Keeping Peace
Lots of colleagues vow to keep in touch when they move on, but one group of former co-workers at Peace Neighborhood Center has actually followed through, holding annual reunions for thirty years now. Even as they’ve...
Read MoreMy Town
Easy Livin’
“Summertime, and the livin’ is easy.”—That setting: Catfish Row in Charleston. Mine: Zukey Lake in Lakeland.My maternal grandparents, who lived in Ann Arbor, had a log cabin on a knoll overlooking Zukey...
Read MoreAviary Avocation
In weather fair and foul, Noel Roach’s feathered friends find sanctuary in the growing number of birdhouses–sixty-six in June–that decorate the lawn, fences, and flowerbeds of his modest home on Central Ave....
Read MoreObit for the O Team
On my bike rides this spring, I pedaled past Mitchell Field and Riverside Park. At Mitchell, four of the six softball fields I played on for years with the Observer’s O Team have been plowed under. At Riverside, where I...
Read MoreBaseball Dreams
On a cool weekday afternoon in April, the U-M baseball team is about to play Bowling Green at Ray Fisher Stadium. And, as usual, Debbie Bourque, Don Eaton, and Ted Maezes are in the stands. These Ann Arbor parents have been...
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Lost in Lakewood
When I was a wee lad back in the early sixties, I was convinced that Beaver Cleaver, of the TV show Leave It To Beaver, lived in our neighborhood, the Lakewood subdivision on the west side of Ann Arbor. I asked my mother to...
Read MoreLife at Panera
I’m sitting at my usual table by the window at the Panera on Washtenaw, sipping tea and revising my manuscript. There is a homeless man in a chair in the corner, his belongings stuffed in a ratty duffle bag next to him....
Read MoreCrossing the Rainbow Bridge
I tucked our little boy, Nathan, into bed and went back to the kitchen to button things up for the night. Five minutes later I heard the sobs. I went back upstairs, pulled him into my lap, and asked, “Is it about...
Read MoreWhat Have I Gotten Myself Into?
“Just paint ‘sucker’ across my forehead,” I told my husband. I had just agreed to be the fifty-fifth president of the Ann Arbor City Club.It’s going to be a lot of work, for no pay, for twelve...
Read MoreNerdy Flirty
Upstairs at the Vault of Midnight, customers peruse comic books, toys, and other pop culture knickknacks. Downstairs, past a smattering of superhero posters, past shelves of indie comics, past a room full of board games and back...
Read MoreFandom and Family
When a theatergoing friend and I finally made it to a production of Detroit’s celebrated Mosaic Youth Theatre, I had an ulterior motive: I hoped we might run into Rick Sperling, Mosaic’s founder and director. I...
Read MoreDIY Lumberjack
“Do you need any tree trimming?”I had just pulled into my driveway when he hailed me: a young man in work clothes and a knapsack, coming up the walk. He handed me a badly Xeroxed leaflet and explained that he was a...
Read MoreRalph W. Hammett, Monuments Man
I have long been curious about the late Ralph W. Hammett. A U-M architecture professor, he designed many local buildings, including an addition to the Ann Arbor (then Women’s) City Club on Washtenaw, the Congregational...
Read MorePolar Vortex
It’s not like I’m crazy. I would have stayed inside like everyone else.It was the second day after the “polar vortex” hit us. The wind chill was something like forty degrees below zero, and the police...
Read MoreTake Back the Toledo Strip!
When Ohio stole part of Michigan in the 1830s, it was a battle between a state and a territory. We are a state now, and it is past time to reexamine this whole sordid affair.In 1787, the Second Continental Congress enacted the...
Read MoreA Present for My Mom
By the time I was seven years old, I knew what it meant to be poor. Over time I would grow to hate it, but at that age I didn’t understand why my family was so different from our new neighbors in Ann Arbor. I only knew...
Read MoreHard Lessons
I was working in our office studio above the garage one evening when my husband, Miles, came back early from a bike trip to Kroger.”How was your ride?” I asked, without looking up. He didn’t reply....
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