My friend Dan sent me a photo of his daughter, Leah, a few days ago. It was cute. She was jumping around in a big pile of leaves… Of course that’s something my daughter, being an Ypsilantian will never know. No, our leaves, no matter how hard we try to screen for such things, are always full of crusty bandaids, beer cans and the twisted-up plastic wrap that drugs are sold in.
Here’s the photo I sent back to Dan. It was taken in my front yard. I find about one of these things a week. If I’d been collecting them for the past five years that I’ve lived here, I could have made a pretty cool art piece, like a giant “Welcome to Ypsi” sign.
For the most part, I’m very happy to be living where I’m living, and I love the community, but every now and then, I find myself getting pissed off. Nothing puts me in one of these moods like having a hooker walk down my street, or having to stoop and pick up evidence of a successful drug deal. I did both today, so you’ll have to excuse me…. You know, if I didn’t love Ypsi so damned much, I’d make shirts that said, “Ypsi… Come for the Hookers, Stay for the Meth,” and make a fortune selling them to the rich kids in Ann Arbor.
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Mark, you have the moral obligation to get those t-shirts printed up NOW.
In my yard it’s empty half pints of vodlka. I’ve noticed that whiskey drinkers smash their bottles more often than vodlka drinkers though I don’t now why.
Maybe the vodka bottles are plastic, Steve.
Actually, they’re all glass. The bottles we find are generally of the cheap imported variety.
http://images.hamtramckstar.com/albums/Hamtramck/2005_10_13/dscf2918.jpg
Waiting at the Ypsilanti Transit Center one day, a guy came up to me and asked if I wanted to “buy some rocks”. I said no and gave him a dirty look. He turned to the woman on his other side and asked her if she wanted to see his rocks, and pulled a handful of geodes out of his pocket.
I never figured out if that was the explanation he had planned to prevent people from calling the police or if he was just crazy.
If that
What a beautiful photo. Like something out of a JAL calender. This would make great holiday cards. I like how the crack baggie mimics the shape of the fall leaves on which it rests. An interesting study in where the natural world meets the unnatural world. (last sentence meant to sound hokey)
Linette says they look like badminton birdies… Like the people in front of our house love badminton, but can’t afford the birdies.
Maybe somewhere in our neighborhood their are homemade rackets.
sights and sounds assault me as if I am being pummeled by gangland fists in a dark alleyway…
My favorite juxaposition of Ypsi-trash was finding a 20 year AA chip next to an empty bottle.
Granted, if you drop anything on certain streets of Ypsi it’s likely to land next to a bottle, or at least glass.
That would make a lovely “Greetings from my lost weekend in Ypsilanti” postcard, Kevin.
See now, I just saw one of those saran thingies blowin’ by in the parking lot at Kroger, I would have never known instantly what it was, if not for this site.
You can suck on the ends, like you would on honeysuckle.
I don’t remember there being honeysuckle up in Michigan.