Serious Changes Needed In Downtown, Hill Area

The voice came from the heavens, sounding like a divine mixture of Jack Nicholson and Darth Vader. Scratchy, yet powerful.

"If you write it, they will understand."

I looked up, trying to comprehend the words. And a vision appeared before my eyes. Well, not really a vision. An angel.

"Hi there," the hovering angel said. "I'm Bruce. Bruce the Angel."

I stared at this image, this mirage dressed in pseudo-Victorian clothes. Then I rubbed my eyes. Man, this is one bad dream. Maybe it's Heritage Days II. Maybe I was being zoned into by Sam as part of a Quantum Leap episode.

No such luck.

What do you want? Is my time up? Am I going ... well, wherever I'm supposed to go in the afterworld?

"No, no." Bruce smiled. "Nothing like that. I'm not that kind of angel."

Something about his smile made me trust him.

So tell me, Bruce. What's up?

"I'm here to advise you. To give you a message for West Branch merchants."

Come on, Bruce. I don't own a store. What makes you think business owners in West Branch will listen to me?

"I'm willing to give it a shot. Do you think they'll listen to me? Get real."

Great. A psycho angel.

"I'm not psycho ... can I have a seat? My wings are getting pretty tired up here."

Sure.

"How about a smoke?"

I stared at him. Sorry, no smoking allowed. Now tell me. What are you talking about?

"It's the strip, Paul. Businesses. Downtown. Victorian theme. The works. And the traffic problem, too. West Branch is at a turning point, and it's up to you to help them out."

Right. What do I look like, the messiah?

"I'm serious, you geek. Hear me out. You've go this new mall, the Tanger Center. Right? And now this amphitheater, this Palace of Auburn Hills ..."

Garden of Ogemaw Hills.

"Whatever. This summer concert thing, it's a go. The city is growing. The area is expanding. And now, West Branch is stuck in the middle. Caught in a vortex of changes and transformation."

Will you stop babbling! What do you mean? And can you take your feet off the coffee table?

"Oh. Sorry. What do I mean? West Branch wants to keep this small-town, Victorian-era theme. But it also wants to be one of the 'big boys.' Well, it can't work both ways. Not without some changes."

He leaned back. "First thing businesses here gotta learn is, get some reasonable hours."

I know what you mean, Bruce. I'm working when all the downtown stores are open. By the time I get off work, they're closed. And I can't go shopping.

"And you're not alone, Paul. If stores were open till, say, 9 p.m., you'd have the chance to do some shopping. If the stores would stay open later, they'd make a killing!"

OK. What else?

"Well, they're putting in a turn lane by the Tanger Center, but I doubt it will be enough. Even if they put in one traffic light, it wouldn't really help out the stores up there. Or the traffic problems. The only thing it would do is keep most cars from darting onto the business loop.

"But cars, trucks and the like will be backed up beyond I-75, maybe even worse than right now, because Cook Road traffic will have to stop for a while."

So, what's the answer?

"I think a service drive would solve all the problems. Set up two traffic lights - in front of Tanger's and out by Arby's - and have that one drive go behind all the businesses on the north side. Connect all the parking lots to that loop, and close the current drives onto the business loop. Voila! You've got less congestion and a safer situation."

I still can't believe no one saw all this coming down when Tanger was proposed in the first place, Bruce. It would have made life on the Hill a lot easier for everyone. There must have been someone at Tanger who knew there would be this huge traffic influx. After all, West Branch isn't the first complex they've built.

"True."

You'd think someone in charge - whether in the county's zoning department, or the Tanger architects, or MDOT or whomever - would have said, when this project was first conceived, "Hey - why don't we make a service drive part of the deal?"

"You'd think so."

Why don't you send a zoning angel down to talk to the county boys about planning? Maybe when Tanger expands, the officials will require them to handle the traffic problems before issuing a building permit.

"Sorry, Paul, the zoning angels are all busy with that Tiger Stadium project in Detroit."

So what you're saying is we're stuck with this traffic problem which is causing thousands of drivers havoc on the road.

"Now you're getting it ... it is your job to show business owners the light. Let them know how important it is to have a service drive down there."

We've been through this already, Bruce ... these business people ain't gonna listen to me - not when it means spending money.

"If you write it, they will understand. They are not going to let the bottom line be that they're willing to live with dangerous situations along Hamburger Hill."

You know, Bruce, you could be right. I'll write it ... they will understand. Thanks.

"Hey, no problem." He glanced at his watch. "I'm running late. Sorry, Paul. That's all I got time for now. Good luck with it."

Thanks, Bruce. Fly safely out there.

"No problem."

And he left, ascending into the heavens, that stupid smile still on his face.

I wonder if anyone will take his words seriously.

This article originally appeared in the Ogemaw County Herald.

Drivers Dodge Death On Hamburger Hill

Ah, the joy of a Sunday afternoon drive. How can one ignore the delicious smell of fresh burgers saturating the air? Or the chance to go shopping at a local store for some clothes?

How? Take one trip through "Hamburger Hill" on any given Sunday, and you'll quickly see how much nicer it is to spend the afternoon at home, watching baseball on TV and popping three-day-old Doritos in your mouth.

Well, maybe not "nicer." But certainly safer.

Sunday is Church Day and many church-goers believe in miracles. But the only miracle I've seen as of late is that no one has been killed or seriously injured in the traffic congestion near the Tanger Factory Outlet Center Drivers Training Course.

Yet.

If you do not use Exit 212 on a regular basis, you might not be aware of what I'm talking about. You're also a lot smarter than most of us drivers, who have to battle with one of the most wicked stretches of road I've ever had the misfortune to travel.

Every weekend, I pass through this area. Or, at least, i used to. Now, if I want to hit I-75, I often go through downtown West Branch and catch Exit 215. For three extra miles, of highway, it's worth the trip.

Why? Simple. Exit 212 is a death trap waiting to happen. It is unorganized. It is crowded. It is dangerous. Combining these factors with some of the most insanely stupid driving possible is nothing less than moronic.

You have a mall and a handful of businesses with parking lot that basically empty out into one spot in the road. Nearby are I-75's exit and entrance ramps.

Add thousands of cars - many pulling boats and trailers - and you get the picture of what it is like to travel this stretch.

With all of this traffic - especially on weekends - you would think maybe, just maybe, someone would have figured a traffic light or two might have been a good idea.

Well, that idea is in the works. Finally, We have Cook Road being repaved and repainted, giving area drivers three lanes along the Hill - one each westbound and eastbound, and a center lane for left-handed turns into any of the stores or restaurants in the area.

Now, this doesn't mean we have more roadway to work with. It just means that (a) we don't have to wait 15 minutes while the most defensive drivers wait for an opening larger than an 18-wheeler to appear, and (b) there will hopefully be fewer maniac drivers sliding into the shoulder to pass said defensive drivers.

But what about a traffic light? Well, the Michigan Department of Transportation recently conducted an intensive survey, which could result in a traffic light.

By next July. Maybe.

The survey took place during mid-week traffic, which is like estimating the Detroit Lions' Super Bowl potential after watching them gang up on the pathetic new England Patriots during one drive of a pre-season game. It's lousy, backward timing.

Someone should have known traffic would be this bad. Why do a survey, when it was obvious from Day One that a traffic light would be needed?

Actions speak louder than surveys. I realize there are guidelines and requirements and all that other stuff. Numbers are needed. But at the same time, we're left with a time bomb ticking away in West Branch Township.

It's enough to ruin a Sunday afternoon drive.

This article originally appeared in the Ogemaw County Herald.

Julia, Kiefer Keeping Tabloids Hard At Work

Unless you've been hiding underneath a rock or are oblivious to today's major national news stories, you are probably keeping an eye on the biggest, most important and extremely controversial headline-making story of the decade: Julia Roberts leaving Kiefer Sutherland high and dry at the altar.

Yes, this emotionally depressing saga of a Hollywood lust story gone awry has kept tabloid journalists - both print and broadcast - quite busy.

In fact, if Julia hadn't told Kiefer to blow their relationship out his ear, we'd be more concerned with real news stories, like Detroit Piston Dennis Rodman being sued for jumping on top of a fan during a basketball game while chasing a loose ball, or Cher not having sex for 10 months.

But Julia had to dump Kiefer on the eve of their wedding, and because of that, tabloid newspapers and programs are going ga-ga, spreading five-inch-tall headlines and 15-minute blurbs about this couple.

Not to mention the cast of rogues who have made life miserable for the duo: A sexy Canadian disc jockey who used to be close pals (in the truest sense of the word) with Kiefer; Kiefer's best friend, who supposedly took off with the elusive Miss J; a stripper named Raven; and a reporter at a weekly newspaper in West Branch.

Yes, the somber details are beginning to leak, but the whole story has not been told. Left alone, almost obscured from the national limelight, is how this reporter is really the cause of the Julia-Kiefer breakup.

The National Enquirer has not yet picked up this bit of information, which surprises me, being that they are a tabloid of such high standards and morals. Nor have The Sun, Star, People Magazine or even Soap Opera Digest. This is depressing.

It's not fun to be ignored when such a newsworthy story involves you, but no one seems to notice.

So I am coming out with my side of the story. It is time to set the record straight, before the jumbo headlines scream words such as, "JOURNALIST WINS JULIA'S ETERNAL LOVE; HEARTBROKEN KIEFER THREATENS TO EITHER COMMIT SUICIDE OR PLAY BINGO," or "GABA: 'JULIA'S MINE, AND THAT GEEK KIEFER CAN GO CRY IN HIS ROOT BEER.'"

Let me begin by telling you that I have never actually met any of the parties involved. At least, not knowingly. Although I did spend a week in New York City a few years back, and may have seen Julia walking down the street, humming a Roy Orbison song. At least, it looked like her.

It was about that same time that the movie The Lost Boys came out, starring (among a cast of 10s) Kiefer, as a sort of modern-day Batman (the bloodsucker, not the Caped Crusader).

I thought nothing of it until about a year ago, after catching Julia in her triple-platinum selling movie, Pretty Woman, the epic about a girl who walks down the street (literally), the type of girl you like to meet (hardly). It starred Julia, her hair, Richard Gere and that same Orbison song. The irony was uncanny.

Anyway, I didn't especially like the film. Too predictable. I wanted a more believable ending to the movie, like Gere leaving for France with some swanky bimboesque Canadian disc jockey who stripped on the air while Julia sniveled in despair. You know, reality.

So i wrote her, telling her that, while I thought she did a marvelous job, and that her hair looked great, and that she was probably the best-looking and sexiest silver-screen hooker since Rebecca deMornay in Risky Business, the ending was a bit tepid. (For that matter, the entire plot was rather lame, but that's another story.)

She didn't write back, but her most recent film, Dying Young, is a little more believable. (She loses the guy to leukemia, rather than to a stripper. I think.) Even if the class difference is still as proclaimed as in Pretty Woman (ultra-rich dude, struggling, poor dudette). At least it's not like Beaches, with Bette Midler and Barbara Hershey's ultra-huge fake wax lips.

However, I think she really took the "realism" suggestion to heart when dealing with Kiefer. This was, for him, probably the lousiest movie ending he's ever had thrown in front of him. Talk about ad-libbing lines, these guys aren't even reading scripts. The best writers in hollywood can't come up with story plots this deep, this realistic.

So my involvement with this whole affair has been kept in the dark. Which is good, because I don't need the hassle of nosy tabloid reporters phoning me in the middle of the night, asking if it was true that I fathered Julia's two-headed love child.

Now THAT would be a major story.

This article originally appeared in the Ogemaw County Herald.

Commercial Slogans Part Of The Language

"NICE SHOES!"

The comment caught me by surprise. I was standing in front of one of those automated money machines, depositing a paycheck which was spent three years ago on one of my credit cards, when I saw this sharply-dressed guy out of the corner of my eye.

He sauntered my way, arms waving wildly, like an oversized pigeon trying to fly. And then he stopped, no more than five feet away from me, and stared into my face.

Then he glanced down at my feet, looked back into my stare, and proclaimed, proudly, those immortal words:

"NICE SHOES!"

And off he went, leaving me scratching my head, clueless as to the meaning of his exhibition.

Where he got this concept, of course, is from television. In particular, commercials. The reference to my shoes came from a Nike commercial, first aired last year, starring Bo Jackson. Never mind that I was wearing Reebok's at the time; that fact never came into play (obviously).

The "nice shoes" line has become one of many commercial-quipped bits which are an integral part of civilization. Nike is the uncontested, unofficial leader, thanks to sports gods Bo ("Bo knows shoe endorsements"), David Robinson (as in "Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood"), and the tandem performance of Spike Lee and Air Jordan ("Doyaknow? Doyaknow?" and "It's gotta be the shoes!" are the two most prominent).

Of course, Nike is not alone in well-known commercial quotes. Bud Light hit the big time with its "Gimme a light" campaign a few years ago. Wendy's "Where's the beef?" spawned a billion imitations (not to mention sales; no, let's not mention them).

Furthermore, to be well-quoted, a comment does not even need to be an ad. "Read my lips." "A thousand points of light." "Mother of all wars." "Cowabunga, dude!" and "Go ahead, make my day" are some of the more obvious catch-phrases of late. But commercials use the same line on a continual basis, making them even more memorable.

Jingles are also making a comeback. These musical snippets were big in the 1970s and early 1980s, and include several all-time classics: the Oscar Mayer wiener song and "I'd like to buy the world a Coke."

Lately, jingle wars have been fought between soft drinks, which spawned Billy Joel's line a few years ago, "Rock 'n roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore!"

The biggest battle has been the diet drink duel between Diet Pepsi's Ray Charles and Diet Coke's team of Paula Abdul and Elton John. They're cute, catchy and make some people agree with Joel's line.

Of courser jingles were hardly new in the 1970s. One of my mom's favorite commercial memories dates back to the 1950s, when a majority of the ads were still on radio.

It was a Pepsi commercial which mom remembers the best. The sing-song plug went something like this: "Pepsi Cola hits the spot; twelve full ounces - that's a lot; twice as much for a nickel, too; Pepsi Cola is the drink for you." The ad would close with the singers spewing the word "nickel" quickly and repeatedly.

(In case you're wondering about part of that slogan, Pepsi was then sold in 12-ounce bottles for five cents, while Coke was, apparently, sold at the same cost but in six-ounce bottles.)

But the youth of the 1950s were as adept at remembering slogans then as today's youth. And, as is the case of today, my mom and her friends reworked the song, with a slightly different twist:

"Pepsi Cola is the drink; pour it down your kitchen sink; tastes like vinegar, looks like ink; Pepsi Cola is a stinking drink!"

I have no idea what they repeated at the end of the commercial. I am, however, quite positive it was not "NICE SHOES!"

This article originally appeared in the Ogemaw County Herald.

High School Grads Show Freedom Of Choice

One of the great things about living in the United States is the freedom of choice. You can be Democratic, Republican or Socialist in your political backings. You can be pro-choice or pro-life. You can wear bikinis or one-piece bathing suits.

There are many areas of society where the youth have two, three, or more choices. Invariably, their decisions - for example, buying a Chicago Cubs baseball cap instead of a Cincinnati Reds cap - can be seen as a vote. In this case, mark one ballot in favor of the Cubs.

I was hit by a sudden inspiration while driving home from Whittemore last week (while dodging deer on M-55, no less). I decided to take a non-scientific, informal survey of today's youth.

I posed questions to members of the Whittemore-Prescott and Ogemaw Heights graduating classes. These queries were distributed by instructors at the schools, and seniors had the option of filling them out. (Ah, freedom of choice.)

Of the 246 seniors attending the two schools, 103 responded (that's 41 percent, for you aspiring math majors). Actually, there were 104, but one guy filled out the survey twice.

What is this, Chicago politics?

Seniors were asked: "Settle the debate: Which is better?" And some of the answers may surprise you.

Then again, I could be wrong.

(1) Michigan or Michigan State?

When choosing a university, students should look at what that school has to offer, not their sports programs. But image is everything, and as Zero Mostel said to Gene Wilder in The Producers, "If you got it, flaunt it!" And flaunting is what U-M does best.

State is like Michigan's kid brother, the one who always wants to be as good as the big guy, but never can catch quite up. This is pathetic. Even when MSU actually does edge out Michigan, the Wolverines manage to find a way to put State back in its place.

When making their decision, seniors chose Michigan over the Spartans, 66-35, once again proving their dominance. But I've heard rumors that a Whittemore teacher told seniors they had to vote for Michigan, because he was a U-M grad. (In some situations, freedom f choice may take a back seat to practicality.)

(2) Nike, Reebok or adidas?

Nike, on the strength of Air Jordan, David Robinson and Spike "Mars Blackmon" Lee, nipped Reebok by a 47-37 count. adidas, once the king of the foot market, stumbles along with 16 votes.

(3) "Old Kids On The Block" (aka/The Traveling Wilburys) or New Kids On The Block?

If that amphitheater ever gets built in the area, I can only give the owners one piece of advice: DON'T BOOK THE NEW KIDS.

The Wilburys easily outdistanced the boys from Boston, 73-9. Of course, 21 respondents chose neither, but that's beside the point.

(4) Coke or Pepsi?

This one surprised me, not only because of the final count (Pepsi, 56-43), but because of the diversity between schools.

Whittemore-Prescott was pro-Pepsi. The Cardinals chose The Right One by a 2-1 margin, 39-18. Must have been those neon cans they came up with a few months ago, which, when stacked in a certain order, spelled out the word "sex." (No, I am not making this up.)

At Ogemaw, though, Coke proved to be the real thing, winning 25-17.

(5) McDonald's, Burger King or Wendy's

I didn't put Taco Bell or Arby's on the list, because I wanted to stick to burger places. (Also, Taco Bell is my favorite, but I didn't want to show any bias.)

With TB out of the way, Mickey D's cruised to victory, outdistancing the BK Lounge, 61-30. Wedy's had 11 votes.

Ogemaw proved to make a close race not so tight, McVoting by a 32-8 count.

(6) Danielle Steele, Stephen King, Jackie Collins or George Orwell?

This King had more success. The master writer of terror scored 88 votes, while Collins was a close second with six. George "1984" Orwell scored three votes, nipping Steele, who had two.

Orwell would have scored better seven years ago, I think.

(7) War or Peace?

The object of war is to win - like America and the rest of the world did in Iraq. But peace beat war, 86-14. Go tell Stormin' Norman and the rest of the Scud Patrol that one.

(8) The Cosby Show, L.A. Law, ESPN Sportscenter or M*A*S*H?

With Michigan's win in Question No. 1, you could almost see the sports fans sharpening their pencils on this one. ESPN gathered 30 votes, just barely in front of the Cosby Clan's 28. Law scored 23, while M*A*S*H had 18 votes (not bad for a rerun).

Murphy Brown got a token vote.

When it comes down to it, I have no idea what all these numbers mean. But at least you know where today's graduates stand on the important issues.

This article originally appeared in the Ogemaw County Herald.