Ypsi Immigration Interview: Ingrid Ankerson

Yesterday evening, I had the pleasure of attending a housewarming party here in Ypsilanti for Washtenaw Community College graphic design instructor Ingrid Ankerson. Here, for those of you who haven’t already had the pleasure of meeting Ingrid, who just moved to Ypsi from Wisconsin — by way of Baltimore and Ann Arbor — is her official immigration interview.

[above: Ingrid printing on a Vandercook press at Signal Return in Detroit’s Eastern Market.]

MARK: So, why the move to Ypsi from Ann Arbor, where you’d been living the past several years?

INGRID: So, I feel like to explain why I moved to Ypsi, I have to start with my move to Ann Arbor. I moved there in 2010 with my now ex, who was offered a job at the University of Michigan. We’d met when we were both living in Baltimore. I loved Baltimore more than any place I’ve ever lived, but she was an academic, so we moved from Baltimore in 2001 to Madison, for her to get her PhD. Then we moved to Ann Arbor for her job.

MARK: If I had to guess, I’d say that there aren’t a lot of people who love Baltimore who also love Ann Arbor. They’re kind of opposites in my mind.

INGRID: They really are. Ann Arbor is lovely, but I just never felt like it was my scene, or my people. When my partnership ended three years ago, I had a lot of resentment about being “stuck” in a place that I didn’t choose. (I have an amazing job, and share custody of two kids, so moving back to Baltimore wasn’t in the cards.) But Ypsi has some of what I loved about Baltimore. It’s rough around the edges; the people are interesting and varied; it’s small, and it’s affordable. There’s an edgy urban vibe that I dig.

My best friend came to visit from Philly when I was at the precipice of moving here. I was still in Ann Arbor, and the two of us took the bus to Ypsi so I could show him the house I’d put an offer on, and show him around downtown. As soon as he got off the bus, he remarked with total clarity, “Ah, I see it. This makes sense for you.”

MARK: I didn’t know that you’d lived in Baltimore. It’s one of my favorite places. And I’ve always thought of it as being a kind of sister city to Ypsilanti. I think a lot of towns that I like share certain things in common: Ypsilanti, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Savannah… but Baltimore is the one, I think, that comes the closest to capturing the spirit of Ypsilanti.

INGRID: Holy, yes! I feel, gosh, almost heartwarmed that you feel what I do. And all of these cities are spot-on connected in some way, and I love that you think Baltimore and Ypsilanti are especially related. I am imagining these now as actual sisters… and what a rad punk band they’d make. Baltimore is the lead. Ypsi on bass guitar.

[above: Ingrid at her summer job for six years in Baltimore City, selling live blue shell Maryland crabs from a truck on the side of the road.]

MARK: Coincidentally, Donald Trump, just this morning, said of Baltimore, “No human would want to live there.” [This was part of a racist attack against Representative Elijah Cummings.] I hesitate to think what he’d make of Ypsilanti.

INGRID: That would be a fun game, wouldn’t it? Trump tweets something about a place and we guess to which city he’s referring. I started imagining what he would say about Ypsilanti, and then I thought better of it. Instead, I’m just working on a name for this punk band. What do you think?

MARK: Well, as Trump’s racism is at the forefront of my mind at the moment, I’m going to suggest “Infested”, which is one of his favorite terms for communities of color… But maybe that’s too dark, not uplifting enough, etc. It is punk, though. And each of these cities that I noted are ones that Trump would, no doubt, slap that label on… I don’t know.

INGRID: Oh, I like this! Totally punk, and maybe it’s reclamation of the word. Maybe “The Infested.” I like it.

MARK: So, what was your first exposure to Ypsilanti. Do you remember the circumstances surrounding your first visit?

INGRID: I was invited to a happy hour after work at Sidetrack. At the time I had a 9 month old, a 2.5 year old, a new job, and a partner who just started working like 150 hours a week at U-M, so I was just moving around in a haze. That visit didn’t really stick, other than as an obligation.

And, prior to that, when we were moving to Michigan and looking at real estate, I’d been prepped — and I quote from some unknown source — “Ypsilanti is the Brooklyn to Ann Arbor’s Manhattan.” So, I didn’t much care to know about it because I wasn’t interested in living in Brooklyn.

But, as I met more and more people from Ypsi, and visited here more often, I realized it was its own weird little place.

MARK: Yeah, that “Brooklyn/Manhattan” thing always rubs me the wrong way. People who say it – and most of them, at least in my experience, have been Annarbourites – generally mean it to be complimentary, but there’s something weird about it… Maybe it’s that, by making the analogy, they’re painting Ann Arbor as Manhattan, which is hilarious.

INGRID: Wait, that’s how you spell Annarbourite? With the “ou”, or are you just adding that for lofty emphasis? What is someone from Ypsilanti?

MARK: We’re Ypsilantians, I think. As for my use of the term “Annarbourite”, I just like to use it as it sounds more pretentious. And, no, I didn’t make it up. When the city was founded by John Allen and Elisha Walker Rumsey back in 1824 , they registered the land in Wayne County as “Annarbour“. So, Annarbourite is not only pretentious, but historically accurate.

INGRID: I see.

MARK: Did I hear correctly that the house you just moved into had one entire room that was just a hot tub, and that you literally had to wade through it to get from one room to another?

INGRID: You are only incorrect in that you are using the past tense.

MARK: So, you’ve decided to keep it? Or have you just not yet figured out a way to get it out?

INGRID: It’s actually a very big jacuzzi tub, one that you empty the water out of every time. My hot water tank isn’t big enough to make it a “hot” tub, so I’ve been filling it with cool water for my kids, and we call it our indoor pool. They wear goggles and everything! I’m most definitely not keeping it, but it’s really low on my list of projects. On another floor, I have a big, dank closet with a shower head in it, so it’s… I don’t know… they go together.

[above: One of Ingrid’s two sons enjoys the indoor pool.]

MARK: Have there been any other big surprises since moving in, either about the house, or the City itself?

INGRID: I think the guys who finished my floors before I moved in were surprised to learn that, under the carpeting linoleum had been adhered to the wood floors with tar. I was a little surprised when I opened the dishwasher and the whole unit fell out. And my kids were both totally surprised by how disgustingly dirty the house was. (Said my eight-year-old at his first visit, “Mama… I have to go to the bathroom, but I really, really don’t want to do it here.”)

But it’s an old house that had been neglected, so I knew (and was excited about) what I was in for. As for the City, I’d spent so much time in Ypsi before moving here that it was just what I expected. Everything’s been perfect.

MARK: OK, let’s talk about where you come from. I see from your website that you grew up on a small farm in Wisconsin. What can you tell us about the farm? Given that it was situated in the largest cheese-producing state in the country, would I be right to assume that there were dairy cows involved?

INGRID: A fair presumption, as we were definitely surrounded by dairy farms. But, we had sheep. And one particular sheep that was Grand Champion at the county fair! Of course it wasn’t our sheep after the fair, because someone bought it for slaughter.

My dad grew up on a real Wisconsin dairy farm, where they churned their own butter, had horses for pulling the equipment, and didn’t have indoor plumbing. He even went to a one-room schoolhouse.

I think the move to farmland for my family (we moved from a small city when I was in the first grade) was a cure for my dad’s nostalgia. He had a job in Milwaukee as an accountant, and we moved within commuting distance of the city, into a real fixer-upper Victorian house, with a fixer-upper garage, and several fixer-upper sheds, and a fixer-upper barn. So I kind of grew up in a construction zone.

They got three sheep because they didn’t have time to mow the very large lawn. Eventually, my incredibly hard-working parents transformed the house back to its glory, and it’s now on the historic registry. Our three sheep turned into 50. And I took care of the lawn with a riding mower.

[above: A young Ingrid enjoying the company of Gladys, one of the original three sheep on her family farm.]

MARK: Have you been able to find a reliable local supplier of authentic cheese curds?

INGRID: It hasn’t even occurred to me to try because I promise you there are no authentic cheese curds outside of Wisconsin.

MARK: When I asked that question, I was imagining a guy walking by me on the sidewalk here in Ypsi, whispering “curds” under his breath, looking for ex-patriot Wisconsinites to deal small baggies of curds to. That thought made me happy… I don’t think we have a very large Wisconsin ex-pat community here, though.

INGRID: Well, now you are making me realize I would totally buy curds from this shady fellow. They sound legit.

I do have a really cool story about the one ex-pat I can think of. I’m on the sustainability committee at Washtenaw Community College, where I work, and I was looking for someone to help me with the task of encouraging people to bike or ride the bus to school instead of driving. Someone suggested I get in touch with this new librarian, Molly. So, I did, and she didn’t hesitate to join the committee.

Right away, at our first meeting, we had a hard time sticking to an agenda because we hit it off, and had a lot of other things to talk about. We both had two kids, we’d both been living in Ann Arbor for about the same amount of time, and we lived pretty close to each other. Turns out we also both lived in Madison, and within a one mile radius. Then, at some point, I mentioned that I grew up in Wisconsin and she lit up. “Where in Wisconsin?”, she asked.

I always hesitate at this point, wondering if I should mention the small town I’m actually from, or the larger town next door. So I went with the bigger of the two, saying “West Bend,” which is about the size of Ypsilanti. “No way!” she said, leaning way in, eyes super wide. “I’m from West Bend!”

This was super exciting… “I’m not actually from West Bend,” I said, “I’m from a nearby town of about 3,000…. Kewaskum!”

At this, she slams her hands down at the table and says, “My mom taught at Kewaskum!!!”

When I asked who her mom was, and she answered, and I burst into tears.

You know that teacher who was THE teacher who had the greatest impact on your life? Well, for me, that teacher was her mom. She was my middle school English teacher, and such an influence on me. In fact, in my longer bio, I actually reference her as someone from where my love of, and for, writing and design stems.

I’ve had a lot of blissful things happen to me in my life, but that moment was like divine intervention.

MARK: I was doing one of these immigration interviews not too long ago and it turned out that the woman I was talking with happened to have lived in Danville, Kentucky, near the Long John Silver’s that my parents and I would stop at on our way to visit my grandparents in the small town of Liberty… There were no tears, and our conversation kind of stopped there, but that’s as close as I’ve come to having experienced anything like that.

INGRID: Well, that’s still really amazing. I think a lot about how many people we brush by throughout the day are people with whom we might share an experience, a place, or a history.

MARK: OK, I tried to do a little research on Kewaskum, but I’m not finding much. If I’m ever passing through, is there any sites you’d recommend? Something of either historical or personal importance?

INGRID: I want so badly to elaborate on this! But, my answer is no.

OK, I’ve reconsidered. It really is beautiful. Rolling hills and farmland. You should drive through. The area is part of the Kettle Moraine, which is really quite beautiful and charming.

The house I grew up in is on a postcard. It’s just that pretty.

[above: Ingrid’s family farm on a Wisconsin postcard. She says the grass isn’t really blue. The card has just faded.]

MARK: What, if anything, do you miss most about life on the farm?

INGRID: I don’t miss much, but I did really enjoy the very large raspberry patch. To this day, I refuse to buy raspberries because they were so free and so plentiful for so much of my life. I had a very idyllic childhood in a very idyllic setting (never mind that it was, and still is, in the most conservitive county in the state), but I was desperate to leave the countryside since… well, I always imagined myself too cosmopolitan for a farm.

I mention in my bio that I grew up on a farm, not because I loved it or miss it, but because it is so embedded in my being, and my perspective. During my formative years, I saw creatures being born and dying all the time. I saw prolapsed sheep vaginas for crying out loud. I learned about, and witnessed birth and death, sex, abortion, agression, starvation, crazy things like lockjaw, the impact of weather and the climate, overpopulation…. all of this through the context of living with plants and animals. That sounds dark, but it was also insanely beautiful. I’m very thankful for this perspective.

I also learned about physical labor. Of course, as a kid, picking rocks from a field, or planting trees, or hauling poop in a wheelbarrow was the worst imaginable weekend ever. Today, I’m the first to sign up for this kind of work.

MARK: I know that, before moving here to Ypsi, you were a friend of Linette’s, but I’m not sure how you came to know one another. My sense is that maybe someone introduced you, seeing as how you’re both graphic designers… Is that what happened?

INGRID: Yes, that’s right. I teach graphic design at Washtenaw Community College, and I was looking for local designers to speak at an event for students going into the field. Ryan Molloy, my colleague over at Eastern Michigan University suggested that I talk with Linette, and I did. She mentioned, during our first discussion, that she was going to a PJ Harvey concert, and, naturally, all I really wanted from her after that was for her to be my friend.

MARK: I remember hearing about that event that you’d put on for aspiring graphic designers. If I’m not mistaken, Linette still talks with some of the young people she met that day… Is that something that you might do again?

INGRID: Yes! The event was with the Entrepreneurship Center at WCC; it was a bootcamp for people interested in getting into the Graphic Design business. There is definitely another one of these in the works, possibly happening a year from now. I’m so glad to know she’s still in touch with some of the people that she met. It’s fun to connect people who should have already been connected in the first place.

MARK: Outside of bringing working designers in to meet with students, what kind of work are you doing with your students at WCC?

INGRID: Well, I love the mission of the community college, and teaching at one is an honor. The classes I teach are mostly typography and publication design, but ultimately I hope I’m teaching students how to develop useful design skills and how then to go out and get a job.

At the start of the two-year program, we begin with the principles of design and typography and by the end, students have a portfolio of industry-relevant work, well-crafted resumes, knowledge about how to write a contract, and they’ve even practiced interviewing for jobs.

Sometimes I worry I put too much heart and emotional effort into teaching something that seems… I don’t know… fluffy… compared to working to remedy any one of the thousands of big issues on our planet. But I have to say, every time I send a student into the world, I get very emotional. So many of them step right out of our two year program and begin work. To know I’m helping make productive, self-sufficient people, who, on top of it all, know the difference between small caps and all caps is maybe the greatest work I am capable of.

In addition to teaching, I’m also co-chair of the Digital Media Arts Department at WCC, which includes Audio Technology, 3D Animation, Digital Video, Graphic Design, Photography, and Web Design/Development. With that comes a lot of paperwork. It also gives me the opportunity to interact with our part-time instructors, which, given the list of disciplines I just listed, means I get to interact with a lot of really talented people.

MARK: This is a complete aside, but I was just listening to Pod Save America yesterday, and, in a discussion about recent polls, and the 2020 race, they said that the whole thing could come down to Wisconsin. So, with that in mind… and I don’t mean to be rude by asking this… but would you consider moving back home for a while? Really, though, I’m curious to know what you think about the future of our country being in the hands of Wisconsinites.

INGRID: I have to tell you, when I was living and loving life in Baltimore, and it was decided we’d be moving to Wisconsin, I— and I am not exaggerating— immediately broke out in head to toe hives. I desperately didn’t want to go back. Mostly because I associated Wisconsin with ultra-conservative political views. Again, I grew up in the actual most Republican county in the state. Washington County. Look it up.

But we moved to the opposite end of that spectrum, Madison, where I remember being shockingly disappointed because everyone is so liberally like-minded there was nothing to banter about!

I got heavily involved with an LGBT organization in Madison that was fighting one of those “gay marriage amendments.” Remember those? So, through that, I became involved politically on a statewide level, and I really learned first-hand how interesting and independent Wisconsin voters are from county to county.

How do I feel about the future potentially being in Wisconsin’s hands? Insanely nervous. The approval rating for Trump there is… holy crap, I’m realizing this question has the potential to give me hives again.

MARK: I don’t want to make things worse for you, but, before we move on, I was just listening to an interview with Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler, and I think it’s worth mentioning that, to a large degree, what we’ve seen play out in Wisconsin over the past several years is the result of a very deliberate plan to weaken unions, make it easier for corporations to give unlimited cash to candidates, and gerrymander district maps to the point where defeating conservative candidates is almost impossible. In other words, it’s not just that Wisconsin is full of rabid Trumpists… If you’d like to listen to the relevant portion of the conversation with Winkler, just jump forward to the 68:28-mark. I found it pretty eye-opening, when he ran through the litany of things that had been done under Governor Scott Walker.

INGRID: I left the state just before Walker was voted in as Governor, but I continued to follow politics there, and was aware of a lot of this. But to listen to Winkler’s, as you say, litany of atrocities is like being punched in the gut over and over, so thanks for that Mark.

I only worked alongside politics and politicians for a short while, but deeply enough that I was a delegate for Obama in 2008. I was so excited and optimistic then, but at the same time totally dismayed and distrustful of the system, the people in it, and the way everyone in it gets sucked into the system. Seeing it first hand was a real turn-off. But it’s the system we have, and it always has the potential to get better. Or worse. For sure, this cycle the DPW needs to raise a lot of money. I haven’t zero’ed in on my candidate yet, but I have donated to Wisconsin Dems.

MARK: OK, I promise no more politics… after I say this one last thing. If anyone reading this feels inspired, based on this conversation, to give a financial donation to the Wisconsin Dems just click here. OK, now back to the interview… So, Ingrid, what kind of kid were you?

INGRID: I was an easy kid, I kept myself entertained, I was well-liked, responsible, I was good at sports and did fine in school. I was a little different from a lot of the other kids in terms of the way I dressed (I mean, I still got everything at Kohls, it wasn’t that remarkable) and the way I wore my hair (never used a curling iron or hair spray). In high school some of the foreign exchange students thought I was one of them.

MARK: What’s your first memory?

INGRID: When I was about three (my mom says I was two, but this seems too early) I had to spend an overnight in the hospital to have all of my teeth capped. Apparently I had soft enamel? Of course now I’ve reached the age where all of my teeth are being capped again, because all the fillings are cracking. I brush my teeth, I swear.

Anyway. I had to spend the night in the hospital. I remember getting to the threshold of the room; it was so big and there was a television mounted to the wall. I had a darling, hard-cased overnight bag for the occasion. When I realized my mom planned to spend the night with me, I lost it. I was so excited to have, what seemed to me, an apartment to myself in the city, that I begged her to leave until she finally did. This story says a lot about who I am still today… I am a person who very much needs a room of her own.

[above: A young Ingrid with her brothers shortly after moving to the farmhouse.]

MARK: Do I understand correctly that you’re going to be setting up a letterpress operation here in Ypsi at some point?

INGRID: Yes! When I was in grad school at the University of Baltimore for creative writing and publication design, I learned about letterpress. It was love at first impression. (Letterpress people will get that.) One of my professors had two Vandercook presses IN HER HOME, and I absolutely couldn’t believe this could be possible. It was like I’d landed on a planet I couldn’t have even imagined, only it was real, and, like, normal for her.

This idea stuck with me as a one-day possibility. But, you know, life, and finances, and you need a very special space for a work/live letterpress studio.

Then my 18-year relationship ended, and, after a lot (a lot!) of spinning, and uncertainty, and mid-life re-imagining, I recalibrated and realized this was the opportunity to imagine my own planet. Christ, I don’t know how I got on this planet thing. I just wanted to move into a commercial space in downtown Ypsi. And I have. And I can live here, and I have just the right spot for the press.

MARK: So, do you have the press yet? And what do you intend to do with it? What’s your vision?

INGRID: I don’t. I have a lot of house projects that need to come first, and I’m going to try to be patient and get exactly the press I want. They weigh over 4,000 pounds and they’re very expensive, so I want to do it right. My long-term vision is that I use it for my personal art practice, occasionally offer workshops, and use it as a collaborative space with other printmakers. I’m working on creating a one-bedroom apartment within my house, so I can even imagine someone staying as an artist in residence.

But I don’t want it to be a business. For me, working on the press is a beautiful, meditative escape. I’d like to keep it that way.

MARK: One last thing… At your housewarming party last night, I saw this sign on the door out to your deck, and I was just wondering how it came about. Does one of your kids just happen to be really safety-minded, or did you assign the task of making warning signs prior to the party? And is it safe to assume that there were no fatalities after we left?

INGRID: Ha! It was a collaboration. The kids wanted to put up some signs of warning (they didn’t even all get made… fortunately everyone made it out of the bathroom without instructions for how to open the door from the inside) and of welcoming. I wanted him to include that it wasn’t safe for drunk adults, but he said I needed to do that.

And everyone stayed alive! So, the house has been warmed successfully. Thanks, Mark, for being a part of that.

[note: If you enjoyed this interview, and you’re curious as to why other people are moving to Ypsilanti, check out the Ypsilanti Immigration Interview archive.]

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15 Comments

  1. dogmatic dolt
    Posted September 8, 2019 at 11:51 pm | Permalink

    Aloha Ingrid, the closest thing I have in my life to your cool “new librarian” story, is when a lover of mine showed me the couch she had bought at a garage sale, and it was the couch I had grown up with. Dug around under the cushions and found some of my old toys. The thing is my mom had gotten rid of the couch several years earlier.
    Glad you are living in Ypsi.

  2. Eel
    Posted September 9, 2019 at 5:29 am | Permalink

    Cream and Crumb is good, but I’d prefer a Crab and Curd shop in Depot Town.

    Ingrid, you’re our only hope.

  3. iRobert
    Posted September 9, 2019 at 6:58 am | Permalink

    Ingrid seems super cool, and she’s not from one of those shithole states, so we welcome her with open arms to this one.

    “Infested” is a great name for a punk band, especially if you’re limiting your possible choices to the 30 or 40 words in the presidents vocabulary.

  4. Kat
    Posted September 9, 2019 at 9:12 am | Permalink

    I would love to have a local letterpress studio. Please make it happen.

  5. dogmatic dolt
    Posted September 9, 2019 at 10:14 am | Permalink

    Aloha, Crabs and Curd—brilliant idea. I understand City Printing still uses a Kluge letterpress for die cutting and specialty work, but don’t think they use it to print anymore.

  6. dogmatic dolt
    Posted September 9, 2019 at 10:22 am | Permalink

    You can pick-up this baby up, down in River Rouge for $1000.00. I would be willing to show some one how to operate. I was a printer for about 15 years and operated these bad boys on occasion.

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/Authentic-Vintage-12-x-18-Kluge-Letterpress-w-Feeder-Modern-Motor-Runs-Good/323729605983?_trkparms=aid%3D888008%26algo%3DDISC.CARDS%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20131227121020%26meid%3D736c2fdd824041abb5ed23f02cb242bc%26pid%3D100009%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26sd%3D153434250604%26itm%3D323729605983%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2047675&_trksid=p2047675.c100009.m1982

  7. EOS
    Posted September 9, 2019 at 11:32 am | Permalink

    What is the advantage of a letter press over computer generated graphics? I don’t know anything about it so I am asking for information only.

  8. Ingrid Ankerson
    Posted September 9, 2019 at 11:40 am | Permalink

    Dogmatic Dolt, thanks! I’m holding tight for a Vandercook Universal 1.
    And that is a totally wild story about the couch!

  9. anonymous
    Posted September 9, 2019 at 12:17 pm | Permalink

    What is the advantage of watercolor painting on canvas over a laser print of a picture made in Photoshop?

    It just depends on what you want. Some people like the way letterpress looks and feels. Some people don’t require it.

  10. Dave Morris
    Posted September 9, 2019 at 2:56 pm | Permalink

    I may have a press for you, Ingrid. It is not a Vandercook, but it is free.

    I recently met a guy out here in Seattle that lived in Ypsilanti for 10 years. ( The discovery that we were both former residents of Ypsi was quite a surprise to both of us. He also did work with my former employer in AA, which was even more surprising. ) While he was there, he acquired a press that he says was made by a printmaker named Emil Weddige. Emil attended EMU back in the 1930’s and taught at UofM.

    Anyway, he brought the press out here with him and is now trying to find a home for it. It is free. I think it is a litho press rather than letter press, but the thought of it making its way back to Ypsi to be used again is really a heartwarming.

    I can have John send pics to you if you are interested in it. I’m happy to help John crate and freight it too. I’m guessing it would be a few hundred to get it to Ypsi.

    If it needs to be a Vandercook, I can talk with my friend Ed and see if he has any and if he is willing to part with one. He runs a letterpress studio called PaperHammer in Tieton, WA.

  11. Ingrid Ankerson
    Posted September 9, 2019 at 7:25 pm | Permalink

    EOS, the results of printing on the press are much more tactile so a lot of people like to use them for things like wedding invitations. For me, it’s about the slow, long, laborious labor of setting type and spacing piece by piece. I spend a lot of time on the computer so have a real craving for making something with my hands.

    Dave, wow! I don’t do lithography, so wouldn’t know how to use that press (it’s quite different than what I do on the letterpress), but maybe, hopefully, some lithographer in Ypsi is reading this comment and would like it, and then you and I both would know someone who does lithography in town!

  12. Lisa Marshall Bashert
    Posted September 10, 2019 at 11:21 am | Permalink

    I also had a “new librarian” story! Back when there were newspapers, I used to write letters to the editor occasionally. One time, I read an article in the Ann Arbor News in which George Will enthused in his column about how much his regular waitress loved him. As a waitress, I sincerely doubted that and wrote a letter to the paper saying how waitresses were forced, like prostitutes, to pretend that we liked our customers in order to get the tips that constituted our meager livelihoods. On one of our first dates, my future spouse told me about this great letter she had read in the Snooz where waitresses were compared to prostitutes… I realized she was quoting from my own letter to the editor! Destiny!!! ( we will be celebrating our 31st anniversary together on Thursday.)

  13. dogmatic dolt
    Posted September 10, 2019 at 11:30 am | Permalink

    Aloha Lisa, such a very cool story, HAPPY 31st bet you are going to go for 50 at least.

  14. Merk!
    Posted September 10, 2019 at 5:43 pm | Permalink

    Ingrid Ankerson: I love you! I loved you back in the day when you were in my 8th grade classroom, wearing jeans and baggy flannel shirts if I recall correctly! I love you now for the wonderful, funny, creative, independent, full-spirited woman which you have become. So glad that we have re-connected. And every time you tell Molly story, I cry too.

  15. Posted February 2, 2022 at 11:10 am | Permalink

    Hi Dave Morris!

    This thread is clearly a few years old but I am recently returning artist here in Ypsilanti. My wife and I went to EMU in the 90’s. and after almost 20 years on sth west coast we have found our way back home.

    Anyway, If that litho press is still a thing I would be thrilled to give it a place to so what it does. I would love to make local prints with it!

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