can take the outdoors for granted.

As recent as the 1890s the “outdoors” was making the transition from a place where people foraged basic needs to a reflective place of recreation. The best thing about the outdoors?

You can’t take it with you.

Webster Lansing Marble knew this. Marble (1854-1930) is an overlooked outdoorsman and entrepreneur who carved out his niche in Gladstone, Mi. His Marble Arms & Manufacturing Company was the purveyor for Charles Lindbergh’s flights and Teddy Roosevelt’s hunting trips.

Marble is the focus of the wonderfully named “Inventing the Outdoors” exhibit that runs through Sept. 1 at the Michigan Historical Museum in downtown Lansing.

Retired Lansing advertising executive Dennis Pace is an enthusiastic Marble fan. In 2014 he donated his collection of nearly 400 pieces of Marble merchandise to the State of Michigan. Pace serves on the board of the Michigan History Foundation and is co-curator of the 250-piece exhibit that features Marble brainstorms like the safety axe, coat compass and waterproof match box that was invented in the early 1900s after Marble fell into the Sturgeon River in the Upper Peninsula.

Marble was definitely pre-Popeil.

*Co-curator Dennis Pace camping in a Michigan museum. (D. Hoekstra photo)*

“Without a doubt Webster Marble is the greatest outdoor inventor-entrepreneur that nobody has heard of,” the 66-year-old Pace said during an exhibit tour before I took in a Lansing Lugnuts Midwest League game earlier this month. “It is also a story that involves Chicago. If it wasn’t for Chicago, Webster Marble never would have had the job he had.”

Marble was born in Milwaukee. His father Lansing invented a bushel basket making machine among other things. Lansing sold the Milwaukee plant and moved to the wilderness of Vassar, Mi.

“Webster grew up to be a timber cruiser,” Pace said. “In his early twenties he was hired to work for the timber companies to harvest the forests of Michigan. That endeavor got speeded up in 1871 after the Great Chicago Fire. Chicago essentially placed an order for all the wood that Michigan could possibly ship to them. Webster spent 20 years in the woods working as a timber cruiser.”

A timber cruiser is part surveyor and part excavator.

Marble used as little equipment as possible since he usually had to carry it on his back. His desire for more convenient tools led him on the path to inventing. “Webster was about 5’2″ and not much over 100 pounds,” Pace said. “And he’s carrying 50 pounds on his back: surveying chains, a big surveying compass, a notebook.” The exhibit includes Marble’s detailed notebooks.

Webster’s great-grandson Joe McGonagle and his daughter Kathy opened up the family archives for the first time to explore Marble’s history. It took more than a year of research, design and construction to create the exhibit that spans 100 years.

By 1898 Marble designed, prototyped and patented his first idea of the safety axe. The company’s first factory was located behind Marble’s home in Gladstone, Mi. Gladstone is in the Upper Peninsula.

Marble was in the right place at the right time. About half of Michigan consists of water and has more shoreline than any other state except Alaska. Michigan is framed by four of the Great Lakes: Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron and Lake Erie.

“Webster had a foot in two worlds,” Pace explained. “He worked as a timber cruiser and until the mid-19th Century that was the method that Americans related to the outdoors. The outdoors were a treasure trove of natural resources. We mined the minerals, we harvested the timber and killed the bison for meat.

“Then, in the late 1800s more people came to cites like Detroit and Chicago. They were living in tenements and apartments with no air conditioning. They worked long hours. And they wanted to get outside. That was before the automobile so they would take the railroads up north where there were YMCA camps, hunting camps and outdoor camps.”

The outdoors were becoming a destination where visitors could improve their health and uplift their spirit. “People started looking at the outdoors as a place for recreation and not just for the exploitation of resources,” Pace said. “The Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Camp Fire Girls all start. Women start going into the woods.”

The Camp Fire Girls were born in 1912 as an offshoot of Cam WoHeLo near South Casco, Maine. “Part of that was to make women feel strong and independent and to get that good outdoor air which would physically and morally ‘refresh’ them,” Pace explained. “Then you have the first seasons for controlled hunting and fishing.”

People looked at the outdoors in a very different way.

And Marble could see the forest from the trees.

Last fall the State of Michigan passed a resoultion declaring every Nov. 15, the start of the state’s firearms deer-hunting season as Webster L. Marble Day.

“He spent 20 years as a timber cruiser,” Pace said. “He was going into the woods for weeks and months at a time. He went ahead of the timber companies who bought hundreds of thousands of acres or leased them. Webster surveyed section by section and drew little maps; ‘We’ve got 80,000 board feet of white pine another 25,000 board feet of red oak..’ That’s how timber companies worked. There weren’t a lot of good knives and axes specialized the way we know them, for lightweight camping. For example, Webster sketched how he could develop a compass that pinned to your coat. Then he realized the needle in the compass is hard to read in dim light so he invented the rotating dial, called the compass card. The whole dial rotates rather than the needle so it is easier to read.

*Courtesy of Michigan Historical Museum*

“Webster starts to manufacture these new products in 1898 and ends up having 60 to 70 patents. He ends up with the largest factory of his kind–IN THE WORLD. He understands that if he is going to sell this stuff and make a lot of money, he’s not going to sell it to just timber cruisers and professional hunters. He’s going to sell it to all the people in the cities who want to get outside. Even if it is only for one weekend a year.”

Pace’s donated collection includes advertising materials, promotional pennants, catalogs and ‘The Marble’s Monthly Message,’ a magazine that featured columns like ‘Reminiscences of a Timber Cruiser.’ The exhibit includes Marble’s 1916 magazine reflection about a group of rugged lumbermen who were upended into chaos by a swarm of Yellowjackets.

Pace is an avid camper, hiker and mountain biker who loves the half a million acres of beaches and woods of the Huron-Mainistee National Forest in west central Michigan and the Porcupine Mountains in the Upper Peninsula. “The mountains are truly unique geologic features and some of the most silent land in the country to be alone in,” he said. Pace said Chicago visitors are at an all-time high in the Upper Peninsula.

People need to get away.

Pace discovered Marble’s work at a 1984 knife show. “I came across a couple tables filled with these beautiful products I had never seen,” he said. “They were all from the Marble Arms company. I met another collector and spent hours listening to his stories. I was hooked. This was a part of Michigan history and outdoors history I had never heard.”

Marble died on Sept. 22, 1930. “He was married later in his life,” Pace said. “After he came back from the woods.”

The advertising connection made Marble a kindred spirit for Pace, who called Marble one of the inventors of the celebrity endorsement in the outdoors product community. “When Teddy Roosevelt went to the Amazon and Africa, he was using all (Marble) outdoor products,” Pace said. “When Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic for the first time, in his survival kit was a Marble compass, a Marble ideal knife and a Marble match safe to keep his matches dry. Those items are in the Smithsonian.” In the 1920s and 30s all Boy Scout and Girl Scout six-blade knives were Marble products.

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“One of my favorite Marble quotes is that 90 per cent of knives and axes are bought by people who have no practical use for them,” Pace said with a laugh. “They want them as ornaments to display or merely possess. A picture from the 1920s or 30s is Marble’s typical customer, dreaming when they were in the military, great camaraderie in the woods, camping as a young man. These are pipe dreams.

“You’re not going to get out there that much. However, if you own a really great axe and nice knife you can take them out and look at them. It’s like restringing your fishing rod. Whether you use them or not, who knows?” “Inventing the Outdoors also includes a hands on ‘invention station’ where kids can learn and participate in the process of invention.

One exhibit panel features “Webster Marble’s 10 Lessons for Today’s Entrepreneurs.” Sadly, No. 10 is “Be Ready To Replace Yourself–In an evolving company be sure to know who can fill your shoes if interests or demands move your focus elsewhere.” Pace said, “He was a smart guy and a great entrepreneur but he broke one of the biggest rules of building a business—have somebody there to replace yourself.”

The Marble company still exists in Gladstone, but they only make iron gun sights. An odd company sidebar is the Hoegh Pet Casket Company in Gladstone. “Around 1966 Denny Hoegh comes from Iowa to Michigan,” Pace said. “He knows about plastic vacuum forming and starts making (plastic) gun cases. Marble sells these for a while and stops. There’s all this equipment, but what else can go in them? A light bulb goes off. ‘Dead pets!’ And now the Hoegh Pet Casket Company is the largest in the world.

The woodsy Webster Marble would be proud.

The bark is always louder than the blight.