Ague in Ann Arbor
Don’t go to Michigan, land of ills;The name means ague, fever, and chills.-Popular nineteenth-century sayingIn September 1824 a twenty-year-old Irish immigrant, Walter Oakman, bought 123 acres of land near Ypsilanti....
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Special Delivery
Mar 30, 2009 | Community |
Every neighborhood in America has a mail carrier, and Ann Arbor’s are no exception. Six days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, carriers fan out from the city’s three post offices to walk or drive its 137 delivery...
Read MoreInternational Neighbors at 50
Mar 20, 2009 | Community |
“What has surprised you most about life in Ann Arbor?” I ask the women gathered in a small, drab classroom on North Campus.”The man next door mowed his lawn without his shirt!” exclaims a young Japanese...
Read MoreHerman Bock, Decorator
Mar 18, 2009 | Community |
Last summer, Deb Adamic was cleaning the ceiling of the U-M Law Library’s reading room when she spotted a cubbyhole where the ceiling beams meet the wall. Reaching in, Adamic felt something loose and pulled out a grimy...
Read MoreBirthday of the Month
Mar 11, 2009 | Community |
“Our goal is to provide birthdays to children in need of a birthday surprise when they would otherwise go without this year,” explains the website annarborbirthdaysurprise.com. “We are not an organization. We...
Read MoreThe Attack Cats
Mar 11, 2009 | Community |
We had just come around the first turn when I saw someone walking toward us, then a dog, then another.”Hi,” I said. “I see you have dogs.”No answer.”I have two cats with me,” I said....
Read MoreHollywood on Washington
Mar 4, 2009 | Community |
“We get three types of traffic,” says the man guarding the door at 425 East Washington—”the workers, the patients, and the movie people.” The workers park outside while they’re building the 411...
Read MoreEchoes of 1933
Feb 27, 2009 | Community |
Seventy-six years ago this month, the country was at the low point of the Great Depression. In Ann Arbor, American Broach, King-Seeley, and Hoover Ball and Bearing all had cut production and laid off workers. Local retail sales...
Read MoreDating Ms. Arbor
Feb 25, 2009 | Community |
An Ann Arbor woman visiting family in Minneapolis in January accompanied her college-age nephew to a movie. Returning to their car, they were dismayed to find a city cop about to ticket it for being illegally parked, something...
Read MoreAnn Arbor’s oldest cemeteries
Feb 22, 2009 | Community |
Q. What is the oldest cemetery in Ann Arbor?A. The oldest headstone, in Terhune Pioneer Cemetery near Packard, commemorates young Emily Whitmore, who was buried in 1825. However, there are no bodies in this public park—the...
Read MoreHomeless Soccer
Feb 19, 2009 | Community |
“It takes your mind off your worries,” says a player during a break in a soccer game at World Wide Sports Center. Raul, a soft-spoken twenty-four-year-old, plays regularly with the SSPORT team. It’s made up of...
Read MoreJohn Beranek & Karen Park
Feb 14, 2009 | Community |
When Karen Park and John Beranek got engaged, friends scrawled the story of how they met on the sidewalk between their homes.”John met Karen at Top of the Park,” they announced in colored chalk. “She lives that...
Read MoreBicycle Stampede
Feb 10, 2009 | Community |
Or the Boys’ and Girls’ Glee Club of Ann Arbor. Or Candy Death Squad. By any name, they’re a self-described “hard-core” late-night bike-riding group.Weather permitting, they tear through town every...
Read MoreDream House
Feb 4, 2009 | Community |
Valerie Laken played a mean second base on the O Team—the Observer’s co-rec softball team—a few years back. I usually played catcher, and I enjoyed chatting with her on the bench or over postgame beers. She had a house on...
Read MoreMissing pigs
Jan 27, 2009 | Community |
Three bronze pigs have gone missing from the playground at County Farm Park. According to Washtenaw County Parks and Recreation deputy director Tom Freeman, the metallic mother and her three piglets that once clustered near the...
Read MoreOverheard on Miller
Jan 23, 2009 | Community |
Walking down Miller in the first snowstorm of the season, two men bowed their heads to the wind as their boots crunched the newly fallen snow. “So what do you think about this weather?” asked one.”I like...
Read MoreBehind the veil
Jan 21, 2009 | Community |
Like a flashy lure, Liberty Street Robot Supply and Repair demands attention. From the street, large windows give an unobstructed view of comical, lounging robots and kid-friendly shelves lined with boxes of mechanical arms,...
Read MoreMy time had come
Jan 19, 2009 | Community |
Its time for Mattie to share her story with the world, says Gratia Lousma. Mattie King, eighty-seven, moved to Ann Arbor from North Carolina in 1950, escaping the humiliations of Jim Crow. Gratia was just thirteen when they...
Read MoreSnips and songs
Jan 2, 2009 | Community |
It was a snowy December afternoon at Vicki’s Wash & Wear Haircuts. Vicki Honeyman was cutting hair at the barber chair in the middle of her Heavenly Metal boutique while David Menefee, a white-bearded local stonemason...
Read MoreThe Threshold Choir
Dec 30, 2008 | Community |
Before my father died, he was in the grip of a profound dementia. He was in a hospital in Florida and my brother and I were still here in Michigan. We phoned daily, but he was confused, anxious, and incoherent.Then one day my...
Read MoreUpcoming Events
- March 17, 2026 “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze”: Fathom Entertainment Various Times
- March 17, 2026 Ann Arbor Group Runs: Fleet Feet 7:00 am
- March 17, 2026 St. Patrick's Festival: Conor O’Neill’s Irish Pub 7:00 am
- March 17, 2026 Open Lab: Ann Arbor District Library 11:00 am
- March 17, 2026 “Investigate Labs”: U-M Museum of Natural History 11:00 am