Traverse City Record-Eagle - Loraine Anderson

Loraine Anderson: Lakes too special to lose
I love the Great Lakes and walking along Lake Michigan. I love the sense of peace and poetry the "big lake" stirs in me, the way it clears minds and opens hearts. I like looking at pictures shot from space and seeing Michigan floating smack dab in the middle of the Great Lakes basin. In recent years I've come to worry about this magnificent watershed.
Loraine Anderson: Melkild's legacy relevant
Trees begin to bud along the Grandview Parkway and the trails lining the Boardman River. Earth Day is tomorrow, and I think about Martin Melkild, who died March 24 after a life well-lived for 90 years. His life was about earth-friendly living, conservation of natural environments and preservation of area history.
Loraine Anderson: Lost locket returns
A little over a year ago I lost a gold locket that has been in my family for more than a century. It belonged to my mother, my grandmother and probably my great-grandmother. I searched for the locket for many weeks after it went missing. At first, I thought I had simply misplaced it.
Loraine Anderson: What will we leave here?
'I have fallen in love with American names, the sharp names that never get fat," Stephen Vincent Benet says in the first line of "American Names." His 1927 poem comes to mind as I walk my dog through Ashton Park near Willow Hill Elementary. So does the first paragraph of "Indian Names in Michigan," a book by historian Virgil Vogel.
Loraine Anderson: The dog days of winter
I wake up Sunday morning to a real January winter day in the era of global warming. Oddly, I feel relief.
Loraine Anderson: A birthday mirthday wish
My birthday came last week, the one that delivers a gift all its own: The right to say for one more year, "I'm still in my 50s." A friend gives me "The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z," a hilarious new book by comedian-actor-playwright-author Steve Martin and New Yorker magazine cartoonist Roz Chast.
Loraine Anderson: 1907 penny, nickel are priceless
A picture comes to mind whenever I think of my great-Aunt Nellie, no matter how old she or I become. It is the first Thanksgiving of my memory. She is in her 40s, and I am maybe 2 or 3 years old. We are in a kitchen. She is holding me in her arms, probably to keep me from being underfoot as uncle Kenneth carves the turkey.
Loraine Anderson: Wakefield leaves rich legacy
I did not know local history writer Larry Wakefield well, so this isn't a eulogy. I do, however, want to pay tribute to him, other local historians, historical societies and libraries.
Loraine Anderson: Pulling threads and unraveling times of tumult
Some things can't be explained. They have to be pulled like a thread to see what unravels. The story of Wilhelm Heinrich Rummert is like that. He was the grandfather of my mother, a German war bride. I've been trying to get a sense of him and his times for the past year.
Loraine Anderson: An offshoot of digging up family roots
The spirits may be moving me. A year ago on Labor Day, I set out to learn more about my great-great-grandfather. All I had was his name, Charles Dickerson, and an 1864 Civil War letter he had written to his wife, Cordelia, as Union forces were closing in on Atlanta.
The gift of "Miss Navajo"
I carry many moments from this year's Traverse City Film Festival. Among the most treasured is Sunday morning at the State Theatre before, during and after "Miss Navajo."
Produced and directed by Billy Luther, it is a documentary about a Navajo beauty pageant where contestants are required to know Navajo stories, language, history, government, how to shear a sheep and even butcher one. Luther follows six young Indian women in the 2005 pageant, focusing on a young woman named Crystal.