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of Bob Moats |
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The story continues...
This page updated on January 24, 2005
Our first weekend in Frankfort was the Labor Day weekend so the town was celebrating.
We moved all our belongings from the truck into the house on Forest Ave and relaxed.
I really can't remember how we got Mike Brennan back to the Detroit area, maybe I drove
him and back, I may have done that. Anyways the next week Pat and I did some sightseeing
and found a really interesting business out on a country road called "Gwen Frostic's
Presscraft Papers". It was a small printing company that published and sold in a display
room Gwen Frostic's poems, books and woodcutting prints she made over the years. I had
printing experience so I put in an application, but they didn't need printers, they did
however need a night time custodial/security person so I got the job. Gwen Frostic lived
above the company and her family wanted someone around to watch the place and her and
clean the place. After being there a while Pat applied and got a day job putting frames
on the art prints. We hardly saw each other during the week with our split shifts but
we were at least earning an income.
Around December Pat had been feeling a bit odd and we got one of those pregnancy tests
and she came up positive. We got a second opinion from a local doctor, Dr. Cook, it was
confirmed that Pat was pregnant.
Once a month, over the weekend, we would drive the 250 miles to visit my parents and
250 miles back. One trip we stopped in Frankenmuth Michigan, a small Bavarian tourist
town in central Michigan and We found a small store there called Pinoccio Miniatures
that sold dollhouse stuff. I fell in love with the tiny treasure, I have always like
miniature things anyways, so I bought a miniature magazine and took it home. Back in
Frankfort I had an idea to publish my own magazine and spent some time typing it up
and laying out the pages and took them to nearby Traverse City to a printing company
and had a couple hundred copies made up and put them together. I promoted the thing
by sending out the magazine to numerous companies that sold miniature stuff looking
for advertisers. I started getting a few supporters and continued the monthly publishing
for a few more months while still working at Gwen Frostic's.
 Copy of the cover of the first American Miniaturist Magazine
One day while we were putting the magazine together, Pat felt some discomfort, and we decided it was time to head to the hospital. Pat gave delivery to our son, Justin who was born on July 21, 1981 at Paul Oliver Memorial Hospital in Frankfort. Justin came out with the cord around his neck and a bit turned, so after Dr. Cook delivered him, another doctor, Liniea Priest, decided he was a bit distressed so sent him to the big hospital in Traverse City. Poor Pat hardly saw him before they shipped him out. After a couple of days, Pat was released from the hospital and her mother came up to visit. We all went to Traverse to see Justin then brought him home. Things went smoothly after that. Shortly after Justin's birth I was offered a job in Traverse City at the printing shop than did my magazine, it was called Speedee Print. I accepted and quit Gwen Frostic and started to drive 45 miles one way to my new job. That area between Frankfort and Traverse was 90 percent country so my drive was quite quick on the country back roads especially in the summer when I would ride my motorcycle to save gas. Cranking up to almost 90 miles an hour on the straight shot to the city made for even a quicker trip. One day at work at Speedee Print I got a phone call from the office at Gwen Frostic's saying that Pat had wandered up to Gwen's private residence upstairs and was found just sitting there. They tried talking to her but she didn't make any sense. They called the Benzie County Mental Heath people who came to see her. I left work early and went to get her. At that time they couldn't tell me much and Pat was definitely not herself. I spent the better part of two weeks watching her as she couldn't function by herself and I had to get a baby sitter for both her and Justin so I could go to work. After about three weeks she started to get better and still no one could help me as to what happened. I did in later years find out that Pat had mental problems before we met and her first husband tried to have her certified mentally unstable. Life got back to somewhat normal, as normal goes. When Justin was ready to go outside we would take our weekends and go sightseeing. One trip took us around the Betsie Bay to the town across the bay from Frankfort called Elberta. We stopped at a combined antique/second hand store called the Cabbage Shed. (I bought my first motorcycle that I mentioned earlier riding to work at this place.) While there we met the owners, Jim and Ellen Clapp. After getting to know them we found some common interests, one was that Jim was going to try out for a part with a local theatre group doing the stage play "Don't Drink the Water" by Woody Allen being put on by the Benzie County Players. I helped Jim run his lines than decided to try out for a part myself. I went to the auditions and ended up getting the lead role of Walter Hollander, the part played by Jackie Gleason in the movie version. Jim and I continued to work on our parts and the production started in rehearsals. I got to know more residents of the county who form the BCP and made new friends. Kim Breeseman played my daughter and Katie Johnson played my wife, Marion. Jim Clapp got the part of Father Drobney, a crazy monk and the show was directed by Jim LeFew, a friendly bear of a guy who formerly taught theatre at a Michigan college. We worked for about one month and then the play went on at the Garden Theatre in Frankfort. It went very well and was well received in the tiny community. The next show we did was "Harvey", about a six foot tall invisible rabbit. Most people remember the movie with Jimmy Stewart and our little production was blessed with having a stage actress from the original Broadway production of "Harvey", MiMi Minard who played the nurse at the mental ward, but in our show she was Aunt Veta. I played Dr. Sanderson from the mental ward, not a big part which was fine with me. The stage was built with two sets, one in front of the stage and just before we opened there was a huge rain storm and the Garden Theatre had a leak in the roof and almost ruined the stage, we had to move furniture up to the main stage and pretend it was the front stage. All went well though and the production got through it all.
 The front stage with Tom Bonhorst who played Elwood Dowd, the friend of Harvey.
The main stage that was spared the rain onslaught.
MiMi Minard, left, from the original Harvey; and two others who's names will come to me later.
Our next show was a summer in the park production of "The Fantasticks" in which I had the lead of El Gallo. I wasn't a great singer but managed to sing, act and serve as the production's producer.
Just before the weekend we were to perform I went into work and was informed that I was no longer needed. I was told that I wasn't getting the work done on time, which was stupid because I was in charge of the "in and out the door" printing, which meant I had to print the stuff while they waited and no one ever complained about waiting very long. The manager, Jerry Reilly, who I considered a new friend, had a drinking problem and often would have bottles hidden around the shop. He was in charge of the commercial printing and generally was behind on his deadlines to get the work done. I have a feeling he was blaming me for his screw ups to the owner, Jeff Nash. Jeff was a nice guy who was in a car crash that left him a quadraplegic and was confined to an electric wheel chair, but got around well. So I was out of a job, but when I went into the Benzie County Record Patriot newspaper office in Frankfort to get some printing done for the play, Scott McDonald, the manager of the commercial print shop in the newspaper office, found out I was available, he hired me to work there since he was being transferred to the Manistique office. I hold no grudge for Jerry, just sorry for him that he had a problem he had to hide. I started working for Patriot Printing in the back of the newspaper building doing commercial printing and also became the manager of the shop. Things went well there and it was only a block from my house so I didn't have that 90 mile trip to work anymore. The next play coming up for the BCP was decided to be a musical, and I volunteered to be director, which I think didn't settle well with Jim LeFew. I submitted the play "I do, I do" as I had seen it years back with Robert Preston and Mary Martin in Detroit.
We started rehearsals after picking a cast of two for the thing, but I was noticing a bit of interference by LeFew with the actors. I gave them a lot of space to develop their characters but I found LeFew was coaching them from the side lines. We had found a piano player and drummer who had done the play before and mounted the production in Dinner Theatre at a local restaurant. Our opening night was a huge success and well received to great acclaim. Jim LeFew never even said boo to me about it. Oh well. Shortly after that, Pat had another breakdown and I did what I could to take care of her and work. Life got a little hectic when my job got cut due to cost cuts in the company, but they put me to work on the newspaper putting ads together for the advertisers. We had to move out of our first house but found another one down the street and lived there for about eight months when I found, through Jim Clapp, a house in Elberta for sale on land contract. We moved to the house and I started gutting the interior and remodeling. I also took a job working nights for Pinkerton's Security, guarding the now closed ferry boat operation watching the huge docked boats protecting them from scavengers and also at the Pet Ritz factory guarding pie shells. I had basically cut myself off from the BCP but they had an opening in their production of "Wait Until Dark" due to one of the actor having a problem with the role. I took over on a couple of weeks notice and played the small part of Carlino. Jim LeFew was director once more and wasn't very friendly to me, but I endured. I got through the production and went into seclusion, just watching Pat and working for the newspaper.
The set for "Wait Until Dark, Main stage and side stairs with Pam Ellinger as the blind Suzy. Winter rolled in and one day Jim Clapp called to see if I wanted to go cross country skiing with him. We had a good time and after that went to a local restaurant, the "Car Frairy" and sat talking. Jim mentioned that he was interesting in opening a nightclub/bar in the Cabbage Shed and we hatched out a layout for the building. We even scouted around looking at other bars in the Traverse City area.  Jim Clapp Left, looking over a bar in Traverse City. I was behind the camera. We spent a number of weeks moving all the second hand stuff to the back of the building and many a cold winter's day with no heat building walls and the bar. Jim applied for a license to operate the food-bar business and waited. During this time Pat and I were becoming disenchanted with life in the great white north and talked about going back to southern Michigan. I told Jim about this and I sensed he was disappointed with my choice. Never the less, I felt we had to get out. The picture below is of Jim Clapp at his bar today. This picture was taken off his website, go visit it by CLICKING HERE.
So after almost four years there and many life changing events, we packed up one weekend and headed south to live with Pat's mom till we could get our own place. |
More to come....
