I haven’t been down to Detroit since June! June June June! That means that I need to get a hair cut… But anyway, we went down there today and it was soooo much fun.

First, I LOVE LOVE LOVE Detroit. I am old enough to remember when it was a bustling city and we visited my MacMu grandparents down there at their beautiful art deco house on Mark Twain. My granddaddy would drive us around in his Caddy-lac. Boyz (Grandaddy, my dad, and brother) in the front seat, girlz (Mom, me, and Bolette in the back). We would go to the Henry Ford Museum and Belle Isle and the Northland Hudson’s department store. To a kid from the Yooperland, downtown Detroit in those days was a wonderland. And, as I have said before, Bolette was my step-grandmother but we loved each other greatly. Mostly, I remember “helping” her wash the dishes. She would ask me questions about school and she would actually LISTEN TO THE ANSWERS! Love.

Fast forward. The 1967 Detroit riots resulted in my grandparents moving from their beautiful home on Mark Twain out to the Beverly Hills suburb. I am pretty sure they weren’t directly hit by violence but the writing was on the wall that they needed to move out of the inner city. It was sad in so many ways, not the least that the house was Bolette’s house and at least one of her siblings also owned a house on the same block. Granddaddy and Bolette’s place was beautiful. I loved the breakfast nook. It was sad that those long-time owners felt they had to move.

So here we are on Belle Isle. It was colder than hell but the sun shone on Detroit. So we and some French speaking folks were taking photos. With tripods and fancy equipment. I had my iPhone and this is about the best I could do. Not so bad, eh?

Loving that I have a daughter living in Detroit, where a set of my grandparents once lived. They would have probably enjoyed the Green Dot and Founders.

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