Late last week, I took a few days off from work and went to Chicago with the family. We visited friends, ate really good brisket, poked our heads into the small and dark apartment of Henry Darger, invested way too much time studying the habits of the longnose walking batfish, and spent Linette’s birthday seeing […]
The response to yesterday’s post about my familial connection to the Swedish expatriate community of Galesburg was so overwhelmingly positive that I thought I’d spend a little more time in the archives this evening and share a few more facts about my immigrant family’s past in Illinois. First, I should correct something that I said […]
What follows is our official exit interview with Merritt Bankes, who just recently left Ypsilanti, headed for Tecumseh. MARK: Can you please state your full name for the record? MERRITT: Merritt Bankes. MARK: OK, let’s start at the beginning… What kind of kid were you? MERRITT: Feral! A free-range chicken! [Laughs.] I didn’t even wear […]
I know it’s probably cheating, but here’s something that I posted more than half a decade ago on the occasion of Labor Day. If anything, I think it’s even more appropriate today, seeing as how Michigan has since become a so-called “right to work” state, and we now how have an unquestionably anti-worker administration running […]
