Hi to friends and family,
Dad used to claim that his writing could be mystical and that he sometimes wrote with prescience. Here’s an example of his ability to sense the future. Possibly this ability is just an example of a curious mind’s ability to collate various information gathered consciously or unconsciously from various sources. Or maybe, dad could really see the future???
Dad used to claim that he was the father of Novi, Michigan. Apparently, as the Detroit News ‘Suburban Editor’, dad wrote stories about various municipalities, going to their council meetings and interviewing the officials there. He said that he suggested in a story he wrote and from his knowledge about suburban municipalities that Novi Incorporate as a Charter ‘City’ rather than as a ‘Village’ or ‘Township’ because of the special abilities to tax and hold elections, etc. that City’s are allowed to do . . . This was in 1967. [The City Charter was originally approved at a special election held on February 18, 1969, shortly after the proposal to incorporate was approved at a special election held on May 20, 1968. The City Charter became effective on February 24, 1969. (From the City of Novi web site.]
So, what do you think? Prescient? Or mystical? I think that dad was just a man who observed life from historical and current data, wrote about it and made assumptions based on the information available. Sometimes he was right . . . Sometimes, not so right. But dad always showed a depth of caring and passion in his writing and in his life that was his legacy. We are lucky to have his writings to keep the man alive in our hearts.
Thanks for reading,
David T
p.s Don’t forget to make comments in the ‘Comments’ section below each story . . . More to come . . .
“Crossing the Border”
By Don Tschirhart
Excerpted from the unpublished book “It’s a Wonderful World II: A Retired Reporter Looks At Life“
Crossing the Border
I’m not a revengeful person, but I would like to see top officials of the American and Canadian immigration drive over the Blue Water Bridge at Port Huron and the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit at the end of a holiday weekend.
My wife, Margie, and I crossed over the Blue Water Bridge on the Sunday after Thanksgiving and I’d like the officials to share the experience.
It’s hard to believe the crossing problems between the United States and Canada haven’t been solved.
US scientists have been able to put a man on the moon, build an airplane invisible to radar and track Santa Claus from the North Pole on Christmas Eve. Fixing a problem like getting a truck from Sarnia to Port Huron in less than three hours the day following a holiday should be a piece of cake – right?
Wrong!
On a recent excursion away from Imlay City my wife, Margie and I found ourselves returning to the US from Canada sitting for a half hour in a car on a shaky bridge a hundred feet above the cold St. Clair River. Honestly, the west-bound bridge was shaking.
Next to us were two lanes of tractor-trailer trucks weighing several thousand pounds each. Their big diesel engines hummed loudly.
I know. The integrity of the new Blue Water Bridge is undeniable. But that didn’t stop the cold sweat running down my back.
It was scary as we looked to the left at the wall of trucks and to the right at river and Lake Huron’s black water a few hundred feet below.
I turned to Marge and said, “There’s got to be a better way. They’ve doubled the capacity of the Blue Water Bridge and it’s already overcrowded.”
The first indication of delays came about 15 miles east of Sarnia when flashing lights at the side of the Ontario Highway 402 warned that heavy traffic could mean some delays.
Detroit’s WWJ-Radio kept repeating that trucks crossing the Blue Water were being delayed 90 minutes. At the 6 kilometer marker trucks slowed and got into a single line. I’m sure it took at least three hours, and not ninety minutes, for a truck to cross. Automobile traffic continued at 35 kilometer an hour to the right of the dozens of trucks that crept forward foot-by-foot.
At the Sarnia bridge entrance toll booth cars separated from the trucks and we speeded up until the sign read, “Welcome to the United States,” and then we stopped. They got our money and now, foot-by-foot our car followed the cars in front of us waiting patiently with no place to go but forward.
Just as it happens in a supermarket, we got into the slowest line of cars waiting for “inspection.” When we got to the booth the inspector asked our citizenship, where we lived and where we had been. He smiled at our older faces and away we went.
But driving back on Interstate 69, I continued to think there had to be a better way for trucks to cross the border at Port Huron-Sarnia and the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel and Ambassador Bridge.
A friend told me each tractor-trailer rig costs more than a hundred dollars an hour to operate, and here several dozen of them were almost standing still for probably three hours. That does not include the rig driver’s pay check. Most drivers are paid by the mile. That quarter-mile standing still cost them a pretty penny.
Multiply the hundreds of dollars for each rig and the loss of driver income you can see that indeed, there has to be a better way. Trucking companies must be passing the higher costs to industries they service. And, of course, who pays eventually? Us. You and me. That’s who.
After all this Michigan-Ontario border — Port Huron and Detroit — handles more commerce than any other port in the nation.
I wonder if the trucking industry and the United States and Canadian governments might coöperate in a single plan.
Could the trucking industry purchase acreage on both sides of the border to be used as inspection terminals? The governments hire and train inspectors. Half their salaries would be paid by the trucking industry.
Trucks would go to the inspection terminals. Loads would be inspected, X-rayed and sealed before heading through the bridge non-stop. Electronics would indicate whether the truck had been tampered with between the terminal and bridge.
There probably are other methods of speeding up the crossing from Ontario to Michigan. I believe our American “smarts” can figure a way.
p.s Six months after this column appeared in the County Press, there was an ad by owners of the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit. Private companies would buy land on each side of the borders for truck inspections similar to the proposal suggested in this column.
