Cheryl Ann Mull Moody

Purple Rose for Our Theatre Queen

Wild, funny, big-hearted, snarky, wonderful crazy woman. We met in high school backstage. One of the first things she did for me was wrangle a furious girlfriend who just found out the guy who'd started dating me had stopped dating her. Opening night, minutes before curtain up, that girl was going to deck me. The show must go on! Cheryl Ann did big deeds for people and spurned gratitude, but wow – cross her, and she'd take you out at the knees. She always loved her people wholeheartedly.

Many years later we were roomies in my Detroit house we called The House For Women on Their Way to Do Something Else. She would hear of a woman who could use a room, and in she'd move. Tennessee had a cousin Alabama, who just moved north. Come on in. Cheryl Ann had Tennessee roots her own self. Stinkin' Creek Road, if I remember correctly. We got introduced to peanuts in Coke.

Cheryl asked - soon after moving in - if she could use the oven. Sure! I said. She came back into the living room - did you know there are books in there? Oh, that's where those went! We both read the books she dragged out of the oven immediately. Forget dinner.

We all pitched in for household bills, and had a Chinese puzzle box on the coffee table for other stuff. Like psychics. And parties. And stuff. If you couldn't get the puzzle box open, you'd had enough stuff already.

She had pet names for all of us. She always called me Linda Ruth. She called my sister EA. I called her Cheryl Ann, with a hard CH and a twangy Tennessee accent.

Cheryl ran phone interference for everyone in the house. Is she here? I'll check. If she got a head shake no, she'd tell the person on the other end whatever story she thought up. If it was my mother, she just told her I wasn't in. She always knew what her friends needed.

I left the Christmas tree up until April one year. Cheryl Ann told people I wasn't going to take it down until the hostages came home. She always covered our foolishness.

So many wonderful memories. We laughed more than we did anything else. She loved to laugh, and did often and deep.

Among the pictures is a welcome home dinner she did for me. Fancy tablecloth, sign, apron et al. I had probably been gone 3 days. She did thoughtful things for people her whole life.

One of the men I was dating was older. Cheryl called him Dad. We'd take the roomies who were home on dinner dates. Cheryl would start a ruckus before we got down the driveway. "Are we there yet?" "Dad, she's poking me." "I have to go to the bathroom."

At one of the parties, 3 men I was dating all showed up. The house was big enough, and this party was on all 3 floors and in the back and front yards, so Cheryl would find me, warn me, head him(s) off, and I'd duck up down and around like a cartoon whodunit. She always had your back.

She saved me more than once, and with love and, when appropriate, a good scold.

We said when we were old ladies in the nursing home, we'd have a big couch. She would read on one end, and I would read on the other. She's now reading on the big couch in heaven, and one day, I'll take the other end.

I will always love her. Always.

Dollhouse Beginning 1992

My sister was cutting my hair in her kitchen in Detroit, while my other sister talked about what needed to happen in that house before the arrival of the baby, due in 2 months. Crib assembled, supplies laid on, daycare acquired. Susan quoted some prices, having 2 children of her own in daycare. So much money! I peeked around my hair - for an infant? What do babies do? Sleep, eat, eliminate, sleep some more. I told my pregnant sister - if I don't have a good job by then, I'll watch the baby. A week later, my niece was born prematurely. We started running. Paint the room, assemble crib, lay on supplies, get to library to learn how babies really do work. That tiny girl changed my life. She didn't sleep in a crib for a year. I had to watch her breathe. In out in out. I called her mother to report every new skill - working mothers miss all that great stuff. And when my other sister figured out I wasn't going to abandon this lovely role, she brought her 2 out of daycare. My day started at 5 a.m. and ended at 6 p.m. when I dropped the baby off at home. Three years of love and learning and joy. And I banked every nickel I could, because a divorce was in my near future.

Cancer In A Jar

January 1997.  I no longer remember the exact day. We had to be at Harper Hospital at 5:00 a.m. Another woman was checking in as well, and we "no, please, you first" responded to the call for next. An O.R. was scheduled for 12 hours to get the cancer in my head out. In the room would be my surgeon, a maxillofacial prosthedontist (and his spare parts, including a nose, maxillary bone, eye socket) a back-up plastic surgeon, many other professional medical people. My sister said she couldn't imagine what I was about to live through. I told her it would be her who lives through those hours. I'd be awakened in post-op after it was all over. I awoke in recovery to a guy in surgical gear calling my name. First thing I said was there are duckies on your cap. He said it's in a jar. Do you understand me? It's in a jar.

That January day was preceded by a year of trying to get a surgical referral, of learning at high speed through a traumatic situation how to get what I needed. How to hurdle the gatekeepers, trample the stoppers. That was the year of Flat Alice: anyone who tried to get in my way. The year of Beckie being at my side for each encounter, of her agreement to hold my consciousness until I was ready to take it back, of her getting me to a chair before I passed out when I saw the room of face parts in the MP's office as I hung up my coat. Of sitting in her car in the freezing cold after the MP told me he could replace my eye, but he couldn't make it blink, and Beckie slamming both hands onto the steering wheel, shouting "Damn it! Why can't he make it blink?" Of her being my ears, my guide, as well as continuing to be my Best Friend in the Whole Wide World.

Of children who became my spiritual advisors. Of my mother, unaware she was going to die of cancer soon, trying to find a way to bond with me that did not include disease.

A year of fools and misogynists and incompetent famous doctors and ridiculous healthcare network rules and paperwork. A year of miracle workers, angels on earth, and family, friends, laughter and terrible pain.

There would be another six years of surgeries to repair and replace. Six years of deepening and new friendship and acute self-discovery. Six years descending into personal financial crisis, and ascending to gratitude and awareness. Six years of losing my mother and friends to that awful disease.

Through it all there would always be that day in January when Dr. John Jacobs said it's in a jar.

Brigg's Mansion Stone Hedge For Sale

Stone Hedge, the home automotive magnate Walter O. Briggs built in 1915 for his family is for sale at the bargain price of $450,000. Architects Chittenden and Kotting designed the pale fieldstone manor at 700 W. Boston Boulevard. 9,638 square feet, 11 bedrooms, 9 fireplaces, 7 bathrooms, copper gutters, a cold fur closet, a liquor safe, stained glass windows, Pewabic tile. Carved into the library mantel are famous Detroit Tigers and famous opponents - Hank Greenberg, Babe Ruth, Charlie Gehringer, Lou Gehrig. Mr. Briggs owned the team from 1920 to his death in 1952. Tiger Stadium was originally Briggs Stadium, home to both the Detroit Tigers and Detroit Lions, but despite being on the National Register of Historic Places, it was completely demolished in 2009. Neighbors in the Boston Edison neighborhood included Charles Fisher (next door on Boston Boulevard) and Henry Ford's family was around the block. Mark Hickey has some beautiful pictures of houses on the two streets. I've loved this part of Detroit for decades. My mother lived in a house there that was a home for working single women. My father courted her from the parlor - no men allowed anywhere else in the building. I wanted to buy a house on Boston back when the two streets were terribly neglected and unloved; boarded windows, fire-licked roofs, bedraggled gardens, only a few homes maintained. Since 1980, people have bought homes, repaired and planted, and the house I wanted to buy is now lovely and occupied. I hope someone who will love Stone Hedge buys it, lives happily in it, and doesn't change too much of the gorgeous history.

Detroit: The Next American Revolution

Grace Lee Boggs is a woman I heard about just last weekend. I'm sorry I didn't know about her sooner. Started reading her newest book "The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty First Century" today. Grace Lee Boggs is an activist. She's 96 years old and still writing, still contributing mightily. The James & Grace Lee Boggs Center to Nurture Community Leadership at Field and Goethe in Detroit is training young social changers, the next leaders for our new century. I'm just in the introduction, written by Scott Kurashige, and already it's more absorbing and informative, and hopeful than I thought this century might be. Detroit is the center city of this book, because it is the headquarters of Grace Lee and Jimmy Boggs' history. Detroit is a microcosm of the industrial world we are leaving; the age of materialism, militarism and racism. It is the best of times. It is the worst of times. The American Dream is dead. Long live the American Dream. Will we reemerge as better humans in a more egalitarian society? Will the future be a world torn apart by famines, pandemics, and wars over vanishing supplies of oil and freshwater? Stay tuned. I heard about Grace Lee Boggs from a woman who knows her. She told us that when Grace Lee was a little girl the cook in her family's restaurant told her girls should be left on the street. I can't wait to read more about this remarkable woman, and her work in the state and country I love. Maybe I'll learn how I can help to rebirth the city of my birth.

Saturday June 4 in Michigan

Fun weekend in Michigan this Saturday, June 4. The South Lyon Kite Festival is on from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Stories About Turtle Island in Lansing at Everybody Reads Bookstore starts at 1 p.m. Lapeer Celebrates the Arts is going on starting Friday, June 3rd through Sunday, June 5th. Enjoy Completely Oblivious at 2:00 p.m. in Lapeer. Motor City Pride Festival rocks at Hart Plaza in Detroit Saturday and Sunday. Get out of the house and have some music, storytelling, company and good food this weekend in Michigan!

Special Ed. Issues Reported to MI State Board in Jan.

Detroit Public Schools EFM Robert Bobb laid off 88 of 177 special education bus attendants. Special education students are not being picked up for school. The Michigan Department of Education may, or may not be looking into this, after a meeting on January 11, when several of the special education issues were pointed out to the State Board of Education. Individual Education Plan (IEP) makes sure special needs students get a public education, and is federal territory. Jan Ellis, identified in the Michigan Citizen story as a spokesperson for Dept. of Education holds the title of Manager of Communications, Office of School Improvement. She told the reporter there is not an official investigation underway, she has seen no paperwork, but the department will work to make sure every child gets whatever services are legally required. Wow. Note David Varner (W.K. Kellogg Foundation) commented that the reports of Bobb's behavior were "hearsay" and he promised to call Bobb himself. Undoubtedly EFM Bobb will take the call. Kellogg Foundation pays part of his salary.

DPS EFM Bobb Paid Privately to Privatize Schools

Detroit Public Schools Emergency Finance Manager Robert Bobb gets paid $280,000 by the State of Michigan. Bobb also gets paid $145,000 by the Kellogg Foundation with the Broad Foundation. Bobb is a 2005 graduate of the Broad Foundation Superintendent Academy. The Broad Foundation's mission is school choice and the privatization of schools. Is there anyone else who thinks this is a serious conflict of interest? Stay tuned. Czar Snyder has targeted 23 school districts to get their very own czar. 18 of these districts are in southeast Michigan, including my home town. Snyder is cutting per pupil spending, enough to throw other school districts into candidacy for an EFM. How have other people thrown out their autocrats and dictators? How can we?

Bank of America: Good Guys?

Bank of America will pay to demolish 100 homes in Detroit. These are homes owned by BoA which means BoA foreclosed on the houses. While donating the land to the City of Detroit is a noble concept, I just itch to hear the story of the foreclosures on what BoA is calling abandoned houses. This is good public relations for the richest bank in America, although I wonder if the demolition of 100 repossessed homes in Detroit neighborhoods really has the $1,000,000 pricetag BoA claims. And tax write-offs? Getting the properties off the books? I'm suspicious of motivation here. CEO Moynihan is glad to "help right-size" the city. Oy! BoA will also offer 10 renovated homes on their books to police officers who may (or may not) return to the city. A 1999 state law ended city residency requirements. I lived in the city from 1977 to 1988, in East English Village, one of Mayor Bing's designated enhanced city services areas. There are beautiful homes there still. The other houses are in Boston-Edison, a once fabulous neighborhood, trying hard to come back to its former grandeur. Mayor Bing will choose the houses to renovate. If this is a multiple choice exercise, then BoA also owns more than a dozen foreclosures in those neighborhoods as well. My higher self wants to believe BoA is trying to do good deeds. My other self wonders if BoA bought itself a new PR firm.

The Cost of War

The Cost of War. Combine this visual cost counter with the Bureau of Labor Statistics unemployment figures updated to February 5, 2011. Combine that with what the unimaginable amount of money spent on war in foreign countries could do in believable terms for Detroit, Michigan. And weep. When the tears are dried, start writing Congress about bringing our soldiers - and the money to take good care of them - back home. With gratitude to Brave New Films and the Rethink Afghanistan video.

Imported from Detroit

I am imported from Detroit. It's my hometown. Sometimes its rulers are hard to love, but I love the Motor City. The hospital where I was born is torn down. My Dad's houses are torn down. The aquarium on Belle Isle is torn down. The college that tried to improve my brain is torn down. But I'm not torn down. Neither is Detroit. Life is tough and it is also short. Together my birth city and I are gritting our teeth, clenching our fist, and finding the luxury of enough. Detroit is still here. Whether the Chrysler commercial is about automobiles or rebirth or nothing at all, I'm proud to be imported from Detroit. That's the luxury of enough.

Chrysler Detroit Commercial Makes XLV