Twenty-two years of cartoons, but a 50-year relationship

This year marks my 22nd year celebrating Downriver communities, people and issues with my editorial cartoons in The News-Herald. Twenty-two years is a long time, but our relationship goes back much longer than that. Thirty years longer, to be exact.

I grew up down river back when it was just that – two words, lower case – and meant, to many people who didn’t live here simply, “that area south of Detroit before you get to Monroe …”

I lived in Riverview (a village when I moved in), on Hinton and I learned my most important life lessons and made the best friends I ever had in that neighborhood and at St. Cyprian School. I got my haircuts at Hubert’s Barber Shop and learned to ride my two-wheeler one memorable weekend in the empty parking lot of People’s Bank.

I saw my favorite movies at the Fort George Drive-In and at the Wyandotte Theater (before there was even an “Annex”). I rode midway rides at the local amusement park at a time when places like Bob-Lo Island and Edgewater Park might as well have been Disney Land, because they all seemed equally distant.

I played “army” at Memorial Park and I made many braided key chains at the activity center (which looked very much like a garage) at Ray St. Park. I collected empty two-cent pop bottles and cashed them in for penny candy at Ed’s Market or at Pat’s Stone Front Market, depending upon which side of town my buddies and I were “working.”

And my best memories are of those buddies – of Mark and Johnny, Joe, Fred and Ronald, David, Richard, Greg, Larry, Kurt and Neven; and of the girls I pretended not to like, too – Carla, Diane, Karen, Philomene and Suzy.

Life and career led me away from Downriver – but not far. My kids have been to St. Cyprian Church, they’ve played at Memorial Park, they’ve had frozen custard at the Bob-Jo and I drag them annually to go Cruisin’ Downriver.

Downriver was, is and always will be, my home, even though my address isn’t on Hinton anymore. Now it’s in my heart.