My Town

Art Afoot

May 25, 2022 | Community, Culture, My Town, Nonprofits |

My view from the front porch of a Second St. home on the Old West Side last fall was worthy of a...

Ivorybills and Iggy Pop

May 25, 2022 | Environment, My Town, News |

It is not often that Iggy Pop, Pete Seeger, and the ivory-billed woodpecker can all be considered...

Playing with the Brain Plasticity Ukulele Collective

Apr 25, 2022 | Community, My Town |

As I walked the streets of Ann Arbor after moving to town twelve years ago, I breathed in all the...

Stop the Chatter!

Mar 28, 2022 | Community, Culture, My Town |

When frustrated with an immovable bureaucrat or customer service rep, some people may cuss, pray,...

A Week Before Chinese New Year

Mar 28, 2022 | Community, My Town |

On our way to see the haircut aunties a week before Chinese New Year, we run into our little friend Miss Hu (who the kids say should go to medical school so that she can become Doctor Hu). We take a picture together and tell her...

Broader Strokes

Feb 10, 2022 | Community, My Town |

When my daughter went off to college, I made a list of things I would do to fill in the gaps left...

Jimmy Hoffa at the Law Quad

Sep 20, 2021 | Community, My Town |

I met Jimmy Hoffa in April 1960 when he spoke to students at the University of Michigan Law...

Scrabble Heaven

May 23, 2021 | Community, My Town |

Chuck Armstrong is a polite, soft-spoken, and engaging man. You’d never guess he is a barracuda at Scrabble. Did you know there are competitive Scrabble tournaments? I certainly didn’t when I first started...

My Grandfather’s Pandemic

May 15, 2021 | Community, My Town |

Petoskey rests among the hills on Little Traverse Bay near the tip of the Lower Peninsula....

Dumpster Dive

Apr 15, 2021 | Community, My Town |

Last August, my friend Tom arrived late to our weekly socially distant gathering (My Town,...

A Final Resting Place

Mar 15, 2021 | Community, My Town |

St. Thomas Cemetery, often referred to as “the Old Catholic Cemetery,” sits at the...

Outdoor Education

Jan 15, 2021 | Community, My Town |

During the warm months of the pandemic, my husband and I took walks in different neighborhoods,...

Confessions of the Rock Fairy

Dec 14, 2020 | Community, My Town |

It was early April, in the first days of Covid, when I came upon the small stone on top of an...

Ladies, Start Your Engines

Nov 14, 2020 | Community, My Town |

“I come from a car family,” says Holly Fischer. “I got the bug from my...

Home Again

Sep 7, 2020 | Community, My Town |

I lived in Ann Arbor for twenty-three years, then semi-retired to Florida in Mickey Mouse’s...

Ode to The Treasure Mart

Aug 8, 2020 | Community, Marketplace, My Town |

In 1973, I was a senior at U-M, heading off to grad school at UCLA. My dorm room at Baits Housing, high on a hill overlooking North Campus, was filled with mementos and metaphysical charms: tissue paper flowers, stuffed animals,...

Reaching Out

Jun 21, 2020 | Community, My Town |

After forwarding a variety of news stories to a friend in Las Vegas on January 21, as an afterthought I texted, “Watch this Wuhan, China event, they’ve shut down a city of over 50 million people. Imagine if that...

My Frontline

Jun 6, 2020 | Community, My Town |

As an employee in a grocery store during the pandemic, I have seen numerous changes in how we work...

Puzzles in the Time of Coronavirus

May 6, 2020 | Community, My Town |

Forget toilet paper shortages. One of the earliest items to sell out during this siege was jigsaw puzzles. Finally, I am ahead of the trend! I didn’t need to worry about procuring any, because I try to keep a few...