Always Something There To Remind Me

Lint rollers on sale at Heartfelt in San Francisco. Not to be confused with the famous Helmac Lint Roller of Roger & Me fame.

Flint Artifacts: Flint-Caro Sebewaing Bus Ticket

Corvette in Repose

Flint Photos: Comber's Market in Civic Park, Late '50s, Early '60s

You remember this sort of winter day in Flint. There are a lot of them every winter. Comber's became Double D Market, then a vacant lot. Now it's an urban forest, a ghetto palm arboretum.

Thank you to Bill Comber for the photo.

A Blue Bird Lands in Flint

Jan Worth-Nelson writing about the power of spring in Belt Magazine:

Quotidian comfort: padded downstairs, made two cups of tea in the microwave, turned up the heat, turned off the burglar alarm, pulled up four blinds, one by one: one, two, three in the dining room.

In the kitchen, pulled up number four.
And he was there. Brilliant. Blue. Canary-shaped and perfect, ground feeding alone as if he belonged, pecking calmly at finch feed drop. 

I am not ashamed to say I shouted with joy.

Read the rest here.

The Swiftness and Dispassion

"It wasn't that I felt sorry for these faceless national corporations; far from it. They had made their profits and their names by destroying smaller, earlier local businesses. But I was touched not only at the passage of these fixtures in my mental landscape, but also at the swiftness and dispassion with which the market swallowed even the most resilient enterprises. Businesses that had seemed unshakable a few years previously had disappeared in the span, seemingly, of few weeks. Whatever role they played passed on to other hands, hands that would feel briefly invincible and would, in their turn, be defeated by unforeseen changes. These survivors would also come to be forgotten."

—Teju Cole, Open City

Buick LeSabre with Abstract Paint Job

Flint Artifacts: Sweetland's Ice Cream

Jimmy Carter and the Search for Industrial Jobs

"This is my fifth visit to Flint, Michigan, and I always enjoy coming here. And I particularly wanted to come here this morning—and in a way I hate to say this, but I'm going to be frank with you-because of all the cities that have been hurt by the changes that have taken place in the automobile industry, with excessive imports and too slow a change to new models, Flint has been hurt the most. As President, my heart goes out to those who suffer, and I know that the people in Flint, Michigan, have been suffering. And I came here to let you know that I, as President, Vice President Mondale, Secretary Goldschmidt of Transportation, my whole administration is working with the leaders of UAW and all the manufacturing leaders in the automobile industry to put Flint, Michigan, back on its feet economically and to provide jobs for you workers. That's why I came."

President Jimmy Carter
October 1, 1980

Flint Expatriates