Village Life: If it’s Tuesday, that means jazz at Soggy Bottom Bar
By Teddy Robertson Tuesday night in downtown Flint and that means jazz at Soggy Bottom. On this cool April evening a gust of wind propels people through the front door just as the smiling drummer John Hill grabs the mic and announces, “We’re going to do some spring songs!” Together with Pat Cronley on keyboard and Jack McDonald on the bass, Hill opens the first set. The sticks go down and Hill looks radiantly happy. I think he is the...
Village Life: Hoop house project seeds rebirth of community ed at Pierce School
By Jan Worth-Nelson Sometimes the news is good. As the country emerges from a bruising winter and Flint struggles out of a three-year water crisis, some of the best neighborhood news this spring, like a little bunch of bright crocuses, is exquisitely quiet, small-scale, and promisingly local. And some of those small blooms are signs of a larger, cumulating bouquet of hopeful developments. Consider, for example, the hoop house at...
Village Life: We all need a “madness-free” zone
By The Rev. Dan Scheid Closing St. Paul’s every-Tuesday lunch ministry for the end of November and all of December last year was one of the more frustrating calls I’ve had to make as parish priest. I had been noticing, along with volunteers and lunch guests, that tension and tempers in the parish hall were rising all year, and on consecutive weeks in November, scuffles broke out. The first was over an accusation of a stolen cell phone...
Village Life: Midnight run leads to handcuffs and a jolt about privilege
Editor’s note: EVM editor Jan Worth-Nelson offered her Village Life column this month to Flint-based writer Connor Coyne, who has a good story to tell. By Connor Coyne Chicago in one day is always a whirlwind, but I did it anyway because in the writing life, a person will do almost anything for an audience and a mug of good beer. I had been invited to read at a literary event among old friends and I didn’t have the luxury of an...
Village Life: Buckle up for the pursuit of truth
Amendment I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. By Jan Worth-Nelson There’s a room in our house I can’t go into right now. It’s the den, a formerly beloved room we’ve always nestled into, a small...
Village Life: Getting on the bus might help alleviate community’s “toxic stress”
By Jan Worth-Nelson The water crisis has taken its toll on more than our pipes. As Elizabeth Burtch, a supervisor at Genesee Health System puts it, “There is a lot of anxiety out there, a lot.” And there’s what she calls “toxic stress,” leading to understandable but troubling reactions such as obsessive water hoarding, exacerbated physical symptoms, confusion, guilt and anger. And for the most part, the precipitating triggers have...
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