Imported from Detroit

I was born and raised in Pontiac, Michigan, a once thriving factory town and home of the Pontiac automobile. The last time I drove through my old neighborhood, I saw boarded-up houses and empty lots, and the streets looked like the grins of gap-toothed skulls. I sobbed all the way home. 

Photo by Liz Weddon on Unsplash

But people still live on that street, some of them my old neighbors, and where there's life there's hope. I love Pontiac. I would never have had some of my best friends and many of my happiest memories without it. 

The other day I was loading groceries into my car when a woman who was parked nose-to-nose with me yelled, "Hey! Excuse me!" I walked towards her. She was a black woman, middle-aged, with glasses and a not quite trusting smile.

"What's that mean on your windshield?"

I looked and saw that she was talking about the decal at the top reading: IMPORTED FROM DETROIT. It was there when I bought the car, used, a year or so before. The salesman explained that it was part of an auto industry marketing campaign and meant that the car was as good as any import. Once he said that, I didn't give it a second thought.

"Oh!" I smiled, oblivious to the potential for confrontation. "It was there when I bought the car. I think it's just a little poke at the imports."

"You sure it doesn't mean Detroit's no better than a third-world country?" 

She didn't look like someone trying to pick a fight. Instead, she seemed to be trying to avoid a fight when there was a possible affront staring her in the face.

My eyes got very wide. "Honestly, ma'am, I never took it that way at all, and if I'd thought that's what it meant, I would have had the salesman take it off. I bought the car used, and it was already on there. I always took it as pro-Detroit, not anti."

"Oh!" she laughed. "That sounds better to me. You see, I'm from Detroit, and I was just about to go a few rounds with you if that was your opinion!"

I smiled back. "Well, ma'am, I'm from Pontiac, and I think people like you and me ought to stick together."

"I think you're right!" she laughed. "You have a blessed day now!"

Life would be a lot better for everybody, and maybe last a lot longer for some, if we listened and talked before jumping to conclusions. 

I know that two men could have defused this tense situation just as amicably. Still, I think it's a good argument for pumping estrogen into city water supplies, just to help things along a little bit.