(The lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, five years after Katrina.) So, the morning jig through the very strange year of 1973 in the Motor City was interrupted by a call from my Coon-Ass buddy, Boats. He was up early to head to his current position as a moderately senior Government employee involved in Homeland […]

(Dr. Ossian Sweet’s house at 2905 Garland Street in East Detroit.) “There is a saying among Southern blacks that goes like this: White folks up North don’t care how high you get as long as you don’t get too close; white folks down South don’t care how close you get as long as you don’t […]

Chad and Jeremy are out of here this morning. The U-Haul truck is parked in the back, over the strong objection of management. Jeremy laughed about it at Union Jack last night at the farewell at Kate’s back bar. “So, I like went in to the office to tell them that I was parking the […]

The Conference is causing me to go through a lot of checked luggage. We are all going to be in Detroit shortly, and the Tigers are going to be hosting the Yankees, and I have tickets to one of the games. It will be the first time I see the inside of the new stadium, […]

I swear, if I have to drive Up North in one shot again I will slit my wrists. I am getting too old for that, but don’t have enough time to make it a relaxed two-day trip with a stay in a dump motel in Elyria, Ohio in the middle. That is one reason why […]

(2005: The Renaissance Center, home of the 2011 IT conference, rises behind the ruins of the Detroit Screw Works factory. Built in the aftermath of the 1967 riots that finished off the central city, the original design featured a gigantic concrete berm that sealed the complex off from the anarchy of the streets. Photo DetroitYes.) […]

I wish I had some more time this morning. I would tell you how good it was to stumble upon Death Junior and Doctor D at Willow last night. They were taking a welcome break from the business of death over at Murphy’s Funeral Home, and were drinking something pink in large tumblers. I was […]

The big line of thunder-bumpers rolled through Arlington after I got home, followed by a cold front and night-time temperatures that hovered above freezing but at something less than cozy. When I checked the temperature this morning, it was just about dead-even with Stockholm. I sighed, filled with regret that I cannot tell all the […]

Eddie the Docent waved elegantly to the crowd of tourists, some covered in oil, who stood around the Hemingway dining table under the fine Venetian glass chandelier favored by Ernie’s second wife Pauline. “He won the Pulitzer Prize for The Old Man and the Sea,” part of a somewhat disjointed narrative caused by the linear […]

It was good to be back at Willow. Elisabeth-with-an-S was at her elegant and solicitous best; her movements graceful behind the bar as she topped off my first glass of happy Hour white. Old Jim was presiding at his accustomed spot at the corner of the L of the bar. The Johns- the one with […]