My husband and I got awfully sick of grilled cheese sandwiches a couple summers ago while vacationing for six days in the Upper Peninsula. Breakfast wasn’t usually a problem, but finding vegetarian options on lunch and...
Read MoreThe Elsifor family, one branch or another, has lived in Ann Arbor for four or more generations, but I have lived here for only eight years. When I moved here there was a lot going on in my life that wasn’t good so I...
Read MoreThe things I’ve done to get birds to eat.I’ve donned a hand puppet resembling a crow to offer chunks of raw meat to a real fledgling American Crow.Using tweezers, I’ve fed wriggling mealworms to a nestling...
Read MoreThe eight candidates running for four seats in the city’s August 4 Democratic primary don’t agree on much, but they do agree elections are getting more interesting.This one is interesting. Three of the incumbents are...
Read MoreI have been unemployed since I quit my job at Sears on April 14.I was hired as a salesperson at the Briarwood store in 2011. It was my first job since being forced into medical retirement when I underwent cancer treatment from...
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In hindsight, it wasn’t the safest time to join the military. But when Robert Fletcher enlisted in the Army in May 1950, the decision seemed relatively low-risk. “War didn’t seem possible with the Second World...
Read MoreOne Saturday afternoon in March, forty-four boys and girls of various races clustered around computers in Menlo Innovations’ cavernous office under the Liberty Square parking structure. One group was building castles and...
Read MoreThis is the first in an occasional series on the future of agriculture in Washtenaw County. In this issue, we meet two younger farmers from heritage farm families who are updating traditional commodity operations with...
Read MoreDexter, Saline, and Chelsea are very different cities, with very different mayors. Yet each tells the same archetypal political story: the call to public service, the challenge–for all three, the Great Recession–and...
Read MoreOn July 15, Arthur Nusbaum will set out from his home in Burns Park to walk all four Ann Arbor art fairs. He’ll eye every booth but will always return to certain favorites, where he’ll be greeted warmly and often...
Read MoreBeards are back. And they’re getting a lot of attention.Aaron Wilson, age twenty-eight, and winner of Ann Arbor’s Best Beard Contest, says random women often stop to compliment him on his “well-groomed”...
Read MoreWhen I called Shinola in Detroit in April asking when its Ann Arbor store would open, the person who answered the phone said May then brightly added, “It will be on Main St., right across from Starbucks.” And that...
Read MoreOn June 27, 2013, a storm in Ann Arbor delivered 2.2 inches of rain in three hours and caused a flood so severe that students were kayaking in the street at the corner of Division and Hill.It was no fluke. From 1980 to 2010, the...
Read MoreWhen the Neutral Zone amicably ended its partnership with the University Musical Society on an annual showcase concert in 2012, its teenaged clients agreed with the decision. They were also determined to keep the spirit of...
Read MoreOn October 9, 2014, Aastrom Biosciences, a homegrown biotech company, announced that it was changing its name to Vericel and moving its corporate headquarters from Ann Arbor to Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company has pursued...
Read MoreHappy hibernation, SnowBuddy! Spring has sprung, and the volunteer-run sidewalk snowplow is sleeping away the warm weather in a garage on Cherry St.Welcome, Water Hill Music Festival! On Sunday, May 3 (see Events), residents of...
Read MoreWhen the Observer interviewed Rick Snyder in December 2010, the newly elected governor figured he had six months–from his inauguration on January 1 until the legislature’s summer break on July 1–to reinvent...
Read MoreAt Pioneer High, he was stalked by scouts. At the U-M, he led a baseball revival. Once he turned pro, however, Zach Putnam’s rocket ride to stardom sputtered. Traded, waived, released, repeatedly demoted, he has pitched in...
Read MoreWhat’s the deal with the highway interchanges where North Main St. meets M-14? I’m talking about the Barton Dr., Whitmore Lake Rd., and North Main St. entrances and exits. They are confusing at best and often quite...
Read MoreWhen James Woolliscroft heard the news in January 2007 that Pfizer was closing its drug research campus on Plymouth Rd., he thought, Wow, what an opportunity.This was far from the majority sentiment in Ann Arbor. The city faced...
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