Ah, Michigan.









In the upper apartment at my Grandmother's brick house in Dearborn Michigan, I was given recycled paper and an old typewriter to play with. Since the paper had weird titles like, " Patients History", and "Operating Procedures", my fingers banged out stories about dropping instruments, losing patients, and  I adored playing "secretary" with my Grandfather who referred to me as, " Miss Phyyt". And hearing, "Miss Phyyt, Peel Me A Grape" !
It would be years before I learned where that came from.

Ann Arbor, Michigan
Early teens I took classical guitar lessons and someone came up with a really bad idea of playing at a school talent show. I thought I was gonna die and certainly not make it through a stupid song.. but finally it was over. Then Tina Schiller comes up to me and says, "You think you're soooooooooo cool", which dealt the final blow. ..ack.ack.gasp.
The guitar playing stopped right there. NEVER AGAIN.

Winter 1978 Leelanau County
Learning how to spin pizzas at a local ski tavern, a guitar found it's way back into my hands. Through a tiny pass-through food window, the absurdity of bar life burst into song. Tina nearly (hey girl !) away with the sixties and I learned to play in front of people again, facing days and nights of trudging through deep snow back and forth to work from a nearby farmhouse, I vowed to never spend another winter in Michigan.

That following spring, while driving through Traverse City I picked up a woman hitch hiking on US 31. She jumped in and introduced herself as June Soper. This woman friend would have quite an influence on my life for the next 13 years. Coyote smart, this tiny American Indian woman scraped out a living for herself writing articles for the Detroit News and lived behind the State Park in a Wigwam. I told her I was looking for a place to live, and she said, "Why don't you make a Tipi? "

Next day, we were off to a Cedar swamp with axes, potato chips, and a six pack of Pabst.
I would learn that Pabst and Pall Malls were June's staples.
54 yards of canvas arrived from Chicago, three seams of stitching to seven strips began and a new Sioux Tipi was born. With June's help, I learned to place the poles and make the cavas sing like a drum.
My Father would provid the ten acres for my new home."Crow".
During the nights to follow, I'd walk the lonely two track into the dark forest and marvel at this extraodinary glowing cone in the distance, dwarfed by a surrounding massive old growth trees which became my home for the next 13 summers.

For years to come, I played and sang to crackling fires with trees a-glow, musicians gathering and story tellers weaving. We just never imagined life being any different than it was. But I wasn't the only one living soft on the land....see books like, " Handmade Houses", "Rolling Homes" and "Shelter". It was perfectly normal to build whatever you could far into the woodlands and live. Sand Tires, Bale houses, Gunnite domes, Yurts, tents, anything to get out of the city, and into the woods.

 But I owe it to the Wolf Spider for convincing me to build a cabin.

After studying a coffee table standard of the day, " Shelter",  a worldly collection of hand built housing, and "The Owner Built Log Cabin",  pounding questions & drawings in front of my extraordinarily gifted friend, Bob Jackson, all roads led to Rob Roy's book, "Cordwood Masonry". Yes, a person can build by hand, with no electricity, and no running water as long as you have friends.
Two summers later,  there it stood - a Cordwood Masonry Cabin surrounded by hardwood forests creatures.


It wasn't long after that I caught the largest Brown Fishing Spider  ( 5"diameter ), I had ever seen, so it just goes to show ya, We're on THEIR TURF...cabin or NO cabin.  But I did learn to build walls, set nails straight and mix a damn good mud by hand & hoe.


Summers kept me working in Traverse City at an old Victorian house called  Shield's Restaurant.

"The Keller", a stonewalled bar under the house, was known for it's pizza,  Ceasar salads, and peanut shucked covered floors.  Thousands of business cards covered the low ceilings.  It was also home to some fabulous musicians - which I listened to while waiting tables. After several open mics and panic attacks, I secured my first performing venue in 1980, but always kept one foot on the floor waitressing.
A love of service, never dies.

A rather astute customer grabbed my hand one evening and said, " What the heck have you been doin', buildin a house?"  " sigh".