Going Home

My favorite email

I've gotten hundreds of emails as a result of this blog. The following arrived this morning and is my favorite to date:

[More:]

Hi Mike

Being that my Uncle owns a business on Erwin, I am aware of your former neighborhood.

During the big snowstorm of 2003, I suggested to friends we do a bit of night urban skiing (rope tied to the back of vehicle)...I knew just the place...the area behind City Airport...long city blocks with little or no occupants. We started at Leander and French, then right on Gilbo. Things were fine until I turned right on what I now know was Dobel. I became transfixed on the fact that there was life on this street as opposed to the general area. I remember distincly thinking, "this street...they really have something here...nice."

I awoke from my dream to the screams of my buddy...looked in the rearview to see him weaving and nearly hitting every parked vehicle on the crowded street. I stopped where the street meets the park and contemplated this seeming "Ile de la Cite." I really liked what I saw...Thus my conciousness of your old street...until last Saturday night.

I dont really read the local papers anymore...but as the snow began that night, I put down the book I was reading and began surfing the web. I came across your blog and read it complete...and realized..."it's that street!"

I left at midnight and drank Scotch in Hamtramck till closing. So there I did find myself....(3am, slightly intoxicated yet extremly lucid...in a driving snow contemplating the dead of yesterday, today and tomorrow) in the middle of your beloved Fletcher (Strawberry) Field. In the words of Sartre...I had "found my way back to the great laws of the participationist and autistic thinking of children and schizophrenics."

As long as the mistrust, miscommunication and hatred (of which you spoke) exist, Doble street is everyone's street...we must own it within ourselves. Dobel street really is the human condition in this country over the past 40 years...this is what makes your story such a eye opening one. The greatest part is the example you have set by going back and showing great spirit and giving of yourself in the face of such long odds...I have the greatest admiration for that. Love and compassion are an end in themselves, irrespective of odds or outcomes.

My wife and I would like to contribute to your efforts anyway we can, Living downtown, we are a stones throw from Fletcher. I feel remiss that I have just begun to read your blog, I would have surly been there for Thanksgiving football!

Is there some way we can be involved this Holiday season?

Sam

Comments, Pingbacks:

Comment from: zona de surf [Member]

Good Evening,
I am a life long student of American History and American Pop-Culture.One of my Heroes is documentarian Ken Burns ( Civil War, Baseball, etc. )I Have just finished viewing his 15 Hr. doc. " The War ".
I can not help drawing parallels between "The War" and the documentation of the six mile/HNS area.For those of us born in the mid 20th century, I can not help but compare the Pearl Harbor Attack and its aftermath to the events leading up to the eventual demise and speculation of the future of the HNS neighborhood.
Viewing news stories and footage of the Pearl Harbor survivors at the 66th anniversary ( 12-7-2007), it is plain to me that this is our "Pearl Harbor". There will be many stories to tell at the upcoming reunion. There will be stories of good times, bad times, of horror, and of hope.
I believe we will be gathering as survivors of a destroyed city,a neighborhood and a way of life. We will be looking forward to grasping some sort of hope for the on rushing 21st Century.
May we embrace each others as survivors.
Robert T. Zona
Class of '65

Permalink 12/21/07 @ 19:42

Comment from: wick [Member]

Zona Man indeed you've done your homework. I marvel at your contributions to the blog. Time has done you well my friend.

Dave "Wick" Macker
Pride of 68

Permalink 01/09/08 @ 13:20