(upbeat music) - Celebrating vibrant people, captivating places, and remarkable things.

This is "Living West Michigan."

(upbeat music continues) - [Presenter] Celebrating our vibrant community together, powered by your dedicated support, thank you.

(upbeat music) - We may live in beautiful West Michigan, but how well do we really know the place we call home?

From the tulips to the trees, there's so much to explore.

I teamed up with my pal, Candice, from Tours Around Michigan, to learn a bit more about the mysteries of West Michigan.

(clock ticks) (suspenseful music) (water ripples) What a great day for a ghost tour.

You've been doing this now, for at least seven years.

Tours Around Michigan, you have a host of tours, from Heritage Hill to various architecture, arts, so many different things.

And one of the more popular ones, which is what we're doing, is the Ghost Tour.

Let us start with a baseline question, do you believe in ghosts?

- I do, I've always been open to it.

I've never really had a ton of experiences, that has changed greatly, (laughs) since I've been doing these tours.

- So with the Ghost Tour, as we start this, there are stories that are here, right along the Grand River?

- Yeah, really this area has had activity for hundreds of years.

We have the rapids right here, and they were about a mile long, they were really loud.

Back when this was all forest people could hear the rapids up to a mile away.

So this was a place that tribes from other areas would come to, once a year because they trade here.

And that's largely because of the rapids, because people knew how to find the rapids.

But even back then, like there were some ghost stories floating around.

So tribes would refer to this area as the Haunted Valley of the Grand.

- Really, right in this area here, right by the Blue Bridge?

- Right here, yep, Haunted Valley of the Grand, yeah.

I think there are a couple of reasons why Grand Rapids seems to have more energy than other places, and one is water.

If a spirit wants to do something, they need the energy.

So if you have all this water pushing it, you know, it makes it easier to snag it and do something with it.

Another reason is limestone.

So limestone is also connected with higher spirit activity.

- And we have that here?

- Yes.

And in fact, all under Kent County, it's one of the largest veins of limestone in the lower peninsula.

And so maybe those two things, you know, have upped our energy here.

- We're going on a ghost tour.

- We are.

We are, absolutely.

- Absolutely.

So we are here, near the corner of Pearl and Monroe, lots of history, lots of ghost stories taking place here.

We're really at, in front of McKay Tower.

So tell us about what's happening here, or what has happened here.

- Yeah, well first of all, just the spot we're standing in.

So historic, almost 200 years ago, 1826, Louis Campau had his fur trading post, right here.

And there were a couple reasons, one was it was on the river, and also it was where a lot of Native American trails converged.

So Monroe Center, which is right next to us, that was originally a Native American trail, and then it became the first street in the city.

So definitely a history here, and this spot has gone through a lot of different things.

It's been the center of the city for almost 200 years.

In 1942, a man named Frank McKay, bought the building, named it after himself.

So Frank McKay was basically a mob boss, disguised as a political leader, not somebody you'd wanna run into in life, right?

(laughs) People still run into him after he's died, here in the building.

So people have walked past him in the hallways here, there's a woman who was on the elevator, that said she was riding the elevator up.

It stopped at a floor she didn't choose.

The doors opened, a ghostly Frank McKay, in a black top hat, stepped onto the elevator with her.

The doors closed, went up a few floors, opened again, and he stepped off and went on his way.

- Okay, so Candice, we have moved inside, we are at Monroe Center and Division.

- Yeah.

- So tell us about this building and where we're at.

- This is one of the great historic buildings in the city.

This was built in 1875, and the first renters in the building were the Pecks.

And the Pecks were a family of pharmacists and they opened up here, and there was a pharmacy here for 80 years.

So now, the building's known as the Peck building.

Unfortunately, the Pecks are known for some big tragedy that happened in their family.

So in the early 1900s, the Peck's daughter, Clara, got married to a local guy.

He was more of a medium class family, the Pecks were extremely wealthy, so that made them a bit of a target.

So his plan was to kill his wife's entire family so she would inherit the money.

And then he was gonna kill her so he would get the money.

So they got married at Fountain Street Church.

The Pecks bought their daughter and son-in-Law a fancy apartment in New York City so they went and lived there.

Clara's mom, Hannah Peck, went up to visit and she died when she was out there.

And her remains came back here, she was cremated.

A couple months later, Clara's dad, John Peck, who was the pharmacist, he went up to visit, and he died when he was out there.

Hannah's was ruled as like, an organ failure.

So as John's body is coming back by train the family here, got a mysterious telegram that said, "do an autopsy."

So they did and found out that John had been poisoned.

Eventually the son-in-law was arrested, put on trial.

He was convicted, got the electric chair because he did the murders in New York.

And so the person that haunts this building is actually Hannah Peck, who is the mother.

- The mother.

- And she died in New York, but her remains came back here.

So the experiences people have had here, they've seen her walking the hallways, they have seen a woman looking out the windows.

I've actually had tours where people have seen a woman in the window.

So I think that she is here to warn her husband, which unfortunately, did not happen because he was murdered also.

So I think, that it's the guilt that holds her here, even though it shouldn't, and she shouldn't feel guilty.

I'd love to help her move on.

- We are now, outside the Shinola building, and again, this building has incredible history.

It's The Peck Building, however, it was initially built by Amos Rathbone?

- So Amos is a settler that came to the area from New York, in the 1830s.

I first learned about Amos, maybe about four years ago.

It was after one of my tours, and somebody who was on my tour who was from outside the area, she said, "You were talking about this one ghost, and then this guy appeared to me, he looked mid 1800s, had a big bushy mustache, thick, curly hair, and he was upset that you were talking about that ghost and not him."

So I started doing research on him and he really is connected with a lot of different places in the city.

He owned land, he helped build St. Mark's Episcopal Church, which is the oldest public building in the city, and built out of the stones from the rapids.

He built this building, he had this built in 1875, and this actually was called the Rathbone Building, initially it was called the Rathbone Block.

Now, his name is kind of erased from current history.

- From the current history.

- Yeah, so that's probably why he came to me and he was like, "Hey, what about me?"

(Jennifer laughs) So it didn't take long after that that people started telling me, they're like, "Do you know you have a ghost that walks with your tours?"

We have his voice saying the name, saying his name, Amos, on a recording that we got right here, last year.

I feel like I'm helping carry on his legacy a bit because he was a bit of a forgotten settler who had a fairly big influence on the city.

And so with that, sort of my good deed, (laughs) there are certain spirits, like Hannah Peck, who's in this building, that I'd like to, I think she's bound by trauma and guilt, and I think I'd love to help her move on.

So there are also certain spirits that I would like to help leave if they're stuck here.

It's been an odd experience for me to develop connections with them because I never expected that.

- That's not what you set out to do.

- Hm mm, no, not at all, not at all.

- [Jennifer] But it's kind of your happy place, that it has, right?

I mean, it's part of what you do now.

- [Candice] Yep, my goal is to just get people excited about exploring and looking at the city in a new way if they're from here, and wanting to learn more about it and wanting to explore it more.

Like I think, that's a win for all of us.

(gently sinister music) - This next group marches to the beat of their own drum, literally.

Shelley joins them now, as they prepare for a special West Michigan performance.

(trumpet blares) - Now that I'm all warmed up, it's time to tell you about Northern Lights Drum and Bugle Corps.

(drum beat rattles) - We've always been a very musical family.

We've wanted to have ourselves, and our children, involved in the musical community.

And up here, in western Michigan, there just wasn't an opportunity.

The nearest drum corps was actually in Cincinnati, Ohio.

So just by recognizing the need, we started a 501(c)(3), and got it started and it's really exploded.

(laughs) My family involvement is actually very significant.

Obviously, I started this with my husband, Doug.

My two children, Alex and Devland are a part of the drum corps as well.

Our parents are very heavily involved in making sure our members are fed.

They'll set up a peanut butter and jelly table just to make sure that no one goes without, and we keep that blood sugar up.

So we have only brass for our winds instruments, trumpets, trombones, baritones, tubas, mellophones.

And then we will have our percussion instruments, so the battery will be snare drums, bass drums, tenor, and cymbals.

And then we have our front ensemble, which would be things like auxiliary percussion, marimbas, any kind of mallet.

And then just, we've got someone even playing the anvil.

(Misty laughs) We'll have an audience available at every competition that we go to, every performance that we have.

So this year we will have a performance at the Midwest opener, in Rockford, Michigan, here at the high school.

We will be competing for a score this year for our first time ever, it'll be very exciting.

And then we also participate, this year, in the SoundSport Food and Music Festival.

And those finals are, it is to an audience, it is for a competition, but it's a little more lax than the traditional drum corps model.

Whereas SoundSport is very much encompassing all kinds of performance opportunities, all kinds of groups that can come and create something spectacular for the audience.

It's more audience participation than it is for the competition model.

We are very proud to be an all-age organization.

We have some members as young as 12, and our oldest member, I believe this year, is in their mid-60s.

(drums rattle) - We really don't discriminate based on skill level, we look for effort and anyone who's willing to push themselves to that next level musically, and athletically.

But in that spirit of inclusivity, you know, we don't want to cut anyone, we don't want to exclude anyone so we find the best spot where someone can get the highest level of achievement out of their personal playing throughout a summer.

- We call it a community band style drum corps, where we come together, we're ready to rehearse, and then you go home and you practice your music and you prepare your drill.

And then you come to a place where you're ready to come back and put it all together with the ensemble.

And it does take that personal preparation, which has a layer of responsibility and ownership of your preparation, to be able to come, put it all out on the field and come together as an ensemble.

(drums rattle and thump) - We very much treat it like a sport.

It's a lot of communication, we break everything down into its tiniest parts.

We start off with the marching with just one step, and then we'll add on another step.

Even in between, the legs crossing have to be in time.

And we do the same thing with playing in the brass world, we'll break it down with breathing.

So we start there, and then we move into what I like to call hum, sing, buzz.

You gotta hear it first, and we listen to a drone, hum it, sing it, and then buzz it on your mouthpiece and then play it through the horn.

So we really break it down into the smallest micro parts to get everybody sounding like they're all playing exactly together.

We have our staff to do the teaching of the drill and all of that stuff.

And then I'll come in on ensemble and make sure that the show presentation is where we want it to be.

And I start to kind of nitpick that portion.

You know, trumpets, you're really far up, here, in the drill, so you don't need to be quite as loud so we can blend all that together.

(drums rattle) - We have a model, a financial model for our members, where we only charge them how much it costs for their participation.

None of our staff are paid, we're all volunteers.

We are running off of sponsorships, we're running off of donations, we're running off of the support of our friends, family, fans, and community.

And so we have a number of ways that you can support us through sponsorships, through general donations.

- We've been very blessed with our local partners.

Everything we own practically, has been donated.

And we have local music repairmen on staff who can do all those repairs and maintenance for us, and we're very fortunate to have that.

- It really takes a drive and a passion to want to perform and to want to do your best.

They put a lot of their selves into the show, they put a lot of themselves into Northern Lights.

They own being a member of Northern Lights.

And aside from that, it is an enriching opportunity for them.

They're coming in, they're gonna be meeting new people that they wouldn't have met before, learning new ways of playing, new ways of performing that they may not have before.

And it's just a musical opportunity, a way for them to enrich themselves in the arts.

- I like to mentally prepare by just focusing inward.

Focus on what you can do, and your job.

Prepare your portion of it and trust that your teammates have done the work behind the scenes to prepare their portion of it, and you'll have a successful show.

One of the coolest things about Northern Lights is that we're seeing, especially with it being all-age, we're seeing parents getting to march with their children.

We've got probably, upwards of 10 to 15 families, moms and dads and their children marching together, brothers and sisters in the drum corps, and it's a really special thing.

We'd like to get into DCI's all-age class, it's a little bit higher level of competition, and show people that, you know, this activity can be done in an affordable and efficient way.

(drums boom) - Supporting local business while enjoying every bite, it's food truck season in Grand Rapids.

Some may own a restaurant and use this to expand their business.

For others, this is an opportunity to simply share their creations.

Come with me as we take a look at food trucks in West Michigan.

(upbeat music) - The food truck industry, I believe, is vital to the Grand Rapids community as a whole because it's made up of small business owners.

To me, food trucks are about as local as you can get when it comes to the community.

Nine times out of a 10, when you go support a food truck, the owner is working directly on that food truck.

Whereas you might go to a restaurant and it might be 50-50 that the owner's there, or you go to a franchise restaurant and almost 0% chance that the owner is there.

So you really are gonna interact with the actual owner of that business and that just proves you can't get much more local than that.

(upbeat music continues) So the great thing about food trucks is that it allows people kind of an entryway into following their passion of culinary arts.

So having a brick and mortar and a restaurant, there's so many expenses that you don't really realize.

It costs anywhere from 100 to 200 plus, thousand dollars just to open a restaurant.

Whereas a food truck, you can get into that same experience and only have a price tag of around 30 to $50,000.

So it's a much more accessible way for people to get into the food industry and allow them to kind of follow their culinary passions.

(upbeat music continues) Back in 2016, when we worked with the city to develop food truck ordinance and the food truck laws, here in Grand Rapids, there were only 10 licensed food trucks.

Now, we are just under 100 licensed food trucks in Grand Rapids so that's huge growth, and we only expect that trend to continue to grow.

(upbeat music continues) As a food truck, we can go to the clients, we can go to events, we don't have to wait for the public to come to us, as a brick and mortar, so that really has a huge benefit for anybody that has a business, being able to travel to your customers.

(upbeat music continues) Through my company, GR8 Food Trucks, Great Food Trucks, we put on most of the food truck events here, in Grand Rapids, including Food Truck Fridays.

This year, we started on May 17th, and we go for 11 weeks, until July 26th, every Friday from five to 9:00 PM.

So every Friday we are here, pretty much all day, getting the whole thing set up.

And then the trucks start rolling in around one, two in the afternoon.

We do setting up for a couple hours and then it's come five o'clock, it's go time.

The public is here by 4:30, waiting for the trucks to open.

And then come that six o'clock hour, dinner rush, we are packed and we have, seems like all of the community here, out with us.

And then we go for solid dinner rush until about 8:30, 9 o'clock.

And then we spend the next couple hours packing it all up and then put it away, just so we can do it again the next week.

(upbeat music continues) So this year we have over 50 food trucks that are in rotation, coming to our Food Truck Fridays.

And out of that 50, we rotate out every week, about 20 different food trucks.

We try to keep a good balance between some of the veteran classics like Patty Matters, Burger Food Truck, Pressed In Time, that does American Tex Mex.

We have Saladino Smoked Barbecue, Two Bones Barbecue.

And then also in the mix we have a lot of new faces, so we have a lot of new trucks that have opened this year.

Cheezy Duz-It is a new grilled cheese truck, we have several new taco trucks that have opened up.

We have a new one from, the owners of Dune Buggy have actually expanded and opened a second truck called Boujee Bowls, that's they make gourmet rice bowls.

We basically kind of have something for everyone, all the way across the board.

I absolutely love what I do.

The things that are great about it is that one, you're outside, it's constantly moving, constantly evolving.

You constantly have hiccups coming along the way so you never really know what is gonna happen.

And that air of unpredictability is kind of fun.

Certainly beats sitting at a computer all day doing the same old, same old so I wouldn't change it for anything.

(upbeat music ends) - "Living West Michigan" takes a few seconds now, to show off some wonderful things happening via local organizations in our community, take a look.

(upbeat rock music) It's flower time, and J. Schwanke's back to share some inspiring arrangement ideas, guaranteed to add that spark to any home, workplace or gathering.

Get ready to bring your space to life with today's "Living In Bloom."

(upbeat music) - These flowers are my absolute favorite, pretty in pink.

Tell me what we're doing today.

- So we're doing tulips.

- Okay.

- And so I know that people think that tulips are a spring flower, but tulips are available 24-7 now.

- Love that.

- Because there have been so many skilled growers, here in the United States, that get tulips from both hemispheres.

And so the ones from the southern hemisphere bloom in the other half of the year- - So they're always available.

- Exactly.

So there are spring months in the southern hemisphere when they have the tulips.

So the other thing about tulips, tulips are the teenagers of the flower industry, that's what I like to call them.

- Okay, why is that?

- And so I tell people that they should not worry much about arranging tulips, so many times it's chop and drop.

- Okay.

- And let them do what they want to do.

- 'Cause they're just so beautiful?

- Because they're phototropic, they're gonna grow towards the light.

And especially, another great trick, see, you're going, you're doing great.

- I'm going into it.

- You're doing great.

- Okay.

- Okay.

- [Kylie] You were saying another thing.

- Another thing about them is that they're phototropic so they grow towards the light, but also that people sometimes spend too much time arranging them.

- Okay.

- And wherever the light source is, they'll grow towards that in 24 hours.

So if you spend a whole bunch of time, it's not gonna be good.

Go ahead, cut.

- You're saying that tulips are smart little cookies then?

'Cause they know right where to grow.

- Sure, they're the teenagers of the flower industry, they do whatever they want, whenever they want to.

(laughs) - That sounds about right, yes.

(laughs) - So I don't know how smart that is, but okay, that's- - You know, the teenagers are the decision-makers of tomorrow, so we love that.

- Correct, I love them for that, absolutely, they're in charge of our world.

- Alright, so I got my last one here.

Oh, it's gonna gimme some trouble.

- There you go.

- Got it.

- Okay, now here, I'm gonna pull these off.

- Okay.

- 'Cause you're okay.

- Yep, got 'em all.

- You stay, you have them in your hand.

- Yep.

- Got a hold of them?

- Yeah.

- Okay, go right in there.

- Going in right there, and plop?

- Yep.

- And they are- - You're good.

- Beautiful.

- You're good, now here, and so you wanted, did you see reflexively, you wanted to do all that?

- Yes.

- You don't have to worry about it.

- It's just there, and they're perfect.

- They're gonna do their own thing over the next couple days.

And if the light source is from that direction, they're all gonna turn and go that way.

The other thing about tulips, they're gonna open, they're gonna close.

- Okay.

- They're gonna open and close, that's what they love to do.

And people will be like, oh, I wanna keep my tulips closed.

This is the way Mother Nature made them, they open, they close, the cooler they are the longer they're gonna last.

- Right.

- But it's amazing too, I also love when the petals start to fall off.

So now, let's dress up yours just a little bit more.

- Okay, I like that.

- Okay?

We're gonna use some Hypericum.

- Okay.

- Again, so this is, St. John's wort, very popular color in the pink, and you're just gonna tuck a few of them down low, around the edge of your container.

- Okay, let's go from the front.

What I love about this is how easy it is, but it looks really impressive.

And tulips are my mom's favorite flower.

- Aha.

- Guess who's gonna be her favorite kid, when I bring this home?

- I know about being the favorite kid, I gotcha on that.

- I get to be more like you, yeah?

- Right, right, I was born on my grandmother's birthday.

- Oh.

- So I was her favorite grandchild, yeah.

- So you're the favorite.

- Yeah, right, right.

- That's like a multi-generational favorite.

- It's true, it's true.

- Would love to see it.

All right, popping these in and that adds- - See how you're just adding them in there?

- Yes.

- And it looks so great, Kylie, I think you, you're doing a wonderful job.

And again, so do you feel accomplished?

That's the next thing.

- 100%, yes.

- Yeah, because when we're working with flowers, the one thing, the person you need to make sure that you please, first and foremost, is yourself.

- And I love that.

- Yeah.

- Because really, it shouldn't be a stressful endeavor.

This should be feeling good, happy, they're flowers.

- Right, there's so many health and wellness benefits with it too, and that's the important part.

You feel less stress, you have less depression.

Homes that have flowers in them have less arguments.

So that's a great thing that you're doing- - My husband is gonna be really excited if I bring that home too.

You're really helping me with my whole family here.

- Well, I love it.

And hey, thanks for playing along with me, I really appreciate that.

And we are gonna make a flower pro out of you, for sure.

- I love that, thank you so much.

- You bet.

(upbeat music) - More content can be found on WGVU's YouTube channel or the PBS app.

Be sure to also check out wgvu.org/livingwestmichigan, where you can submit ideas for future features on the show.

I'm Jennifer Moss, and this is "Living West Michigan."

(upbeat music)