John Schneider

John Schneider wrote a daily general-interest column for the Lansing (MI) State Journal for 24 years. His non-fiction book, “Waiting for Home: the Richard Prangley Story,” documents the life of a man wrongly institutionalized for 15 years. His play, “Voice Mail,” takes place in a news room, naturally. He and his wife, Sharon, live on 12 acres just beyond suburbia. They have four grown children – one in heaven and three on earth — and three grandsons.

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Disengagement

I first noticed this phenomenon in casinos, where some players would pass up live blackjack dealers and go for the blackjack machines, where virtual dealers ran the game from a screen.

It made no sense to me, mainly because the payouts of any gaming machine can be adjusted (I’m not saying they are; only that they could be), whereas a live game is pretty much impossible to rig.

I figured that the gamblers who preferred the machines were new to the game and were afraid of being castigated by other players for making mistakes.

Then I noticed something similar in grocery stores - people standing in line at the entrance to the self-checkout machines, while live cashiers stood idle.

It made no sense to me until I came upon a newspaper story that offered an explanation I hadn’t considered:

“The popularity of self-checkout, then, could suggest a subliminal shift in some shoppers’ priorities—an aversion to waiting might be outweighed these days by a reluctance to engage with other people.”

I’m not sure what this says about the current state of our society, but I don’t think it’s a positive development.

(Adobe stock photo)

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Cosmetic surgery

We did what we could, then faced the fact that our beloved white birch trees needed professional help.

As you may recall, the March 2025 ice storm in northern Michigan was a birch tree’s worst nightmare. Our limited skills and irrational audacity took us only so far toward restoration. Nobody got hurt, but the trees still looked like deformed stick figures.

So, we brought in pros to administer the final touches. They came Monday with heavy equipment to remove the hangers and danglers, the fractured limbs that loomed over us like guillotines, accusing us of neglect. (More than one summer guest has eyed them warily while passing underneath).

We salvaged what we could, but one particularly ravaged victim of the calamity - naked, except for the leaves that clung to a limp arm stretched uncertainly over our roof - had to go (bottom photo). Not even the pros could save it.

We notice, however, that saplings already are sprouting from birches cut in previous years, stocking the future.

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'May you browse until you buy!'

The Bubs are cleaning house at Whispering Pine Studio, unloading gear they no longer need on Reverb, an internet site dedicated to buying and selling new, used, and vintage musical instruments and audio equipment.

The sale, which starts Wednesday, will include more than 100 pieces from the band’s recording sessions, touring rigs, music videos, and artifacts from Whispering Pines. Some highlights:

A 1950s Gibson double-neck console lap steel used for Alive from Whispering Pines and seen in the “I Lied” music video

A 1960s Epiphone Cortez heard on every album since Vide Noir, including "Lost in Time and Space," "The Balancer’s Eye," and "Emerald Star"

A Danelectro U2 that was Ben Schneider’s second guitar and was later used on "The Yawning Grave"

A 1969 Ludwig Black Oyster Pearl drum kit used on Vide Noir, Long Lost, The Cosmic Selector Vol. 1, and Alive from Whispering Pines

A late-’50s Guild M-65 Freshman used on every Lord Huron album since Strange Trails, including "Frozen Pines

Click on the photo and let Tubbs give you the lowdown.

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The Up North experience

Yes, Independence Day '26 is long gone, but the 250th birthday celebration continues.

Who says you can't light birthday candles all summer long ... ? And who even needs a reason ...?

We had a bunch of Morning Glories left over from July 4th and a couple of young guests at that lake over the weekend who were more than willing to put them to good use. (Here Sharon demonstrates the proper technique.)

It's all part of the Up North experience, along with bonfires, BB guns, burning marshmallows, collecting rocks, chasing frogs and braving the brisk, but holy, waters of Lake Huron.

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The birds are back in town

A week or so after they flew the coup - grounded by the wildfire smoke and forced to hunker down in the brush - the shore birds are back on the job.

A few days ago, overnight, a cleansing wind blew in from the north and a fresh morning dawned. Blue sky, blue water, air like crystal - the whole Northern Michigan palate. A breath of fresh air in every sense of the word.

The birds soon followed - the ducks, the loons, the plovers ... and all the rest, flocking back to their hunting grounds. Survivors.

It's good to have them back.

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The Bros

Last weekend son Justin and family drove from Noblesville, Indiana to St. Paul to see Lord Huron play the Minnesota Yacht Club Festival, along with The Lumineers, Cage The Elephant, The Strokes, The Black Keys, Matchbox Twenty and bunch of other bands.

Benjamin frequently credits his older brother for helping to shape his musical tastes.

I'm always happy to see the siblings get together, wherever it is.

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Selective enforcement

We can all agree that pedophilia is among the most heinous of crimes and that anyone convicted of it deserves severe punishment.

In fact, if you believe in hell - the literal one, or the metaphorical one here on earth - you could argue convincingly that there's a special unit in either of those hells for adults who prey on children.

Obviously the owner of the pick-up truck bearing this decal is a proponent of vigilantism. I would welcome the chance to ask him it he espouses the same treatment for those who use their wealth and power to protect the non-local pedophiles who happen to have the right connections.

And in case you think this decal is one of a kind, I found them for sale, in various incarnations, on several different websites, including Etsy.

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Shades of gray

Famous for its bluebird skies, with matching lakes and streams, northern Michigan has been cast in shades of gray for the past week or so.

A combination of clouds and wildfire smoke has stripped the region of its color, turning everything into paler shades of gray.

That background made the colors in this sailboat I encountered while fishing one recent day seem all the more vibrant.

This morning offers a promise of clear skies and bright sunshine. We could use it.

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Missing in action

Gazing out our kitchen window at the Lake Huron shoreline one recent smoky morning, I saw something strange. Rather, it was what I didn’t see that was strange:

No seagulls. No loons. No geese. The usual shorebirds that patrol the beach and feed in the shallows were nowhere in sight.

Highly unusual. It dawned on me that there might be a connection between the smoke and the missing birds.

I looked into it and found that, indeed, there was. Birds have highly sensitive respiratory systems. Their lungs process air more efficiently than mammals, making them especially vulnerable to the toxic particulates and low oxygen levels found in wildfire smoke.

The smoke also interferes with their navigation.

When there’s smoke in the air, birds hunker down in deep cover and move as little as possible to minimize inhaling polluted air.

(The photo was taken during earlier, smoke-free days)

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Just another superhero movie

"The Odyssey" lasts just short of 3 hours. To me, it felt more like four.

How, you might ask, can a film filled with fabulous monsters, unrelenting action, buckets of blood and continuous peril come close to putting me to sleep ...?

Well, that may be the problem. Ironically, for all the spectacular special effects, Christopher Nolan's summer blockbuster just isn't very imaginative. It lets the razzle-dazzle do all the work and largely ignores character development. It turns the poetic mythology of Homer's epic into a standard Superhero movie.

I felt no emotional connections. I knew Odysseus would prevail, but didn't care.

When it comes to film adaptations of "The Odyssey", I'll take the Coen brother "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" any day.

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Unholy smokes

As you can see, the smoky air in northern Michigan is too much even for Uncle Wiggly, the mascot at a Cheboygan party store

We hoped that a heavy rain late Friday night might cleanse the air, but on Saturday morning it seemed more acrid than ever. The "hazardous air" alert remained in effect and the scent of a smoldering bonfire hung in the sky.

A stiff northwest wind blew all day Saturday, but it was impossible to predict whether it would push the smoke away, or bring more in.

This morning the sky looks clearer; maybe the worst of it has passed.

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Trump's twinkle-toed supplicants

Behold the conga line of Trump nominees doing the Election-Denier Shuffle, twisting themselves into knots to avoid contradicting the delusional sputtering of the tyrant they serve.

Asked during congressional hearings about the 2020 Presidential election, they just can’t muster the courage to utter two words of obvious and indisputable fact: “Biden won.”

Instead, they tremble and squirm and parrot the blatant falsehoods of their narcissist-daddy, rather than risk incurring his wrath.

The two hoofers pictured above - Attorney General nominee Todd Blanche and would-be DNI Jay Clayton - are only the most recent supplicants in a long and dishonorable line.

It would be entertaining if it weren’t so sad.

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Smoked!

To paraphrase Bruce Springsteen, I woke up Thursday morning to a yellow sky, hazardous air and instructions to stay indoors.

What I thought was pollen on the windshield of our Impala was actually ash.

It’s the heart of Michigan’s short summer and we’re eager for some fun on the lake. But to paraphrase Lord Huron, the 800-plus wildfires currently burning in Canada don’t care, nor does the wind that's carrying the smoke and ash to the northern U.S.

I heard a business man in Cheboygan ask, while glancing in the general direction of Canada: "Why can't they keep their damn smoke to themselves ...?'

I didn't bother pointing out to him that the elements are oblivious to our burning eyes, or scratchy throats, our cabin fever ...

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Not suitable for all audiences

During my days as the daily columnist for the Lansing State Journal, the local library sponsored a kind of “literature hotline”; kids could dial a number and hear “celebrities” read passages from books that influenced them as they were growing up.

I was one of the recruits. Not paying close enough attention, I suppose, to the demographics of their target audience, I immediately turned to “Catcher in the Rye,” which, as I wrote in Tuesday’s blog, nudged me toward my chosen career. I recorded and posted.

As it turned out, I should have gone with my second choice, Dr. Seuss’s “McElligot's Pool” - the angler’s ode to optimism - because “Catcher” went over like a firecracker in a library. I don’t recall which part of the book I read, but it must have had a touch of salt on it.

A librarian phoned me to say that my selection was, well … inappropriate and that it had been banished from the hotline.

Funny, but I never got a second chance.

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Happy birthday, ‘Catcher’

When, as a surly 16-year-old, I turned to the first page of “Catcher in the Rye” and started reading the opening sentence, something clicked.

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

The first-person narration, the wise-guy attitude, the plain language, the thumb in the eye of authority … I devoured the book in a single sitting. I can’t say “Catcher” was the only factor in my career choice, but it was a big one.

This is on my mind because Tuesday’s New York Times included a story about J.D. Salinger’s tale of adolescent disillusionment turning 75 this week.

Obviously not every book gets that kind of treatment. Clearly I wasn’t the only one to fall under in its spell.

(Tomorrow: How “Catcher” got me into a little bit of trouble 50 years after I first read it).

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Kayaking craze

I looked out onto the lake recently and marveled at the sight of this 4-person kayak.

Then I took a closer look and realized it was actually a fleet of four singles - or possibly two singles and a double.

Kayaks are a common sight on the big lake - and just any other body of water deep enough to float one (and it doesn't take much).

I read recently about the surge of popularity in the sport in the U.S. - from about 6 million kayakers 10 years ago, to 18 million now.

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The grandkid's all right

Even before I posted my blog about the mother-Lord Huron- Windsor connection, the front Bub texted me with some pointed questions about his grandmother's recreational habits.

I knew right away where it was going and that's exactly where it went - straight to the stage of the Colosseum, the concert venue at Caesar's casino in Windsor.

In between the songs he spun a loving little yarn about his grandmother's enthusiasm for video poker - and life in general.

He went so far as to call the Windsor casino her "home away from home," which wasn't too far from the truth. He had the feeling, he said, that she had returned Sunday night to check out his act.