The “Birdman of Clarkston” has hope spring is nearing, despite the freezing temperatures we’ve been having lately.
Longtime Clarkston resident J.D. Powell called The Clarkston News offices Monday, Feb. 10 to report he saw three robins in his backyard.
A bird watcher and lover, 84-year-old Powell said, “This is the first time I’ve ever seen a robin, let alone three, as early as Feb. 10.”
Powell said about 35 years ago he was dubbed “The Birdman of Clarkston,” by Rob Kress, a former reporter for Channel 7 News, when Powell was featured in a story about his many one-of-a-kind birdhouses he’d constructed by hand.
A meat cutter at Rudy’s Market for 20 years, Powell used to sell his birdhouses and feeders there, and a Channel 7 employee from Clarkston, and a regular customer at Rudy’s, thought Powell would make an interesting feature story.
Shortly, after the segment aired, The Detroit News also did a full page spread on Powell.
“It was kinda fun,” Powell said of his celebrity days.
He admits to building “a couple 300” birdhouses and feeders. “I’ve made all kinds. From slab wood, used wood and items I’d pick up from all over.”
For example, Powell said, he has made a birdhouse out of two solid, wooden bowls; one from a gourd; and one from four ceiling fan blades.
“I had fun making something out of nothing. I never made any two alike.”
His birdhouses were a hot buy at Rudy’s as well as the annual Crafts and Cider Festival at Depot Park, and word of his creations spread, because, “they were different from anything else you could get.”
Powell first came to Clarkston in 1937, working for his uncle, Ben Powell, owner of Ben Powell Disposal, which is now Smith’s Disposal. But he made a move into the grocery business, beginning his career as a meat cutter at Terry’s Market in downtown Clarkston, before entering the service at 26.
During his two years in the Navy, Powell did three trips across the Atlantic and one in the Pacific. “The first ship I was on carried 30,000 tankers of gasoline. If we’d have been hit we would have been the first ones on the moon,” he joked.
After he returned home, Powell went back to work for Terry’s, but shortly opened up his own store, Powell’s Fish and Poultry Market on Dixie Highway.
He ran that for a little more than five years, but with three grocery stores already in Clarkston and a new A&P coming in, business was declining.
Powell approached Rudy’s Market for a job, asked if he could sell his birdhouses there, and a deal was made. As manager of the meat department, Powell said he enjoyed his Rudy’s days immensely. “I liked talking to everyone. We used to cut the meat in front of the customer. You don’t find that too much these days.”
Retired for 24 years now, Powell is still very much active. Throughout his retirement he has been refinishing furniture as a business and continues to do work on a small scale. In the summers, Powell, who will be 85 in June, said he still plays golf three times a week. “And I still walk it; nine holes.”
Married for 42 years, Powell’s wife, Bernice, passed away in November at the age of 91.
“She was a great lady. We had a good life together.” The two were married at the Clarkston United Methodist Church, when it was located on Buffalo, Powell said, who has been a member of the church for 40 years.
Powell has two living children, he lost a daughter to cancer 10 years ago, six grandchildren and one great-grand child.