Growth
Cure For Growthophobia
May 14, 2006 
As a young boy the GUARDIAN editor savored the occasional weekend at Grandpa Norm Alverson’s Farm in Lenawee County, Michigan.
“Stay outta the pen with the bull, he’s a mean one,” was the standard warning as the 8-year-old great grandson headed outside to explore the big gray barn and pyramid-roofed garage with a 1941 black Ford parked inside. It was better than any amusement park of today.
Gramp is long gone, having moved to a nursing home after selling the farm in 1953. Family folklore has him bantering with Henry Ford himself in the early days of automobiles and “inventing” a starter motor that ran on a fan belt and washing machine motor plugged into the house.
Little wonder that a business trip to the area earlier this month provided the perfect opportunity to visit “the farm.” The trip down Memory Lane led southwest of the Adrian, Michigan Airport about 4 miles. The barn is still there, the garage has been moved a few feet and a modest new home sits on the site of the old farmhouse that stood for about 150 years.
After making a few pictures and savoring the view, the Idaho Guy who suffers from “growthophobia” pulled into the driveway where he was greeted by the kindest gentle soul of a man you would ever want to meet. The growthophobe stuck out his hand and introduced himself to the white haired man wearing bib overalls…just like Norm Alverson wore 55 years earlier.
“And your grand daddy used to own this place. Come on in, I’ve been waiting for you,” said Claude Vandevender.
WAITING FOR YOU?? Was this some kind of “Field of Dreams” movie?
“Can I go smell the inside of that garage first,” said the Idaho Guy as the lump in his throat grew bigger.
Inside the house with the aroma of the garage still pleasantly stimulating the olfactory senses, Idaho Guy and Claude take seats at the kitchen table.
Claude was weepy-eyed by this time, but he was able to explain that his first wife died several years ago. With the help of new wife, Joyce, the couple tore down the original farmhouse three years ago.
“And stashed away under some boards we found your granddad’s boots,” said Claude as he plopped a pair of sorry looking shoes on the table. “That’s what built this place and the holes in the toes prove that farming is tough work.”
Apologetically Joyce said through her own tears, “They stay with the farm. If they ever leave, you should get them.” She’s right, the boots stay with the farm because they are truly a part of it.
With chickens clucking around their pen and peacocks, guinea fowl, and sheep wandering around, the farm is full of life. Toss in the apple tree with three or four varieties grafted onto the trunk and you have something approaching paradise for many people.
Now, for the moral to the story.
Claude Vandevender has a sense of RESPONSIBILITY to the integrity of the farm, to history, and even to the family of the Idaho Growthophobe. While he may not have “Kalifornians” flocking to the area waving money in his face, he probably wouldn’t sell anyway, because “It wouldn’t be right.”
He doesn’t see the farm as a key to riches. He doesn’t plan on ways to layout streets and populate the wood lot with homes. He never calls the cops because the neighbors are too loud. No, Claude and Joyce see “the farm” as a key to a happy lifestyle–a lifestyle that is surviving in Southern Michigan.
For Norm Alverson’s ancestors it is a comfort to know the farm, “is in good hands.”
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Comments & Discussion
Comments are closed for this post.
May 14, 2006, 10:35 pm
What a wonderful story, Dave. It makes me feel better about the world and also makes me long for the days when a trip from Boise to my cousin’s house in Meridian involved going through lots of farm land with very few homes. Guess I’d better go see my cousin again before the farm she lives on now, south of Meridan, is also swallowed up by the unrelenting appetite of developers and builders. As my late mother-in-law used to say “I’m glad I won’t be around to see that.” In this case “that” would be the total coverage of all ground with asphalt and concrete.
May 15, 2006, 10:19 am
Guardian, as I read your reminiscences, a flood of my own came back. My Grandpa and Grandma lived in Manti, Utah, rather than Michigan, but I remember the plain but immaculate house, the raspberry bushes (yum!), the old washer on the back porch, the barn full of hay, the loft, the swinging-rope… (If I could somehow capture a moment of my life, and “lock in” for the rest of eternity, that one would be a good choice.)
It’s unlikely that Lenawee County is suffering similar growing pains to Ada and Canyon counties, despite its proximity to Detroit. (Detroit is probably losing population, no?) Manti still looks almost exactly like I remember it from 40+ years ago. Perhaps even the Vandevenders would bend, if the local authorities were applying relentless pressure – in the form of spiraling property taxes, urban encroachment, development of adjacent properties, etc.
As a libertarian-leaning type, I generally feel people have the right to do with their property whatever they want to. But there’s no denying that my choices can have an impact on my neighbor’s quality of life. A thousand new people just down the road can have a HUGE impact on my quality of life. And for that reason, I can support some responsible comprehensive planning, and government leaders with the means and the will to adhere to those plans.
(The most pathetic thing of all… the folks who buy a third-acre and slap-em-up cracker-box in a subdivision that was formerly in “the country,” believing they can somehow achieve the idyllic rural lifestyle in such a setting.)
May 15, 2006, 8:22 pm
Dave — Nice that you could visit your great-grandfather Alverson’s farm in Michigan. Nampa has changed so much that I can never “go home” and visit favorite childhood haunts They’re all housing tracts today. Oregon used to have a land-use planning system that protected farms and forests. But a couple of years ago, the short-sighted voters passed Measure 37, and it has since been upheld by the Oregon Supreme Court.
The measure provides that counties must either waive land-use regulations or pay compensation if the land-use rules reduce the market value of a given piece of property. Of course, it’s easy to see that the market value would be lower for a working farm than if that property were subdivided.
The measure was pushed by developers and realtors, and the stupid voters went along. So I guess Oregon’s landscape will eventually look like that of Southern California. It already does in some parts of the Portland area.
May 17, 2006, 10:46 am
Makes me miss the old Boise I was raised in. The one before “Urban Renewal” when the “city fathers” tore down most of downtown’s historic buildings (back then they were called eyesores). My grandparents had owned a hotel down there and my mother and uncles were raised there. It had been out of their hands for years…however, the memory is still there for the family.
The land that the hotel was on has never been built upon, it remains a parking lot.
I still have a dresser that mom was allowed to take before the hotel’s destruction.
May 18, 2006, 9:01 am
Hey, Guardian… it’s not Grandpa Norm Alverson’s farm where the FBI is currently digging to find Jimmy Hoffa, is it?
(-;
May 18, 2006, 5:38 pm
Guardian:
I’m sure that if you talk to the City of Boise that they would buy you a one way ticket back to your roots…. bet the Mayor would buy it himself!