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| Although invited to the New Year Jubilee downtown, Ypsidixit politely declined. She doesn't see much sense in traipsing from venue to venue in bone-chilling temps, and she's allergic to anything family-friendly. Instead, there's a bottle of champagne in the fridge and ruminations to ruminate this evening as we slide into the future. Y. wonders what you're doing for New Year's, and wishes you a happy one. This revelatory biography completely changed Ypsidixit's image of Henry Ford from money-grubbing industrialist to disillusioned philanthropist. Henry's teen years of tinkering in various machine shops in Detroit, having left the Dearborn family farm to the disappointment of his parents, lead to a fascinating section about the hurly-burly competition among the many early gasoline automobile manufacturers and their warring patent claims. Henry mostly held back, after designing a speed-record-breaking racecar, and didn't get into the car-manufacturing game till relatively late. Ypsidixit was startled to read of Henry's "peace ship" sent across the pond in a widely derided effort to stop WW I. Also eye-opening were the numerous social programs that accompanied his early factories. In addition to the fabled $5-a-day wage, about double what other manufacturers were offering, Henry instituted home hygiene programs, sent Ford men around to workers' houses to advise them on sanitation, founded schools, hired the handicapped in huge numbers at a time when no one else did, offered loans to factory workers to spiff up their homes, founded Henry Ford hospital by telling the doctors to design a hospital based on what the doctors needed, and in all ways proved to be a compassionate, worker-minded businessman, to the point where he was widely branded as a socialist. A ridiculous and drawn-out court case with the Chicago Tribune, who called Ford an anarchist, seems to have embittered him. Ford's interest in worker welfare diminished thereafter, and with shadowy henchman Harry Bennett at his side, grew increasingly reclusive. He also watched with something like horror as the cheap car which he'd meant to make people's lives easier spawned its own culture, one far from the rural idyll in which Ford grew up. He bagan assembling the hodgepodge of historical randomness now at Henry Ford Museum, in a nostalgic longing for a lost past, and died at 100 of a cerebral hemorrhage. Despite Ford's well-publicized flaws, Ypsidixit is in some awe of this visionary. She admires a heart that launched the Peace Ship, despite the project's naivete, and likes the humane way the younger Ford treated his workers. The slide from benevolent industrial papa to bizarrely anti-Semitic old-timer makes for gripping reading, about this man who did more than anyone to make Detroit and Ypsilanti what they are today. A father and son team bought it and set about revamping the place...until it became clear that by this time, repairs would run between $100,000-$200,000. Holes in the roof and floor and a foot of sewage-filled water in the basement proved too much to fix. The site now languishes again, becoming a less saleable property with each rainy day. A shame. Will it eventually be demolished, and can it be, without damaging neighboring buildings? When the father and son bought the place, six giant dumpsters of papers and stuff were hauled out & away, including half of a car that had been carried piece by piece and assembled on the second floor for unknown reasons. Wondering who the 2004 winners were in the kingdom of pizza? Dairy farmers and Domino's IPO. Also the WOW pizza oven (50% more efficient!). The losers? The little-known Pizza Inn scandal and Little Caesar's petulance in suing its own franchises for using non-regulation ingredients. EXCERPT: "What should we do with US classics like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof or The Color Purple? "Dig a hole," Gerald Allen recommends, "and dump them in it." Don't laugh. Gerald Allen's book-burying opinions are not a joke." What is funny, however, is that I found zero coverage of this story in the U.S. papers. In the top 30 results for a Google search for "Gerald Allen," this story is mentioned only by 1. a gay watchdog group, 2. Michael Moore, 3. a site called "Mad Librarian," 4. a few ticked bloggers. What's wrong with this picture? Thank God for a free press. I guess. Note the priceless bit, in the Guardian story, about "toning down" Shakespeare. Well, what about that cozy Ishmael--Queequeg snuggling-in-bed scene early on in Moby Dick? And the later dreamy ruminations of one of the sailors fondling the tub of nice...warm...milky spermaceti? If any of these Bush goons can read between the lines, it won't be "Call me Ishmael," but [Bush Administration to Herman Melville]: "Don't call us, Ishmael, we'll call you." Two new fish species, five new insect species, and two new species each of snail and begonia were found. The work was conducted in an area highly susceptible to human destruction--each year in Indonesia, a new additional area the size of Belgium is illegally logged. To help: Nature Conservancy. This gripping, powerful, 549-page story of Gertie Nevels, a strong woman from the Kentucky hill country on the brink of buying her own farm who bows to her husband's wishes to join him in booming WW II-era Detroit, details a family's slow slide into desperate poverty as the promise of lucrative war work ultimately proves empty. Arnow's own upbringing in rural Kentucky invests the novel with richly authentic detail. One of Gertie's children asks her to carve a toy turkey from a pinecone, and the hounds are heard at night treeing animals that will not be shot--with all the menfolk being off to war. Gertie finds miserable company housing in a filthy Detroit, whose manners and morals are a good deal laxer than at home. As her husband works a shift at a factory churning out war materiel, Gertie struggles and fails to keep her family protected from city influences. Her oldest child, disgusted at Detroit ways, returns to Kentucky, and another is tragically killed. Gertie's sole solace is in her skillful woodcarving--she's lugged an enormous partially-completed Christlike faceless cherrywood statue from Kentucky, and reverently works on it and on small figurines when she can. When she sells some of her works, as her husband's factory job dries up, he convinces her to start mass-producing cheap, garishly painted dolls to peddle on the street to put food on the table. As money dwindles further, a sudden contract to make lots of dolls offers temporary salvation--and a heartbreaking sacrifice. This deeply detailed, sharply drawn novel sticks to the ribs and provides a memorable portrait of the desperate, courageous lives of wartime migrants to Detroit. Ice slicked the two-lane roads of the secret rural route home, just west of US-23, threading through vast lonely fields of cornstubble sticking up through snow not white but indigo in darkness. The teary Ypsidixit blew her nose and her adventurous friend asked, "How are you feeling?" Ypsidixit looked out over the fields and imagined herself walking over them, into the brush and trees, into her own farm, into a past tied to the land. We lost our way and bumped over a snowcovered washboard road sided by dangerous ditches. Ypsidixit clutched her friend's arm in fright more than once and found the route back to the paved Dennison Road on the map. The heater whooshed in the quiet car. Ypsidixit thought of past Christmases celebrated with different companions. A deep orange-red peach glowed on the eastern horizon, the swollen moon, rising up to and disappearing into slate-blue-black clouds. At a US-23 overpass, thick streams of fast cars roared under one lone car threading slowly over obscure roads, bearing two aging explorers traveling together for now anyways through the cold darkness. Self-appointed zeitgeistmeister Wolfe falls flat in his latest novel, which offers a mundane portrait of college life familiar to anyone who's been to college, instead of the sharply-drawn insider peeks into little-known, rarefied worlds ("Bonfire" and "A Man in Full"). This is the story of small-town Appalachian gal Charlotte, whose mountain upbringing is sorely tested by the college kids' coarse language and by the prevalence of sex and alcohol. But I never got to know her. She's not fully fleshed out, and neither are the other main characters: Jojo, the jock with intellectual aspirations; Hoyt, the frat cad; and Adam, the journalist nerd with big dreams of breaking a story about a politician caught in a compromising position on campus. I ended up not caring about them, and I don't think Wolfe did either. That college kids have sex and dance in a sexual way appears to fascinate the 70-something Wolfe, who dwells on these aspects of college life at the expense of other modern-day college realities, such as the ubiquity of technology. Nowhere in these 676 pages is a student downloading music files or bit-torrenting or burning a CD or text messaging or listening to an iPod or blogging. There are two cell phones in the book, one used to signify a spoiled boarding-school brat's wealth, and the other to signify a journalist's being connected. But everybody has a cell these days on campus, so that seemed unrealistic. Wolfe's icepick social satire occurs only in widely-spaced patches, like islands I desperately clung to before venturing out into another sea of pages. And sometimes he satirized his own characters: his jeering portrait of Adam's starry-eyed young-love for Charlotte was unpleasant, and even suggested envy. Taken all together, this is a Wolfe novel you can safely skip. Let's hope he regains his edge in his next effort. You know what I mean. 1. Things rolled into balls. 2. Anything on a toothpick. 3. That plate of ineptly decorated cookies that mysteriously appears at work, made by children of unknown cleanliness. As an introduction to my mini-gallery of overwrought foods to avoid this holiday season, I offer (at right) Charred Asbestos Chips. Well, actually, it's walnuts coated in a slime of butter, sugar, and various spices. Served in a communal bowl that everyone grubs around in, it's the ideal non-heart-healthy vector for innumerable diseases. More delights in "comments." "Can I give you a ride to the downtown bus stop?" Ypsidixit instantly transformed from would-be dog driver to her usual persona of shy person. Before her, a ruggedly handsome shanty-boy type leaned on his snow shovel. "Then you can write something about me on your blog." Full of shyness and gratitude at this gentleman's considerate kindness, Ypsidixit came awfully close to turning back. Michigan led the nation in lumbering from 1869-1900. "Shanty boys" (lumberers) wintered over upstate, hauling out logs on sleds and the Michigan invention called the "big wheel." White pine was preferred since it floated. Iced-over rivers were loaded with logs, each marked with the lumber baron's log mark, to float downstream on the spring melt. Some Ypsilantians went north to seek their fortunes among the virgin stands of seven-foot diameter trees, the sole remaining stand of which may be seen at Hartwick Pines State Park. 1. what other "time-honored," "sanctified" aspects of American culture are merely successful ad campaigns and 1.--Christmas trees are forbidden in the Bible as pagan affectations, in Jeremiah 10:3-5. In Ypsidixit's authoritative Harper-Collins study Bible, these verses are rendered: "For the customs of the people are false: 2.--Christ was likely born in September/October. 3.--The Yule (meaning "wheel"--the point at which the wheel of the year is lowest) log, eating of ham, and use of holly and mistletoe predate Christianity, which mashed Christmas onto the older solstice fest in order to win converts, as everyone knows. Ypsidixit could go on and on, but she has no illusions of converting the Christian crowd, though she wishes they'd examine more closely the many layers of ancient religions, including the worship of Mithras, that predate and heavily influenced Christmas. "Come shop in Depot Town for the holidays: in December, every store is open till 8 p.m.!" That would drum up a lot of business from seasonal people like me who, in December, want to buy special, unusual presents for loved ones but who otherwise don't have much use for the slightly overly precious stores in Depot Town. "While we sympathize with any grieving family, Yahoo! accounts and any contents therein are nontransferable," even after death, said Karen Mahon, a Yahoo! spokeswoman. You know, when people are so cold and callous that they toe the company line--for no real reason, this is not a big deal, Mahon, it's EMAIL--despite a reasonable request from a family in tears, one's better nature is overcome by a wish for Mahon to be thrust into the same situation so she knows what it feels like. Shame on her. Shame on Yahoo. Before another family goes through this, you may wish to tell Mahon what you think. Her phone number is 408-349-4152 and here's her email address. The scant 3/4 inch of snow was no problem for the bike, whose knobbly rubber tires grip well in ice and shallow snow. When we start to get 3 or more inches of snow--that'll be a problem. Swishing around in deeper snow is like biking in sand; very unstable. But for now, -10-degree wind chill notwithstanding, winter biking is still doable. This calendar of events is for community use, since Ypsi has no comprehensive events calendar. I want this calendar to represent events of interest to you, and would be grateful if you emailed me stuff you want me to add. Please send me the event's: name, If you don't have time to do that, just a URL with a schedule would be great. If you're a member of an Ypsi book club, or if you're organizing a fundraiser, or planning to go to a talk, I'd love to add such items to this calendar. Note: This calendar is entertainment- and fun-oriented. I don't want to list social service events such as AA meetings, since the Courier does that. Also, I reserve tweakage rights. That said, I hope you find it useful. 1. INADVISABLE USE OF NAILS. Pair a round dowel with micro-nails difficult for children to hang on to, much less hammer in, and you have a recipe for disaster. 2. OVERAMBITION OF CRAFT. After you've slapped together your dull little plank road, the craft people breezily advise the glue-sticky, nail-bloody crafter to "make a settlement diorama for your model plank road. Make a toll house, livery stable, and settlers' cabins..." Settlement dioramas aren't built in a day, you know. It's a bit much to ask of an exhausted, hammer-bruised, plank-road-challenged child already close to tears. 3. THE REAL THING IS A LOT MORE INTERESTING. Plank roads were a huge fad in Michigan, beginning in the 1830s--the nation's first plank road was built here. They revolutionized land travel, shearing days off Ypsilanti-Detroit trips (Michigan Ave was once a plank road). However, 3 or 4 years after their original installation, boards would begin to wear down and break, prompting Mark Twain's comment about the Kalamazoo-Grand Rapids plank road, "It would have been good if some unconscionable scoundrel had not now and then dropped a plank across it." Annual maintenance costs rose to a third of the original cost of the road, and the private companies that built the roads were further hurt by "shunpikes"--short bits of road built around toll houses so that roadriders could avoid paying the toll. For a vivid, funny portrait of settler life, read the poem "Riding On The Plank," also about the Kalamazoo-Grand Rapids plank road, by Asa Stoddard, "Michigan's farmer poet." "Did you ever, friend or stranger. Ypsidixit now feels a responsibility to keep this gentleman informed, and so reports that the A.F. today consumed about 5 ounces each of Brie, Gouda, and Emmenthaler, cut into 3-centimeter squares individually placed on 2 sorts of crackers. He also drank 4 cups of freshly ground hazelnut coffee with milk and (organic) sugar, ate approximately six dark purple grapes and a bowl of homemade vegetable soup, and nibbled on mixed nuts and those crispy chocolate truffle things while quietly enjoying the NYT with Y. today. A lovely day. On the one hand, all prosecuted crimes are a matter of public record, if you're willing to dig. On the other hand, I have to wonder if, say, male or female spouse-beaters (who don't to my knowledge appear on such a public online registry) inflict harm that is to some degree comparable to the harm inflicted by sex offenders. It really cannot be quantified. This is a dark and murky post, and I don't mean to hurt or offend--skip over it if the topic is uncomfortable to you, and please accept my sincere apology. I only wonder about the selective posting of this information by the police, privacy versus public knowledge/safety, and other ethical grey areas. "Sidlik, a member of the management board of DaimlerChrysler, succeeds Michael Morris whose term expires Dec. 31, 2004. Wilbanks, former president and CEO of the EMU Foundation, succeeds Rosalind E. Griffin whose term expires Dec. 31, 2004. The appointments are subject to the Neither of these men appeared on the list of candidates I read in the news (and posted, below), so I'm completely confused as usual. "My other interests include pagan/wiccan spirituality, progressive (especially Green Party) politics, and hippie/beatnik music and culture such as the Grateful Dead, Phish, Allen Ginsberg, and so on." Fun to visit! Good for Vince! Ypsidixit loves finding out about people like this, and marvels at the brilliance of creating an artist in residence for a dump. I love that. Like Laurie Anderson's appointment by NASA, the incongruity of the pairing creates amazing art. One wonders what other agencies, even local Ypsi agencies, would benefit from having an artist in residence. More on Ukeles, who speaks at the Michigan Theater Thursday January 13, 5 p.m. (free talk!) For some early Washtenaw County settlers, raising a barn without the usual stimulant of whiskey was a point of pride. For example, over in Lodi Township, "Gilbert Allen is said to be the first practical temperance apostle in the town. He built the first barn, and presented his friends with the pure aqua vitae instead of the ordinary �calamity water� introduced on such occasions. Yet it is positively stated that T. Tate, Loammi Robison and Festus Fellows raised their buildings without whisky some time previously. The Lodi Township History page, from which that tidbit comes, also contains the gruesome story [at the end of the white background section] of young Orrin Gilbert. When the boy went out hunting one day, he got lost in the wilderness and went to...extraordinary lengths to try, unsuccessfully, to survive. Startling excerpt: "Excluding automotive and foodservice sales, the Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer accounts for 1 of every 10 retail dollars spent in the United States." Clearly, Thompson must be an evolutionary biologist, with a firm grasp on the nuances of evolution. The arrogance of these pushy Christians and their inability to keep from shoving their superstitious anti-intellectualism on everyone else just drives Ypsidixit wild, as does the lazy, unthinking, irresponsible relativism that posits that "other theories" deserve equal time in the classroom. Ron Miller, lifelong Ypsilanti resident and activist who worked in EMU's president's office until 2000. Tony Derezinski, appointed by former Gov. James Blanchard to serve on the EMU Board of Regents between 1983 and 1996. John Hansen, former state representative and retired superintendent of the Dexter School District Ivan C. Harner, executive director of the Hemophilia Foundation of Michigan; former owner of the Teacher�s Shop and Learning Center in Depot Town. Doug Winters, attorney for Ypsilanti and Salem townships; active in the local Democratic Party. Ypsidixit is not a forensics expert but can't help but think that the official explanation is just a tad glib: "The fire burned so hot, it destroyed all evidence." No fewer than three people have already expressed surprise that I'd be biking around. Well, sure, why not? If you're careful and use sense there's no problem, and it is wonderful to be out in the whirling snow, thinking about if not actually pretending to be a polar explorer. So I decided to cheer myself up by making something. I fished some paper from the printer, got red ink and this gold stuff that you can put in your hair--highlight stuff, I used it about 2 times last summer before resigning myself to the fact that I am 37. I figured I could use this gunk as ink, since it dries. As my plan coalesced, I snagged 2 little branches of pine from my Thanksgiving decoration moldering on the dining room table--pine I had not only secretly clipped from my neighbor's pine but had already used in the Thanksgiving decoration. I didn't want to buy some dopey box of anonymous cards that helped kill trees, etc. No. This is a Reuse-Recycle-DIY-Culture-Jamming-Buy-Nothing-Christmas-Card-Crusade. (gripping details & photos in "comments"). Current site of Graves farm is south side of Textile, between Stony Creek and Whittaker roads. DOLLAR MANIA: In Memorium Ship-mistakes, misfreights, boxcars lost scanning past murky olives, odd pens, The world outside is opposite, with rainy Depot Town ONE-STOP SHOPPING: ---Ten Thousand Villages, 303 South Main St., Ann Arbor, MI. (734) 332-1270. Scarves, purses, cuadros, embroideries, clothing items, household items, musical instruments, stationery, artworks, coffee, toys, and more. YPSI RESOURCES: ---Maggie's Organics, 306 W. Cross Street, Ypsilanti, MI 48197, 800-609-8593. Online: www.maggiesorganics.org. Clothing and coffee. ANN ARBOR: ---Crazy Wisdom Book Store, 114 S. Main, Ann Arbor, MI 48104, 734-665-2757. Tchotchkes. Note the Guardian headline's quaint use of "ahem": "Attention all men: using a laptop may, ahem, heat your testicles and cause infertility." An American newspaper, or blog for that matter, would never insert that "ahem." It would just report this alarming news straight, in the forthright, can-do spirit that won us the wars of 1776 and 1812. EXCERPT: "Once, when the time came for me to start for Detroit, the Huron was frozen over except in the middle, and my friends gathered around me and tried to dissuade me from attempting to cross, but I resolved to try. I had a good span of horses; when I got out on the ice a short distance the ice broke, and down went horses and wagon together. Nothing daunted, the horses pushed on till they reached the edge of the ice on the opposite side, the water was so deep that the ice was up to their chins; they settled back on their haunches, raised their fore feet, and brought them down with great force on the ice, and thus continued to break a path for themselves to the shore." OTHER HIGHLIGHTS: creation of Plymouth Road (?), a guy who carried a sawmill blade on his shoulder from Detroit, mention of Snow's Landing (early name of Rawsonville), and 26 people (3 families) living in a single log house. Catch the lightning? Ypsidixit notes several non-period details: the camerapeople in the background, the women's dress, makeup, and hairstyles, Ben's shades (probably) and the electric lights in the background. But OK. They're trying to sex up the topic a bit. Is this a good strategy for the History Channel, or simply obnoxious? "Alvin Cross ploughed or broke up the first ten acres of land in the County. His father built the first barn, and nearly all the settlers were at the "raising." --Combination Atlas Map of Washtenaw County.
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OBLIGATORY BIRD POST: Two friends stopped by to help wish Ypsidixit a happy New Year: the elusive downy woodpecker, chowing down on a suet cake, and old man cardinal.
BOOKS READ: Carol Gelderman's "Henry Ford: The Wayward Capitalist."
WORLD'S LARGEST COCKROACH DISCOVERED: Nature Conservancy scientists exploring remote caves in Borneo 
BOOKS READ: Harriette Arnow's "The Dollmaker."
BOOKS READ: Tom Wolfe's "I Am Charlotte Simmons."
YPSIDIXIT IS AS FESTIVE AS THE NEXT PERSON, except for the part about hiding in the back bedroom till the holiday din subsides on January 2, but one holiday manifestation that I strenuously avoid is that category of questionably edible items I call "Food That's Been Handled Too Much".
THE FRIGID BIKE HOME from the Ugly Mug was made bearable by a reflection on the dawn-to-dusk workday of Michigan's bygone winter industry, 
THE ARTIST IN RESIDENCE FOR THE NEW YORK DEPARTMENT OF SANITATION, Mierle Laderman Ukeles creates amazing, offbeat, very beautiful art out of or relating to garbage. Her works range from "The Social Mirror," a giant mirror on the side of a garbage truck, to "Ceremonial Arch Honoring Service Workers in the New Service Economy" (both pictured at right) and 
CHRISTMAS CARD PROJECT: This weekend, I didn't get to see my adventurous friend very much and I missed the freight house meeting, due to work. Then, to top it off, my attempted deposit of my Bookcrossing book, all labeled and everything, was detected by an eagle-eyed employee at Bombadill's tonight. It was quite embarrassing. I biked off mopily in the rain. Bleah.
HISTORICAL OBITUARIES: "Lyman Graves died in the township of Ypsilanti, January 30, 1880, aged eighty-five years and seven months. Mr. Graves was a native of Massachusetts, from which State he emigrated with his family to Michigan in the spring of 1825, and purchased of the government 160 acres of land in the township of Ypsilanti, where he spent the remainder of his life. Having lived upon the same farm for over fifty-four years, together with his campanion who survives him, they endured the hardships of a pioneer life in improving the land and raising a family of children who are all well settled in life. He died as he lived, respected by all who knew him."
A BIT OF THE !874 MAP OF YPSI shows several interesting features. There's the paper mill, of course, only 7 years old. It looks as if back then LeForge continued south of Huron. It passes the old Catholic Cemetery, now in the heart of the EMU campus. You can also see the place, just north of the Huron, where the "Secret Path" line branched off the Michigan Central to travel straight through campus and onto the "Secret Path" behind the stadium, before heading south. Last, there's the old city cemetery, now Prospect Park (Prospect Rd. used to be called "Cemetery Street.") All the bodies in the city cemetery (except for 14) were moved to Highland.
YPSIDIXIT WAS SLUGGISHLY READING her New Yorker on the bus this morning when this glaring ad slapped her in the face. The copy in the mag read "BEN FRANKLIN: Inventor. Patriot. Playboy. Early to bed and early to rise? You don't know Ben. Meet the Founding Father with star power to spare. Ben Franklin. Catch the Lightning."
CROSS STREET IS NAMED for the descendants of 1823 settler 
