Fruitless Fall
The effects of our unseasonably warm March weather are readily apparent this fall. Apples are very scarce at local farmers’ markets, and cider mills are importing fruit from other parts of the state–or beyond.Most...
Read More2012 September
Beethoven’s Ninth by the AASO
I’ve heard the Ann Arbor Symphony play Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony twice, and both times I was blown away.The first was in September 1988, under music director Carl St. Clair, and it was truly hair-raising. This was...
Read MoreFootball Food
The Michigan football team plays its first home game on September 8, but the season will start a few days earlier for Rob TerBush and his staff at Holiday’s restaurant.”We start roasting meat on Wednesday, we start...
Read MoreKFC Goes South
The KFC on West Stadium closed at the end of June. “For questions/concerns call 971-6130” said a sign liberally plastered on windows, doors, and the drive-through menu. That’s the phone number of the KFC...
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Bargains at Waters Place
Thirty-some people gathered on August 2 outside of the new Big Lots, which replaced Borders in Waters Place, that strip mall of big-box stores that also houses Best Buy and Kohl’s. Compared to the thousands who streamed...
Read MoreGloria Thomas
The same week Gloria Thomas’s boss told her that the U-M Center for the Education of Women was going to lose funding for a popular program, she also learned that a former prof, Elizabeth Dusseau, who had recently died at...
Read MoreTigermania
As a young girl, Kerrie Ferrell dreamed of becoming the first female major league baseball player. But her local Little League banned her–even though, she says, in neighborhood ball games, “I was better than the...
Read MoreSo Long, Cowboy Hat
The Arby’s on Washtenaw near Platt closed, too. It was most famous for its outsize cowboy hat, grandfathered in from a more libertarian era in signage, when the government didn’t get between a corporation and its...
Read MoreWorks by Michigan Artists
Every fall during college, after all our books were purchased and fees paid, the last thing on the shopping list was always posters or art. With whatever money we had left, my girlfriends and I would scour the poster bins for...
Read MoreEnd of the Party
Though he faced no challenger, mayor John Hieftje lost the August Democratic primary. With Sumi Kailasapathy and Sally Hart Petersen defeating “council party” candidates in the First and Second wards, along with the...
Read MoreSchool supply chain
As summer vacation wound down, organizations and companies all over town were collecting school supplies for needy kids.You couldn’t get through a checkout at OfficeMax without being asked if you wanted to donate. The...
Read MoreThe Boson Bet
We asked Lois Kane, sometime Ann Arbor Observer writer, if she could/would write a piece about her husband, Gordy Kane, U-M professor of physics, winning a bet with Stephen Hawking. The bet concerned the existence (Kane) or...
Read MoreEarhart Manor
“Lovely,” comments Judy Avery. “How nice of you to provide us with a chance to check out that barn none of us got last month.” The house is known as “The Meadows,” writes Michael Brueger,...
Read MoreOrrenson’s Paint Store
We received 105 entries correctly identifying the 50 Shades of Grey-themed ad for Orrenson’s Paint Store on page 70 of the August Observer. The entries included several from first-time Fake Adders, including Allison...
Read MoreThe Queen of Versailles
The Queen of Versailles is a documentary about David Siegel, a seventy-four-year-old time-share tycoon, and his forty-three-year-old wife, Jackie, who set out to build America’s biggest home, in Orlando, Florida. Named for...
Read MoreGiving Boys a Voice
Nine-year-old Alden Rohwer loves to sing. “He sings all day long, on car trips—everywhere!” says his mother, Aileen. She says since joining the Boychoir of Ann Arbor about a year ago, Alden’s been inspired not...
Read MorePrairie Dock and Poison Ivy
It’s with a feeling of awe and gratefulness that I’m looking at my first prairie dock, a tall wildflower that could pass for a sunflower’s skinny sibling. Prior to this, I had only encountered prairie dock...
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