Musings from my driveway, my home and my heart
My mother’s Polish Catholic wedding on May 3, 1952 in Detroit included some startling elements and Old World customs. She wore a pearl-encrusted tiara and a custom gown fit for a queen, held hands with her old boyfriend Richard at the reception, and issued a warning to the Blessed Mother in church after the ceremony.... Continue Reading →
“Sto Lat,” the traditional Polish song that says “may you live 100 years,” was one of my dad’s favorites. We sang it every year on his birthday – and he nearly made it to that milestone, dying at 95 in 2019. February 17 would have been his 100th birthday. My brother-in-law Ralph texted me recently and... Continue Reading →
During the Great Depression, my grandfather would collect pieces of coal that fell off dump trucks rumbling through alleys in Detroit and use them to heat the house for a few days. This gleaning habit also included picking up scraps of wood he would find in the garbage. Some of these he used to fashion... Continue Reading →
My mother poses next to my dad’s two-tone 1958 Ford Thunderbird in the driveway of our home in northwest Detroit. She’s dressed in a shimmery gold outfit with a quadruple strand of white beads and a wide-brimmed hat trimmed in colorful cabbage roses. Her outfit is the perfect complement to the coupe’s aqua-and-white exterior. Clotheslines... Continue Reading →
To pass out candy on Halloween this year, I had to fill out a form required by my subdivision and turn it in by October 24. No more just flipping on the porch light and putting out a simple carved pumpkin or two. The organizational effort in the neighborhood included a notice that our homeowners’... Continue Reading →
When I was in the fourth grade at St. Mary of Redford elementary school, Sister Eudora gave us a classic assignment: what do you want to be when you grow up? “A police officer!” I wrote, explaining in great detail how much I admired my father, a Detroit Police detective. I got an A+ on... Continue Reading →
When my grandmother was 12 years old, Russian soldiers quartered on her family’s farm in Poland during the 1914 Battle of Galicia, a major conflict between Russia and Austria-Hungary during the early stages of World War I. When the family heard soldiers tramping on the road, they rushed to bury food to keep it out... Continue Reading →
When my dog Rosie died peacefully on March 26, it marked the end of 14 years in the witness protection program. Just like the human programs run by the U.S. Marshals Service and other government entities to create new identities and protect innocent victims from harm, Rosie’s canine version was designed to keep her safe... Continue Reading →
I’m staving off the pandemic blues by throwing myself into a home-improvement project that includes a bookcase shaped like an elephant and several gallons of Benjamin Moore’s First Light pink paint. The idea is to transform a guest bedroom in my house into a magical kid’s playroom, one that will delight my three grandchildren once the... Continue Reading →
When I was in the second grade, my friend Patrice asked if I could come home with her after school to play with Barbie dolls and meet her mother. Even before I saw the iron lung set up in the living room of Patrice’s house, I could hear the rhythmic “whoosh.” Her mother, a polio victim,... Continue Reading →
Glancing down at the Christmas decorations around my front door, the Amazon delivery driver momentarily froze. “Rosebud,” he said, focusing on the old sled I haul out every year and carefully position amid the greenery and ornaments. I appreciated the faded pop-culture reference in the middle of his rush to deliver packages, and it made me... Continue Reading →
During a recent Skype session with one of my students, I noticed he was clutching a tiny stuffed teddy bear. Most of the time, it was out of view, but since he talks with his hands, I occasionally got a glimpse of it. He is one of my college-essay students, an athletic guy who enjoys... Continue Reading →
On a shelf in my kitchen is a plain white pitcher that used to belong to my husband’s grandmother Mary, a farm wife in Harvard, Nebraska during the Great Depression. In it I keep a handful of dirt that my sister brought me from my grandmother’s farming village in Huta Przedborska, Poland after visiting there... Continue Reading →
From the time she could hold a watering can, my four-year-old granddaughter Eleanor has been a dedicated gardener. When I bought her a yellow wheelbarrow last summer, her mother told me Eleanor sometimes would wake up in the early morning and head outside in her pajamas to rake leaves. Since the COVID-19 pandemic and the... Continue Reading →
Reading Bette Carrothers’ online “Our Town” column from New Baltimore, Michigan every Sunday night has become one of my favorite pandemic pastimes. The 85-year-old Carrothers writes about such seemingly mundane topics as yard sales, how Memorial Day ceremonies were observed (“with reverence”), and small-town concerns, such as a family searching for a missing memorial bench... Continue Reading →
Early on in the COVID-19 pandemic, my ophthalmologist sent an email that he was offering “virtual eye exams” to his patients. But when I developed a serious eye problem over the Memorial Day weekend, I was advised that I couldn’t be treated on Zoom; despite a continuing “stay-at-home” order in Michigan, I had to come... Continue Reading →
By Daniel Lienert From his Navy destroyer escort, the USS William C. Miller, my grandfather Chester Pyzik saw combat in nearly every major Pacific battle in World War II, from the Gilbert and Marshall Islands to Iwo Jima. Over the ensuing decades, he romanticized his war stories to focus on such details as the high-quality... Continue Reading →
My student in California apologized for her raspy voice, and said she would prefer not to Skype and just connect by phone for our tutoring session this week. Her dream is to become a physician’s assistant, and we were discussing the new supplemental essay questions that some schools are asking, including “How has COVID-19 affected... Continue Reading →
The day after my parents’ 67th wedding anniversary on May 3, 2019, my mother was diagnosed with late-stage ovarian cancer. Heartbroken, my 95-year-old father died on June 28, and my mother followed 10 weeks later. Determined to honor their 68th anniversary with a blog post, I began searching through family albums to find the perfect... Continue Reading →
When I was a newlywed living in New Baltimore, Michigan my father-in-law Robert Lienert used to drop in several times a week and visit while I made dinner. He would entertain me with stories about growing up on a small farm in Harvard, Nebraska during the days of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression.... Continue Reading →
I’ve been teaching people how to write at a distance since 2004. In the past year I’ve tutored students in Shanghai, Singapore, Jakarta, Sydney, Detroit and Los Angeles via Skype. They are almost always learning to write college essays for undergraduate admissions, Ph.D. programs, and fellowships, but occasionally I get the odd request from a... Continue Reading →
“As a young child, I danced on the bar for nickels!! Lol!! Could you please call me? The emailed message added this tantalizing tidbit: “Your grandma and grandpa are my godparents!!” In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, people with a link to my grandparents who owned the Rose Café bar on Michigan Avenue in Detroit... Continue Reading →
Tidying guru Marie Kondo is urging the world to get organized while everyone is holed up during the COVID-19 pandemic. It turns out cleaning the house is forging connections between long-lost friends – and even strangers. My first inkling of this came in late March, when Iklas Bahoura-Bashi, a student I hadn’t heard from in... Continue Reading →
After stress-baking, grooming the schnauzer, and endless rounds of the card game Exploding Kittens this weekend, my husband and I decided to quit squandering our time. We signed up for edX, the massive open online course provider that serves a worldwide community and offers thousands of free classes. Our dining room table became our classroom... Continue Reading →
“Do you have any dot stickers?” texted my daughter-in-law Lindsey, now tasked with home schooling a four-year-old and a toddler because of the COVID-19 crisis. I found a cache of them in a kitchen drawer stuffed with Fourth of July sparklers, recipes and other assorted junk. The dots – inexpensive and invaluable craft items –... Continue Reading →
Most weekends, I head over to my granddaughter Eleanor’s house loaded down like Mary Poppins with books, games, Calico Critters and all of their accessories. The coronavirus quarantine wasn’t going to interrupt our routine. So we live-streamed “Nini’s Story Time” on our iPads on Saturday, with three of the Calico Critters standing in as “teachers.”... Continue Reading →
In the past 24 hours, my husband and I have received texts and emails from friends and family in Seoul, Beijing, New York and Rome about how social distancing is affecting everything from “talking shop” to stress eating. Here are the best: From our son Dan in New York City: “In our neighborhood last night at... Continue Reading →
Some people in Newport, Oregon are calling 9-1-1 when they run out of toilet paper and one acquaintance tells us his elderly father is urging him to hoard whiskey and cigarettes to use for barter in an emergency. But at my house we’ve resolved to keep calm and carry on during the coronavirus pandemic, panic... Continue Reading →
ANN ARBOR, Michigan – The buzz began in my Pilates class on Thursday night, when several female executives from the University of Michigan began wondering out loud how they were going to conduct business from home during the coronavirus pandemic. They were concerned about everything from domestic distractions and maintaining a professional atmosphere to gaining... Continue Reading →
"Anita Lienert is a master storyteller, using all of the skills she acquired as a reporter to weave together remembrances of Detroit that are both personal and provocative. This is a true blog, taking readers on a journey beyond quotes and facts and into territory they can feel. Whether writing with style and substance about... Continue Reading →
Just days after the 1967 Detroit riot, my father packed up the family in his Oldsmobile and took us on a terrifying road trip to Twelfth Street, the epicenter of the civil disturbance 50 years ago this month. Faded color photos from that trip are tucked away in a family album that ended up in... Continue Reading →
My grandmother, Rozalia Krzemienski, a Polish immigrant with a third-grade education, ran a tiny shot-and-a-beer bar for autoworkers in Detroit for 60 years. I spent my childhood summers with her, watching her deal with customers and make decisions as the small-business owner of the Rose Café, which was named after her. She taught me some... Continue Reading →
My friends come to me for car advice because I’ve covered the global auto industry for more than 20 years. But they also stop by when they want to talk about . . .
Anita's Way 