April 7, 2025

Donald Spitzer, Last Of A Great Cambridge Family, Is Gone

When you ask his friends and family what they most admired about Donald Spitzer, the answers included his quick wit, his considerable intelligence, and his great love for family and friends. They also note that in a family of gifted athletes Donald was tall and slim and gawky. And in a family of rugged Hungarian men  skilled in pounding wrought iron into graceful swirls and curves, Donald trained to be a graphic artist in the …

Read More

Nashville’s City Cafe East; One Fine Lunch Joint

Knocking around Nashville last month dropped me on the doorstep of City Cafe East, one of the finest lunch spots I’ve ever had the pleasure to visit. It was a Thursday, when owner and executive chef George T. Bird (on right above) and Calvin Oden feature a menu headlined by meat loaf with zesty sauce, Jerusalem chicken, salmon croquettes, and baked tilapia. George and Calvin serve lunch cafeteria style at the 1455 Lebanon Pike restaurant …

Read More

Benzie County’s Gorgeous Leaves of Fall

The anguish of fall is upon us in northern Michigan. The astonishing colors, temporary as they are, are brushed onto this magnificent place I’ve called home for two decades. Yesterday, on one of the last road bike rides of the year, I took this gallery of shots with my iPhone. Every corner on our two-lanes, virtually empty of traffic these days, a billboard of reds and oranges and yellows unfolds, the colors deepening with the …

Read More

On Beautiful Fall Day Central Lake Is Shuttered For Business

CENTRAL LAKE, MI – There is no sprawl in Central Lake, a northern village of 942 residents in magnificent  Antrim County. At this time of year rows of feed corn await harvest and the green white pine and multi-colored hardwood forests pour down the hillsides to the deep blue waters of the lake that gives the village its name. (see pix above and below) Central Lakes possesses an asset all-too rare in American communities – …

Read More