Freelance Part IV

I continue my relationship with the South Lyon Herald in this weeks online edition. My article on the local hop gardener, Nick Mascero, can be found here.

South Lyon is a wondrous, historic community with surprises and treasures at every turn. The South Lyon Herald is equally amazing. Please read and pass this on.

This is also the link: http://www.hometownlife.com/story/life/home-garden/2014/10/16/growing-hops-home/17233255/

That's all from Elliott at the Kitchen Table, feeling like a big shot.

When Freeways Go Still...Michigan Life

When in the car, I listen to NPR or PRI--whatever public radio entity happens to be running on my Detroit radio. There was an essay about turning off the TV. This writer, Andrei Codrescu, decided to give it up cold-turkey. What he found was just how hard it was to lead a life in America without TV or phone or internet. He posited the question: "Can I handle my life without something to distract me from my life?"

At the same time I was caught in traffic. The freeway that connects Detroit and Chicago, I-94, was shut down. Thousands of drivers were forced to take a single, tiny exit on the well named and often forgot Wayne Road. While waiting, I looked around, trying to find another soul, another contact. But we were so busy.

A girl to my right, driving a minivan, was busying texting while her van idled. The Cadillac with tinted windows, and the Chrysler 200 behind it, were talking on the phone.

"This is why there will never be revolution in America," the writer concluded.

As I fought for my turn to escape the madness of a four lane amalgam into one, I agreed; we are a sea of individuals, the stars of our personal drama, and we never think to look left or right, and find the truth of ourselves in the eyes of another.

That's all from Elliott at the Kitchen Table, safely home.

Here Comes the Spring

The snow is gone now, save for a few piles of gas soaked sludge hiding out in the Kroger parking lot. The sun is out again, and its rays can finally be felt instead of only seen. On a day like this, when it is all but certain that winter is gone, I like to think of what I heard a fellow coworker say during the throws of the first Polar Vortex:

"I don't want to hear any complaining come July, when its 90 degrees out. If you want to say something, think of what you were doing January 9th, when it was -40 degrees."

I was wrapped in all the winter clothing I could find, feeling the beard on my face freeze over from the water in my breath. My legs ached, as did the foundation of the house. Both groaned in the night, when the winds were at their worst.

It was extreme. It was also amazing.

From NPR.org

There are not many years where you can say it was so cold you could see water crystals floating in the air, nor that you survived weather that would--and did--kill citizens from warmer states.

So when you look back, don't think on the misery of the season, but rather in the beauty of the extreme. Like a tidal wave rushing into the shore, or a hurricane swirling on the radar, the terror and danger also yield beauty like none other. A crystallized wasteland--we may never see it again in our lifetime. Think on that awhile.

That's all from Elliott at the Kitchen Table, drinking down his custom six pack from Kroger.