I thought there was a vaccine for that?

I caught some polo the other day. Coupla chukkas, anyway. Some sort of charity for an arts center or sumpin'. Best I could tell, it was about eating and drinking, mostly. Apparently, there were also some dudes playing croquet on horses. The local team, the Casa Verdes (Spanish for "Green House". The owner of the team, and three of the players are from the noted Charleston Limehouse family), beat the visiting Aiken Outriders 5 to 4.

Roadtrip Michigan: Part IV, Greektown

Detroit has taken some lumps, of late: The decline of the auto industry in a place known as "the Motor City" has had contributed to Detroit's ranking among the nation's emptiest cities, and the Lions are abysmal (but not as bad as my old Tampa Bay Bucs, who remain winless so far this year). Even some of the diversions seem cursed, of late, as three runners died in a Detroit marathon within 16 minutes of each other. Still, Detroit is the most important city in a really neat state. Among the Detroit diversions which remain robust is Greektown, a bastion of good food and fun in the midst of the city. Diane's clan and I invaded Greektown during our Michigan mission.


What's Greektown without Greek food? We didn't want to find out, so we ate at Pegasus.


Sister Jenny and her husband, John. Jenny and John have a really great rec-room in their basement. Color me jealous.


Diane, brother Greg, and his wife Kathe.


Niece Kelly (daughter of Greg and Kathe), Niece Lauren (Jenny and John) and a friend, and Nephew Mitchell (also of Greg and Kathe fame). Diane has a neat family. All the kids were well mannered, and a pleasure to talk with. Jenny and John's twins, Megan and Caitlin, were a little more camera shy, but they were there, too.


Flaming cheese is the thing at Pegasus. Watch out niece Kelly!


The kids didn't eat a ton, but, man, could they knock out some sodas.

Roadtrip: Michigan: Part III, Dearborn.

We visited Diane's old neighborhood. I asked her if she would write about it. This is her post.


7510 Neckel Street, Dearborn, MI.When my parents divorced in 1965 we moved from the suburbs of Chicago to my grandfather’s house where my mother grew up in the 1940s. What I remember about growing up occurred mainly in the town of Dearborn Michigan. My 5 brothers and sisters and I lived with my Mom and Grandpa Marentette. We were enrolled in St. Alphonsus School where my mother graduated in 1939. I remember it as a great way to grow up. The town was mostly Roman Catholic Western Europeans of German, Polish, Italian, and French Canadian descent. From our backyard you could see the school and church; St. Alphonsus was a large part of our daily life. The neighborhood kids went to school and church together and played “lot baseball” together in the summer and had snowball fights in the winter.


Fast forward to 2009 when David and I visited my old neighborhood and adjacent St. Alphonsus church and school. My brother Greg cautioned me against going to visit our old house because it was being rented and was in disrepair. I rarely have opportunity to visit my past and with David’s support I felt good about going.

We arrived at 7510 Neckel Street to find an Arabic woman on my old front porch with the door wide open.
David took this picture (Direct TV) of the past and present worlds of Dearborn, Michigan. The old Dearborn of the 60s, 70s, and 80s Western European Americans has now been replaced by the largest Arabic community in the United States.

We met Eddie who was suspicious of our nosing around my old haunts. Once he found out we were friend and not foe we had a great chat. Eddie is Lebanese and came to Michigan in the early 70’s. He shared with us that the neighborhood had changed with Iraqis and Yemenis moving 3 or more families into the neighborhood houses.


My first job was at the Golden Boy Donut shop, which was in this building- now an Arabic Restaurant.

The Overhang at St. Alphonsus School.I saw the construction at St. Al's as hope for the future: they wouldn't bother to renovate the Church, if they were planning to close it. The sad thing for me is that the population of Dearborn has changed so much that my old high school closed in 2003, with the grade school closing in 2005. Old friends from the neighborhood tell me that these days the church, which could hold hundreds of people, has only about 50 or so people for Sunday Mass. One thing in life we can be sure of is change.

Roadtrip: Michigan, Part 1 (well, 2 if you count the leaf pix)

We left from the nearby Savannah, Georgia, airport. See? They have a mural. My ex's husband, Darryl, works there. Hmmm... THAT explains the strip searches (actually, Darryl's not a bad guy).


We traveled via NWA. Wait. I thought I already mentioned NWA. Never saw Dr. Dre or Flava Flav, either.







We arrived at the Detroit Metro Airport. See? They have a mural, too. There is a really cool section with crazy changing lights. Diane's brother-in-law, Norb, did the wiring for a lot of the airport, including that section. Sadly, my camera took a few minutes off during that stretch.





Our rental car was a Mazda. Geez, just the brand you want in the Motor City. It actually had a "buy American" sticker on the back bumper. We tried to explain that Ford had bought out the Japanese auto maker, but, still...



We picked up some groceries on the way in. Apparently, a lot of the food came with directions. We saw "Hit", "Squash", and "Face Pumpkins". We obeyed.






After procuring our wares, we arrived at sister Jenny's very nice home in Novi. More later.

Autumn in the Great Lakes State.

Just got back from Michigan. I'll get you some commentary on the trip after I get caught up on my sleep. In the interim, here are some pix of the foliage around East Lansing. They say the best scenes are still a week or so away. Nothing like this in Southern South Carolina, I'll tell you that.

Zoe's Big Day!

Zoe is having a big day. She's learning how to upload pictures for her blog. News at 11:00.

Out of Pocket, Two.

I'm going up to Michigan for a few days. I'll be back Tuesday afternoon.