I have been writing since I was old enough to bang on a typewriter.

In the upper apartment at my Grandmother' house in Dearborn Michigan, I was given used paper that came from local Detroit hospitals where she and my Mother worked with titles like," Patient History", and "Operation Procedures" and spurned stories of  Doctors losing patients, or dropping instruments, but I also adored playing "secretary" with my Grandfather who referred to me as, " Miss Phyt".

Ann Arbor, Michigan
Early teens I took classical guitar lessons and later came up with a really bad idea of playing at a school talent show. I thought I was gonna die as I panicked through " The Ashgrove". Afterwards, Tina Schiller came up to me saying, "You think you're so cool", which dealt the final blow, ack.ack. The guitar playing stopped right there. She was one of those girls you just had to look good to.

Traverse City:
Five years later while spinning pizzas into a commercial oven in Leelanau County, a guitar found its way back, Tina faded away with the sixties, and the absurdity of bar life burst into song. That same summer I picked up a hitch-hiking woman on US 31 named June Soper. She was a crazy, ( as in smart ), American Indian woman living in a Wigwam behind a State Park and she says, "You look like you could live in the woods,
why don't you build build a Tipi?"
I told her that I had never seen one, but it sounds awesome. No more roommates. Ya, OK.. !
Two days later, we're off to a Cedar swamp with an axe, bag of potato chips, and a six pack of Pabst, June's favorite beer. (Pabst and Pall Malls were June's staples), and later my Father would provid the ten acres of solitude for the new Tipi  homestead named "Crow".  She was made with 54 yards of canvas shipped from Chicago, three seams of stitching to seven strips, and laid a brand new sewing machine to waste. What a beautiful site she was.  Iin the night, a glowing tipi orb, dwarfed by a surrounding Grandfather Maple, Beech, and Elm trees.

For years to follow, I played and sang to crackling fires with trees a-glow, sparks ascending, and 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, " Rob Roy's Cordwood Construction", and " Handmade Houses". It was perfectly normal to meet various people building their dreams far into the woodlands. Sand Tires, Bale houses, Gunnite domes, Yurts, tents, anything to sustain life in the woods.

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

After studying the " coffee table standard of the day",  " Shelter",  a massive collection of hand built housing, with "The Owner Built Log Cabin",  pounding questions & drawings in front of my extraordinarily gifted friend, Bob Jackson, a plan was set.  And a concept from Rob Roy's books really grabbed  my interest,  one COULD built something by hand with no electricity, with the loving help of loving friends. And one day, two summers later,  there it stood - a Cordwood Masonry Cabin.

 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.


 Summers kept  me working in Traverse City at an old Victorian house called  Shield's Restaurant. "The Keller" was a stonewall cellar under the house known  for it's pizza,  peanut shucked covered floor, and thousands of business cards on the low ceilings. It was also home to great local folk singers which I listened to while waiting tables. Several open mics later, scored my first playing job there. Astute customers would notice the calluses on my hands and say, " What the heck have you been doin', buildin a house?"  Could be... could be.