You know our state motto about seeking a pleasant peninsula? They neglected to mention it's a pretty freaky peninsula, too.
Michigan is home to a laundry list of stuff that's compellingly weird. Like a creature that's part dog, part man. A weeping statue in a cemetery. An 81-year-old man who's a guru of toilet paper. A famous hairball. A giant red neon sausage.
Wait a sec, who says the Kowalski sign in Hamtramck is unusual? Well, Linda S. Godfrey includes it in "Weird Michigan" (Sterling Publishing, $19.95), the latest book in a series put out by a subsidiary of Barnes & Noble.
Godfrey, who coauthored "Weird Wisconsin," is actually from that state, not this one. Weird, isn't it, for a cheesehead to be documenting our strangeness?
Maybe not. After all, she's an artist and former newspaper reporter who's experienced in writing books on themes like werewolves. No matter where she goes, she exhibits a keen appreciation for the scary, bizarre and beautifully odd that transcends state boundaries.
Ask her which is weirder, Michigan or Wisconsin, and she doesn't play favorites.
"I would have said Wisconsin before, but Michigan has the UP and Detroit," she explains. "Between those two, it's really hard to beat for weirdness."
Now don't get all offended. Being weird is a positive attribute, one that Godfrey describes in glowing terms. And that's a positive glow, not a creepy-green UFO one.
"It really just means that you have sort of an independence of spirit, originality, something that separates a person, place or thing from the mundane herd," she explains.
And by mundane, she's referring to some place like Ohio, right? Kidding.
Godfrey researched the book by setting up the Web site WeirdMichigan.com, seeking out tips and spending a chunk of last year driving all over the state, hitting libraries, scouring newspaper archives and posing this question to the people she'd meet: "Hey, what's weird around here?"
The result is a photo-packed volume that covers everything from strange beasts and ghost stories to outsider art and roadside attractions, including:
? Lizzie Whitlock, whose Batavia Township tombstone reads "fat lady of the circus" to mark her status as a 19th-Century sideshow performer.
? Bill Jarrett, 81, of Wyoming, a self-described authority on toilet paper who's out to solve a great debate: Should the loose end of a toilet paper roll hang next to the wall or away from it? Check out his Web site, TheGreatAmericanToiletPaperDebate.com, to learn how you can get a ballot and a toilet paper magnet for $5.
? The backyard installations of Madison Heights artist Michael Anthony Dion, which can be seen from the sidewalk on Campbell Road between 12 and 13 Mile. Dion, who signs his work M80 and has exhibited at several galleries, uses found objects like doll parts to create hauntingly beautiful sculptures in his yard.
? A giant hairball, originally from a cow, that's in storage at Michigan State University. It's sometimes mistakenly referred to as the world's largest hairball, but it's not, says MSU Museum curator of history Val Berryman. Still, he describes it in appropriately Sparty terms as smaller than a basketball, larger than a football.
? An impressive 12-foot-high steel head of George Washington in a field near the Moran Iron Works in Onaway. Made by owner Tom Moran, it weighs about 6,000 pounds, 2,000 of which are the hair, according to Godfrey. If robot Founding Fathers ruled the country, this is what they'd look like.
? A statue in Battle Creek's Oak Hill Cemetery that, according to lore that's been around for decades, weeps on regular occasions.
How much of the book is based on real information and how much is fantasy? Readers can sort it out easily enough. The information on people and historic sites comes from authentic references, says Godfrey, while any legend "has to be taken not just with a grain but a big lick of salt."
Yet while researching one of the haunted Michigan stories, she ran across a scare of her own. In Manistee, she discovered the story of an impish ghost named Billy, a boy who died in the 1890s. When she went into the basement of a downtown building to have a look, she saw something in the darkness, a basketball-sized white thing.
"I blinked and it didn't go away," she recalls. "I turned my head away and then looked back, and it was still there."
Although she had a camera around her neck, she was so shocked that she couldn't bring herself to take a picture. Pretty weird, indeed.
On Oct. 8, Godfrey is to appear at Barnes & Noble in Rochester Hills. The plan is to have some small trees on hand so people can toss shoes into them. It's in honor of the "shoe trees" mentioned in the book that serve as repositories of flung footwear.
That's the fun part of the topic. There's enough weirdness in Michigan for everyone to share, and anyone can participate by looking around their own hometown.
"These stories that people are telling one another around campfires or at parties, these are our local emerging folklore," says Godfrey. "It needs to be written down and treasured for future generations."
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/arti ... /609230319
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