“Why would you not follow the science?”Īt Friske’s, plenty of pickup trucks in the parking lot still sport Trump-Pence bumper stickers, and the doughnuts lure regulars for breakfast. “Our core values were not aligning at all,” said Brodsky, who stopped the bike rides at that point. He would never get vaccinated, he told her, suggesting that she had no right to ask. They took regular bike rides together until he returned from a trip to Florida, when she asked whether he had been vaccinated. When her neighbor attempted to rattle her by talking about politics, she steered the conversations to his photo collages or other subjects, and she felt like the two of them were secure inside their COVID-free bubble. She tried to not let it irk her, telling herself that many Trump banners on barns in the area were even larger. Joyce Brodsky, 69, a painter and retired art teacher, spent the pandemic at home, occasionally passing time with a neighbor, a former auto salesperson, who also stayed isolated in his lakeside house, festooned with a large Trump sign. While court proceedings unrolled in the background, vaccines became the next yardstick for measuring which friends to keep and which businesses to frequent as daily life inched away from the pandemic.
A human error in programming some of the Dominion voting machines in the county resulted in several thousand votes for Donald Trump being attributed to Joe Biden.Īlthough the mistake was caught immediately and corrected, it prompted one of the longest-running lawsuits over the results, with Trump cheering from the sideline. Vocal residents had also taken sides in a nagging battle over the results of the presidential vote in Antrim County. Last month, King Orchards dropped its mandatory mask policy after the state did. Both fruit stands claimed that they gained customers, even if some stormed away, while the need to eat at home drove a sales boom. Still, the Republican-controlled state Senate took the unusual step in April of blocking her appointment to the Michigan Cherry Committee.Īrea regulars chose sides, arguing endlessly over freedom versus public health. “For us it wasn’t about the party line or our personal politics, it was about being an advocate for mitigating climate change,” said Juliette King McAvoy, King’s daughter. An area newspaper profiling the ruckus dredged up the archconservative political past of Richard Friske, who died in 2002 he bought the family orchards some 60 years ago after serving in Nazi Germany’s Luftwaffe. The Friskes turned to Facebook to explain their position in videos that attracted both zealous supporters and harsh critics. Michigan’s health department issued a mask directive, which the Friske Farm Market defied until the state threatened to revoke its business license.
Cherries bitter two farm stands divides series#
When the state Supreme Court nullified a series of the governor’s COVID-related executive orders in October, it effectively tossed out her mask mandate and made the lawsuit moot. Gretchen Whitmer, arguing that wearing masks should have remained a personal choice. King’s is more homespun, with apples displayed in wooden baskets customers are encouraged to pick their own fruit from the orchards. Friske’s, which bills itself as “Not Your Average Fruit Stand,” features the Orchard Cafe, a bakery and a store stuffed with curios as well as everything needed to make pie.
Black letters on roadside signs spell out greetings like “Have a cherry day!”įriske’s and King’s are two of the most popular farm stands - both low, red, wooden barnlike structures with white trim. The abundant water tempers the climate and, combined with the low, cigar-shaped hills, creates ideal conditions to grow fruit.Ĭherries in particular dominate the landscape. (Sarah Rice/The New York Times)Īntrim County, population 23,324, is known for its chain of 14 long, narrow, sometimes turquoise lakes spilling into Lake Michigan. “Choosing where you go, choosing where you shop, choosing all the things that your life interacts with that used to be not political now are a lot more political.” Juliette King McAvoy, daughter of King Orchards farm stand patriarch John King, stands behind clear plastic shields wearing a face mask at the cash register in Kewadin, Michigan, May 12, 2021. “Political divisions have infiltrated other parts of people’s lives a lot more than they used to,” said Larry Peck, 68, a retired oil company executive. Now the molten flow of anger over the presidential election and virus mitigation measures is hardening into enduring divisions over activities as simple as where people buy their fruit. Differences that had always simmered beneath the surface were inflamed by the coronavirus pandemic and pushed many people in places like Antrim County into their tribal corners.
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