I have a confession to make, although I’m afraid if I say it someone might step out from behind a hedge of blooming Alpine heather and bonk me on the head with a blumenkranz.
The thing is I’ve never been all that big a fan of the biggest annual celebration Gaylord hosts every summer. It’s not the festival itself, which I’ve enjoyed with my family over the years. Although I’ve never been a rah-rah kind of guy in general regarding canned events which attract a lot of people over a several day period, including the Alpine Village’s yearly contribution. I’m more of a walk down a quiet shady small town main street in search of a good bookstore and a place to get a cup of coffee and pastry treat kind of guy.
My main bug with Alpenfest and others of its ilk is the typically contrived nature of the whole thing. It’s the origin myth of Alpenfest which kind of bugs me. There were no immigrants from Switzerland settling in Gaylord back in the lumbering heyday of the late 1800s; lots of Polish, but Swiss? Not so much. A Polish celebration would have been a more fitting tribute to our shared history and make more sense than the fantasy that Gaylord is somehow akin to a Swiss village nestled high in the Alps. But hey, that’s just me. And I guess if it works it works. So be it.
So the idea of Gaylord celebrating Swiss style has always struck me as a bit of a “faux” idea, although a splendidly successful “faux” idea and over the years I have gotten used to it and today can go along with it as being part of our historical past. Albeit a ‘faux” historical past. Our “Swiss” historical roots only going back to 1965 when the first festival was held after business leaders and the city fathers came up with the idea that Gaylord and the Swiss Alps somehow had something in common.
But despite my Alpine ambivalence I have always been on board with the faux Alpine Village theme celebrating a faux festival the third week of July. Let me explain and maybe I won’t be assaulted with a blumenkranz anytime soon.
When we moved to Gaylord in July of 1976 my wife had just started working as a special education teacher at the Alpine Center (there’s that faux Swiss reference again); then a state run hospital for residents with cognitive impairments. Her supervisor invited us to dinner at Schlang’s beer tent, then an integral part of Alpenfest. Newly transplanted to the Alpine Village we were in the dark as to what, exactly, the whole Alpine thing was about but were willing to give it a try and who could pass up a free dinner of bratwurst and sauerkraut at a beer tent featuring an oom-pah band and polkas?
The Schlang’s beer tent was fun. The Saturday parade was fun. In general the whole Alpenfest was festive and fun. Years later, when we had children, we enjoyed attending and participating in Alpenfest events such as the pet parade and of course the carnival rides and the world’s biggest coffee break. I even volunteered at the Friday free pancake breakfast flipping flapjacks under the downtown pavilion for many years hosted by Gaylord Community Schools.
As time went on I realized though the fallacy of being called the Alpine Village when our history indicated there had never been any Swiss settlers in our past. Lots and lots of Polish had arrived during the heyday of the lumbering era but nary a Swiss yodel-ay-hee-hoo in sight. It kind of annoyed me but I was OK with it in a good-natured curmudgeonly Herr Gessler — the nemesis of Gaylord Alpenfest lovers the world over — kind of way.
Reading up on the origins of Alpenfest and the Swiss Village theme I discovered that business leaders had pitched the idea to the city fathers and the city fathers bought into the idea, and hey, we already had the Otsego Club Resort, at the time the Otsego Ski Club/Hidden Valley with its Swiss chalet style ski lodge and slopes inviting visitors to swoosh down our puny midwestern style Alps. So, OK, I admit I’m on board with the idea of once a year our town transforming into a magical land of Alpine mountain peaks and dirndls, blumenkranz, liederhosen and all the other accouterments which make us who we are or at least wish we were during that third week of July.
So congratulations to Gaylord and the massive crew of volunteers who have carried on the tradition of transforming us into the Alpine Village these past 61 years. You all deserve a big yodel-ay-hee-hoo in your honor. Take a bow and a strudel please, you’ve earned it yet again.
Michael Jones is a columnist and former staff writer for the Gaylord Herald Times. He can be contacted at mfomike2@hotmail.com.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Keep it Simple: Alpenfest — the best faux festival | Opinion
Reporting by Michael Jones, The Petoskey News-Review / The Petoskey News-Review
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Michael Jones, The Petoskey News-Review | USA TODAY Network
