Ann Arbor always held an even greater appeal than Lansing to this ambitious hayseed. When I was sixteen, my Coogi-sweater-and-Birkenstock-clad German teacher took our class to Ann Arbor as part of his program to expose us to what actual culture looked like. He let us explore the city for a few hours before meeting up at a dimly-lit German restaurant that was the pretense for the whole trip. If he had let us run freely around Detroit, of course, he would have promptly been fired. But Ann Arbor was safe enough for such adventures. Book stores outside of a shopping mall! Clever panhandlers honest enough to just ask for beer money! Record stores staffed by snooty bass players! Risque t-shirts! Here we discovered actual New Yorkers: PhDs like Roman patricians governing some dreary provincial capitol, with a cadre of shopkeepers, merchants, and artists catering to their elevated tastes and vying for their coin. Look, we whispered in amazement walking down Liberty Street: I think that was an actual Jew!
I guess growing up here, there are some things you take for granted.
I've got $20 on that dim German restaurant being The Old German which was in fact very old, very German, and very dim. Grizzly Peak keeps the beer flowing in that location now.
ReplyDeleteheh. I believe it was the old location of metzger's, phil. I was sad to see them move out to a strip mall.
ReplyDelete14A is my favorite Amendment. Learning the phrase "equal protection" has made arguing that much more fun.
ReplyDeleteMonday's Diane Rehm Show was all about the 14th Amendment.
ReplyDelete