Posted on 05/07/2016 10:40:41 PM PDT by lee martell
Both my parents have passed on. My mother died of diabetes complications back in 1994. My dad lasted far longer, and passed away last year due to heart ailments. They were married for 49 years. Dad decided on his own to never remarry. As children, my siblings and I would meet in the basement to discuss what to give my mom for her Mother's Day gift. Usually, most the duties were taken up by the same two kids, the oldest two. While the younger two children would contribute their ideas on color, size and if it was candy, what type of candy. Some years I was elected 'treasurer', meaning I would collect a few dollars or coins from everybody, or accept a hastily scribbled I.O.U.. I would later take the midtown bus and go to downtown Detroit. This was back when there really was a 'Downtown' atmosphere, the type of place Petula Clark sang about in that song. I would go downtown after school, 'unbeknownst' by my parents, and on a Top Secret mission. We would go through the same practices the following month of June for Father's Day.
When I went downtown, as an 11 year old boy, my first stop was on Woodward Ave. and Griswold St. It was near that intersection, that I had easy access to Kresgee's Store, where you could get a burger and fries on a tall red stool that spun around. Next door was Woolworth's, with slow, carpeted escalators going both up and down. Hudson's Department Store across the street. You had to walk past the tall female mannequins, behind the street display windows. Some of the lady mannequins were still dressed in fake fur coats with ermine collars. I was headed toward the Hudson's mezzanine bakery. After purchasing a few red colored pistachio nuts from a 25 cent machine, I saw a table full of ready made German Chocolate cakes, my mother's favorite. As Treasurer, I made the decision to spend all I had left to get that cake. It was placed in to a small pink box and tied with string. The cake was almost always one of our gifts to our parents. My father liked strawberry sheet cake with white icing. Usually, one of the Grandmas would make him a cake in their kitchen.
We learned never to give Grandma any peanut brittle, because she would end up with the candy jammed into her dentures, which upset her greatly. With Grandpa, on my mom's side, we learned to just stick with dress ties, black socks and sometimes Cuff Links with dark blue stones. These were items he could wear to church or to choir practice. Grandpa was a Baptist. My mom always refused to convert to being a Catholic, possible out of loyalty to her own father.
I still contemplate the fun of giving gifts for Mother's and Father's day. I would say it helps children learn the custom of showing compassion and gratitude for their elders.
If you’re a Detroiter, you probably also know about that corner I described at Woodward and Griswold. That was the same spot where my dad would take us later that year on Thanksgiving Day to watch the big parade.
They still do have huge parades there, preceeded by an early morning ‘Turkey Trott”, where tens of thousands of Michiganders converge on Woodward for a walk/ or race around the blocks near Comerica Stadium. The runners dress up in costumes with Xmas and Thanksgiving themes. My sisters mow live near that stadium. Of course Tiger Stadium was torn down decades ago.
Was in the middle of the country on a cross country road trip before the interstate system was built. Not sure which state it was in, so county is sort of meaningless.
Although I left Detroit about the age of 9 or 10, I remember a lot of it very well, including the parade. We were a very poor family...lived on West Fort Street. My mom gave my dad an ultimatum...get my girls out, or I will. He didn’t, she did, and raised three girls by herself in DC and later Maryland. All of my mom and dad’s relatives atill live in Detroit or its suburbs.
Spent a good chunk of the day doing that, came up empty.
Maybe before records were easily digitized for internetz searches. Some likely states did not have searchable death records. One was only digitized back "A-E".
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