Categories: Metro Detroit
A pair of Detroit jewels
“Say Nice Things About Detroit.”
Whether you actually followed through on the 1970s and 80s slogan or not, you must remember it and, perhaps, the woman who dreamed it up.
Detroit News columnist Neil Rubin did a nice column today, Singing the city’s praises, about Emily Gail, who now sells real estate and hosts a radio show in Hawaii but was among the first Motor City boosters.
Also today, The News’ David Josar writes about Belle Isle’s two faces: Island jewel, lawless landmark.
Categories: Dobel Street, Metro Detroit
Holy Name/Shield of Faith/neighborhood softball tournament
Once upon a time I drank a little wine.
Actually, it was a whole lot of wine.
By night’s end, I reportedly had kissed Mt. Olivet Cemetery director Mark Gracely on the top of his bald head – and almost everybody else who attended the Holy Name keeping-in-touch party back in March.
The drunken sailor in me still surfaces on the rare occasion when pent-up pressure meets big party with an open bar.
Anyway, I’m still piecing that crazy night together and recently remembered promising several people that I would arrange a Holy Name/Shield of Faith/neighborhood softball tournament at Fletcher Field this summer.
Consider it done: Sunday, August 23, at 2 p.m.
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Categories: Metro Detroit
A word from Dean Koontz
Fire, ice, asteroids, and pole shifts are bogeymen with which we distract ourselves from the real threat of our time. In an age when everyone invents his own truth, there is not community, only factions. Without community, there can be no consensus to resist the greedy, the envious, the power-mad narcissists who seize control and turn institutions of civilization into a series of doom machines.
My college roommate turned me on to author Dean Koontz nearly 20 years ago. Two decades later, he’s still my favorite read.
He’s been tagged as a horror writer, but he’s much deeper than that. Koontz understands the world in which he lives and masterfully weaves it into his fictional worlds – often making the unbelievable seem totally plausible.
Categories: Dobel Street, Metro Detroit
It came just the same
It started in low. Then it started to grow …
I thought about that line from Dr. Seuss’ “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” while our first Sundays-in-the-park event of the season unfolded this afternoon at Fletcher Field.
Just like the Christmas celebration in Who-ville following the Grinch’s dastardly deed, it took a little while to get going. But when it did reach its pinnacle, well, NOISE! NOISE! NOISE! FEAST! FEAST! FEAST!
Kids everywhere: reading, swinging, climbing, playing ball, flying a kite. Parents getting reacquainted and enjoying the company and gorgeous weather. Me back behind my favorite little barbecue in the whole world, grilling up 120 hot dogs – none of which went to waste.
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Categories: Metro Detroit
Night at the museum
It was the kind of day in Detroit that threatened to zap any remaining hope that we can all come together and rebuild this once great city.
Detroit City Council Pro Tem Monica Conyers goes to court and admits trading her Synagro vote for cash. Oakland County Executive Al Brooks Patterson, during a radio interview on WWJ 950-AM shortly after Conyers’ court appearance, essentially calls the City of Detroit a joke and irrelevant to Michigan’s future. The city’s black newspaper, The Michigan Citizen, has a screaming headline that claims Conyers was framed by the media.
But around 1 a.m. Saturday, none of the above really mattered to me any more. And I was plenty hopeful that the time has come for real change around here – if only the politicians and media would take a cue from the regular folks who they’re supposed to be leading and protecting.
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Categories: Metro Detroit
Losing our Elvis and Marilyn -- on the same day
He might have been crazy – maybe even worse – but he was my generation’s Elvis Presley.
During a career that spanned decades, Michael Jackson taught us our ABCs, called on us to live off the wall, thrilled us, sent MTV on its way, helped feed the world and left this world with 13 No. 1 singles.
To lose The King of Pop at just 50 is stunning enough. But his death hit even harder because it came on the same day that Charlie’s hottest angel, Farrah Fawcett, died at 62.
A massive heart attack reportedly killed Jackson. A long bout with cancer claimed Fawcett.
Like most of my friends, the famous Fawcett poster from the 1970s hung on my bedroom wall – a monument to, well, a weird feeling that was just starting to stir below my belt. I also had a blue T-shirt that sported Fawcett’s sexy swimsuit pose, which – I’m pretty sure – excelled my journey through puberty.
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Categories: Dobel Street, Metro Detroit
A date at 'The Corner' with Tram
Alan Trammell watched his Fletcher Field, Tiger Stadium, continue to come down on Tuesday – and I had the unbelievable opportunity to be there with him. (This is the best job in the world sometimes.)
The former Tigers shortstop, and later their manager, is now the Cubs bench coach and is in town for a three-game interleague series at Comerica Park. He decided to take the opportunity to say goodbye to ‘The Corner,’ a place still near and dear to his heart.
“… my years of playing in Tiger Stadium were very special to me,” he told Tom Gage for a story in Tuesday’s Detroit News. “I want to see it one more time.”
Categories: Dobel Street, Metro Detroit
You don't get this stuff on Facebook
The deaths of a father and a cousin. The murder of a close friend. A severely ill grandchild. A bout with prostate cancer. A divorce. Jobs lost. A son’s knee ripped up in a post-game celebration. Another son shipped off to Afghanistan. A neck surgery …
Our community, Friends of Fletcher Field, has had its share of setbacks and heartbreaks in recent months. So much so, there have been times when I actually second-guessed helping bring this group together.
It’s just a fact: The more people you know, the more tragedy you bring into your life.
But the flip side of that equation makes it all worthwhile: The more people you know, the more love you bring into your life.
Categories: Metro Detroit
A PB on Father's Day
Being a long-time runner, both at the collegiate and recreational level, I’m a big fan of track-and-field competition. I’m even geeky enough about the sport of running to watch three-hour telecasts of major marathons, such as the one in New York City.
During these telecasts, you often hear the announcers talk about records: course records, U.S. records, world records and then there’s the runners’ PBs (personal-best times).
To me, the PBs are the most important of all.
Whatever your challenge in life, if you do your personal best, leave it all on the field, there are no regrets – win or lose.
I offered that advice to my 10-year-old son, Louis, before his baseball team played for the Grosse Pointe Shores-Woods Little League AAA title today.
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Categories: Metro Detroit, Balduck Park Area
Back at Balduck
“Blankety-blank is dead to me now.”
A friend of mine used that phrase a couple of weeks ago after somebody really ticked him off. The hyperbole made me belly laugh; it just sounded so excessive for the offense committed against him.
I was thinking about that over-the-top statement last Saturday as I sat watching my son Louis’ baseball game at Balduck Park, where the place was packed with families – and at least 97 percent of them were black.
I honestly believe, to many white suburbanites, most of Detroit is dead to them now. Although they miss their former homes, neighborhoods and hangouts, they think it’s impossible to go back and not become dead themselves.
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