The Brat Patrol

Today, the demolition of Tiger Stadium began. I’m no sports fan (apart from autosports), but I still feel the loss of this landmark… and part of my childhood.

Papa Thomas, my friend Joey’s grandfather, would sit on his front porch and listen to the Tigers game on his handheld AM radio. We would crowd around him and get the translation of Ernie Harwell’s play-by-play (we didn’t know a lot about the sport at the time). Papa was a diehard fan. On the hot summer nights most of the neighborhood could be found outside, on a porch, in a pool, or in each other’s driveways talking. In 1984, most of that talk was about our soon to be champion Tigers. When Joey flew in for the summer from California he proudly wore his Tigers ballcap. He was the first person I knew to have a fitted cap. Impressive. Tigers baseball was all I knew and Tiger Stadium was the Mecca of it all.

I went to my first ballgame at Tiger Stadium with my Dad and my cousin’s husband: Rich. I didn’t really know any of the players or what was going on. When everyone started cheering “Lou, Lou, Lou, Lou” for Lou Whittaker, I misheard them and joined in: “Boo, boo, boo, boo!” (I thought we were taunting the other team.) Rich and my Dad straightened that out pretty quickly. Rich tried to explain the scoresheet in the back of the program to me, but defaulted to just the simple score. The guy sitting in front of us figured out it was my first game and introduced himself as “Jose”… and told me that they start every game by singing to him: “Jose, can you see?…” I wonder how long he was saving that one… Rich passed away unexpectedly last year. I can count the number of times I visited Tiger Stadium on one hand. Yet, the only time I remember anything about was my first trip with Rich and my Dad.

Tiger Stadium had a genuine feel about it. I’ve only been to the new park (named after a bank that gave up on Michigan a few years ago…) two times. It’s big, impressive, and commercial. The view is a little better… even from the cheap seats… but it’s a sellout: designed to make families happy and sell watered-down beer and overpriced hotdogs.

Today we loose Tiger Stadium. We loose a legitimate part of Detroit history. We loose a landmark. One thing I (and many other Detroiters) will never loose are the memories of good times with our families and friends at Tiger Stadium.

_{(Sorry if I seem to be rambling with this update… I’m a bit out of sorts thinking about the stadium…)}

Like most kids in the 80s, Saturday morning cartoons were an integral part of our weekly social routine. The commercials between these shows (and sometimes the shows themselves) drove the trends in toys as well as what we would be playing out in the neighborhood. Many days were spent playing GI Joe and Transformers not only with action figures, but ourselves.

The bumpers (intros and outros that occured between the shows and commercials) were a pretty good indicator of the style and tastes of the era. Video games were big in the early 80’s, so the bumpers reflected that. When the bumpers changed, it indicated that the new television season has started. These days, most networks keep a lop-sided flow of new episodes sputtering forward throughout the year. When I was growing up, the season began in the early fall and finished up right around spring. This conveniently left the re-runs for the summer, when we didn’t want to be inside, anyway.

Last weekend, I really wanted to watch Saturday morning cartoons. The catch is… there aren’t any! The networks have replaced Saturday morning cartoons with sports updates, the occasional “educational” program (wild kingdom for 2-year-olds), and live action “adolescent/tweenager” dramas (think “Saved by the Bell, but even more sappy). It broke my heart to know that kids without cable will never know the joys of looking forward to each season of cartoons. Where can they find classics like Looney Toons?

I’m not really sure when this happened. Nonetheless, I am sad about this. There are a few resources out there on the internet for my fellow retro-addicts and I:

• Retro Junk: Commercials, Cartoons, and Movies
• X-Entertainment: Everything that Gen-Xers love, whether they admit it or not
• Retro Crush: More retro goodness and good times

Enjoy!

(Thanks to my mom for forwarding this to me. I don’t usually go for this kind of stuff, but…)

You took a “moonlight cruise” to Bob-Lo
with Captain Bob-Lo or went to
Edgewater Amusement Park .

You shopped at Hughes and Hatcher, B Siegel, Peck and Peck,
Himelhoch’s, Robert Hall, Crowley ’s, Shoppers Fair, EJ
Korvettes or Federals.
You remember the trolley cars that went along Jefferson Avenue
into Detroit .

You remember the Detroit Train Station.

You remember shopping at J. L. Hudson’s
and you rode the elevators there,
which were “run” by an elevator operator.

You remember the world’s largest flag that
flew on the side of Hudson ’s in downtown Detroit .

You remember a Winkleman’s and
Sanders store in your neighborhood.

You remember the “Big Snow”,
Buffalo Bob, Howdy Doody, Clarabelle,
Phineas T.Bluster,
Princess Summer-Fall-Winter-Spring.

You remember Twin Pines Dairy
delivered milk and juice to the chute
on the side of your house and
Milky the Clown performed magic
with the magic words “Twin Pines.”

You remember the Good Humor man
in a white uniform, ringing the bells
as he drove down your street

You remember Olympia Stadium.

You remember when Vernors was made
on Woodward Ave. ,
and a bearded troll was on the bottle.

Your Mom got groceries at Great Scott,
Food Fair, Wrigley’s or Chatham .
You remember that the Giant Uniroyal Tire
now on the Ford Freeway was
a ferris wheel ride at the 1964 World’s Fair.

Your Mom saved Holden Red Stamps,
S&H Green stamps, or Gold Bell Gift stamps, and you licked them
into those little books.
Kresge’s and Woolworth’s were “Dime Stores.”

You had an uncle in the furniture business (Joshua Door).
You know who Bill Kennedy is.

You saw the Detroit Lions play football
in Tiger Stadium.

You remember Black Bart and the Faygo song. Or how about “Which
way did he go?
He went for Faygo, old fashion root beer.”

You watched Rita Bell’s!
prize movies in the morning.

You remember Jack LeGoff,
Van Patrick and George Peirrot.

You remember Milky the Clown,
Soupy Sales, Johnny Ginger, Poopdeck Paul, Captain Jolly,
Sagebrush Shorty
and maybe even Sergeant Satko Salute.

You visited the Wonder Bread Bakery
and got to take home a mini loaf of bread.

Your address had a two-digit “zone”
before there were zip codes. Detroit 19, Michigan .
You visited the incredible Christmas display shown each year at
the Ford Rotunda
in Dearborn .

You remember “Get on the right track
at 9 mile and Mack,
to get the best deal in town. Roy O’Brien…
it’s the best deal in town.”
You remember a laundry chute and
a milk chute and a coal chute.
You remember going to Detroit Edison
with your Mom to exchange burned out
light bulbs for new ones.