From the July 2019 issue of the Harbour Towne Condo Association (HTCA) Newsletter.
Steve and Marge LeBel
How/Why we moved to Harbor Towne.
On July 4, 2006, we were in Muskegon having dinner with a friend at Docker’s. We remarked how much we loved the beauty and peacefulness of Muskegon. Our friend asked if we ever thought about moving back. Next thing we knew, we were viewing the model condo in Harbor Towne. We took copies of the floor plans back to Flint where we’d lived since getting married in 1970. We both liked the Town House model and decided to contact a realtor. We drove back the following weekend. The decision to leave our friends and family – we have one married daughter and several furry grandkitties – was difficult. We eventually settled on the first condo we’d seen, the one with the great western view of the pond. We signed a contract in August and closed in January of 2007. At that time, we still had an Internet business and a house to sell in a bad housing market. But, it all worked out. We sold the house and the business within a week of each other and drove straight to our new condo, the summer of 2007. We love it here.
About Steve
Steve grew up in Muskegon, graduated from Mona Shores HS, and received degrees in psychology and counseling from both MSU and U-M. He began a career in counseling and eventually spent 17 years as president of a mental health and substance abuse hospital before retiring in 1997. The retirement didn’t take, and he started an Internet company (website design and hosting), running it for 10 years before selling the company and moving back to Muskegon where he became interested in the stock market and spent 6 years writing computer programs to do his trading. Not content with retirement, five years ago, he started writing young adult fantasy novels (like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson); his books have won 16 national and international awards.
About Marge
Marge is a retired math teacher. She taught both Junior High and Adult Education in the Flint Community School system. Retiring in 2000, she was then drafted into Steve’s Internet company as the bookkeeper and still does the books for Steve’s publishing company, Argon Press. Growing up in Dearborn, where there is mostly cement, she loves the wildlife here, especially the waterfowl. She loves to read and paint. Her painting hobby lead to a surprising second career as a commissioned portrait painter specializing people and animals. Marge has won local and international awards for her work.
HTCA Involvement (Steve & Marge)
Steve helps out on Harbour Towne (HTCA) projects from time to time, including playing a principle role in the creation of HTCA’s CCIS (online request system), early work on the HTCA website and hosting, helping launch the HTCA newsletter, as well as several other projects over the years.
Marge is the chairperson for the Welcoming/Social Committee. She feels strongly about welcoming every new owner, introducing them to our community, and giving them the chance to ask questions of current residents. She also enjoys helping plan the Summer and Holiday parties.
More Stuff
Steve and Marge love to travel. In the last two years, they’ve been to Egypt, Italy, Spain, Algeria, Washington DC, and Florida. In the next year, they have trips planned to Japan, Scandinavia, Finland, Estonia, and Russia. They love hearing people’s travel stories.
Naturally, they both have websites: https://stevelebel.com and http://margelebel.com
We love it here. We enjoy our condo friends, the Big Lake, and the wildlife
I had fun last night.
was invited to do a talk about my books at the 
Last night I had a chance to talk about my writing and my books. It was a fun reminder of how I got started on this path of writing. But you know what really thrilled me? It was seeing how many people actually stopped by to see me. I even met people I’d never met before except through email. That has to be one of the most interesting things about writing: you get to meet people you’d never have met otherwise. And I love it.
How cool is this?
Muskegon Center for the Arts / Red Lotus Gallery will be hosting a Book Signing Event for Steve LeBel and his new book.
It has been 15 months since I broke my leg.
This produced an interesting problem. With every step, my weight went into the rod, which was bolted to the upper part of my leg. Since the bone edges still weren’t touching, the rod ground it’s way down through the inside of my tibia. In June, when looking at the x-rays, I noticed the rod was about to break through into my ankle joint.
My new doctor suggested that instead of redoing everything, we might try removing the last set of screws (the one that holds the rod tight to leg bone above the break. He said the tibia in that region is softer than the ankle, and the rod will be able to move up toward the knee instead of down into the ankle. I agreed and in July, we removed the last of the screws.
We agreed to give it another three months. During that time, I asked for a ‘bone stimulator’. This device uses electrical pulses and magnetic fields to wake up your body and get it to start generating bone matter. (I’m glad I don’t plan on fathering any more children.) My doc wrote the prescription and my insurance paid for it.
Okay, okay. Don’t give me a hard time for saying, “Mission Accomplished.” I know it ain’t. But it feels like I just passed a big hurdle and from now on, it’s much smaller steps.
The natural thing to consider at this point is submitting my book to literary agents or publishers to get it published. The more I read, the more I question this assumption. The process of finding a literary agent, who then will try to find a publisher, who will then eventually publish can take a very long time. It is common for this to take two years or longer.
My surgeon decided to remove two of the three screws that are holding my leg together. Apparently, they were not holding it quite right, so the edges of the broken tibia were too far apart to heal properly.
Basically, it is a fantasy about life on a world with gods and goddesses. The hero of the story is a young god named Bernie who just graduated from God School. He has been hired to build universes, and he is very excited about it. Unfortunately, he didn’t figure on a nasty co-worker who sabotages Bernie’s world every chance he gets, which is part of the fun. My daughter, Wendy, drew a picture of Bernie for me. You can see that godly powers aren’t always readily apparent. 😉