Friday, April 23, 2010

Long Term Memories

Flint Expatriate Rich Frost remembers growing up at 3502 N. Term Street:
Our neighbors to the south — The Goin family — had something like six or seven kids. I remember the father, Willie, as one gruff son-of-a-bitch – but he created something that I attracted the kids from all over the neighborhood loved him for — he built a merry-go-round in his backyard as a companion piece to their swing set. He planted an axle from a car in the ground and bolted two-by-four’s on the wheel hub assembly. Who knows how many miles that wheel hub assembly had on it before it was placed in the ground — but I’m sure all of the kids in the neighborhood must have put a few cross-country miles on it just spinning around.
Read the rest here.



3 comments:

  1. I wonder if the Ebmeyers mentioned were related to Garret Ebmeyer, Flint school principal and community band director.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I already commented on Rich's blog, but I figured I'd share this here. Yes, his former neighbors are still there, or at least still own the houses. Just search Term in the appropriate field here:

    http://taxes.cityofflint.com/search.asp

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  3. Thanks for a visit down Memory Lane as I grew up on on Leith near Averill. Big yards, sleeping outside in tents during the summer, always having enough kids to play Kick the Can or Hide 'n Seek... I went to St. Leo's. Knew Term Street well as the bicycle route to Thompson's. Also, several Catholic St. Leo families lived on the street and nearby. Remember spending hours watching them move a house to a spot on Term just north of where you lived.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.