Perry's Pen

I woke up in Plymouth, Michigan, on a Saturday morning recently. It was after attending a wedding in Ann Arbor the night before. I needed to get to Detroit, to get to Windsor, to get to Toronto, to get back home. (but I don’t know why she swallowed the fly.)

How I got to Plymouth, Michigan

I’d gotten a ride to Plymouth from the man who performed the ceremony. He had sent in the forty bucks in exchange for being an ordained minister, which made him capable of performing wedding ceremonies. He also has excellent taste in music, so we had a great conversation on our ride to Plymouth.

The distance between Ann Arbor and Plymouth is about half an hour. What I didn’t clue into was that that half hour was halfway back to Detroit, my sort of destination. In other words, I was a bit lost and hoping for help to get back on track.

As an aside, my people in Michigan tell me that everything is half an hour away. I joked that “with inflation, even 15 minutes away is now half an hour away”.

Why that is relevant is because I had originally requested a ride sharing dealio back to Ann Arbor, so that I could take the bus back to Detroit for six bucks (all funds US Dollars). Upon returning to Detroit, I would make my way across to Windsor, Ontario, and ultimately home to Toronto.

My ride arrives

My ride arrives, and I tell the driver my plan. She was confused. “What? It’s the same price to Detroit as it is Ann Arbor? Why don’t you just let me take you to Detroit?”

“Can we do that?”

“Let me check. What is around the tunnel? What can I change it to?”

“I dunno, RenCen, Hart Plaza…”

“I can’t spell Renaissance… …OK, got it.”

On the Road Again (South, Towards Canada)

We head out. I say something like “The 20-year-old me really wanted to go to the football game today. The reality me said “think again.” (The University of Michigan was playing a home game in Ann Arbor later that day, and would continue their undefeated season with decisive 41-13 over Purdue.)

“I know what you mean. I was looking to be more active and get more involved. My brother recommended officiating basketball. 20-year-old me gave it a shot, and it soon real time me said “Get real”. Then I got into umpiring volleyball. You pretty much just sit there and be judgmental.”

“I could probably handle that.”

“Yeah, and it PAYS. I get like $70 a game.”

“Really? That’s nuts. My friend’s son umpires baseball and I think he gets $20 a game.”

“I don’t know about that, maybe it is a Canada/US thing. You can make BIG money doing it. Work your way up to Division 1 and stuff and it is great. NFL umpires make a fortune.”

“I heard that NFL officials are judges and stuff. Real big shots.”

“Oh for sure!”

Who Are These Parents?

The conversation turns to how parents are the nutjobs when it comes to kids’ sports. Demanding more ice time, questioning coaches…

“Some of those coaches must get death threats and stuff.” – me

“Oh yeah, you wouldn’t believe it! You got kids?” – driver

“No, I am still a kid! You?” – me

“5 kids, 11 grandkids, and counting!” – driver

“WOW, nice!”

I Met a Methodist, a Methodist in Motown!

After a brief lull in the convo I ask the driver if she is a Michigan native.

“Oh no, I’ve moved all over the place! My dad was a Methodist preacher. You know what they do? The Methodists make their preachers move around all the time.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Oh yeah! It’s once a year!”

“How on earth can you make friends or anything as kid, moving around so much. That’s worse than having your dad in the service and him being shipped overseas.”

“Right? And they just give you a small house with two bedrooms. My dad had 11 kids! There wasn’t no room for us. They’re saying now that that was child abuse, and it was!”

I agree, and as a Cannuck I’ve got ideas about residential schools and stuff floating around my mind, wondering/waiting for the right time to bring that into the conversation.

I abstain from doing that though. Here’s a real-life person, someone who has experienced it firsthand. She isn’t a spoiled white person on Canadian media. This is the real deal. And not only has she lived through despicable nonsense, but she has also risen above it and made something of her life.

The conversation starts to turn. She asks me what my religion is. “Are you Catholic?”

I probably smirked. “HUH?” I thought.

Normally I go with atheist/agnostic/heathen. I just can’t be bothered with religion. Hockey is too religious for me – I hate it. Existentialist is way too pretentious to even consider. Lately I have been going with “Jew-ish” because it is so ridiculous and is shorthand for saying “Republicans are complete imbeciles.”

This was a serious woman though, and I wasn’t foolish enough to answer. She had earned and demanded my respect, and none of those answers would do. She moved on quickly after I kinda shook my head.

Maybe I shook my head. Maybe I just looked dumb.

My Salvation Begins

Then it started.

The driver asks: “Are you a good person?”

“Yeah, I guess.” (My thoughts at this point being entered centered around making the train back to Toronto. I felt like Otto in Repo Man when Bud asks “You think they give a damn about their bills in Russia?”)

“Have you been saved?”

“ummm….”

Then she went full-bore into Jesus and God, and what have you. The real names, how to spell them and stuff. It was part sermon, part college lecture. I should have taken notes or recorded her.

I started thinking “a lot of people would lose their minds at this point and get into a confrontation. I don’t know, whether I agree with her, she cares enough about me to try to “save me”.

The really interesting part about her talk was that she was VERY anti-church. Boiled down, she was basically saying the same thing that Jello Biafra said in Religious Vomit:

“They just want your money, they just want your consciousness.”

“There’s people sleeping in the streets! How come churches don’t open their doors to them! I’ve asked preachers that, and they just say, ‘not in MY church’.

“Doesn’t the church have a lot of influence with Detroit politicians? I mean, why…”

“Oh yeah, and politicians have a lot of influence with churches. They campaign right in the aisles. It’s pathetic.”

“I’ve been talking to a lot of churches, and I am writing a book.”

It’s True: Everything in Michigan Is Half an Hour

The ride came right in at half an hour. It’s true: everything in Michigan is half an hour. While in the back of a Honda Civic, my mind was mostly on making the train. But this was a conversation unlike others, it was deep and had an impact.

It could never happen in Canada – a black woman of devout Faith trying to save the soul of a white clown boy. I respected her point of view, and I legitimately felt moved that she cared enough to reach out like that. Maybe she always does it, maybe not. Maybe people tell her to “shut up”. Who knows?

Your Canadian Has Some Parting Gifts for You

I am not ashamed that she got me a little teary eyed. I gathered myself up and took the pin I wear on my jacket. It’s a cross of an American flag and a Canadian flag.

“You had a Canadian in your car before?”

“No.”

“This is for you.” – I gave her the pin and we shook hands. I wanted to thank her but also get into her head like she had gotten into mine.

My driver did “just sit there and judge“, but she also had a humanity. I not only respect that, I seek that. There ain’t no humanity in Toronto.

Trains, Tunnel Buses, and The People Mover!

This is a picture of my destination, sort of. Two days before my ride with God, I had taken a spin around the Detroit People Mover (DPM). I was standing at the back of an empty DPM, snapping pictures as it looped by the Detroit River. I was just west of the aforementioned “Ren Cen/Hart Plaza”.

What you see is the Detroit River. The land on the left is Canada. There are two bridges in the picture, the Ambassador Bridge, and the Gordie Howe Bridge. The two towers on the left are the Howe Bridge, the two on the right and closer are the Ambassador.

The “bumps” on the Ambassador are transport trucks making their way into Canada – basically the entire blue-collar economy of Ontario travels across the Ambassador.

Think I am joking? The Ambassador Bridge carries more than 25% of all merchandise trade between the USA and Canada. And Canada’s trade is 80% with the USA, so this is a significant border crossing.

You Wanted the Best, You Got the Best!!

KISS is big in Detroit (no city is perfect) and they recorded a lot of their breakthrough album Alive! at a place that used to be called Cobo Arena, which is immediately to the right of the where I was standing when I took the picture above.

I wanted Detroit, and I got Detroit. I believe that might be Matthew 7:7.

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you”

Looking Back on It All:

Looking back towards Detroit, while on a train bound for Toronto:

You might also be interested in:

• Ride Sharing – book by Mike Monson
  “Ride Sharing is 37 stories, vignettes, and sketches based on Mike Monson’s two years working as an Uber and Lyft driver in Northern California. Some of the material is verbatim accounts of events, some of it is completely made up, and some a combination of fact and fiction. At this point, the author can’t quite remember what parts are true and what is a lie.”
• Can God Fill Teeth? – song by LARD
  “For a $10 “Donation You could see silver fillings turn to gold and other “supernormal dental happenings.”
• Taxi to Nowhere – Electric Six
  Electric Six was born in Detroit. They remain “the kind of band I want to see”.
  
  
• Detroit’s Renaissance: Unveiling Michigan Central Station and Corktown Charm
  A blog post I wrote after visiting Michigan Central in September, 2024.

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