“When I got off the plane at Detroit Metro I had an odd moment. I’d left Detroit in 1971 and when I left … I left.”
I grew up near Pontiac in Waterford, Michigan. I can name the starting lineup for the 1968 World Series Champions, including the starting rotation, the bullpen, the manager and the announcers. I know the names of the Lion’s Fearsome Foursome.
But after Dr. King was assassinated hell broke loose. Long-simmering racial tensions boiled over and it was bloody and fiery and left the city deeply scarred. There was so much tension even among friends. Some marched against the war and some didn’t. Passions were so high we were tearing one another apart.
So when my Dad got transferred to Cleveland in my senior year I left. It was not easy I had lifelong friends there, really good friends. But I didn’t miss Detroit. I talked bad about it.
I stayed away for nearly 30 years, except for the occasional funeral. But as I walked through Detroit Metro it felt so comfortably familiar I called my wife. You see I was there as a kid when they celebrated the opening of the new terminal and the runway that brought in the big jets in the 60’s. My family stood on the observation deck and watched the big planes come and go. My dad was in awe but then again to him anything was possible in Detroit.
When he returned from World War II he went to work in the auto industry in Pontiac but was laid off. He started his own business, Pontiac Heating and Supply, and it went under.
He went back to Pontiac Motors and got his GED. He saw a notice that GM was offering training in “Data Processing.” He took it and he retired as a director for Fisher Body Motor Division. A self-made man he died in Cleveland, but he was made in Detroit.
A few years ago, I was back in Michigan to attend a family reunion and, of course, a funeral. As I drove the rental car out of the airport and caught I-94 up to I-96, it occurred to me that 96 ran right by my Uncle Bill’s house. We sat on his porch and watched that interstate being built.
Before the reunion I went to visit my Aunt Doris in a nursing home. She wasn’t always lucid but she remembered me. “You’re Bob and Norma’s boy. You left and never came back.”
At the funeral I reunited with several high school friends from the Waterford days. I thought they looked a lot older than they should have. It’s a bad word but I guess I’d call it sweet.
As I was driving the rental back to the airport it struck me that I fled Detroit in anger but they, for whatever reason, had decided to stay and persevere. It hasn’t been easy but they’re still there. And I’m ready to go back.
