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Life Lessons from Being a Line Cook

Life Lessons from Being a Line Cook

Dec 23, 2024 | , , , , |

Ari Weinzweig and Paul Saginaw opened Zingerman’s Delicatessen in 1982. It became the cornerstone of a Community of Businesses that today has a staff of 700 and annual sales of more than $80,000,000. Along the way, Weinzweig has published more than two dozen books on food, business, and leadership. This article is excerpted from his latest, a hand-bound chapbook that connects his early life to his work today. 

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Discoveries!

Discoveries!

Nov 25, 2024 | , |

The Observer’s call for historical artifacts earlier this year yielded an interesting range of items. Many will be documented by the Ann Arbor District Library as part of its digital archive of the city’s history.

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Gifts of Life

Gifts of Life

Nov 25, 2024 | , , , , |

Dorrie Dils became president and CEO of Gift of Life Michigan in 2016. At the time, she says, the Ann Arbor–based agency was “averaging about 280 organ donors a year.” The number has since more than doubled, to 578 last year. 

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The Birth of Cinema Guild

The Birth of Cinema Guild

Oct 25, 2024 | , |

Cinema Guild cosponsored the Ann Arbor Film Festival from its start in 1963 and hosted guests like Frank Capra, Harold Lloyd, Andy Warhol, and the Velvet Underground. And it sometimes courted controversy with screenings of banned films like Flaming Creatures, which in 1967 led to the arrests of four Cinema Guild board members.

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The Volunteer Vanishes

The Volunteer Vanishes

Oct 25, 2024 | , , |

The decline in volunteers adds to the challenges facing the Ann Arbor Public Schools, which are reeling in the wake of a budget deficit and staff cuts. “It’s not like there’s a parent at home anymore,” says Gina Maksimchuk, who teaches kindergarten oung fives at Abbot. And that means “fewer people are available to volunteer.”

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Football Families

Football Families

Oct 7, 2024 | , , |

At dusk, on fall Fridays across the county, the world of high school football comes back to life, like a prep sports version of Brigadoon. The marching bands. Singsongy cheerleader chants. An announcer’s booming voice. Armored athletes crashing into each other. And the bleacher crowd’s claps and jeers at the action unfolding before them, on 100 yards of astroturf.

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A Vital School Board Vote

A Vital School Board Vote

Sep 28, 2024 | , , |

The November 5 election is about the schools’ past, present, and future—the current board’s firing of superintendent Jeanice Swift last summer, the discovery of a $25 million hole the budget in March, the hiring of Jazz Parks as the new superintendent in June, and the need to grow enrollment to keep the schools financially sound in the future.

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Stealing Halloween

Stealing Halloween

Sep 25, 2024 | , |

Rachel Ufer has looked forward to Halloween on Granger Ave. ever since she moved there in 2017. “You can’t really believe it until you see it,” Ufer says of the spooky decorations that drew roughly 1,400 trick-or-treaters to her block in Burns Park last year. But a few days before Halloween, a large inflatable skeleton was stolen from her house—and the next night, an inflatable spider. 

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Election Revolution?

Election Revolution?

Sep 25, 2024 | , , |

The historic contest between Democratic vice president Kamala Harris and Republican former president Donald Trump at the top of the November 5 ballot is expected to draw huge numbers of voters on Election Day. But with no city council seats contested, the most impactful items locally are proposals near the end of the packed ballot—particularly Ann Arbor proposals A, to create a city-owned “sustainable energy utility,” and C and D, which would make city elections nonpartisan and provide public funding for council and mayoral candidates.

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Youth Movement

Youth Movement

Aug 26, 2024 | , , |

Just before kick-off at the AFC Ann Arbor women’s May 19 soccer match against Kalamazoo FC at Pioneer High School’s Hollway Field, fifteen-year-old Izzy Sutton and two U-M students received formal recognition as female leaders and role models. Sutton, tall and athletic, was a 2023 Washtenaw County Young Citizen of the Year, and has won state and national service awards for her work, which has included raising money for bird and turtle rescue by selling her own line of notecards. Sutton has long called for eliminating single-use plastic water bottles at the Ann Arbor Public Schools, petitioning the school board and administration since fifth grade. Most end up in landfills and as trash in the environment.

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The Band Takes the Field

The Band Takes the Field

Aug 26, 2024 | ,

A new U-M dorm is rising on the Michigan Marching Band’s longtime home at Elbel Field, but director John Pasquale is over-the-moon happy with the new Elbel Field a block away.

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Starting Over

Starting Over

Aug 26, 2024 | , ,

Sherrone Moore, promoted to the top job, is in some ways starting over. He’s got a new staff, a new quarterback, and an entirely new offensive line.

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Around the World in Ann Arbor

Around the World in Ann Arbor

Aug 15, 2024 | , , , |

What follows is an imaginary itinerary across the continents, all within greater Ann Arbor. Whether in search of the familiar favorites that constitute our own version of soul food, or an adventure into ever-widening horizons, it can be found here, and without the jet lag.

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The Newcomers

The Newcomers

Aug 14, 2024 | , |

Many Washtenaw County towns were founded during a land rush following the defeat of the Midwest’s Indigenous inhabitants and construction of the Erie Canal. 

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Under Interrogation

Under Interrogation

Jul 25, 2024 | , |

They sat me down in a room with a table and a bunch of chairs and actually tilted a desk lamp so it shone directly into my eyes. One man did the questioning while other officers rotated in and out of the room. My interrogator was precise and seemingly emotionless. The other officers had lips drawn tight and glared. He asked who I was, where I’d come from, what route I had followed, whether I had seen anyone, had stopped, and had anything happened along the way. 

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Ron Warhurst Goes to Paris

Ron Warhurst Goes to Paris

Jul 25, 2024 | , , |

Ron Warhurst was a U-M coach for thirty-six years—cross-country and track. He was Big Ten coach of the year four times, won nine conference championships, and coached 129 All-Americans, multiple Olympians, and a winner of the Boston Marathon. 

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