It’s fall in the Detroit area and commercials run regularly advertising Cedar Point’s “HalloWeekends.” While Sandusky, Ohio may be the closest amusement part to Detroit these days, it was all about Bob-Lo Island in the 80’s.
My grade school had annual outings to the island. Though I didn’t especially enjoy the boat ride at the time (approx. 80 minutes), I would love another chance to experience the sights, sounds and smells of the boat. Each had either a dance floor, arcade or both, concessions and of course an amazing view of the Detroit River. The park itself was relatively small with a couple dozen rides ranging from bump’em cars to full-on rollercoaster thrill rides. I was never quite old enough to enjoy the park to the fullest and regret having been afraid of the best rides.
These days, the entire island returned to its residential roots, housing private homes, vacation property, and marina space. Who knows… in another 20 years rides may return and ferries could carry excited Detroiters to that little chunk of Canada (yep… it’s really part of Canada) to appreciate local amusements… though I doubt it.
Once again, my mom comes through with a forwarded email with a lot of old memories from Detroit. Some are before my time, but good nonetheless.
You used a pillowcase to go ‘begging’ on Halloween, and you yelled,’Help the Poor!’ at every door. (‘Help the poor, my pants are tore, I need some money to buy some more.’).
You remember what Devil’s Night used to be.
You remember the huge elm trees forming lush green tunnels over manyDetroit streets in the summertime. Or when they’d come around to spray and tell you to stay in the house. And, the autumn smell of burning leaves,after you’d rake huge piles to the curb for burning.
You remember honking your horn as you went through the tunnel toBelle Isle at the end of East Grand Blvd. Where it went under Jefferson Avenue, even though the sign at the entrance read ‘Don’t Sound Horn.’ And you remember the submarine that was tied up at the Brodhead Naval Armory alongside the Belle Isle Bridge ..
You took a class trip or a moonlight cruise to Bob-Lo with CaptainBob-Lo.
You remember running home from school so you could have lunch withSoupy Sales.
You rode a bus to Edgewater Amusement Park to ride the wooden roller coaster (again and again) or the Salt & Pepper Shaker.
You remember ‘A fantabulous day for the family, at fantabulous Edgewater Park .’ P. O. P. Meant pay one price.
Your Mom packed the car with kids, swimsuits, towels, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to spend the day at Metropolitan Beach .
You played in the ‘Big Ditch’ as I-94 was being built.
You played tennis on Belle Isle’s courts, or golfed at their par 3course, both lit after dark. Or went ice-skating, or for a horseback or canoe ride, rode in a pony-drawn carriage, hand-fed the animals at the zoo,visited the aquarium (remember the teepee), or attended an event at theCasino.
You rode the big white roller coaster or found your way out of theFun House at Jefferson Beach Amusement Park .
Took a day trip and drove way out to Walled Lake Amusement Park where they had lots of rides, a roller coaster, and to the Walled Lake Casino for dancing.
When ice-skating was outdoors and Palmer Park or Belle Isle was the place to do it. You also remember its tennis courts, wading pool, golf,ice-skating, and horse and buggy rides.
Or how about the Detroit Firefighters working the crowds at the fireworks, selling tickets to their Field Day, and giving out firecrackers to the kids.
You rode a streetcar that ran on tracks down the center of Gratiot, Woodward, Jefferson or Michigan Avenue. Or the electric buses on Warren and Grand River .
You remember how all of the lights from the auto dealerships lit up Gratiot and Livernois – and that they only sold American-made cars.
You remember when Eastland, Wonderland and Northland Malls were open, not enclosed. And when Wonderland had animals in circular cages.
You know how to pronounce Gratiot and Schoenherr and Cadieux.
If someone told you it’s on Outer Drive, you knew to consult a map first.
You thought driving to Southfield was going ‘out to the country.’
You checked out books for two weeks from the Bookmobile that came to your elementary school once a week.
You vividly recall the mineral bath smell (rotten eggs) when you drove through Mt. Clemens .
You bought candy and nuts from window-lined, walk-around counters and wooden floors at S. S. Kresge or Woolworth’s (‘dime’ stores).
You went to Sock Hops at Notre Dame high school on a Friday night where you heard Stevie Wonder, Bob Seger and the Last Herd, or theRationals.
You drank Faygo, Towne Club, Grilli’s, Oso, or Atlas pop (we never heard it called ‘soda’)..
Your Mom saved Top Value, Holden Red, S&H Green or Gold Bell stamps.
Cunningham Drug Stores soda fountain and their raspberry phosphate.
Your school took a bus trip to the cider mill (with donuts and cider after the tour), or to Kellogg’s in Battle Creek .
Silverstein’s was the candy store of Army and Navy surplus stuff.
You had a subscription to the three Detroit newspapers, includingThe Detroit Times.
You remember news anchor Jac LeGoff who eventually worked at everyTV station around Detroit .
You visited the Wonder Bread Bakery and got to take home a mini-loaf of bread (but you weren’t cool unless you ate Silvercup bread).
You had a Shaffer’s or Awrey’s breadman and a Brickley’s milkman. Ora Twin Pines milk man, a Jewel Coffee man, and a Fuller Brush man (and theywere always men).
You remember Pure, Penzoil, Speedway 79, Monkey, Dance, PurpleMartin, Sinclair, Danny’s Dino, Kayo and Gulf gas stations, and when ‘gas wars’ meant 17 cents a gallon.
You remember Primo’s Pizza, Carbone’s Pizza, Red Barn, Powers,Henry’s, Herc’s Beef Buffet, Cupid’s, Tom’s Tavern, Ted’s 5×5, Totem Pole,Red Devil, Marcus, or Richard’s drive-in. (car-feteria).
You attended a wedding reception or a banquet at Roma Hall.
You attended ‘Wendy Ward’s Charm School ’ at Montgomery Ward. OMG FOR SURE
You remember when Ben’s Hi-Chaperelle and Watt’s Club Mozambiquewere the places to go to catch Motown acts.
Every year when the Blue Angels came to Willow Run Airport .
Or always wished you could be one of the Hudson ’s Teen Panel girls whose pictures hung on the wall in the Juniors Department ..
You had friends or relatives who could get you into Camp Dearborn for the canteen dances in the summer and to go swimming. Or the pond atBelle Isle near the Conservatory where the sign warned you not to touch the water.
You had a reverb unit installed in your car at Mickey Shorr’s orCrazy Jack’s (a. k. a Michigan Mobile Radio or MMR) on Livernois.
You remember the riots of 1967.
When the bleacher seats at Briggs Stadium were only $2.00 to watch the Detroit Lions play. And when they won the National Football Championship(before there were Super Bowls) in 1957 against the Cleveland Browns, 59-14.
And when the Red Wings won all those Stanley Cups in the 1950s, and balcony seats at Olympia Stadium were only $1.25!
You remember Detroit wrestlers Dick the Bruiser, Bobo Brazil,Leaping Larry Chene, Wild Bull Curry, Ernie ‘The Cat’ Ladd, Lord Athol Layton, Edward ‘The Sheik’ Farhat, Fritz Von Erich, George ‘The Animal’Steele and Johnny Valentine.
You remember bowling for a quarter a game at Chandler Park Lanes,Falcon Lanes (next to The Ginos/Falcon Showbar), Parkside, Woods, Ritter’sor Ritz bowling alleys.
You worked at Detroit Bank & Trust, Manufacturers National Bank,Bank of the Commonwealth, City National Bank, or National Bank of Detroit .
You ‘parked’ at Belle Isle, either to watch the color-changing waterfall or the submarine races – depending on how old you were and who you were with! You were in awe of the Big Stove on East Jefferson at the entrance to Belle Isle (before it was moved to State Fairgrounds entrance).
You remember your Mom taking your burned-out lightbulbs to Detroit Edison to exchange for new ones.
You remember the J. L. Hudson Co. (known to us as just ’ Hudson ’s’)building on Woodward Ave that occupied an entire city block.
And you remember the white-gloved elevator attendants operating the expandable gate and lever- locked door, and just before letting you out, she would call out the names of the various departments on that floor.
You ate a Maurice Salad at a J. L. Hudson’s cafeteria.
You went shopping during Downtown Detroit Days.
You remember Women’s Hospital before it became Hutzel Hospital .
You remember that Hudson ’s hung a HUGE American flag on the front of the building every 4th of July.
You would ride the bus downtown at Christmas and stand in line atHudson ’s amid a fabulous winding, animated Toyland just to see Santa.
Or you remember going to see Santa Claus at the Northland Mall igloos because it was televised and you hoped your friends would see you.
Thanksgiving was not complete unless first you went to the Hudson’sParade, then to watch the Detroit Lions play the Green Bay Packers (always the Packers back then) at Briggs (later Tiger) Stadium.
You know guys who put up big antennas so they could pull in theLions home games on channel 6 out of Lansing .
You watched the ‘old guys’ play bocce ball at Buddy’s RendezvousPizza or sang the Schnitzel bank song at the Dakota Inn.
You remember when Mayor Cavanaugh would give Santa and Christmas Carole (who always looked like she should be freezing in her short red velvet outfit trimmed with white fur) the keys to the city at the end of every parade.
You remember the Detroit Tigers pitcher Mark ‘The Bird’ Fidrych.
You remember watching the Detroit Pistons and the WHA Michigan Stags hockey games at Cobo Arena.
How about Al Ackerman ringing Big Al’s bell for the Sports Hero of the Day.
And watching Cadillacs being made on Clark Street.
Or the giant, three-dimensional ‘Elsie’ the Borden Cow (head)located on the side of the Ira Wilson Dairy off the I-94 service drive.(Now, it only says ‘ILSON’ – much of the stack has been taken down).
Going to the Better Made potato chip factory and getting small bags of brown chips or shoe strings before going to the Jewel movie theater.
You remember hearing the air raid sirens on Saturday at 1 p. m.
You remember the RAF bomber flying from England in 1962 that exploded over the Detroit River near Grosse Pointe Park .
Or the guy who came through your neighborhood on a bike to sharpen your scissors, etc.
You remember the ice man delivering ice to be placed in your ice box(we didn’t have refrigerators then) after you placed a card in your frontwindow indicating whether you wanted 25-, 50-, 75-, or 100-pound blocks.
You remember the milkman delivering milk and cream in glass bottle!s from a horse-drawn vehicle.
You remember going to the drive-in and getting blasted by mosquito spray from the back of a pickup truck that drove up and down the lanes.
You ordered Cold Duck at the Ponchartrain Wine Cellars (the restaurant/bar where it was invented) and enjoyed a frog leg dinner.
YouTube is a great way to go back in time find commercials and TV shows from the past (though I still can’t find any episodes of Kid Bits!). Here are a few for your viewing enjoyment:
If you can find a few more Detroit favorites from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s post a link in the comments!
I grew up with a lot of great products made right here in Michigan… in fact many of them were made right in Detroit! Sadly, some of them are no longer native to our great state, but I’d like to share them anyway:
Faygo Pop – A delicious variety of flavored pop (or soda if you’re from other states). While some consider it to be a value brand, I still think Rock and Rye, Cola, and Frosh are some of the best tasting soft drinks on the planet.
Vernor’s Ginger Ale – I can’t believe I forgot this Detroit icon! (Thanks to “Mom” reminding me about it in the comments!) When my friend (Joey Ford) visited his grandparents each summer, his mom made sure he brought some Vernor’s Ginger Ale home to California with him. These days, Vernor’s is owned by the Dr. Pepper/Snapple folks and can be found in most states, but it’s real home is Detroit.
Better Made Snacks – Driving by the Better Made factory is torture. The smell of fresh potato chips is enough to drive you mad. During Halloween, it wasn’t uncommon to get a small bag of Better Made potato chips from many of the houses in or neighborhood. You can still get cases of chips from nearby distributors and even directly from Better Made themselves. Some people may think that fresh chips aren’t better than those shipped across the country… they’re wrong.
Stroh’s Beer – In 1999 Stroh Brewery was sold to the same folks as Miller/Pabst. Though they’re still an American beer brewer (unlike some more “regal” brands), Stroh’s is no longer made in Michigan. Stroh’s was definitely the brand of choice for the adults in my neighborhood during the 80’s. Block parties looked like television commercials for the stuff…
Stroh’s Ice Cream – Why would a brewery make ice cream?! One word – prohibition. When other breweries were going under, the Stroh family changed with the times and made some of the most creamy delicious ice cream on the planet… but they did have competition:
Sanders Confections – My grandmother worked for Grandpa Sanders (pronounced San-Ders, not Saun-ders… that always drove my grandma nuts) and there was nothing quite as close to heaven as a Sanders Hot Fudge Cream Puff Sundae. Today they’re still known for hot fudge and carmel ice cream toppings, but they’re chocolate is darn fine, too. Speaking of chocolate:
Morley Candy – The Morley Candy Company has since taken over the Sanders line of confections using the family’s original recipies. Once local rivals, Sanders and Morley are now one in the same. Our parents always filled our Easter baskets and Christmas stockings with goodies from Morley and Sanders.
Honeybaked Ham and Dearborn Brand – I love a great sandwich. Part of that is because my dad always made legendary sandwiches. Post-holiday leftovers often included ham sandwiches… man, I’m salivating just thinking about them. Honebaked became famous for their pre-applied glazing while Dearborn Brand has been making great sausage and seli products since the 1940’s.
Kellog’s – Battle Creek’s own Kellogg’s company defines cereal and wholesome breakfast options.
I’ll continue to collect more lists of other famous Michigan brands, foods, products, and celebrities. If you have suggestions or contributions, please leave a comment (below)!
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…)
Growing up in Detroit, I knew that Bill Bonds was a local news legend. Little did I know that he had a cameo in the file “Escape From the Planet of the Apes.”
I’m not much of a morning person these days. I would much rather stay up late and write odd bits of code than get up early and start my day. When I was younger, that was not the case. My brother, Christian, and I would wake up early… especially on Saturday morning, build a fort and prepare for hours of (mostly) animated entertainment. I’ve written about Saturday morning cartoons before, but no Saturday would be complete without a proper start: educational programming.
If I’m not mistaken, the major TV networks had to provide a certain amount of educational programming content (which is why G.I. Joe had their “knowing is half the battle” segment at the end of each episode). Metro Detroit’s Channel 4 (WDIV) began their Saturday morning programming with Kidbits which was filmed at the Detroit Science Center and hosted by Gary Ed Mach
Kidbits detailed science experiments that most kids could do at home with the help of their parents. I credit my early interest in science to this show. Gary Ed Mach was a great host that didn’t dumb down the content but still made it easy to understand. He appeared genuinely excited about simulating muscles with straws and balloons. Instead of commercials, public service announcements ran between segments. They explained the difference between TV and reality, what you should eat to be healthy, and why drugs are bad. The catch was, some weird white guy with a ‘fro starred in these service announcements. If I learned anything during the 80’s it’s “never trust a white guy with a ‘fro.”
What’s the point of all the rambling? Simple: where is Gary Ed Mach?! Why can’t I find any clips of Kidbits online. I know it has to be out there somewhere. So here’s a challenge to everyone reading this: find Gary Ed Mach or Kidbits. If there’s a tape or DVD to buy or a petition to put episodes back on TV, tell me! Something this great cannot disappear forever!
Balduck Park was the nearest public park to our neighborhood. During the summer, kites flew there and there was a “nature area (which we called “The Naych”) to hike and ride bikes, a hill provided some excitement and a few fields to play soccer, baseball, and football. My early memories of Balduck include an archery range, too, but I never had a chance to participate. Every 4th of July, the “big kids” would head over to the field at Balduck and launch the “good” fireworks into the sky. On the 5th, a group of us would pick over the scraps looking for cool shell casings and any remaining live fireworks. Usually, we would tape together the old casings of spent fireworks to resemble guns, swords, and rocket launchers.
The hill was a blast in the winter. We would go in small groups to sled down the hill. At one time, there were toboggan runs. They were great when iced over, but eventually grass grew in the cracks and they were removed. (Legend told of a little girl that wiped out on her sled and knocked all of her teeth out, but that was mostly local urban myth.)
Eventually, we outgrew playing war in the alleys and backyard bushes and moved to the Nature Area. We would have epic hunter/hunted battles. Days were spent building forts and traps throughout the single acre wooded lot. We mostly just sat there in our rigged-up base talking and eating lunch.
When were a little older (maybe between 12 and 16), we would venture to the Nature Area at night, dressed head to toe in military camouflage. Although it started as a chance to play “witch” (kind of like tag at night… more on that later) in the woods, it quickly evolved into “hey-let’s-scare-the-crap-out-of-drunk-highschool-kids.” Jocks and their prey would hang out at the picnic benches just outside of the Naych swigging on ill-gotten booze and ghetto-taxed beer. We found this practice despicable (at the time). So, what else was there to do other than shoot the drinks off of the table with BB guns and slingshots? Most of the time, this would send the offenders scattering, yelling all the way to their cars. (Balduck had a reputation as a dangerous place because a body was found behind the hill in the early 80’s.) Rarely, the letter-jacket wearing tough guys would venture into the woods to prove their manhood. Mistake.
By this point, the majority of us were 14, 15, and 16 years old. Some of us had a few years of high school wrestling experience and were in the best shape of our lives. The jocks would enter the Naych. 1 or 2 of the crew would then cover the entrance with a big branch of leaves. Then the biggest of the bunch would drop from the trees directly in front of them… dressed in full combat gear. Drunk and scared out of their minds, the Jocks would run back towards the entrance that no longer existed (once they figured it out and screamed “they’re trying to trap us… we’re going to die!”), freak out and turn around to run down a random path. At that point we usually uncovered the entrance and snuck around trying to find them without revealing our location. Awesome.
One time, however, they must have called the police, because Detroit’s finest showed up with a spotlight and some flashlights (on a night that we didn’t scare any drinkers). Although very scary, we managed to escape undetected. A huge rush, yes… but also pretty stupid. At around 6’ 2” and 180 lbs, I might have looked pretty scary dressed in camo, to both a jock and the cops.
As we grew older and spent more time at school or driving around with our newly earned licenses, we visited Balduck less and less often. I still remember that place very fondly. Every time I look out my window at the woods around our house, I think “hey, that would be a great place to build a fort and play witch.” Someday, I might do just that.
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:
I spotted a schoolbus picking up kids for school this morning on my street, this, I assume, means that school is back. I was never fond of school. It just meant that there was yet another obstacle in the way of getting outside with my friends. The back-to-school shopping was o.k. Getting a new Trapper Keeper was second only to getting a new lunchbox (the old thermos did start to smell of cheese after a while). But nothing could quite sooth the sting of the return to the classroom.
The last major event of the summer was my brother’s (Christian) birthday party at the pier park. My Aunt, Uncle, and cousins would meet with my parents and I to celebrate and get a quick swim (if it wasn’t already too cold). We would cook up some sort of burgers or hot dogs, chow on my mom’s famous potato salad, and walk up and down the harbor planks checking out the boats. By sunset you could hear the cicadas signaling that summer was nearly over.
The B.R.A.T. Patrol would spend every remaining minute of the summer break to it’s fullest. Skateboarding, RC car racing, bikes, army, anything and everything that we wanted to get into the summer before it was over. Then, one-by-one, each family would return to their respective schools. Interestingly, none of us went to school together. Detroit public schools (sadly) were not an option, so we each went to our respective parochial schools. This is probably what kept out friendships so strong. Nobody got caught up in the drama of school niches or the who’s most popular game.
We would share the stories of the new school year with each other either in Ryan’s fort or on somebody’s front porch. Knowing that Halloween was coming kept us from being too upset. Especially because this meant our Ghostbusting work would be picking up!
