CLASSMATE REMEMBERED: Seven Children Died in 1956 Whiteford Township Fire

It had been 60 years, but for some reason, he couldn’t shake the memory.

A retired law enforcement official, this former Ottawa Lake resident kept thinking back to 1956 when his father, who was on the Whiteford Township Fire Department, came home late one night with horrific news. Seven children were killed in a house fire off State Line Rd., on the Michigan side.

One of those killed was 9-year-old Brenda Joyce Cooper. She was a classmate in a Whiteford Township school – Maplewood School – of that firefighter’s son.

“You know, he didn’t say much about it,” said the man, now 79. “No one talked much about it, even at school. We knew there was a fire and she died. That was about it. I don’t think they ever mentioned it at school.”

The man, who asked me not to use his name if I wrote about this because of his law enforcement background, is still shook by the tragedy. His wife said he had a dream about it and that’s what stirred up the memory.

He’s not sure.

“It may have been,” he said. “It just was on my mind, you know? Maybe it’s because I’m older. I just kept thinking about her and her family. I wonder whatever happened to them.”

The story made headlines for a couple of days. Both The Monroe Evening News and The Blade of Toledo carried front page stories on April 26, 1956.

Accounts say the father, John Cooper, came home from work and took his wife, Lora, to work at the Candlelight Cafe in downtown Toledo. He didn’t come directly home. Reports vary as to what he did. One story said he stopped to watch a fight on television, then went to an all-night auto parts store where he was considering buying shocks for his car.

While he was away, he left his six children and one of their cousins alone.

It wasn’t unusual, especially given it was 1956.

Sometime before midnight, a neighbor, Herman Stokes, was returning from work when he saw the house was on fire. He went to the house, located at 2500 State Line Rd., and began yelling for help. He tried to get inside, but the doors were locked. Other neighbors tried, too, one being injured when attempting to break a window. All said the fire was hot and raging. In a short time, the house was fully engulfed in flames and destroyed.

Stokes ran house to house trying to find a telephone to call for help. None was available and he was forced to drive to his home, a 5-minute trip, to use his telephone. It was too late. All seven children were dead – bodies burned beyond recognition.

Jacqueline, 6; John Jr., 4; Shirley Jean, 2; Georgia Marie, 1; Carter, two months, and their cousin, Harrison, 9, died alongside Brenda. Five of the bodies were found in their beds. Two were lying near the front door.

The mother’s aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Ector, lived two houses away on State Line Rd., which was then a dirt road.

“The doors were locked and all the windows were shut,” Mrs. Ector told The Blade. “We couldn’t hear anything inside except the crackling of the flames.

“We beat on the screens at the bedroom windows where the children sleep. There wasn’t any answer. Finally, we broke the front door down. We couldn’t see inside because of the smoke and flames. Then the roof went up in a ball of fire. We had to get back or else we would have been scorched.”

The family had lived at the six-room, one-story house since 1953.

The father, who worked at a fertilizer company in Silica, Ohio, arrived home at 1:30 a.m. that morning. He was detained by police and lodged in the Monroe County Jail. The mother was never jailed but spent the night in Monroe with the county prosecutor being questioned. No charges were filed. He was freed within hours. It was a tragic accident, everyone agreed, but not criminal. The fire was probably due to faulty wiring, reports said.

The story was quickly moved off the front pages. The deceased, all black, were transported to a funeral home and, days later, buried in an unmarked grave at Forest Cemetery in Toledo. What happened to Mr. and Mrs. Cooper is a mystery.

The former classmate found out about the unmarked grave not long ago when he attempted to learn more about the fire and family.

“I didn’t think that was right,” he said.

He did something about it. He bought materials, had the names of the dead engraved, and delivered the stone to the cemetery. It’s now in place, marking the remains of his childhood friend, Brenda, and her siblings.

“We would play together at the playground,” he recalled. “We were all friends. No one cared if we were white or black. We’d push each other on the swing and play on the teeter-totter. She was a classmate. I feel bad for what happened. Still do.

“I started wondering about it.”

The man went knocking on doors a several months ago in the neighborhood but couldn’t find anyone who knew the story. Over the last few weeks, I’ve spoken with several people who grew up in that same neighborhood, and no one recalled hearing about it, except one person who said he remembers his mom talking about some kids who died in a fire years ago.

Imagine such a tragedy in today’s world would not only make headlines, it would be all over social media and would certainly cause a furor for a variety of reasons. These events, however, took place 70 years ago. No remnants of the fire remain on the property off State Line Rd. – no signs of the almost unbelievable disaster.

When the Ottawa Lake native started his research he didn’t remember Brenda’s last name. He spent hours at libraries trying to find newspaper clippings, then hours walking Forest Cemetery to find the grave. He didn’t get permission, he said, to put the gravestone in place once he found out where the family is buried “because there wasn’t anyone around to ask.”

Forest Cemetery officials appear to be fine with it. Someone there noticed the new headstone and posted it on their Facebook page.

The cemetery is historic, dating back to 1839. It’s vast with small lanes going in every direction. There are nearly 10 acres and thousands of headstones. Now, there is one more.

Brenda’s former classmate doesn’t want her heartbreaking end to be forgotten. That’s why the headstone was important to him. He visits now and then to say a prayer. If any relatives of the Coopers – it’s not known if they live in the area – ever go looking, they now have a place to mourn.

“I wasn’t doing anything special, just remembering my classmate,” the Whiteford graduate said. “She shouldn’t be forgotten. I thought the headstone was the right thing to do.”

This column appears in the July 1, 2026 edition of The Advance.

Libraries Have Always Had the Answers

The story of my life can be told largely around libraries.

As I got older, sports continued to mesmerize me. I read books about football players and baseball players, and, especially, books about baseball history. When Bill James started writing his “Baseball Abstract” books – which were essentially all about baseball statistics – the only way I knew how to get my hands on a copy was to go to the Bedford branch library of the Monroe County Library System and ask if they could get it for me. Within weeks, the librarian called my house and said they had the book and I was able to check it out. I was in awe. 

My first introduction to a library was, of course, as a student at Whiteford Elementary School. I checked out books, learned about the Dewey Decimal System and consumed everything I could about sports.

Sports statistics became my passion. I gobbled up book after book on baseball stats. I couldn’t get enough.

The library was my ticket to it all.

I would go there as often as my mom would drive me, and sometimes I even rode my bike and tried to balance the bag of books that I checked out on my handlebars as I pedaled home.

As a teenager, they built a new library within walking distance to my grandma’s house. I spent a lot of time at her house doing all sorts of different things with her, including reading the newspaper, checking on the latest harness racing results from Toledo Raceway Park and reading. Having a library so close was perfect.

As I got older, I started reading magazines instead of books. The library was still the place to go for Sports Illustrated and Sport magazine and others.

I was 15 when I discovered at the Bedford library one could go to the microfilm machine and look up old issues of The Monroe Evening News. This started a second passion of mine – research. I would go to the library with paper and pencil in hand and copy down years and years of basketball box scores, baseball scores and stats and football stories about Whiteford dating back to the 1950s.

After months of hand writing everything I could get my hands on, the librarian showed me how to make copies of the screen. This was an incredible time-saver as I dug deeper and deeper into local sports history from schools across Monroe and Lenawee Counties. I couldn’t have done any of it without the library.

In high school I began to get more serious about writing and read somewhere that the best writers read everything they could. I was already hooked.

When I was 16, I discovered a book by Bob Greene called American beat. That book, which is always at my fingertips, became an obsession of mine as I gobbled up column after column by Greene. I not only read his books, but at the downtown Toledo library I could go there every couple of days and read his columns in The Chicago Tribune, which they had a subscription for.

As an adult, I still turned to the library for help, often scheduling trips to go to Lansing to do more research about sports as I expanded my research to schools from across the state.

The library has always been a friend of mine. It’s somewhere you can go to get lost in different worlds to learn about everything you want to under the sun. I also discovered you could check out music. When my Beatles era hit and I became fascinated by the Fab Four, I went to the Sanger Branch in Toledo and checked out cassette tape tapes of “Revolver” and “Abbey Road.”

As my wife and I had children, they, too, were library regulars, going for story time and making crafts. They developed friendships with other kids their age.

Libraries have always had all the answers.

I bring this up because I found out recently that the Sanger Branch has been demolished to make room for a new school. They are replacing that library with a much larger building off Alexis Rd. From the road, the building looks massive. I’m excited to see the finished product.

Building a new library might seem strange as more and more people consume information from their computers or their phone. To me, however, that doesn’t make the library any less valuable. There are still things you can get at a library that you’re not going to find anywhere else.

In Blissfield, for example, you can look up back issues of The Advance dating back more than 100 years. To my knowledge, there is no other place you can do this.

As the summer reading program in Blissfield gets into full swing, it’s worth checking out the schedule as the library will have things to do just about every day of the summer.

The library has always my window to the world. If you haven’t been there in a while, it’s worth discovering again.

This column was published in the June 24, 2026 edition of The Advance.

I’m Back to Baseball – Here’s My Two Cents

Like most people I expected a decent season this year from the Detroit Tigers.

In the preseason I invested time to learn the lineup, the prospects and newcomers. I watched the Grapefruit League standings and checked in with the Tigers daily.

I bought tickets to several Toledo Mud Hens games – the Tigers top farm team – and check marked some games later in the year I want to go to.  My wife and I bought matching Tigers hoodies that she seems to dig out before all of our morning walks.

Just before the season I purchased the Major League Baseball TV pass, then bought the Detroit Sports Net package so I would have the opportunity to watch most of the Tiger games.

I’ve been on the Tiger roller coaster all season, watching the injuries mount, the walk-off losses and series losses and, in the last week, a big comeback.

Baseball has always been special to me. Before I was 10, I figured out how to tune into Tigers games on the radio and gobbled up box scores from newspapers. I would read several preseason magazines every season. I knew the lineups of just about every MLB team. I immersed myself into baseball history and records and collected baseball cards.

The ‘84 Tigers was one of the best summers of my childhood. The first column I ever wrote for a newspaper was about the Tigers. I was 16.

Admittedly, the game got away from me for a few decades. The Tigers turned ugly, the game got painfully slow-paced, free agency and expansion weren’t favorable to the product teams put on the field and all of my favorite players, well, got old and retired. I turned to other sports. Then I had kids and baseball became an afterthought.

Slowly I’ve tried to get my love for the game back. I’ve come close. Justin Verlander flirting with a no-hitter seemingly every time he pitched and the occasional superstar in Detroit were good times. The World Series run the Tigers made in 2012 was thrilling.

This year was my all-in return to baseball. During my newfound commitment to being a baseball fan, I’ve discovered two things in the first three months of the season: 1. I still am madly in love with baseball; and, 2. The constant over analyzation of the game makes it hard to watch.

I grew up listening to the soothing voices of Ernie Harwell and Paul Carey on Tigers radio broadcasts and George Kell and Al Kaline on TV. On national TV broadcasts we heard guys like Joe Garagiola and Joe Morgan. If I was out West, I was fortunate to listen to Vin Skully.

Baseball was relaxing. The game wasn’t in a hurry and neither were the announcers. They kindly told us what was happening and – here’s where it gets good – told stories about the game. They made us love baseball even more by recounting some amazing feats or fantastic moments. Harwell told as good a story as anyone, whether it was about an obscure minor leaguer or one of the all-time greats.

These days the announcers are much more interested in analyzing every swing and miss. They make sure that listeners know if every pitch is a cutter or a sinker or a four-seam fastball. The color analysts try and guess every next pitch. They talk about launch angles and pitch counts.

I miss hearing Paul Carey’s voice giving us updates from how the Tiger farm teams were doing and how Kaline would talk about being around the batting cage the morning of the game and what the players had to say.

Baseball has always been about statistics and numbers, but its history is the foundation of the game. No other sport has it this way. I’d rather hear about how a kid from some tiny town in Michigan reached the Major Leagues despite never being drafted than the percentages of cutters the guy at-bat has seen this year. Instead of predicting the next pitch – will it be a sinker outside or a breaking ball high and tight? – introduce me to the only Major League ball player from Palmyra.

I’ve heard an announcer blame the pitch clock for making the game move faster, thus reducing the time they have to tell stories and provide insight. I can’t disagree enough.

Baseball is meant to be enjoyed over long stretches of time, not consumed in one bite. Every game has unique scenarios and situations. Let the game breathe and bring back the stories, the history and the tales that made the game what it is.

This column was first printed in the June 17, 2026 edition of The Advance.

The House Fire That Wasn’t a Fire at All

Did you ever wonder how fast you can – legally – get home when your wife calls you at work and tells you “Our house is on fire?”

Last week, I found out. It took about 14 minutes from hearing her panicked voice telling me she can smell fire but isn’t sure where it’s coming from to my arrival home.

I’ll give away the ending now – our house didn’t burn down. The fire department wasn’t called and nothing went up in flames.

But how we got to this point is worth re-telling.

First off, Anne isn’t a person who gets rattled easy. Her blood pressure is almost non-existent. Her resting heartbeat is about 50. When confronted by a difficult situation, she usually makes a joke or laughs about it. Eventually, she might get a brief look of worry across her face, but that usually goes away pretty fast. She lets others do the worrying.

I could tell, however, there was no joking around when she called me about the burning house.

“I know I smell it and I can hear it,” she said.

My mind started racing about what it could be. My phone connected to my car as I left The Advance office in a hurry and headed East on US-223.

“Check the basement,” I said, speculating that the sump pump ran too long and the motor burned up.

She did. All clear.

“What about the attic fan?” I said, thinking maybe it tried turning on for the first time since last fall and was having an issue.

Wrong again. It checked out.

We’ve had a couple of … let’s call them incidents … at our house over the years. Once, my daughter Rachel put popcorn in hot oil on the stove, then proceeded to go into another room. By the time the house filled up with smoke, we decided there wasn’t anything wrong with microwave popcorn after all.

The fire department did come that time, but the grease/oil fire was out. A few coats of paint, a melted cupboard aside, it was harmless.

The other time the fire department made the trip to our home was when a sump pump motor did indeed burn up. No damage. New sump pump and everything was fixed. The worst part about that “fire” was my wife and I were helpless in a New York City dinner when the call came in.

This time, Anne searched high and low but couldn’t come up with the location of the fire.

I called my son Jack, who was just as far away as I was, and my son-in-law Dalton, who was just around the corner. As we descended upon our house, it was soon discovered there was no fire, but the doorbell – which had been pushed by someone at our door about four hours earlier in the day – somehow stuck and likely had been burning up the motor the entire time.

She pushed the button and it successfully shut off. It’s no longer working, of course, but that’s a small price rather than having your house doused with water.

She let me know when I was about two miles from home, so I slowed down for the final leg of the journey, and everyone else did too. But I discovered a couple of things during that trip home.

For one, I didn’t panic. Not because I didn’t think there was a fire, but because I knew everyone – including the dog – was safe from harm. That was, and always is, the most important thing in the time of a crisis. Things are going to be okay one way or another.

Second, help is always just a phone call away. When you need something, make the call. More times than not, whoever receives that call is going to help. Even if they can’t fix the problem, they might know how it can be fixed.

Finally, I also witnessed Anne stay calm and collected throughout the incident and found a minute to make fun of herself for freaking everyone out over a door bell. I still don’t think she broke a sweat, though, and I doubt her heartbeat actually sped up. I don’t know how she does that, but when I did pull in the driveway, she had the same demeanor she always does – cool and calm and ready for whatever comes next.

This week we celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary and, yes, our house is still standing. What could be better than that?

This column was published in the June 10, 2026, edition of The Blissfield Advance.

Johnny B. Goode and Me

Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy proposed a theory in the 1920s that any two people on Earth can be connected by a chain of no more than six social connections.

In the 1929 short story called “The Links of the Chain,” Karinthy was trying to show how fundamentally small the world is. The theory is remarkably accurate and has been proven its worth over and over through the decades. The theory itself enjoyed a bit of a revival in the 1990s when three college students invented a game called the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” a theory that the Hollywood actor could be connected to every other Hollywood actor, or movie, within six steps.

The Oracle of Bacon, sometimes called “Bacon’s Law,” came out of that theory around 1996 and recently celebrated 30 years of being a cultural phenomenon. Bacon himself has embraced the theory. In 2007 he started a charitable organization called SixDegrees.org and in 2020 launched his podcast, “The Last Degree of Kevin Bacon.”

I’ve always been fascinated by the theory and love to make connections to famous people, whether its athletes, musicians, politicians or anyone else. I’ve never tested the theory in terms of actually trying to contact any of those famous people, of course, but I have found it remarkably useful when trying to add branches to my family tree. Through ancestry.com I’ve made numerous connections over the years to distant relatives, often by introducing myself as a cousin of someone who I am certain that person knows. It usually works.

The world is definitely smaller than we imagine. Last month I was sitting on a bench in Holland and someone sat down next to me who lives close enough I can see their house from mine. The encounter in Holland was the first time we’ve met. I was at a Blissfield restaurant recently and recognized someone who was about to sing on stage – and remembered we worked together on numerous projects within the last three years.

It’s fun to play around with the theory.

I recently found out someone I know has a son who got a job with a company that Elon Musk owns. That would be a fourth-degree of separation for me to Musk, I believe.

Last year I wrote a feature story about Whiteford graduate Derek Marckel, who now works for the University of Colorado football team and former Dallas Cowboy Deion Sanders. Marckel, who works directly with Sanders, is my first or second-degree of separation for many of my favorite all-time football players who played for Dallas – Roger Staubach, Troy Aikman, Emmett Smith and, of course, my favorite Cowboy ever, Doug Donley.

I’ve met plenty of current NASCAR drivers, many who drove in the ARCA Racing Series during the time I worked for the Temperance-based national touring series. I helped Dale Earnhardt Jr. snake his way through the media center at Michigan International Speedway once. No degree of separation there as I interacted with him myself. I once interviewed William Gates – no, not Bill Gates – after he produced the landmark basketball documentary Hoop Dreams.

Last week I talked to Ty Ruddy, also a Whiteford graduate, who shared a stage recently with Erika Kirk. That’s another connection to write down.

I count several musicians as people I’ve interviewed over the years – the now deceased Eddie Money was perhaps my favorite interview until I found out he used the same line on me that he used on everyone. I forgave him for that one, once I realized how funny it was. I talked to Jason Aldean before he hit country music stardom. I kept his number in my phone for years before deleting it just in case someone found my phone and tried to call him.

One of my favorite interviews with a musician was when I spent a solid 90 minutes interviewing jazz legend and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, Johnnie Johnson.

Johnson began playing piano at the age of 4 and became an accomplished jazz player in Chicago in the 1940s. In the 1950s, in St. Louis, Johnson brought on guitar player Chuck Berry for his Sir John Trio band. Soon after, Berry became the focal point of the band because, as Johnson told me, Berry had a car and they figured they could get better gigs with him in charge.

One night, while playing in Chicago, Berry introduced a song to Johnson – a number called “Johnny B. Goode.”

Johnson told me, “I played no part in nothing of Johnny B. Goode. On other songs, Chuck and I worked together, but not that one. We were playing one night, I think it was Chicago, and he played it. Afterward, he told me it was a tribute to me. He did it on his own. I didn’t know nothing about it. It was never discussed.”

A couple of years later, just before his death, Johnson sued Berry saying he deserved co-composer rights to some of his songs. The judge threw it out of court.

Johnson’s my connection to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Just one more link in the chain.

This column was published in the June 3, 2026 Advance.

Have I Got a Story To Tell? Maybe, Maybe Not

My favorite all time TV sitcom, outside of The Brady Bunch, is Seinfeld.

The characters, the catch phrases, the way the storylines weaved effortlessly episode after episode made it the perfect sitcom.

On the show, Kramer led a fascinating life. He had a story for every situation in life and did a tremendous job of telling that story. In one episode, re-occurring character J. Peterman buys those stories from Kramer and tries to make them his own. When Kramer starts to tell his stories, he is reminded he no longer owns the rights to them. He sold them off.

Like Peterman, I’m in the market for stories.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel like I’ve had a fulfilling life. I’ve been everywhere, man.

But I don’t think I have many stories to tell. There was the time when I was 5 that I told a truck driver he wasn’t much of a truck driver because he didn’t drive a Peterbilt. And I jumped out of a semi to buy a newspaper in busy New York City traffic when I was 11.

That’s the whole story. That’s the problem. My stories are highlights, not tall tales.

I’ve been to something like 35 states. I saw Michael Jackson moonwalk and Michael Jordan play basketball. I’ve been to Daytona International Speedway and Madison Square Garden. I’ve interviewed famous athletes like Shaquille O’Neal and Dale Earnhardt Jr. I was at Toledo Speedway when 16-year-old Kyle Busch took his first laps at the half-mile oval.

My wife and I have been to our fair share of fairs and festivals, concerts and cities. We love going to Mackinac Island with her sister Sue and her husband Doug. We’ve been to a handful of national parks. Our short trips are second to none. But these are just things I did. Unless I’m forgetting something, I have few stories about those places.

I met up with a great friend last weekend who I haven’t had a sit-down conversation with in months. Within minutes we were laughing as he was three-deep into stories about interesting things he’s had going on his life. I sat amazed, hanging on to where the story would go.

Maybe I’m boring. I have great memories, but I am short on stories about me.

Most of my stories are about things that happened to my wife or about my kids, which I love to tell and take tremendous pride in. Each of them has stories that make me smile every time I think about them.

Still, I think Peterman had the right idea when he bought Kramer’s stories. They were so much more interesting than his own.

Just last weekend, I went to an out-of-state wedding and had to buy a suit when I got there. I got dressed at the hotel in my sports coat and shorts and picked up my pants on the way to the venue. I once hit a pedestrian with my van in New York City – we both looked at each other and shrugged our shoulders and kept going. I drove a semi-truck on I-80 across Utah before I had my driver’s license. A national newspaper columnist once wrote a story that appeared in hundreds of newspapers around the country about high school me where I said I would rather read a newspaper than have a girlfriend.

That’s not enough, though. I need some Kramer stories. I want to sit with friends and carry the conversation, leave them laughing and wanting for more.

Talking about the two times I ended up in the hospital with kidney stones is more disgusting than interesting. I took my computer once to the hospital with me to meet deadline on a story I was writing. I have a sign I designed that is still hanging up on Mackinac Island.

Still, those stories are short and don’t really move the needle. I’ve never missed a bus or train or had to run through an airport to catch a plane.  I didn’t score a game-winning touchdown or sank a three-pointer.

I have been fortunate to write about people who have, though.

I guess you can’t take someone else’s stories and make them your own, no matter how hard you try.

Maybe it’s because I’ve spent a lifetime telling other people’s stories that I don’t think mine are interesting. I got a story in me somewhere, I just know it.

This column appeared in the May 27, 2026 issue of The Advance.

Michael Jackson Movie Thrilling to Me

Growing up, my house was full of country music. All four of my older brothers had country cassettes or 8-Tracks. The radio station was always tuned to a country station.

When we’d travel across country, it was always country-country-country.

I must have been in middle school when a friend of one of my brothers had the cassette of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” She let me borrow it. I never gave it back. In fact, I wore it out – so much, in fact, I exchanged it at least twice at the record store. There was something about that album that mesmerized me and millions of others.

I was used to singing along to Eddie Rabbit and Charley Pride and, my country favorite, Conway Twitty. Michael Jackson was completely different than that and I couldn’t get enough.

I listened to Michael Jackson’s music constantly. I watched his videos, often staying up late for Friday Night Videos, a weekly show that aired after the local news. I was 14 when The Jackson’s went on the Victory Tour. I would have done anything to go, but didn’t get the chance. I had to settle for the cassette.

The summer between my junior and senior years of high school, I went away with some classmates to a yearbook seminar. On the way home, I was dialing in a radio station and heard a familiar voice. I quieted everyone in the van long enough to realize the song playing was Jackson’s first song from the Bad album, “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You.” On the first day of school for my senior year, I started the day at the shopping mall buying “Bad.” My last essay of my senior year I wrote a compare/contrast piece explaining which album I preferred, “Thriller” or “Bad” (which was ultimately my favorite).

Last week I got the chance to go see the new biopic about Jackson and as I sat in the theater, I felt like I was a teenager again, watching in real time my own experience with Jackson’s music. I admit there were times at home I’d put on a leather jacket and wear a single glove like Michael did at the time his song “Billie Jean,” was topping the charts. His music was a central figure in my growing up.

The biopic ends with Jackson starting the “Bad” tour. I still can hardly believe I was fortunate enough to see Jackson perform at The Palace of Auburn Hills, one of the “Bad” tour stops. I remember the set list, the medley of Jackson 5 songs and, of course, his live version of songs from “Thriller,” and “Bad.”

The biopic was solid and I loved almost everything about it, especially the scene explaining how the “Beat It” video came to be and the night Jackson did the Moonwalk for the first time on live television. Sure, there are parts that seem odd and they don’t address some of the controversial times in Jackson’s life, but I didn’t care one bit. The movie left me wanting to hear more Jackson songs, not dissect the questionable choices he made in life.

What I don’t think the movie was able to capture, however, was how big of a superstar he really was. To put it lightly, in the mid-1980s, Jackson was the most recognizable person on the planet. Athletes didn’t come close, whether or not they were Super Bowl champions or playing in the World Series. Other musicians didn’t come close to his King of Pop status. He was on magazine covers and on the front pages of newspapers. Tabloids built huge followings just by printing wild stories about Jackson or his family.

People would faint just by seeing him walk onto the stage. He changed how we view the halftime entertainment at the Super Bowl. He cleared the way for R&B artists to have their videos played on MTV. His dance moves were electric and he had a stage presence second to none.

Yes, he was eccentric, but he was a musical powerhouse. He made appearances with world leaders and helped write “We are the World,” which raised money for starving people in Africa. In an era where most artists would give anything for two hits from the same album, Jackson had five number ones on “Bad” alone.

Taylor Swift is the only contemporary artist that younger generations might compare Jackson too, although I don’t believe it’s a fair comparison. Jackson did it without the benefit of social media.

MJ created a musical empire that was dynamic, magical and second to none. Go see the movie. Count down the days to the sequel and plan to see that, too.

By any and all standards, I simply don’t believe there will never be another King of Pop.

This column appeared in the May 20, 2026 edition of The Advance.

My Advice to Grads – Don’t Rush This Time

My high school graduation was a blur.

With a couple of weeks left in my senior year of high school, the Class of 1988 was set out into the world seemingly overnight. It’s almost a cruel reality.

Like most, I started school at age 5, going to kindergarten. From September to early June, day after day, year after year, you show up virtually the same place, see the same people and do similar things. As a senior, you start getting excited about graduating. You start fooling yourself about how great things are going to be when you no longer have to go to class. You start believing others when they talk about ‘senioritis’ and how the next chapter in life is going to be so much better.

In the end, it is true. There is life after high school and the opportunities are endless. The world is full of wonderful things to discover.

But that moment that you wake up and high school is suddenly over is a shock. At least, it was to me.

I remember vividly my last day of class during my senior year and just hanging around school for much of the afternoon in the room of our yearbook advisor. I wasn’t eager to go anywhere. For the most part, I loved my time in high school. The school hallways were home to me. I never felt like I needed to go anywhere, at least not then.

It’s not like I didn’t have direction or a goal in life. I already knew I wanted to write for a newspaper and college was my ticket to that dream. By graduation, I was all signed up to start classes in the fall at Monroe County Community College, and I had recently started a part-time job. The most exciting thing about my post-graduation time was that I had tickets to see Michael Jackson that fall in the Bad Tour at the Palace of Auburn Hills.

There was probably a week or maybe 10 days between my final day of high school and the graduation ceremony. I spent it mostly alone, sometimes working, but mainly listening to the radio and being alone. Friends that I had seen for years suddenly were from my past. It was a shock to the system that I had become accustomed to.

After graduation, it was more of the same. There were a few parties to attend for close friends, and I made that circuit, mainly around my new work schedule. I turned 18 that summer and suddenly was an adult with a car payment and a registration in the glove box. I sold my baseball cards – it felt like the adult thing to do – because I wanted money to buy a computer that I figured I would need in college. I’m certain those baseball cards, today, would be worth far more than the computer was.

Things worked out well for me. I finished college in four years, met my wife, got married, had a career of wonderful jobs that taught me tremendous life lessons, and I wouldn’t trade my family for anything.

Still, based on my life experiences, I have a few words of advice for the Class of 2026.

• Stay true to yourself. Just because you are graduating doesn’t mean you have to become something you are not.

• Look around you on your final days of high school. There are going to be three, maybe four people from your class that you will still know 40 years from now. Cherish them.

• Do something nice for yourself. You earned your high school diploma. Celebrate it.

• Don’t rush into the next chapter in your life, it will come soon enough. Plan ahead, but live in the moment – not the past or the future.

• Remember your community and start making plans to give back someday, no matter how small or trivial it might seem. You won’t regret it.

• Speak fondly of your school. No matter where you are in life, it got you to where you are today.

• Don’t sell your baseball cards. You can never replace what you get rid of at 18.

This column appeared in the May 13, 2026 edition of The Advance.

Perfect Mother’s Day Gift Coming Right Up

This column will come out just before Mother’s Day, so I’m taking it to the people. What should I get my wife – mother of our four children – for her special day?

I have some things I’ve been kicking around my head for a few weeks, but nothing has stuck so far. As I write this, in fact, I only have one gift secured – tickets for the family to attend a Toledo Mud Hens game.

Before you question my decision or laugh at how bad that choice is, I should explain. First, I asked if it was okay and was assured it is. Second, the tickets were such a good price, I couldn’t pass up the offer.

Besides, Anne always says the most important thing about Mother’s Day is spending time together. What better way to spend time together than with the crack of the bat on a Sunday afternoon at the ballpark?

With that out of the way, here’s some other ideas that I’m taking feedback on:

Cleaning the house.

No, I’m not going to do it. I mean, sure, I’ll sweep the floors and put dishes away. But, in this instance, I’m talking about a thorough, wall-to-wall cleaning. The kind you get when you hire someone. Has to be a 7 out of 10 on my scale.

Gift cards.

Yes, I’ve tried this before and the reaction hasn’t been all that good. But, part of me still thinks the gift card is the greatest gift of all. Free money to do whatever you want with. If I made it one of those pre-paid Visa cards or an Amazon card, she could literally get anything she wants. There are drawbacks, of course, such as her thinking I didn’t really make a decision or get her anything but money, but I’m still giving it a 6 out of 10.

A trip.

This is where things start to get dicey for me. In all my life I’ve planned maybe one trip. What makes me think I could pull it off a second time? I have plenty of excuses as to why this isn’t a good idea but I’m going with not knowing her schedule well enough to plan that far in advance. 2 out of 10.

Plants and plant accessories.

I simply cannot miss with a plant as a gift, as long as its alive. And, as history has shown, sometimes she even buys plants that look to be out of life in hopes she can nurse them back. 10 out of 10.

A new car.

I would, but she just started driving a new car last month. Too late on this one. 3 out of 10.

A day of being outside, hiking, biking, pickle ball and walking.

I might as well suck it up and take one for the team here because I’m definitely going to be talked into a walk and probably some time on our bikes on Mother’s Day. I’ll accept it. Besides, I’ve been walking a lot more lately and it’s not that bad. 8 out 10.

Finish – or at least start – the laundry room project.

This project was launched months ago by a joke that she took serious and now we have AI pictures of what our new laundry room could look like, a cabinet that was purchased for it and a countertop that we went to a suburb of Detroit to buy. Gotta get this done. Not by Mother’s Day, but soon. 9 out of 10.

Stuff.

This is an all-encompassing category, but an important one. Last week Anne threw away a bunch of old glasses that have been in our cupboard for years and we never use. It was empowering, she said, to finally get rid of something so that we don’t feel like we are constantly adding to the 35 years-worth of items we’ve accumulated. This includes things like coasters and necklaces and signs to hang in our house. I still might buy one or two, but for the most part, I don’t think “stuff” is on her radar anymore. 4 out of 10.

After going through my list of my notes, I realize no matter how hard I try, there’s not really anything I could buy that shows Anne what a tremendous mother she has been to our kids and the inspiration she continues to be for our family. 

I’m not sure that leaves me with any great ideas. I still have a few days, though, so I’m still optimistic I’ll come up with the right thing.

This column appeared in the May 6, 2026 edition of The Advance.

The Snakes Are Out So I’ll be Inside

Last year I thought I had the perfect set up.

After finding a great deal on a 35-inch TV, we bought a stand, on wheels, that allows me to take the TV outside and watch baseball games at night, or football on Saturday and Sunday.

We already owned a fireplace. Last year, my wife expertly added some flowerpots.

My deck became a little slice of heaven.

That’s the biggest shame of it all. I can’t go outside anymore.

Readers of this column will know my affinity for mowing the grass. I love it. Once or sometimes twice a week, I’ll grab some headphones, dial in Sirius XM radio and get on my zero-turn lawn mower and go to my happy place for an hour or so. I’ll even mow someone else’s yard if they want. That’s how much I love it.

Unfortunately, that’s all I am going to get to mow this summer – someone else’s yard. You see, I cannot even leave my deck this year, if I even make it that far.

Here’s why: I mowed the other night and as I made the soft turn around the very small pile of sticks that I have collected in my annual yard sweep, I saw it out of the corner of my eye, lurking just around the deck blade of my mower, slithering and winding against the grass. My grass. My dirt. There was no mistaking what it was, even as I tried not to look – and, most definitely I tried.

I saw a snake.

I haven’t put my house up for sale yet, but the snake already has won. All summer, every step I take, every move I make, that snake is going to be on my mind.

I tried to look away, because I knew what would happen if I confirmed it was a snake. But it was too late. I caught enough of a glimpse that I know it’s in my yard, lurking, waiting to wrap itself around my unsuspecting foot. It was at least two, maybe eight-foot long, I’m sure of it.

After I finished mowing, I put my lawn mower away, probably for the last time this year. I’m taking bids from lawn care companies as I write this, hopeful that they can somehow manage to keep the grass low enough that the snake is noticeable.

I have considered paving my backyard but an acre of concrete is probably expensive. I could go the way of my daughter in Phoenix. She has stones in her backyard. But, now that I think about it, the rocks are probably just a nice cover for that slimy creature they call snakes.

I don’t know when my hatred for all things snakes began but it’s real. I’ve screeched more than once at the sight of one and avoid the reptile displays at the zoo. If I see it at a park or during a walk, I make a mental note and never go there again. Too risky.

My new neighbor will certainly alter my life this summer. No more walking around barefoot in the grass or even walking in the grass, I guess. I’m going to put Animal Control on speed dial.

I can’t help but wonder why my yard? Did I make it too enticing by removing all the weeds along my fence? Is my grass too green, cut too often, too pretty? Is my yard so inviting because of the TV on the deck or the speakers that blare the occasional 80s station? Is there such a thing as a scarecrow for snakes? When I told my wife about my encounter in the back yard, she didn’t seem as concerned. In fact, she took the snakes’ side, saying something about they are good for the yard because they eat insects. I’m not buying it.

Whatever it is, I’m probably done with outside this summer.

Those back-to-back-to-back 70 degree days last week were a nice departure from the eight months of winter we just came out of. But, I’m fine. The snakes are out. I’m locking myself inside. As far as I’m concerned, it can start snowing anytime.

This column by Doug Donnelly was published in the April 29, 2026 issue of The Advance.

Real Life Experiences at My First Real Job

I haven’t had many jobs in my life outside of the newspaper business.

My first real job was working at a once-famous department store, K mart, which happens to be where I met my wife. She likes to tell people I was her Blue Light special, but unless you grew up in the 1970s or 1980s, that probably doesn’t resonate with many people anymore.

The Blue Light, for those who don’t know, was attached to a cart that a K mart employee would randomly turn on and someone on the public address system would announce that customers should “hurry on over to the Blue Light to get 20 percent off bedding” or something. People actually would run if the sale sounded enticing enough.

Sadly, I never got to operate the Blue Light, but did have to clean up some messes that people would leave in the aisles as they knocked things off the shelves to get to it.

I worked at K mart all four years of college, starting literally days before my high school graduation and leaving about four months after finishing college. I worked days, nights, weekends and holidays. I once went to work when the store was closed for Thanksgiving – I was locked inside – while setting up for the big sale that was going to start on Black Friday.

I worked in the garden center, the home improvement area and the paint department, which is ironic since today I’m not really into gardening, not the biggest fan of home improvements and would rather do just about anything than paint. Dress code required me to wear a shirt and tie every day, something few people would believe if they walked into a department store these days.

My paychecks weren’t much, but they didn’t have to be. They paid my car insurance, gave me some spending cash and allowed me to purchase a radio that was worth far more than my car.

The people of K mart made it interesting – and not just because I married one of them. She worked at the cash registers, which made it easy for me to send a friend through her line to check her out for me. Her dad insisted she not date anyone from K mart, but we found a way around that because I met her mother first and she loved me.

What was so amazing, though, was in just that one department store, I met people from just about every walk of life one can imagine. It was my first time being around people who drank alcohol after work, smoked cigarettes on their lunch break, went out to lunch, had babies, dropped out of high school, had gotten divorced and remarried, had step children and mothers-in-law and just about every other social difference you could image. I never realized how sheltered I was until I joined the working world.

A couple of those work mates were friends of mine from school, but for the most part these were people I would never have met in life had it not been for those four years working there.

People were fascinating to me just because I never met people like them before.

We shared some commonalities – customers. We all had war stories about customers who challenged us, yelled at us, or who tried to give us a tip when we loaded 10 bags of mulch into the back seat of their cars. It brought us together in odd ways, but gave us some common ground to talk about when getting together after work.

It was honestly the first time in life I experienced friendships outside of going to school with someone. In today’s world, that probably seems strange. Nowadays, high school kids grow up knowing just about everyone in their realm of life. It’s, of course, due to social media. I cringe thinking what life would have been like if I had social media at 17.

My first job wasn’t my best job, but it taught me enough about life to make it important in my lifelong journey to where I am today. There’s not always a blue light flashing to catch your attention. But, when it does, embrace it. 

This column by Doug Donnelly was published in the April 22, 2026 issue of The Advance.