Driving west from Toronto, I thought about how alike and how different are our cultures. The painfully obvious difference is health care.
Highway signs, those overhead neon ones, offer suggestions:
It is safer to stay off cell phones while driving
Keep a safe distance around large trucks.
The QEW is moving well
Maybe a little nanny for our don't-tell-me-I-have-to-wear-a-helmet USA. Still, I
felt like someone cared about everyone's welfare.
We are staying in Roseville, outside Detroit and close to our weekend reunion.
In my sporadic attempts to find something other than the black on black tops and bottoms I have resigned myself to wearing (so slimming they say), I bought a very RED dress in Traverse City. And have probably gained another 5 pounds along the road. So I took off alone to return it, returning to Grosse Pointe village, site of many shopping forays as a teen. No more Peck and Peck, nor Beck's, not even Jacobsen's where the store detective (a large bosomed woman with a hair bun and a battleship purse) gave us what-for when we giggling girls had half the store in our dressing room. At least they never told my parents, but then we were only having a non-larcenous lark.
Today I got lost and ended up in a desperately poor neighborhood. Grosse Pointe, not so far away in miles, is moons away in affluence. Leafy green and big red bricks. Getting directions from the store employee, she exclaimed: "Oh no, you were in Detroit! Not good." And so sad. This piece, from TIME, was on its website today. The photos alone will make you cry:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1925796,00.html?xid=newsletter-daily
We've all wept for the New Orleans tragedy. It's time to care for Detroit.
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