Welcome to Macina Island Moments, hosted by lifelong Islander Jason Saint Aje. Through conversations and interviews with Foe Island locals and residents, Jason will bring you the real stories and characters that to find life on the island. Whether you're a seasoned visitor, new to Macina Island, or even an islander yourself, you'll be sure to learn firsthand about the island with Jason on Macin Island Moments.
And welcome to another edition of the Macina Island Moments podcast, the only podcast brought to you from Macin Island by a lifelong islander. Folks, we're trying to get back on track. I know I've been kind of intermittent with our podcast uploads, but was a busy summer and a busy fall. But we're going to try and get more and more coming at you. And first of all, we want to thank today's sponsors. Sponsors the Mustang Lounge on Macin Island on
Astro Street, Michigan's most historic tavern. Parts of that building date back to the seventeen hundreds. In fact, this morning, I was thinking about the Mustang and kind of chuckling, you know, on the island before the advent of cell phones and emails and text messaging. For a large group of us, the Mustang was kind of the first digital bulletin board, if you would. And what I mean by
that is the guy like me might walk in. You know, the Mustang opens around ten, but the day bartender's in there at seven thirty eight am getting things ready and cleaning and such, and so you might walk in the door be unlocked. You'd walk in around eight o'clock, eight fifteen, and you'd say, hey, Adele or Gila, one of the morning bartenders say, I got to run to a shboy can tell Arman that part didn't fit, and I'll go
pick one up, be back at three, Yeah, okay. And then maybe an hour later Arman would walk in and say anyone seen Saint aj and Dell or Gila would say, yep, he said the part didn't fit. He's running to sheboy going to be back around three, to which Arman may say, okay, well, I'm heading to play golf. I'll see him probably tomorrow. Then okay, fine, I come back around three, I say where's arm and they said he went golf in Okay, great, I'll catch him up tomorrow. Now, that wasn't just a
me and Arman thing. There was probably ten, fifteen, maybe twenty people a day who ran in out of there with their daily messages and and what they were up to. And I never thought about it till this morning. But poor deb and Gila. They're expected to are Adele and Gila. They're expected to remember not only drink orders and wait tables and do all their work. But they're trying to shuffle half a dozen or so orders a day of folks just stopping. And this is not their job. This
is just just kind of how it worked. And I was kind of chuckling about that this morning, and I'm sure it's like that in a lot of small town bars. But since a Mustang as our sponsor today, I thought i'd bring that one up. So it's January. It's mid January, and it's pretty cold. I woke up as about six this morning, and tomorrow it's supposed to be below zero in the morning and kind of warm up to about three or four degrees in the afternoon, then go below
zero again. Not uncommon for mid January. This is kind of what it's supposed to be doing. A lot of question about the boats. How long will the boats still run? The ferry is still running as of today. Just talked to Larry Rickley. He said it's a lot open water. This morning he went outlooked and so I suspect today's boat at least the eleven thirty departure will be okay. You know, a lot of people don't really understand how
that works. There's not a set day or time. Arnold Ferry doesn't call up and say, okay, Wednesday at noon is going to be it this time of year, it's
day to day and oftentimes it's trip to trip. And what I mean by that is, you know, as the ice comes in, the wind can blow a lot of ice in, or the temperatures can drop and freeze the boat at the dock, and the locals no. You know, if you've been here long enough, you can look out the window, you can realize that you know, this is probably going to be the last week, or this is going to be the last weekend. You better start stocking up, you better get stuff you need moved moved, and that
sort of thing. But you know how it really works is, you know, they might load the boat up, put the passengers on and they can't get out of the harbor, and they say, okay, that's it, and the boat docks for the winter, you know, until spring breakup. Sometimes the captain runs the boat, gets it all the way to the island and then says, I'm gonna wait an extra twenty minutes on this boarding and that's it. I'm going back to saying this. We're tying up. There's too much ice.
We can't do it anymore. So as you can see, it's not a oh we have seventy two hours, Oh we have till Friday. It is this time of year. You better be ready because the boat could lay up at a moment's notice. And you know, it's been a good years. It's mid January and the ferry's still running, so it's hard to complain. So today we have a real special treat folks. We're gonna head over, gonna take the portable studio with us. We're gonna head over to
the West Bluff. We're gonna go chat with Dale Gallagher. Dale's an absolute legend, a real gem. He's the real deal, folks. He's in his nineties, he's still working. He has a memory that's just phenomenal. He quote He can quote years and dates and remember everybody who was present. So real, nice guy. He's busy, you know. So we're glad he's gonna take the time out to chat with us. But we're gonna head over. We're gonna pack up, We're gonna head over and see Dale, and folks, do I have
a treat for you today? We have where we took the studio on the road and we are at a workshop on the West Bluff behind one of those majestic cottages, and we are here with lifelong islander Dale Gallagher. Dale is the current the grand old Man of macn Island. He's the oldest living year round resident. He's just a spry ninety two. It'll be ninety three in March, folks. This man is working forty hours a week. He said he's cutting back. He's down to forty hours a week now.
But I stumbled into his shop. He's got coffee on and he agreed to chat with us for a little minute, for a minute or two, Dale, welcome to the show. So glad you're here.
Well, it's good to be here, but I'd miss all my friends that went before me.
Yeah, I'll bet and I'll bet you've known a few, so Dale has had all the best jobs on mcn Island. Really, he was chief of police, I should mention the Korean War veteran, and he drove the snowplow. But he's been taking care of several of these cottages on the West Bluff, those great big houses you see. He's been behind the scenes man since nineteen, say fifty five.
Fifty six, I started taking care of.
Miltons, okay, and it.
Went in when Richard bought it. I've been with him for thirty five years.
No, that's amazing. And you know it's funny because nineteen fifty five isn't fifty years ago, it's almost well, it's seventy years ago. And to imagine this, the same gentleman has been behind these places all those years. It's pretty amazing. I also say, for those who don't know Dale, he's a dapper man too. He's never had a hair out of place. I'm only fifty one, so I've only known him a little more than half his life. But I've never seen him with the hair out of place. I've
never seen him in a bad mood. He's always waving hello to folks, and in fact, a couple of weeks ago. Dale, you probably don't know this. My wife was behind you on the boat and a lady kind of cut you off a little bit and getting on the gangplank, and she said, oh, sorry about that, and you said, go right ahead, young lady. I have plenty of time. And not everybody is in that kind of a food getting
on and off the boat, that's for sure. But Dale, can you talk a little bit about your chief of police time maybe and tell us what that was like back in the day.
Well, when I was twelve years old, I told my mother I would never drink and I would never smoke, and she said, well, I hope you don't. And I've kept my promise that I wouldn't do it. And then OJ Smith, who was a chief of police before I went to Korean War, called me in and asked me if i'd be a night watchman for the city, and I said, yeah, I'm not working at nights, I can do it. So I started there. That was way back
in the fifties. And then I come back home from the Korean War in fifty four at the end of this year, and the first job I had was night watching again.
So then obviously from there, you worked up the chief of police. When did you go to work for the state park?
State Park? I went to work in nineteen seventy two.
Okay, and eventually retired from there. Well, he retired from one of his jobs.
Yeah, I did retire from that one. And then that was because my wife had a stroke and nobody was home to help with the problem she had that she couldn't do it herself. And finally the doctors told me, if you don't put her in long term care, you'll be here in here next So we had to spring her over where she could get twenty four hours care and it worked out pretty good. But during my chief
of police time, I worked for your OJ Smith. I've worked for Myron Bloomfield, who was a chief at one time, and then I worked for Jack Walcher until he resigned and moved to Rudyard. And he said, you know that I'm going to ask you to take this job, and I said, I don't think I can handle it. He said, you're doing all my work for me now, So that was really good to hear. So anyway, I took that sixty five sixty six ten hours a day, seven days a week now and then during that time the chief
of place because I could run a bulldozer. We had the landfill to worry about. So I take my uniform off at night and go out there and I got two dollars an hour to do the tract to work.
Will that be the old burners in or.
That was when we moved nineteen fifty five, we moved it from the village behind the village to early farm.
Okay, so you know, let's talk a little bit about your time at the state park. You must have been heavily involved in the restoration of all the buildings in the fort and the time.
I'll tell you in nineteen fifty nine. That was the year that missus Lacy was Jim Francis. I was working for him too, a part time, and he asked me if I would do some shingling because they had twenty one hundred bundles of shingles to put on the state roofs. And he said, I'll give you porky to work with. The two of us did all the roofs in the fort, plus the ones on the outside.
No kidding, I didn't know you worked for the General Jim Jim Francis, Folks, he was the biggest contractor back in the day.
But Jim was related to us because yep, our great grandfather had one son, and that was Jim's grandpa, right.
And I'm pretty sure Jim's grandpa was a soldier in the Fort or a great he was a sergeant. Sergeant.
Yeah, John Francis was a sergeant. He used to take my mother by the hand and walk her around quite a bit. And one of our aunts was born in the Fort while he was a soldier. Oh no, kidding, yeah, and Ida.
Okay, sure I've heard of her.
Yeah.
So let me ask you this question. You've been here your whole life, You've been totally a part of every fabric of the island. Have you ever sat back and said, you know what, I think, maybe I'll move to a bigger city. Has it I ever thought of across your mind? Or you've been happy here every day?
Well, to believe it or not, your cousin Johnny that I were the same age. I went to work down in Detroit nineteen fifty one for Grandpa Chester to on the Michigan Central Railroad, and Johnny joined. He signed up for the service and he come and asked me, he said, come on, sign up with me, and I said, they're going to have to come and get me. So they did come and get me that same year, and I was drafted and I had to give up my job at the come back here and go to the service.
And I ended up out two miles from where where Johnny was killed when he should have.
Been home, right, folks, he's speaking of He's actually my great uncle, John D. Saint An. He was in the Airborne. He was a ranger of Special Forces and obviously a classmate and a baseball teammate of Dale's. And he was lost in the Korean War, and obviously before my time, of course.
Well, in nineteen fifty one, I was playing baseball on the side for the railroad company. They had a two scouts coming around and try to talk I and my brother Jak when I told him he was there, and he joke he was painting with my dad on Lefty's Milk factory, and they tried to sign us up, but it was Philadelphia Phillies. And when j K said if I can't play for he tried, I ain't playing for anybody. So I said, if he don't go, I don't go.
That sounded just like JK Folks. Dale's brother JK was another Macanon legend and icon. And you know, I'm gonna take this moment to ask Dale if he recalls this or has intentionally committed it to no memory. But there's a story back in the Palm Cafe. Horns Bars be the Palm Cafe, and there's a story about how Dale and his brother JK were listening to the Tigers games. Now you have to remember back in the day, not all the games were televised. You listened to him on
the radio. Well, the story I got I wasn't born yet, but the story I got was Dale and JK were listening to the Tigers game and some dock borders came in and wanted to play the jukebox and Dale and JK said, hey, turn that thing off or listening to this game, and those guys persisted, and they said, don't
play any more music. We're listening to this game. And these guys put a few more coins in the jukebox and it was one of those big glass rounded over I don't know what they called them, electrolas or whatever. The story I was told as you and JK picked that jukebox up and carried it outside and set it on the side. So that did happen. Yeah, gosh, what I love to ben there for that man.
You want to you want to listen to that you go outside, That's that's amazing.
You know you plowed the snow here too for years. You mentioned you ran the bulldozer for the state park. What you've seen some scenery in the day, huh, work in those early morning snowstorms.
We had some terrible storms in the eighties, except something that with our six foot wing plow wouldn't even open up. I had. I had to go around ahead of the truck with the with the bulldozer with a with a bucket on it and uh get the big snow banks so they wouldn't get stuck.
Wow.
So I did a lot of plow on for the city when I worked for the city, all the village roads and stuff. I was up there every time it snowed.
No kidding. Now in Dale's time, you know, they just started allowing snowmobiles on the island in the in the early seventies, late sixties, And it's just for means to get around. They're not rent the ball and you're in fact, you're not even allowed on half the island with them. It's closed because that's just for scenery and state park. But before that they had these things called air slaves, and I know, Dale was really big. Imagine an airplane propeller on the back of it looked like a bob sled,
and that's how they went back and forth. Now, Dale, can you tell us a little bit about how those operated?
We had We started off with one that Wings had that was made for the government, and it was in storage and sending this we found out it was for sale. I am Jim Perrow, and we bought it, took it over here and we made it a little bigger so we could haul more passengers and more freight, and we went in the business because we had no airport then sure, so we were would take you over and back for two dollars each way, no money for your freight. Freight was free.
Yeah you hear that boat lines the freight was free back and then those days. So like any islander that's had to work out on the ice, you certainly mustn't remember some close calls.
Yeah, I had we I've had a sink. It was underwater for ninety eight feet of water. Both machines. We had two of them, build another one and both of them went down the same time. Well, when we didn't check the ice, when we're just taking somebody's word that it was they they were going across and it was ice to say, but we lost both of them on
the same day. And a week later, when the ice got heavy enough, we built a tripod and found it with a mag magnet and then got the coast guard grabbed hook and she hooked it and brought it up above what the chain falls and I was back running again about three days later.
That's amazing. Like I said, all the all the locals have a couple of close call stories and we're going to touch on that. As you may know, I'm putting a book together about the ice Bridge, and we're going to talk about all of these close calls. Have been gathering these stories from some of these folks. Dale is
a lifelong islander. I don't know about you, but I have a favorite road or a favorite area I like to be on on the island is Do you have a favorite spot when you're riding your bike or walking around? Do you have a favorite spot on the island.
No, the whole island was interested. I was interested in the whole island because I was responsible when I was on a police force for the whole thing. Sure, I wanted to know what was going on as much back where you live out in that area as I did in town.
Right, So now that you're going to turn ninety three here in March, you're going to slow down maybe and go down to one job or.
Well, mister Minoogaan asked me when I turned before I turned seventy five, when I was going to retire, and I said, ask me when I'm eighty five. So that didn't take place, so I was ready to hit ninety. He thought maybe i'd give it up, but he said, I'm not even going to ask you. I said, don't because it'll be one hundred and five.
That's awesome. You know, I'm hopeful at least you're not climbing ladders anymore and getting up on roofs. But I don't dare ask because I'm sure your daughter Sandy is going to listen to this and she probably doesn't want to know that.
Well, yes, I do climb ladders, but if my right leg goes up, the left one got to follow. I can't bend it because it's in my forth replacement it. It doesn't bend. But I go up ladders one step at a time. I come down the same way, one step at a time. But I'm always a little bit leery about setting up scaffolding because I don't have the movement in my body on inside hills.
I think everybody understands that. So I don't mean to put you on the spot, but folks are going to want to know. You're ninety two, almost ninety three, You're working every day, forty hours a week minimum. What is your secret? Is it Wheati's coffee? What's your secret?
I don't drink the island water because when I was a city council in eighty three and eighty four, we went to our new water plant business. We had done away with the chlorine and put start putting chemicals in. And I we asked the people that came from planting, why do we have to change it. They agreed that the water tasted good, you know, when they were drinking it right there at the Grand Hotel and the meeting
we had. And the thing is, when they started putting chemicals in, well, a lot of younger people start dying. And I and I blame it on the water with the cat. Look at Mark, my grandson, twenty years old, never drank in his life, and so alcohol didn't do it. It was something else he was drinking.
Well, folks, you heard it here first, Tony Boom. I'll be heading down to the Mustang and switching over to draft beer. I'm not drinking any more water. I want to make it right now. I hope to make it to fifty three, much less ninety three.
And I drink. I drink a lot of a lot of soft drinks, and I eat a lot of can And the doctor even told me, the doctor Kessler said, whatever you're doing, keep on doing. He said, your vitals are in the sixties.
I'm telling you, folks, he's not kidding. I'm in his shop right now. In addition to all the tools, I can see Reces, watch you McCall, it's butterfingers, crunching, munch where there's original. He has every snack. If you're hungry and you want a cup of coffee, I see nutty buddies, cupcakes. If this is oh wow, look it up there. If this is a secret of life, I'm in and it's pretty amazing.
Shot I heat you're checking too in the summer type. Oh yeah, Jim, come out and get it.
Yeah, he eats the barbecue chicken from the cannonball. There's a nice little plug there, everybody, Dale, I sure thank you taking the time out of work, and I know you don't like to take a break, but this has been great, and it's been great hearing your story.
I'm on call seven days a week, and even though I don't really have to work hard in the wintertime, I shovel all the snow on probably twenty porches and the pathways to them because the fire department wants to be able to get to the doors. And I put it on the knock box over there with keys and case, and they're not here that they can get in the door, because I want to make sure they're open to where they can unlock them and walk in.
Absolutely. Well, we sure thank you, and folks, I hope you've enjoyed this. This is a special guy on a special place. And when it comes to true mclanders, they don't make them like this one anymore. I will mention you know, Bob Gillespie's ninety five, but he now winters in Florida, which does make Dale the grand old man of mcnland. You're the oldest living year round resident on the mail side, and I think it would be Grahama Lorma.
One thing I wanted.
Yeah, absolutely, yeah.
When her mother went into.
Labor, oh, I know the story tell us.
We were living in Fort Mcinha and we never had no vehicles to transport her. We took carrieder down and a stretcher down in the South sally Port and the medical sunder was where the First National Bank is now Scotti McGreevy. My dad, Robert, her dad was on one and I was on the other corner. You know, years old.
I know the story well because Margaret always tells it and in fact in the medical records. You know, this is Margaret Doubt, our mayor who's in her eighties and she's been the mayor of forty nine years, coming up on fifty. She often has told me that the journal, the doctor's journal, after she was born said mother may live, baby won't. And sure enough Margaret made it. But it
was quite the quite the birth situation. She's told me many times that you helped bring her across the ice to give birth that night.
So well, she we had an old building there that was the medical center, which was not really a good place for delivery.
Sure, so that wow, Well, I'll tell you what. There's gonna be some follow up questions, i'm sure from our listeners, So hopefully you'll let me slide by again in a month or two and pick up some more conversation from you. This has been great, and I sure thank you for the time.
Okay, well it's my time to have a couple of coffee.
Okay, I'll get out of your way and i'll port for you.
Thanks Dale, Okay, thank you for coming.
Jeez, what a thrill that was for Dale to take some time out of his day. And he's a lot of fun to talk to. We're gonna have to go back because there's so much more he can bring to this podcast, and we're hopeful he'll sit with us again. You know, after I turned off the microphone and such, we were reminiscent about his brother JK. And JK was a big guy. He was a tough guy, great guy. You know. He also ran heavy machinery and worked in construction and he liked to have a little fun downtown
from what I'm told. Now, you know, jk's downtown fun time was before my time, of course, but Dale told me a story JK had gone. You know, he's kind of a he used to rough it up a little bit. He'd gone down to the Pink Pony, which was then owned by Nate Shane, he owned the Chippewa Hotel, and he was and then there five minutes and Nate Chane came over and gave him ten dollars to go drink
somewhere else. And you know, ten dollars was a couple of bucks back then, and JK said, okay, So he jumped on his bicycle and he decided to head up to the Grand Hotel. Well, of course, they don't allow you in the Grand Hotel after six o'clock without a tie. So JAK took the shoelace out of his shoe and tied it around his neck like a bowlet tie, you know,
the old Western ties. And then he went. And then no short amount of time, mister Woodfille and mister Musser came over and they gave JK twenty five dollars to head back downtown and do his drinking. So Dale and I were having a laugh about that, and these are the stories I got to go back and hit Dale up for. But in the meantime, we're gonna get We're gonna try and keep these podcasts going again and a
little bit more frequently. And I know I get a lot of emails folks asking for him, and I'm absolutely doing my best. Trust me, But once again, this was the Mack and Island Moments Podcasts, sponsored today by the Mustang Lounge, Michigan's most historic tavern. I'm Jason Saint Agin. Good day,