Where I come from...

Every once in a while I think back to the Washington Square neighborhood in Kalamazoo when I was a small boy. I remember a quiet peaceful place. A tree lined street with good sized homes built just before the turn of the 20th century. At the time, Kalamazoo was at the peak of its growth.

Then...I remember the screeching tires of a speeding car that should have killed me. I had darted out into the street on my bike right in front the car. He must have been doing 40 MPH on a residential street. I was following right behind Danny Paddock who was also riding his bike. The car stopped within inches of me. I remember the gleam of the chromed bumper and the reflection of my expressionless face.

After the near death experience, I walked into the house and tried to act like nothing happened. My mother asked me what all the noise was outside. I said “I don’t know.” I was too high on adrenaline to say much more. I think the whole neighborhood was terrified beyond words. They almost got to see little Dougie get killed...of course everyone told her what happened. Yes the neighborhood. I had a neighborhood, once...

Maybe that was a omen for things to come for the Washington Square neighborhood. I can still hear those screeching tires and smell of burnt rubber. Danny was later killed along with his father in a trucking accident when his older brother fell asleep at the wheel of their semi-truck. Yes, my neighborhood had a few truckers.

A few years later, the porn business opened up shop in Washington Square...right next to the local barber shop, grocery and drug store. A book store and a theater. The neighborhood was tired...but it went out with a bang...

...I remember one my of friends running down Washington Street yelling, “They blew it up! They blew it up!” Apparently, a mentally ill man planted a bomb in the new porn shop. They found a second device in the XXX theater just before it detonated. The police caught the guy and he was sentenced to the State Hospital. Later, some how he got loose...and the police found his body, strangled under an overpass. Word has it, that the Chicago Mob owned those businesses...

I ask myself...what happened to the community? Everyone just left? For me, my family moved to a safer neighborhood, then to a farm in Ionia...now I find myself in Seoul, Korea searching for the community I once had...

...such energy and optimism used to be in Kalamazoo...

Glenn Miller Band...I Got a Gal in Kalamazoo...let it play and read on...


Professor C. W. Tufts residence early 1900’s


Academy Street...my street still looked like this in 1970’s...this photo is from the early 1900’s.

The house I grew-up in had been condemned the last time I went to see it. I bet it is gone by now. It was once a beautiful Victorian home. I wonder how proud the first owners were...what they would think now...


Burdick Street...early 1900’s...notice the electric street car! What happened to all the street cars?


The Mall City in the 1950’s...
Kalamazoo prided itself, among other things, on creating the first open air mall in America by closing off the store lined street.


Photo courtesy of the MotoReport
Oh, yes...those iconic yellow Checker cabs...The Marathon Checker Cab...made only in Kalamazoo...


Photo courtesy of Yellow Cab NYC
...for some, Checker cabs enabled a way of life...the last Marathon Checker rolled off the lines July of 1982.

And a gift to the world...Rock n Roll...

Photo: AP
Les Paul and Sir Paul admiring the Gibson Les Paul Guitar...Gibson Guitars started crafting guitars in Kalamazoo back in the late 1800’s.


Photo Neil Zlozower
Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin with Gibson’s double necked SG (EDS-1275), “the coolest guitar in rock”...do you know Stairway to Heaven?...Jimmy used this to play live without the cumbersome switching of guitars midway through Led Zeppelin’s signature song...that’s innovation!


Photo: Fanpop
John Lennon and his Epiphone Casino...Epiphone guitars were also made in Kalamazoo. However, Gibson, the parent company, moved the production of Epiphone to Motsumoko of Japan in the early 1970s.

The list of notable artists playing Gibson Guitars is staggering...and the list of Epiphone playing artists is also a bit of fun trivia.

In 1981, after 70+ years, Gibson shut down the rest of its manufacturing in Kalamazoo and moved its head quarters to Nashville, Tennessee...

Many of craftsmen were given the option to move south...most did not want to leave Kalamazoo...there was no guarantee that Gibson would not move manufacturing over seas...as it did with Epiphone...

The old craftsmen banded together to create Heritage Guitars. Heritage makes great guitars, but most people don’t know who they are. Heritage is no match for the marketing machine and iconic brand name of Gibson.

I am left wondering that somewhere, something has gone wrong....

In February 2009, a group of teenagers on Frank Street beat a 49 year old man unconscious because he rode his bike into the wrong neighborhood...pictured here. Yes, those are tennis shoes hanging from the power lines...that means you can buy drugs near by...nice.

October 29, 2009, a deadly shooting in my old neighborhood...I am sure it was not the first.

Of course, it doesn’t help that in October of this year, Michigan has 14% unemployment...and no one can sell their homes.

A couple of years ago, I was showing my kids an abandoned paper mill (we exploring...). I told them how Kalamazoo used to be one of the largest paper manufactures in the country. I didn’t mention that I thought the land is part of the government’s Superfund and we were likely standing above tons of buried toxic waste.

Oh!!! because we did not belong on the property...the police came speeding up to us in an interceptor. From a distance, they figured we were crystal meth dealers looking to use the abandoned building as a lab. That is a problem with abandoned buildings like this...the police told us they recently closed down a lab here...

Clearly, we were not drug pushers, but they checked the building anyway.

Someday, we can design a more sustainable community, maybe things will be better...until then, I can hope.