Timber

"Consumers signing any contract with a business do so with the expectation that they will be treated fairly." - Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel

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As a consumer, and as a citizen, I have two reactions to the Attorney General's broad statement, which is in reference to a logging company lying to its customers about how much and what kind of timber it had removed from their properties.

First reaction: Uh, no.

Second one: Thanks for nothing, Dana.

As a citizen of Kalamazoo County, I am also bound as a consumer to the contract the County has signed with Homer Stryker School of Medicine (alias: WMed) to conduct forensic pathology work. Y'know... Coroner services.

When the lying skank Medical Examiner, "Doctor" Joyce deJong, bungled my nephew Charlie's death certificate in 2015, and even admitted that she made up the official circumstances she used in erroneously determining Suicide, she was not made to treat us fairly. Anything but.

Of course, the Attorney General and everybody else knows about the whole thing already. If she doesn't know - and it is possible; Michigan's adult literacy rate isn't what it used to be - then I have two more reactions, as a citizen and as a consumer:

First reaction: Shame on you, Dana.

Second one: Start at Chapter One.

I know, it's easier to take a stand when there's nothing but lumber at stake. You don't have to go out on a limb for anybody. No one sees that your bark is worse than your bite. You're not a wooden politician, no. You're the Lorax. You speak for the trees.

But not for the people who elected you.

The facts: If one dies here, the coroner can capriciously make up anything she wants and put it on one's death certificate. No Commissioner, no Representative, no Senator will help you. No judge will step out of the County line to relieve your family of their anguish, from lowly Circuit Judge Lipsey to the Michigan State Supremacy Court.

At the very most, all these selfish ham-and-eggers will do is listen politely, smile and nod and check their manicures, and then when you leave, they'll go right back to doing what they were doing, which is nothing. They do nothing, they care nothing.

That's why nothing ever changes here in Little Shitsville. Not since I was a kid. Unless it was to change for the worse.

And really, this is all that awaits any weary traveler that jumps off I-94 on any of our, what, four freeway exits. Take it from one who knows:

Don't come here. Don't spend your money here. Don't look for an education or a job or a home here. Don't raise your kids here. Unless you want to be drowned in your own tears. Because that's all what ever happens in Kalamazoo.

pH 3.26.21

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Miracle Miles

Boys love cars. Or, at least, all the boys I knew growing up did. Charlie carried that auto-adoration in his heart, too. He would often use them as a play space in the driveway. He made forts in the backs of the SUVs. He even stowed away in the back seat of my sister's car when she went to work on one fine, eventful day - but that's another story.

All the cars that Charlie knew are long gone from the world now, just as he is, having succumbed to catastrophic failures or fatal accidents. As a matter of fact, even the cars that replaced those ones are on their way out. The years and the miles, the tears and the smiles, those things take their toll.

When I came home from Phoenix in 2011, I was driving a Hyundai which I called Little Grizzly (or The Gray Ghost, depending on whether it was running or not at the time). It had a 16-valve engine and a stick-shift, and the first time I took my nephew for a ride in it, I warned him:

"Buckle up, kid. Uncle Paul drives crazy sometimes." 

Which he loved with gleaming eyes. 

My Uncle-ish pleasure was doubled when I later heard him say to one of his friends, upon climbing into the back of the Little Grizzly to be taken someplace, "Buckle up, man. Uncle Paul drives crazy."

The Gray Ghost outlived Charlie. But not by much. Its replacement, a black Neon that he would be driving to school and back by now, is limping to its own finish line. Between Michigan roads and Michigan weather, the car has about had it.

Yesterday, my sister and I drove out close to Lansing (an hour away) to look at a used car, a Buick. The car was immaculate, clearly having been babied and garaged its whole life. I stuck my head underneath it to look at the frame, and was amazed. Solid steel coated in factory paint. Not a speck of rust.

You see, it's not just the water that gets them, even though Michigan has rainfall on par with Seattle or any other rainforest. It's the tons of rock salt they put on the roads in winter, you know, to save lives. The salt-slush freezes on to the undercarriage of the cars and trucks here, for weeks or even months, and eats them until there's nothing left. Corrosion is more than a metaphor here.

The other thing I noticed about buying a car out of town: Normal people. You do not run into that when searching for a used car here. Basically, Kalamazoo can be boiled down into four subgroups: Bums, thieves, tweekers and crazies. The nice couple with the Buick did not meet any of those criteria, which is why they don't live in Kalamazoo.

My sister bought the Buick. She deserves a nice vehicle after all that has been done to her here.

And so before us all lies the open road. Like the instructions say... Tear along the dotted line.

pH 3.o4.21

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