MANISTEE COUNTY, Mich. — Off Fire Tower Road, south of M55 in Manistee near the base of the Udell Lookout Tower, you can find a rotary phone, not connected to anything, but next to it, a sign reads "It is a phone for memories and saying the goodbyes you never got to say."
Corey and Heather Dembeck had put up their first Telephone of the Wind in Olympia, Washington, after Corey's friend lost his four-year-old daughter, and he listened to the story of the original Telephone of the Wind in Japan on a podcast.
"I wanted to put one up. I thought it'd be a really useful thing to have," said Corey as he reflected on a series of losses in his life that lead him to put up the phone. "I didn't expect it to last too long. I thought, maybe like, a month or two, and then it went viral."
The phones are placed in quite areas, that provide a peaceful location for people to speak what is on their heart.
"When you go up and you pick it up, at first, you feel kind of ridiculous. Well, for me anyways. And then you start talking, and then like, it just starts coming out, and after you're done, you just you feel feel a lot better," Corey said.
When asked how the phone is so impactful, Heather believes it is because people keep so many emotions inside.
"I feel like it's just speaking, speaking out loud, and just saying it. I feel like we keep so much stuff inside and bottled up, and it's silly just to be at home talking out loud to yourself, but when you have that phone, it makes it seem a little bit more natural, because you're on it and you're talking," said Heather as she also points out that using an old rotary phone brings out nostalgia, manually entering phone numbers of passed loved ones.
"It's crazy how like, you can remember a phone number that you haven't called in 20 years," Heather said.
The Telephone of the Wind began to gain traction online, as comments poured in. Comments on Facebook come from all over the country, asking for phones to be put up in their communities, and asking if they can make one themselves.
"I think it's become like this weird grassroots movement. Like, I think people from Poland and Portugal, like, reached out from Canada, all over the country reached out, and it's just been like, amazing to talk to all these people. And I try to respond to everyone and help them find the closest phone but they keep popping up and it's hard to keep track of them," said Corey.
The Dembecks decided that The Telephone of the Wind needed to come to Michigan after visiting the state for vacation, as the phone in Manistee is now the third Phone of the Wind in Michigan, joining one in Detroit, and one within Metro Detroit in Plymouth.
"The place in Manistee, it's such a beautiful drive, and you're just down a dirt road and the sun is coming through the trees, and it's just peaceful," said Heather.
'It's the best thing I've ever done in my life," said Corey, as he describes seeing the anticipation people expressed as they would wait to use the phone. "I've even seen lines form up waiting for like eight or nine people waiting in line for their turn to use it, which is really heartwarming."
He also says that while the original phone they set up in Washington was stolen, communities tend to respect these phones as a memorial, with community members quickly replacing the phone.
"So many people are struggling with so many different things, and it's so easy to respond back to the world with negativity, because it feels like almost the right thing to do, but like if you're able to like just kind of shelve that negativity for awhile and respond, you know, to a rational world by being irrationally positive and doing good things, it just makes you feel better about life and it makes you happier," said Corey
A directory to find Telephones of the Wind can be found here.
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