an excerpt from a trip account:

The bright orange flames twisted from the black smokestacks in the murky night. City-sized factories climbed above the horizon. Rusted trees of metal rose into the midnight sky. My hometown.

The bus rolled to the station where my sister & dad had waited. Roughly 90% of the building & houses we passed dowtown were boarded up. Entire streets & strip malls had been abandoned, yet the still vibrant & colorful signs hung above the gutted & vacant shops. A surreal quality hung about, as though the people of the world had suddenly vanished, leaving the streets as they were.

Little had changed in my childhood neighborhood. The cartoon Indian still smiled his big toothy grin above Calumet High School were I was knocked around for four wonderful years. Bernie still drove his stupid truck around the streets at 5 MPH, to leer at the 13 year old girls…