“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, Mr. (John King, the patriarch, moved to the area from downstate in 1980 to take up farming and bought the Route 31 farm stand in 2001.) Months later, the Biden campaign released a commercial about the negative effects of climate change on fruit farming that featured three generations of the King family in their orchards. The farm stand constructed a hand sanitizer station in the gravel parking lot and distributed free masks. Whitmer issued her executive order in July. “They come after us in the comments and call us ‘Grandma killers.’ Whatever they want to throw at us frankly leaves no room for personal responsibility and personal accountability, and that is not what America is all about.”īy comparison, King Orchards made masks obligatory after Ms. “It is cancel culture, that is all it is - they did not agree with what we were doing so they desperately tried to muddy our reputation and discredit us,” he said. More online warriors fired nasty broadsides than regular customers, he insisted. Friske, 23, a member of the third generation to run the farm, said the family anticipated being attacked for making masks voluntary. 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. 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. “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.”Īntrim County, population 23,324, is known for its chain of 14 long, narrow, sometimes turquoise lakes spilling into Lake Michigan. “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. He will boycott King’s forever, he said, “along with other progressive, communist business owners in this county.”ĭifferences 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. Bishop, sometimes called the “Rush Limbaugh of Antrim County,” abandoned long-distance trucking during the 2009 recession and currently hosts a talk radio show. On the other side, Randy Bishop eyes the King Orchards farm stand with similar rancor. “Oh my God, I do miss them, but I will not go there because of the politics,” said Ms. Then Friske’s joined the outcry against masks. She loved watching them emerge piping hot from the kitchen, and delighted in their soft, chewy interiors beneath a crunchy outer layer. Linda McDonnell, a retiree who began summering in the area 20 years ago, used to pop into Friske Farm Market regularly to treat herself to a few doughnuts. Yet when one stand instituted a no mask, no service rule last July and the other went to court to combat the state’s mask mandate, they set in motion a split that still ripples across Antrim County. The two farm stands lie just 12 miles apart along Route 31, a straight, flat road running through a bucolic wonderland of cherry orchards and crystalline lakes in northwestern Michigan.
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