Detroit As It Is Remembered

It's called lots of things, the way lots of cities are. It's home to a dwindling population, yet home to millions everywhere else.

Detroit has a history too. It has that right.

I call it my birthplace, my home; the place where Tigers and Lions, Wings, and Pistons remain alive in my heart. Not because I love the city, but because I love the childhood they remind me of -- days spent listening to a transistor radio breath The Beatles, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Petula Clark, The Monkees, the great Stevie Wonder. Those were the days when a Sunday meant a Tiger game on the radio while my dad, uncles, and grandfather drank Stroh's beer, smoked cigars, and held pleasant conversation while we kids played crack-the-whip and made our mom's worry.

The damned place changed and to this day I really do not know why. I do know that for whatever reason or reasons hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of people may presently feel deprived of having had a decent opportunity to grow up and remain part of a city that ultimately, ironically seemed to implode. In the end it must be that people have the power of effecting change. People.