This was my entry to the 11th annual SW Michigan Tournament of Writers. When the winners were named April 24th, mine wasn’t among them. I share it here for those who don’t want to buy the book.
A lucky dog was this Ike(1) in ’64 as Fisher Body’s brass kicked my dad from Tech Center to Comstock to raise their biggest metal stamping plant ever. Dad’s eagle eye caught a red shingle ranch on the North shore of Barton. Thus began my ‘burg years, ultimately 5, where teachers, coaches, students, friends, and neighbors helped me grow from the shy fat boy bullied by the cool Birmingham kids to the tallest (and skinniest) player in the Wolverine Conference who graduated almost atop his class then headed to Ann Arbor and UofM.
Tree Town wasn’t heaven – studying was expected – but came close, establishing lifelong pangs. Nearly everyone here is from elsewhere. True “townies” can name their elementary school. Counting 47 of 55 years here, occupying our ’58-built house since ’85, Kathy and I are seniormost members of this 13-house neighborhood, the two other families both second generation. Still an AA outsider, like my wife, born of Michigan grads (in Ohio), faithful football season ticket holder since ’64, recipient of 3 post-graduate UofM degrees, and 28 years of University paychecks. 44 years of Tree Town living for her, interrupted by 4 years in D.C., but that’s another story.
I came to Vicksburg as an outsider, too. Boy, did Vicksburg take me in. Leaving wasn’t hard, as look where I was going! Shortly after joining UofM faculty, a colleague – Bruce Richardson, a small-town boy himself – said to me “Bob, a lot of smart people come out of small towns, and the smarter they are, the faster they come out”. Not a nice comment, but it sure would have fit that tall guy headed east in ’70.
AA was o.k. Resisting the siren song of hippiedom, hearing a lot of great music, I shed my law flirtation and dove into the math and science that was my strength. Worked! On to med school! “Where you from?”, innocent conversational opening back then, not a “microaggression”, meant students quickly learned each other’s origins. Not everyone was from them ritzy Dee-troit suburbs. Some even came from a Wolverine Conference town! An origin sufficiently unique beget nicknames. Yes, I was called “Vicksburg” a few times. It coulda been worse. One guy on our floor from Marlette (2020 census pop’n 1855, in the Thumb), tried to tell us that his town was actually a big place. Henceforth, he was “Big City”.
I never tried to hide my small-town roots; the Commercial delivered to my dorm room a hard reminder. My more-sophisticated hall mates sniggered reading about the goings-on. I hung on to a couple old girlfriends for a while, went to parties back in Kalamazoo, and had some VHS friends up for concerts. Summers were in Kalamazoo, working in my dad’s plant. He sold the Barton Lake house after I went to AA. Summers with Dad, I still could hang with some of the old gang.
Those easy jaunts to the ‘burg – either 15 miles from Candlewyck or 100 miles from AA – disappeared after I was admitted to the University of Chicago then matched to Barnes Hospital in St. Louis. Learning medicine those 8 years didn’t leave time for much else, especially trips home. We residents, all top-of-the-class eggheads, competed fiercely. Sharing details about one’s origins humanizes, keeping our heads from exploding. Curiously, most of the guys I called buddies were also from small towns.
In St. Louis, there was indeed radio time, and I never missed those Saturday late afternoon broadcasts of Garrison Keillor’s “Prairie Home Companion”. His tales of the quirky, stubborn, resilient, sneaky-smart, and life-loving residents of Lake Wobegon took me right back to the ‘burg. Garrison’s gift is to portray these small-town folks not as helpless rubes, but as special, unique, and lovable individuals, people you root for. Imagining I could fit into some of his stories, I came to feel more and more comfortable – and proud – being a small-town midwestern boy. My first chief at UofM, Giles Bole, grew up on a farm outside Battle Creek. We both talked that midwestern twang. Giles was a hotshot researcher, taking his show on the road to places like Stanford and Harvard. He said he turned up his twang for those Harvard types. Hearing him talk like that, they figured he wouldn’t have much of anything intelligent to say. Then his superior intelligence kicked in, and what he said was appreciated, understood, and unexpected.
Then, as Rodney Crowell sings in “It ain’t over yet” (2): “I got caught up making a name for myself. You know what that’s about.” It was my dream to become a Professor of Medicine at my beloved alma mater, and here I was on track to do it. I neglected much while I had my nose to that grindstone. I thank God for my dear wife, who stayed with me while chasing her own dream, and the few remaining members of my little family who stuck with me. And thank goodness you can’t keep those Vicksburgers down. I missed the 10th reunion as I was on-call. VHS70’s class president Steve (a.k.a. Hummel) began to throw parties for our old crowd, usually at his place, but sometimes out. Fun, and nobody gave a crap about my credentials other than to remind me how I screwed myself out of being class valedictorian, losing by 7 ten-thousandth of a point (3). Our class’s insult artist, Ott, took to calling me “Mister Ike”; not buying my explanation of title as appropriate to a qualified English surgeon.
My best friend from the ‘burg, Eric, lived many places after graduation, rarely near me. After one of his moves back to Michigan, he found himself in this area so came to my house. I was at the hospital when he knocked on our door. Kathy answered, and Eric followed his introduction with a pitch for subscriptions to several magazines he said he was selling, a cover he blew when he broke put laughing. We’d have some great times over the years, sharing a house on Lake Bellaire Memorial Day weekends, a dip in Eric’s pool around Labor Day, and a small boat cruise of Alaska’s inside passage plus trip to Denali in 2014. Like a good friend should, Eric improves on my ideas. When the 30th reunion was rolling around, I suggested we rent a place on Indian Lake for the week before. We can do better, he said, and we spent a week driving and hiking around the Keweenaw.
All well and good so far? Clearly my years in Vicksburg gave me a solid foundation for my brain, and for my heart, many friends and many wonderful memories, except maybe one. But I gave that one little thought till my retirement. Freed from getting up, donning the white coat, and seeing patients, I quickly got into that favorite retiree sport: not pickleball, but decluttering! Guided by Magnuson’s The Art of Swedish Death Cleaning (4) and Washtenaw County’s on-line guide “Trash to Treasures” (5), Kathy and I went at it. We didn’t send Marie Kondo anything, but invoked her “joy, no joy” test frequently. One medium-size box brought plenty of joy, till I got to the bottom of it. Marked “Vicksburg Items”, it contained some trinkets from those times, my English papers (w/Mrs. Pharriss’ red ink), even some George Wallace for President pamphlets. Then, on the bottom, were several sections from the Kalamazoo Gazette and the Vicksburg Commercial. Yellowed and brittle, as you’d expect a newspaper from 1968 to be, I knew the story right away from the pictures, long before reading. My friend, classmate, teammate, and namesake Ike had driven his dad’s station wagon, containing Ike’s teammate Pat and 3 boys from the class of ’68, right into the path of an eastbound Grand Trunk freight. An event from over 50 years ago I thought I’d forgotten is one for which I recall every detail as if it were yesterday. After a morning feeling that sorrow and loss, I recalled that I’ve found it helpful to write about troubling things, helping to make sense of them. The late Detroit Free Press cartoonist Guindon had one with his characters sitting at a table, pen in hand, staring off into space; the caption “Writing is God’s way of showing you how sloppy your thinking is”. My way was set. I would go, learn, and write about this event. Targets? Too much for my new blog. Maybe a magazine featuring Michigan stories? Maybe a book, if I write enough words? But I could but then my story would have too many holes. Some field research was necessary. The train from AA to Kalamazoo was familiar from visiting my dad in hospice. The choo-choo was the way to go-go, particularly with the 3 hour round sitting quietly rather than fighting I-94 traffic. The Radisson ”spaceship” was 2 blocks from the station, and Enterprise rent-a-car would meet you and take you 3 ½ miles west on W. Michigan to where you’d pick your car. Reverse service too. The Kalamazoo public library was 3 blocks away, and there were microfilmed Gazettes chronicling events of that fateful week. 15 miles south is the ‘burg. I was pretty sure their District Library would have old Commercials but couldn’t find any in their catalogue on their web site. Lazy, I asked Eric. He said Sue Moore would know. She was editor of South County News, the monthly that replaced the Commercial. She’s the daughter of Meredith Clark, who published that paper back in the day. She directed me back to the VDL, and there they were. Sue liked my mission, met us at the library, took pictures, and wrote me up! (6). She was such a wonderful person, so full of life at 80, always interested and always interesting. I counted her as a new friend. Then she died, suddenly and unexpectedly. Her SCN solicited remembrances, publishing mine (7).
Knowing I could milk my ‘burg crowd for reminisces and insights, I arranged on each of my trips to meet as many as could respond to my invitation to gather at some restaurant in the area. I wasn’t forceful in how I conducted these “meetings”, but I had my briefcase full of clippings to show and did. My friends reminded me of many things I had forgotten or never knew. There were more and more quiet stretches and subject changes with each meeting. Finally, when it was just me and him at the table, Jim put it to me “Bob, a lot of people just don’t want to hear about this thing anymore.” I guess some people deal with past painful events by just shutting them out. Not me. I was accused by one of my psychiatry instructors of having a “hydrodynamic” theory of emotions. Still do. Negative emotions are like pus: need to be drained when encountered. With the onsite research wrapped up, those train trips stopped. Additional information came from unexpected sources. It turned out that the lawyer solicited by the 4 boys’ families suing Grand Trunk was the father of Sam, also a lawyer, and my friend since we met as freshman on the 4th floor of Chicago House. He directed me to the county clerk, who got me the court records from the Grand Trunk trial.
That was plenty to go on. The book practically wrote itself, although it came up kinda short. I couldn’t find a magazine I thought would take this 2,268-word article. Jeff Bezos has been a pal, publishing 8 (and counting) of my books (8), but found this first one too short for a paperback. You can get a Kindle, free these days . I’ve printed up a couple runs, the first in time for VHS70 50th. Though left in my car, interested had access. Copies sit in several libraries – Vicksburg, Schoolcraft, Kalamazoo, and Ann Arbor – and the Vicksburg Historical Society, and are available through Docere (9).
So, I consider the book a success, even if Mr. Bezos hasn’t written me any big checks. While the pain of that fateful time in October ’68 won’t ever go away, I now have a much better grasp of those events, and a feeling for how they shaped us. Moreso, re-engagement with the ‘burg: the people, places, and memories have been precious benefits. COVID influenced everything those days, curtailing the research trips, but also getting me to Zoom with my classmates monthly leading up to our 50th. I volunteered to set up the meetings as Zoom is part of the software the U gives me. Hummel got me the classlist and I was off and running. Since I didn’t screw it up too badly, Hummel passed me the torch for organizing our 55th!
I get to the ‘burg a lot these days. Kathy seems to like my friends, at least most of them, and we’ve met some wonderful people. I even roused up an old teacher for her to meet, finally getting youthful nonagenarian Mr. Horn out of his lair. My basketball coach, he still validates my bench role, even when I’m buying his beer. Of course, Mr. Horn likes Kathy. He always had an eye for pretty girls. We’ve done “Christmas in the ‘burg”, hit beers-and-brats, attended baseball and basketball games, gone on a “Historical Vicksburg” tour, attend services at VUMC whenever in town, always hit “Something’s Brewing” (whose proprietor Heather we befriended when she had a shop on South Street downtown), and of course Distant Whistle. I have a Senior Pass from AD Mike Roy, so Bulldogs’ games are free. I even get my haircut at Getty’s! As I hinted before, Kathy likes the ‘burg. For her birthday 3 Julys ago, I bought her something from an ad in the SCN, a glamor photo shoot by Linda Hoard (10), who’s niece-in-law to my classmate Kevvie. Kathy’s a writer, too, and has pitched and sold her children’s books at Gilbert & Ivy. We’ve even given thought of getting our own Vicksburg getaway, even spending an afternoon with a realtor looking at lakeside properties. The meeting with our financial advisor which followed got his sober recommendation that we could swing this only if sold our Ann Arbor house. Not happenin’, so we just have to hope for rising book sales as we rest in Tree Town. But we’ll keep visiting for sure. It’s only 108 miles from my door to Distant Whistle, a place where both my brain and heart are very happy. But when I’m walking Main Street, I’m pretty happy even before Andy and Dane open their doors. Maybe it’s Heather’s latte.
References
1. ewjxn. 1987 Purina Lucky Dog “Ike – The Lucky Dog” TV Commercial. YouTube https://youtu.be/EaSNDuekuXA?si=xD1morf6YU-MRz4C
2. New West Records. Rodney Crowell – “It Ain’t Over Yet (feat. Rosanne Cash & John Paul White)” [Official Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/EFrpzPR6TLY?si=AUIuBSL3bGeO-cy3
3. Ike RW. Make it add up, doc. Strategies Account Manag 2021;2(4) SIAM.000542.2021 https://crimsonpublishers.com/siam/pdf/SIAM.000542.pdf. (invited)
4. Magnusson M. The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter (The Swedish Art of Living & Dying Series). New York: Scribner, 2018
5. Water Resources Washtenaw County. Washtenaw County Trash to Treasure Guide. your guide to local repair, reuse, and recycling. https://www.washtenaw.org/281/Turning-Trash-into-Treasure
6. Moore S. Dr. Ike plans to write about 1968 Vicksburg car accident. South County News April 2020. https://southcountynews.org/2020/04/18/dr-ike-plans-to-write-about-1968-vicksburg- car-accident/
7. Ike B. Goodbye Sue. South County News. July 2020 Issue 86:8. https://southcountynews.org/2020/07/09/goodbye-sue/
8. Dr. Ike’s Amazon Author’s page: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Robert-Ike/author/B095CPDZGP?ref_=pe_1724030_132998070&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true
9. Ike R. The Accident. Amazon (Kindle) 2021. Published 5/18. Updated 3/20/24. Available at: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B095BS8VRJ and directly from Docere (email: docerellc86@yahoo.com)
10. Ike B. Glamour. WordPress 11/12/22. https://theviewfromharbal.com/2022/11/17/glamour/
Please note that these references are available on-line, from which all the links can be accessed at https://tinyurl.com/HITTHIB
Bob Ike's blog 