St. Joseph, Michigan

 

When I returned to my bike after walking around the Allegan Carnegie, another dandy with the unique feature of an off-center entry, a police officer was waiting for me.  He was the grandfatherly type and was more welcoming than wary, observing, “It looks like you're traveling.”  It was my first encounter with someone wearing a badge and carrying a gun on this trip.  They can often have an attitude of “what are you doing here” and “the sooner you clear out, the better,” but that wasn’t the case this time.

Seemingly being itinerant earns me attention from the kind-hearted offering money, but also attention from the enforcers of the law considering me a suspicious figure.  None is more offensive than the other, equal representations of how unenlightened the masses are to the noble pursuit of traveling by bicycle. 

This enforcer was more curious than suspicious, and was happy to engage in conversation after I explained I was riding around Michigan visiting Carnegie Libraries.  He wasn’t aware the library behind us was a Carnegie, as there was no plaque acknowledging its status and only “Public Library” in a florid script on its facade adding to the library’s luster.  If he had been a little more observant he might have noticed “Historic Carnegie Entrance” in small print on the door, though it was no longer the actual entrance to the greatly expanded library.

He could somewhat relate to my endeavor, as he said he had ridden his bike six miles the day before, but not on the job, as his force didn’t have a bicycle contingent.  The state police actually had a lone bike for an officer to patrol festivals and other large local gatherings.

I asked the officer if I needed to lock my bike when I went into the library with the police station across the street and a Mug Shots Coffeehouse down the street.  He said, “Probably not, but I always advise people to err on the side of caution.”  

A few minutes later after I had settled in at a table looking out on to the Kalamazoo River the director of the library came by to give me a tour of the Carnegie portion of the library.  She too was of the wary sort and advised me not to leave my belongings unattended.  But just as I felt no concern about leaving my bike unlocked in this small town, I felt it perfectly safe to leave my helmet and handlebar bag and charging Garmin on the table I had been sitting at.

The original library wasn’t open to the public, as it was only used for meetings and special occasions.  It was a typical large single room with a high ceiling and large windows. An elevator and furnace and auxiliary wall had been added and the light fixtures had been replaced by replicas true to the 1914 originals.  Though the books and circ desk and tables and chairs had all been removed, replaced by a scattering of contemporary chairs for meetings, the room still radiated that Carnegie aura.  

The Carnegie portrait had been moved to the new library, but there were portraits of the three longest-serving librarians, including the first, a stern-faced woman who held the post from 1904 to 1948, beginning her tenure ten years before the Carnegie.  My escort said she looked just like her grandmother.  She said the librarian she grew up with in a small town near the Carnegie in Owosso, which she visited for story-times when she was little, was the kindly, rather than task-master, type. 

This library had had two large additions, the latest offering a wall of high windows looking out over the Kalamazoo River.  The librarian was concerned that the beauty of the view might be altered, as a nearby dam was soon to be removed, as it was deteriorating and could give way as had those dams around Edenville.  It was cheaper to remove the dam than to repair it.

I had thirty-five miles of superlative riding through forests on lightly travelled roads to the next Carnegie in South Haven on Lake Michigan.  The western half of the state, away from all the automotive towns radiating out from Detroit, have a minimum of factories and minimum of traffic on the secondary roads, making for the finest of cycling.  I can wake up feeling lucky that I get to begin my day with a bike ride and feel equally lucky that I get to end my day with a bike ride and luckier yet that I get to spend the rest of the day on the bike with a library or two thrown in.  I have to ask, “Have I died and gone to heaven?”

Though I had visited the South Haven Carnegie with Janina, it was a genuine gem worth another visit, especially via bike.  It had long ago become the home of the South Haven Center for the Arts.  The twin inscriptions of  “Open to All” over the door and “Dedicated to the Advancement of Learning” below the roofline still applied. 

Twenty-five miles south following the shoreline the final Carnegie of these travels awaited me in St. Joseph right on the Red Arrow Highway just two blocks from Lake Michigan.  It had a corner diagonal entrance, Kirk’s favorite.  It now housed an architectural firm and another tenant and was called “The Library Building.”  

I have been a little more conscious of pushing deeper into the forest away from the road the past couple of nights, as people have semi-seriously been advising me to me wary of the Michigan Militia.  There was a chance if they spotted a tent in the woods they might use it for target practice.

Friends I visited after Kirk in Battle Creek, my old roommate of fifteen years, Debbie, the long-time manager of the Rapid Transit Bike Shop in Wicker Park, and her partner Gary, were among those expressing some concern, as one of the thirteen recently arrested for plotting to kidnap the governor, had been photographed with their sheriff.  Debbie and Gary had been living at the Circle Pines Retreat outside of Delton since June of last year, deep in the woods on a 286-acre parcel of land.  They were among a handful of year-round residents making improvements on this property that hosts a summer camp for kids and  gatherings for others seeking some tranquility to recharge their batteries.  Among their projects was installing a sawmill and a solar-powered kiln to cure the wood.

Debbie had spoken of Circle Pines with great fondness and near reverence ever since I had known her.  She had been a camper there some forty years ago and continued to return year after year and had been on its board of directors for years.  She and Gary felt privileged to have the opportunity to take up residence there.  It was easy to understand why.