This continues a series adapted from the book, “A Sleeping Bear Collection,” Volume 2 of the two-part set, “Oral History, Photographs, and Maps from the Sleeping Bear Region,” produced by Tom Van Zoeren in partnership with Sleeping Bear Forever. Here we continue with another selection written by Nan Helm, introduced in previous columns This week she tells about her shopkeeper father, and the other men:
My father’s approach to life was that of the intellectual and scholar. Just for amusement, when not measuring out oil or diving for chunks of salt pork out of a barrel for customers, he would retire to a corner of the store, and with pad and pencil spend some happy moments solving an abstruse problem in geometry or trigonometry. But with the looming up of a presidential year, he turned into a different Dad, absolutely. The entire group that sat around the big stove suffered the same drastic change, and my little sister Maggie and I felt this change very keenly.
The group was about evenly divided into Democrats and Republicans and the heated arguments that took place were an awesome thing to listen to. Such pounding on the counters, until sometimes a lamp chimney from an upper shelf would fall and crash into a thousand pieces, to add to the excitement. Friend turned against friend. Hardly a day passed but there would be a terrible fight, in the sand or the snow, as the time might be, in front of the store. Blackened eyes and bloody noses were the order of the day.
