Features Erin Crowell When you come to the house of Karen Mertaugh, chances are you’ll be greeted by a dog, a cat or even a school of fish housed on the west-side wall – all before setting foot in the actual home.

Features Patrick Sullivan

He left to go to college and law school and begin a career and when he decided to move back to his hometown in the mid- 1990s, he was worried about what he was getting himself into. Would this be the same backward place he remembered from his youth? Or was Northern Michigan somehow getting more progressive?

Soon after he moved back there was a news story about a cross burning in Grawn and Ringsmuth thought his worst fears about coming home were coming true...

Best of NM 2012 • 2 Broke Girls • 30 Rock • American Horror • America’s Talent • Antiques roadshow • ANYTHING ON HGTV • The Bachelor • Bar Rescue • Beavis and Butthead • Boardwalk Empire • Breaking Bad • Californication • Castle • CBS Sunday Morning • Curb Your Enthusiasm • Daily Show- John Stewart • Deadliest Catch • Dexter • Don’t have TV.

Features Ross Boisonneau “There’s so much to the food industry,” said Brown. “The next weekend (after that fateful family meeting), we went to the farm market at Building 50. The weekend after that the Department of Agriculture showed up. We had no idea you needed to be (licensed).

Letters

Fireworks out of control

In response to “Get off my Lawn” by George Nemetz (Letters 7/23). First, I assure you that I am well under the age of 80, if that even matters. Also, the Express is not solely read by your age group of 30 and under.

Michigan has lifted a ban on some of the higher grades of fireworks and you can now obtain a permit to use the more powerful grade.

I also had problems with my dogs climbing the walls when a neighbor was setting off professional grade fireworks for several nights in my neighborhood. These are not just bottle rockets and firecrackers, they are the ones that are shot high in the air and are so loud they shake your house. The police were called by many in my neighborhood about this.

With the fire danger being so high, I was very concerned about my home and my neighbors’ homes catching on fire...

Features Rick Coates It was two years ago this week that Liz (Larios) Horn’s life was turned upside down. What seemed like a scene out of a movie became a reality as U.S. Immigration and Enforcement agents arrived in black suits and vehicles to the home Horn shared with her boyfriend Russell Horn.

Features Erin Crowell

Not many couples spend their honeymoon getting married. But for Traverse City residents Rob Stow and Jeremy Evans, they were doing just that when they took a train from New York City to a courthouse in New Haven, Connecticut.

In August of 2009, the two gay men arrived and filled out the application that would legally bind them as a married couple, and handed it to the county clerk employee wearing a baseball cap.

“It was very mundane for her,” Stow chuckled. “It was so nonchalant.”