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What’s your favorite color?

Posted by Aaron - 22/01/11 at 06:01:45 am

“What’s your favorite color?” Nick asked.

Aaron started, “I was talking to my mom the other night, complaining about Jackson.”

“I don’t get you guys and complaining about Jackson,” Nick interrupted. “Unless you grew up in some great city, what is wrong…”

It was Aaron’s turn to interrupt. “I’ve narrowed my complaints to two,” he said. “There is no 24-hour coffee shop and no home delivery of the New York Times.”

“That’s simple,” Nick shot back. “Buy a coffee pot and go out and buy your papers.”

Aaron started to protest the response as the two walked into the food store. Flour, milk and something else, they needed.

“What’s your favorite color?” Nick asked again as they stood in line at the checkout.

Aaron scanned the store to see if a color caught his eye. Nothing.

“Definitely not blue,” he said. “I’m sick of blue. Perhaps that color.”

He pointed to a shade of brown or green, he couldn’t be sure, on a sign in the store.

“Band aids,” Nick said. “Where are the band aids.”

He had forgotten band-aids.

“I know where they are,” Nick said.

He left Aaron to stand in line with the basket and went in search of band-aids. One man in front of Aaron had three bags of oranges and two cases of Mountain Dew in his cart. Nothing else. Aaron wondered. He looked at his own cart. Flour. Milk. Granola. His eyes glanced over the headlines of the checkout aisle magazines. Breakups. Celebs getting fat. Lesbians.

Nick returned just as Aaron walked up to one of the checkout stations. He handed the basket to Nick who started scanning the items.

“I was hoping we’d get this one,” Aaron said, grabbing a magazine from the rack. “I wanted to know how he broke her heart.”

A photo of Taylor Swift was one the cover in the lower right corner. Above the photo, the headline, “How he broke her heart.” Aaron’s dad hates Taylor Swift. He saw her once on television and just said, “She’s terrible,” before changing the channel. George H.W. Bush, the older one, Bush I, doesn’t mind Taylor Swift. In an interview with Esquire he called her “an unspoiled girl.”

In that same issue of Esquire, director Aaron Sorkin said you are allowed on “fuck” in a PG-13 movie. Unfair, he claimed. “Not all fucks are the same.”

Nick had trouble scanning in the items. He cursed. A lady came to help. She entered codes on a touch screen with robotic enthusiasm. Nick’s card wouldn’t swipe. He cursed. A lady came to help. She entered codes on a touch screen with robotic enthusiasm. By the exit door, a teenage male employee of the store was talking to a teenage female employee. She had long hair, dark blonde, in a ponytail that sat calmly on the back of her blue uniform face. She had a cold but refreshing. He liked her.

Aaron and Nick left the store. Aaron doesn’t know Nick’s favorite color. He’s never asked.

Round and round on ice

Posted by Aaron - 03/01/11 at 04:01:55 am

Forty seconds may not be enough ice kart racing action. Or it may be plenty.

Read the story here.

Dylan and Paul: Paralyzed with friends

Posted by Aaron - 15/10/10 at 08:10:14 pm

On Thursday night, Citizen Patriot photographer Katie Rausch and I drove out to Grass Lake to drop in on Paul and Dylan. Dylan’s house was completely dark; the whole family was at brother Seth’s junior varsity football game.

Paul had three friends over. They all sat around the bed in his room playing Magic: The Gathering, a role-playing card game. Paul played Magic a few times before his accident but did not take to it.

During therapy, Dylan and Paul play a lot of cards. One, they can; they both have some movement in the hands. Two, holding cards, dealing cards, shuffling cards, strengthens tiny muscles in their hands they both would love to have back.

Paul was bored one afternoon, reading a message board online and looking for a new hobby. Some people on the message board were talking about Magic. He decided to give it another shot.

Within a week, Paul had taught four of his friends the game. (By the way, the game, if you have never played is complicated. Paul has promised to teach me.) Thursday, Paul and three friends had alternating two-on-two matches underway. No one wanted to face Paul.

“It’s becoming the new craze in Grass Lake,” Paul’s father told me.

I am lucky to have met Paul and Dylan over the past months. Their accidents placed significant challenges in front of them and through our interviews, they have challenged me. The story was not easy and at times, frustrating, but it is one of the more enjoyable projects I have completed.

Enjoy.

Dylan Radabaugh and Paul Powell

Grass Lake teens injured in separate accidents forge friendship

They pulled pranks on friends and family who spent the night.

They staged wheelchair races through the courtyard and hospital halls.

And there was something about a bucket used as a helmet and a giant Michigan State University flag as a cape. Don’t ask.

Dylan Radabaugh and Paul Powell tell only a few of the stories from their time together in a shared room on the sixth floor of C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital. If asked about others, the two Grass Lake Township teenagers look at each other and smile mischievously.

“We ran the place for quite a while,” Paul said.

Separate accidents in June paralyzed Dylan, 16, and Paul, 17. Dylan was in a car crash June 6 at Bohne and Kalmbach roads in Grass Lake Township. Paul hit his head on the bottom of a pool June 17 in Napoleon Township.

Related story: Doctors say prognosis for recovery is low for both teens

Neither can move much below their chests, including legs and abdominals. They do not have control of their hands and fingers. But above the neck, the boys are just that, boys, albeit slightly quirky boys, ones with bold personalities.

But that has nothing to do with the accidents.

“I’m still me,” Dylan said.

A story about pumpkins

Posted by Aaron - 04/10/10 at 03:10:21 am

I had a plan set before I went to cover the Fall Harvest Festival at Jackson’s Ella Sharp Park.

[Read resulting story here]

Talk to kids about pumpkins. Kids love pumpkins.

So Sunday, I did just that.

There were a few University of Michigan themed squashes and a few Michigan State ones. Next week is the big game. When one Wolverine fan figured out I would probably be rooting for the Spartans, he not only refused to be in the newspaper but also threatened to break my video camera. He is 7.

Smiley faces were big this year. There were a few scary ones. One girl painted a monkey face on her pumpkin. Others went with bats, cats, ghosts, and a mummy dripping blood. The mummy dripping blood girl, who is 5, was way too into zombies. But she will probably be well prepared for the impending zombie apocalypse.

The best pumpkin, though, hands down, no doubt winner, was one by a little 4-year-old girl. Among the shapes and squiggles of any 4-year-old creation, there was a face — two eyes, a dot for a nose and a big smile.

She was shy and would not tell me who she painted on her pumpkin. Her mother, however, told me it was Justin Bieber, pop-star, heart-throb, Twitter sensation, and her husband.

When I asked the 4-year-old if it was Justin Bieber on her pumpkin, she smiled just a little before covering her face with her paint stained hands.

Anyway, some of the braver souls told me about their pumpkins on video. Enjoy!

Pumpkins at Fall Harvest Fest

Dinner along Lake Superior

Posted by Aaron - 30/09/10 at 02:09:48 am

I cooked dinner as the sun set into the Lake Superior shore. And as the stars came out, I made my tea perched on a flat rock. The waves crashed below. The last rays of sunlight faded west.

“It is still daylight in Canada,” I said, looking north. Dim, narrow bands of light glowed; wildfires stretched along the horizon.

“Is that Canada, those lights?” I thought.

My tea cooled slowly. I waited, taking small sips, burning my tongue at first.

I waited. It was warmer tonight than last, and clearer. There are so many stars. I lay back — my back against the rock — and looked up at the stars.

I listed all that I had seen that day: a snake, a frog, two freighters, a park ranger with a gun. I found a quarter dropped on the trail.

And now all these stars, there were more than I was used to.

I sat up and tried my tea, still too hot. I held it between my hands and dangled my feet over the ledge. The water faded from a deep blue to empty black, matching the sky. I looked at nothing. The bands of fire had fizzled.

“Maybe that wasn’t Canada,” I thought.

The shoreline’s details became finer as my eyes adjusted to the darkness: the dollhouse-size steps cut into the cliff’s sandstone face, blackened by algae or fungus or sediment, the outline of a stranded log pushed by waves onto the beach, footprints left in the sand.

“If I could stay out here long enough, I would not need this light in my pocket,” I thought.

“I’d be like a wolf,” I said, out loud.

Or like a deer, or cat. How do animals see at night? What do they see? Do they see?

More stars now, but I don’t know who they are. I look to the southwest and see what could be a galaxy — the Milky Way — or a cloud, illuminated by starlight. I want to know so much: constellations and what they mean, the names of plants and trees.

What kind of snake was it I saw today? Where were the freighters going? Where is that blinking star above me, with wings, flying, and who is onboard?

I wish I knew about rocks. I saw an opaque one that looked brand new and a grey stone that looked old.

And fish, how to catch, clean and cook them? Does Lake Superior have tides? Where is the moon tonight? How far north does the North Star still work?

I wish I knew about rip currents. If I knew more about rip currents, I might not be so afraid of them, and I would have swam longer today in the crisp water. It felt so clean.

I took a big gulp of tea. It felt like I spilled something warm down the front of my shirt.

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.

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