Memories...light the corners of my mind... :)

• • by Susan Cameron

    Another day, another semi-rant. I'll be taking a break from the Brit blog I've been contributing to and working on my own again, but meanwhile, here's a modified version of the cautionary tale I posted to them about my old home town...

• on August 24, 2011 at 10:42 pmSusie C.

  Ah, Detroit, my home town. Former Arsenal of Democracy, economic powerhouse, Paris of the Midwest — tree-lined boulevards, stately mansions, working-class neighborhoods full of clean and tidy homes, one of the top educational systems in the nation, beautiful parks, world-class museum…

  It took less than fifty years to turn into a shithole.

  You can find what they call “Detroit ruins porn” on the internet — the graffitied burnt-out remnants of fabulous buildings designed by famous architects. You can find virtual tours filmed by thrill-seekers from their car windows, taking their lives in their hands by driving through streets no sane person would walk on. You can type in “Detroit City Council” and listen in disbelief at what passes for urban governance.

  Or you can take my word for it when I tell you about the time I had a sawed-off shotgun stuck in my face, or the time two men with hatchets chased me out of my seat on a city bus, or when another man pulled a pistol on me while robbing my place of work and told me to take off my blouse (I refused and lived to tell the tale). Yes, I do have a peculiar sense of humor, which is one of the many reasons I hang out on this blog. Gallows humor is one useful survival tool, as most of you are all too aware.

  Anyhow, I took a final tour of my old stomping grounds years ago. Houses I’d rented flats in — burned to the ground, basements filled with soil, grass growing where they’d been. Trees busting through curb and gutter. Quail and rabbits spooked and running in front of my car. Urban prairie and gutted houses. I drove downtown. A skyscraper I’d worked in was boarded up with plywood. The Ford Auditorium on the riverfront — boarded up. I parked the car and walked to Woodward Avenue, walked to the middle and stood there, hands on hips. Where I was standing would have been the equivalent of Trafalgar Square. Traffic lights blinking red and green — no traffic anywhere as far as I could see. A tumbleweed rolled past me. The twelve-story department stores were boarded up. The only businesses open were pawn shops and stores with platinum wigs and such for hookers. I must have stood there for five minutes, watching the few people on Woodward being very careful not to look at me. Of course! Crazy-ass white woman, hands on hips — obviously a cop sent out as bait! I drove away, flew away, and haven’t been back since.

  So why am I posting this? It’s not self-pity, believe me. I have a life that’s so great it’s almost beyond belief. I’m saying very few people in Detroit fifty or sixty years ago would have imagined what it is today, and very few people in England have a clue just how bad bad can be.

  Just all of you cops.

  Actually, there are young white hipsters moving downtown these days, artists and musicians, restauranteurs and urban farmers, attracted by low commercial rents and housing so cheap it’s almost free. I wish them all the best, and hope they make it. But me — I still remember defensive driving, Detroit style. See a red light way up ahead? Slow down, keep driving, try to time it so the light is green when you get there. That way snipers on rooftops can’t pick you off easily at the red.

  You can buy a three bedroom house on the street where I grew up for $3500 — about 2100 pounds. Other streets on the east side have houses for sale for a couple hundred dollars. You could emigrate there and help be part of the repopulation effort, but I don’t think you’d find a club you’d like to belong to.

  I just figured I’d throw in a boots on the ground perspective. Erm, please excuse me, I feel that twitch coming back…
• copyright 2011 Susan Cameron
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