The Olmsted Brothers’ 1913 plan for Ypsi’s stretch of the Huron River
Way back in 2007, after learning that my friend Nat Edmunds was in possession of an original copy of the 1913 Huron River Improvement Plan drafted by influential landscape architects John Charles...
View ArticleTotally Quotable Arlo: In Charge Edition
There are a few dozen things I probably should be writing about tonight, but I don’t feel much up to it. I was at a friend’s house earlier this evening, when he unexpectedly invited me to check out...
View ArticleSo, Ypsilanti, should we repair or remove the Peninsular Dam?
As you may have heard, over the next several months, members of our City Council will be debating whether we should remove Ypsilanti’s aging Peninsular Dam, or invest approximately $640,000 in its...
View ArticleFishing by drone in the Huron River
I’m tempted to write about Trump’s big white power friendly rally of insanity in Florida tonight, but, instead, I think I’ll just share this footage I shot yesterday evening of someone fishing by drone...
View Article“Herp Talk” with local amphibian biologist Katy Greenwald
Over the past few weeks, I’ve posted here about both tadpoles and frogs that my son and I had found in Riverside Park. Well, as a result of these posts, I’ve come into contact with Eastern Michigan...
View ArticleTalking about Highland Cemetery’s Starkweather Chapel, and the history of...
The Starkweather Chapel in Ypsilanti’s Highland Cemetery, for those of you who may not have noticed, has been undergoing some much needed renovation work this past year. Here, with more on the history...
View ArticleMark’s Covid Diary…. May 17
A week or so ago, I tried something different here, and just gave myself a set amount of time to write about things going on in my life, without giving too much thought as to what was happening in the...
View ArticleMark’s Covid Diary… May 25, 2020
Last year on Memorial Day, my son and I discovered a giant vernal pool teaming with tadpoles at Riverside Park, so we thought we’d go back today in hopes of finding more. While we didn’t find any frogs...
View ArticleMark’s Covid Diary… August 23, 2020
A few evening’s ago, my son and I set out to see if we could find a new path along the Huron River. By the time we were done, we’d walked eight miles, and found some incredible trails that we’d never...
View ArticleTalking about death with my son
I was 13 years old on December 29, 1981 — the day that my great grandmother Minnie Wise Florian died in Liberty, Kentucky. I was with her when she passed, a few weeks after her 89th birthday. It was a...
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