Category Archives: Van People

The man who saved John Steinbeck’s van, RIP

October 5, 2020 Dave Hoekstra Leave a comment

*Gene Cochetti, 1938-2020 (Photo by Jon Sall.)*

Like a hitchhiker with roses, the small things that connect with people can surprise me. Wealth is not measured by the cars you drive or the places you visit.

“The Camper Book (A Celebration of a Moveable American Dream)” was published in 2018 by Chicago Review Press. In a pre-pandemic bliss from June 2016 until March 2017, I traveled to twenty-four states, covering 24,222 miles in my 2015 Ford Transit Van. Photographer Jon Sall and I were on the road most of June 2016.

We met some remarkable people and I gathered some fine interviews: Actor/roadie/musician Jeff Daniels contributed the foreword, former Cubs manager Joe Maddon talked about RV life and the late John Prine told me about his affinity for KOAs. He said at least one person came up to him at every KOA, but added “I haven’t got roped into any campfire sing-alongs.”

But one of our most memorable stops has turned out to be the National Steinbeck Center in downtown Salinas, Ca.

The former museum director Dr. Susan Shillinglaw loved the idea of our book and she liked my van, adorned with the searching birds of my friend, Chicago artist Tony Fitzpatrick. Shillinglaw allowed us to go inside Rocinante, the camper van that John Steinbeck used in his 1962 book “Travels With Charley: In Search of America.” The van is generally off-limits to museum visitors. Steinbeck named Rocinante after Don Quixote’s horse because friends called his cross-country trip “quixotic.”

*Rocinante (Photo courtesy of the National Steinbeck Center.)*

Somewhere in our long and winding conversation, Shillinglaw mentioned that the Salinas gentleman who restored the van was still around. Jon and I scrambled to find a man named Gene Cochetti.

We had nowhere to go, except to Lulu’s, Merle Haggard’s favorite diner in Redding, Ca. And Gene’s body shop wasn’t far away from the museum. After an impromptu phone call, Gene immediately invited us over.

Gene had never talked publicly about restoring Steinbeck’s van until we showed up. I wrote an essay about Gene and it did not make it in the book. It landed on the Camper Book website which I visit now and then. Here is “The man who saved John Steinbeck’s van.”

Gene had never read any of Steinbeck’s books. And restoring Rocinante was a big and expensive project. He could have said, ‘It is what it is,’ but on a deeper level, he knew what it could be. Gene did it for free to give something back to the community.

I’ve been amazed at the people who wrote to our website to thank Gene for his dedication. Were they Steinbeck fans? Devoted roadies? Or did they admire Gene’s humble service? Some of the greatest feedback towards The Camper Book wasn’t even in the book!

Over the weekend, I learned that Gene had died.

He passed away peacefully in his home on June 25, almost four years to the day after we met. He was 82 years old. He had been ill for a year. His Salinas obituary carried no mention of his work on Rocinante. The obituary did mention his commitment to the community. Gene served in the United States Navy and spent hours volunteering for the Salinas Steinbeck Youth Football Organization, volunteered at the California Rodeo for many years, was a member of the Salinas Elks Lodge, a founding member of the Cherrie’s Jubilee Car Show, and was an active member and usher at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Spreckels.

The world is a more divided place than when we met Gene. People stand in their corners. Shillinglaw once told me, “You have to participate in the actuality of experience. Steinbeck said ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ was written on five levels; you’ll see as many levels as you have in yourself. Are you really going to slow down and experience and participate in the narrative?”

Gene Cochetti worked on cars his entire adult life, helping take people to other places. Yet, he slowed down and lived by the foundation of home. He made his community a better place. He knew all the levels he had in himself.

Van People

Jeff Daniels Road Signs & RV’s

December 1, 2017 Dave Hoekstra Leave a comment

*Dave (L), Jeff Daniels in Michigan (Jon Sall photo)*

CHELSEA, MI.—-The liberation of the road presented a certain destiny for actor-songwriter Jeff Daniels. His professional life has been shaped by casting calls and curtains, but it is travel that has opened the most inspiring doors.

The Emmy-winning actor is most recently known for his work in HBO’s “The Newsroom” and has achieved a steady stream of acclaim in hit movies like “Terms of Endearment,” “Something Wild,” “The Purple Rose of Cairo” and the road movies “Dumb and Dumber,” “Dumb and Dumber To” and “RV.”

His musical career was born in the late 1970s. Daniels, 62, grew up in Chelsea, Mi., (pop. 4,950) where his father Robert Lee “Bob” Daniels was mayor. Daniels left Central Michigan University after his junior year to become an actor in New York. While hanging around the offices of the Circle Repertory Company, he met playwright Lanford Wilson (1937-2011) who won a Pulitzer Prize for “Talley’s Folly.”

“In 1978 I had my guitar and Lanford was listening,” Daniels recalled in a thoughtful late autumn conversation in his Chelsea recording studio. “I was writing songs, you’re 23 and 24 and there’s not a lot of depth. He goes, ‘Let me help you.’ And he gave me this poem ‘Road Signs.’ It was about a bus trip he took from (Springfield) Missouri where he lived as a young man to Chicago to work in an ad agency. After a year in Chicago, he went to New York to become a playwright.”

According to the fine new book “Lanford Wilson: Early Stories, Sketches and Poems” (Edited by David A. Crespy, University of Missouri Press) Wilson lived at 5316 N. Spaulding in Chicago from
1957 through 1962 before moving to 9 Walnut Road in west suburban Glen Ellyn, Ill.

“On that bus trip Lanford wrote ‘Road Signs’ which is about the people on that bus,” Daniels said. “It’s about America. It’s about diversity. Imagery. Only Lanford could write that that way. He handed it to me and said, ‘See if you can do something with this.’ They had a piano against a wall. All I’m good at is a minor, g and f. I put some chords to it. And the song has stayed with me..,” and his voice drifted away down autumn’s country road.

Daniels and cast mates John Hogan and Stephanie Gordon visited Wilson on his New Jersey death bed.

They played “Road Signs” as well as Steve Goodman’s “City of New Orleans,” another wonderful song
about travel that inspired Wilson’s “Hot L Baltimore.”

Wilson had tremendous empathy for his characters, often seen through the searching eyes of the retired bartender, the recruits from Fort Leonard Wood and the doo-wop girls on the Greyhound Bus ride out of Springfield, Mo. Wilson was always trying to examine the foundation that Daniels has been fortunate to maintain. In 2007 Daniels and Hogan recorded an evocative 8:30 version of “Road Signs” for their album “Together Again.”

The road has made Daniels appreciate his Michigan roots.

In 1986 he left New York to return to Chelsea to raise a family. During an October City Winery gig in Chicago Daniels announced he was going to be a grandfather for the first time. His son Ben plays in his band and his daughter-in-law Amanda sings in the band. “We’ve stayed close as a family on both sides,” he said in his studio. “That’s essential. I don’t regret the decision to not live in Hollywood or New York. Nothing against those people in the industry, but I need a break. There’s other things I want to do and other things I want to be other than an actor. There’s friends of mine who can drop the actor thing, too–but there’s many who can’t. I remember early on in New York being in rooms with actors and the joke was they can’t tell a story without standing up. I was always the Midwestern guy leaning in a corner thinking, ‘You told this ten minute story you could have told in two minutes and it really wasn’t that interesting.

“I’m in my fifth decade,” he continued as he counted them up with surprise. ‘With ‘Newsroom’ and post-’Newsroom’ I’m busier in this decade than any decade of my career. I’m being challenged more as an actor. I didn’t see that. When you move to the Midwest at 30, 31, you have six movies and you tell your agents, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep the movie career going,’ they wonder. I defied the odds. You drop back and be a supporting actor. You are no longer trying to be the biggest star in the history of stars. Because if you are, you can’t live in Michigan. I knew I was giving that up, which was okay. When you do ‘Dumb and Dumber’ that’s a career choice. And that opens up roles from ‘Gettysburg’ to ‘Dumb and Dumber.’ There’s a lot of jobs in between those two things.”

Jeff Daniels (L) and Jim Carrey, dumb road warriors. — *Jeff Daniels (L) and Jim Carrey with their “Dumb and Dumber” shaggin’ wagon.*

Chelsea is about an hour west of Detroit. The rural area also birthed Daniels’ keen interest in RVing.

In the late 1980s Daniels was part of a group of a dozen guys who wanted to travel to a weekend golf tournament.

“It was how much does it cost to rent one of these things, instead of driving up in five cars?,” he asked. “And how do you drive it? I had a ball. It was like a party bus with one guy staying straight and driving. Later it was a great way to transport the kids. The bathroom is right there and that was huge. Then we discovered RV parks, you get the right ones with the swimming pool and it becomes about the journey.

Daniels wrote a song “Recreational Vehicle,” based on a true story from the early 1990s when he rented a 28-foot Jayco with his young family. Daniels is a huge baseball fan and a long time Detroit Tigers season ticket holder. He embarked on a pilgrimage from Michigan to Cooperstown, N.Y., the birthplace of the game.

“We got to Erie, Pennsylvania to gas up,” he said. “I’m driving. They do not teach you how to drive it. They hand you the keys. There’s no training course. I’m figuring out how to flush the toilet. Why am I drinking water that tasted like urine, because I’ve got the wrong thing hooked up. Then you get into a truck stop in Erie, Pennsylvania and you’re stressed out because it is not easy to drive this thing. A trucker behind you goes, ‘Excuse me, are you Jeff Bridges? Can I have your autograph?’ Sure, ‘Best wishes, Jeff Bridges.’ Get me out of here. I get into the 28 foot Jayco, pull out merge on the highway and my son says, ‘Dad, where’s Mom?’. I left her at the truck stop. The song ‘Recreational Vehicle’ is a direct homage to Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant.”

Daniels has downsized to a jet black 22-foot Airstream sprinter van.

It sleeps two and there’s ample room for the family dog. “That’s all I need,” he said. “I went through about three or four (RVs). In the early 1990s I had a Dolphin (RV). The box RVs. I bought a used Gulf Stream, 42 foot diesel pusher. Gets seven miles to the gallon. It’s just huge.

“I don’t mind sleeping in truck stops or the corner of Wal-Mart. That whole world of RV parks. ‘Oh, it’s got a laundry-mat too! Oh, we’re going to that one.’ It becomes, ‘This is great! Laundry AND showers!’ Friends say, ‘You’ve got an RV?’ and I say, ‘Yeah.’ They say, ‘What’s George Clooney got?’ I say, ‘Well, Clooney’s got a private jet, but I got an RV. And I know how to drive an RV. I don’t want to learn how to fly a plane. I don’t want to be Tom Cruise. John Travolta is in the sky behind the steering wheel of a 747. Get me down on the ground. He’s an actor flying a plane.

“The Airstream we like, my wife can drive it. It’s souped up inside. Instead of going from the suite at the Ritz-Carlton, which the 42-footer was, you’re now in a very comfortable version of the space shuttle. We have Sirius XM Radio. When its 20 degrees out, you’re warm. With ‘Newsroom’ for three years we would load up the 42-footer on January 1, take four or five days and drive out to California. We’d park right next to Soundstage Seven on the Sunset Gower lot (Studios, circa 1934, former home of Columbia Studios) Pictures and it sat there for six months. That was my dressing room. They just did a movie in Vancouver and Matthew (McConaughey) stayed at an RV park
in his RV. I completely get that.”

Jeff Daniels, RV in the UP..in the winter. — *Jeff Daniels, RV in the UP…in the winter.*

Daniels is gifted with everyman Midwestern characteristics. He looks like a buyer at Meijer.

Daniels “sometimes” gets recognized at an RV
park.

“Kathleen (his wife) will go in and register,” he said.

“They might see me walking around overnight and the next day we’re gone. We don’t stay somewhere for a month and put up a little porch. It doesn’t make sense the actor they saw in ‘Newsroom’ would be in slot number 38. And then I get, ‘You know who you look like? The guy from ‘Newsroom.’ I get that all the time.”

No American actor has the string of wacky hit RV films like Daniels: “Dumb and Dumber” (1994) with Jim Carrey, “RV” (2006) with Robin Williams, “Dumb and Dumber To” (2014) back with Carrey. In its first weekend outside of America, “Dumb and Dumber To” made $13 million. It opened number one in Brazil!

“I did RV with Robin because I had an RV,” he admitted. “I would have paid them to do the movie. I felt I needed to be in that movie because of my 15 years of having an RV. Movies are all about caution. It was, ‘We need you to get to Vancouver, we got a week of driving where we train you.’ I have a 42-foot Gulf Stream, okay. So, ‘When is that?” They say, ‘May 15, we’re going to fly you and your wife out first class. Stay at the hotel and we’ll go into training for a week and start shooting in June.’ I remember sitting at a baseball game here in Michigan with my wife and saying, ‘Let’s just drive it and not even tell them.’ So we got in the Gulf Stream and started driving
from Michigan to Vancouver.

“Went to Mount Rushmore, it was an RV trip. They were calling us in Montana, ‘Where are you? We need a driver to pick you up at the airport.’ I said, ‘We’re in Montana.’ They go, ‘What???’ I say, ‘I’m going to Seattle, take a right and you better have somebody meet us there. So we got caravanned in. When they saw the building I was driving–I remember pulling into the studio lot in Vancouver and I hit the air breaks–phsssssssss–I opened the door. The first AD who was in charge of training me looked at me and said, ‘Cancel his training!’

Dave Hoekstra and shaggin wagon, Humboldt Park, Chicago--October, 2017 — *Dave Hoekstra and shaggin wagon, Humboldt Park, Chicago–October, 2017*

Daniels also drove the Ford conversion van (a.k.a. “The Shaggin’ Wagon”) that looked like a thirsty dog in the first “Dumb and Dumber.” Daniels’ character drove the motorized mutt for his dead end dog grooming job.

“When we did the sequel, it didn’t work,” he said. “The Farrelly brothers kept the first one and put it in an outdoor storage unit in Rhode Island–uncovered. It hadn’t moved for 20 years. They loaded it up on a flat bed and dragged it down to Georgia where we were shooting. You got into that thing, it was a like crawling into a coffin. It was ‘used’.

Daniels recalled getting the RV bug as early as 1988 when actor Don Johnson pulled into the Vermont movie set of “Sweetheart’s Dance” in a huge tricked out Prevost. “He had a driver,” Daniels said with a smile. “And a chef. I was looking at that going, ‘I can go to Lloyd Bridges Traveland (in Chelsea) and get a poor man’s version of that.’ So I got the 28 foot Jayco–not quite the same, but great fun. The independence, the anonymity. You’re not at the mercy of the airlines–especially now. There’s also the pioneer spirit of the RV’er. You get to pretend you’re like Lewis and Clark with a microwave and television. I love that I still have one.”

Van People

Visiting every Cracker Barrel in America

September 29, 2017 Dave Hoekstra Leave a comment

Ray and Wilma Yoder, Cracker Barrel and RV fans (Courtesy of Cracker Barrel)

GOSHEN, IND.—-Ray and Wilma Yoder watch the world roll by from the front porch of their 85-year-old farm house on County Road 34 in Goshen, Ind. While sitting next to each other on a twin rocking chair, Ray and Wilma wave to Amish neighbors who hold tight reins on their horse and carriage. Truckers and cars go too fast for this thin stretch of rural highway about 25 minutes southwest of Elkhart.

You see, Ray and Wilma always move in modest directions.

They met in 1953 in baptismal class at a Mennonite (new order Amish) church about four miles from where they live today. Ray has lived in the same farm house since he was five years old. “Wilma came about ten miles that day in a horse and buggy not knowing it was all going to be worth it,” Ray quips during a front porch conversation on a warm September morning.

Ray and Wilma will celebrate their 61st wedding anniversary on Oct. 11.

Their life has been filled with rewarding turns.

The Yoders are the proud parents of four children between the ages of 43 and 58. In the 1960s Ray became a factory worker at the now- defunct Globemaster Mobile Homes in Goshen before snagging a job delivering motor homes from manufacturer to dealers in Elkhart, the RV capital of the world.

And that was their gateway to becoming octogenarian Americana celebrities.

In 1978 while making a delivery in Nashville, Tn. Ray ate at his first Cracker Barrel Old Country Store on Briley Parkway by the Opryland Resort and Convention Center. Cracker Barrel is headquartered in nearby Lebanon, Tn.

Since then Ray and Wilma have visited all 645 Cracker Barrels in 44 states.

Signatures from Ray and Wilma's fans. (D. Hoekstra photo) — Signatures from Ray and Wilma’s fans. (D. Hoekstra photo)

“It’s so much like the food at home,” Ray says. “The green beans are super good. We’ve not been able to match the meat loaf. Maybe its a little drier.” Wilma adds, “Sometimes mine falls apart but it as near like mine as any I’ve tasted. I like their hash brown casserole. Blueberry pancakes.”

Ray and Wilma are to Cracker Barrel what Willie Nelson is to Wacky Tobaccy.

As Ray and Wilma’s children grew older Wilma began to trail Ray in a second RV so they could make more money on a drop. They would rest at the same time. They would communicate through Citizens band radio.

“I didn’t let her go anywhere without me,” he says while glancing at his bride. “Even with the snow blowing in Wyoming I would look in the rear view mirror and her little headlights would be there. We would pull into a filling station and people would see us talking together. They’d say, ‘Are you two together?’ And I’d say, ‘We don’t get along too well so we have two motor homes.’

And Ray and Wilma laugh at the memories.

The Yoders also planned vacations around Cracker Barrel. For example, when they visited the Grand Canyon they would find a nearby Cracker Barrel. “We never owned an RV,” he says. “We were always in a new one. We could sleep in it if we were en route. But we needed to use rest rooms at the rest area or a Cracker Barrel. The best part of our lives were the years with the RVs.”

Ray says it took about ten years before they realized they had a Cracker Barrel streak going.

“We had a couple hundred of them down,” he says in a country drawl as thick as pancake syrup. “I heard where another restaurant chain had a guy following them. I said, ‘If he can do that, we can do this one. And if you don’t mind Mom, we’re going to all of them’.”

Wilma nods her head in agreement.

“I like to eat,” she says.

Ray and Wilma's team work during a New Mexico road trip. — *Ray and Wilma on a New Mexico road trip.*

The Yoders do not own a computer. They do not have GPS. They are not on Facebook or Instagram so there’s no social media bragging on their Cracker Barrel quest. “I knew where I was going,” he says. “The Cracker Barrel map would always say what exit to get off at. Its a map filled with 600 stores.”

The hard-hitting journalist might ask if Ray and Wilma have documentation of all their visits.

“I really don’t have documentation,” Ray answers. “Just between me and God. I will tell you we’re not in a lying situation. We didn’t do this to prove anything to anybody. We took some pictures. We did circle each one on the directory map. I’d put a check mark on the map as one we’d have to get.” Once Ray and Wilma visited the Cracker Barrel they would circle the check mark on their map.

*I almost used the Freedom of Information act to make Ray and Wilma show me their maps.*

Ray explains, “Now that we’re retired from the RV we take our own car. We still like driving and getting out. Is there a rodeo or a concert? We like Western Swing and we can’t find that very easy around here. We’ve seen Asleep at the Wheel at about 25 places and we’re still not tired of them. We came to Naperville (at a July, 2012 Tex- Mex Festival) to see him (bandleader Ray Benson).” There is a Cracker Barrel Old County Store at 1855 W. Diehl Rd. in west suburban Naperville, Ill.

Ray and Wilma have discovered that most Cracker Barrels are alike. “The one in Hilton Head is up off the sand on posts to make up for high water,” he says. “Eight of them are right-handed, all the rest are left-handed.

“Right-handed is where you go in the front door and the dining room is to the right.” In soft tones Wilma admits, “I had a bad experience (in New Orleans) with a new restroom. I was going to the right when I was so used to going to the left.”

Ray says, “We got serious about this in the ‘80s. We got eight (Cracker Barrels) in one day.”

I about fall off my country rocker.

Ray continues. “Someone asked, ‘How do you do that?’ and I said, ‘Don’t eat too much at the first one.’ They were out of the way places but we needed to get them in order to claim them with our
bunch. It was along U.S. 17 in North and South Carolina: Maybe a half an order at (the first) one…Then a coffee to go at the next one… By ten o ‘clock we were at the third one, probably the house salad…The fourth one would be noon hour for meat loaf…The fifth one would have been a sandwich. At that time we liked their grilled cheese and bacon sandwich (sixth)…. Even if you waited until nine at night you’d have the grilled chicken dinner…The eighth, final stop,would be the cider float. The waitress would say, ‘Excuse me?’ And I’d say, ‘You have both ingredients. Instead of doing a root beer do a cider. And they would do it. ” Cider floats are not on the Cracker Barrel menu.

That’s R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

Notable Cracker Barrel celebrities start with gospel-soul singer Aretha Franklin. The Queen of Soul does not like to fly. She travels to gigs in her luxury coach bus. In 2012 Franklin told me how much she loves
the chicken and dumplings at Cracker Barrel. In 2011 she signed a plate at the Cracker Barrel in Lakeville Mn. before a performance at the Mystic Lake Casino near the Twin Cities.

“Never met her,” Ray says. “Timing was off I guess. Did she come during the lunch hour? Some of them put on baseball caps and you never know.” Cracker Barrel employees have come to know Ray by his white cowboy hat.

Ray and Wilma’s daughter Doris Copenhaver works at the BMV (Bureau of Motor Vehicles) in Goshen. In a phone conversation she says, “We didn’t realize how serious they were until the early 2000s. We were amazed. The meat loaf is what got Dad started. What’s weird is going to one without them. Its like, ‘Well, I know they’ve been here before.’ We also used to go with them when they delivered motor homes. They go to Sarasota (Florida) in the winter so we would eat in the ones near there too.

“This keeps them young.”

The nearest Cracker Barrel to Goshen (pop. 33,000) is at I-80 and Cassiopolis Street in Elkhart. “We go to that one, sometimes for family get together,” Ray explains. “The lady who runs the cash register there, her and her husband used to run the Greyhound bus station across the street. She always knows us.”

The camper van visits RV fans Ray and Wilma Yoder (Photo by Jon Sall.)

Ray maintains the Amish population birthed the RV industry in Elkhart. “They don’t worry about unions,” he says. “One Amish guy will know a neighbor down the road looking for a job and they bring them in. You go to work at four in the morning and work hard at it. And make pretty decent money. Why pay ten when you have five who will do it? I’d say about 80 per cent of the workers were Amish when I started in the RV industry (in the late 1960s).”

Indeed, in June, Allison Yates of Atlas Obscura wrote a story “Why the Amish are Building America’s RV’s (They’re forbidden from driving them, but not making them)” and pointed out the Amish of Northern Indiana have never been as isolated as other Amish communities in America.

Ray celebrated his 81st birthday on August 28. As a surprise, Cracker Barrel flew Ray and Wilma to the Cracker Barrel grand opening in Tualatin, just outside of Portland, Or. It is the first Cracker
Barrel on the West Coast. The Nashville-based chain previously had only ventured as far west as Boise, Id.

“All the employees were waiting for us to make our appearance,” Ray says. “It was different
for two little country kids. I told them I could drive to O’Hare airport (in Chicago.) I’ve done that before. But they came with one of those limo cars and took us to O’Hare.”

As a 17-year-old, Wilma was attracted to Ray for his homespun values. He once ranked third in the Indiana State Table Tennis Tournament and these days he travels to Branson, Mo. for checkers tournaments. “He was a nice person,” she says. “Other boys didn’t have as much character. I thought he was better looking.”

Ray continues, “I was never into alcohol. Not that needs to be brag, but I did enough other things. I had my part of excitement in life. In mid-life you have two or three jobs, you have a little family and you have to work at that. We did that, too. There were no divorces in the Amish church. You pick them and you stay together.”

And that has been the old country creed for Ray and Wilma Yoder as they seen America through the wide open windows of an RV and the comforting heart of a Cracker Barrel.

Van People

The man who saved John Steinbeck’s van

July 10, 2017 Dave Hoekstra 22 Comments

SALINAS, Ca.–Long time Salinas body shop owner Gene Cochetti had never talked publicly about resorting John Steinbeck’s historic Rocinante camper van until we showed up in our camper van.

And we did not have to be towed to Gene Cochetti’s Auto Body Shop in downtown Salinas.

In 1990 Rocinante was delivered to the same body shop. “It was a real piece of junk,” Cochetti said during a mid-June, 2016 conversation in his body shop garage. “It came on a tow truck. We had to do everything. We had to put tires on it. We had to get everything running. And then I had to research the color, the camper shell, the wood of the camper, because it is very, very heavy. It was three-quarter ton with an eight foot box, which is really rare. There must have been ten guys pushing it into our shop.

“Everything was maple inside, which was very hard to match and to refinish. We took the camper off the truck and repainted the truck completely. It had to be a certain green. We had to put the six ply tires on brand new and then take the wheels off. We painted the rims. We researched it so we had to pinstripe the wheels and put all new rubber on to make it look new. We took off all the chrome that was tarnished and rusted and put on all new chrome. It was a big project. That’s not a big problem with me. But we did it for free. I wanted to give something back to the community that has been so wonderful for me. I wanted to give back to the people who helped me be successful for 40 years.

“We’re the oldest independent auto body shop in the Monterey County.”

*Steinbeck center photo by Dave Hoekstra*

It took Cochetti nearly two months to bring Rocinante completely back to life. Cochetti has always been a collision specialist except early in his career in the 1950s and 60s when he restored custom hot rods and vintage cars. He found more money in car wrecks.

“We had to get it running because we couldn’t push that big monster around,” he continued. “It ran fine. Except we had to tune it up, put in plugs and make it worthy for the road. We didn’t farm anything out. We did it all in here. We got it all ready to go and they came back and told me, “Oh, by the way Cochetti, you have to drain every liquid out of that truck. Gas, all the oil, drain the fluids off. And then we’ll call a tow truck and have it taken to the Steinbeck Center. So we had to to this all over again, not thinking that when you put a vehicle in a locked-in building, you have to make everything dry. Once we did all of that, they were happy and we went down the road.

“It was a fun project.”

*Gene Cochetti, June 2016 (Jon Sall portrait)*

Cochetti was born in Schenectady, N.Y. in 1938 and arrived in Salinas in 1952 with his mother Estelle and father Salvador. Salvador Cochetti was a barber in New York and came to California to become a fisherman. That didn’t work out so he became a house painter. Estelle worked in Salinas area restaurants.

Today, the population of Salinas is about 155,000 people. Cochetti said the population was around 40,000 when his family came to town. “It is basically all ag,” he said. “It used to be mainly lettuce. No hard peaches and no hard watermelons. Then the grapes come. The grapes are big because of the wineries. And now strawberries are the big thing. So the lettuce is sort of just there.”

OceanMist-890x700

Cochetti’s first car was a 1941 Plymouth, a ride that he stretched out through the Salinas Valley.

“I bought my first hot rod in high school,” he said. “We played with that for a while and I left for the Navy. When I returned I had a good time. And then I got married and that was the end of that. The funny part is that my wife was in junior high with me. And I knew her. But I never took her out. I knew her in high school, never saw her after graduation. And then one day after I came back from the service I was at my dad’s place. I happened to be driving to work and I saw this foxy gal walking down the street with high heels on and nice legs. So I looked and said, ‘I’ll be darned, that’s Rusty!’ And I pulled over and said, ‘Do you want a ride to work?’ And there was only like, a block and a half to work. And she said, ‘Uh, yeah.’ So that’s how we met again. And from there on, we got married and had a couple of kids and a great life.”
Now semi-retired, Cochetti was married for 45 years. Rusty passed away in 2007. “The shop has always been self owned,” he said. “My son (Chris) has taken this thing over. He’s way better than I am. He’s a computer genius and car genius. I taught him when he was in elementary school. He’s going to be 50 pretty soon. And we’ve had a great relationship, an important relationship with your dad and your son.”

*Steinbeck camper van interoir (Jon Sall photo)*

Cochetti did not feel a close connection to Steinbeck while working on the camper van. “I didn’t know the man, I never read one of his books,” he said. “Everybody said he was a great writer.

The hard part was researching this thing. They wanted it just like if it came from the dealership to me. It’s probably way better than when he had it. Now, a lot of people see it. And we have a little plaque that says, ‘Work done by Gene Cochetti Auto Body Shop in Salinas.’ We started with about nothing and now it will be there (in the National Steinbeck Center, just a few blocks away) when I’m gone and everybody
else is gone.”

Van People

The last kid in baseball

July 8, 2017 Dave Hoekstra Leave a comment

Mark Hamburger (Courtesy of the St. Paul Saints)

ST. PAUL, MN.—It was opening night of another renegade season for the St. Paul Saints. The Saints were celebrating their 25th anniversary as a franchise in baseball’s independent leagues, a place where there is still a flicker of light between nearly closed doors.

On May 18 a sell out crowd of 8,294 filled CHS Field in downtown St.Paul in 52- degree weather. Fans were motivated in part by a Mary Tyler Moore tam giveaway. Moore, who died in January, played a Twin Cities based television news reporter the hit television series “Mary Tyler Moore.” The show’s theme song promised she was “gonna make it after all.”

The Saints beat the Gary SouthShore Rail Cats 5-2 on a masterful pitching performance by Mark John Hamburger. The blond long-haired 30-year-old right hander struck out eight, walked none and did not give up an earned run in 8 1/3 innings. After the game I picked up my blue tam, wandered about the park and said goodbye to the fun-loving Mike Veeck, who owns the Saints along with Marv Goldklang and “Team Psychologist” and actor Bill Murray.

My camper van was parked behind the center field fence. The game had been over for 45 minutes. I looked through the flicker of light between the nearly closed center field fence.

About a dozen fans were still in the ballpark. And Hamburger was standing along the first base line signing autographs. For every last fan. This wasn’t a media grab. There were no cameras and no sportswriters around. This was the home team’s starting pitcher.

This was something special.

Mark Hamburger, all in a day's work (Dave Hoekstra image)

Mark Hamburger, all in a day’s work, after winning the home opener 2017. (Dave Hoekstra image)

“I just look at it as a deeper thing,” Hamburger said in a thoughtful late June conversation when I returned to CHS Field. “I’m really that last kid. If that last kid gets a signature signed…… Most guys will sign five and ‘See ya,’ but if you’re that last kid and someone waits for you it has to be a good feeling for him.

“When it comes down to it, what is my job title? I’m an entertainer. I even question it sometimes when I’m pitching. I get so into it that I get mad. But that’s my ego trying to show people I can do something, when in actuality if I lose that game the fans still appreciate my vigor and how hard I’m trying.”

Hamburger has been trying and trying.

In 2012 he made it to the major leagues with the Texas Rangers. He owns a 1-0 major league record with six strikeouts in eight innings. A native of St. Paul, he has had two tryouts with his hometown Minnesota Twins. Two years ago he auditioned for the Chicago Cubs.His agent has been Billy Martin, Jr.–the son of the late Twins-New York Yankees manager. (Martin recently became a coach with the American Association’s Grand Prairie Air Hogs and can no longer represent players.) Hamburger drives a 1989 Oldsmobile station wagon around the Twin Cities.

Hamburger also failed two drug tests because of his affinity for marijuana. The Houston Astros released him in February, 2013 after he flunked his second test. He received a 50-game suspension. Hamburger
spent 30 days at Hazelden (in Minnesota). He is now as clean as Laura Petrie.

“It made me take a step away from my life,” he said. “Reorganize. Spend time alone. Self reflection is huge for me. I chose to go to Hazelden. I still had insurance through major league baseball so for $40,000 treatment I paid a $200 deductible. My insurance for big league baseball ended two days after I got out of treatment. It was a big blessing.

“I would be in my room at night time and it was, ‘Why are you mad at this?’ ‘Why are you mad at that?’ I had to go through it. No one had to ask me that question. I was going through my life until I realized I couldn’t hold on to the anger anymore. I couldn’t hang on to the need of money. The need of being in the majors. Or, ‘Why did that person wrong me?’ It all welled up. I said, ‘I don’t know who I’m giving this to, but I’m done.’ I let it go. And the next 25 days I just floated. I had gotten rid of the past. People get depressed because they hold on to something. If they can find out how to release that…..”

Hamburger stopped and turned around to look at the Northern sun shining through the office window.

He gathered his thoughts and continued, “It was like a physical purging. I started crying. I don’t see tears as a person being sad. Whatever it is, it is coming out. It came to the surface. I had to make a decision with what it was.”

Mark John Hamburger, feeling free

Hamburger debuted in St. Paul in 2013. He went 6-8 with a 3.26 ERA,striking out 120 batters in 149 innings. He returned to organized ball in 2014, moving up the ladder from New Britian (Class AA) to Rochester, the Twins’ Class AAA affiliate where he was 4-4 with a 3.79 ERA. Hamburger went 4-2 with a 3.31 ERA for Rochester in 2015.

He returned to St. Paul in 2016 and has been lights out. Hamburger was 12-6 with a 3.29 ERA for last year’s Saints and won the American Association All-Star game. This season he is 8-1 with a 2.88 ERA.

His left non-pitching arm has a long diamond shaped tattoo with details that include family members and close friends. The artwork was done by his friend Milo Alfring at Black Sage Studio in Evergreen, Colo. where Hamburger makes annual off season visits.

“The diamond has a thousand facets,” he said while looking at his arm. “Each facet is covered with dirt and tar. It is the job of the soul to clean each one until they shine brilliantly just like the colors of the rainbow. That is my life goal. Not to achieve money, house, car, retirement.” He stopped to collect his thoughts. Hamburger wanted to make every word count. He continued, “I will stay the same no matter what I am given or no matter what I lose. I wake up every morning and I have something I can work on. At the end of the day I polish a little bit more.

“My ability to deal with you,” and he looked me straight in the eyes unlike many interview subjects. “I can’t be good to people if I don’t know what’s going on with myself. So every day I’m trying to work out my interior so that no matter what happens in my exterior, who knows what can happen? You whole life can change in one second.

A strong arm.

“The only way I can deal with that is by working on myself.”

Mary Tyler Moore wasn’t the only Twin Cities related icon to pass over in 2017. Robert Pirsig, the Minneapolis-born author of the 1974 spiritual best seller “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” died in April at the age of 88. In “Zen,” he wrote, “The place to improve the world is first in one’s own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.”

Hamburger is also a devotee of yoga, something he has been doing since 2009. “I definitely went into yoga deeper after getting sober,” he said. “But yoga has always been there for me as my workout besides lifting weights. It is kind of like my church. Some days it would be a way to get rid of something. Some days it would be ‘I’m here enjoying my friend next to me’. I’m pretty loose with what happens the day of my start. I don’t like to have any set things. Because if you have set things and one falls through…..”

For example, Hamburger is no longer overly set on returning to the major leagues.

“So much goes into it,” he explained. “I’d love to play at the highest level. Would I like to be able to play in big stadiums and be able set a life for myself money wise? I would. But now that I’ve come across personal happiness the need for external happiness doesn’t matter as much as my inner soul. I would love to go to the majors but if it didn’t feel right with where I was at in my life, I would say no.”

In a phone conversation Saints manager George Tsamis said, “Mark could be pitching at AAA right now. He’s throwing 90, 92 miles. He wants to be starter. He always wants to pitch the whole game He will pitching in our all-star game in a few weeks (July 25 in Ottawa, Ontario) in front of all those scouts.”

It has been reported that Hamburger turned down one major league deal as a relief pitcher. He does want to remain a starter. He is a huge fan of Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige and brings Paige’s baseball card to the ball park on the day he pitches. He used to carry an original Paige baseball card in his wallet.

“I heard I can’t get out lefties,” he said. “I’ve been winning a lot of games which means I’ve been getting out more lefties than I don’t. I disagree with a lot of thing people say, like ‘We see him as a reliever.’ Well, you’ve never given me the opportunity to start with a big league baseball. Starting with a big league baseball as opposed to Triple AAA baseball is completely different. The movement of an AAA baseball or our baseball versus the big leagues is tremendous. Could I be successful as a big league starter? Maybe. I guess I’ll never know unless the right person sees me.”

Mark Hamburger big league baseball card.

Leroy Robert “Satchel” Paige (1906-1982) liked to say, “Ain’t no man can avoid being born average, but there ain’t no man got to be common.”

“Satchel Paige is everything I want to be, except he left contracts all the time, which back then I can imagine,” Hamburger said. “He was one of the best pitchers of all time. His quotes, his life style, the fact he pitched two, three games a week. There was no pitch count back then. Are you kidding me? I’m not a fan of pitch counts. The most I’ve thrown this year is 130 something. Pretty light load.”

Attention TheoJed: sign this guy now.

Hamburger continued, “I’m not a fan of limiting people. Limiting yourself is the worst thing you can do.” Last year Hamburger broke the American Association record for complete games in a season (7) and led the league in innings pitched (158 2/3 innings).

He does not see any doors being closed.

* * * * * * * * *

Mark John Hamburger was right on time for our pre-game conversation. He had been on the field dancing with the Saints’ pink and white mascot Mudonna T. Pig for a video tribute to a St. Paul television weatherman. (The Saints’ live ball pig is named “Alternative Fats”). Kids love Hamburger because he is always up for anything. He has fun.

Hamburger is known as “The Mayor of St. Paul.” His father Steve is a graphic designer and printer who took over his own father’s business. Hamburger’s mother Cheryl is an interior designer and stay at home mom. He has an older brother Paul and sister Michelle. The Saints pitcher lives with his parents.

Mark Hamburger in Paradise (L), with apologies to J. Buffett.

Mark Hamburger (L) in Paradise, with apologies to J. Buffett. Check out the no-fun guys on the bench.

“I don’t have my own home,” Hamburger said. “I was born in Shoreview, about 15 minutes from here. I’ve lived in the same house since I was born. The fact that I returned and I’m playing here isn’t random. For me, this (the Saints) is the real reason of baseball. I can’t say that for other people. And where you come from calls you.”

Hamburger knows home is where the heart is. He owns two camper vans.

* In 2014 he bought a 13-foot 1967 FAN (Franklin A. Newcomer) manufactured in Wakarusa, Ind. For the past two off seasons he has been restoring the vintage trailer with his brother. FAN was in operation between 1957 and 1980. Hamburger purchased the tin-can trailer in the Catskill Mountains. “Just going to get it was the most wonderful time,” he said. “The small towns of upstate New York are amazing. I’m not going to polish it. I like the rustic outside. But we will be doing a lot of mods on the outside, a roof rack and custom canopies. I’m guesstimating it will be done by September.” The FAN van will become his home.

* In Australia he has a Ford Transit Van, a cousin of the one that I drive. Mine is blue with a silver canopy, his is white with a purple canopy. Hamburger’s ride has solar panels, a 160 liter water tank and outdoor shower. “Stove top but no fridge,” he said. “The fridge pulled too much from the solar. They have some pretty nice coolers that stay cold for a couple days. The solar panels are amazing. Being able to live without having to plug in is great.”

Hamburger guesses his Australian van is about 17 feet long. “I actually sleep diagonally,” said Hamburger, who is 6’4.” He added, “There’s so many other ways to sleep. I have a hammock. I have a tent. Once I get back to Australia I will reconstruct it a bit. I actually want to get a tent that goes off the back so when you open the double doors I can have a tent and my own little foyer.”

Karma worked in Hamburger’s favor. He finished the winter league with a 1.90 ERA, the the lowest in the ABL (Australian Baseball League). He pitched the Melbourne Aces to their first ever grand final series where they lost to the Brisbane Bandits, the reigning ABL champions.

“The main sponsor for the Aces asked me if I was coming back next year,” Hamburger explained. “I said I’d love to. He said, ‘We know you’re only making $200 a weekend and we’d like to help you out.’ I said, ‘It doesn’t matter. I just love this place so much.”

The Aces knew Hamburger was restoring a van in Minnesota. They asked him if he saw any wheel dreams he liked around Melbourne. And he had.

“They called me up on my birthday (Feb. 3),” he continued. “He said, ‘Do you want to go to Sydney?’ I said, ‘For what?’ He said, ‘You know that trailer you sent me the picture of? I talked to the guy who owns it and I’d like to buy it for you.’ Hamburger first said he couldn’t accept the transit van.

A gift from Australia.

“I didn’t want to owe him anything and I didn’t want to put logos on it,” he said. “This was going to be my home and not some team project.” The team insisted he take the transit van as a gift. Hamburger broke down in more ways than one. “I was so humbled,” he said. “On my birthday? Of turning 30? A true blessing. I don’t have a home. And this guy, on my 30th birthday purchases me my first home. My last three weeks in Australia were bliss. I lived up and down the beaches. I had my stove. Cooking eggs. Fruit. And going to the ballpark and playing baseball.”

Hamburger has also played winter ball in Mexico, Puerto Rico and a teetering Venezuela.

“I was in Venezuela twice and the last time was 2016,” he said. “Right when I left they grounded planes. The bolivar’ went out so you couldn’t spend bolivar’ anymore. It was interesting to see things escalate a lot, but it also made me thankful to live here. I loved Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela. The baseball was great the money was great but I couldn’t connect with people. I’m fluent but you can’t get to the depth of someone. You have to be engulfed in the culture for years to learn someone’s heart in another language.

“Australia is the only other place that had winter baseball. A couple years ago I thought it could be my second home. And when I went there all this occurred. They bought me that Transit and apparently this was my second home.”

How did Hamburger get into van life?

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“My sister told me about these gentlemen who wrote a book on minimalism,” he said. “With her life, a car payment, her apartment and she was living off of $18,000. I looked at my spending. I had so many clothes, so many different things. Once I purged those things I felt so great. I guess that’s how my life has been the last couple of years. Instead of buying stuff to feel better it’s letting go. Having the practice of letting things go in my life, it just kept happening more and more.

“Solitude is big for me. I think I’m an empathetic person so recharging by myself is something I need.”

He has an eye for the unique when on the road in the American Association, a league that takes the Saints through Gary, Ind., Lincoln, Neb., Wichita, Ks., Sioux City, Ia. and even Kansas City, Mo. “When I get into town I find a co-op, a good grocery store,” he said. “Take my meal money and get all the food I need for the three days I’m there. Sometimes I find a yoga studio. I always cruise around town to find flea markets. You can find gold in the Goodwills in some of those small cities we go to.”

“I do go solo a lot. After ten years of doing this, you usually have a roommate or go solo. I like going out with the guys but I spend ten hours a day with people. So when I wake up I like to be on my own for the first few hours.”

His 50-year-old manager Tsamis observed, “Mark is always happy and he gets the job done when he’s out there. He rides his skateboard, longboard, whatever you call it, everywhere. He flies on that thing. I haven’t seen that before. I’m not a big rules guy. You want them to show up on time, play hard and care about winning. The long hair is not a big deal. If would have asked me that question, 10, 15 years ago, I would have been against the long hair. It doesn’t matter.”

In professional ball Hamburger’s journey has taken him through Clinton, Ia., Frisco, Tx. and Tucson, Az. But one of his best memories is embedded around the oil fields of Bakersfield, Ca., the land of Merle Haggard and Buck Owens. In 2010 he compiled a stingy 1.77 ERA with 18 saves for the Bakersfield Blaze, but the meaning of his time with the Rangers affiliate goes beyond the numbers. “We had a game canceled because a huge dust storm blew the entire parking lot onto the field,” he said. “We couldn’t see our left fielder. I played the two best frisbee golf courses of my life just outside of Bakersfield. And I saved a dog. That is is the biggest moment in my baseball career.”

Pitching down under, 2017

One of his teammates found a malnourished boxer-mastiff mix behind the team batting cage. “He was under a year old and 80 pounds,” Hamburger said.

“Broken femur. I put the water to him and he didn’t move at all. He just looked at me. After about ten minutes he lifted up his head started getting water. I realized I could pet him. I picked him up and brought him to my place.” Hamburger and his teammates named the dog Blaze in reference to their ball club.

“The next six days we were at home and I brought him in front of the fans,” Hamburger recalled. “I said, ‘Hey guys, this is our dog, we found him but they’re going to kill him if we can’t save his life.’ The fans raised $750 and anonymous donor paid for whatever they didn’t cover because it was on the news. So we got him femur surgery and found him a permanent family. He was the most beautiful dog I have seen. He never made a noise. I wish I could have taken him. He must be 160 pounds right now.”

Hamburger has met a litter of characters throughout his baseball career, but the first player that comes to his mind is St. Louis Cardinals reserve first baseman Jose’ Martinez whose journey began with the Chicago White Sox before stopping in independent league ports like Rockford, Ill. Martinez played 887 minor league games with 11 different minor league teams.

Hamburger and Martinez were teammates in Venezuela. “I basically say what he said every day,” Hamburger said. “He’d laugh–ha, ha, ha–and I’d go, ‘How ya doin’ Jose?’ And he’d go, ‘Outstanding looking! I’d go ‘Outstanding looking?

Outstanding looking man with a van.

“And (former Rangers teammate) Josh Hamilton. My second outing was in Fenway (Park). I ran past him in the outfield. He spit and accidentally hit me in the leg. I turned around and he wiped it off. It was like, ‘I’m in Fenway and Josh Hamilton spit on me! This is the best day of my life’.”

Hamburger played some high school baseball at Mounds View High School in Adren Hills, Mn. During his senior year he was noticed by a Twins scout who came to see another pitcher. “I was pitching 86 or 87 at the end of the game,” Hamburger said. “I had more strikeouts. Less pitches. He came over and asked me what my GPA was. I told him and he said, ‘Maybe you should go to school.’ He was right.” Hamburger enrolled at Mesabi Range Community College where he went 11-0 with a 0.65 ERA. “He saw me after college at an open tryout for the Twins at the Metrodome,” Hamburger said. “In two years my velocity went from 87 to 92, 93.” The Twins signed Hamburger in 2007.

His pitching repertoire now includes the somewhat underhanded “submarine splitoon” and the “slurvy slurve.”

Hamburger laughed and explained, “You got the eephus pitch. That’s kind of my slurvy slurve. I’ll try to make my body look like it is going as hard as it can and then at the last second slow down, release it and try to throw a 55 mile an hour curve. I actually struck out one of my good friends the other day, Reggie Abercrombie (former Houston Astro and Florida Marlin) on a 64 mile an hour slurvy slurve. And he laughed.”

Most important, Hamburger is having fun.

“I asked our GM (Derek Sharrer) if during the fifth inning sometime when I’m pitching if I could run in the stands and grab a kid’s cheeseburger,” he said with a warm smile. “Take a bite of it and give him a hat? I’ve learned that the more I’m here, the freer I become.

And I feel better being free than being rich.”

Van People

Camping with a logger

July 7, 2017 Dave Hoekstra Leave a comment

*Good Canadian neighbors (L to R) Eric Westelaken, Meghan and Dylan Smith*

EAU CLAIRE, Wis.–My camper van travels took me all across America and into Canada, but it wasn’t until the 2017 edition of the Eaux Claires Music and Arts Festival that I met someone who was so thoroughly excited about trees.

Dylan Smith looked at trees with the zest of the birds and the bees.

I was camped at the Whispering Pines Campgrounds outside of Eau Claire (French for clear water), about a mile from the music festival site.

My future neighbors pulled in late at night. Dylan, his wife Meghan and friend Eric Westelaken came to Northern Wisconsin from Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Co-curated by Justin Vernon of the minimalist folk band Bon Iver, Eaux Claires is becoming a big deal. In 2016 the festival attracted 14,500 people from 35 states and several countries. All of the campground’s 1,500 campsites sites were sold out and there were hundreds and hundreds of tent campers covering most of Whispering Pines’ 40 acres.

Besides my Canadian compatriots I ran into a family of Isralei campers during the third edition of Eaux Claires. I envision more mid-range marriages of camping and music like Eaux Claires, especially when I look at Alpine Valley in East Troy, Wis.

*Camping for Jimmy Buffett at Alpine Valley, East Troy, Wis. 2016 (Dave Hoekstra photo)*

The next morning, before the mid-June festival began, I heard the organic sounds of Canadian guitarist Daniel Lanois coming from Smith’s 16-foot Starcraft Launch Extreme camper.

I asked him to take my picture with my Blue Bird camper van. Smith walked backwards about 20 feet from my van. His steps were as measured as a tightrope walker. He laid down on the ground and pointed the camera upwards in order to frame my van with the tall campground pine trees. It was a beautiful thing.

Smith is a Canadian logger.

“A logger, but I would call it a ‘woodsman’,” said Smith, 30. “Trees are living things. They’re beautiful. When I’m walking through the woods I do take a lot of pictures. There’s a thousand trees in the woods and one will just grab you. You have to take it in. The way they bend with the weather and time. Maybe some (trees) were almost destroyed when young so they have these crazy crooks in them. They make a perfect bench for you to sit on. You can’t walk by it.

“I do specialized forestry work,” he explained. “I chase contracts around. I’ll do anything from surveying to blind cutting and claim staking for mining companies. With claim staking, you’re the first one in the woods. You walk with a GPS and tag the trees with the date and the time. You want to be doing that in the winter. You do that in the spring and you’re going to run into the marshes, bugs and foliage. I’m either running through the woods looking at trees or chopping down the ones that are sick.

“I’ve been lucky enough to do mostly reclamations and less logging. More specialized insect attacks. We do tree planting in the summer. I do line cutting contracts where you cut perfectly straight lines for geologists to walk with special machines.”

Smith grew up in the Canadian woods. His father Marcel and grandfather were loggers. “In my twenties I got offered a job in the Rocky Mountains cutting down trees that were infected with (beetle) pine kill,” he said. “It decimated the pine industry. The government put a bunch of money into controlling it. I ran as hard as I could and fell into the industry. I’ve been all across Canada doing specialized forestry work.”

*Camper Van in Wisconsin (Photo by Dylan Smith)*

There’s a lot of trees in Canada.

“Lots of trees, yes,” he said. “Once you get over the mental aspect of working in 50 below every day for three months straight and once you see how much money you can make–and once you don’t do it for a while, you get the itch. When I had my little boy (Felix) with my wife I thought I’d stay home forever. But it’s just not for me.
“It’s my second family, my forestry home.”

His wife said, “In the winter sometimes his eyes freeze shut because its so cold.”

Smith explained, “I was doing an Arctic contract near (the territory of) Minerva. It’s north for Canada. I don’t even know how the trees grow. There’s polar bears. But when you’re running a chainsaw all day you’re sweating–in 50, 60 below. As long as you don’t stop working I’m usually just wearing a long sleeve shirt and jacket. You have to let that sweat dry and get away from you. If you’re cold, you’re not working hard enough.”

Smith lives 80 per cent of a year in the heated hybrid camper, where tents pop out of the side. The camper has a stove, shower and small bathroom with a 2,000 pound holding tank. “The company I work for lets me use it for personal use,” he said. “I’m blessed to work for such good people. It gives you lots of space to live with another guy when you’re working or bring the kids and the wife. I tow it with my Honda Ridgeline. This is my first music festival with the camper.” The drive was seven and a half hours from Thunder Bay.

*Eaux Claires 2017 feather installation (Dave Hoekstra photo)*

Smith was excited to see Mountain Man (three women from Durham, N.C.: Amelia Meath, Molly Sarle and Alexandra Sauser-Monning). “Its music I actually listen to when walking in the woods,” Smith said. Ironically, Mountain Man performed in the Oubeaux woods adjacent to the festival main grounds.

A black “Snake Farm” trucker’s cap set Smith apart from the pack. “Snake Farm” is the name of his forestry crew. “That’s my second family,” he said. “The name comes from a Ray Wiley (Hubbard, 2006) song. We listen to it every day in the summer and pull up to every job where everyone calls us the ‘Snake Farm’.”

Smith also listens to singer-songwriter Leif Voellebekk from Vancouver, who had regional success in Canada with “You Couldn’t Lie to me in Paris” and lots of Eau Claire’s own Bon Iver. “And I’m hooked on Beck again,” he said.

“You get lost in it.”

Off in the distance Meghan and Eric were lost in a game of “Polish Horseshoes” near some elm trees. Smith laughed and said, “That’s what we call it. I think you call it ‘Golf Toss.’ (with rings and frames) ‘Lather Rings?’

The tools of Smith’s trade haven’t changed much since his father and grandfather were woodsmen. “It’s still pretty stone age,” he said. “They try and do things with machines but for the pine needle is so specialized and you don’t want to damage the forest. You have to go in by foot and go in by hand.

“Droning technology will take away a lot of the surveying but when it comes to specialized control work, that job will be here forever. I’ve been very lucky. A lot of time away from home, but at the same time I’m camping and the people I work with take care of each other.”

Smith believes in climate change.

“In America you see the policies and the struggle,” he said. “There are cycles throughout our life. We have our impact. But when Mother Nature wants to do something it’s gonna happen. The science community is saying something. Our winters are getting shorter. In the woods the blossoms happen at funny times and the mayflies will be out when they shouldn’t and the food isn’t there. There’s little shifts that are happening. It was the hottest year on record last year. It’s got to be happening.”

Van People

The Man Who Invented The Outdoors

July 22, 2016 Dave Hoekstra Leave a comment

*Inventing the Outdoors (Courtesy of Michigan Historical Museum)*

LANSING, Mi.—People can take the outdoors for granted.

As recent as the 1890s the “outdoors” was making the transition from a place where people foraged basic needs to a reflective place of recreation. The best thing about the outdoors?

You can’t take it with you.

Webster Lansing Marble knew this. Marble (1854-1930) is an overlooked outdoorsman and entrepreneur who carved out his niche in Gladstone, Mi. His Marble Arms & Manufacturing Company was the purveyor for Charles Lindbergh’s flights and Teddy Roosevelt’s hunting trips.

Marble is the focus of the wonderfully named “Inventing the Outdoors” exhibit that runs through Sept. 1 at the Michigan Historical Museum in downtown Lansing.

Retired Lansing advertising executive Dennis Pace is an enthusiastic Marble fan. In 2014 he donated his collection of nearly 400 pieces of Marble merchandise to the State of Michigan. Pace serves on the board of the Michigan History Foundation and is co-curator of the 250-piece exhibit that features Marble brainstorms like the safety axe, coat compass and waterproof match box that was invented in the early 1900s after Marble fell into the Sturgeon River in the Upper Peninsula.

Marble was definitely pre-Popeil.

*Co-curator Dennis Pace camping in a Michigan museum. (D. Hoekstra photo)*

“Without a doubt Webster Marble is the greatest outdoor inventor-entrepreneur that nobody has heard of,” the 66-year-old Pace said during an exhibit tour before I took in a Lansing Lugnuts Midwest League game earlier this month. “It is also a story that involves Chicago. If it wasn’t for Chicago, Webster Marble never would have had the job he had.”

Marble was born in Milwaukee. His father Lansing invented a bushel basket making machine among other things. Lansing sold the Milwaukee plant and moved to the wilderness of Vassar, Mi.

“Webster grew up to be a timber cruiser,” Pace said. “In his early twenties he was hired to work for the timber companies to harvest the forests of Michigan. That endeavor got speeded up in 1871 after the Great Chicago Fire. Chicago essentially placed an order for all the wood that Michigan could possibly ship to them. Webster spent 20 years in the woods working as a timber cruiser.”

A timber cruiser is part surveyor and part excavator.

Marble used as little equipment as possible since he usually had to carry it on his back. His desire for more convenient tools led him on the path to inventing. “Webster was about 5’2″ and not much over 100 pounds,” Pace said. “And he’s carrying 50 pounds on his back: surveying chains, a big surveying compass, a notebook.” The exhibit includes Marble’s detailed notebooks.

Webster’s great-grandson Joe McGonagle and his daughter Kathy opened up the family archives for the first time to explore Marble’s history. It took more than a year of research, design and construction to create the exhibit that spans 100 years.

By 1898 Marble designed, prototyped and patented his first idea of the safety axe. The company’s first factory was located behind Marble’s home in Gladstone, Mi. Gladstone is in the Upper Peninsula.

Marble was in the right place at the right time. About half of Michigan consists of water and has more shoreline than any other state except Alaska. Michigan is framed by four of the Great Lakes: Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron and Lake Erie.

“Webster had a foot in two worlds,” Pace explained. “He worked as a timber cruiser and until the mid-19th Century that was the method that Americans related to the outdoors. The outdoors were a treasure trove of natural resources. We mined the minerals, we harvested the timber and killed the bison for meat.

“Then, in the late 1800s more people came to cites like Detroit and Chicago. They were living in tenements and apartments with no air conditioning. They worked long hours. And they wanted to get outside. That was before the automobile so they would take the railroads up north where there were YMCA camps, hunting camps and outdoor camps.”

The outdoors were becoming a destination where visitors could improve their health and uplift their spirit. “People started looking at the outdoors as a place for recreation and not just for the exploitation of resources,” Pace said. “The Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and Camp Fire Girls all start. Women start going into the woods.”

The Camp Fire Girls were born in 1912 as an offshoot of Cam WoHeLo near South Casco, Maine. “Part of that was to make women feel strong and independent and to get that good outdoor air which would physically and morally ‘refresh’ them,” Pace explained. “Then you have the first seasons for controlled hunting and fishing.”

People looked at the outdoors in a very different way.

And Marble could see the forest from the trees.

Last fall the State of Michigan passed a resoultion declaring every Nov. 15, the start of the state’s firearms deer-hunting season as Webster L. Marble Day.

“He spent 20 years as a timber cruiser,” Pace said. “He was going into the woods for weeks and months at a time. He went ahead of the timber companies who bought hundreds of thousands of acres or leased them. Webster surveyed section by section and drew little maps; ‘We’ve got 80,000 board feet of white pine another 25,000 board feet of red oak..’ That’s how timber companies worked. There weren’t a lot of good knives and axes specialized the way we know them, for lightweight camping. For example, Webster sketched how he could develop a compass that pinned to your coat. Then he realized the needle in the compass is hard to read in dim light so he invented the rotating dial, called the compass card. The whole dial rotates rather than the needle so it is easier to read.

*Courtesy of Michigan Historical Museum*

“Webster starts to manufacture these new products in 1898 and ends up having 60 to 70 patents. He ends up with the largest factory of his kind–IN THE WORLD. He understands that if he is going to sell this stuff and make a lot of money, he’s not going to sell it to just timber cruisers and professional hunters. He’s going to sell it to all the people in the cities who want to get outside. Even if it is only for one weekend a year.”

Pace’s donated collection includes advertising materials, promotional pennants, catalogs and ‘The Marble’s Monthly Message,’ a magazine that featured columns like ‘Reminiscences of a Timber Cruiser.’ The exhibit includes Marble’s 1916 magazine reflection about a group of rugged lumbermen who were upended into chaos by a swarm of Yellowjackets.

Pace is an avid camper, hiker and mountain biker who loves the half a million acres of beaches and woods of the Huron-Mainistee National Forest in west central Michigan and the Porcupine Mountains in the Upper Peninsula. “The mountains are truly unique geologic features and some of the most silent land in the country to be alone in,” he said. Pace said Chicago visitors are at an all-time high in the Upper Peninsula.

People need to get away.

Pace discovered Marble’s work at a 1984 knife show. “I came across a couple tables filled with these beautiful products I had never seen,” he said. “They were all from the Marble Arms company. I met another collector and spent hours listening to his stories. I was hooked. This was a part of Michigan history and outdoors history I had never heard.”

Marble died on Sept. 22, 1930. “He was married later in his life,” Pace said. “After he came back from the woods.”

The advertising connection made Marble a kindred spirit for Pace, who called Marble one of the inventors of the celebrity endorsement in the outdoors product community. “When Teddy Roosevelt went to the Amazon and Africa, he was using all (Marble) outdoor products,” Pace said. “When Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic for the first time, in his survival kit was a Marble compass, a Marble ideal knife and a Marble match safe to keep his matches dry. Those items are in the Smithsonian.” In the 1920s and 30s all Boy Scout and Girl Scout six-blade knives were Marble products.

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“One of my favorite Marble quotes is that 90 per cent of knives and axes are bought by people who have no practical use for them,” Pace said with a laugh. “They want them as ornaments to display or merely possess. A picture from the 1920s or 30s is Marble’s typical customer, dreaming when they were in the military, great camaraderie in the woods, camping as a young man. These are pipe dreams.

“You’re not going to get out there that much. However, if you own a really great axe and nice knife you can take them out and look at them. It’s like restringing your fishing rod. Whether you use them or not, who knows?” “Inventing the Outdoors also includes a hands on ‘invention station’ where kids can learn and participate in the process of invention.

One exhibit panel features “Webster Marble’s 10 Lessons for Today’s Entrepreneurs.” Sadly, No. 10 is “Be Ready To Replace Yourself–In an evolving company be sure to know who can fill your shoes if interests or demands move your focus elsewhere.” Pace said, “He was a smart guy and a great entrepreneur but he broke one of the biggest rules of building a business—have somebody there to replace yourself.”

The Marble company still exists in Gladstone, but they only make iron gun sights. An odd company sidebar is the Hoegh Pet Casket Company in Gladstone. “Around 1966 Denny Hoegh comes from Iowa to Michigan,” Pace said. “He knows about plastic vacuum forming and starts making (plastic) gun cases. Marble sells these for a while and stops. There’s all this equipment, but what else can go in them? A light bulb goes off. ‘Dead pets!’ And now the Hoegh Pet Casket Company is the largest in the world.

The woodsy Webster Marble would be proud.

The bark is always louder than the blight.