Motorin’ to Michigan-September 2019

I was invited to participate in the Reflecting on the Past…Reaching toward the Future conference at the University of Michigan. The conference happened to be held a few days before my birthday, so I contacted my niece who lived in the Detroit area to see if she would be able to get together.

She showed me a wonderful pre-birthday evening, and it was amazing to talk with the young lady who had grown up with such maturity.

Unfortunately, she had to work on my b-day, so I decided to make a day of it by visiting Motown, aka Hitsville, U. S. A., in Detroit. Even though it was a Tuesday, I got one of the last online tickets for the tour. I arrived early enough to find close parking and get several exterior shots. The facility was more accessible than I had expected, so I was able to see virtually all of the house that was available for the tour. This included the recording studio and the rather interesting work that had been to the structure to create the desired reverb. The tour guide called for a volunteer to sing up into the square cut into the ceiling so that everyone could hear the reverb it created. Of course, I volunteered! And I sang “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child.”

We were restricted to taking pictures of limited portions of the house, but what I could capture is below:

The next day, I drove back to Ann Arbor to visit the Gerald R. Ford Library on the University of Michigan campus. While I was not a supporter of the late president, I am a believer in learning what I can about history, even when I don’t agree with parts of it.

I was the only patron during my visit, and there was only a security officer staffing the museum. Therefore, I wandered and read descriptions of the exhibits that went from his college days at Michigan, to his years in congress, to the path that led to him becoming president upon the forced resignation of Richard Nixon. I was particularly interested in the exhibit’s treatment of the resignation and Ford’s pardon of the former president.

In addition to the reproduction of the Oval Office and other memorabilia about the president, there was a small section dedicated to his wife, Betty Ford. Some of my pictures are below:

All of the pictures are available at https://singin1.com/piwigo/index.php?/category/university-michigan-motown-tour-gerald-ford-prez-library-septemb.

I didn’t attempt to visit the museum in Grand Rapids because I was scheduled to be at work the next day, and I still had to drive through Chicago’s evening rush hour.