American Faces #74 - Heart & Sole

American Faces No. 74

Sometimes the story you think you’re going for is not the one you get. In fact, if you’re truly open to listening, the real story is almost always something unexpected. Michael’s story, American Faces No. 74, once again reinforced that important lesson. Michael’s story also reminds us that the world is small, and people are brought across our path for a reason.

Michael operates a shoe repair shop in Osseo, Minnesota, called Michal’s Shoe Repair (yes, the name is spelled wrong – more on that in a minute). It started as a literal “mom and pop” operation in 1962, down in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota at the Brookdale Mall, and moved to Osseo in 2000. Michael began working in the shop when he was around 14 years old, learning the craft of shoe, boot and leather repair – and how to serve customers – from his own mom and pop. Michael served a few years in the Army National Guard after highschool, testing the limits of his youthful resistance to authority, then returned to work with his parents in the shop and to eventually be his own boss. He still serves customers one at a time, writes up work orders on paper slips, manages projects and inventory in his head, and remembers every customer by the type of shoe they wear. Michael’s old school in the best ways, in about every definition of the term.

In one respect, this is a story about craftsmanship, about a dying art form, and perhaps even about how even though we live in a throw-away culture where things are seemingly not made to last, people still find some satisfaction in repairing their favorite boots… just one more time.

Now, back to that misspelled sign…

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Where this story takes an interesting turn, and lands in the category of “things that make you go, ‘hmmm,” is the story behind the sign. You see, “Michal” is how his name is spelled in the Old Country. And the guys making the sign just (mistakenly) assumed he’d want it that way, because that’s how they spelled it where he and his family came from. It’s at this point Michael shared that his parents immigrated to the United States when he was a toddler. They brought their craft over from the home country, building a full life for their son.. and his kids and theirs, now third-generation Americans.

Michael still dreams of going back to the old country, visiting the town where he was born, riding a motorcycle through the countryside where his parents grew up, seeing the places and tasting the food they told him of. He still hopes to someday see the rest of the family he’s never met.

Those dreams now come with prayers, for the safety and survival of his family and homeland. You see, Michael was born in Ukraine.

Providence is an interesting thing. Sometimes people are placed in our path for a reason. And sometimes the story behind the story is really what we're supposed to hear.

Thank you Scott Whitman for your amazing writing.

American Faces #73 - World Changers

American Faces No. 73

World Changers. It’s a bold title but I feel it is very fitting of Dan and Sandy Adler. This wonderfully inviting and incredibly talented singing duo who helped bring the Heart of the City Music Factory to Anoka, MN have given so much of themselves. The Heart of the City Music Factory is a music and event venue etched into the community fabric of Anoka that brings in family friendly performers to entertain. When I walk into the Music Factory I feel like I am entering a Victorian mansion with warm colors, swags of fabrics and lighting fixtures that hearken back to a past era. But that is not what I mean by World Changer.

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The title World Changer starts to find its meaning when I read the title of their ministry; Heart of the City Ministries. It’s in the fact that Dan and Sandy Adler felt the call decades ago while they were worship leaders at a local church; a call for Heart of the City Worship Band to use music as a tool to unite. Since 1996, Heart of the City, has been bringing a message, model and experience of multi-ethnic worship and Biblical unity to thousands of people through live performances. They have also recorded their multi-ethnic, multi-denominational and multi-generational Heart of the City Worship Band. This heart for racial reconciliation is woven so deeply into the hearts of this wonderful duo you can hear it in almost every word they speak and in the emotions as they share of their years invested into this cry of their hearts. It’s here that I feel my title comes from. You hear it in the songs they sing like We Speak Life (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuy0cTb9KTA). I also came to realize during my time with them that these two have given so much of their lives to racial reconciliation through their incredible musical gifts. In the past, they had many offers from around the country to lead worship at large churches, but felt a call to unite people here in Minnesota. Their willingness to follow an unknown path to bring people together through music may not be a rich one by worldly standards, but it has been rich with relationships across racial and socio economic barriers beyond what our human minds can comprehend.

I walked away from this American Faces story with another friend and a renewed challenge to make the world a better place. Thank you Dan and Sandy Adler for giving so much to this world.

P.S. They make a cute couple!

American Faces #72 - Built for adventure!

American Faces No. 72

Dan Cooke (American Faces No.72) looks like a man born a few hundred years after his time. With a full white beard and mane of white hair, surrounded by canoeing equipment and artifacts from adventures into the world’s most remote places, Dan appears the modern equivalent of the old French fur-trading voyageurs who plied the waters of the great North American wilderness in the 1600’s.

In fact, that’s pretty near the truth. Dan has paddled and guided countless canoeing trips over 1,000s of miles of water. He’s canoed the Rio Grande on the U.S. Southern border, and 500+ miles on the Kazan River in northern Canada. Dan’s been snow-shoeing in the Yukon, backpacking in Chili and climbing on Mount Kilimanjaro. Recently, he kayaked in Antarctica, winter camped in the Boundary Waters, and rode horseback into the back-country of Yellowstone.

The early canoe explorers may have shared Dan’s feelings about traversing solo through remote wilderness. “It’s simple. No agenda other than eating, sleeping and trekking through the day,” says Dan, “My mind and body settle into a rhythm, focused on the pure physicality of moving.”

Early on, Dan’s passion for exploring the backcountry, and sharing adventures with his family and friends, spawned a home-based business that took on a life of its own.

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Like a lot of entrepreneurial ventures, Dan’s business began with solving a problem through some creative boot-strapping – in this case, almost literally. Dan and his wife Karen, working together in the early 1970’s at the Adventurous Christians camp (now Covenant Pines) on the Gunflint Trail needed better canoe packs for their guided trips. Working with hand tools, Dan pieced together locally-sourced canvass material and straps of old boot leather to make four custom portaging packs, and Cooke’s Custom Sewing (CCS) was born. Today, CCS makes 20+ models of packs and various tarping systems and shelters, canoe covers, snowshoeing mukluks, plus other canoeing and camping equipment – all retailing online and distributed wholesale through a number of outdoor recreation stores.Each pack and piece of gear is built for practical functionality and back-country toughness, with a lifetime of adventure experience stitched into every one.

Dan decided to retire from his 20+ year career as a mechanical engineering technician a few years ago after Karen, his wife and adventuring partner, passed away. He now devotes more of his time to the CCS business, creating more adventure memories with friends, and going solo into the wilderness.

Dan says of solo canoeing, “It’s pure – your paddle is the single connection point. There’s nothing but you and the boat, finding harmony with the wind, the waves and the current.”

Dan first learned to love paddling and adventure at an early age, camping with his parents in the Minnesota North country and in the Pacific Northwest, at summer camps as a kid, and later working up on the Gunflint Trail, guiding canoe trips in the Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness Area and other back-country lakes and rivers.

He says it’s never too late to start your own adventure.

Dan’s advice for anyone striking out on their own to start an outdoor recreation business is essentially the same advice he’d probably give anyone approaching any new adventure: do it for the joy of the experience.

“If you’re starting a manufacturing business to support your passion, don’t let the work consume you. Stay out there doing what you love,” says Dan, “Keep trying to find that impossible balance. Don’t give up the adventure.”

Not everyone will – or could even possibly – see and do everything Dan has done, but he says everyone’s journey is unique. And adventuring with an experienced guide is the best way to start.

“Get out there. Let your guide worry about the details. Enjoy the experience, be in the moment. Appreciate where you are,” Dan says, “Whether it’s canoeing the Boundary Waters, or winter camping in your backyard, your adventure is yours.”

Written by: Scott Whitman