6.8.2025 – a remarkable

a remarkable
can-do knack recovering
from adversity

Growing up in a large family in Grand Rapids, Michigan, there was an unexpected benefit in being in the ‘2nd half’ in the kid line up.

I was 8th of 11 kids.

Up at that top half, most of my older brothers and sisters went off to college at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

That meant that at least three times a year, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Spring Break, my Dad would take a day off to drive to Ann Arbor and pick up whoever was coming home for break.

What made it a benefit for us in the lower half of the family was that he would take a couple of out of school to make the trip with him and he would take us on into Detroit and see the sites.

Greenfield Village and the Henry Ford Museum.

The Detroit Institute of Art.

The Detroit Historical Museum.

Lunch in Greek Town.

Maybe a drive over to Windsor, thru the Windsor the Tunnel on the way their and back over the Ambassador Bridge on the way back.

We often went to Chicago to visit family, but Detroit was our city, the family ball club (though I flirted with the White Sox for a few years (it was a Bill Veeck thing) and Dad was always a Cub fan), the family football team.

We knew what ‘being stuck in Lodge’ meant (before sound barriers made all freeways feel like driving down the Lodge even though no one was throwing bowling bowls off of sound barriers like might happen to you down in the Lodge).

We knew you could park on TOP of Cobo Arena.

We knew where to park to eat lunch in Greek town.

That was back in late 1960’s early 1970’s.

When I ended up in Ann Arbor, Detroit was now just a 40 minute trip away and my sister was living in downtown and I often found myself in the City.

Also when you are used to having to make a three hour trip to see a Detroit Tiger Baseball Game, that 40 minute trip from Ann Arbor was nothing and we went to a lot of ball games at stadium located at The Corner.

Detroit, La Ville de Troit, the Village on the Straits, has been through a lot since then.

Hard to believe now that it was once the 5th largest city in the United States with 2.5 million people living and working in the city.

Then white flight to the suburbs, the plug gets pulled on the Auto industry and a lot of other issues combined to leave Detroit standing … but empty.

Anthony Bourdain would say in his 2013 Parts Unknown Show that Detroit isn’t just a national treasure. It IS America. And wherever you may live, you wouldn’t be there—and wouldn’t be who you are in the same way—without Detroit.

Who will live in the Detroit of the future? There’s no question, is there, that Detroit will come back? In one form or another, a city this magnificent, this storied, this American cannot, will not ever disappear into the weeds. There are too few places this beautiful for it to be allowed to crumble like Ankor or Rome.

Someone will live in a smaller, tighter, no doubt hipper, much contracted new Detroit. But who will that be? Will it be the people who stuck it out here, who fought block-by-block to keep their city from burning, who struggled to defend their homes, keep up appearances as all around them their neighborhoods emptied.

What will Detroit look like in 20 years? Or 50? That’s not just a Detroit question. That’s an America question.

So imagine how I felt this morning when I logged into the New York Times on my tablet to their Travel Feature 36 Hours in … focused on Detroit (Click here).

The article states: But Detroit has a remarkable knack for recovering from adversity, each time rising phoenixlike with renewed creativity and an undaunted can-do spirit.

And points out: Last but not least, the city buzzes with excitement over the newfound success of the Lions, who have, much like the city, risen from down-and-out to greatness.

In a way I felt, Detroit was back.

The New York Times said so on the travel feature subtitled The one-stop resource for our travel guides, which tell you what to do when you’ve got 36 hours to get to know a city.

In 2025, it is recommended that to get to know the city of Detroit you should visit The Detroit Institute of Art, The Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village and eat in Greek Town.

Oh and the new Gordie Howe Bridge would be opening soon and a quick visit to Windsor would be even easier.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose?

6.7.2025 – not about the man but

not about the man but
but constitutional rights
and the rights of all

In the article, Kilmar Ábrego García returned from El Salvador to face criminal charges in US by Maya Yangm Ms. Yang quotes a statement from US senator Chris Van Hollen writing:

A Friday statement from the US senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said the Trump administration had “finally relented” to his demand to afford Ábrego García due process.

“This is not about the man,” said Van Hollen, who visited Ábrego García in El Salvador in April. “It’s about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all.”

“It’s about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all.”

Remember Dr. King’s “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

In the same article the Attorney General of the United States said, This is what American justice looks like …

I find no comfort thinking the the Attorney General of the United States of America would not have been able to pass Mr. Reagan’s 12th Grade Government class at Grand Rapids Creston Highschool.

Not that that disqualifies her from office in this administration.

6.6.2025 – be joyful in hope

but I shall stay the
way I am because I … I
do not give a damn

OBSERVATION

If I don’t drive around the park,
I’m pretty sure to make my mark.
If I’m in bed each night by ten,
I may get back my looks again,
If I abstain from fun and such,
I’ll probably amount to much,
But I shall stay the way I am,
Because I do not give a damn.

As printed in Enough Rope by Dorothy Parker
This material may be protected by copyright.

6.5.2025 – as long as rights are

as long as rights are
defended, foundations of
freedom are secure

In an interview by Kingsley Martin, published in the New Statesman on January 7, 1939, Winston Churchill said:

The essential aspects of democracy are the freedom of the individual, within the framework of laws passed by Parliament, to order his life as he pleases, and the uniform enforcement of tribunals independent of the executive.

The laws are based on Magna Carta, Habeas Corpus, the Petition of Right and others.

Without this foundation there can be no freedom or civilisation, anyone being at the mercy of officials and liable to be spied upon and betrayed even in his own home.

As long as these rights are defended, the foundations of freedom are secure.

Mr. Churchill was responding to a question asking if there were any contradictions in a drive to rearm in defense of democracy.

The question was asked as democracy in Great Britain was threatened by the rise of Nazi Germany.

Today we ask the question as the threat is within.

I am not sure that Mr. Churchill could have handled such a thing.

I know I have trouble.

As long as these rights are defended, the foundations of freedom are secure.

Without this foundation there can be no freedom or civilisation, anyone … ANYONE … being at the mercy of officials and liable to be spied upon and betrayed even in his own home.

6.4.2025 – he made the Lord seem …

he made the Lord seem …
so real … after a long pause
he just said amen

Re-reading … well, listening to the audio book as I drive to work, the book Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Burns, I was again struck by the bit of dialogue between the hero, Will Tweedy (Yes, this is where I got Boy! Howdy!) and his Grandpa when Will has a near death experience after being run over (he lay low in the tracks) by a train.

Ms. Burn’s writes, picking up the story here where Will has told his Grandpa what happened – (The dialect is rural Georgia, to the east of Atlanta of the early 1900’s):

With the way he took it so casual, and the relief of getting it told, I felt like I’d been stuck back together. But one thing worried me. “Grandpa, you think I’m alive tonight cause it was God’s will?”

“Naw, you livin’ cause you had the good sense to fall down ‘twixt them tracks.”

“Maybe God gave me the idea.”

“You can believe thet, son, if’n you think it was God’s idea for you to be up on thet there trestle in the first place. What God give you was a brain. Hit’s His will for you to use it—p’tickler when a train’s comin’.”

Resting my chin in my hand, I thought about that while Grandpa finished up his pie. I felt awful tired. “Sir, do you think it was God’s will for Bluford Jackson to get lockjaw and die?”

Grandpa spoke kindly. “The Lord don’t make firecrackers, son. Hit’s jest too bad pore Blu didn’t be more careful when he was shootin’m off.”

“You don’t think God wills any of the things that happen to us?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows?”

“Mama and Papa think He does.”

Grandpa licked some meringue off his fork while he pondered.

Finally he said, “Life bullies us, son, but God don’t.

He had good reasons for fixin’ it where if’n you git too sick or too hurt to live, why, you can die, same as a sick chicken.

I’ve knowed a few really sick chickens to git well, and lots a-folks git well thet nobody ever thought to see out a-bed agin cept in a coffin.

Still and all, common sense tells you this much: everwhat makes a wheel run over a track will make it run over a boy if’n he’s in the way.

If’n you’d a-got kilt, it’d mean you jest didn’t move fast enough, like a rabbit that gits caught by a hound dog.

You think God favors the dog over the rabbit, son?”

I shook my head.

“I don’t neither. When it comes to prayin’, we got it all over the other animals, but we ain’t no different when it comes to livin’ and dyin’.

If’n you give God the credit when somebody don’t die, you go’n blame Him when they do die?

Call it His will? Ever noticed we git well all the time and don’t die but once’t?

Thet has to mean God always wants us to live if’n we can.

Hit ain’t never His will for us to die—cept in the big sense.

In the sense He was smart enough not to make life eternal on this here earth, with people and bees and elephants and dogs piled up in squirmin’ mounds like Loma’s dang cats tryin’ to keep warm in the wintertime.

Does all this make any sense, Will Tweedy?”

They’s a heap more to God’s will than death, disappointment, and like thet.

Hit’s God’s will for us to be good and do good, love one another, be forgivin’….”

He laughed. “I reckon I ain’t very forgivin’, son.

I can forgive a fool, but I ain’t inner-rested in coddlin’ hypocrites.

Well anyhow, folks who think God’s will jest has to do with sufferin’ and dyin’, they done missed the whole point.”

Grandpa had made the Lord seem so real, I wouldn’t of been surprised if he’d said good night to Him. But after a long pause he just said a-men.

Finally he said, “Life bullies us, son, but God don’t.

Well anyhow, folks who think God’s will jest has to do with sufferin’ and dyin’, they done missed the whole point.”