Blue Collar-Introduction
Working on a new novel, Blue Collar, the story of three Baby Boomers who suddenly realize it's never going to be 1972 again.
INTRODUCTION
Skies were filled with black smoke by four o’clock every afternoon. The sound of metal on metal was in the air. Diesel exhaust, carbon monoxide, a fresh mowed lawn and the small two-cylinder engine that did it. Those were the aromas of Metro Detroit 1972.
Cars were backed up for miles going into and out of the auto plants in my hometown, Warren, Mich. the third largest city in the state, home to the dynamo of American auto manufacturing, home to the Big Three. Powerful stuff.
We had no clue the end was so near.
We called it “rush hour “but nobody moved fast. The interstates, I-75, I-96 and The Lodge, were jammed every morning and every afternoon. Frantic traffic reports were heard on every radio station every ten minutes.
So many cars moving. So many cars stuck. So many people whose lives were forged in factories and offices in Detroit. So many trucks carrying the raw materials destined to become the cars and trucks that moved America. All merging, mixing, melding into this amalgamation of our lives. Every day, three shifts a day, never stopping, never slowing. Not even on Sunday.
It as a glorious time. If only we had known how radiant, remarkable and resplendent it was. If only we had known. If only we had taken the time to appreciate it. If only we had known how quickly it would be gone.
If only.
There were so many kids.
We were the kids.
We were the Baby Boomers, packed into the houses that all looked the same. Cookie cutter real estate, yet to each of us those houses were our homes. It is where we fought for a place in line outside the bathroom, fought, loved, battled, and grew.
Each a singular entity, we became one with our kind, a marching, moving, swaying exodus of children who every morning walked to school and then back home for lunch, before going back to school.
The sidewalks and playgrounds were always jammed with kids. There was never a time of silence on our suburban streets until Dad got home and we all sat down for dinner.
Fathers came home at night. Mothers were there. They had dinner on the table. Kids were home too, washed and ready for their fathers and their dinner — or supper if your family had Southern roots as so many did that one city, Hazel Park, was known as Hazel-tucky — after a day of school or in the summer, a day of riding through the neighborhood on our bikes with baseball gloves on the handlebars.
You could never be sure when a game would break out.
If only we had known
.Last Chance Mile: The Reinvention of an American Community
INTRODUCTION
Skies were filled with black smoke by four o’clock every afternoon. The sound of metal on metal was in the air. Diesel exhaust, carbon monoxide, a fresh mowed lawn and the small two-cylinder engine that did it. Those were the aromas of Metro Detroit 1972.
Cars were backed up for miles going into and out of the auto plants in my hometown, Warren, Mich. the third largest city in the state, home to the dynamo of American auto manufacturing, home to the Big Three. Powerful stuff.
We had no clue the end was so near.
We called it “rush hour “but nobody moved fast. The interstates, I-75, I-96 and The Lodge, were jammed every morning and every afternoon. Frantic traffic reports were heard on every radio station every ten minutes.
So many cars moving. So many cars stuck. So many people whose lives were forged in factories and offices in Detroit. So many trucks carrying the raw materials destined to become the cars and trucks that moved America. All merging, mixing, melding into this amalgamation of our lives. Every day, three shifts a day, never stopping, never slowing. Not even on Sunday.
It as a glorious time. If only we had known how radiant, remarkable and resplendent it was. If only we had known. If only we had taken the time to appreciate it. If only we had known how quickly it would be gone.
If only.
There were so many kids.
We were the kids.
We were the Baby Boomers, packed into the houses that all looked the same. Cookie cutter real estate, yet to each of us those houses were our homes. It is where we fought for a place in line outside the bathroom, fought, loved, battled, and grew.
Each a singular entity, we became one with our kind, a marching, moving, swaying exodus of children who every morning walked to school and then back home for lunch, before going back to school.
The sidewalks and playgrounds were always jammed with kids. There was never a time of silence on our suburban streets until Dad got home and we all sat down for dinner.
Fathers came home at night. Mothers were there. They had dinner on the table. Kids were home too, washed and ready for their fathers and their dinner — or supper if your family had Southern roots as so many did that one city, Hazel Park, was known as Hazel-tucky — after a day of school or in the summer, a day of riding through the neighborhood on our bikes with baseball gloves on the handlebars.
You could never be sure when a game would break out.
If only we had known
.Last Chance Mile: The Reinvention of an American Community
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