What 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 MoreMy Town
Nerdy 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....
Read MoreJXN’S Cuterebra
JXN’s REPORT7/20/2012Patient information: Name: JXN. Species: Feline. Sex: MN. Breed: DSH. Birthday: 7/26/2011. Age: 1 year old. Color: Grey. Weight: 10 lbs. 12 oz.Presenting concerns: fever.History: Still febrile, ate...
Read MoreSummer Adventures
When I was a young girl, I spent most of the year dreaming and pining for those wonderful months of summer—days filled with sandy feet and sunburnt noses and evenings spent lying outside, looking up at the sky with my sister and...
Read MoreSlave of Softball
Return with me now to those thrilling days of yesteryear–well, one of them, anyway–when smoke-filled rooms and hot lead were the stuff of which newspapers were made …For a couple of summers in the early 1970s I...
Read MoreThe Perfect Home for Walking
My wife and I live downtown on the edge of Kerrytown. My brother lives in a suburb of Charleston, SC. We have normal-size homes with relatively normal American lifestyles, in every way but one: my Walk Score is 100 and my...
Read MoreRemembering Vietnam
The guys at the 2013 reunion of the 3/27 Marines were lucky enough to make it home from Vietnam, and maybe even luckier to make it to Weber’s Inn all these years later. But maybe none is luckier than Melvin Cox. “I...
Read MoreUpcoming Events
- April 14, 2026 “Free College Week”: WCC Various Times
- April 14, 2026 Ann Arbor Group Runs: Fleet Feet 7:00 am
- April 14, 2026 “What Does the Success of New Obesity Medications Tell Us About How Our Body Weight Is Regulated?”: U-M Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) Alfred Gourdji Distinguished Lecture Series 10:00 am
- April 14, 2026 “Investigate Labs”: U-M Museum of Natural History 11:00 am
- April 14, 2026 Carillon Concert Series: U-M School of Music 12:00 pm