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Chittock Avenue: Stories from a street with a reputation

Posted by Aaron - 23/08/10 at 02:08:39 am

For about a month, photographer Jake May and I walked up and down two blocks on Chittock Avenue, a street in Jackson with a growing bad reputation and site of the July 6 fatal shooting of Benjamin Willard. We wanted to find out what else happens on that street.

Life on Chittock: Plenty of eyes watch Chittock Avenue, and there is plenty to watch.

Plenty of eyes watch Chittock Avenue, and there is plenty to watch.

Morning to night, children play on its sidewalks, occasionally spilling into the street. Adults gather on porches; neighbors join. Cars speed up and down the hill between Rockwell Avenue and Morrell Street.

The 900 and 1000 blocks of the street are alive, teeming with activity, some neighborly, some not.

It is the latter — the consistent calls to police, loud disputes between families and neighbors, suspicious activity on the street and alley, and a murder last month — that has gained Chittock a reputation it might not deserve.

“I think there is a stigma,” said Juan Almaguer Jr.

When Jake and I started, people thought we were 1) from the cable company, 2) police, 3) case workers from the Department of Human Services. Once we assured people we were none of those things but journalists, all but a few welcomed us onto their porches and shared their stories. Now I cannot drive down the street without someone flagging me down just to chat.

Jake had his camera. I brought with me the paper’s Marantz digital recorder. In addition to the story, we produced three audio slideshows capturing life on Chittock.

Life on Chittock Street: Troy Bednar

Life on Chittock Street: Bruce Edwards

Life on Chittock Street: Wanda Jordan

One final note: Wanda Jordan grew up 3 miles from me in Ada, Michigan. Small world.

Lyon Street 500-foot Water slide

Posted by Aaron - 22/08/10 at 01:08:13 am

Went to downtown Grand Rapids Saturday afternoon to check out the 500-foot water slide on Lyon Street near Grand Rapids Community College.

Decided not to brave the five-hour plus line for a ride but got a good view of sliders from the catwalk above the street — until the police told people to leave.

Great atmosphere downtown. Awesome to see so many people. Thanks Rob.

What I learned today while blogging

Posted by Aaron - 06/08/10 at 08:08:49 pm

Because everyday is an adventure when you’re making it up as you go along.

Today I learned two things while blogging, both helpful.

One.

I learned how to make ♥ and ☺ and ☃ and ☂ and all kinds of other very useful characters. It is simple, which may explain why so many tweens use them. Simply press command + option + T and the special characters dialogue box will pop up. Then select the heart or umbrella you want and click insert.

So easy.

Two.

I learned I know nothing about CSS and style sheets and coding and all that.

Since I’ve started blogging again, I can’t make images align to the right or center and can’t make text wrap around them. I don’t know why. In previous blogging careers, this was not a problem. I googled the problem, found some solutions, started pasting gobbly-gook into my theme’s style sheet and presto-chango, not only do my photos not align and the text not wrap but now the photos don’t even show up.

I’ll just stick to writing, I guess.

Elections concerns … which might not be real

Posted by Aaron - 06/08/10 at 08:08:41 pm

I voted on Tuesday and did a pretty good job of it.

While I won’t disclose who I voted for, I will say that no one I picked won. I’m like the political kiss of death. Sorry.

But I did get confused. After successfully navigating the ballot (it’s a primary so you can’t cross the center line and vote for both parties LAME), I couldn’t navigate my way out of the polling place. I walked right out the entrance and didn’t know until I saw the big signs — “Enter Only,” and “Exit Only” — in the parking lot.

Concerned, I did what anyone would do and wrote an email to the local reporter covering the elections.

Dear Holly, (she covered the elections)

After voting today, I accidentally exited the polling place through the entrance door. It wasn’t until after I was outside that I saw the big signs that said “Enter Only” and “Exit Only.” There were no signs inside, and I was very confused.

Will my vote still count? I hope so.

I think the confusing signs are a ploy by Obama or those Tea Party people to take away my right to vote for my favorite American Idol singer.

Signed,
Concerned/confused voter

She wrote me back.

Dear Concerned Voter,

According to city Clerk Lynn Fessel, your vote will still count despite the mishap. Signs were posted to prevent congestion at poll entrance and exits and were intended to smooth the flow of pedestrian traffic at precincts, given the tremendous voter turnout that is expected in this important election.

You are welcome to vote for your favorite American Idol contestant in the write-in portion on the ballot. However it is likely that person does not live in the applicable state House, Senate or Congressional district, so they could not take office (or become the next American Idol, which has a completely different voting structure).

Thinking all that was pretty funny, I came up with a few more, but didn’t send these to Holly. She was pretty busy with the real election stuff.

Dear Holly,

I was surprised to walk into my polling place and not have Simon, Randy and Paula (OK, Ellen, but I don’t listen to a word she says, love ya Paula) tell me what they thought of the candidates. How am I supposed to vote for the best one?

Signed,

♥♥

P.S. I couldn’t find numbers to text my vote to anywhere on the ballot. WTF?

Dear Holly,

I went to the polls wearing my Barack Obama T-shirt, the one with the really cool red, white and blue themed photo of him, the famous one. However, I did not see Obama’s name on the ballot. Voting for him is so much fun. Why can’t I vote for him every year?

Signed,

First time voter in 2008

Dear Holly,

I don’t see politics (or anything really) as a matter of black and white, so I brought a box of crayons to the polls today. I filled the bubbles next to the candidates’ names using a color code, like black for “I don’t like you,” and pink for “I really like you” and all the colors in between for “I kind of like you.” Around some bubbles I drew a heart or star to show that I really like them. For some candidates I took out my scissors and cut their names right off the ballot. We won’t go into why.

This way, I feel my true vote was cast. Will it count?

Signed,

Local elementary school art teacher

Dear Holly,
I voted today, and like I do every year, I voted for myself. Yup, I wrote myself in for every race on the ballot. And like every year, I except to finish with just one vote in each race (except for the county commission. Dave, I owe you, thanks for the vote.) And like every year, I expect to be shunned by the local paper. I spent $3 on my campaign (don’t worry about it Dave, the beer was on me), and it didn’t even buy me an article, photo or phone call. I expect, once again, that my name will not be included in tomorrow’s election results.
You call this democracy?
Signed,
The guy who also writes lots of letters to the editor

Enjoy.

This has potential to fail

Posted by Aaron - 31/07/10 at 07:07:49 pm

A friend posted this message on Facebook today.

I just don’t see this working out. Sorry.

On a Williams Carlos Williams kick

Posted by Aaron - 31/07/10 at 07:07:16 pm

A few days ago, I stumbled across this piece on McSweeny’s.

This is Just to Say
That I’m Tired
of Sharing an
Apartment With
William Carlos Williams.
By Laura Jayne Martin

Will, you are a dick. You’re goddamn right I was saving those plums for breakfast.

Fine, it’s not like they’re my favorite food in the world, but I mean, they’re a seasonal fruit, you scumbag. Buy your own food for a change. All you do is sit around the house all day writing about red wheelbarrows and junk…
read more

I had a good chuckle (I really think I did chuckle, not laugh) while reading it, imagining, in part, what it would be like to share an apartment with such an eccentric.

It got me thinking back to some of my favorite William Carlos Williams poems. None of these should come as a surprise; they are probably among his most famous, but that’s just because they are so good.

I’m going to share them (ps the great thing about WCW’s poems, most of them are short, except Paterson, which is six books long). Not sure if this is legal or not, but if some bloggers can get away with posting mp3s, I’m sure a little poetry won’t throw anyone into a tizzy.

The first, of course, is The Red Wheelbarrow.

The Red Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Why so much depends upon a wheelbarrow or what it is doing beside the white chickens, I’ll never know. I did, though, come close to understanding the poem my senior year of high school. For a poetry a project, I picked Williams and The Red Wheelbarrow (I think my first choice was Bob Dylan and one of his songs but Ms. Kigar quickly put a stop to that). Somehow, I put together probably 10 pages or so about this 16-word poem. Not bad, eh?

Next is The Great Figure. This poem has tremendous potential energy (look at that, getting all sciency). It just builds and builds throughout and then rumbles away.

The Great Figure

Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
firetruck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city.

And finally … This is Just to Say. I don’t even like plums.

This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

All of these poems were copied from Selected Poems by William Carlos Williams, which I own, but left at my parents house, so I used the library’s copy.

PDFs of my heroin series in the Jackson Citizen Patriot

Posted by Aaron - 29/07/10 at 03:07:15 am

Maybe you are a print junkie like me. The internet is great, but some things look so good in print.

Like my series on heroin’s resurgence in Jackson County in the Jackson Citizen Patriot.

Below are pdfs of the pages. Click each link to download.

PS If you are my parents, don’t bother with the pdfs. I sent you copies. Love ya mom and dad!

Part 1: Addictive drug that can shatter lives ‘is back strong in Jackson’, July 25, 2010. (A1 pdf | A3 pdf)

Forced to choose between milk and heroin, Joe Pritchard called his dealer…

Once confined to dope houses and dens, slithering in the seedy underbelly of American cities in the 1970s, heroin is now a drug abused by all ages, all incomes and all over.

“And it is back strong in Jackson County,” Undersheriff Tom Finco said.

Part Two: ‘IT’S PURE EVIL’: Heroin kills. It strains families and destroys lives, July 26, 2010. (A1 pdf | A4 pdf)

Forced to choose between milk and heroin, Joe Pritchard called his dealer…

Once confined to dope houses and dens, slithering in the seedy underbelly of American cities in the 1970s, heroin is now a drug abused by all ages, all incomes and all over.

“And it is back strong in Jackson County,” Undersheriff Tom Finco said.

Part Three: Heroin addicts face physical and mental challenges when battling addictive drug, July 28, 2010. (A1 pdf | A4 pdf)

It is the toughest thing they will ever do.

Inside a Victorian house, set among the summer cottages and lakeside homes of northern Michigan’s sleepy town of Petoskey, almost 40 men wage war on addiction.

Among them is a 60-year-old with a lifetime habit of drinking; an 18-year-old with a drug habit that took hold fast and strong; and Joe Pritchard, a 39-year-old father of three from Jackson trying to rid his body and mind of the need for heroin.

“It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of pain,” said Pritchard, who was sent to Harbor Hall through the Jackson County Drug Recovery Court program.

Beating heroin is not a option. Addicts struggle internally, knowing they will square off with the disease for the rest of their lives. Police chase the drug, its users and its dealers.

Resurgence of heroin in Jackson County

Posted by Aaron - 28/07/10 at 05:07:30 pm

Heroin is back, and according to Jackson County Undersheriff Tom Finco, “it’s back strong in Jackson County.”

Nearly six months ago, I noticed an alarming amount of people telling Jackson County judges the reason they committed their crimes was to feed their heroin addiction. That spawned an exhaustive look at the problem of heroin in the county and the havoc it wreaks.

I wrote a series of stories — run over three days — trying to answer three questions: What is heroin? What is its impact? What is being done to fight it?

Part 1: Addictive drug that can shatter lives ‘is back strong in Jackson’, July 25, 2010.

Forced to choose between milk and heroin, Joe Pritchard called his dealer…

Once confined to dope houses and dens, slithering in the seedy underbelly of American cities in the 1970s, heroin is now a drug abused by all ages, all incomes and all over.

“And it is back strong in Jackson County,” Undersheriff Tom Finco said.

Part Two: ‘IT’S PURE EVIL’: Heroin kills. It strains families and destroys lives, July 26, 2010.

Heroin kills. It strains families and destroys lives. The drug lands people in jail, rehab and the gutter. The drug kept Joe Pritchard from his family, first jail, then rehab. It took Andrew Hirst from his family, killing the 24-year-old in May.

“It’s pure evil,” said Hirst’s father, Michael Hirst. “It’s going to kill you. That’s the bottom line.”

Part Three: Heroin addicts face physical and mental challenges when battling addictive drug , July 28, 2010.

It is the toughest thing they will ever do.

Inside a Victorian house, set among the summer cottages and lakeside homes of northern Michigan’s sleepy town of Petoskey, almost 40 men wage war on addiction.

Among them is a 60-year-old with a lifetime habit of drinking; an 18-year-old with a drug habit that took hold fast and strong; and Joe Pritchard, a 39-year-old father of three from Jackson trying to rid his body and mind of the need for heroin.

“It’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of pain,” said Pritchard, who was sent to Harbor Hall through the Jackson County Drug Recovery Court program.

Beating heroin is not a option. Addicts struggle internally, knowing they will square off with the disease for the rest of their lives. Police chase the drug, its users and its dealers.

Clips page

Posted by Aaron - 26/07/10 at 02:07:39 am

Check out the new clips page I created.

It houses some classic Aaron Aupperlee pieces of journalism from The Citizen Patriot, The Kalamazoo Gazette and The Desert Dispatch. Nearly four years of bylines condensed into one page.

Death of Air Force officer 1st Lt. Joel Gentz

Posted by Aaron - 24/06/10 at 02:06:58 am

On June 9, 2010, 1st Lt. Joel Gentz, an Air Force combat rescue officer from Grass Lake, Michigan, was killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan.

As a combat rescue officer, Gentz was one of the most highly trained airmen in the Air Force. He led a crew of pararescuemen on search and rescue missions.

For the Citizen Patriot’s complete coverage of Gentz’s death and funeral, click here.

Joel Gentz remembered by family, friends, former teachers and fellow airmen, June 24, 2010.

Before Joel Gentz decided to join the Air Force, jump out of airplanes and save wounded men, women and children, his brother Jared and sister Rachel put him through unofficial training.

During their brother’s funeral Thursday in Chelsea, the two shared stories of camping, swimming, spying and swamping, bringing tears but much laughter.

“We always tried to be like Joel and looked up to him,” said Jared Gentz. “We’ll miss you Joel.” (more)

Chelsea streets lined for funeral procession of First Lt. Joel Gentz, June 24, 2010.

Flags around Chelsea flew at half-staff and people lined the streets to pay final respects to First Lt. Joel Gentz.

Men in suits, boy scouts, motorcycle clubs clad in leather waved flags as they waited from the procession to pass.

Gentz, 25, was killed in a June 9 helicopter crash in Afghanistan. As an elite combat rescue officer, the 2002 Chelsea High School graduate commanded a squad of pararescuemen on a NATO rescue mission. (more)

Family of First Lt. Joel Gentz shares memories of airman who died in Afghanistan, June 13, 2010.

Judy Gentz called her son a peacemaker.

He flew eight missions a day into hostile territory in Afghanistan. He rescued men, women and children, Afghanis and Americans.

First Lt. Joel Gentz did not fight. He helped.

The Grass Lake man, a 2002 graduate of Chelsea High School, was one of four killed Wednesday in a helicopter crash during a rescue mission in Afghanistan. Gentz was 25.

The combat rescue officer once told his father there was no greater joy than saving an Afghani child and then seeing the look on the faces of the child’s parents. Gentz saved a lot of children, said his father, Steve Gentz.

“Just knowing our son was doing stuff like that means a lot to us,” he said Sunday. (more)

Airman from Jackson County’s Grass Lake killed in helicopter crash in Afghanistan, June 10, 2010.

An elite combat rescue officer in the U.S. Air Force, 1st Lt. Joel C. Gentz of Grass Lake died in a helicopter crash while serving in Afghanistan.

The 25-year-old is the first Jackson County resident to die serving in Afghanistan. Gentz was assigned to the 58th Rescue Squadron at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.

Gentz and three other airmen were killed when their HH-60 Pavehawk helicopter went down Wednesday near Forward Operation Base Jackson, said Lt. Ken Lustig, a public affairs officer at Nellis Air Force Base. Three airmen were injured in the crash. (more)

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