Musings from my driveway, my home and my heart
The time and date of my wedding were inconvenient for my extended Polish family, a gambling group who liked to place bets on everything from the World Series to the next pope. I got married at 5 p.m. on May 6, 1978 at Our Lady Queen of Hope church in Detroit, which coincided with post... Continue Reading →
I always ended up with garlic breath after digging into my Easter basket as a kid. That’s because unlike American-style baskets, which were filled with chocolate bunnies and jelly beans, mine had a distinctly Polish flavor. My Polish grandmother, whose day job was running a little bar for Detroit factory workers on Michigan Avenue, always... Continue Reading →
When my grandmother Rozalia Krzemienski stepped off the Majestic – the sister ship of the Titanic – and arrived in America in 1928, she was an immigrant with a third-grade education, $2 in her pocket and a dream to come to Detroit and start a new life. Like many immigrants, she did not appear to... Continue Reading →
When a neighbor in her Polish village raised his rifle and shot her little dog, that was just the beginning of the heartache for my grandmother. The dog’s furry brown pelt was used as a collar on a new winter coat made by the neighbor’s wife. Grandma was reminded of the violent act every day... Continue Reading →
When I was growing up in Detroit in the 1950s and 1960s, there were 232 bars in my grandma’s neighborhood, a mainly Polish area in the city’s sixth police precinct. It’s no wonder that a river of booze ran through my family and the community. When I rode my pink Schwinn bike through the neighborhood... Continue Reading →
So macho is my father that he once removed an ingrown toenail with a hand-held drill. My brother Mike and I watched him use his fists to break up trouble at places like the old Tiger Stadium in Detroit or at Little League playgrounds in our northwest neighborhood during the 1960s. As a cop, he... Continue Reading →
My mother paid me an unusual compliment shortly after my honeymoon. “You’re the first bride in our family who wasn’t drunk at the wedding,” she said, referring to my large extended Polish family and the dozens of Detroit and Hamtramck ceremonies we had attended through the years. Well, that drinking comment about other brides may... Continue Reading →
Anita's Way 