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Santa Rosa Drive - 1965
Moving on up to the Westside
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I felt like George and Louise Jefferson (you remember that crazy couple from the popular sitcom The Jeffersons) as our family of four traveled from central Detroit to our new home - a mostly Jewish neighborhood with well-kept homes, lush lawns and sprawling backyards. It was the summer of 1965 and we were "moving on up" to the Westside. Everything was fresh and inviting and even though we were just the fourth Black family on our block I was ready to make new friends.
The first thing that caught my attention - in fact what I remember most as the van pulled up on Santa Rosa and West Outer Drives - were the enormous trees that lined the streets. They stood proudly like sentinels on guard or like gatekeepers greeting us to new adventures.
I think they were oak trees although my knowledge of dendrology, botany and other related sciences has long since dissipated - drying up like those fragile, multi-veined |
leaves that our teachers would have us collect from our yards, then ironing between two crisp pieces of wax paper that we could present to our mothers as keepsakes.
Every house on our street had a tree in front of it and the tops of those trees stretched up and out across the middle of the causeway, forming an amazing arch that provided us with plenty of shade in the summer, and a lot of leaves to both play in and eventually rake every fall. As the tree tops intertwined, they looked like dancers meeting for the very first time.
This was my street, these were my trees and I was five-years-old.
Then one day - the trees were gone. I don't remember how old I was but I know I was no longer the precocious, snaggle-toothed boy that believed the world had been created for his pleasure. Something had gone terribly wrong in my childhood Wonderland.
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| My daddy explained that my friends - the trees - had fallen victim to some sort of tree blight, maybe Dutch Elm's disease or some variation.
But I couldn't understand why a doctor couldn't heal them like my mom did whenever I scraped my knee or came down with the sniffles.
And so the City sent big, strong men with even bigger machines to cut down the trees - severing the arms, legs and torsos of my dancing companions from their once magnificent forms leaving only angry, ugly stumps with nutrient-deficient roots as reminders of their once mighty grandeur.
My father, a robust former gridiron star with a bellowing voice and a gentle soul, complained about the protruding roots and unsightly stumps that remained saying that the City should have removed the trees completely so that our sidewalk wouldn't have to be repaired when the roots made
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their inevitable appearance on the surface like Tupac's rose in Harlem - tearing up the cement and his perfectly-manicured lawn along the way.
But I didn't care about all of that. I just wanted to sit on our porch, tussling with the family dog, sipping kool-aid with a crazy straw from my favorite superhero cup (Batman was the man) and watch the wind blow our dancing trees like lovers engaged in a sensuous tango.
I missed my tree-friends and longed for their return but there would be no abatement to my disappointment. It would be my first time learning about the cycle of life and death and at that point in my young life, I could not have imagined that it was only the beginning of a malevolent malaise that would slowly overtake our neighborhood, the proud citizens of Detroit and eventually our way of life - forever altering the beauty that was once Motown. It would not be my last lesson in the fragility of life.
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Dear Michael:
Reflections on the Death of the
"King of Pop" from a Motown Survior |
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Once upon a time, when I was just a little boy, I had the opportunity to not only meet Michael Jackson, but to play with him and his brothers. Chances are, he would never remember the events that led to our "play session" together, but for an eight-year-old boy, it was a magical moment in my life.
My child care provider before and after school who watched and fed me until my parents or my older sister got home from work, Mrs. Hunt, was coincidentally, the babysitter for the children of the late and great, Marvin Gaye.
Mr. Gaye lived on Outer Drive on Detroit's West Side, three blocks from my own home. And after the Jackson Five had signed their contract with Motown, which was also at that time based in Detroit, it was announced that the group would be performing at a popular, outdoor summer event, the State Fair. The annual outing to the State Fair was our last hurrah before school doors opened once again in September and it was always an exciting adventure.
Mr. Gaye was married at that time to Barry Gordy's sister, Anna - one of the nicest women I have ever met.
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She treated Mrs. Hunt's daughter, Anita, who was the same age as me, and any children who entered the Gaye home, including me, like we were her very own.
One summer afternoon, which had been particularly fun with little Marvin running around the house and getting in every one's hair, Mrs. Gaye told us that Michael and his brothers would be singing at the State Fair and that she wanted to take us all to meet the boys.
After a lot of screaming and hollering and making sure it was okay with my parents, she loaded us all into her Rolls Royce Silver Shadow, a car that I liked so much that I begged my mother to get me a Matchbox (car) replica, and whisked us away like Glenda, the Good Witch of the North, to the concert.
Of course, being children with the Gaye family, Motown "kids," we received special treatment. For example, we didn't have to fight the crowds because Mrs. Gaye just kept driving and driving - on grass and sidewalks and around barriers and blockades that were mysteriously removed as her car approached. Finally, we got out of the car and stood in front of a trailer - and then, the five brothers came out and simply said, "Hello."
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| We wouldn't have much time to talk or play before it was time for them to take the stage - that would happen the following afternoon at a party that Mr. Gordy gave at his mansion on West Boston Boulevard, with all the goodies we could gobble up, and other fun activities including bowling, swimming, tennis, basketball and other children's games.
But what I remember most, both before Michael went on stage and the next day during the party and before the Jackson Five had to leave for another city and another concert, was the sad look in his eyes. It never really registered with me until just recently that even then, despite having it all, or so I believed, more than anything what Michael really wanted was the opportunity to do what I did every day and took for granted - enjoy being a little boy.
Maybe that's why he built Neverland on his sprawling estate. Perhaps that's why he invited little boys and girls to his home for celebrations that other adults could not understand. Maybe.
One writer who interviewed Jackson said that one of his greatest unfulfilled desires, when he was still a young boy, was to go outside and join other children, children that he did not know, on a playground and just … play.
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Perhaps now, in death, the man-child who touched our hearts with his uncanny ability to dance and sing will finally have the chance to romp and skip in the playgrounds of heaven.
And maybe now he is happy - at least, I would like to think so.
When I was a boy, we all wanted to be Marlon or Jermaine, Tito or Jackie, or of course, Michael, but I wonder, if I could have really switched places, would I have been able to embrace my new life and all of its challenges. When I look at the mountains that Michael Jackson was able to climb and the valleys that sometimes appeared to swallow him whole, I wonder if perhaps I was am actually the lucky one.
And I have decided to be satisfied with who I am and hold on to being an ordinary brother from Motown and celebrate the memories of a childhood when Detroit was a little like "heaven."
The essay above is from Kevin's collection of essays that he is currently completing for publication entitled, Growing Up Motown: When Detroit Was "Heaven."
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