Rod Kackley's Blog: St. Isidore Collection - Posts Tagged "grand-rapids"
New Writers Event
I am going to be part of a New Writers event at one of the Barnes & Noble stores in Grand Rapids, Michigan, June 29.
I will tell you more about it when it gets closer.
I am sure I can speak for all new writers when I tell you that we really appreciate this kind of support. And from Barnes & Noble, who saw that coming?
I have also received support from a local bookseller in Grand Rapids, Schuler Books & Music. Last Chance Mile is on sale at their 28th Street location.
And I can't forget to thank the people at West Coast Coffee in downtown Grand Rapids who have my book on their shelves.
Last Chance Mile: The Reinvention of an American Community
I will tell you more about it when it gets closer.
I am sure I can speak for all new writers when I tell you that we really appreciate this kind of support. And from Barnes & Noble, who saw that coming?
I have also received support from a local bookseller in Grand Rapids, Schuler Books & Music. Last Chance Mile is on sale at their 28th Street location.
And I can't forget to thank the people at West Coast Coffee in downtown Grand Rapids who have my book on their shelves.
Last Chance Mile: The Reinvention of an American Community
Last Chance Mile: The Reinvention of an American Community
Last Chance Mile: The Reinvention of an American Community tells the story of how the people of Grand Rapids, Michigan have changed the way the world sees their community and how the community sees itself.
The creation of Grand Rapids' Medical Mile plays a role in this reinvention. Here's an excerpt from the first chapter of Last Chance Mile: Building The Vision
Michigan Street NE doesn’t sleep anymore. The people and the traffic of Medical Mile keep it awake from College to Division avenues. A full mile that slumbers but never snores. It is the insomniac of Grand Rapids.
Ambulances scream up and down Michigan Street’s spine at all hours, while Aero Med helicopters fly over its head, bringing patients, doctors and organs for transplant to Spectrum-Butterworth Hospital.
The flow of people running across Michigan Street’s shoulders never stops. Doctors, nurses, and technicians of all races, colors, and creeds all in scrubs, some flowered, some plain, some blue, arriving for work, leaving for home every eight, ten or 12 hours. They never stop crossing from the new multi-story parking garages that were built on the northern shoulders of the Mile to the huge, blue Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital building that was added on to the colossus of Grand Rapids health care, Spectrum- Butterworth hospital.
Parents are inside DeVos Children’s and Spectrum-Butterworth hospitals at all hours of the day and night praying that their children’s hearts will continue beating just as this heart of the Medical Mile keeps ticking away, a silent metronome that keeps Michigan Street NE from closing its eyes.
Doctors and nurses race across the spine of the Mile before the lights change. Some of them run into Meijer Heart Center. This is where old hearts are exchanged for new, where lives begin again, where families grieve, where families celebrate. It is the building of second chances. It is yet another reason that Michigan Street NE can’t sleep anymore. The Mile won’t let it even doze.
When another day does dawn, Michigan Street can’t even lay down beside the exhausted third-shift that will soon be home, or sit beside the thirsty third-shift toasting the end of a long night in bars promising them the happiest hours of the day from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m., or at least the best prices.
Michigan Street NE has no time to rest. The first shift is arriving for work, parking on the northern shoulders of this concrete animal, walking down its spine to work on the southern shoulders of this Mile that brought new life and new dreams to Grand Rapids, the second-largest Michigan community, a community that no longer feels intimidated by Detroit.
Michigan Street is speeding up as the sun rises in the east, so bright that drivers are forced to slow to a crawl as they drive into the burning orb that is too low for their visors and too bright to see the car ahead. Traffic nearly stops in the eastbound lanes of I-196, the Gerald R. Ford Freeway, named for the city’s favorite son, Michigan’s only entry into the Oval Office in Washington D.C.
This is the artery that pumps life from the east into the heart of the Medical Mile and gives electricity to the nerve endings that make Michigan Street NE live as no other concrete animal in Grand Rapids.
For more of Last Chance Mile: The Reinvention of an American Community, please visit my website,
https://www.rodkackley.com
The creation of Grand Rapids' Medical Mile plays a role in this reinvention. Here's an excerpt from the first chapter of Last Chance Mile: Building The Vision
Michigan Street NE doesn’t sleep anymore. The people and the traffic of Medical Mile keep it awake from College to Division avenues. A full mile that slumbers but never snores. It is the insomniac of Grand Rapids.
Ambulances scream up and down Michigan Street’s spine at all hours, while Aero Med helicopters fly over its head, bringing patients, doctors and organs for transplant to Spectrum-Butterworth Hospital.
The flow of people running across Michigan Street’s shoulders never stops. Doctors, nurses, and technicians of all races, colors, and creeds all in scrubs, some flowered, some plain, some blue, arriving for work, leaving for home every eight, ten or 12 hours. They never stop crossing from the new multi-story parking garages that were built on the northern shoulders of the Mile to the huge, blue Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital building that was added on to the colossus of Grand Rapids health care, Spectrum- Butterworth hospital.
Parents are inside DeVos Children’s and Spectrum-Butterworth hospitals at all hours of the day and night praying that their children’s hearts will continue beating just as this heart of the Medical Mile keeps ticking away, a silent metronome that keeps Michigan Street NE from closing its eyes.
Doctors and nurses race across the spine of the Mile before the lights change. Some of them run into Meijer Heart Center. This is where old hearts are exchanged for new, where lives begin again, where families grieve, where families celebrate. It is the building of second chances. It is yet another reason that Michigan Street NE can’t sleep anymore. The Mile won’t let it even doze.
When another day does dawn, Michigan Street can’t even lay down beside the exhausted third-shift that will soon be home, or sit beside the thirsty third-shift toasting the end of a long night in bars promising them the happiest hours of the day from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m., or at least the best prices.
Michigan Street NE has no time to rest. The first shift is arriving for work, parking on the northern shoulders of this concrete animal, walking down its spine to work on the southern shoulders of this Mile that brought new life and new dreams to Grand Rapids, the second-largest Michigan community, a community that no longer feels intimidated by Detroit.
Michigan Street is speeding up as the sun rises in the east, so bright that drivers are forced to slow to a crawl as they drive into the burning orb that is too low for their visors and too bright to see the car ahead. Traffic nearly stops in the eastbound lanes of I-196, the Gerald R. Ford Freeway, named for the city’s favorite son, Michigan’s only entry into the Oval Office in Washington D.C.
This is the artery that pumps life from the east into the heart of the Medical Mile and gives electricity to the nerve endings that make Michigan Street NE live as no other concrete animal in Grand Rapids.
For more of Last Chance Mile: The Reinvention of an American Community, please visit my website,
https://www.rodkackley.com
Invention of an American Community by Rod Kackley
There was never a day when Sophie de Marsac Campau did not wake up to hardship and loneliness.
Her childhood probably ended as it did for most girls in the 1800s, at the age of 14. After that it was day after day of toil. Water was boiled and clothes were washed, by hand, in that hot, hot water. If she was lucky, she had a hand-operated washing machine. Like most women, she probably just had a washboard.
Dirt was everywhere. Dust was on everything. Dust from the dirty paths that passed for streets, dust from the dried manure that fell from horses. Flies and the diseases they carried were everywhere. Thick clouds of flies were attracted by outhouses, latrine trenches and mounds of garbage behind Grand Rapids homes.
Louis Campau, met and married Sophie in Detroit, then brought her to what would become Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1827. He put food on their table by establishing a trading post.
Sophie spoke only French. The Indian women spoke their own language. The “Yankee” women who came before her spoke only English.
Sophie only had one friend. Mrs. Slater, the missionary’s wife, who spoke no French, but able to communicate with Sophie through a kind of sign language they created. They never spoke a word. What good would that have done?
Another day spent in Grand Rapids.
Aside from her husband, those sign-language conversations were the only human interaction Sophie had in this God-forsaken wilderness that Louis had decided to make their home.
This lesson Sophie learned would be handed down through generations of Grand Rapidians: if you are going to make it, you are going to make it on your own. The people of West Michigan are for the most part a very self-reliant breed. It is in their DNA. If you are first-generation, you pick it up through osmosis. Thought and culture molecules are everywhere. Grand Rapids doesn’t keep its norms and mores secret.
Another lesson learned that would prove to be very transferable to those who followed the Campau family was the lesson of capitalism, though it wasn’t known by that name in Sophie and her husband’s day. They were just making a living.
Louis, who would become one of the founders of Grand Rapids, was a fur trader. That only went so far. Campau made money however he could. Louis was a businessman above all else who woke up every day knowing that it was up to him to provide for himself and his incredibly lonely wife, Sophie.
Louis was just as much an outsider as Sophie, as were the Yankee men and women who preceded them. But he carved out a place for himself in what would become Grand Rapids. His log huts and trading post were the first scars on the wilderness that before him and his people was unspoiled.
He was also more than just a fur trading, whiskey-selling business man. He was what generations after him would call, an entrepreneur. The people who built Medical Mile were no less a pioneer than Louis, and he was no less an entrepreneur.
~ LCM~
Last Chance Mile: The Reinvention of an American Community tells the stories of the people like Louis and Sophie Campau who invented Grand Rapids, Michigan. It also tells the stories of the people who are trying to reinvent this American community for the 21st century. They hope to change the way the world sees Grand Rapids, the way their community sees itself and the way the community sees the world. Will it work? Only time will tell.
Autographed editions of Last Chance Mile are available at West Coast Coffee in downtown Grand Rapids, Schuler Books & Music on 28th Street in Grand Rapids or by clicking on the Add to Cart or Buy Now buttons on the Welcome Page of www.rodkackley.com
Last Chance Mile is also available wherever books are sold online, including Abbott Press.
Her childhood probably ended as it did for most girls in the 1800s, at the age of 14. After that it was day after day of toil. Water was boiled and clothes were washed, by hand, in that hot, hot water. If she was lucky, she had a hand-operated washing machine. Like most women, she probably just had a washboard.
Dirt was everywhere. Dust was on everything. Dust from the dirty paths that passed for streets, dust from the dried manure that fell from horses. Flies and the diseases they carried were everywhere. Thick clouds of flies were attracted by outhouses, latrine trenches and mounds of garbage behind Grand Rapids homes.
Louis Campau, met and married Sophie in Detroit, then brought her to what would become Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1827. He put food on their table by establishing a trading post.
Sophie spoke only French. The Indian women spoke their own language. The “Yankee” women who came before her spoke only English.
Sophie only had one friend. Mrs. Slater, the missionary’s wife, who spoke no French, but able to communicate with Sophie through a kind of sign language they created. They never spoke a word. What good would that have done?
Another day spent in Grand Rapids.
Aside from her husband, those sign-language conversations were the only human interaction Sophie had in this God-forsaken wilderness that Louis had decided to make their home.
This lesson Sophie learned would be handed down through generations of Grand Rapidians: if you are going to make it, you are going to make it on your own. The people of West Michigan are for the most part a very self-reliant breed. It is in their DNA. If you are first-generation, you pick it up through osmosis. Thought and culture molecules are everywhere. Grand Rapids doesn’t keep its norms and mores secret.
Another lesson learned that would prove to be very transferable to those who followed the Campau family was the lesson of capitalism, though it wasn’t known by that name in Sophie and her husband’s day. They were just making a living.
Louis, who would become one of the founders of Grand Rapids, was a fur trader. That only went so far. Campau made money however he could. Louis was a businessman above all else who woke up every day knowing that it was up to him to provide for himself and his incredibly lonely wife, Sophie.
Louis was just as much an outsider as Sophie, as were the Yankee men and women who preceded them. But he carved out a place for himself in what would become Grand Rapids. His log huts and trading post were the first scars on the wilderness that before him and his people was unspoiled.
He was also more than just a fur trading, whiskey-selling business man. He was what generations after him would call, an entrepreneur. The people who built Medical Mile were no less a pioneer than Louis, and he was no less an entrepreneur.
~ LCM~
Last Chance Mile: The Reinvention of an American Community tells the stories of the people like Louis and Sophie Campau who invented Grand Rapids, Michigan. It also tells the stories of the people who are trying to reinvent this American community for the 21st century. They hope to change the way the world sees Grand Rapids, the way their community sees itself and the way the community sees the world. Will it work? Only time will tell.
Autographed editions of Last Chance Mile are available at West Coast Coffee in downtown Grand Rapids, Schuler Books & Music on 28th Street in Grand Rapids or by clicking on the Add to Cart or Buy Now buttons on the Welcome Page of www.rodkackley.com
Last Chance Mile is also available wherever books are sold online, including Abbott Press.
Grand Rapids: Not The Backwater It Used To Be?
Finally someone gets it right. One of the people who read Last Chance Mile: The Reinvention of an American Community sent me an email the other day with a real compliment for Grand Rapids, Michigan.
He wrote, "After reading your book (Last Chance Mile) I can see that Grand Rapids is no longer the backwater it was when I used to go out there on business a decade ago."
It may not seem like much of a compliment at first blush, but anyone who was in Grand Rapids ten, fifteen or twenty years ago will tell you that this city has changed.
That is the message of Last Chance Mile. Even though many of the stories involve the Medical Mile, a $1 billion campus on the northeast side of the city, the stories are really about how the people of Grand Rapids have tried to change the way the world sees their community, the way the community sees itself and perhaps most importantly, the way the community sees the world.
He wrote, "After reading your book (Last Chance Mile) I can see that Grand Rapids is no longer the backwater it was when I used to go out there on business a decade ago."
It may not seem like much of a compliment at first blush, but anyone who was in Grand Rapids ten, fifteen or twenty years ago will tell you that this city has changed.
That is the message of Last Chance Mile. Even though many of the stories involve the Medical Mile, a $1 billion campus on the northeast side of the city, the stories are really about how the people of Grand Rapids have tried to change the way the world sees their community, the way the community sees itself and perhaps most importantly, the way the community sees the world.
Grand Rapids Wins Beer City USA Title
By Rod Kackley
Brewers in Grand Rapids, Michigan didn’t like the feeling of a tie, so they used a well-orchestrated local social media campaign, along with an old-fashioned retail political blitzkrieg of local celebrities and politicians to claim the top prize in Brewers Association President Charlie Papazian’s annual contest.
Grand Rapids is Beer City USA, one year after sharing the crown with Asheville, North Carolina launched a campaign to take over first place and leave no doubt in anyone’s mind which city in the USA is really Beer City.
How did this happen? Grand Rapids is not one of the largest cities in the USA. Just because of population, it would seem that Grand Rapids should have wound up in the middle of the pack.
Lets begin with the question, what does it mean to be Beer City USA?
The president of the Brewers Association, Charlie Papazian, created the contest about five years ago through his column on the Examiner.com website.
“The craft beer community gets inundated with so many statistical facts about volume and size and how many of this and per capita of that,” he said, “and they are useful tools, but I wanted to address a little bit more fundamentally what is really going in the relationships that brewers have with beer drinkers and beer drinkers have with breweries. That was at the core of things.”
Then he asked, just what is it that makes any city, a Beer City?
“What I found is that it isn’t just about taste, or volume, or dollars cents. It is kind of a relationship that is hard to measure."
Relationships between beer drinkers and the people who make their beer may be hard to quantify, but brewers in Grand Rapids were able to use their relationships with customers and each other to mobilize voters.
The 2013 Grand Rapids campaign began when Wob Wanhatalo, the head brewer at Mitten Brewing Company in Grand Rapids and one of the founders of the Grand Rapids Society of Brewers formed an alliance with Janet Korn, the vice president of marketing at the Experience Grand Rapids Convention & Visitors Bureau, the organization that has been leading the effort to market Grand Rapids as a beer-tourism destination.
The first phase was traditional. Experience Grand Rapids created T-shirts and billboards to celebrate the 2012 Beer City USA first-place tie.
Social media was to play an important part of the 2013 Beer City USA campaign in Grand Rapids just has it has for the city’s craft brewers because it is relatively inexpensive, simple to put together and is very flexible.
“Starting up a Facebook page is kind of a useful tool for them to use as a communication vehicle,” Korn said. “It is inexpensive of course and it gives them a place where they can bring this group of people together. The platform really works for building that audience.”
The marketing strategy included content specific to the beer industry to “tell the Grand Rapids beer story from an informational perspective and included pieces of content that people could take and share,” Korn said. “I think it was the sharing among the fan base that was part of the 27,000 votes for Grand Rapids.’
For social media platforms, they chose the Experience Grand Rapids blog, Facebook and Twitter.
However, the campaign would not rely on social media. Some very traditional point-of-purchase elements were thrown into the mix.
Experience Grand Rapids made table coasters that read, “Vote Grand Rapids Beer City USA” that were handed out at all of breweries and beer bars in Grand Rapids.
Timing was important, too.
“We didn’t want to just cram it in people’s faces so we waited until about a week or a week-and-half before the voting started and then started handing out the coasters,” said Wanhatalo.
Then feet hit the street.
A grassroots, political style campaign was the final piece of the Beer City USA effort. MiBeers.com organized three “Tap The Vote” pub crawls featuring local celebrities, Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell and other supporters who targeted the beer bars in the Grand Rapids area.
“We knew we had the breweries supporting us, so we went to all of the beer bars in town that served Grand Rapids or Michigan beer,” Wanhatalo said.
Social media still played a role. They used the hashtag#Beer City GR on Twitter during the pub crawls.
“We made sure people knew the voting was happening, and reminded them to vote, too.”
Of course, they didn’t forget the importance of beer. Wanhatalo said they decided to create some special for their customers.
The Grand Rapids brewers collaborated on four “project” beers which were brewed on a single idea or theme. The first was Beer City Pale Ale.
“The guys all pointed at me and said, ‘You come up with the recipe and we will brew it,’” said Wanhatalo.
After that they did the Grand Pumpkin beer. Brewers could do whatever they wanted for that one as long as the recipe included pumpkin.
“The way we look at it as brewers and owners is a shared celebration. We are all in this together,” Wanhatalo said. “The more cooperation, the better.”
Quenching The Thirst
Brewers in Grand Rapids, Michigan didn’t like the feeling of a tie, so they used a well-orchestrated local social media campaign, along with an old-fashioned retail political blitzkrieg of local celebrities and politicians to claim the top prize in Brewers Association President Charlie Papazian’s annual contest.
Grand Rapids is Beer City USA, one year after sharing the crown with Asheville, North Carolina launched a campaign to take over first place and leave no doubt in anyone’s mind which city in the USA is really Beer City.
How did this happen? Grand Rapids is not one of the largest cities in the USA. Just because of population, it would seem that Grand Rapids should have wound up in the middle of the pack.
Lets begin with the question, what does it mean to be Beer City USA?
The president of the Brewers Association, Charlie Papazian, created the contest about five years ago through his column on the Examiner.com website.
“The craft beer community gets inundated with so many statistical facts about volume and size and how many of this and per capita of that,” he said, “and they are useful tools, but I wanted to address a little bit more fundamentally what is really going in the relationships that brewers have with beer drinkers and beer drinkers have with breweries. That was at the core of things.”
Then he asked, just what is it that makes any city, a Beer City?
“What I found is that it isn’t just about taste, or volume, or dollars cents. It is kind of a relationship that is hard to measure."
Relationships between beer drinkers and the people who make their beer may be hard to quantify, but brewers in Grand Rapids were able to use their relationships with customers and each other to mobilize voters.
The 2013 Grand Rapids campaign began when Wob Wanhatalo, the head brewer at Mitten Brewing Company in Grand Rapids and one of the founders of the Grand Rapids Society of Brewers formed an alliance with Janet Korn, the vice president of marketing at the Experience Grand Rapids Convention & Visitors Bureau, the organization that has been leading the effort to market Grand Rapids as a beer-tourism destination.
The first phase was traditional. Experience Grand Rapids created T-shirts and billboards to celebrate the 2012 Beer City USA first-place tie.
Social media was to play an important part of the 2013 Beer City USA campaign in Grand Rapids just has it has for the city’s craft brewers because it is relatively inexpensive, simple to put together and is very flexible.
“Starting up a Facebook page is kind of a useful tool for them to use as a communication vehicle,” Korn said. “It is inexpensive of course and it gives them a place where they can bring this group of people together. The platform really works for building that audience.”
The marketing strategy included content specific to the beer industry to “tell the Grand Rapids beer story from an informational perspective and included pieces of content that people could take and share,” Korn said. “I think it was the sharing among the fan base that was part of the 27,000 votes for Grand Rapids.’
For social media platforms, they chose the Experience Grand Rapids blog, Facebook and Twitter.
However, the campaign would not rely on social media. Some very traditional point-of-purchase elements were thrown into the mix.
Experience Grand Rapids made table coasters that read, “Vote Grand Rapids Beer City USA” that were handed out at all of breweries and beer bars in Grand Rapids.
Timing was important, too.
“We didn’t want to just cram it in people’s faces so we waited until about a week or a week-and-half before the voting started and then started handing out the coasters,” said Wanhatalo.
Then feet hit the street.
A grassroots, political style campaign was the final piece of the Beer City USA effort. MiBeers.com organized three “Tap The Vote” pub crawls featuring local celebrities, Grand Rapids Mayor George Heartwell and other supporters who targeted the beer bars in the Grand Rapids area.
“We knew we had the breweries supporting us, so we went to all of the beer bars in town that served Grand Rapids or Michigan beer,” Wanhatalo said.
Social media still played a role. They used the hashtag#Beer City GR on Twitter during the pub crawls.
“We made sure people knew the voting was happening, and reminded them to vote, too.”
Of course, they didn’t forget the importance of beer. Wanhatalo said they decided to create some special for their customers.
The Grand Rapids brewers collaborated on four “project” beers which were brewed on a single idea or theme. The first was Beer City Pale Ale.
“The guys all pointed at me and said, ‘You come up with the recipe and we will brew it,’” said Wanhatalo.
After that they did the Grand Pumpkin beer. Brewers could do whatever they wanted for that one as long as the recipe included pumpkin.
“The way we look at it as brewers and owners is a shared celebration. We are all in this together,” Wanhatalo said. “The more cooperation, the better.”
Quenching The Thirst
