Westwood Mall Sale?, Marquette Violent Crime Down, Marquette Mountain Transition, Fresh Coast Film Festival Prepping, a Guitar Virtuoso, and Sisu Personified
The Latest from Marquette, MI by Brian Cabell
NOTHING IMMINENT—THAT’S the latest on a possible sale of the Westwood Mall. Rumors from the merchants continue to abound…“There was a guy here about a month ago—a local man—who was looking at the mall,” says Mall Manager Joe Ellis, “and he seemed interested, but as far as I know, he didn’t make an offer.”…A call to Michael Kohan, the owner of the mall, has gone unanswered…The mall is facing serious back tax issues and has also allowed the power to be shut off a few times in recent months for failing to pay utility bills on time…Merchants remain hopeful that the financial situation, one way or another, can be stabilized soon…And, of course, the holiday season is coming up—that should brighten spirits at the mall.
IS CRIME GOING up or down? Seems to be a debate about that during this election season…According to FBI statistics released last week, Marquette’s violent crime rate plummeted 25% between 2022 and 2023. That’s encouraging….Detroit’s numbers dropped a half-percent, Traverse City’s declined by 2%. Nationwide, violent crime was down 3%.
PLEASE, MAKE IT STOP! Those dreary, endless, repetitious political ads on TV and on the Internet. “Vote for me!!” “No, vote for me!!” And those incessant texts imploring you to send money so that such-and-such candidate can win and the nation can avoid disaster…As for those DELETE and REPORT AS JUNK options on the texts, those work really well. Like, not at all…One more thing: If you do decide to donate, you’ll almost certainly be marked as a willing target, meaning you’ll receive even more pleas for donations…How about we just adopt a parliamentary system with campaigns that last only six weeks or so? Seems much more rational.
ON A RECENT visit to Nova Scotia, we got some interesting reactions from Canadians reflecting on our upcoming Presidential election…No outright criticism from them, no outspoken opinions…Mostly mild bewilderment, bemusement, and sympathetic smiles…They don’t quite get what’s going on here.
TRANSITION TIME AT Marquette Mountain…Biking season coming to an end, along with volleyball, disc golf, and weddings…This weekend—your last chance to bike down the Mountain, along with Fall Color chairlift rides, and the Enduro bike race…Then next weekend, the Lake Superior Performance Rally (cars racing along the service roads at the Mountain)…And the following weekend, the Cheese Roll. Huh??? Yep, racers chasing a cheese wheel down the hill…Ya gotta get creative if you want to make the Mountain a four-season resort…
“It takes a while to build it,” says GM Kaet Johnson. “It takes a while to staff it with people with the skills you need, but we’re getting there.”…Now all she and the Mountain need is cold weather and some snowflakes to get skiing season to start sometime before…ohh…Christmas Eve or thereabouts.
FALL COLORS SEEM a little slow this year, don’t they? MLive.com reports they’re a week late arriving in the UP, after a warmer-than-usual September. Seems about right…The peak this year should arrive the second week of October and then continue well into mid-October.
ONE BIG CHANGE coming to the Fresh Coast Film Festival starting October 17th. The Masonic Center which, in past years, has played host to the box office and three film venues, is no longer part of the festival—an ownership change at the Masonic…Instead, Marquette Commons will host the box office, and The Honorable Distillery will join the list of film venues, along with the Ore Dock Brewing Company, Blackrocks Brewery, Peter White Public Library, and the Lower Harbor (outside)…The first night of the festival, Thursday October 17th, at the Lower Harbor is free!
85 films showing over the four-day event, 15 outdoor excursions planned…The festival is now in its eighth year. Skeptics (ahem) once questioned whether it had a future. Skeptics were wrong…“We’re still a small organization trying to get help wherever we can find it,” says festival co-founder Bugsy Sailor, “but the community support has been great.”
YOU LIKE GUITAR music, but not necessarily the head-banging, mind-bending riffs offered by rock bands? Well, you’re in luck…Tonight (Saturday) at Kaufman Auditorium, JIJI plays alongside the Marquette Symphony Orchestra…Who is JIJI? She’s an internationally acclaimed guitarist who’s played at Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center. She’s equally comfortable on acoustic and electric guitar, playing a blend of classical, contemporary and improvisational music…A rare opportunity for us to see and hear a true virtuoso (virtuosa?)…Tickets still available.
SISU—THAT ADMIRABLE Finnish concept of perseverance, iron will, refusing to give up…Well, 50-year-old Nikki Harvey of Birmingham, Alabama has it in spades. She entered the Marji Gesick 200 last weekend as a runner…and she finished 95 hours later. She got lost on the trail the first day, running 10 miles out of her way, but she figured, “What the heck? That’s only 10 more miles out of 200.” On she jogged and walked, day and night, day and night, sleeping about 2 hours at a time…“I was tired, I was confused, I was hallucinating,” she says, but she refused to give up on her trek over the punishing 200 mile course.
“The last morning when I woke up, I thought, for some reason, I had some painting to do,” she continues. “I must have been dreaming about it, I was thinking about Sherwin Williams, but then my friend said to me, ‘You’ve got to get up! You have a race to finish!’ He pushed me back on the trail. He said I was crying. I don’t remember. All I remember was that I was hallucinating. I was seeing things that weren’t really there.”
And after 95 grueling hours, she did manage to finish…200 brutal miles of running, walking, stumbling, crying…“I was so happy when I finished, so grateful,” she concludes, emotion seeping out of her voice. She pauses. “I learned so much about myself…It was so pretty out there!…It was just……perfect.”
Sisu.
HAIKU OF THE WEEK
Step by painful step
She stumbles on, tears flowing
Tears become triumph.
—Anonymous