Detroit 40 years July

   Forty years ago July 23, 1967 six days of rioting began in Detroit.  Looting and vandalism resulted in a police state leaving 43 dead, 2000 injured, and 7000 arrests.  I was 16 and had been in Detroit only for a couple of Tiger games, seeing it only from the expressway and the poorer area near the stadium.   Here in Lansing I had lived in a neighborhood that from 1960 to May of 1963 was mostly black.  I still had a fear of rioting and did not fully understand the reasons behind social injustice and prejudice.  I believed anarchy had to be stopped by any means necessary, and prayed the rioting would not happen here.   As time and life experience change perceptions you realize all is not black and white.  Though I can't justify violence, the riots did bring about a better society and changes that had been slow to come.  Some change has to be forced and pushed in order for it be more timely, when waiting only stretches out implementation.  Many more riots followed and societal inequality still exists, but have been addressed with the need to fix defeatist attitudes a priority.  We will never have a totally equal society, but so long as effort is rewarded and opportunity is given to those who work hard, then we can be on a fair playing field.  Race is not the definition of a person or what they are capable of achieving.  Our society is not as white dominated and that should make for a more universal people.  I have been back to Detroit and it no longer is the huge city it was when it had over a million white majority in 1960.  It has and still struggles now as a smaller black majority city facing the need for better education, housing and good jobs.  In 1701 Detroit was settled by the French with Fort Ponchartrain and their struggles with the British.  306 years later it still has potential to remain a great city, and racial equality is the only way it can get back to that state!

Third Summer Blog Evaluation

     I've been at this blog now three years recording my life changes.   We have been going to Pier Point cabin in Grand Haven for five years now, and this year was our earliest start on June 30th.  This year went faster and on July 4th the Wickershams and Simon came up on a foggy day.  We went down to the beach and though it was warmer the fog didn't lift until after 8 at night.  It was just Luke and Phillip for a week and the main attraction was the Art Fair and 2 trips to the Mall in Norton Shores.  Yesterday I had my first summer school job at Dwight Rich, as I never had been called before.  It was at the computer lab for 6-8th graders who varied from good workers to jerk-offs, who I could lock out from the main screen.   Jon came home today from Indiana for the rest of the week and the Alvarado family reunion Saturday.   Today was the first day of relief from 90+ heat since we returned from vacation.  Thought drought/  Leaves us wordless/  Sniffing stale air/  Humidly stifled./  Our idiosyncrasies/  Balanced against/  Creative essence/  Of internal turmoil./  j.S.pratt   Mumbling on between sentences, poems consume themselves in blogs meant basically for no one but the desperate wandering souls of a lonely self inflicted world!   I need another Beach Bum blonde ale for inspiration as my empty glass is full of oblivion.