michigan & links

I found out that you can turn your garden into a wildlife preserve.

I went back to Michigan last week and sat in Kalamazoo's Bronson Park and just smiled. I have always felt that Kalamazoo is at its best in the summer. I walked to the co-op and the library and saw some friends. It is easy to find friends there, if you just know where to walk to. A lot is changing there, as it always is, I think that's just how college towns work. My friend Bradley was having an art show that night at someone's house on Oak Street, and I was unable to make it, but I heard it was filled with lots of young kids. That's exciting. I talked to my friend James at Rocket Star, and he said that it seems like a lot of negative stuff was happening, but that there were a lot of new faces looking to make change. I just hope they don't get discouraged. Kalamazoo has such a history and I would like to see it get to the point that it sounds like it was at in the late 80's and early 90's.

I also drove through South Bend with my dad. I didn't even know about the riots that happened there, but I think people should know. My dad was proud to note that there was a strip of new stores, a coffee shop, an art gallery. He said they were trying to "turn it around" and it certainly needed something, but I wondered what would happen to the people already living there in the boarded up houses when those houses were bought and then remodeled and they could no longer live there. It was almost like a ghost town. My friend Joseph wants to move to a ghost town. I can see why. But then I worried about, what if he moved there, and then they did something like what they're doing to South Bend? I'm not sure how I feel about it, but Michigan seems to have been "hit hard" by a lot of things, and it also seemed to be sort of sad. But it always did. I think that's why Kalamazoo only ever felt good when it was summertime.