Ben Brown and Chris Orsolini

[00:03] BEN BROWN: Hi, my name is Ben Brown. Today's date is July 7, 2023, and we're in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and I am about to interview my friend Chris Orsolini. And we've known each other for decades. All the way back to a story we'll talk about in a bit about the food co op.

[00:27] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Hi, my name is Chris Orsolini. I'm 65 years old. It's July 7, 2023. We're in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and I'm here chatting with my friend Ben Brown, who we've known for decades. It's incredible. I think we should. Can you remember where we first met? I have.

[00:45] BEN BROWN: I want to say it was at the People's Food Co Op on Burdick. When it was on Burdick street in Kalamazoo.

[00:51] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Original. One of the original locations.

[00:53] BEN BROWN: Right.

[00:53] CHRIS ORSOLINI: But I remember meeting you when you worked at an office supply store.

[00:57] BEN BROWN: Oh, my gosh. Before that even.

[00:59] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah.

[01:00] BEN BROWN: Holy moly.

[01:01] CHRIS ORSOLINI: So. And I must have known who you were and went in there and yeah, it's like, oh, it's Ben. He's working at the office by store, which has been gone for years. But, yeah, our main connection would be the People's Food Co Op, which is still exists in Kalamazoo. And we were both part of that for a time. So.

[01:18] BEN BROWN: Right.

[01:19] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah.

[01:20] BEN BROWN: So golly dang. Do you. Do you remember anything about the co op when it was on Burdick Street? There's things that come to mind for me.

[01:27] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah, Well, I. I was there for. I worked there for 14 years.

[01:33] BEN BROWN: How did you. How did you start there?

[01:35] CHRIS ORSOLINI: I think I'm trying to remember now. Got a job there, I think, for $5 an hour or something back in the 80s. And I remember I got pregnant with my second daughter while I worked there. And there were three of us that were pregnant at the same time that people wondered what was in the brown rice at the Fukoa. But then, yeah, by the time I quit, my daughter was in junior high. So that's kind of a time lapse for me of how long I was there. Oh, gosh, a long time.

[02:05] BEN BROWN: Was Dale still there when you came? Dale Anderson?

[02:09] CHRIS ORSOLINI: No.

[02:10] BEN BROWN: Okay. So. Yeah, because that was. In fact, they may have been in a different location altogether.

[02:15] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Now, when did you. We worked together there for a while. Do you remember when you worked there?

[02:20] BEN BROWN: Well, I actually worked there two different times.

[02:22] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Oh, did you?

[02:23] BEN BROWN: Right. And the years, I don't remember. But I remember it was definitely compared to where the co op is now. We had the open bins we were always fighting. It's a never ending battle against the little moths.

[02:43] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Oh gosh, yeah. Green moths. Yeah.

[02:45] BEN BROWN: And we used to replace that huge, expensive window. Seemed like once a month.

[02:50] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah, it would. People would smash the window. Well, it's because there was a bar next door. That's why I blame it on.

[02:58] BEN BROWN: And you were saying sometimes you'd get calls at what time in the morning, like.

[03:01] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah, I remember the Police calling at 2 in the morning. It's like, you gotta come down here, your windows smash. And you know, and the weird thing about the co op is that it really kind of belongs to. It does belong to the community. But at that time we didn't have like a general manager and so we were all sort of taking turns or trying to keep it going in our, in our disjointed fashion. So it's different now. And I've worked at the newer one too. So I had two stints at the co op myself.

[03:29] BEN BROWN: How would you describe the spirit of the members at that time? To me it seemed they were very. I don't want to say. I'm not thinking of the right word. I want to say cheerleader. That's not the word I want. But they very much believed in the co op. The parties were enormous. When they threw the annual meetings, things like that. I remember a lot of dancing. I've heard some wild and woolly stories which I cannot believe they're true. But with staff meetings and things like that, there's lots of food recipe sharing, those type of things. There's a lot of interaction with the members that I remember. And I'm also trying to think we had the bulk items, which for me was always kind of fantastical. Like somebody would get 200 pounds of carrots. I'm thinking of one particular person whose name I probably shouldn't share, but 200 pounds of carrots to make juice. And I remember her skin actually became kind of a bit orange. Yes.

[04:41] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah, yeah. There were people like, with kind of. I wouldn't, I don't know if I should say extreme eating habits but you know, a lot of, a lot of interesting food allergies and sensitivities and you know, a lot of vegans and you.

[04:58] BEN BROWN: Know, and animal rights people peed on. Yeah, they were violently animal.

[05:03] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Right, right. And it was, it was kind of challenging to. I realized that I was like, I gotta learn about all this food in here. There's things I'd never tried. So I made it a goal to try everything if I could. But when you Were talking about the bulk. The bulk section, especially back in the old days, this would have been the early late 80s, early 90s. The herb section especially, there were hundreds of jars, like all kinds of crazy jars of every kind of herb you could think of in bulk. And people. This was before a lot of things were cap in capsules and then, you know, it just had to. You had to make your own concoctions. And so that was interesting too. But yeah, lots of, lots of that kind of stuff.

[05:43] BEN BROWN: Oh my goodness, yes.

[05:44] CHRIS ORSOLINI: But the members, I know we didn't have a formal kind of membership really in those days. Everybody just. If you. We just told people, if you're shopping here, then you're a member and you're part of our community. And yeah, they would want to talk to the manager and we'd kind of kick that around a little bit because there was no.

[06:03] BEN BROWN: Everybody was the manager.

[06:04] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah, we're all co work, we're cooperative here, whatever. So.

[06:08] BEN BROWN: But yeah, and I remember the kitchen behind, you know, the curtain and it was probably about the size of smaller than many people's bathroom.

[06:19] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah, it was tiny.

[06:21] BEN BROWN: It was. And a lot of fantastic food came out of there. But I also remember talking about the bulk. We had such a huge selection of everything. Like you said grains. I'd never. There was like the dark buckwheat, there was the light bark buckwheat, there was just quinoa. I'd never imagined quinoa before in my life.

[06:42] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Right, yeah. Oat bran was a big thing when it was discovered that it helped with cholesterol. People were waiting for the truck to come in so they could get their oat.

[06:52] BEN BROWN: And did they get it in 50 pound bags?

[06:54] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah. Multiple 50 pound bags, you know. And it's funny because that kind of thing was. Would be almost like a fad. People would buy it like crazy and then it would, you know, peter out. Yeah.

[07:04] BEN BROWN: Although the carrots never petered out.

[07:06] CHRIS ORSOLINI: No, people still love those carrots.

[07:08] BEN BROWN: And I also remember I got hired. I don't know, I think it was probably my second time. There were two kind of events that I remember and one of them was, well, I'll tell them both working with the produce because I followed someone who kind of trained me and then also presenting to you and Steve, the future of the co op would be computers and using a laptop. And I had like a 50 pound laptop, Amstrad portable laptop. And I remember Steve saying, computers, that's not going to be the future. We won't be using those things. And at that time it was within my budget. But it's weird, since then computers have become so unaffordable that for me personally as an individual, it just kind of passed me by. And I have like an ancient laptop. But mine too, the store now has like, they periodically update and it's miles ahead. But going from there will never be a computer in the co op. Nobody will use those two. It being absolutely a necessity.

[08:24] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Well, back in the day, this is an old timer. Back in the day, we always put out a newsletter. I think we were doing it once a month.

[08:31] BEN BROWN: Yes.

[08:32] CHRIS ORSOLINI: It kind of fell to me and I would type it up and draw pictures and cut and paste it together. And I was thrilled to get an electric typewriter so I could type it that way. And of course, eventually Chris Dilley, actually that's how I first got to know him, who was for a long time the general manager. But back in the day, he just helped me put the newsletter on the computer. That was kind of his job. His volunteer job was to help transform the co op newsletter into that form.

[09:02] BEN BROWN: So, yeah, gosh, I remember that. And I do remember the coop scoop being such a big thing like the physical newsletter.

[09:10] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah.

[09:11] BEN BROWN: And it was also a big production to get it together.

[09:13] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah, yeah. Take it down to the local printer and get it printed off. And so I don't know, do they still do the coop scoop? I don't know.

[09:21] BEN BROWN: They might do it in the online now.

[09:23] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Okay. Yeah, I don't know that I've seen it in a long time.

[09:26] BEN BROWN: And this is kind of jumping a little bit away from talking about the co op. But in our lifetime, we've seen society change from computers not being a part of our world too. Not being able to live without.

[09:46] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Right, right.

[09:47] BEN BROWN: What do you think about that?

[09:49] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Well, I think about the job I have now where I'm still kind of involved with the food industry. I work at a culinary college here in town and I order the food, which is my co op background really helped me with that because I know, I know a lot about food and I kind of pass that knowledge on to the students when I can. But 90% of mine, or probably more than that of my ordering is all done on the computer. It's all the vendor lists are on the computer. The ordering comes through the computer. And it really makes my life very easy in that way. So back at the co op, I used to have to read the item numbers over the phone to somebody.

[10:28] BEN BROWN: I remember that.

[10:29] CHRIS ORSOLINI: It was tedious.

[10:30] BEN BROWN: That was tedious. And it's definitely More convenient. It's faster today than it was back then. But it's kind of weird, wild to think how much things have changed and how much it's. So we couldn't get along. Could you do everything you're doing now in the hours that you have without a computer?

[10:58] CHRIS ORSOLINI: No. No.

[11:00] BEN BROWN: What would it take?

[11:02] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Gosh, I don't even know. Well, I know for ordering food, sometimes vendors would come to you and sit there with you and fill out a form and then take it, you know, but, you know, you wouldn't get, like, overnight service kind of thing or whatever. And then just recently, like, just being able to do things on Zoom, meetings on Zoom, that kind of stuff. That's, you know, a whole nother can of worms. But, yeah.

[11:25] BEN BROWN: So, yeah, we have a lot more selection available and timeliness.

[11:30] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yes, that's a big one.

[11:32] BEN BROWN: Yeah. And because when I took. I'm trying to think over who I took over from when I was doing produce, and I can't remember, she had dark hair, she was short, shorter. But I remember it taking, like, maybe a couple of hours to make sure I had everything ready. And I had to find the orders that people wanted to get the fresh produce.

[11:56] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Right. Yeah.

[11:57] BEN BROWN: And then call in. And sometimes they didn't have it, sometimes they did. And if they didn't have it, did we have an alternative? And then when we did order it, it would take a couple of days. Was that two or three days?

[12:09] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Probably. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. Now they have, like, where I work at the community college, they run a food hub, which is where they get the food from. You know, lots of farmers and people that produce food locally. And. And that's a big connection. And that's all done on the computer. And the farmers themselves or producers put those. Their product in that catalog themselves. And then I. Yeah, they. How much they have and when it's in season and all that kind of stuff. It's very seasonal, but it's. It's pretty interesting.

[12:44] BEN BROWN: I think it's. And it makes it possible to. Because we were getting things. I'm trying to think we probably had a broker who did. Went further afield. But now you can do it direct, and it helps the local farmers survive. Although now my memory goes back even further. Yes. Because I lived in a village about an hour away from here, Lakota, outside of South Haven. And my teacher actually remembers when everything was either transported by rail or by horse and wagon.

[13:21] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Oh, my.

[13:22] BEN BROWN: And she even got her degree. And they would commute from South Haven, Lakota to Kalamazoo. That's how she got her teaching degree. On weekends she would. And then she'd take the train on Friday night and be at a boarding house until Sunday night and go back. But that's how she got her teaching degree. And they transported. She said she'd ride in the train with apples and cabbage and everything, and.

[13:50] CHRIS ORSOLINI: They'D bring it into Kalamazoo.

[13:51] BEN BROWN: Bring it into Kalamazoo. And at the same time, Kalamazoo would ship things from there all the way to Chicago by rail.

[14:00] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Right, right. Cool.

[14:03] BEN BROWN: And in some respects, that was neat because it was kind of a closed system and you didn't have to have a car. And there were many more farmers, because growing up as a farmer, there were just tons of farmers and many different families. And now it's all been consolidated. So instead of having like two or 300 families, you have two or three large families that own conglomerates in South Haven. Friends of mine, in fact, I can think of one friend. In the 60s, his father moved into the area and he was a fertilizer rep. And he bought 20 acres. And we thought, hey, that's kind of nice, we have new neighbors. But his wife was a genius when it came to business and accounting, and she kept telling him to buy land for back taxes, and he ended up owning. By the time he died, like several hundred thousand. Well, actually close to a million acres.

[15:04] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Wow.

[15:05] BEN BROWN: And in several states, farming land or farming land. Well, it was farming land while he's alive. But once he died, a lot of them turned into development. And so again, a lot of that land has gone out of food production because one person could decide the fate of that property. A lot of the farmers he would buy land from, he'd hire them back for minimum wage.

[15:32] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Oh, wow.

[15:33] BEN BROWN: And they became multimillionaires, and his kids all became multimillionaires. And they believed in having large family. So they all had like 12 kids and things like that. But a lot of the people that I grew up with, and I don't know if, you know, I was thinking if you were in the library, you would know a couple of them like myself, they fled the country because the only place they could get a job now is in the city.

[15:59] CHRIS ORSOLINI: All right.

[16:00] BEN BROWN: And so.

[16:02] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Well, there's some.

[16:02] BEN BROWN: Oh, go ahead.

[16:04] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Oh, I was thinking some local family owned things I think are still maybe a lot of the blueberry farms over that way.

[16:11] BEN BROWN: Well, he was a blueberry. Well, he owned blueberries, he owned beef, he owned corn. And so he bought a lot of the blueberry land. And one of My neighbors. He also came from Chicago and he ended up buying several. He owned several thousand acres of blueberries. But those were all formerly like 2, 300 acres or even. We had only 40 acres. We had a total of 60 acres of blueberries. But we were able to put. Dad and mom were able to put all eight of their kids through college on 40 acres. And now because of efficiency, you need several thousand acres.

[16:54] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Wow.

[16:55] BEN BROWN: But the analysis is the larger your property, the lower the return per acre. And I don't know if that's always true, but. Yeah, but getting back to circling back to the co op thing, that's one of the neat things about some of the values, like at the Food Hub at the Co Op is trying to shore up a local economy and local food economy. And so, like, even when we had the pandemic, we had some resilience because we had an economic relationship with local farmers and everything.

[17:36] CHRIS ORSOLINI: And the co op is really valuable. It kind of. It really bolstered their sales and stuff during COVID because people knew they could. They kept that place going and they, you know, kept it safe. And it was a real boon for people to be able to still get the good food.

[17:51] BEN BROWN: And if we couldn't get apples. Yeah, if we couldn't get apples from New Zealand, we could get them from locally. But the Food Hub as well.

[18:01] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Food Hub's pretty amazing.

[18:04] BEN BROWN: And go ahead. They've been kind of investing in the local.

[18:10] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yes, they. I think it's like maybe a hundred mile radius. What they. Of the vendors that they'll. Vendors and farmers that they get product from. And it does fluctuate, you know, like, because it's seasonal. Some of it. Some of it's like a year round. Like if there's somebody that bakes rolls, you know, they're going to have their stuff year round or whatever. But yeah, so it's been great. And then I try to incorporate that into the product that the culinary students use. And it's a little tricky sometimes because they want, you know, they want. Well, a lot of Americans are this way. They want everything all the time. They want to be able to buy peaches in November and that kind of thing. It's like, well, it's summer. It's summer on the other half of the planet, but not here.

[18:55] BEN BROWN: You can't get peaches in Kalamazoo.

[18:57] CHRIS ORSOLINI: And if I had to try to find some things, I'm like, that's going to be challenging. Although, you know, it's pretty amazing, you know, in our economy that we can get stuff flown in from all over the planet. I also think it's not. It's part of the problem too.

[19:12] BEN BROWN: Yeah, but. But you have done an incredible thing in terms of helping people connect with local food. You've done an incredible thing with helping to reinforce our local economy by teaching people. For example, so I garden. Right.

[19:29] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Right.

[19:30] BEN BROWN: And, gosh, I'm afraid this will be on the air, but I garden. And my next door neighbor, I gave him a fresh tomato off the vine, right. And his response was, what do I do with this?

[19:45] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Oh, my.

[19:46] BEN BROWN: And I said, well, you can eat it. And he said, no, you can't.

[19:49] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah, you're gonna be right.

[19:51] BEN BROWN: And he had to call his aunt to figure out what to do with the tomato.

[19:55] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Wow, that's sad. Kind of. I mean, that somebody's never had a fresh tomato and. I don't know, but there's a lot of people like that that just don't have access, I guess, or exposure.

[20:07] BEN BROWN: And so you're teaching people how to cook with food, real food, the value of that. People underestimate the people who can afford it, just think it's natural. But for the people who are used to getting, like, he would take his child. He said, I'm going to get my child a good breakfast. Good breakfast was McDonald's.

[20:28] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Oh, boy. Yeah.

[20:30] BEN BROWN: Or peanut butter and jelly. And you are. I'm very appreciative of what you do. I'm very appreciative of everything the Food Hub does. So can you think of any people that have been in awe of the food at the Food Hub when you've been working with them? Anything when they've been impressed?

[20:56] CHRIS ORSOLINI: I gotta think about this. Well, yeah, we do. I'm kind of impressed myself about what they actually grow there because besides getting fruits and vegetables from other farmers or whatever, they do have a program where they grow food like hydroponic lettuce and tomatoes in their greenhouse and things like that. That's always cool to see. And you know Rosie, who we both know.

[21:20] BEN BROWN: Yes.

[21:21] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Who runs, who directs, is a director over there at the Food Hub. She loves, you know, letting us know that there's some amazing fresh variety of something that's, you know, come on and cool. Interesting squash or cipollini onions or.

[21:37] BEN BROWN: She introduces varieties of things.

[21:40] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yes, varieties of things. And like I said, lots of the student. There's many students that have, like your neighbor who had never had a fresh tomato. They sometimes don't know what to do with some of these things and how to prepare them and that there's you know, lots of different varieties of onions that have different flavors and applications and things like that. So we try to expose them to all that, but that's pretty cool. So I'm trying to think what else local honey and local maple syrup that people don't realize it's come comes from, you know, very close to us right back there. We actually tapped a tree in our yard in our driveway this year. So anyway.

[22:19] BEN BROWN: Well, where you live, it would be good. Yeah, well, yeah, maybe versus right next to the highway.

[22:25] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah, right. Yeah.

[22:28] BEN BROWN: But especially I'm wanting to, to go a little further in that because I'm thinking those kids, I would like to see the first time that they had one of these tomatoes or an onion and realize the taste difference. If it was like a light bulb came on and they said this is more than just going to the big giant monster store and getting what they shipped.

[22:55] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Well, what comes to mind right now is I have a man who was a student and when we call kids, we try not to call them kids to make because a lot of our students are older and this guy is probably in his least in his 40s, but he's had a varied background of work or whatever and he decided to turn to culinary arts and he just got his degree and he also works as an assistant with me. And that guy is fascinated by food things. You know, I introduced him to different food products. I can't think of one off the top of my head. But he's just sometimes floored by something that he's never tried. And you think how do you get to be that old without trying something? But he's very enthusiastic and that's really fun to expose somebody to that. And yeah, like you mentioned the tomato thing. You know, I get tomatoes for them to use all year round. But when those fresh vine ripened tomatoes come in and I don't want them to put them in the refrigerator because then they're not going to be good. Although if you take, take them out of the refrigerator and let them sit, they'll be fine. But yeah, the taste is just so superior. So those kind of things are really fun to see. But yeah, so it's not all young people, it's all kinds of people trying different things.

[24:07] BEN BROWN: That is good. And I do stand corrected by that. But yeah, I remember. So again we did blueberries and I knew blueberries. But after my dad died, I applied for a program of certification called Grow Biointensive and we were required to raise kind of aim toward a full diet in the Smallest possible space. And there were all these growing everything, growing everything.

[24:38] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Right.

[24:39] BEN BROWN: And I'm still trying to replicate that on my property. And I'm on my way. But this is like 2000. And we had like five or six different varieties of tomatoes. We'd always grown, like the three standard Rutger and Big Boy. And I'd never experienced. So biting into like a Cherokee purple tomato. My eyes lit up. I felt like there was smoke and an aura.

[25:04] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Just right, right.

[25:06] BEN BROWN: And just the smoky flavor, sweet, smoky flavor of that tomato. And then we had another tomato, a harbinger that it was like having instant, some of the best tomato sauce you'd ever had in the tomato itself without cooking it. And it was a good, intense flavor. Just unbelievable. All you had to do is cook it and put it on spaghetti and you were there.

[25:33] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Well, I didn't grow a lot of that kind of stuff, but I've been exposed to that through the Food Co op, or not Food Co Op, the farmers market, Council farmers market. I know there's a farmer that she would bring in a right time of year tomato season, would bring in a cart and load it with, all have bushels, all these different heirloom varieties of tomatoes. And you could go take a little basket and just try them all. And they were all so different. And yeah, there was one that was yellow and it was almost fuzzy like a peach. And. Yeah, real sweet. And just this. Yeah, the striped ones, green and red and all. Yeah, you probably know more of those varieties than I do.

[26:08] BEN BROWN: But, but. But you also have a husband and he's a monster gardener.

[26:13] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah, he couldn't guard. He couldn't garden this year because the deer last year ate everything that he put in there except for the nightshade plants.

[26:22] BEN BROWN: But you know where the deer went?

[26:24] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Deer place. Yeah. We're in the city and we have a deer problem. That is unbelievable. They are. We go out in the backyard and they're just standing there looking at us, you know, with their kids. And.

[26:34] BEN BROWN: Well, I have deer and the squirrel. The squirrel's knocking on my window. It's like, where's my food? It's like, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

[26:43] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah, we also have a big, healthy groundhog, but. Yeah. And I don't know if we're going to circle around to our neighborhood thing, but we can keep talking about the farm stuff if you want. I don't know.

[26:57] BEN BROWN: Oh, I'm the interviewee. Er. So, yes. So, yeah, I. Gosh. So you've lived in this neighborhood for how many years?

[27:07] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Now, well, yeah, we're talking about the east side of Kalamazoo where it's nice that we're in the town. And, you know, loop it in the gardening thing that we have space to each. We each have enough space on our property to grow gardens.

[27:20] BEN BROWN: Yes.

[27:21] CHRIS ORSOLINI: We bought this property. It had been. That we're in now had been repossessed by hud and the house had almost been condemned. The house was built in 1903.

[27:30] BEN BROWN: Right.

[27:30] CHRIS ORSOLINI: And it was in really rough shape, so we bought it for like $5,000, believe it or not.

[27:34] BEN BROWN: Yeah.

[27:35] CHRIS ORSOLINI: In 83. So we've been there. It's going to be 40 years this fall. And then we slowly. Like, there was land behind us that the neighbor had bought in a tax sale, so we ended up buying that off of him. So we ended up with a pretty nice guard property. Backyard, big backyard. Then behind us, behind the property, extra property. It just drops off down to Michigan so it sort of can't see the houses.

[28:02] BEN BROWN: It's like a cliff.

[28:03] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah, it's a cliff, but it's also just a treat. Sort of tree line there. And then the houses on either side of us. We ended up. Sister. I have a sister bought a house on both sides of me. So we have a little family compound there. But, yeah, we've been there since 83. Lots of work on that house and property. It's. Yeah.

[28:23] BEN BROWN: So it's. It's actually an art piece because there's so much art and color.

[28:28] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah, it's. It's. We've had fun, you know, and I think about all the, like, just putting in different trees there. You talk about fruit trees and stuff, right? Yeah. Like this year we have a lot of cherry trees were there when we bought the place. And the one tree that has the most fruit on it is just on its last leg, but, boy, it's got. It still has cherries on it today. I gotta get out there and pick some.

[28:50] BEN BROWN: But that's good to know.

[28:51] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah.

[28:51] BEN BROWN: Because I may plant a cherry tree and try to get some cuttings off of engraft on there, because that would give you.

[28:58] CHRIS ORSOLINI: We could give you some sprouts of that tree. They're coming up all over the yard.

[29:01] BEN BROWN: Oh, yes, please, if you could. Yeah, I would really like that. Yeah, that would be great.

[29:06] CHRIS ORSOLINI: And how you want to talk about how you ended up with your property. You're only a few blocks from me, so. Yeah.

[29:13] BEN BROWN: How long are you. Oh, my gosh. I was a refugee from the destruction of the farmland by the gentrification of a Farm community. And so I fled to Kalamazoo in 88, and from then until 2000, gosh, 2015, I'd been trying to save up money to get not just a house, but I wanted to at least urban farm. And I had all that training. And the training was again, what's the smallest amount of land to raise 100% of your food needs in Michigan? Because of our climate, probably roughly about 5,000 square feet, but if you multi crop, you could get by with 2,000 square feet.

[30:08] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Wow.

[30:09] BEN BROWN: And so I worked with the city, I tried to do like I wanted to do a tiny house because I knew that's all my budget would allow. And the city bent over backwards to kind of find out how we could do it legally. Habitat bent over backwards.

[30:30] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Habitat for Humanity, right.

[30:32] BEN BROWN: And I had worked for them at one time, but I couldn't afford a house, not for a standard house for family. And they had built a tiny house for a woman in Georgia somewhere. And so there was precedent. And also with the city, we found there was precedent in that Henderson Castle, you know. Yeah, the big, giant, massive homes around there that are like maybe half a million dollars. Some of them started out under 200 square feet because at one time you had to have like 80% of the money down before they'd give you a loan for the remaining 20%. So people built what they could afford and added on it. So it was one of the city historians who helped me make the case to the city. And so then they dug back and found out, yes, the size of the house is less relevant than the size of the lot under current laws. And there's other hoops that we had to go through. And then they made the zoning more, more supportive. But anyway, so I ended up. They asked me for several selections for me to choose between several plots of land. And several of them were actually West Main Hill, West Niche Hill, in a very wealthy area.

[32:03] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Right.

[32:03] BEN BROWN: And I said, no, I really would like to move on the east side or even the north side if we can find enough property that I could garden on because the garden was more important. A nice house, yes, that's great, but I need space to garden. And so this hill came up and actually they had an even nicer place, but it was in lowlands. And I said, oh my gosh, I'm not so sure, because we could have climate change. I believe in man made climate change, and that's in lowland. They said, oh, we've never had a flood. And so I said, no, I really want it on a hill. So we found this property in your neighborhood and it's affordable.

[32:52] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Taxes are a lot lower and property taxes and so on.

[32:55] BEN BROWN: Yeah. There were houses that were like almost 3,000 square feet for 15,000.

[33:00] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah.

[33:01] BEN BROWN: When I first looked at property. Anyway, so I got that plot and found out it was mainly sand and hard pack.

[33:12] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Oh boy.

[33:13] BEN BROWN: And yeah, so I could dig down six inches. And then it was stone after that, but.

[33:18] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Or you must be working on that though. You're getting better and better.

[33:22] BEN BROWN: Yes. Building up the soil and humic acid is loosening that hard pan so it's easier to dig. Still a work in progress, but I now have. I counted roughly 50 different varieties of plants and everything.

[33:36] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Wow, great.

[33:37] BEN BROWN: But you know how I wanted to be on that hill. First year I was moved in, I was an island because we had spring rains that were so heavy I had to go all the way around town to come back.

[33:49] CHRIS ORSOLINI: We had all that flooding. Yeah.

[33:51] BEN BROWN: Had I taken the lowland, which was nicer looking, I would have been taking a boat or raising fish.

[33:57] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

[33:59] BEN BROWN: So anyway.

[33:59] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah, that was a crazy year. So. Yeah. And you did build a tiny house which was pretty amazing for Kalamazoo. That's a. That was a first that you got.

[34:09] BEN BROWN: That place and opened up doors for other people to build. And the city has even built a tiny house community. And my design, I designed it so it could be doubled automatic, you know, if you ever want it to.

[34:21] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Yeah.

[34:22] BEN BROWN: So they built it doubled already. So the ones on Michigan, those were inspired by my house.

[34:27] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Oh, really? That little. That little plot of houses? Yeah. That's one of the new newest housing developments in town. There's like, how many houses are out there now? Like at least half a dozen.

[34:40] BEN BROWN: Yes.

[34:40] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Little.

[34:41] BEN BROWN: Yeah. You know, hopefully they're all. Yeah. Minus zero energy ready. And I've. I've been doing passive solar and rainwater collection.

[34:51] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Good for you.

[34:52] BEN BROWN: And yeah. This past.

[34:53] CHRIS ORSOLINI: For what little rain there has been lately.

[34:55] BEN BROWN: Although this past rain, I got 800 gallons in less than four hours.

[34:59] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Wow, that's great. Yeah, you do. You've done some amazing things, Ben. I gotta say, you're, you know, you're so knowledgeable about you coming from the farm and, you know, expanding your knowledge of growing and this program you were in and how it all affected how you're living now.

[35:15] BEN BROWN: And yeah, you have done amazing things with educating people about food. And if we have any hope, it's going to be that they appreciate what we can do.

[35:27] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Right.

[35:27] BEN BROWN: In our area.

[35:28] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Right. Well, in the farming and the food, you know, it's just, you know, to realize. Yeah, that goes hand in hand. So former president, he made that up. I never met the former president. The only president I've ever seen live and in person was Barack Obama because he came. He came to Kalamazoo. My niece was graduating from Kalamazoo Central, and Barack Obama put out a call for high schools to submit. Why they're like the best high school or something all over the country. And Kalamazoo Central won. And the prize was he was going to come and talk at their commencement. So he came and talked to that commencement class. And I'm trying to think of what year that was. It's got to have been like 13 years ago or something like that or whenever. And he. So I saw him from afar. I mean, you know, oh, you didn't.

[36:22] BEN BROWN: Invite him over for dinner?

[36:24] CHRIS ORSOLINI: He shut up, shook hands and hugged every single student. But it was awesome. But no, yeah, Bill Clinton. Never met nor tackled Bill Clinton. I like Bill Clinton. Okay, so, okay, how about you? Did you ever meet a president?

[36:38] BEN BROWN: My niece has met several presidents, including Barack Obama, and she had a long conversation with him. I don't know about what her mom did not say, but yeah, anyway, well, so, gosh, I appreciate, appreciate so much you taking the time. And I love your stories.

[37:00] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Oh, I love your stories. Every time I hang out with you, I learn something new that you've learned about. And that's. Yeah, that's great.

[37:08] BEN BROWN: Thank you so much.

[37:09] CHRIS ORSOLINI: Thank you, Ben. I'm glad you invited me to do this. This has really been very cool thing, so I can't wait to listen to it. It'll be interesting.