Back in Ann Arbor

Last month I found myself back in Ann Arbor for a long weekend. Several college roommates and friends made it back to where we all met for a bit of golf and a few good times. We got an AirBnB right next to The Blind Pig/Circ/8-Ball. A great location to enjoy AA nightlife and relive some of our glory days.

We all arrived on Thursday. Some got in early enough to get hooked up with a tour of Schembechler Hall and Crisler Arena. I missed out on that. But once we all arrived, we proceeded around the corner from the AirBnB to Grizzly Peak for dinner. We all thought it wasn't as good as it seemed when we would pick it as the "fancy" place to have our parents take us when they visited us while we were in school. Afterwards, we drank at the AirBnB and then went to the 8-Ball for beer and darts.

The entrance to 8-ball saloon

I went to the 8-Ball a handful of times as a senior at Michigan. I didn't make it over to Main Street often while in school, but when I did, the 8-Ball was a place I liked to pop into. I always remembered it as a townie bar, and a little rougher one at that. Leather jackets and guys who had turned a wrench or two before. However, I didn't see too much of that this weekend. It was mostly college kids and no longer seemed like a bar for the working man anymore. Maybe those folks can't afford to live in AA anymore?

Friday morning we played the U of M Golf Course. We did a scramble, and the losing team had to pay for hibachi that evening. My team won, mostly because Zola decided to show up this trip, and it turns out he is an absolute stick, despite not having played for 2 years. I wasn't much of a golfer in college and had never played that course, but I really enjoyed it. It was so much more interesting than the other Alister MacKenzie course that I play regularly near my office in Sacramento.

Teeing off at the U of M Golf Course

After golfing we were going to go to a CIAYCELB (Cottage Inn All You Can Eat Lunch Buffet) but were dismayed to find out that Cottage Inn stopped doing their lunch buffet years ago. Instead, we decided to get some pepperoni styx from Charley's. On the way we decided to grab some sangria from Dominick's. We had the whole courtyard to ourselves. The place was pretty dead, which surprised me for 3 p.m. on a Friday.

We made it to Charley's for some snacks and a few pitchers of Labatt Blue. Charley's was also pretty quiet. From there we headed over to the Brown Jug for a Hairy Bitch. They were delicious as ever, but it was odd that there was nary a student in there, just a few older couples eating an early dinner. I know it was spring term, but even when I was a student there would usually be a bit of action at one of the campus bars on a Friday afternoon during the spring. And I know they weren't at the Blue Lep because that apparently had closed.

After leaving The Jug, I took stock of South U. All the small shops and little buildings had been replaced by mid-rises. From in front of the Raising Cane's at East U, all of South U looked like every other generic mid-sized American city. Middle Earth never stood a chance against the developers. We argued as we walked about where things used to be before it had all gotten bulldozed for fancy apartments catering to students who didn't want to have the college experience of living in a shit house with all their friends doing dumb shit and loving it.

Speaking of dumb shit - a polar bear fight

From there we went to the Garage Bar for a lively round of Polar Bear Fights, which I gladly refrained from. This led to one participant passing out at hibachi (the 2 sake bombs didn't help), which makes 2 golf trips in a row in which this person has passed out at a restaurant. After hibachi, we went to the Heidelberg for beer boots. The basement was basically empty, which is strange to me since the Heidelberg was always such a fun spot. Maybe it fell off once they stopped serving the free hot wings on Fridays.

Most everyone having a memorable time at Hibachi

From there we went to the Circ Bar, which everyone we talked to said was the place to be. I remember going into it once or twice when I was a student and it was called Circus Bar. I remember it being a kind of odd second-story circus-themed bar. I was a bit surprised it was still open. I was even more surprised that the place was packed. A few beers and games of pool later I was fading fast from 12+ hours of drinking, and things got a little fuzzy.

Saturday was the main event of the golf trip. My buddy Dan had worked a connection to get us onto Radrick Farms, which is the university-owned golf course that is just for regent and staff use. The course is a Pete Dye course set on the rolling hills just outside the city. It is a beautiful course and was an absolute gem to play. After sleeping in and a late breakfast at Fleetwood Diner, we headed over to the course for an early afternoon tee time. I didn't play my best golf, but I made 5 pars and broke 100. Not bad when going up against a Pete Dye course. I couldn't help but splurge a bit in the pro shop on some gear.

Radrick

By the time we got back to the AirBnB it was nearing time for dinner and we were all hungry. We had seen a Detroit pizza place on our way back from the course and headed over there. It was just us in the restaurant besides 1 guy at the bar in a bright red fishing vest. The bartender/server said he didn't even work there. He was an odd dude. But he got us drinks and our pizza, which was surprisingly good, although not good enough to attract a crowd on a Saturday night.

Then we headed over to Ashley's, which was pretty quiet. After a beer, everyone else headed back to Main Street. I decided to take a bit of a walk around campus. Maybe it was the alcohol, but it felt like a bit of a fever dream, where there were things I recognized but everything seemed wrong at the same time. South of Ashley's, where there should have been a Jimmy John's, was a Dunkin'. I walked down State Street towards my old house. I stopped to see what failing restaurant was at State & Packard and laughed when I saw the "Restaurant Space for Lease" sign in front of the business de jour which happened to be Pizza Cat Max. I continued down to my college house, but instead of it being there, there was a ginormous high-rise apartment building under construction in its place. Around the old neighborhood where there should have been house parties with beer pong in front yards, there was quiet. The houses were there, but the porches were devoid of life on a nice May Saturday night. Elbel Field had a dorm on it for some reason.

Where my old house was

I went into Campus Corner to pay my respects to Joe and saw that they didn't sell 40s of malt liquor anymore. Joe's nephew behind the counter said that after COVID the kids stopped drinking it, and they stopped stocking it. I stumbled out to the street wondering if kids were going through their entire college careers without drinking a single 40 of malt liquor. As I walked I remembered how the first time I ever got drunk in Ann Arbor was off a 40 of Mickey's. About how we would make brass monkeys with Olde English "800" my sophomore year. About sitting on the porch my junior year drinking Colt 45s. About senior year participating in the CSI (Camo Silver Ice) Challenge and coming in second place. These kids would never have the joy of cracking a 40 of malt liquor with their homies.

Olde English "800"

I continued walking, stopping in at the Union for a hearty poop (I still remember all my favorite dumping grounds on campus). Then I went to spin the cube only to realize that the Fleming Administration Building is now a grass field. I walked back, past the Original Cottage Inn, only realizing that it's no longer Cottage Inn and now just another pizza place. I walked past Pinball Pete's only to realize it was in the wrong spot too, and had probably been pushed out by some developer on South U.

I found myself very relieved as I walked back into the friendly confines of the 8-Ball Saloon to find my friends playing darts and drinking beer. It felt like my friends were still the same, even if the town had changed, and the college students had changed, and Cottage Inn had changed. We were still the same dumb kids, just stuck in 38-year-old bodies.

NATIONAL CHAMPIONS

For the second time in 3 years, and for the second time in 29 years Michigan is National Champions in Football or Basketball.

The nature of basketball and football has changed the way championships are won, with rosters being constructed out of NIL money -  especially in basketball. But I still believe there is some underlying force between past program success, fan commitment, player interest, booster money, and ultimately program success.

When asked, Dusty May first said this championships is for the past players, which is very admirable for a coach who has only been at the school for two seasons. But I couldn't agree more. This is for the guys who came in and gave their all, with no real hope of getting to the top of the mountain, but paved the way for the guys who came after them to keep inching closer. Two championship game losses in 2013 and 2018 made me really feel for the guys who came so close but didn't make it.

To the guys who bled for this program.

This championship goes out to these guys.

To the guys who I watched as an underclassman under Tommy Amaker:

Daniel Horton
Courtney Sims
Dion Harris

To the early Beilein guys who made the first NCAA Tourney in a decade:

DeShawn Sims
Manny Harris
Zack Novak
Stu Douglass

My post on attending that NCAA Tourney.

To the 2013 team that got so close:

Trey Burke

Glenn Robinson III

Nik Stauskas

Tim Hardaway Jr

Jordan Morgan

Caris LeVert

Jon Horford

Mitch McGary

Spike Albrecht

Win the game.

To the in-between guys who missed both championship runs:

Zak Irvin
Derrick Walton

To the 2018 who again got the to the championship game:

Charles Matthews

Jordan Poole
Zavier Simpson

Isaiah Livers

MAAR
Moritz Wagner

Jon Teske

Duncan Robinson
Eli Brooks

To the Juwan Howard Era Guys:
Caleb Houstan
Franz Wagner

Hunter Dickinson

I loved the guys on that 2018 team. Besides my love for Zack Novack, Stu Douglass and Jourdan Morgan, I wish that team could have won it all. 

I'm happy for this team, but I don't feel the same way for these players in particular. Besides L.J. Cason, Trey McKinney and Will Tschetter, it's all transfers. Most of these players came to Michigan because the money was good, and they thought they could win a championship here. But I love the guys who came here because they loved the University of Michigan, and gave it all out of love for their school. I realize that is a antiquated belief, but that's what makes college sports special to me.

But this team was truly special and was one of the best college basketball teams ever assembled. It was a joy to get to watch them in person in DC this February, despite losing a close game to Duke.

Go blue!

Sorry for any typos, the champagne has been flowing.

Loris "Sunshine" Caplan (1927-2025)

My grandmother, Sunshine died this fall at the ripe old age of 98. She lived a pretty incredible life, and she lived through some very interesting times.

She was born in Detroit at the tail end of the roaring twenties as the second eldest of four and the only girl. The daughter of a foundry foreman she spent her youth on the east side before relocating to the west side. Her house on the west side at 5756 Hamilton Ave. would eventually be torn down as part of the expansion of the Lodge Freeway. She grew up in a Detroit that was booming. It's population would double between 1920 and 1950 as it became the 5th largest and the wealthiest city in the country.

Graduating high school at the end of WWII, she enrolled first in Alma College in Alma, MI, and eventually graduated from Michigan Normal College (now Eastern Michigan) in 1949 after training to be librarian with a minor in spanish, a language which I never heard her speak. She would often tell of hitchhiking between Ypsilanti and Detroit.

Quiet possibly Sunshine in the Bookmobile

After college she began working as a librarian for the Detroit Public Library. She soon began working on the city's bookmobile riding around the city distributing books. She then began working as a research librarian at the GM Research Laboratory where she met my grandfather. She had turned down two marriage proposals from other suitors before eventually accepting my grandfather's hand in marriage. 

She chose wisely. Living first in an apartment near the GM research lab, they eventually moved onto a modest home on Derby road in Birmingham where they would have their children. Sunshine would settle into life as a 1950's housewife. Eventually as my grandfather rose the ranks within the GM research laboratory they would move to a more stately home at 2515 Covington Place. During these years I have to imagine they lived the stereotypical suburban life with sunshine rearing three daughters while my grandfather went off to work each day.

As her children got older she was able to travel more with my grandfather who often traveled for his work as the executive director of the GM research laboratory and as a member of the National Academy of Engineering. 

The only known picture of Sunshine wielding a machete. Taken at my place in Poulsbo, WA.
In the background is a picture of us, and a wooden box she gave me.

After my grandfather's retirement from GM in 1987 they downsized to a condo in The Heathers, less than a mile from when I grew up. This meant they were always around for birthdays and school plays. When my grandfather died in 1998, Sunshine became my only grandparent left, an honor which she would hold for another 27 years.  It was around this time that me and my siblings were getting old enough for our mother to let us ride our bikes alone to her house. In the summer we would often ride over to her house to play rummy, drink Big K pop and eat Drumsticks ice cream cones which I think she always kept in supply just for us. Otherwise her fridge was mostly empty as she would boast about making a Wendy's salad last for two meals. Not that she particularly needed to pinch pennies as the wife of an auto industry executive, but I think as a child of the great depression she always valued frugality. Those are some of my greatest memories of Sunshine.

Sunshine was always a big believer in a quality education. That shows in all three of her children graduating college and two of them getting advanced degrees. I think she was extremely proud when my siblings and I were inducted into the National Honor Society, got accepted into the University of Michigan, and graduated from college. She helped pay for all of her grandchildren's college educations.

Sunshine and I the night I found out I got accepted at U of M

She was also quite the traveller. I remember asking her if she was excited about visiting Russia on an upcoming trip and her response was that she'd already been there twice! Even after my grandfather died she travelled extensively with friends through her seventies.

In 2012, after spending her entire 85 years in the state of Michigan she moved to Pacific Palisades in California, right on the beach to be near my aunt. When my aunt moved to Tampa Bay a few years later she followed as well, spending the rest of her life in Florida, near where she and my grandfather had vacationed every winter after his retirement. She lived in a condo looking out over the Gulf of Mexico. When COVID hit, she hunkered down being at higher risk due to her age and being in Florida. It was during this time that her memory began to decline, which was a surprise to me since even in her early nineties she could remember little details of my childhood that I had long forgotten. Whether her memory loss would have happened at that age anyways, or if the prolonged isolation of COVID had something to do with it... who knows. But she spent her last few years in memory care before dying peacefully in her sleep.

Sunshine was a bit particular in some ways. She hated surprises. She also had a strong sense of what was prudent, and if you strayed from that she would tell you. She cared deeply about how she, and by extension her family, presented themselves. In later years she would talk to me often about the legacy of my grandfather, and his work. I think she really wanted us to know what a great man he was. She deeply loved her family, although she could seem ambivalent to her children's and grandchildren's partners. She also loved to tell me how proud she was of me and the person I became. That always meant a lot to me. She was someone I was very close to growing up, and I'll miss her always.