Phone Calls from Prison
I gave him $50 to pay his final probation fee, helped him write a resume, and worked with him to...
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My Town
Gifts of Knowledge
“I didn’t know Michigan had a football team,” I told my boyfriend when I first moved to Ann Arbor. It was new-person swagger and a little bit of truth. Coming from the land of dawgs and gators, I needed to...
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Winter Birding for Beginners
Last winter, as I flipped through Pittsfield Township’s Rec & Ed brochure, I paused...
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Coming of Age at State and Packard
You can look it up. Twenty dollars in 1965 equates to about $150 today. And in 1965 you could walk...
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Scientific Matchmaking
Curiosity and volunteering are how I have the good fortune to know Jim Ottaviani and his wife, Kat...
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Night Moves
In June, a semitruck rammed into a power pole on Main St. It knocked a traffic light askew. Many...
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Sugar Town
I was stopped at the light at Stadium and Pauline one fine afternoon, minding my own business and...
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From Threat to Guru
When Bob Lutz drove up to the Millcraft Paper Company on Boardwalk, he spotted a red metallic...
Read MoreSpelunker’s Nightmare
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...
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A Murder of Crows
Lifeless creatures began to show up at my house, in ways they never had before, the day after I...
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Retail Nostalgia
I rode the bus past Sears the other day. The lot where my coworkers parked was empty, the...
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Angel’s Hat
I spied it on a basement cleaning excursion last year: that big bag of hair I’d brushed out...
Read MoreThe Quarterback Who Vanished
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...
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Polar Party
Early one cold February morning, my neighbor Piotr sent an email to the Murray Ave. mailing list:...
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Birds at My Window
I haven’t always loved birds. For about the first fifty-five years of my life, I was...
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Phone Karma
I don’t know how many times I’ve felt the momentary terror and angst of misplacing my...
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Girl Power
Jessie was nine when she spied her at the Pittsfield library. She gave me a nudge....
Read MoreCanning for Dollars
“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...
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Sam Called Me
One night, win the spring of 2017, I walked off a railing-less ramp and fell face first onto the...
Read MoreLocavore vs Carnival-vore
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...
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