Made in Michigan

It's been scary watching the news these past few months, as our economy (and thereby the world's) sinks deeper and deeper. Banks failing. Stores closing left and right. Unemployment at records highs. All the while health care beyond the reach of the growing ranks of unemployed. The economic news (which I'm reading daily) is grim, and most economists say it will be getting worse. Imagine that.

For someone who grew up in 1970s in Detroit, this doesn't look totally unfamiliar. Plants closing. High unemployment. Sick family members and no health care? Been there. Done that. It's a bit horrifying to see the scope of economic desolation broaden to include the whole nation and beyond.

Detroiter Mitch Albom wrote a powerful piece about the resilence of Detroit (my birthplace), and the way that working people have been slammed harder than the makers of the mess (Wall Street, DC politicians and the Federal Reserve, and the CEOs of the Big Three IMHO). I'm cutting and pasting an excerpt below. Encourage you to read the whole piece here:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/writers/the_bonus/01/07/detroit/index.html

But it's time to untie Detroit. Because we may be a few steps behind the rest of the country, but we're a few steps ahead of it, too. And what's happening to us may happen to you.

Do you think if your main industry sails away to foreign countries, if the tax base of your city dries up, you won't have crumbling houses and men sleeping on church floors, too? Do you think if we become a country that makes nothing, that builds nothing, that only services and outsources, that we will hold our place on the economic totem pole? Detroit may be suffering the worst from this semi-Depression, but we sure didn't invent it. And we can't stop it from spreading. We can only do what we do. Survive.

And yet, we're better at that than most places.


We will have a good year
Here is the end of the story. This was back on Christmas night. After the visit to the church, I drove to a suburb with an old friend and we saw a movie. "Gran Torino." It starred and was directed by Clint Eastwood, and it was filmed in metro Detroit, which was a big deal. Last year, the state passed tax incentives to lure the movie business, an effort to climb out of our one-industry stranglehold, and Eastwood was the first big name to take advantage of it.

He shot in our neighborhoods. He used a bar and a hardware store. He reportedly fit in well, he liked the people, and no one hassled him with scripts or résumés.

The film was good, I thought, and familiar. The story of a craggy old man who loves his old car and stubbornly clings to the way he feels the world should behave. He defends his home. He defends his neighbors' honor. He goes out on his own terms.

When the film finished, the audience stayed in its seats waiting, through the closing music, through the credits, until the very last scroll, where, above a camera shot of automobiles rolling down Jefferson Avenue along the banks of Lake St. Clair, three words appeared.

MADE IN MICHIGAN.

And the whole place clapped. Just stood up and clapped.

To hell with Depression. We're gonna have a good year.

Amen.