Tag Archives: Family

Driving Detroit with Dad

“Dad would like you to drive the van,” my mom says to me. “It’s easier for him to get in and out of it.”

Despite my dad’s notoriously poor behavior as a passenger, I immediately respond, “Sure, I’ll drive.” Then I conjure an image of how the rest of my family will react when they find out that I’ve pulled the short straw. Relieved, they will celebrate by high-fiving one another and cheering, “Woo-hoo! Kelly has to drive!”

Soon thereafter, on a sunny and warm spring morning, I arrive as promised at my parents’ house, where Mom and Dad have been waiting with my sister and brothers. Waiting is the most popular item on the day’s agenda. It starts with the family waiting for me. It is to continue downtown at Henry Ford Hospital where we will stew for eight hours and hope that dad gets to come home with us after his surgery.

Dad sits up front beside me. Everyone else piles into the seats behind us, and we begin our trek to the hospital.

“Your dad likes to be early.” Mom doesn’t have to remind us of that. We know it. Dad is a morning person, and he’s never late.

When my siblings and I were children and living at home, we had Saturday mornings to look forward to Dad waking us up. He would step into our rooms while we slept and begin a loud phonetic rendition of the bugle call, “Reveille.” Then he’d sing these words in the same cadence:

It’s time to get up!

It’s time to get up in the morning!

It’s time to get up!

It’s time to get up in the day!

Dear Ol’ Dad had borrowed that morning routine from his camping days with the Air National Guard from 1954-1962. Other young men were being called up by the United States Army to serve in far-away places. Dad thought that by enrolling in the Guard, he had a better chance of staying close to home and finishing his six-year-long apprenticeship to become a printer. All worked out even better than he had planned. About half-way through his eight years of service, he met my mom, who had come to vacation in Michigan.

Dad enjoyed getting up at the crack of dawn and I think he wanted his family to like—or at least embrace—mornings too. Whenever we took a road trip, we’d rise before daybreak. The sky was dark; the air was crisp and chilly. There was no time to waste. Other people weren’t around to tie up the freeways. We had at least three hours to get ahead of everyone else.

On the morning drive to the hospital, I am reminded of how hard it must be for Dad to have to relinquish control of the steering wheel. He’s used to being the one behind the wheel. He drives everywhere he and Mom go, and sometimes he even drives me where I need to go.

Practically every year, Dad takes me to the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice where I complete my annual stint of jury duty. He spoils me. I don’t have to go into downtown Detroit alone, find a parking space, and walk by myself to the courthouse.

“I’ll drive you,” he insists.

Mom comes along and the two wait for me to get a break or to be excused for the day. They wile away their time at Greek Town Casino and then the three of us get lunch. Our little arrangement is something pleasant that I think we all look forward to.

Today, however, I experience familiar and familial pressure as I drive downtown. I go an acceptable five miles over the speed limit. Dad gruffly says, “Slow down!” Moments later, when I drive at the posted speed limit, Dad suggests that I could “go a little faster.” All the time, he foresees potential problems with traffic and warns, “Watch out!” “Take it easy!” “Give ‘em a little more room.”

I force myself to relax, despite the tension everyone in the van is feeling. There’s a hush that comes over us. No one wants to distract me from focusing on Dad’s instructions.

“The road coming up has a big pothole. It’s just past the light. See it?”

When I was sixteen, I had my first car accident—which wasn’t my fault. My dad didn’t seem mad at all. During college, when I had a second car accident which was my fault, he again showed only concern for whether or not I was alright.

I’m sure he’s not remembering these things that happened decades ago. He treats my brothers and sister the same when they drive. He just likes to be the one in charge and taking care of everyone else.

Having worked as a printer for The Detroit Free Press for over forty years, Dad knows the city’s history, the parks, the office buildings, the old stadiums, the bars and hang-outs, and most importantly, the back ways into town. He skillfully directs me down streets and through neighborhoods that I wouldn’t be comfortable in if I were by myself.

Dad explains that the humming bridge over the Rouge River needs to have water poured onto it to cool it down when it gets hot. He says that when he was a little boy, the Army responded to race riots by camping out in Clarke Parke. Later, more race wars took place in the 1960s, and the National Guard came to keep order but they didn’t have ammunition in their guns. Army paratroopers came in next and shot a bunch of people.

We drive east on Fort Street from downriver and pass by desolate Woodmere Cemetery, where several generations of my ancestors are buried. It has been over twenty years since we visited. Back then, a recorded voice was blasted over a loud speaker to tell women not to stop at the gravesites alone. Today, I wish I could forego this drive to the hospital and take a detour inside the wrought iron, gated yard in order to kneel beside my grandparents’ graves and reminisce.

I would rather not have to face the fact that my dad has bladder cancer. I don’t want him to have to undergo surgery, to be poked and prodded, to be in pain and discomfort.

Dad seems to calm the more he talks about places that he’s passed thousands of times. We see the old, abandoned Greyhound Bus station and turn at the corner of 14^th Street. A block down at West Lafayette is Green Dot Stables. Dad tells us, like he had many times before, that the guy who opened it used to be a harness racing jockey. Dad doesn’t seem to notice the graffiti and burned-out buildings along our route. Unlike him, my brothers and sister are squirming in their seats because they would have rather taken the freeway. Doesn’t Dad realize that I-75 would be faster?

I’m not nervous about driving through poor parts of town with my family, mostly because my dad is sitting right beside me. Despite the fact that he’s turning eighty this year, I still believe he’ll keep us safe, no matter what.

It occurs to me that my father is behaving like an imperfect tour guide. I consider his insider’s knowledge of Detroit, his familiarity with the roads, and his ability to tell great stories. I set aside the fact that Dad has little to no patience when behind the wheel of a car, and I get a crazy idea. I blurt out, “You should be an Uber driver!”

Laughter erupts in the van. I sneak a peek at my dad and can tell that, for a brief moment, he isn’t thinking about cancer, pain, and surgical complications. He’s not worried or stressed. He’s simply smiling in response to my ludicrous suggestion.

That moment was worth waiting for.

Coffee Shop Chronicles: Writing Letters

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Tuscan Cafe
Northville, MI

What is that woman writing?

“Hey, behind you,” I whisper to my husband. “There’s a woman writing.”

We’re sitting along the wall in what I’m calling “our spot.” I seem to default here when I come in; the light is good and I’m out of the way from the main path. My husband finished his mocha coffee latte drink a few minutes ago and is checking something on his phone. I glance over his shoulder and see a woman writing.

I don’t know how I know that she’s writing something personal, but I do. Maybe it’s the slouch her shoulders, determined but relaxed. Maybe it’s the slow way her hand moves, the pause she makes, deliberate yet light and free. She’s focused but not intense. Is it a story? Journaling? A project?

I’m curious.

My husband half turns, that way, when you try to casually stare without being obvious. I’m staring directly at her. She doesn’t notice me.

“I can’t tell,” he says.

Neither can I, but it’s time to leave.

“I want to see,” I say.

The exit is behind me; there’s no reason for me to move in her direction. I stand up and shrug my coat on. I make my go-to excuse, and I say it loud enough so that if she was listening, she wouldn’t be suspicious.

“I’m going to use the bathroom before we leave.” That door is in front of me, so I can conveniently walk past the writing woman.

She is writing Thank You cards.

The cards are white, but they don’t have that white embossed shiny-matte, off-white texture of wedding cards. Her cards have Thank You in black, neutral font. The text is friendly and readable, not some flowery script but not a dull Garamond or Times New Roman. There’s a color design clustered in the center around Thank You–flowers, I think–but the style is neither masculine nor feminine. There’s a stack of cards next to her in a non-descript box with a flimsy plastic lid that you’d find in a Hallmark store. It looks like she’s writing with an ink pen, nothing fancy but higher quality than you’d get in an office supply store.

I see all of this in about 5 seconds, maybe 10. Staring can be creepy, and there’s no time to casually chat. I don’t want to disturb the magic. She’s intent and focused and fortunately doesn’t see me staring at her and the table full of notecards.

I walk out.
I don’t bother to fake-stop in the bathroom.

I think of this now because it’s April, the month of so many things: National Poetry Month; Camp NaNoWriMo; National Rebuilding Month; Testicular Cancer Month, Autism Awareness Month, and National Card and Letter Writing Month.

I started writing letters to my friend about two months ago. These are notecards from Target $1 Spot. The 8 cards are all the same design with the word “Gratitude” on the front. I bought them because they’re a friendly peach color with matching envelopes.

So far, I’ve received no letters in return and I don’t expect any. I write as if we were talking side by side and, yes, I write them when I’m in coffee shops. These small cards aren’t intimidating because there’s only room for a thought or three, just short and fun. And now I discovered a whole movement.

There’s a campaign called Write_On which distributed 10,000 free writing starter kits to encourage people to write a letter a day in April. I’m not a fan of setting daily deadlines; to me, it’s a setup for self-failure if you miss a day. Regardless, I signed up for and received one of the kits.

The six-card kit includes envelopes for mailing–as a papercrafter, I can say that including envelopes is the polite thing to do. There’s stationary with envelope, stickers, a colorful inspiration booklet and a gelly roll pen. I’m a writer. I like paper. I like pens. Any letter writing I do, once a day or not, spreads more joy than if I didn’t write at all.

I’ll never know what that woman was writing or thanking people for, but do I need to?

Coffee Shop Chronicles: The Virtues of Public Transportation

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Espresso Royale

Ann Arbor, MI

“The niche is all yours,” the tall, lanky guy says, referring to this cluster of soft chairs he’s getting up from.

“I don’t need all this space. I like to be self-contained,” I say with a thank-you nod as I put my bag on one table. Then I smile at him. “Besides, this is the only clean table.”

It’s true that I like to have room enough to spread out, but not so much as to intrude on others’ space. Not so much the case for the previous coffee shop patrons. There’s a candy wrapper on one table. This coffee shop doesn’t even sell candy. There’s a coat on another chair as a placeholder, a reserved sign made of fabric.

“That’s trusting,” I say to the guy, pointing to a woman’s purse hanging on the back of an empty chair.

“Anyone could walk off with that,” he says.

Ann Arbor is a walking town. Most stores are close enough to each other that walking from your apartment to a restaurant and then the small, specialty grocery store before returning home is easier than driving. A bus passes outside on State Street. Even in the rain, public transportation is the better option.

“Yeah, or hop on a bus,” I say.

Growing up in the city limits of Pittsburgh, PA, public transportation was plentiful, much like Ann Arbor and its surrounding neighborhoods. Pittsburgh is a bigger city, of course, much bigger, and we used it all the time after our family car died. I remember Dad coming home after work with an armful of bus schedules. He plopped himself on the floor in the middle of the living room, spread out the maps and began to figure out how the heck you traveled to downtown from our house.

Fortunately, we lived on a bus route. It was a good bus route, one of the main ones, not far from a depot garage. Buses had a frequent schedule in my neighborhood, even on Sundays.

A light rail system was constructed when I started high school. That was my first exposure to “subways,” a misnomer I always thought because the T ran underground for only three stops. It was an above-ground transportation outside downtown proper.

“My friend’s dad could read the entire New York Times in a tight space on the subway,” he says.

I’m impressed. I could never stand and read on a bus. My survival skills in tight spaces came from sitting down. Maybe this is why I can be self-contained sitting down in a coffee shop.

Riders learn to multitask early. You eat a sandwich in your seat without spilling any on the passenger next to you; the tantalizing smell throughout the bus was out of your control. You sleep with your head against the window and intuitive feel when it’s time to wake up to get off at your stop. You learn how to place paper grocery store bags on the floor so that passengers won’t step on or trip over them.

I did develop strong legs and a sense of balance to stand upright and not tip over as the bus bounced and jerked and turned corners. You learned to politely shove your way through a smash of people to exit at your stop. You talked with the people you saw every day, creatures of habit you all were, work and school schedules always the same. You gave up your seat for people with packages, women with children, and the gentle older folks.

This guy must be a rider of sorts because he continues to discuss public systems. He says the John P. Getty Museum in Los Angeles is located at the top of a mountain. The area has a great system in its three-car train that goes up the mountain. The ride is smooth and the flow of traffic is easy.

This reminds me of the Duquesne and Monongahela Inclines in Pittsburgh. It’s a unique experience to be pulled up a mountain. I guess it’s like what a ski lift is like, except the inclines are big boxes that hold about 50 people. They’re fun to ride, especially when seasoned riders scare the first-timers by saying, “Oh, I hope this doesn’t fall and plummet down.”

I smile and nod with the guy, saying. “The lessons you learn on public transportation will help you through your lifetime.”

Stories from the Grave

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You drive by an intersection and take notice of a weathered and worn wooden cross poking up from the ground. Around it are faded silk flowers, some tattered stuffed animals, burnt candles, and remnants of hand-written notes that resisted being carried away by the wind. You know someone died in that spot and someone else has been grieving there.

During a vacation to Chile a couple years ago, I saw elaborate memorial structures placed alongside many of that beautiful country’s roads. The shoulders were sporadically adorned with what looked like tiny, dollhouse-sized churches. Some were wooden, but most were little concrete buildings built upon concrete foundations. Inside, there were framed photographs, crucifixes, printed prayers, figurines, and candles. Flowers flanked the outsides. One display was remarkably huge—about six-feet square, with a foot-high iron gate enclosing the entire display. That one was further from the road than others I’d viewed, and I’m guessing it was on private property. Each miniature building I drove past, however, seemed to be permanently affixed to the ground.

In Chile, an animita is a place where people mourn the deceased, petition for help, and give thanks for answered prayers.

I remember that as a teenager I watched old western movies. Whenever one of the good cowboys was shot to death, his comrades did all they could to bury him. If they were on the run and in a hurry, they quickly covered him in rocks. If given a little more time, they dug a shallow grave, covered the body in dirt, and marked the site with a makeshift cross.

People have been memorializing the dead for centuries. Egyptian kings have their pyramids. In India, the Taj Mahal houses the body of an emperor’s beloved wife. Here in the United States, the wealthy erect mausoleums too, although they are admittedly much smaller. All of us will die, but only some of us will plan for our inevitable demise.

In the 1980s, a popular advertisement encouraged people to select the ingredients they wanted on their pizzas by answering: “What do you want on your Tombstone?” It made a normally serious topic light and fun . . . and, in particular, tasty. It was genius. The Tombstone Pizza Company name wasn’t easily forgotten, even all these years later. The ad worked in part because it made us face our own mortality for just a moment while we pondered how we wanted to be remembered. What would people say about us after our deaths?

Built in 1846, William Eddings Baynard’s mausoleum is the oldest standing structure on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.

Frankly, if we don’t convey careful instructions or plan ahead of time, we aren’t the ones who decide what goes on our pizza or what gets written on our own granite tombstones. Let’s hope that the immortalizing words associated with us end up being written by someone who abides by our wishes or at least likes us enough to say nice things.

You can learn a lot about a person by visiting his or her gravesite. For some reason, that fun isn’t high on the list of any of my friends and family. Rarely does anyone ever want to join me in a stroll through a graveyard. Yes, I’ve actually asked family and friends to do that, especially during travel to foreign countries. Most often, the closest I come to walking hallowed ground turns out to be nothing more than a chance drive-by encounter on the way to some other point of interest.

The one time my husband, his sister and her husband humored me, we delicately tip-toed around the fresh, loose soil of above-ground graves in a church cemetery on the Leeward Island of St. Kitts. We visited long enough for me to take several photos.

An eternal resting place on St. Kitts overlooks the Atlantic Ocean.

When I noticed that my companions weren’t walking alongside or trailing behind me, I realized that they didn’t share my curiosity over the differences in Kittitian burial customs from those in the United States. I saw that my family was lingering near our rental car and I figured it was time to go. We hopped back into the new Honda CRV. Then we accidentally drove over a metal industrial anchor of some sort. After incurring over two thousand dollars in repair costs to the rental car, certain relatives don’t want to stop at cemeteries with me anymore.

That’s one explanation for why I, more cautiously, poked around the internet this month and found a variety of interesting memorials to share with you.

Elijah Jefferson Bond, the patentee of the Ouija board, was buried in an unmarked grave at Maryland’s Green Mount Cemetery in 1921. Eighty-seven years later, a Ouija board collector, enthusiast, and expert, Robert Murch, successfully located Bond’s grave.

Games can’t be played forever, or can they? (Photo, courtesy of Ryan Schweitzer, via findagrave.com)

Murch obtained all the necessary permissions and funds needed to erect a memorial headstone. He commissioned a clever and befitting design to honor the deceased Mr. Bond. Bond’s once unmarked gravesite could have been permanently forgotten, but that’s unlikely to happen now that he has an intriguing monument.

Yet, I wonder: would Bond have chosen to rest beneath a granite version of a game that encourages conversations with dead people?

Someone is bound to ask him, via a Ouija board, although it won’t be me. I don’t want to open that creepy door to the spirit world.

Princess Diana is buried on a private island on her Spencer family’s property. A temple inscribed with her name faces the island. Her brother’s words memorialize her this way:

We give thanks for the life of a woman I am so proud to be able to call my sister. The unique, the complex, the extraordinary & irreplaceable Diana whose beauty both internal and external will never be extinguished from our minds.

I think all those complimentary words would be well-received by Diana. The temple, in my opinion, is a bit much, but she was a princess. Most people wouldn’t expect anything less than extravagance like that for a woman loved throughout the world.

Another ideal tribute honors author Walter Lord. His gravesite is identified by a stone bench, inscribed with the names of his best-selling books, one of which was A Night to Remember, about the sinking of the Titanic. The welcoming setting invites visitors to rest for a little while, maybe even with one of Lord’s popular books in hand.

President Richard Nixon began his presidency with words that were later placed on his tombstone. It’s intriguing that his grave is absent a lofty title or noteworthy achievement. Instead, there’s simply a humble quote: “The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker.”

That’s a nice thought for us mere mortals to aspire to.

The land beneath the dome in Jerusalem is revered by Christians, Jews and Muslims, although for different religious reasons.

Covering a rock where Muslims believe Muhammad ascended to heaven is a shrine known as The Dome of the Rock. In Jerusalem, it stands out from all other buildings. There’s no mistaking the ornate memorial, topped in gold. During a trip I took to Israel in 2014 with my church-family, Christians were not welcome within the shrine’s doors, so we appreciated the splendor from afar.

That was okay with me. I had another, personally more meaningful, tomb to visit. This other one, known as the Garden Tomb, was literally fit for a king. Not because it was extravagant or ornate or covered in gold. It was none of those things. There was nothing fancy about this other tomb. It was simply a cold, barren cave with a hard, stone floor. It was a tomb that long ago may have been customized to accommodate Jesus’s body. Some people believe that the King of Kings was too tall for His borrowed burial space and it had to be chiselled and lengthened to accommodate His height. Others more simply acknowledge that the Garden Tomb’s characteristics match historical records of Jesus’s burial.

Either way, this place in Jerusalem is where people come to pay homage to Jesus and to pray. I entered the solemn tomb and stood with my pastor and his wife. My pastor was weeping. In that moment, I recalled the torture Jesus endured before His death. I cried too. If anyone deserved a shrine or a temple, it was God incarnate Who sacrificed His life for the redemption of my sin.

The Garden Tomb. (Photo, courtesy of Chris Bixby)

The grounds surrounding Jesus’s burial tomb are full of flowers and plants, and there are many sitting areas that inspire personal reflection and prayer. Nature’s beauty helps comfort us in our grief. But the stark reality is that we mere mortals die. Those left behind visit gravesites, leave flowers, tenderly care for the little plots of earth where our loved ones rest. We continue in conversation with those departed. Our greatest comfort, however, comes from knowing we’ll see them again.

Before His own death, Jesus predicted, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be handed over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him, spit on him, flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again.” (Luke 18:31)

“Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!” (Luke 24:5-6)

Jesus has no tombstone that screams accolades. The most obvious hint of His importance, royalty, and divinity was added years after His burial place was discovered. Where a stone once blocked His tomb’s entrance is now a wooden door with an inscription: “He is Risen.”

Indeed. Conquering death is worth celebrating. “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (Jesus’s words from John 20:29.)

Happy Easter!

Coffee Shop Chronicles: Playing Games

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Tuscan Cafe
Northville, MI

It really does come down to games, Dominos or not.

This afternoon is my writing time. I’m sitting at a table against the wall under the lamp shade so I have light to type by. I just finished two Americanos, light on steamed milk. The first Americano had a smidge of gingerbread syrup to spice up the holiday season, and the second was just straight up. You’d think I was a serious coffee drinker, but, really, I’m just a novice who latched onto some impressive-sounding coffee name. I feel like I belong here.

Tuscan Cafe: environmentally friendly

I’m gathering my laptop and notebook to leave when a guy and a boy walk in and sit at the small circular table by the window. From what I overhear, he seems to be a Big Brother to the 13-year-old 8th grader.

I’ve got plenty of room on my rectangular table for everything I have, so I stop packing up and pull out my journal to record the moment.

BB leans forward and asks, “How’s the relationship with you and your brothers?” That’s what makes me think Big Brother in the first place. That and the time is now 3:30pm, which is just after school.

I overhear BB say he likes that the boy plays Minecraft, that “…it’s a game that requires you to work as a team.” I don’t know the game, but I feel like I should. I’ve heard it enough in pop culture media. Note to self: look that up.

Now BB teaches the boy how to play Dominos. This is significant because last night I watched my Season 2 DVD set of Major Crimes. The last episode I saw is what I call the Lost Horizons episode. Tim Conway plays the episode’s main character, Howard. In one scene, he flirts with the female lead, Capt. Raydor, mentioning Dominos.

Howard: “I could teach you to play Dominos, but I, uh, don’t have my Dominos with me.”

Capt. Raydor: “I already know how to play Dominos.”

Howard: “I bet you do.”

At the same time, in another room, Lt. Provenza questions someone else who talks about Dominos.

Provenza says, “It always comes down to Dominos.”

So here I am, watching BB teach the boy to play. I don’t know how to play Dominos, actually. I know how to match numbers but not the rules of scoring. I also know how to stack them in a row so they all fall down. Who plays Dominos?

I half listen as I write and half watch without trying to stare directly at them. I want to hear BB explain how to play. The big window gives me an excuse to look in that direction. If we accidentally make eye contact, I can glance over at the bike chained to the tree or the church across the street or the cars driving by on Center Street. I could even turn my head to the left and stare at the long, roomy wooden table that divides the coffee shop into thirds.

2016-1Jan-TucsonCafe-DeadwoodCoffeePic-MiracleYahtzee

Coffee drinks and games: together time

My husband and I play games in coffee shops, usually Yahtzee in various Starbucks. It’s a Travel Yahtzee game we, ironically, bought at Starbucks a few years ago when they promoted toys and activities among their products. We have Travel Scrabble from that time, and we’ve bought other portable games through the years. These are our “date nights” because we get out of the house, spend time together and drink coffee. A long table like that one would be roomy, but distant. We choose cozy tables like this one I’m at or the one the guys are sitting at now.

I miss any Dominos explanation over the mellow music playing overhead, but the discussion of games continues. BB: “I wasn’t good at Tetris when I was young.” Now I have a frame of reference of the guy’s age. He’s a child of the 80s.

Then BB asks: “Is that coffee making you tired?”

Boy: “Yeah.”

Thirteen years old and introduced to coffee. That’s our society today.

BB and boy wrap up their visit and pack up the chunky white tiles into a snap-close metal box. I never hear how to play Dominos, but the game box looks like it was the original BB had as a younger guy.

I’ve seen some people play games in coffee shops. Last week, at Miracle Coffee, two women had a pile of board games, they looked old, worn and well-loved. Gathering their games up when we arrived, they saw us pull out our Travel Yahtzee. We all got talking about board games. They may have mentioned that there is a Triple Yahtzee game out there, a game I vaguely remember, like maybe I had it as a kid. Maybe I still have it. I’ll look through my childhood toy box in the basement.

Classic board games have become “the thing” these days. The box designs look retro, but they’re all too new, looking fake. I believe in using authentic items. In scrapbooking, I use the real photo, scan a copy if it’s precious and irreplaceable. In mixed media art, I incorporate real tickets, tea bag tags, and cancelled stamps. Because of this, I prefer original game boxes that hold the authentic game.

Games are a good thing, old or new, especially if they bring us together.

Deadwood Writers Voices

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