Grand Rapids Journal, Part II

Seen, heard, and felt in West Michigan’s capital

The Blue Bridge in Grand Rapids, Michigan (Wikimedia Commons)

Yesterday, I mentioned that Grand Rapids is known as “Furniture City.” It has been a seat of furniture manufacture since the mid-1800s. (I mean no pun on the word “seat,” believe it or not. It just came out.)

Grand Rapids has made a lot of things, over the years.

Around town, there are plenty of factories, some converted to other uses. (Most of them?) My eye catches “The American Box Board Company.” Those are the words at the top of the building.

What’s going on there now? This:

Bet they’re nice, too.

***

In another neighborhood, I see kids on a basketball court, playing soccer. (Nets have been set up for the purpose.) Makes me kind of sad. I’m not anti-soccer. It’s just that I have long seen it … encroaching, I want to say.

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An attractive sign, I think. I like the colors and the font.

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I like this, too: the name “McInerney,” the ampersand, the “Co.” …

(The name makes me think of Jay McInerney, the author of Bright Lights, Big City, which was a huge hit when it came out in 1984.)

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Grand Rapids has an Amtrak station named after Vern Ehlers—Vernon J. Ehlers, who represented this district in Congress from 1993 to 2011. Do you know he was a physicist? I mean, a real physicist, a nuclear physicist, with a Ph.D. from Berkeley?

No disrespect to politics—which is very important in life—but I can’t help thinking this is a bit of a comedown …

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A handsome old building, as I see it:

According to the relevant website, this is “Michigan’s oldest community foundation,” established in 1922.

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There are many street people in this city, asking for money. Some people are in obvious and wretched need. Others are … more professional, shall we say? They are organized, too. An informed source tells me that some people work in shifts, at various intersections. A daily schedule is made.

There is even a guy who makes signs for people to hold. He charges for these signs, of course. “… the labourer is worthy of his hire.”

For “professional homelessness,” I feel a little contempt, mixed with pity. But let me say again: in this city, as in others, there is obvious and wretched need.

***

My hotel—motel, rather—is not the Ritz-Carlton. I think of an old phrase: “no-tell motel.” You would not be shocked, shocked to find that prostitution and drug-dealing were going on here.

Maybe I could show you one thing: a box, like a newspaper box, outside the motel lobby, containing Naloxone, free of charge.

Naloxone, a Google search tells me, is “a life-saving medication that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose.”

***

Below is a picture of another motel. I love the phrase “A-OK.” Now and then, I’ll text someone, saying, “How’re you doin’? A-OK?” Well, this is the A-OK Motel. Whether it’s A-OK, I can’t tell you, but I certainly like the name.

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On the campus of Grand Valley State University is a statue of Noahquageshik, otherwise known as “Chief Noonday.” He was a leader of the Ottawa in this area, and his dates are something like 1770 to 1840. (When I think of 1770 as a birth year, I think of Beethoven.)

The sculptor is Antonio Tobias Mendez, whose dad, by the way, was Tony Mendez, the CIA officer who, when he retired, wrote several memoirs.

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Seriously, this is something to look out for. These guys—the males—will dive-bomb the hell out of you, if they sense you are encroaching …

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I thought this was a moving slogan (one I have seen before): “A hand up, not a handout.”

The website tells us,

Exodus Place is a non-profit organization in Grand Rapids, MI, dedicated to helping men transition out of homelessness through housing, life-skills training, and rehabilitation programs. Our mission is to provide the support needed for men to regain independence and achieve long-term stability.

A blessed mission.

***

Here is an ad for an injury law firm. Is it reflective of today’s spirit or what? The raised fist and all that …

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I pass a church—a Spanish-language church—called “Maranatha.” This is from the Aramaic: “Our Lord, come!”

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Back to that (flea-bitten, woebegone) motel of mine. I talk to one of the clerks. It is a moving conversation. I’ll paraphrase him:

I’ve been divorced twice. Wives cheated on me. I keep going, one day at a time. I don’t give up. I take each day as it comes. I thank God, and I feel blessed to be alive.

You know what my motto is? It comes from The Fast and the Furious [a 2001 movie]. The guy says, “I live my life a quarter mile at a time.” That’s what I do.

I’m glad to be alive, and I thank God.

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Just outside Grand Rapids—part of Greater Grand Rapids—is the town of Wyoming. The city of Wyoming. It has 76,500 people. Heck, the state of Wyoming has just 589,000 people.

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I like the slogan of The Breakfast House (a restaurant): “Eat well. Sip slow. Smile often.”

***

I get into an Uber, whose steering wheel is very colorful. Unusually colorful. The driver explains: “It is the colors of the flag of my country.” I naturally ask him what country he comes from. The answer: South Sudan.

In my time, I’ve talked to a number of Lost Boys. Maybe I could supply a quick definition, from Wikipedia:

The Lost Boys of Sudan refers to a group of over 20,000 boys of the Nuer and Dinka ethnic groups who were displaced or orphaned during the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005). Two million were killed and others were severely affected by the conflict. …

The boys embarked on treacherous journeys to refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya where thousands were sheltered for several years. Some of the Lost Boys were offered shelter and residence in the United States through official resettlement programs.

My driver is, in fact, a Lost Boy. Or a found boy, as I say to him, getting a warm, delighted affirmation in return.

He walked for about a month, into Ethiopia. I ask him, “Did you have shoes?” He gives me a kind of pitying look. “Shoes? No, we barely had any clothes. Just a kind of shorts.”

The group had little water and was very thirsty—dehydrated. They walked through the night, when the temperatures were down and they might have less need of water.

He says that he has been in Grand Rapids for 20 years. “You don’t look old enough to have been here for 20 years!” I tell him. He looks like he’s in his early thirties. “Oh, no,” he says. “I’m in my forties, or maybe even 50, or 51.” He does not know his birth year. Few must be the Lost Boys who do.

For all these 20 years, he has worked at a packaging company, and he is now in charge of his division. On the weekends, he drives Uber. He tells me, “When I was in my country, I could not imagine that I would ever even touch the steering wheel of a car. And now I drive for work.”

En route to my destination, we pass the college that he attended—a community college. “I went to college!” he says, wondering at the miracle of it all.

His gratitude is great.

***

Well, here’s a bit of a jumble: a Dominican restaurant with a French name:

(The “petite,” by the way, should be “petit,” to match the masculinity of “chateau”—which should be “château.”)

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Evening at Reeds Lake. A lovely setting, but those damn mosquitos …

Thank you for joining me, Grand Rapidians, Michiganders, and even foreigners. Talk to you again soon.