Residents and passersby on North Fourth Avenue are dismayed that a friendly landmark has vanished. On the night of Saturday, November 12, the life-sized figure of a smiling crossing guard was stolen from the backyard of his owners home on Fourth and Beakes. The painted, sheet metal figure had been giving his frozen wave to pedestrians for at least fifteen years; he was the acquisition of the late homeowner, Howard Seeley, who collected objects that seized his fancy. Howard’s widow, Johnnie Mae, ninety-five, reported him missing to the police the day after the little man (as the Seeleys called him) vanished.
This is the second time the crossing guard has disappeared; last time, a distressed Howard Seeley offered a $100 reward for his return. A year and a half later, the police found him: he had turned up in someone elses back yard. (The homeowner claimed he had retrieved the figure from a neighbors trash.)
Johnnie Mae Seeley, much loved by her fellow congregants at Bethel AME and a mainstay of the neighborhood Thursday-night knitting group, hopes she will not have to wait so long this time. Although Howard had had anchored the figure in concrete after the last theft, it did not stop the thief, who took him concrete and all.
If you have any information about the whereabouts of the Little Man, please call the Ann Arbor police desk, 994-6920, and refer to case number 11-56130.
