By Mark | December 3, 2020
I was 13 years old on December 29, 1981 — the day that my great grandmother Minnie Wise Florian died in Liberty, Kentucky. I was with her when she passed, a few weeks after her 89th birthday. It was a traumatic night. My father was out, playing basketball with some old high school friends, and […]
Posted in Mark's Life, Uncategorized | Also tagged anxiety, Arlo, cathartic, Charles Maynard, crying, Death, depression, family history, fatherhood, gratitude, Minnie Wise Florian, OCD, suicide |
By Mark | August 23, 2020
A few evening’s ago, my son and I set out to see if we could find a new path along the Huron River. By the time we were done, we’d walked eight miles, and found some incredible trails that we’d never before knew existed. The shot above is from one of those trails. Everywhere we […]
Posted in Mark's Life, Uncategorized, Ypsilanti | Also tagged Arlo, beauty, deer, dystopia, eating people, Edward G. Robinson, euthanasia, fawn, goldfinches, hiking, nature, parenting, Sol Roth, Soylent Green, walking |
Last year on Memorial Day, my son and I discovered a giant vernal pool teaming with tadpoles at Riverside Park, so we thought we’d go back today in hopes of finding more. While we didn’t find any frogs or tadpoles, there was plenty for us to talk about. Among other things, we saw a family […]
Posted in Health, Uncategorized, Ypsilanti | Also tagged Alro, asian carp, Barack Obama, carp, Charles `The Butcher' Benton, Chuck Scarborough, conspiracy theories, coronavirus, COVID-19, Donald Trump, double feature, exercise, frogs, golf, golfing, H1N1, Harold Hill, hypocrisy, hypocrisy watch, Idaho, Indestructible Man, Joe Biden, masks, Memorial Day, pandemic, playgrounds, public health, Riverside Park, Russian roulette, swine flu, tadpoles, The Man Who Came to Dinner, The Music Man, The Omega Man, vernal pool |
A week or so ago, I tried something different here, and just gave myself a set amount of time to write about things going on in my life, without giving too much thought as to what was happening in the outside world. Well, as I really enjoyed the exercise, I thought that I’d try it […]
Posted in Mark's Life, Media, The Saturday Six Pack, Uncategorized, Ypsilanti | Also tagged Abraham Lincoln, Alro, AM 1700, artwork, butterfly, Clementine, comedy, corruption, COVID-19, dawn redwood, Donald Trump, Fathers Day, ferns, gardening, graffiti, hammock, humor, Inspector General, kale, Ma Florian, Mike Pompeo, pandemic, public health, redbud, Saturday Six Pack, Secretary of State, Steve Linick, trees, volunteering, white oak |
By Mark | December 18, 2019
The Starkweather Chapel in Ypsilanti’s Highland Cemetery, for those of you who may not have noticed, has been undergoing some much needed renovation work this past year. Here, with more on the history of the building, and the preservation work that’s been done thus far, is a conversation I just had with lifelong Ypsilanti resident […]
Posted in History, Ypsilanti | Also tagged 1841, 1883, Ainsworth Mill, animal infestation, Barry LaRue, Battle of Bunker Hill, Beezy's, big death, Bill French, coffins, Daniel Quirk, DTE, Ebay, Elijah McCoy, EMU, funerals, George McCoy, grave digging, Greek Revival, Highland Cemetery, Historic District Commission, historic places, historic preservation, Historic Preservation Office, home funerals, J.E. Moore’s Furniture Store, Jasper Pennington, John D. Pierce, John Starkweather, Mack & Mack Furniture Store, Mary Ann Starkweather, Mason & Rice, memorial services, Normal College, Old Ypsilanti, oral history, plaster, Playboy, pornography, Prospect Cemetery, Prospect park, public art, public education, renovations, solar power, SPARK East, stained glass, Starkweather Chapel, Starkweather Hall, Starkweather House, State Historic Preservation Office, Stevens T. Mason, the funeral industry, underground railroad, Walter Loomis Newberry, water fountains, winter receiving vault, Ypsi history, Ypsi Solar, Ypsilanti, Ypsilanti Public Library |
