Paging Gannon

[tponetom]

John, your post was wearing me down so I will try to lighten things up a bit
I wrote the following to a lifelong [[McClellan Ave.) friend. He was working for the City of Detroit , and was still living on McClellan at the time of my letter.
[[To anyone reading this: "This Detroiter is in a class by himself!)
Dick,
I just received yours of 10-03-01 and being in a garrulous mood I will reply, quickly.
According to Omar Khayyam the best things in life are quite modest.
Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
And Wilderness is Paradise enow. [[enow is not a typo.)
My comment: He must have anticipated Tom and Peggy in the U.P.
I will bore you a bit more with his lore:
"How sweet is mortal Sovranty!"--think some:
Others--"How blest the Paradise to come!"
Ah, take the Cash in hand and wave the Rest;
Oh, the brave Music of a distant Drum!
My comments: Would you believe I still hear that damn drum!
I believe that last verse has been plagiarized a million times over.
"Take the money and run."
"Live for the moment."
"Marching to a different drummer."
"Waiting to enter the kingdom of Heaven? [[Better pack a lunch.)"
And one of my all time favorites from Omar:
And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to It for help--for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.
That reminds me of the old joke about wishing in one hand and crapping in the other to see which hand will gets filled first.
Years ago I made a sad discovery. Whenever I thought I was originating some wise or witty utterance, I found out that a Persian rug weaver had said it all about a thousand years ago.
Back to my reply to your letter. First of all, when I made the remark about "feet of clay" I did not mean it in a jocular way. Rather, it was a bittersweet observation. To me, "home" is sacrosanct. Sinatra said it all in an early recording> "The House I Live In"< A plot of earth, etc.
Of course we are greatly saddened by your loss. The pillaging of one’s home is the final expression of lawlessness. After all these years I was hoping that you may have had some divine immunity from the crimes of the City that surrounded you. There are no recriminations to offer. That you were not subjected to injury or other abuse is all that matters.
I have been keeping up with the physical and environmental demise of Detroit, via the Internet for past couple of years now. Lowell Boileau, a photographer, has created a web site chronicling, in photographs, the death of many Detroit landmarks. The URL [[web site address) is: The general title is, "The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit."
I have spent many sad hours revisiting this site. It is, for me, the most provocative site on the Internet.
P. S. To John: I was never aware of the forum until 6 years later

[DetroitDad]

For those who live among the ruins, things can be very different. You and Gannon, along with a former acquaintance, and more hardship in my own life, kind of helped inspire this blog post which takes place outside Saint Agnes Catholic Church.

[SWMAP]

The AoD sold the former St. Agnes church to another congregation that wanted them and appeared to be solvent. That congregation is the one that eventually abandoned the buildings.