Community

Guns and Glory

Aug 27, 2010 | |

At the Tri-County Sportsmen’s League, shots ring out over the pouring rain. There is a man in an oilcloth duster and matching Stetson, and the gun smoke hangs low in the cool spring weather. The gunslinger fantasy is...

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Aunita Erskine

Aug 23, 2010 | |

“The Indians called this the Burnt River District,” says Aunita Erskine as she tromps across the Shanghai Prairie. According to local legend–which, Erskine cheerfully stresses, is just a legend–it’s...

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Quit Carping!

Aug 19, 2010 | |

While Michigan politicians issue alarmed statements about the invasion of the Great Lakes by Asian carp, two U-M professors say the peril is overplayed. Mesmerizing YouTube videos showing the fish (which can weigh up to 100...

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Downtown Rebound

Aug 15, 2010 | |

Saline Mayor Gretchen Driskell jokes that she has a new slogan for her downtown: “We welcome loitering.” With the economy showing some signs of improvement, Saline, Chelsea, and Dexter’s struggling downtowns...

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Urban Buzz

Aug 13, 2010 | |

“I’m wearing myself out,” says Mark Hodesh, owner of Downtown Home & Garden. Hodesh has been getting more exercise lately escorting customers–mostly moms and kids–upstairs to see the beehive he...

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Yarn Bombers

Aug 7, 2010 | |

“Cherry Luvbomb” and “Buy Art” are Ann Arbor graffiti artists with a twist. These two “traditionally sized” women (to borrow a term from mystery writer Alexander McCall Smith) are neither...

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Real Green Lawn Service

Aug 5, 2010 | |

Last month’s Fake Ad for Real Green lawn service promised to use human power and wind power instead of noxious, toxic, greenhouse gas-causing fossil fuels. Naturally, in Ann Arbor, there were those who didn’t think...

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Power Center

Aug 4, 2010 | |

“My wife thinks it’s the Power Center,” writes Brian Mickey about July’s I Spy. “She’s pretty smart, so I’m going with it.””The Power Center!” concurs Molly Yunker....

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Good Bones

Jul 30, 2010 | |

Housecleaning can be tough on your knees, as a local homeowner was reminded when she overheard her cleaning woman on her cell phone, discussing an upcoming knee replacement procedure. “I wanted one of those feminine...

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Parking Lot Dirt

Jul 26, 2010 | |

Q. Where is all the dirt that’s being removed for the new underground parking garage next to the library going? A. Most of the soil removed from the site is sand and gravel, so it’s been in demand: 3,800 cubic yards...

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Basement Blues

Jul 19, 2010 | |

Ann Arbor residents facing the city’s mandatory footing drain disconnection–which aims to keep rainwater out of the city’s sanitary sewer system and reduce the chances of basement backups–also may be...

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Ann Arborite Charlie Green

Jul 9, 2010 | |

In 1954, Albert and Gail Green drove up from Dayton and dropped their son off at South Quad. Charlie Green’s been an Ann Arborite ever since.After graduating from the U-M in 1959, Green taught subjects that, he says,...

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Rising Tide

Jul 6, 2010 | |

“It was a perfect storm,” city parks and recreation manager Colin Smith told a meeting at the Leslie Science and Nature Center in mid-June. He was speaking of all the rain–especially the nearly two inches that...

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Bird Center/Polling Place

Jul 5, 2010 | |

“One of my favorite buildings in town!” writes Julie Weatherbee of June’s I Spy (below), “a dual-purpose building on Mary Street.” It’s “the Bird Center of Washtenaw County,”...

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Coalition for Local Business

Jul 5, 2010 | |

We received eighty-three entries last month correctly identifying the Fake Ad for the Washtenaw County Coalition for Local Business on page 68 of the June Observer. The ad was, of course, made up, but the idea of what would...

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Ann Arborite Kate MacEwen

Jun 22, 2010 | |

In a small, neatly kept house in the east part of town, Kate MacEwen, twenty-nine, is recording a video interview. MacEwen, of average height, blue-eyed and rosy-cheeked, is development director of an organization called...

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Boiled Peanut Man

Jun 18, 2010 | |

Tom Laporte, aka the “Boiled Peanut Man,” brought a small piece of Dixie to Dexter’s backyard last November. Laporte, thirty-five, the sous chef at the Ann Arbor City Club, has worked in the food industry most...

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Bidding War at King School

Jun 11, 2010 | |

At King School’s ice cream social on June 11, principal Kevin Karr will be triumphantly wearing maize and blue. This may not seem out of the ordinary for a U-M alum who special-ordered a big block M on his parking space...

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Hope’s Helpers

Jun 7, 2010 | |

St. Joe oncologist Phillip Stella was volunteering at Ypsilanti’s Hope Clinic when he saw a patient with a nagging cough–which turned out to be treatable early stage lung cancer. Without the clinic, which provides...

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Jefferson Market 2010

Jun 2, 2010 | |

“Let them eat cake,” writes Noah Levin, adding, “I spy the Jefferson Market.” Make that the “fabulous Jefferson Market and Cakery, across…from my daughter’s school,” writes Linda...

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