Bob's World

What has the 2000′s brought?  An asshole President who gave away our countries wealth to his buddies, while he started wars he didn’t have the mental competence to conduct properly.   A Vice President who lived up to the term vice in using his office for raping of the national treasury to feed his war machines profits in Haliburton.   Then this idiot was reelected by a machine that fed lies and innuendo to the people via the newest tool at their disposal, the Internet.  An Australian who found out people would buy into any foolishness he wanted to print with “The National Inquirer”  in the super market isle, brought that mentality to the TV screen with a Fox Network.   And the people bought right into it, which only proves we live in a sick greedy damn society, and bad as it is we deserve it.  No one questions any one else’s actions, and believes they are the only persons in the world that matter.

The attitude generated by eight years of greed culminating in a near collapse the worlds economic system.  A collapse brought on by the economic leaders of the free world, the good old USA.  Greed that sent millions of American jobs to China to bolster the paychecks of the people with the least need for money.  The CEO’s of corporations where they played musical chairs among the largest companies in the world, jumping in and out of huge parachute awards for leaving the same companies they so badly screwed up in the process of mis-managing them.   The people then with their jobs gone and the inflated value of the homes they bought trying to get their piece of the American dream collapsed  because no one could pay for their home without a job, sent the stock market crashing.   That crash occured  just as the market was beginning to recover from the crash it had when it realized we were in for full republican control of the country at the start of the decade.   Home values gone, savings values gone and no job.   This was the legacy of eight republican years.  But the bright spot was if you were a millionaire, your taxes were a lot lower.

It was ripe for a change and change came in the form of a new power for the liberal democrats.  They swung the ball in an extreme opposite direction.   When we needed a good manager, one with actual experience at managing a government,  Like Governor Richardson they instead choose to put a man in office who not only had no experiance at running anything, but whose only qualifications for the job was the ability to deliver a great speech, not the ability to make the subject of his speeches a reality.  The far left put a man in the office of president, whose only qualifying talent and characteristic was the fact he was a black man.   His actions were as expected, to create a government run by and filled with people of a minority status.  Unfortunately, those actions were on par with the actions of his predecessor’s widely quoted “good job Brownie”  leaders after hurricane Katrina destroyed the Gulf Coast.   The Obama selections of people to run the new government, the one that was going to dig us out of the mire Bush created were as bad as the picks Bush made to get us into it.

On the street people were tuning out, our government was in shambles, they even gave the keys to the safe back to the crooks who had emptied it earlier in the 2010 congressional election.   The attitude of the people ceased to function on a society basis.  One where we live together in a common quest for common societal values.   Consider when was the last time some idiot dimmed their bright lights when coming toward you.   Does anyone else think the brain dead asshole in that cheap piece of shit box of metal with the noise making machine drowning out the sound from the TV set as they drive it by your house think they give a damn about anyone other than themselves.    When you step a little faster to get to a point where you can open a door for a woman, and they swing their purse at you and curse you because they think you are trying to get ahead of them.  Parents who are not concerned about their neighbors teaching their children to be just like them.  Doesn’t that say it all, offering an explanation for the decay end of times for the USA.

Religion, if I neglected to mention the new religious principles imbued over the past decade, I would be ignoring the mental shift of the populace who are no longer standing up on their own two feet and making a world better for themselves and others around them, but are hiding with their little pea-brains in the TV sets.  Not seeing the real world around them, but residing in personal versions of the soap operas running twenty four hours a day within their limited field of vision.   Instead of thinking, now they are trusting the god introduced in the 1950′s by the McCartherites to just make everything alright.     Looking away as the other two thirds of the worlds population is split in half by a religion of pacifism and a half where the controllers tell them their god wants them to kill all non-believers.    Many things have been blamed for being the root of all evil, but here at the start of a new decade, the real root of all evil is religion.  Since the fifties, the advancement of mankind has been stagnated in science and discovery by the foolish limitations restricting their logic, by a society embroiled in superstition and mythology.

As I turn 75, I wish the best for my once great USA, but fear my wishes are wasted.

Needing a little fresh air, I’m escaping from the mad house, I make a trip 15 mile south down to the fisheries at the River Raisin in Frenchtown.  Seemed like a good way to get some air and exercise.  Maybe even bring back a few nice freshly caught perch.  Trouble is they had already shut down for winter. The docks, fish cleaning house and boats stored away before the ice comes down the river and closes it to Lake Erie.

So a little drive up to Monroe to look around seems in order.  It has been quite a few years since I last wandered around here.  For years I drove over to work in the Monroe telephone office, but seldom took time to appreciate what the town held, other than a really good Coney Island restaurant of course.  So my Coney Taste buds started tingling.  Monroe was not what I considered a final destination.   Only fifteen miles south of home, it was close and ignored, however there was plenty of time to waste today so I thought maybe a closer look-see was in order.

Monroe is a very old town with a lot of history.  Originally founded as Frenchtown in 1785, and even today parts of town are still referred to as Frenchtown.  Monroe folks are kind of stuck in their own time frame.  It became Monroe in 1817.  In honor I assume of the President at that time, James Monroe the  5^th president of the United States.  The president during the war of 1812 and the author of the Monroe doctrine.   The Monroe Doctrine was a significant statement of American foreign policy. In President James Monroe’s seventh State of the Union address, he made it clear that America would not allow European colonies to further colonize in the Americas or interfere with independent states.  As he stated, “With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not … and shall not interfere, but with the Governments … whose independence we have … acknowledged, we view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing … or controlling, by any European power … as an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.”

Driving up Elm Street, the first thing you run into is the war of 1812 memorial museum.   Unfortunately closed for the year now, but next April it might be an interesting side trip.  I will be posting historical signs as thumbnail images in this post, to read them will require you clicking on the little green thumbnails to open the full sized sign in order to make it large enough to be legible.

Elm Street is a lovely old street of well maintained homes with dates of origin that would have the folks on the Antique Roadshow drooling. Elm Street is an exit from I-75 to Monroe on the north side of the River Raisin.  There is a south side of the river exit to East Front Street, where it is used mostly for manufacturing businesses.

At Elm and Monroe you can look south at Monroe’s downtown section. You see the collection of businesses housed in buildings right out of the early 1900′s.

Before it was renamed to Monroe Avenue the street was called the Dixie Highway (US 25).  So named because it runs straight down south all the way to Florida and served as  the escape route for many southern folks who came north lured by the Detroit auto building plants, and their high paying jobs.   Henry Ford and his five dollar a day jobs, grew into an engine that drove the US economy for years.   They built the cars, but they missed the good old boys and home towns of the south.  Folks who wanted to return home for a vacation in familiar hills and with family around them,  went back down to Dixie,  and they drove this route.    Now the road running along the lake has been named Dixie Street, but outside of Monroe city limits the old Dixie Highway is restored.

Looking across the river from the bridge it is hard to miss the FOX entrance.  The Fox Club is a building from it’s entrance down behind the street along side of the river that just screams speakeasy.  A place where in the 20’s the Canadian Liquor brought across Lake Erie during prohibition could be enjoyed.  The stage and dance floor entertained some of the eras biggest names on “the side of evil” according to the ladies of the churches.   Today it is making a return as a stage for young bands.  Still a bit unruly,  however for the most part above the law.  A small town like Monroe is no longer a place where a few dollars placed in the right hands could gain you immunity from prosecution.

Turning around it is even harder to miss the big statue of Custer, Monroe’s native son, at  the intersection of Elm and Monroe St.  Though he was born in Ohio he was raised in Monroe from an early age. Here a bit of Monroe’s  bragging is accomplished.  Like other signs it should be clicked to make readable.  Photos are also in a smaller size and clicking on them will open a larger version.

I’ve included a picture here of the Bacon house up in Wyandotte where Custer’s wife grew up. Not that it has a lot to do with Monroe, but D’s sister Sue used to play on the porch there as a little girl.  Recently in the area she wanted a good picture to show her kids, so here it is Sue.

Lizzie Bacon was the only child of the rich and powerful Bacon family.  A girl whose family  ran the activities and administered the law on the downriver “southern part of the Detroit river.”  Her father, the powerful Judge Danial Bacon had great misgivings about allowing her to marry Custer but relented after he quickly became a General at age 26.  When he was blamed for the defeat at the Little Big Horn, she spent the rest of her life trying to vindicate her husband.  She wrote many books about the west and her husband. A rich girl raised in a Genteel family followed her husband into the western wilderness, a place most women wanted to avoid.

Discussing Monroe, it would be remiss to not say anything about the LA-Z-Boy chair company which started here in 1929, during the great depression. A time when the economy was crashing due to an earlier bout of banking greed combined with the same political party on the same leash today that has again brought the worlds economy to it’s knees this year.

By becoming profitable  the LA-Z-Boy chair company prospered and the name of Monroe, where they still keep their word headquarters stood for quality merchandise.   I looked, but was unable to find any mention of the Monroe Shock absorber plant. A product loved by auto buffs the world over and continued to build upon the high quality image started by LA-Z-Boy.

What I did find further down Elm Street was the Sisters; Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  It would take a lot more space than I have available here to detail their accomplishments, however they do maintain an excellent web site of their own.  http://www.ihmsisters.org/www/home.asp

The best I can present is this image of the old Boys Dormitory, now a senior citizens home,  with the sign in front and below that a very wide angle picture of the revamped Girls Dormitory, chapel and the school proper.

This is a very wide panorama image, I strongly suggest clicking it for a larger version. Using Google Earth a nice overhead is available at 41º 55’ 39”N – 83º 24’ 08”W  The thing that caught my attention was the fact a very large building appeared to be abandoned with the grass uncut.  My surprise was; it is an attempt to have the prairie savanna returned to natural as it was when the school was first started.  The Sisters have gone green, their heating and air condition are partially handled by thermal ground sources.

Crossing over the river to drive back down into Monroe from the west I ran into this place, apparently abandoned, but when I walked up the stairs to peek in the windows, a lady came out and invited me in.  She was baking,  formulating recipes for creating baked good products.

While I should have whipped out my camera and taken a few pictures to show what a real test kitchen looks like, compared to the ones you see on the cooking channel, I didn’t want my welcome to disappear, so didn’t.  A plant manager was called and he happily spent some time telling me about the history and current use of this interesting place.  It is now the Amendt Milling Company, but in the past was the home of Lotus Flour,  milling the wheat from the nearby Michigan farmland.

When the Amendt mill closer to downtown Monroe burnt down, they merged the Lotus Milling and it kept the name Amendt, which had been a milling name for well over a century by that time.   They no longer mill flour but still process and deliver packaged mixes and such from this location.

Leaving  Monroe driving past the war memorials along the new Dixie Street road I search for my  old swimming hole of the fifties.  An old quarry where we would sneak in as kids at night and skinny dip until the local police ran us out.   There I notice another sign of the Monroe hanging on to the past.  This is the first railroad caboose I’ve seen in a very long time.   Apparently abandoned, as I looked for signs of use and saw none.

Driving further east and heading out to the freeway to return home, I pass the Vietnam War memorial helicopters.

It was then that the thought occurred, Monroe with all of it’s history seems fascinated with the failures of it’s military campaigns.  From the River Raisin battle of 1812, Custer’s mistake killing his troop to the fiasco in Vietnam.    Not lost by the troops who are honored as they should be, for giving so much to their country, but by the generals and politicians like Bush and Cheney who hid out when it was their turn to give instead of take.  A country that elects leaders who have not actually experienced the combat they are sending their troops off to fight, is a country that is bound to be ruled by the likes of the despicable assholes who have taken over the republican party today. The people who are using it to destroy the same America so many fought and died to create and preserve..

Bob’s Opinions…