Can't watch baseball? My husband lives for baseball, football, golf, hockey...
I didn't leave out the ghetto. I was trying not to be too negative. You aren't from the D, are you? You want my take on the Detroit ghetto? Actually, what I see is pretty sad, I guess there are some bright spots.
I see hard working people that have worked their whole lives and paid off their houses and did what they were supposed to do. They are surrounded by gangs, thugs, abandoned homes, hookers, and they are scared to death. They lock themselves into their homes starting about 3 in the afternoon ( the time that school lets out). Not everyone is that way, but far too many are.
The kids get to play in crappy parks that the city nor the surrounding neighbors care to maintain. They aren't safe with glass everywhere. It's the kids that pay the price. The school system in Detroit sucks. The teachers and administration need to be held accountable. Teachers selling off equipment and admin stealing money. In the supply chain they need to arrest and convict the thieves down in central receiving. Is the DPS insane? Giving all kids a laptop, this is Detroit! How long will the child have those before they are sold off. I, do, realize that not everyone is like that. Two of the best doctors I know of are both neurosurgeons came out of the DPS. One they made a movie about.
I noticed a real change in Detroit when the first round of crack babies came of age. It used to be if you were robbed they just tied you up, put you in a locked room or told you to start walking and don't look back. Now they would rather shoot you than look at you. Scary, very scary. My husband owned a business in Detroit for many years, right in the heart of the D. The retirees in the area would come over and have a beer with us during the day. They said that the crack babies are different, they have no conscience, like something was missing that would stop a normal person but they just don't have it.
There's a Habitat for Humanity neighborhood on the westside. The city needed the occupancy numbers to be higher so they could get more funding. A few of the homes had been taken back by Habitat and stood empty. Because finding and placing new owners in those homes would take too long, they tore them down. They weren't even 5 years old.
The fire department had too many old, non-working, fire trucks and other vehicles laying around and the newspapers got wind of it. So at 4 am one morning while going to work I witnessed tow truck after tow truck taking the fire trucks to the scrap yard where they were crushed. They were repairable. Why crush them? Because most of the mechanics for the city do not know how to repair trucks, cars yes, trucks no. Why crush them? So the statistic would like good and shut up the papers.
I decided that I was done with the D. When a friendly competitor was robbed just down the street and they shot the secretary in the back. She was trying to be a pro bowler. She now has to use a cane to walk.
Years ago, my hubby was going to work at 3:30 am, driving an old pick up truck without power locks (told you it was old). He stopped at a red light at Dexter and Davison. A shadow appeared between 2 parked cars and he opened the side door on the truck and got in. He put a gun to his side and told him to pull into the next alley. He then put the gun to my husband's head and told him to lay down on the front seat. He did as told. The gunman took everything he had and then took the truck keys out of the ignition and threw them down the alley and said, 'count to a 100 if I see your cracker head come up, I'll come back and cap you.' My husband said he counted to 1,000.
He found a pay phone and called the police. Get this they asked my husband was anyone hurt? No. Well, then when you find your car keys you can drive yourself to a police station and make a report. No police ever came. Period. Robbed at gun point and the police didn't come!
We supplied juice drinks and milk to the DPS for the big 'Get your kids their shots' days on Belle Isle. We supplied drinks for over 3,000 people and were never paid by the city. They always came up with an excuse needing this or that. Then they called the next year for us to deliver drinks again!?! I'd like to know who got our money?
Me? I think that the hogs have been feeding at the trough for so long they don't know how to stop. They don't realize that the patient is almost dead. I have way too many stories to tell about the D.
Edit: The suburbanites can't fix it for them. They need to vote the bastards out of office. The changes need to come from the inside, because it can't be fixed without them taking a firm stand.
