Last but one chapter

To plan old age in Detroit City

Home folks think I'm big in Detroit City

From the letters that I write they think I'm just fine, yes they do

But by day I make the cars and by night I make the bars

If only they could read between the lines

Bobby Bare

I arrive to the very small Amtrak station in Detroit. For the first time on this trip I get the chance to ride with a real old yellow taxi, which is probably produced in this city. It roars, shakes and sows.

The taxi driver is born in Ethiopia. He is very happy when I ask where in Ethiopia he comes from telling him that I have been in his beautiful home country twice. The driver appreciates this and says it's the first time since he started driving a taxi in Detroit 18 years ago as he has had a customer who knows where Ethiopia is. He thinks it is strange that most of his customers are so uneducated. Sometimes he is asking his customers geography question. It is not unusual that they think that Ethiopia is an archipelago in Asia and that Addis Ababa is the capital of South Africa.

He tells me how he escaped the political oppression in Ethiopia 20 years ago. Now since Donald Trump was elected president, he is uncertain as to where he and the family could move. They are not comfortable living in a country with a racist as president. At the same time, he knows that it is difficult to move home to Ethiopia, where political oppression consists.

The probable thing is that the family is trying to settle in California, where racists are rare. If that happens then he will change a car, maybe to a Tesla. He does not believe that such an old emission monster as this will be popular among politically correct people in San Francisco, which is his dream city.

He entrusts me that he has been both laborious and economical so he has enough money to buy a Tesla.

Between taxi's left post between the front window and the side window there is a searchlight that the driver uses to read the house numbers. When we arrive, he lights up my way from the car to the door. The house I will stay in has an old-fashioned elegance, but the surrounding houses are deserted.

My hostess takes me on a walk in the carefully renovated house, which has a little sense of an old castle. I like it. She offers me a suite consisting of a spacious study and an even bigger bedroom with dining table, sofa, bed and a large floor area where the hostess's cute gray-collar cat rolls.

The first day in Detroit, I dedicate to walking along Woodward Avenue from the residential area where I stay down to the river bordering Canada. The hunger hits me when I return north on the late afternoon. I happen to pass one of Subway's restaurants, or what they should be called. Probably because of the robberies in this city there is a wall of glass between the staff and the guests. In addition, Christmas music is played at high volume, so it's a little hard to tell the tiny waitress I want a sandwich without meat. I gesture and mimic and feel like I was part of a silly quiz program on TV. In the end, after many misunderstandings, I get a so-called veggie sandwich.

It is mostly young people in the room, and I find a separate table at the window. After a while, a man with a long gray ponytail got his sandwich and he looks back to find some place to sit. He chooses the empty chair at my table and introduces himself as Steve. My guess is that he is at the age of 65 and it turns out to be true. He is 65 and a half and will soon retire.

Steve is planning his retirement. He has worked as a technical manager of a Ford subsidiary, and his economy is well organized and will remain so when he retires. He lives in a big villa on a crossroads to Woodward Avenue, where he wants to stay there for as long as possible. With the help of a cleaning lady, he expects that it will take a while.

He reveals that he has been a little doubtful about staying in Detroit. The heavy crime scares him. He tells some awful stories about children who have been shot dead in the city just in recent months. Steve is not afraid on his own part. We who are so old need not be afraid to get shot. It may be a good alternative to fading away in severe diseases, he thinks. But he says it's so hard to read about the poor victims who should have so much left to give for the rest of their lives.

Despite this, Steve has decided to stay in Detroit until death separates him from the city. This is his city. Here he has many friends. Although the wife has left him a long time ago, he has his two children and five grandchildren about half a day's drive away from here. His son lives in Chicago and the daughter in Pittsburgh. Steve thinks that is manageable. He realizes that there are many who have their grandchildren far further away.

Steve has made a 15-year plan for the rest of his life. Every five-year period is linked to a car brand, but none is manufactured here in Detroit.

For the next five years, Steve has decided to drive a Porsche. During these years he has decided to devote to two pleasures: the grandchildren and volunteering. He is a member of a society whose goal is to take care of children with social problems and provide them with education in a fun way and entice them to become entrepreneurs.

Next following years, from 70 to 75, he will drive a Jaguar. He will spend time on the grandchildren, but also travelling. Like so many Americans, Steve has a diffuse image of the world outside the United States, but he is aware of his lack of knowledge and is determined to fill in as much as possible before he dies.

The years he believes will be his last, from 75 to 80, he wants a Mercedes limousine with driver. So far in time, Steve realizes that the grandchildren will not be so interested in hanging with him. During that period of life, he has thought to concentrate on eating and drinking well. And with that he does not mean sandwich and Coca Cola on the Subway. Detroit today is not just down the road with gourmet hooks, but Steve believes that when the city rises from the ashes, culture and taverns are an important part of the work to make the city attractive again.

We agree that our next five years are the most interesting, as it is the greatest chance they will happen. I tell you I'd rather have a Tesla X than a Porsche and Steve is interested when I tell him about the Tesla's performance and show him a film from You Tube, where a Tesla X is faster han a Ferrari from 0 to 400 meters.

However, the most interesting is how we will use our human resources to achieve something good in the years we can. I have heard before and understand from Steven's stories that there is a completely different tradition of volunteering in Detroit than in Sweden. There are many retired oldies working without compensation in a number of areas, such as libraries and museums, just because they think it is fun and meaningful.

Steve tells me more about the projects he wants to work with. That the children are Detroit's future is obvious. To increase knowledge, he sees as an important task having experienced that the Detroit automotive industry lost its competitiveness without anybody noticing it in time. He willingly acknowledges that he himself does not have the skills of the automotive industry in Europe and Japan, but he knows what the consequences will be for those who cannot do enough and he wants to convey that to the youth.

In particular, he has discovered how fun it is to acquire new knowledge and he wants to convey the joy to children and adolescents. Likewise, he wants to convey an understanding that everyone has to deal with their own situation and do something about their problems. You cannot rely on someone else to help you. And he wants more people to discover that there is a deep satisfaction in hard work.

Steve is wondering what kind of volunteer work I want to do.

I tell him about all the refugees from Syria, Eritrea, Afghanistan and Iraq coming to Sweden and about the inability of Swedish society to take advantage of the good people who come and make them fill up the increasing number of gaps in Swedish workplaces.

That's something I want to engage in when I get home. There are also many other tasks that will not be completely resolved in the next few years, so I do not need to be out of work for a long time.

Then I would like to mix the volunteer work of interconnecting with the grandchildren and traveling. I want to minimize the risk of dying without making sure my grandchildren have fun and I do not want to end my days with too many white spots on the world map.

Steve wonders how I get together all my traveling with my commitment to the environment. I honestly answer that I do not. But I try to compensate my flights by refraining from eating meat.

Oops, too bad, Steve says. Otherwise, he could have invited me to a grill night and show his collection of cars.

No problem. You can grill vegetables and I eat fish, seafood and game. In addition, it happens on rare occasions that I make exceptions and eat cow and pig if I am invited. Wild animals are better to shoot and eat than to kill them with the car. We agree that I’ll come home to Steve tomorrow night. Then I have to go to Washington DC to not miss the flight home.

We continue to discuss the tribulations of old age and deal with a common problem: the prostate.

Steve tells him he has a revolver at home and once when he suffered from a urinary tract infection as a result of the enlarged prostate, the pain was so bad that he sat on the toilet with the gun in his hand ready to shoot the head off to get rid of it all.

But now you are here. What caused you to regret the impulse to shoot?

A quick thought of the children and grandchildren made him refrain from shooting. This in combination with the pain slowed temporarily. But the idea of ​​the revolver as a liberator lives with Steve. He has also thought about alternative methods, hanging, an overdose of something, to throw himself in front of a train. Nothing feels really attractive. The alternative to living with severe pain is also not so attractive. We have think more about this, Steve believes.

I wonder why Steve has a revolver at home. He himself has also begun questioning that. He finds that are way too many weapons in the streets of Detroit. Just this month, several children have been shot to death here.

Steve defends his own weapon possession saying that the revolver never is leaving his house and kept locked up a weapon cabinet. He is very determined never to use it against anyone other than himself.

Before we part, we change phone numbers and agree to become friends on Facebook to be able to follow each other's aging until we meet again in four years.

When I then go home to my nice Air bnb to empty my bladder in the catheter, I think about the movie “8 mile” that takes place in Detroit. Cheddar Bob, one of the guys in the gang around the movie's protagonist Johnny Rabbit, has a gun down the pants and happens to pull the trigger with very unpleasant consequences.

I hope that Steve does not have a similar accident with his revolver. It is not the correct treatment of prostate problems.

Those who have not seen the decay in Detroit with all abandoned homes and offices with broken windows can hardly imagine the misery.

To see all the sad men flocking outside the liquor stores is, at least, depressing, but there are some signs that the city is rising out of the ashes. Although I do not see anyone there are supposed to be a lot of urban farms here. Far from the city center a bike factory has been started, where they make transport bicycles of the same type as are manufactured as in Christiania, Copenhagen.

In particular, I see great investments in both culture and education. Art projects will make the city attractive again. Wayne State University has buildings almost everywhere. One of their specialties is health and it would be nice if health will replace cars as a profile product for the city.

I understand there are many talents in Detroit, when I visit the Tamla Motown Museum. Many of the great artists grew up in the same neighborhood as Berry Gordy, the founder of the music empire.

Too bad that he moved to Los Angeles, instead of staying in Detroit and developing the city to something like Nashville instead of being a tombstone over the American automotive industry. It is really exciting to visit the museum. A guide shows me and three other people the house. She invites us to sing and dance in the legendary studio where so many world successes have been recorded. All four in the group refuse. The other three say they are shy and I admit that my singing sounds terrible.

Then she asks for our Motown favorites. The others say Stevie Wonder, the Temptations and Supremes. To be a bit different, I say Martha and the Vandellas.

The guide says I have bad luck. Martha Reeves, now a 75-year-old lady, lives nearby and hangs very often here at the museum to expel time. Buy just today she is not here. What a bad luck! It seems to be much easier to get a chat with Martha Reeves than with Neil Young, although it has now opened an opportunity to meet him through Angela Williams's colleague.

One thing that makes me happy during the walk is that the guide tells us that it's not just Martha Reeves grown up nearby. Several world artists grew up as neighbors to Berry Gordy. It shows that very many have the resources to accomplish major achievements if they only come together in the right environment.

I have read that there is an urban farm close to the Motown Museum, but I cannot find it. Signs is not really Detroit's best sport. Many street signs are gone and the house's number plates may never have existed.

Instead, I go to the Detroit Institute of Arts, which proves to be an amazing art museum. Normally I'm at museums as restless and fast as when working in the forests. There is hardly any museum I cannot handle in one hour. Here I walk for three hours. It is so much interesting to see. My favorite is a large hall with murals by the Mexican artist Diego Rivera. It is not possible finish looking at his paintings, depicting the car industry in Detroit in the first half of the 20th century.

There is also a department of contemporary African American art, where I hang out for a long time. A photo exhibition about Detroit's nightlife captures me too. Here is a nice picture of Patti Smith and her husband Fred Sonic Smith. He was in the Detroit band MC5, which I decide to listen to when I get home.

The restaurant in the museum is just to recommend to anyone visiting Detroit. Their vegetarian sandwiches are among the best I have eaten.

When the evening comes, I go home and rest for 20 minutes accompanied by MC5 from You Tube. Then it's time to go home to Steve, who lives in the same area where I stay. The grill is already burning at the back of the house. Steve puts on a steak, which he claims comes from a wild deer. He has loaded with a whole box of local beer.

While the deer is cooking, Steve takes me into his big garage. In front of the garage, there is a rather new Ford Mustang that he drives every day. That's the one he wants to replace with a Porsche. Inside the garage are five cars. A Mercedes-Benz cabriolet of the type JR Ewing, drove in the Dallas TV series. A Corvette Roadster of the 1958 model, likely to be worth over $ 100,000. A Ford Ranger Pick Up from 1970. A Caramel Green De Soto from 1956. A Ford Ranchero of the type that played a major role in the movie "Paris Texas".

I admire the beautiful cars while considering how they affect the environment. Steve seems to read my thoughts and say to his defense that he only drives one at a time. I ask if he has any bike and he says he has sold his Harley Davidson because he decided early to stop driving a motorcycle when he reached 65.

Now the deer is ready and we get down on the warm porch. We take off out jackets and discover our arms have similar tattoos. Steve has a big car on each arm and I have a bike on one arm and one crazy horse on the other. I tell him that I'm thinking of tattooing “kiss” and “love” on my knuckles.

We are talking that the decline of the body also means, in some way, the decay of the tattoos. Letters flow out and become difficult to read. Wheels become oval. The colors fade. Nevertheless, we are considering the benefits of tattoos. They remain a mark of our identity, even when they and we are aging. And, of course, it's fun when people in the streets contact you by discussing the tattoos.

Steve asks if I want to see the gun as if he is going to shoot the head off if he gets too old and sick to enjoy life. No thanks. I know how guns look, but I understand that he has it as a kind of reverse life insurance.

After we have discussed illness and death for a while, I get tired of the matter and blame the catheter for I having to break up quite early.

My hostess invites me to a amazing breakfast with vegetarian chicken nuggets, vegetarian bacon, fried potatoes, roasted roots, fruit salad, fresh bread, pannacotta, Viennese bread, tiny candy and great coffee. She asks if I have been and looked at the Heidelberg project. No I have not. She tells me about it in a way that I just have to go there immediately after I have dragged the bag to the Amtrak station for storage throughout the day.

My hostess is in the art business herself and the Heidelberg project is an art project outdoors on Heidelberg Street. It was created in 1986 by artist Tyree Guyton and his grandfather. The whole street has been transformed into a work of art. It is not possible to describe, says my hostess.

Oh, she's right. Even when I approach the street after a walk past many abandoned houses, I begin to understand better. I pass a plot full of a lot of toys painted in strong colors. On a house wall next to it is written in orange letters: Fire God! This message I interpret as if there would be a god she has not done a really good job with Detroit.

I walk around the corner and enter Heidelberg Street. Here are cars and boats and so many things, painted in happy colors. On a lawn is a green Saab 96 from the mid-20th century. On the windscreen are painted three crosses. The houses are also in many colors.

A series of signs with a lot of text on makes it time consuming to get acquainted with the Heidelberg project, but it's fun.

The last night in Detroit my suitcase and I hangs at the Amtrak station and awaits the bus that will take me and 20 other travelers to Toledo, where we can get on the train going from Chicago to Washington DC. I'm here early and play with my smart phone when a staff member at the Amtrak is sitting down next to me. First, he is a bit curious about who I am, but then he devotes an hour to tell me about himself.

The simple job in the Amtrak Information Desk is just his way of having basic financial security. He earns most from his work as a consultant with web optimization for companies around the world. Secondly, he earns on renting out three of the four houses he owns. To earn as much as possible, he lives in the simplest house and hires out the three best.

He has an expensive hobby – driving a Volvo. Is it so expensive? Yes, there is only one Detroit mechanic who can repair Volvo and he knows how to charge his customers. The Volvo's interest has made him interested in visiting Sweden and even before he met me, he had been thinking about taking leave from the Amtrak for half a year and making his living by optimizing Swedish websites.

Suddenly, there is a queue at his information desk and we never finish our conversation. When the queue to his desk is over, he goes and sits next to a beautiful, overweight woman talking to her for an hour. I am wondering if he tells her the same things as he told me. I do not even know his name, so even if I'd like to follow him on Facebook it's not possible.

Instead, I'm excited to summarize my trip. I have spent about 200 hours on trains and buses and by car. I have slept ten nights on buses and trains, two nights at hotel, three nights at a motel and the rest of the nights at air bnb.

How many tons of carbon dioxide my trip has resulted in I fail to figure out. I really want to know, but it's not that easy.

I count on what everything has cost. It has been worth the money, but I try to forget it quickly.

Figures are really uninteresting. The actual summation of the trip is the people I've met and all the fun I've experienced.

From Kurt Andersson’s Facebook 

Sonny Smith, Mempis

Hi Kurt! I do not know if I wrote that but I now have had a visit from one of my daughter with her little son. It was to wonderful days and I understood that my daughter is doing well and is both a successful and warm person. Her little son is nine years old and active both physical and intellectual.

He is playing soccer and sings in the school quire. While he was here we were jamming together and he said that he really likes my songs. A question: Tom, Jerry, Julia and I have been talking about making a northern European tour with the Blues Siblings next summer. Could you give us some advice?

Mia Turner, New Orleans

As a result of the area where I have my bar being gentrified I got an offer to sell it. I turned it down without even thinking five seconds. I will try to keep my bar at least 10 more years, maybe 20 or 30 years.

Mary Jackson, Dallas

I am getting fed up studying literature. I have been thinking of changing my life to doing something more useful, studying medicine. What do you think? Is that something for me? Or do you have other ideas?

Natalie Miles, Albuquerque

The Christmas is getting closer and I panic. I like to go to church at Christmas to celebrate that Jesus is born. But I despise the commercial Christmas. I am planning to start a group Reclaim the Christmas. Anyone interested in joining?

Angela Williams, San Francisco

Kurt, my friend has asked Neil Young, and he did not say yes or no. I guess you will have to come here and stay for a while so you could be ready when he says yes.  

Burt Anderson, Portland

Hi Kurt, thank you for your encouraging message. I would really like to come and see you next summer. We can keep in contact to make more exact plans. Being this old I will wait till we come really close to departure to book a flight.

Lucas Owens, Frisco

Today when I was out hunting in the mountains I managed to shoot a moose. Now my wife and I will have meat for the rest of the year and most part of 2017. Do any of my neighbors want to have some meat?

Benaji Demirtas, Chicago

Is there anyone out there who wants to join a new organization Mathematicians for peace and justice?

Facts about Detroit

• Detroit is located in the state of Michigan on the Detroit River. On the other side of the river is the Canadian city of Windsor.

• Detroit city had 688,701 inhabitants in 2013. The population was 1,850,000 in 1950.

• The University of Detroit Mercy has approximately 5,000 students. Wayne State University has approximately 27,000 students.

• Detroit has long been the United States car manufacturing city number one. As a result, more than half the population moved from here when the automotive industry lost a lot by the competition from Japanese, Korean, and European manufacturers. The result is a large number of empty residential and office buildings throughout the city.

• The record company Tamla Motown made world success in the 1960s with artists like the Supremes, Stevie Wonder, Martha and the Vendellas and Michael Jackson. When founder Berry Gordy became interested in movies, the company moved to Los Angeles in 1972. Today, Tamla Motown remains as a museum in Detroit.

• Detroit has among the highest crime rates in the United States.

• Detroit is now rising out of the ashes, including new activities such as bicycle manufacturing and urban landscaping.

Read more at www.visitdetroit.com

The Motown Museum