Ross Boissoneau | Author
Arts & Entertainment to Warm Your Winter
Jan. 9, 2021
The pandemic has played havoc with all facets of life, including the arts. Whether music, lectures, visual art, dance, the live experience has all but disappeared. While the world awaits the vaccine and (hoped-for) subsequent return to something approaching normality, artists of all strip...
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The New New Year’s Eve
Dec. 19, 2020
“Should auld acquaintance be forgot?” Well, in the case of 2020, absolutely. Can’t get it in the rearview mirror fast enough.
But with the threat of COVID-19 around every corner, how to ring in the new year safely? There are some options.&nbs...
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Spin It: The Latest Holiday Music
Dec. 19, 2020
Ahhh, Christmas. Time to put on Perry Como, Julie Andrews, George Winston, Mannheim Steamroller. Get things rocking with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra or the Waitresses’ New Wave “Christmas Wrapping.” Slip back in time to Wham’s “Last Christmas” or Wham!...
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The Retirement of Mrs. Claus
Dec. 19, 2020
’Tis the season — albeit a bittersweet one for Karen Bobay. The entrepreneur has operated the Children’s World toy store inside downtown Traverse City’s indoor shopping Arcade for nearly a half-century.
This Christmas, for a change, Santa is bringing Bobay ...
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Your Ultimate Winter Bucket List
Dec. 12, 2020
Snowshoe and Sip in Boyne
At Boyne Valley Vineyards, you can enjoy a glass of wine and then snowshoe through the winery’s property to the trails at the Postle Nature Preserve — or snowshoe first and then enjoy your wine. Heck, maybe wine both before and a...
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Ski On, Northern Michigan
Dec. 12, 2020
It’s beginning to look a lot like winter — but it’s going to be a different winter, that’s for sure. Whether the local ski hill or the four-season resorts that dot the area, the overriding factor this year won’t be the weather, or new hills, or new terrain. I...
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A Girl, a Bird, and a Gardener
Nov. 28, 2020
An unlikely trio of characters from the pen of a local author has inspired a concert-length musical composition by the author’s husband. After delays caused by the pandemic, the piece will receive its world premiere, online, Dec. 4. And it all stemmed from events of 100 years ago.Read More >>
Holiday Entertainment: Will the Curtain Rise Anywhere?
Nov. 21, 2020
The show must go on — except when a pandemic changes things.
That more or less describes the holiday season in 2020. The usual cornucopia of concerts, plays, showcases, and multiple “Nutcracker” performances around the region has been whittled to a precious few t...
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Is Bird Still the Word?
Nov. 14, 2020
At Thanksgiving, thoughts always turn to the big bird. Not the yellow one from Sesame Street but the bronze and buttered breast-side-up bird on a platter that’s the centerpiece of so many family gatherings each November.
This year, the pandemic has altered so much of what&rs...
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The Stone Oven
Nov. 14, 2020
Brian Adams saw an opportunity in his hometown. When the LA Café closed, he took up the torch, opening The Stone Oven in 2012. It appears he hit on something, as the business has continued to grow even in this year of the pandemic.
Maybe it was simply his destiny. After all...
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New Turkey Day Traditions
Nov. 7, 2020
It’s the (second) most wonderful time of the year. For many people, the chance to gather round the table with a bevy of friends and family to give thanks for the year ranks only behind Christmas Day for joy and merriment.
Only this year it’s — different. Th...
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Septuagenarian Still Running
Oct. 31, 2020
If you see Mickey Fivenson out running, it must be a day that ends in d-a-y. The veteran racer not only runs every day but also runs a 5K every day — rain, snow, sunshine, spring, summer, fall, winter, you’ll find him loping through his neighborhood, greeting his neighbors, ma...
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Whistle If You Dare
Oct. 24, 2020
’Tis the season … the season for visiting people’s final resting places. Maybe you’re of a slightly morbid fascination, and you find cemeteries interesting because of the ghost stories you read as a child. Perhaps you enjoy tracing history and genealogy through th...
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Halloween Rising
Oct. 24, 2020
While the pandemic continues to impact lives and prevent mass gatherings, some Halloween events Up North, much like your average zombie, are proving unstoppable. Here are our picks from around region — some virtual, some not, but all ready to raise some chills up your spine:
Straight Outta Hamtramck
Oct. 17, 2020
There it stands, in downtown Cedar: The Polish Art Center. Some paintings of the Old Country probably, maybe some Polish pottery. Likely some Polish-made jewelry as well. How appropriate, right in the middle of a town that — until this strange summer, of course — celebrates it...
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A House Painter, a Steel Worker, and the Art of Seeing Potential
Oct. 10, 2020
Two companies. Two very different businesses. Yet they both came to a similar place: creating gorgeous tables, using reclaimed wood, historic downed trees, live edges, often with “rivers” of epoxy over a bed of stones.
Adam Gancarski has been painting homes for years, ...
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String Theory
Oct. 10, 2020
For Josh Shelton, the restrictions imposed by the pandemic were felt more keenly than for many others. Like many other people with a learning disability who were forced out of their daily routine and couldn't engage in social interactions, Josh struggled with the new normal.
Pandemic Brings Even More Heat To A White-Hot Real Estate Market
Sept. 26, 2020
There’s a mad dash going on in real estate: companies bailing on their massive corporate office buildings, families relocating from big cities to suburbs and safer small towns. And northern Michigan appears to be one of the places many are choosing, with realtors across the north re...
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Building Back The Trades, One Student At A Time
Sept. 26, 2020
The building trades are in desperate need of more workers. Old news, right? Most people are aware that the number of workers in the trades has been declining for years, made worse when the Great Recession hit and so many skilled workers either left the state in search of work or left the ...
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Could Delivery Save NoMi Eateries?
Sept. 19, 2020
What was once the exclusive province of pizza and sandwich joints has become a means for some restaurants to thrive. But even as outdoor seating — and with it, customer numbers and gross receipts — threatens to shrink with the cooling weather, not all restaurants are ready yet... Read More >>