It's people like this that I'd really like to know how they got exactly there. My family can be traced a couple generations back in a few different directions - one direction from Canada and before that France, another from Poland, another from the Philippines, and then all sorts of German, Russian and a few others that slip my mind. But everywhere they were, it was populated, a natural place to migrate. But how did that guy get there? And when? And why?
I just got back from The Moth storyslam in Detroit. It was fantastic. Doors were at 7, show at 7:30, so I arrived at 7:20 to a line around the corner of the block. I didn't end up getting in until 8:30, at intermission. But the whole wait the people I queued up with (but didn't know) told stories while we waited. It was a grand time of camaraderie between four groups of people, three groups of two and myself. I actually enjoyed it more than the stories inside. But inside, it was absolutely packed. This was only the second monthly storyslam (only done also in NY, LA, and Chicago) and it was nice to see an event like this in Detroit can be so well attended.
Oh, and I moved to Hamtramck - a city surrounded by Detroit.
September and October found me in Yates City, Illinois. I worked for Blankenship Custom Remodeling, with Nathan and his dad. Highlights that immediately come to mind: passing a mason jar of moonshine around the fire fixing the starter of Nathan's car in a Verizon parking lot in Peoria fixing the driver power window of Nathan's car in a bar parking lot in Maquon Andy quitting by telling us he was going to buy a pop, and then never coming back (but left his hat) two haunted houses jumping off the roof into the dumpster the car shop (see map: Deluxe Autobody) that had an explosion and turned out to be a meth lab Nathan's grandma walking into the living room where we were watching tv and proclaiming (with no introduction nor waiting until a commercial) - Abraham Lincoln slept with a man! doing masonry (my grandpa's union trade), carpentry, roofing, demolition, cement work, siding, insulating stepped on a nail, the second day of the last week of two months on the way to a job on the outside of town (see map: corner of Maple and Kent) we first noticed a car on a tow truck in front of a house, then the tracks in the grass and wondered, are the two related? Turns out, the car was being returned to the house. The night before the vehicle owner's ex-husband had attached the car to the back of a truck with some ropes/chains, and then dragged the car all around town, mostly in the grass on the side of the road, over railroad tracks, through signs, etc. And his brother was found passed out drunk in the car with his friend. That last part may be made up - small town gossip makes great stories
