My Town

Night Moves

Sep 16, 2019 | Community, My Town |

In June, a semitruck rammed into a power pole on Main St. It knocked a traffic light askew. Many...

Sugar Town

Sep 10, 2019 | Community, My Town |

I was stopped at the light at Stadium and Pauline one fine afternoon, minding my own business and...

From Threat to Guru

Aug 27, 2019 | Community, My Town |

When Bob Lutz drove up to the Millcraft Paper Company on Boardwalk, he spotted a red metallic...

One morning recently, a passerby came across a group of city workers gathered around a manhole at the intersection of W. Washington and Seventh. Two men were chatting near their truck as two other men turned a hand crank to...

A Murder of Crows

Jul 18, 2019 | Community, My Town |

Lifeless creatures began to show up at my house, in ways they never had before, the day after I...

Retail Nostalgia

Jul 10, 2019 | Community, My Town |

I rode the bus past Sears the other day. The lot where my coworkers parked was empty, the...

Angel’s Hat

Apr 3, 2019 | Community, My Town |

I spied it on a basement cleaning excursion last year: that big bag of hair I’d brushed out...

The Quarterback Who Vanished

Mar 27, 2019 | Community, My Town |

James Joy Miller seemed, in the fall of 1909, to be on the golden path to athletic fame at the University of Michigan. Pity it all came to a sudden crashing end. For this, Miller had only himself to blame.Born in 1886, Miller...

Polar Party

Mar 26, 2019 | Community, My Town |

Early one cold February morning, my neighbor Piotr sent an email to the Murray Ave. mailing list:...

Birds at My Window

Mar 3, 2019 | Community, My Town |

I haven’t always loved birds. For about the first fifty-five years of my life, I was...

Phone Karma

Feb 3, 2019 | Community, My Town |

I don’t know how many times I’ve felt the momentary terror and angst of misplacing my...

Girl Power

Jan 5, 2019 | Community, My Town |

Jessie was nine when she spied her at the Pittsfield library. She gave me a nudge....

Canning for Dollars

Oct 27, 2018 | Community, My Town |

“Drop the bag,” the police officer demanded. He’d caught me wandering through the eager tailgaters at the U-M Golf Course carrying a half-full thirty-nine-gallon Hefty trash bag. “You can’t pick up...

Sam Called Me

Oct 12, 2018 | Community, My Town |

One night, win the spring of 2017, I walked off a railing-less ramp and fell face first onto the...

Locavore vs Carnival-vore

Sep 12, 2018 | Community, My Town |

Having grown up in Ann Arbor, I was eager to show off my frozen custard at one of the city’s premier events, the annual Art Fair. I have owned and run Fluffy Bottom Farms for three years now. Although we’re mainly...

Birders

Sep 8, 2018 | Community, My Town |

Forty years ago my girlfriend and I took possession of Bird Rd. We were determined to make it...

The Train to Chicago

Aug 17, 2018 | Community, My Town |

My life in Ann Arbor began as a U-M freshman, when my mom and I filled her banana-yellow Volkswagen Rabbit with most of my belongings and drove up US-23 from my hometown of Columbus. Unfortunately, she couldn’t chauffeur...

A True Place

Aug 12, 2018 | Community, My Town |

We plan to gather at Island Park. We’ll have a fire in a brazier and invite dance, performance, and conversation among friends. I will present a dance about a firebird emerging from the heart of a tree. Just before the...