Jul 24 to July 27, 2016—Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a nice little city. I had always heard as much and the rumors are true. We got there just at the end of the annual art show that completely takes over the downtown area—something like 4,000 exhibitors and a couple of miles of city roadway closed to vehicle traffic. We saw none of the displays, only the weary artists taking down their display booths.
We came so that Brenda could hook up with some friends from Augusta music camp and join in their wekly Cajun jam. The evening of our arrival her friends Terri and Patrick took us on a walking tour of the city which is reminiscent of low-rise San Francisco, a mix of Victorian-trimmed residences and small businesses, restaurants. We had dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant and dropped in on an Irish music jam at a local bar. The next day we rejoined them for rafting on the Huron River. This is not whitewater rafting but leisurely tube rafting down a series of cascades built on a 19th century mill race. It was very pleasant, shooting through narrow openings and drifting downriver. The trip lasts about 20 minutes then you pick up your tube, hike back, and do it again. We went three times. Later, in the evening, we were joined by a dozen Cajun music aficionados for a jam at a picnic area along the Huron River. The band was strong and passers-by stopped to applaud or dance. The University of Michigan sculling team was holding tryouts on the river, youngsters were jumping off the railroad bridge in spite of posted warnings, lots of runners and dog walkers along the river path — it was a picture-perfect scene in the Kerrytown neighborhood of Ann Arbor.
The next day we went to the Henry Ford Museum which was near our campsite in Ypsilanti. Early in our travels, in Chambersburg PA, we had gotten together with my old mate Glenn and his family. Glenn joined us for the museum tour as he was in Detroit where he has business interests. Henry Ford went around the country buying examples of American life from all periods, styles and regions with the intention of starting a comprehensive museum of such things—furniture, machine tools, locomotives, farm equipment, musical instruments. The museum notably contains the rocking chair that Abe Lincoln was sitting in when he was killed at Ford’s (no relation) theater; covered in blood it was and an unsettling object to behold. I was similarly disturbed by the presence of JFK’s limo from Dallas. I’m not the most squeamish of people, but something seems not right about exhibiting these things. Also in the museum is the bus in which Rosa Parks took her stand.
Henry Ford also collected buildings to represent the American experience and had them relocated to this site and reassembled as a small town called Dearfield. Noah Webster’s house, a residence of Robert Frost’s, a Cotswald cottage for some reason, most of Edison’s Menlo Park laboratory, and dozens of other structures including a 19th c plantation house from St Mary’s county (it used to be on the grounds of the naval air station in Lexington Park). I would have liked to have seen this village and the museum as it was when Henry Ford, a renowned racist who died in 1947, was supervising it. While the museum and the village tell an inclusive story now I’ll wager that Ford was trying to shape the historical narrative in a different way when he was curating the collection.
For two dollars you can make a plastic, injection-molded figurine of the Ford man himself. I could not pass up the opportunity. Here he is on the hood of my Toyota.
That evening all our friends from the area, Terri, Patrick and Glenn, came to our campsite. The Cajun musicians played music and Glenn and I discussed and disputed and drank wine until late. We had hosted our first party during our travels and it seemed to be a success!