History vs. the wrecking ball

It was early in the year 1969. On a Saturday afternoon we headed toward the U of M athletic campus to see a basketball game. Parking the car north of Michigan Stadium, we began walking toward Crisler Arena when we heard that awful sound - the sound of a wrecking ball hitting concrete. Before I even turned in the direction of the sound, I knew what it must be - they were tearing down the historic Ferry Field football stands. My heart sank, and I knew that even if Michigan won the basketball game, this would not go down in history as a good day.

From the late 20s when the Michigan football team moved into the new stadium until the late 60s the stands had been used for track meets only. Of course they had deteriorated with age and less than a year before they came down a friend and I had wandered over to check them out when we became bored at a Michigan baseball game. There were barricades about 2/3rds of the way up and signs saying it was unsafe to go any higher. My friend ignored the warning and went to the top. I wasn't so brave.

In my office at work I have a large picture of Michigan Stadium and the surrounding area that was taken from an airplane by Dale Fisher on the day of the 1968 Michigan-Michigan State football game. One of my favorite things about the photo is that in the upper-left hand corner you can clearly see the Ferry Field stands still standing. In my mind's eye, that's the way the U of M athletic plant is SUPPOSED to look.

Carnival up on the hill

Back in grade school days, we looked forward to the second week in June for 2 reasons: 1) the last day of school, and 2) the carnival coming to town! In the 60s the annual Jaycees carnival was held up on the hill at Veteran's Park. Adding to the excitement for me was the fact that at night I could look out my bedroom window and see the green and yellow lights at the top of the double ferris wheel.

Later when the pool and ice rink were built at Vets, the carnival moved over to the Pioneer High parking lot and the date was switched to mid-summer. Real old-timers will remember when a carnival was held on Main Street during bargain days in late July, before the Art Fair expanded from the campus area to downtown streets.

Bud & Lee

Bud Corwin was one of my heroes as a young boy. He was the ace pitcher on the Mutual Of Omaha fastpitch softball team that I enjoyed watching play every Tuesday and Thursday night during the summer at Veteran's Park. At that time in the early 60s he was the best pitcher in Ann Arbor, regularly leading his team to city and state titles. What is really amazing is that those who saw him pitch in the 50s say that he was even more dominant then, before an injury to his pitching arm caused him to just be "great" rather than unbeatable.

Throughout his career, Bud threw the ball to his brother Lee who was his catcher. Over the years the team sponsorship changed to Bisiegel Orchards, Discount Tire, Lupi & Sons and Old Heidelberg, and players came and went from the team, but the one constant was the pitching/ catching duo of Bud & Lee, along with yours truly up in the stands rooting them on.

West Stadium hang-outs

In the 50s and 60s, the top 2 places for Ann Arbor teenagers to hang out were Everett's Drive-In and the A&W on West Stadium Boulevard. Everett's was Ann Arbor's version of Arnold's from Happy Days. My favorite menu item was their double-decker California Burger. When Elias Brothers Big Boy restaurants began popping up in metro Detroit but hadn't yet opened a location in Ann Arbor, I began hearing rumors from friends who had been to Big Boy that a Big Boy Hamburger was a lot like a California Burger from Everett's.

When I got my driver's license in the summer of 1970 the first place I went to was Everett's. Me and my buddy pulled into a drive-in space in our '66 Dodge Dart convertible and enjoyed an open-air meal - by ourselves! By then the drive-in option had become less popular and most diners at Everett's went inside to eat. As you can see in the picture, a few years later they installed a drive-thru window as the car-hops were long gone.

It was a sad day when Everett's closed in 1980 to make way for a Taco Bell. One day that summer the Milkshake Gods took out their wrath on the demolition company when a major windstorm overturned their construction trailer, delaying but not stopping the inevitable.
A decade later, owner Everett Williams again made the California Burger available to Ann Arborites at Cafe Seven (see picture above).

As for A&W, when I was in grade school it was a special treat to go there at night when we would sit in the back window of the car and watch people jumping on trampolines at the Ann Arbor Gymkana which was located right behind the drive-in. Later we enjoyed going there to look at the cute car-hops, but the most popular waitress was a grandmother who worked there for years and gave such great service that she ended up getting a bigger tip than the young cuties
did.

In interviews Bob Seger has said that the Ann Arbor A&W was the inspiration for his hit song "Night Moves," and a plaque recognizing that fact now adorns the wall of the muffler shop that occupies the spot where the A&W once stood.

Besides being almost right across the street from one another, the two drive-ins also had another connection. After Everett's closed, the owner Everett Williams sold the rights to the California Burger recipe to A&W owner Jerry Smith, so you could still get a Cali burger in Ann Arbor until the West Stadium A&W closed in the 90s, and even after that at the Dexter A&W.

Birth of the River Rats

Huron High School fielded it's first football team in 1967. This picture of the squad appeared on the cover of the Huron Valley Ad-Visor, a weekly newspaper serving the Ann Arbor area at that time. Though common now, the technique used to take the picture was considered groundbreaking then in the field of photography.

The Popsicle Man

As a kid growing up, one of the highlights of the day during the summertime was the arrival of the popsicle man. The guy who frequented our neighborhood in Ann Arbor for years was called The Big Mouse, and he quickly learned that stopping in front of our house each day meant a sure sale! We'd run into him around town too, at events like the Carnival or the Soap Box Derby. We even saw him at the State Fair in Detroit once! When the Big Mouse stopped coming around, the Good Humor Man - Jerry Poquette (pictured above) took his place. But the Big Mouse was my favorite, and I wrote a little poem about him a few years back:

I'd hear the bells a-jingling and I knew I was in luck
"Hey mom, can I have a dime? Here comes the ice cream truck!"
Every day he'd come on by, pull right up by our house,
Ann Arbor's favorite ice cream man, the guy we called "Big Mouse"
What a deal on popsicles - 10 cents, or was it a nickel
He had every flavor in the world it seems, except for pickle
Where he got that silly name I guess we'll never know
But he was a BIG deal to us, Mouse - where'd you ever go?

Basketball at Yost

Since 1973, Yost Ice Arena has been the home of the Michigan hockey team. A lot of memorable hockey games have been played there over the years, but nothing can compare to the last days of Michigan basketball at what was then called Yost Field House. When I started attending U-M basketball games as a toddler in the late 50s, fan interest was at an all-time low. The team usually finished at or near the bottom of the Big 10 standings, and you could literally walk in at game time and find a great seat at center court. But that all started to change when Bill Buntin arrived in the early 60s, and when Cazzie Russell enrolled the following year suddenly Michigan basketball was the hottest ticket in town.

Adding to the frenzy was the fact that a) the athletic department sold way more tickets to the games than they had seats, and b) most of the tickets were general admission, meaning that you had to get there at least an hour before the start of the game to be sure you could even find a seat. I remember that my dad and I usually ended up sitting way up in the northwest corner behind the big steel girders, often in the very top row where you'd keep your coat on all game long, because the wind would come right through the ancient busted windows.

Being shoulder-to-shoulder with your fellow fans for an hour or two before the game even started led to a rowdy atmosphere, and the Michigan team added to it by trying fancy dunk shots during warm-ups to get a reaction from the crowd. The fans would count out loud the number of dunks Michigan made until finally the last bench-warmer, who wasn't even tall enough to try a dunk, would lay the ball up, leading to catcalls and jeers.

To say that it was an intimidating atmosphere for a visiting team to come into is putting it mildly. And during Cazzie's 3 years at Michigan coach Dave Strack's club would lose just one game at Yost. Ironically that loss is one of only three games that I can remember specific details about, along with a big win over Indiana when Michigan topped the 100-point mark (the antiquated scoreboards there only registered numbers with 2 digits), and Cazzie's last home game against Northwestern.

Karmann Nature Center

Karmann Nature Center was not located in Ann Arbor but rather in Dearborn. But for hundreds of Ann Arbor Public School students in the sixties, it was one of our favorite places to go and 40 years later the memories are still strong. It was an 80-acre nature preserve on Ford Road owned by naturalist and conservationist Joe Karmann. Shortly after the Ann Arbor schools established it's Outdoor Education Program in the early 60s, Eunice Hendrix (pictured with Mr. Karmann above) and Bill Stapp met Karmann who agreed to let schoolchildren come on field trips to his property to learn about nature. We would go there at different times of the year to observe the changes in both the animal and plant life. The property included a woods of oak and hickory trees, a grassland, a swamp, evergreens and giant apple trees. I especially remember a trip there one winter when after spending a good amount of time exploring outside, we were invited into a small cabin where Mr. Karmann had built a fire and prepared hot chocolate for us. As we warmed up he showed us books and other artifacts having to do with nature that he kept there.

Before he passed away in 1971, Mr. Karmann was successful in getting his land designated as a wildlife sanctuary by the Conservation Commission. For the next 30-plus years his son Norbert Karmann oversaw the property, but he passed away in 2004. As of now, what the fate of the beautiful Karmann Nature Center will be is unknown.

The Chance

Originally known as Chances Are, the Second Chance nightclub on East Liberty Street became THE place to hear great music in the 70s and 80s. I began frequenting the club when owner John Carver signed on to be one of the sponsors of my radio show, and the list of great artists who I had the opportunity to hear play there is a long one - Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Rick Nelson, Cheap Trick, George Thorogood, The Stray Cats and The Ramones just to name a few. But some of the best shows I saw there were done by local artists like the Romantics and Sonic's Rendezvous Band. The latter band was sort of an Ann Arbor super-group made up of former MC5 guitarist Fred Smith, ex-Rationals lead singer Scott Morgan, Stooges drummer Scott Asheton and bassist Gary Rasmussen from The Up. Pictured above are Fred "Sonic" Smith (top) and Scott Morgan (bottom) performing on stage at Second Chance.

Pride of the Pioneers

Since the mid-70s, every home Michigan football game has been sold out. Some would find it hard to believe that in the 50s and 60s the stadium was only about 2/3rds full for most games. One tradition during those days was to hold a high school "band day" at one of the early season games. Members of dozens of high school bands from around the state would sit in the usually unoccupied seats in the end zones and then would join Michigan's band on the field at halftime for a massive band show. Also, each year a couple of the high school bands were invited to put on their own show in the Big House after the game. In 1965 the Ann Arbor High School Band under the direction of Victor Bordo did just that!

Root, root, root for my teachers

In the 60s and 70s I spent a lot of time in the summer watching softball games at Veterans Park. One of the powerhouse teams of the era was Geisler Plumbing which won back-to-back state titles in the late 60s. Four of my school teachers played on the team - Don Horning and Dick Dehn were gym coaches at Forsythe Junior High, Duane Black was my science teacher at Forsythe and Doug Horning taught Driver's Education at Pioneer High.
Also pictured here is Jerry Greenlick who was our gym coach at Wines School. Prior to that he was a football coach at Tappan Junior High.

Local politics, Sixties style

The election of 1964 was a landslide victory for the Democrats, both nationally and locally (with a couple of exceptions). Riding LBJ's coattails to victory that November was an obscure undersheriff named Doug Harvey, as well as District 2 Congressional candidate Wes Vivian who surprised longtime GOP representative Robert Meader. Unable to capitalize on the Democratic tide that year was Ann Arbor's Neil Staebler. The former state Democratic party chairman was unable to defeat popular Republican Governor George Romney.

When Vivian ran for re-election in 1966 he was challenged by Marvin Esch who had bucked the Democratic trend two years earlier when he was elected to the State Legislature. Esch's campaign workers were out in force at every public event in '66 distributing hundreds of yellow and blue "Esch for Congress" indian hats to kids. Not exactly a politically correct move nowadays, but acceptable back then. Since I was a Vivian supporter, I went to work at home and constructed my own "Vote Vivian" indian hat, modeled in the above picture by our cat Bootsy. Esch won the election.

Also in 1966, former Democratic Governor Soapy Williams ran for the Senate and appeared at the Ypsilanti 4th of July parade sporting his trademark green and white polka-dot tie. He lost the election to Republican Robert Griffin.

One of the more spirited races for the office of Mayor took place in the early 70s when incumbent Democrat Robert Harris squared off against maverick Republican Jack Garris. Garris had upset the hand-picked GOP candidate, Lou Belcher in the primary. A few years later Belcher would again run for mayor and would win. Garris' campaign was centered around his opposition to the rock concerts that were being held in West Park. Garris lived near the park, at the corner of Miller and Chapin, and was active in a neighborhood organization that opposed the concerts. Harris won the general election, and eventually a compromise was worked out with the concert venue being moved from West Park to Gallup Park. In addition to his brief but colorful political career, Garris is also remembered for his spectacular Christmas light displays at his house during the holiday season.

In the late 60s radio announcer Ted Heusel ran for and won a seat on the Ann Arbor school board. 3 years later he was re-elected by an overwhelming margin. Due to FCC equal time provisions, Heusel was forced off the air during the duration of the campaigns. After the results were in on election night he was interviewed on the air on his own station, calling the election a "great victory for radio."

The 5-D

The 5th Dimension was a teen nightclub that opened in a former bowling alley in the mid-60s. It was located on Huron Street just west of downtown and featured mainly local acts like The Rationals and Bob Seger & the Last Heard, although such famous groups as The Who, The Yardbirds and The Jimi Hendrix Experience all performed there while touring. After the club closed the building was transformed again, this time into a popular restaurant called The Whiffletree. Several years later the building was destroyed by fire.

A Heroes Welcome

In early June of 1965, United States astronauts Edward White and James McDivitt piloted the Gemini 4 spacecraft on a successful 4-day mission. During the flight, White became the first person to walk in space. A few weeks later the 2 astronauts, both University of Michigan graduates returned to Ann Arbor where they were hailed as conquering heroes at a parade through the streets of downtown followed by a program of speeches on the U of M North Campus. This picture of the parade was taken from the corner of Huron Street and Fourth Avenue, looking west on Huron. After the parade we went to North Campus but the crowd there was so enormous that we were unable to even find a place to stand and take in the ceremony, let alone find a seat.

VP Ford & The Optimist

In May of 1974, then-Vice President Gerald Ford delivered the commencement address at U of M. Jim Linebaugh, a staff reporter for Pioneer High School's Optimist newspaper scored a real coup when he landed the only 1-on-1 interview with Mr. Ford during his visit to Ann Arbor. The interview was conducted at the Michigan League immediately following commencement which took place at Crisler Arena. Linebaugh arranged the interview through the office of University President Robben Fleming. It was just a short time later that President Nixon resigned and Ford took over the Presidency. I still vividly remember the day Ford was sworn into office, when from our home on the northwest side of Ann Arbor we could clearly hear the bells of the Burton Tower carillon sounding in celebration of a University of Michigan graduate becoming the leader of the free world. In addition to his duties at the Optimist, Mr. Linebaugh also worked as a disc-jockey. He was known on the local airwaves as Jim Michaels.

LBJ visits Ann Arbor

In the spring of 1964, President Lyndon Johnson gave the commencement address at University of Michigan graduation ceremonies at Michigan Stadium. It was to become known as his Great Society speech. Here is a ticket used to gain admission to the event. Ann Arbor public school students were excused from morning classes that day so that they could attend the commencement. It was a very warm day late in May and one of my classmates suffered heat stroke at the stadium. Fortunately his father was a pediatrician and he was back in class before the end of the day. The President arrived and departed the area via helicopter. As we were heading back to our car afterwards, the chopper flew low over the intersection of Main & Stadium and LBJ waved to us before heading off to the airport.