Bonnie Jo Campbell - The Letter Parade

The Letter Parade's Comstock Chronicles
For the family and friends of Bonnie Jo
February 2008
Crimes Against a Wrecker Driver
The Assault
On a Saturday night, October 19, 2002, Henry Lanning and Chad VanDusen, each six foot tall and over two hundred thirty pounds, pulled into Don York's driveway in a borrowed GMC Jimmy. They had an iron pipe and a roll of duct tape and gloves. Lanning got out and approached the house while VanDusen stayed in the vehicle. York had heard the neighbor's dog barking, so he opened the upstairs window and turned on the outside light. Lanning shouted up that he needed a jump for his vehicle parked down the road. York, who is a trim man, five foot eight with shoulder length white hair did not know Lanning, but when saw the guy was wearing brand new gloves he felt something was wrong. He yelled down, "I'm in for the night," told Lanning to jump the car himself with the vehicle he was driving. His house alarm system was already set, but after he closed the window he loaded his shotgun anyway with four cartridges. That night and the next few nights he slept with the shotgun in his bedroom.
Chad VanDusen was Don York's ex-wife's nephew, and VanDusen had met Henry Lanning a few days earlier at the home of a mutual friend, and both men were absconders from their parole. In VanDusen's words, they both needed to "hit a lick," which was to say they needed to make some money fast. However, the men gave up on York that night and went home, according to VanDusen, who later pled guilty to conspiracy to commit armed robbery. According to the prosecution and key witnesses, Lanning returned alone three nights later with some rope and a busted off tree branch the length and thickness of a baseball bat, hid in the trees outside York's house and waited.
Don York was known to be a man who didn't like banks. Anyone who knew him knew he carried, in his pockets, rolls of cash, from which he could peel off as many twenties, fifties, hundreds as he needed. And he was rumored to keep his life savings in his house. Don York has always driven a tow truck, and for twenty-five years he has run his small junkyard just beyond the border of Comstock Township where he grew up and almost graduated high school in 1967. At York's junkyard you can buy tires, engines, radiators, starters and alternators for American cars and trucks for less money than you can get them anywhere else. Before he owned the salvage yard, he used to part out cars in his back yard.
On the following Tuesday night, October 22, at about eight o'clock, York pulled in the driveway, shone his bright lights on his front door so he could see to unlock it, turned off his alarm, then went back out to his wrecker to get the pizza he'd picked up for dinner. The next thing he remembers is waking up in the hospital three weeks later.
(… If you'd like to read more of this article "Crimes Against a Tow Truck Driver", please let me know and I can email it to you. It's a dozen pages long and I can send it with or without the eight photos. I worked really hard to get the Comstock diction (actually bought a transcribing tape recorder with foot pedal)…)
News Around Here

The end of the year 2007 holidays were a success in that no one around here got arrested for drunk driving or for anything else, and nobody fought or got food poisoning or got in a car accident. See Christmas Eve photo above. (If you want a key to who everybody is, I can email it to you.) Christopher and I and Mikey and others are meeting often at Bell's Brewery on Sunday early evenings, so sometimes we can be found there. This week, however, we made a souffle instead; Christopher felt he needed all his wits about him for that operation so didn't dare take any porter in advance. He's discovered a new drink, Imperial Stout, nine percent alcohol—you gain a pound every time you drink one, and you may only need one.
The big news from Mother Nature came in the form of a flood on the St. Joseph River. (See Christopher’s photo—write to me if you want to see more) According to the National Weather Service website for Advanced Hydrological Prediction service for Niles, Michigan, we achieved the fourth highest flooding waters in recorded history. However, the water did not even go to the floor of the big cottage. We hypothesize that this is because the Lake Michigan water level is so low that the floor water rushed right past the cottage in its haste to reach Michigan.
Of course everything is frozen again and covered with a foot of snow, and Susanna's driveway has become again the Comstock Iceberg, so please don't drive all the way in unless you've got great tires or four wheel drive or enough passengers to push you out when you want to leave. The donkeys are cranky about the cold, but I don't want to put their blankets on them unless it's really necessary, as they don't like me to take them off once I get them on. Susanna managed to get herself a burst appendix, and she proved herself to be a super woman once again by carrying on with that burst appendix ("according to that pain chart, it was about a three," she says) for more than a week. With a burst appendix she lifted all the stuff off the floor of Terry and Kathy's island cottage and put it up on the beds to prevent damage.
On the level of personal achievements, I have cleaned out and mouse-proofed my cupboards with wire mesh and steel wool, and I have stacked all the expired canned goods out on the counters so I will be inspired to eat them. The stack is dwindling, but there's the water chestnuts, coconut milk, and four more jars of my 2005 tomatoes. Also, Christopher and I now make pie crust using vodka (thank you, Mary Szpur and Nancy Garrity for that subscription to Cooks Illustrated. I’m obsessed with cooking now.)
We've hardly traveled lately, but Chris and I did drive our giant Ford truck to Grayling to retrieve a spare roof for the Lustron. It was a great achievement to clean the garage just enough to put the roof in it, so there is no extra space, be sure. If you'd like to read more about the Lustron roof or yellow jackets, canning tomatoes, cleaning the horse tank or finding the year's giant puffball, or interviewing guys at York's salvage yard any other thing, check out my blog http://www.bone-eye.blogspot.com/
Notes from Readers:
Wayne Beebe wrote from Tulsa OK to say, "My lady friend Jan and I are going on another Carribean cruise in January. We make ten stops, only one of which I haven't been to before. We mainly go for the beaches and sunshine." Wayne sent along a profile (of himself) from the Tulsa World. It tells how Wayne took up bicycling while he was serving in North Africa under General George S. Patton. Wayne is quoted: "We had to go along with the invasion in North Africa, and I bought a bike there that I rode around." The article also says that Wayne met Jimmy Carter outside a temple in Nepal when he was biking there. "He was a bigger man than I would have thought."
Carolyn Chute writes from Maine: I've been limping around on a walker for a few months, tarsal tunnel surgery in 2006 and can't go anywhere without a wheelchair, scalded leg in March 2007, had to go to doc's every other day for two months. Got behind on mail and everything. Hopefully I can get back to work in the New Year.
Anne Sjostrom writes from the southern hemisphere: At the end of November, I made my escape (from Colorado) and managed to get on an airplane before any more family crises arose. Following a compelling urge to travel south, I eventually found myself on the New South Wales and Victoria border where I came upon a folk festival being held between Xmas and New Years. One of the organizers is a descendant of people who settled in the valley in the mid 1800's. The festival was founded in 1962 in an effort to keep alive the dance music that this family and others in the area had brought with them. It was such a fabulous week of "bush" (barn) dances, spontaneous sessions with fine musicians and singers around scattered campfires at all hours of the day and night and good conversations to be had into the wee hours of the night (until kookabura call) that I splurged and bought a wooden Irish whistle that the guy made. He also makes lovely concertinas. He (on accordion, concertina, saw and probably other things), his wife (fiddle and whistle) and some of the other locals make up the Nariel Creek band. I don't think I've listened to much live folk music since Uof C folk festival days, but couldn't resist trundling along to another festival in late January which was equally as fun even though there were fewer people; and in a few days I'll be heading for a Fiddlers Convention outside of Melbourne. I think the upcoming one will have a few more set performances, but hopefully it will mostly be participatory as the other two. A person could spend the entire year traveling to various festivals if one's budget would allow it...Needless to say, after living like a house hermit for the last couple of years and feeling like I've been released into some musical nirvana, I need to at least think about finding some work to pay for groceries and petrol and the odd campsite. In the meanwhile I've been enjoying a stint in the nation's capital, Canberra, where there is dancing to be had most nights of the week. Will catch a contra dance on Saturday and a vocal harmony workshop on Sunday before heading off down the road to Melbourne via the Snowy Mtns--time to commune with nature again before facing crowds of people all camped on top of each other.
Sam Thompson writes from just south of Kalamazoo: Well it was bound to happen and finally did, the navel hernia I got as a gift from the surgeon who did my emergency gall bladder removal strangulated on Friday night. Before noon on Saturday morning it got fixed and Sunday at 9 am they dumped me on the street as they tend to do these days. Now I ask you is that any way to treat an old man who has to suck oxygen to breath? Huh? Oh well, does no good to whine and complain. actually I have been doing great since Saturday. The hernia was slowly doing its thing and I was slowly getting more and more sick for all the toxic sludge that was building up. I did ask for and got the details . They did flush out my colon and I was told no to worry about having a bowel movement until after I had gone 10 days without any action. also told that all forms of gas were a good sign except if I were to once again begin to swell up like a balloon. I honestly can say I feel great! It has been all of 3 days since my surgery and I have not felt this good in years! I even went to the store to pick up a few things this morning and was amazed at how good I felt as usually fluorescent lights just have me spinning off into nausea land. I was in my 40's the last time I entered a store with those bright lights that either make you look pink or a sick shade of very light blue.
Christmas card highlights include Kellee Campbell & Matt Cole’s homemade card, “Dance with Cheer, the New Year’s Near,” and Mimi Lipson’s linoleum print of a Happy Holidays toll booth, Gina Betcher’s hand-painted holiday peace sign card, Margie Coles and Neal riding camels card and Rachael Perry’s “happy smiley little girls” collage card. Let me also share highlights from Christmas Newsletters
Karen Miller and David Morris reach back to the previous Christmas to begin their newsletter: "We spent Christmas 2006 in Perth, Australia, enjoying the juxtaposition of Santa and his eight tiny reindeer displayed alongside palm trees, seemingly oblivious to the summer sunshine."
Carrie and Chad Crabtree write about their jobs and hobbies, "Chad has taken up photography and post processing in particular. He's very good at making pictures look like anything but photographs. And I've been making lewd origami figures (pornogami, if you will). I've found that they are best made out of pages of Japanese teen girl magazines."
The Bungalow Babbler, "Matrimonial Edition" was sent to us by Alicia Conroy and Chris Schmid and featured photos of the wedding and a disturbing brief about Chris getting "an invasive growth that damaged middle ear bones." Just when you thought it was safe to sit quietly and listen!
Lisa Durose and Susan write, "In March Desiree turned three. To celebrate, Desiree decided to crack open a bottle of dandruff shampoo. After the nervous call to poison control (which is now on our speed dial), she confessed that she thought it was lotion. Of course!"
Pat and Sybil Herlihy write from Northamptonshire: "In May we went to the annual York Gathering of the Friends of Cathedral Music. This was as wonderful as ever, with such beautiful choral music in such an awe-inspiring setting. But this year we were also offered the amazing opportunity to see the renovation of the East Front in close-up. We donned our hard hats, stepped into the iron cage and were transported up in front of the Great East Window to the pinnacles and spires above. We were able to admire the painstaking work of the masons, patching and replacing the intricate (rocking!) stonework; and we could appreciate the immensity of the task of supporting the heavy lead on the stained glass. And what a view!"
From Sonia Lipson: Anyway, this was my 50th year, and I had this enormous and kind of frightening birthday party at the very beginning; January 6th was warm and muddy, the party was chaotic, exciting and overwhelming, like getting married again, except to everybody at once…. Then I decided to go into a monastery. Except that I didn't, so instead I became even more frantic, worked a lot of overtime, took a second job, broke a rib painting unsafely on a high ladder, broke three more ribs falling in a hole while washing windows in the unfinished 1st floor coach house out back, and then…..got fired from my job. So then my boyfriend told me I should really slow down. So I didn't….because I was 50 now so instead I went to Europe with him, visited 7 countries in 16 days, went to court (don't ask!) and got really into debt. I forgot to put oil in the car and burned up my engine. Then I had a big fight with my tenant about a cat, so inherited a new project; renting the first floor apartment in a bad season and having to finally face fixing some of those windows which had been broken for 15+ years.
But it wasn't all bad. I now have a new job that's really nice, working with a whole new population that's Vietnamese, old Boston Irish and people like airline stewardesses from Hingham! And life has finally settled down. I have a shiny new Jetta with a sunroof. Lucy and I share a cozy bedroom with the gecko Sunny Side Up. I make my bed almost every morning. Ben is always near, hibernating in his soundproof room next to us (he's jealous of Sunny Side because of his heat lamp). Felix comes to wake us all up with blaring Regaton music every morning at 6:30am. Joanna is on after school duty. Newlyweds from India are moving into the first floor. Also now I have a really nice place to put people up when they visit.
Since Sherry Kent and Jack Helbig got their last year's holiday letter out three months late, I'll include a few notes here: After a marvelous several days on the East Bay, the Helbents took a short commuter train to San Jose where they stayed with Jack's high school friend, Debbie and her partner Marybeth. Debbie was great as always — energetic, funny, and brilliant—and, as she proved, very patient. Not that we did anything wrong. In fact, Sherry and Margaret did a great job uncovering a minor flaw in the plumbing of Debbie and Marybeth's beautiful, newly remodeled bathroom. Who knew that if you drain the tub it sends gallons of water into the floorboards and then down into the beautiful, newly remodeled kitchen? You haven't lived until you've seen soapy water dribbling through gorgeous recessed ceiling lamps." Also reported from Margaret's gymnastic class that she "did 66 cartwheels in 3 minutes at the cartwheelathon"
Writing News: Heidi Bell’s story was published in the Chicago Reader. (You can read it online for now at http://www.chicagoreader.com/
features/stories/fiction07/bell/) Congratulations, Heidi—you've just reached more readers than anybody else! Yours truly (Bonnie) has stories appearing now or forthcoming in Southern Review, Ontario Review, Kenyon Review and Witness. My old essay “Bahama Trauma” about my brother Tom's broken legs, was just printed in MacGuffin (alongside Elaine Seaman’s poem!). I had an essay in Fourth Genre (and have another one coming up) and in Blue Mesa and fiction in Alaska Review. I interviewed for the fiction writer professor job at WMU, but the field is competitive and I just heard word I have not made the final cut. Rather than the nurturing well-published farm girl, they may go the high-toned academic sophisticate route (I've heard Kellie Wells is also in the running.) Anyone who wants to read something unfinished for me and give feedback, please let me know.
Send news and notes to bonniejo@iserv.net or bonniecamp@gmail.com or use PO Box 52, Comstock Michigan 49041
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