My Aunt B dropped by the house (and that’s not just a protect-the-innocent abbreviation, we really do call her “Aunt B”). I like my mom’s sisters. They’re not as f’ed up as my dad’s family. Well, mom’s side is f’ed up in a different way. They know how to, I don’t know, relate to people, but they tend to have illegal habits (Aunt B doesn’t, but her kids/my cousins do). My dad’s is not in potential danger with the law at all (with the possible exception of Hoss if she doesn’t get her act together with this divorce), but they’re all on (prescription) mood-altering drugs.
I’m reading this book Devil’s Night: And Other True Tales of Detroit. It’s about 12 years old. The author, Ze’ev Chafets, is a Jewish guy who grew up in Pontiac and moved to Israel at the age of 20 (in 1967) before coming back to the city for a year for the purposes of writing this book.
He “leads us through the wilderness of the distinct subcultures of contemporary Detroit. He meets “the black intelligentsia who view their ‘independent state’ as progress for black America; he spends time with cops whose conflicting attitudes of pride in their work and bitterness at their city’s staggering crime rate lead to frustration; he explores the growing sects in the Muslim and Christian communities that proved ecstatic, religous escape; he talks to whites from the segregated suburbs to find out why they fled and about the roots of their continuous antagonism….”
Now I have no idea what this guy is talking about in this book. I mean, I do, but I cannot relate in any way. I have not personally experienced any of this stuff he’s talking about. My parents’ address is in the city, but I essentially grew up in the ‘burbs (with the exception of kindergarten and 2nd grade – I skipped 1st grade – I went to catholic school in Oakland County). And then I was talking to a friend of a friend at dinner last night, and she lives in the city and was talking about how she wasn’t all that familiar with much of it, even after living there for two years. She was naming neighborhoods and streets, and aside from having heard of all these places, I wasn’t familiar with them at all. I’m trying to decide whether or not this bothers me.
