Community

Peacemaking Court

“It sounds soft,” admits judge Timothy Connors about the Washtenaw County Peacemaking Court, which was launched last October in his courtroom with the “full engagement of the state court system, with the...

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Friend of the Court

Sarosi, the president of Father Gabriel Richard High School’s junior class, was accompanied by twenty-five classmates, teachers, the school’s chaplain, and its principal. They were there because Matilyn, an honor...

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The Clothesline Lady

It all started with a photograph. The year was 1966, and the photo shows Lawrence’s mother smiling as she leans over her back porch railing with a full clothesline swaying behind her in the breeze. “It was, and still...

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A Flower for All Seasons

Where–in Ann Arbor–can you, no matter what your height, stand directly beneath a flower that soars so high that the very clouds in the sky seem lower than its petals? Where–in Ann Arbor–can you see a...

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SafeHouse’s Budget Crunch

“Sequestration was tough on us,” says Barbara Niess-May, executive director of SafeHouse Center. Cutbacks in several programs that help victims of domestic violence and sexual assault cost the center more than...

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Driving the Drunken Student

Mark Reddock, a Getaway driver since 2000, says U-M Greek groups often charter buses to take members to drinking parties as far afield as Comerica Park in Detroit and Clutch Cargo’s in Pontiac. Getaway gets fifteen to...

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Martin Contreras and Keith Orr

Over coffee one morning last October, Martin Contreras, fifty-four, and Keith Orr, fifty-six, discussed whether they should get married that day. “Let’s do it,” urged Contreras. They had been a couple for...

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Turtle Stewards

Turtles survived the comet that killed the dinosaurs, only to be imperiled by sand volleyball players. The volleyball court is where a snapping turtle laid her eggs a couple of years ago in Scheffler Park. The year before, one...

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Pleya del Sol

We received 90 entries correctly identifying the Fake Ad for “Pleya del Sol” on page 95 of the March Observer. That was an unexpectedly low number for an ad that our nemesis, Dean McLaughlin, dismissed as...

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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...

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The Subdivision that Got Away

“The situation was going downhill rapidly,” Dan Ezekiel remembers. It was the spring of 2009, and the Forsythe Middle School science teacher had gone out to 3013 W. Huron River Dr. to meet the property’s owner,...

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Glacier Way?

Q. I could swear that when I first moved to A2 in 1960, there was a road named Glacier Way that is now known as Glazier Way. Am I hallucinating or was the road that was named for a geological phenomenon at some point changed to...

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301 S. Main

Elaine Selo, co-owner of the Selo/Shevel Gallery, calls its longtime location at 301 S. Main “the best corner in Ann Arbor. The building’s changes over the past 142 years mirror downtown’s evolution. Built in...

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Ann Arborite Josh Greenberg

Josh Greenberg has just landed in Uganda. It’s the summer after his sophomore year at Duke, where he founded a nonprofit called the Progressive Health Partnership. He’s raised the money to start a small medical...

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Thurston Beatlemania

The Thurston Community Players (TCP) celebrate their fortieth anniversary this year with a musical called “Thru the Fairy Door!” (see Events, March 27). Most of the 100-plus actors are elementary school students, but...

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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...

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The Sleep-Depression Connection

The White Lakes Township resident would go on Facebook game binges at 3 a.m., then couldn’t focus during meetings the next day. “Half the time, even when I was awake, I was moving too slow and speaking too...

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Go ahead, play “nug”

When Susan Chastain started a weekly Scrabble game at her Firefly Club on Ashley in 2005, Merriam-Webster was just bringing out its new Fourth Edition of the Official Scrabble Players Dictionary (famous for its game-changing...

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When the Grass Dances

The sun likes to play peek-a-boo with the clouds during the winter, but there are plants that do a pretty good job of catching whatever light shines through. Some dormant ornamental perennial grasses fall within this category....

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