We took the Michigan Flyer bus to DTW. It was the first time we'd ever done that. Besides having to get up at the ungodly time of 4:45 AM to get to the bus stop in East Lansing, it was pleasant.
The great Detroit Tiger radio broadcaster, Ernie Harwell, died yesterday at the age of 92. It was the news I knew was inevitable, since he had been diagnosed with inoperable bile duct cancer, but was dreading all the same. I knew it would be hard to take. If anyone seemed like he should live forever, it was Ernie. It doesn't seem fair that someone as gentlemanly and decent as Ernie Harwell should be taken away from us. Like generations of Michiganians, I grew up with Ernie's voice. He was one of the people that introduced me to baseball and the Detroit Tigers. He was part of my childhood and young adulthood. There are so many memories I have that are tied to that distinctive Southern accent: my dad outside working on the house or in the yard with his old paint-splattered transistor radio, and Ernie describing the action at Michigan and Trumbull; upstairs in my room on a warm summer night in the great year of 1984, the sound of crickets outside, a breeze pushing up the blind...
I don't even know how to begin, and I know whatever I say will end up sounding trite. What an amazing, historic, and emotional day. I was reminded of Martin Luther King's "I've Been To the Mountaintop" speech, the one he delivered in Memphis the day prior to his assassination. It's the King speech that has always stirred the most emotion in me, even more than the much more lauded "I Have a Dream" speech. Near the end, in the part that always makes me teary-eyed, King says: "I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!" I always have believed that the "we" in "we, as a people" could apply as much to whites as blacks. Perhaps whites just didn't realize that they needed to make it to the promised land. Well...
I am plopped on my couch with a cat and am seriously concerned I might fall asleep before I can do a blog entry. I stayed up too late last night, which is a real hazard when the Lions play a night game. It's a few hours later and somehow, I'm still awake, but probably not for long. We got a second wind and watched the new episodes of Abbott Elementary and Silo, but now I'm back to being exhausted and ready for bed.
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