All Hail Don Williamson

Former Flint mayor Don Williamson has been a seemingly endless source of material for Flint Expatriates over the years. There were the random firings of competent city employees. The useless "crack down" on baggy pants. Don't forget the time he used city workers to mow his lawn. And the very expensive plan to help the local economy by installing a drag strip on a city street. Of course there was the pricey lawsuit that the city had to settle after the mayor had a paper carrier arrested at City Hall. Oh yeah, what about the cop who got canned for daring to talk to the local media. Let's not even mention all the money the city lost because of Williamson's creative approach to the Genesee Towers situation. For his swan song, the convicted felon asked the cash-strapped city for back pay when he resigned to avoid a recall election.

Given his service to the City of Flint, it's only fitting that Williamson be honored with a statue. After all, Flint's other great leaders like Billy Durant and C.S. Mott have their memorials. It seems Williamson agrees and has erected a golden effigy of himself surrounded by a pride of protective baby lions at his new palatial estate outside Flint.

A reader stumbled upon life-size icon on recent trip home and passed along this report: 

I get back to Flint a few times each year, visiting family. In fact, my wife and I were there last weekend visiting her dad in Lapeer. Travelling back towards Flint via Davison Rd, we ran across an interesting sight. First of all, I should say that my wife's fancy new Garmin GPS flashed a "point of interest" on the screen as we approached the little crossroads berg of Elba. It showed a large area to the north of Davison Rd called the "Patsy Lou refuge" (not really sure if it said refuge or estate or something else). Needless to say that got my attention. No more than 1/2 mile west of the Elba crossroads (near Potters Lake), we were more than a little surprised to see the main entrance to what is obviously Don and Patsy Lou's grand plantation. It is a work in progress, but leaves no doubt that it goes for quite a long way north of Davison Rd. Of course, this alone wouldn't cause me to think of Flint Expats; it was the life sized bronze stature of the Don himself that caused me to write this note.As you can no doubt tell, the Don was standing tall and portly, greeting visitors. Anyone reading Flint Expats for any length of time is surely aware of the special place Don Williamson has with the readership, so I couldn't pass up this opportunity to contribute to the cause.

Is it just me, or does The Don's statue resemble the tribute to another controversial, strong-willed leader?

  Kim Il Sung

The Lost Logos of the Detroit Tigers

1927-1928

The Detroit Tigers uniforms are considered classics, but who knew they had such questionable logos over the years?

1901-1902


1934-1960

Flint Artifacts: Holmes and Wells Cigar Box

The Past Is a Strange Place

Of course, Flint's not the only place that's changed beyond almost all recognition over the past few decades. Author and musician Josh Garrett-Davis reflects on the death of George McGovern and the transformation of South Dakota for The New York Times:

It’s astonishing to think now, but South Dakota made sense as a destination for idealistic young liberals in the mid-1970s. Senator McGovern, who died Sunday at the age of 90, had run an inspiring but catastrophic campaign for the presidency three years earlier, bravely opposing the Vietnam War. The state’s junior senator, James Abourezk, was another liberal Democrat and the first Arab-American elected to the upper chamber. And Red Power activism was roiling the state’s Indian reservations; the Wounded Knee standoff on the Pine Ridge Reservation even captured the nation’s attention for several months in 1973.

I was born a few years later, in 1980, just months before Mr. McGovern lost his race for a fourth term in the Senate. It wasn’t yet clear that the Plains political winds were shifting to the right. My parents ran a record store, Prairie Dog Records, and we lived in a small house with a low-tech “solar collector,” a box that trapped the bright prairie sun under glass and blew its warmth into the house on frigid winter days. In summer, we tended an organic garden fertilized with sheep manure from my godparents’ farm. By the time I was 3, I had formulated (or parroted) the crowd-pleasing stump speech, “Ronald Reagan is mean; he gives money to rich people.” 

Now, he writes, South Dakota is a far different place: 

Yet as I came of age, so did a new political tradition in South Dakota. Senator Larry Pressler, who replaced Senator Abourezk in 1979, attacked Big Bird and PBS long before Mitt Romney found it useful to do so. (Mr. Pressler, a Vietnam veteran, recently endorsed Mr. Obama over Mr. Romney, citing the president’s positions on veterans’ issues.) The old prairie populism faded as family farmers loosened their alliance with union labor. I felt increasingly out of place in South Dakota, and steadfastly hid the secret of my mom’s sexual orientation.

Today, the old liberal Plains folk are tending a thinning row of populist Christian liberalism. Their social gospel has lost ground to anti-abortion and antigay politics. Today the State Senate has 30 Republicans and 5 Democrats. Pundits even suggested our Republican senator, John Thune, as a running mate for Mr. Romney.

Flint Photos: John Lennon Memorial at the Capitol Theater

December 9, 1980

Photo courtesy of Peter C. Cavanaugh

Baby Barfly by Kris Bussell

Flint Expatriate Kris Bussell looks back on his first visit to a Flint bar when he was still in diapers.

Queue the spinning lights...swirl, swirl...Saturday, May 21, 1966, FLINT, MIEEECHIGAN! 800 block of S. Saginaw before Court St. Southbound lane.

He smooths back his greased jet-black hair and contemplatively strokes a sideburn as he leisurely takes in this lovely spring drive through downtown Flint.

Don drives slowly down red-bricked Saginaw Street, through the tunnel of tall spring elms. He likes the feel of his baby-blue Chevy Corvair, as those six flat aluminum heads just purr along. He had even watched this one come down the assembly-line as a foreman in Plant#2A. Chevrolet Avenue was still black-at-noon in those days from the shadow of the towering manufacturing plants, now it’s an empty parking lot of hot black asphalt. They drive past Smith Bridgman’s on the opposite side of the street. Cheryl, his gorgeous young bride, sits in the creamy leather upholstered passenger seat next to him and gazes past Don out the window at the huge department store on the opposite side of the street. She had spent the last Christmas season working as Santa’s Helper Elf in that store. Well, Santa’s big fat pregnant helper elf. Little did she realize her bundle-of-joy, safely lap-belted (pre-shoulder belt) into his bassinet, would only a short seventeen years in the future, be hunting through the remnants of that grand structure with his pack of droogs for treasures of a dying city being torn down around him.

Cheryl loved the people-watching, all the amazing lights and holiday window displays, downtown Flint is so very busy during the Christmas season! Cheryl especially loved helping the kids onto Santa’s lap. She had a way with kids and could coax a smile out of the most terrified three-year-old, even as the parents happily stood in line to sacrifice their offspring to the jolly fat man. Santas routinely drank bourbon in those days.

They keep driving down Saginaw Street. “I hope it doesn’t rain today. Daddy was going out to Miller Lake to catch some bluegill for supper this morning.”

“It won’t,” says Don confidently.

“How do you know, smart-aleck?” Cheryl says with a hint of a smile. “The Weather Ball isn’t blinking,” Don says very matter-o-factly. The Citizens Bank Weather Ball has never been wrong, everybody in Flint knows that. Funny thing is, there is no control room for the Weather Ball and no one knows who controls its illuminated majesty, even unto this day.

The radio is on WAMM (!) 1420 as they continue through the middle of town past Kresge’s. The metal arch over the street proudly displays "FLINT." Saint Paul’s Church where the baby had received the Holy Sprinkle only a month before. The Temple Dining Room. Then Don caught the smell of Halo Burger.

“Halo Everybody, Halo!” Don starts to sing, “With a Vernor’s Float!” he adds as an after-thought when he catches site of the mural of the elves rolling out those barrels of creamy ginger goodness. “Come on?”

“We’re going to my parent’s for dinner.” Cheryl does not even bat an eye. “AND, you had a coney island.”

“Just one,” Don sulks, but only for a moment. The coney had been good…a fresh-skin Koegel, loaded with hot greasy meat, onions, yellow mustard, and Don likes his red-pepper flakes! Also, something about that bun at Angelo’s just seems to melt in the mouth. Little did Don realize that only a short seventeen year hop into the future his only male progeny would devour many a late night platter of fries and gravy at the very establishment over which he now dreamed and drooled.

That put an end to that idea but Don still thought a pre-dinner Supreme with Olives would be a perfect appetizer. "Oh-well," he thought, "I do like to go over to Chris and Bob’s for dinner! Christina is a great cook and Bob is good to have the UofM (Go Blue!) game on later. Plus, since they live on the golf course, I can pick up a Hamady-sack full of golf balls thanks to all the hacks at the 13th hole of Brookwood behind their house.

SCREECH OF TIRES

WHAM!!!

“OH SHIT!”

“Are you alright?” “Yes! Get the Baby!”
 
"He’s alright! Get him out of the back seat!” Don springs out the driver’s side door into the street.

“Oh Shit! Look at my car!” Don turns toward the driver in the car that rear-ended him with heat rising to his ears. “Dammit ALL!” but the old lady looks just like Cheryl’s little Scottish Aunt Meg Ramsey that came over on the boat with all the rest of her family, plus, she looks a bit shaken-up from the (relatively minor) fender-bender, let alone having a former Central High School linebacker jump out furious mad at you and strike you stone cold with that one look... Don eased up quick though, he is a softy underneath, but he’s also a hot head, a handsome hot-head…traits that he passed onto his only son.

“Do you have the baby?”

“Yes, I’ve got him out,” Cheryl starts to cry, not because she is hurt, but out of concern for her three-month-old son, Kris Patrick. She runs her hands over the baby's back, his arms, his legs. "Oh thank you Lord!" she breaths.

“Here Honey, let me take the baby. It looks like your man needs you."

Cheryl smiles at the kind lady as she wipes her anxious tears away. She recognized this woman, she knew her, but from where? "Oh!" Cheryl thought, “this is the lady that tends the bar down at the grill on the corner of Court St., The Genesee, or The Verdict or The Bailiwick?’ Either way, as seasonal help at Smith Bridgman’s, she had liked to sneak her sacked left-over half of King Arthur’s Pasty (with HP sauce!) in so she could sit with the make-up counter girls that were single and liked a two-martini lunch. Life was simpler then. She loved to listen to the girls talk, as they seemed to not only know everyone who worked at the store, but absolutely everyone that came into the store or anyone that lived, or had lived at any time, in Flint. Again, little did she suspect that the shining son-of-her-heart in the back, only a short seventeen years later, would also have a big thing for make-up girls on that very same block.

“Oh, thank you so very much!”

“Don’t worry hun, I’ll look after him. Hi Beautiful! Aren’t you the most gorgeous baby?”

“He won the ‘Most Beautiful Baby’ contest at Hick’s picture studio. They have a picture of him sitting in a metal bucket in their lobby.”

“Never mind hun, he’s safe. Go look after your husband.”

“Thank you,” Cheryl says over her shoulder and looks to see Don getting more agitated while looking at the Corvair’s wrinkled rear bumper and Aunt Meg (like) clutching her handbag and trembling on the sidewalk as at least a hundred eyes ogled the spectacle while enjoying their Heavenly sandwiches and cherry Cokes.

Long story made short; FPD, ambulances, fire trucks (no shortage of proud city workers that day, my friends). I ended up spending all afternoon sitting on top of the Bailiwick bar and being cooed over until my parents returned home later that afternoon, each believing the other had the heir-apparent safely stowed (Trunk? Where? Come ON!). I was finally tracked down and rescued from my expedition to Babylon.

There remains a picture in someone’s basement in Michigan of an extremely handsome smiling baby man-child wearing a conical party hat (left-over New Year's Eve '66, and a bit bar stained), no diaper, and cradling a bottle of Red Devil Rye in his bassinet. He is propped-up on top of a nice old wooden bar with about a dozen smiling anonymous happy drunk people standing over the little angel. Again, little did anyone realize that only a short seventeen years later…

People theorize that babies that young cannot remember details. However, from that day forward, for whatever weird reason, maybe they were singing at the barm but I can sing every word to Bill Doggett's "Honky-Tonk" — both Parts I and II and every now and then, I get a taste for cheap bourbon.

I am left wondering why there are so many quarters lying on and around me in that picture?



Smith Bridgmans print is courtesy of artist Bill Stolpin. For more information go here. Bailiwick photo courtesy of Joe Dennis.

It's World Series Time

More Bounce to the Ounce in Flint

Never a dull moment when the Flint Public Art Project is involved.

Behind the Wheel at I.M.A. Safetyville

Flint Expatriates has rustled up a collection of artifacts from I.M.A. Safetyville, once located in Kearsley Park, in the past. There was the brochure. There was the license and the ticket for a moving violation. And, of course, one of the souped up orange Chevys. There was even a post on the small lake that had formed on the spot where Safetyville used to reside. And don't forget the anecdotes from Flintoids who learned to drive in the miniature town. Now we have two new shots of Safetyville in all its glory, courtesy of Gerry Godin and the Sloan Museum.

Cars G.M. Would Rather Forget