Positive images of people like me... The truth of the matter is that we all need to see people like ourselves. So every day, I'll post a photo, drawing or some other artwork that depicts Same Gender Loving People as what we are... Only Human.
That me behind the wheel of my 1964 Ford Fairlane 500
Today is the kick off of the world's largest classic car event, the Woodward Dream Cruise. This will be the first time I ever been to this long-running Metro Detroit summer event. I'll be one of 40,000 drivers showing their classic, hotrod, and unique automobiles to more than 1.5 million spectators in a slow cruise along 16 miles of Woodward Avenue in Detroit's northern suburbs.
There's a complicated history behind this event... You might wonder, if Detroit is the Motor City, and Woodward is the main road through the city beginning at the foot of the Detroit River and traveling all the way through it's northern suburbs and Woodward in Detroit is the world's first modern paved concrete road, why doesn't this event include the City of Detroit itself??? Well, it has to do with the fact that for many years after the turbulent 1960s, Detroit became one of the most racially segregated cities in the nation. For many years Detroit was a decaying impoverished inner city surrounded by prosperous suburbs built by the white flight of nearly a million former residents of the city. And like many other cultural events during this troubling history, the Dream Cruise wasn't intended for the residents of inner-city Detroit.
Thankfully, times have changed. Detroit and its suburbs are far more diverse and interconnected today. In fact, many look to Detroit as a model for other older rustbelt cities as it has transformed itself into a cultural and business hub for the state. Today, Detroit is a center for innovation, and for the first time in decades is growing in population again, attracting businesses and people from across the country and around the world. The Woodward Dream Cruise is one of the last holdouts that so glaringly holds onto the vestiges of old Detroit's unspoken racism. If you visit the event's website here, you'll see that it begins and ends at the Oakland County line and just before Woodward crosses the city limits of Detroit and that historic first mile of modern paved roadway.
Husband and I are lifelong residents of Detroit, so unlike many of the 40,000 drivers in the cruise, we won't be turning around at the Detroit city limits, we'll be cruising all the way down to the river and Detroit's beautiful riverside skyline featuring dozens of beautifully restored skyscrapers and it's newest spire the $1.5 billion Hudson's Detroit building, General Motors third Detroit headquarters.
We'll end our cruise with a drive around Detroit's gem in the river, Belle Isle Park. It's a short jaunt across the Douglas McArthur Bridge from Jefferson Avenue to our island park in the river which is larger than New York City's Central Park and was designed by the same landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted. From the scenic shoreline drive that circles the island we'll enjoy views of two cities and two nations. Detroit on the western bank of the river and Windsor, Ontario, Canada on the eastern bank. We may even stop to wave at a passing freighter or two, some from around the world, transiting the river and bringing the raw materials that built these two cities and the automotive industry that still propels their now diversified economies.
I'm quite looking forward to my first Dream Cruise, I've been polishing my old Ford and checking her fluids and making sure she's ready to go. Despite this being the 31st year for the cruise, having worked in retail management for much of my career, I've always been at work during events like this. Husband's been retired for many years and when were raising our children he would take them to the Dream Cruise to look at all the fantastic cars and see the history of our city's contributions the world rolling by. I'm sure I'll enjoy it and I'll probably write about the experience in coming days. I hope it'll be as much fun as I've imagined it will be.
BTW: That's Husband in these last two photos, I may have to get him a booster seat 😃
What I like about this: While I haven't seen this image used in advertising yet, this has got to be one of my all time favorite stock images featuring a real-life couple in their home. The look of genuine love & happiness and everyday domesticity in this image is for many of us the thing we dared not dream possible... And yet, for those of us my age and older, we discovered the world had changed around us making all of this possible.
Positive images of people like me... The truth of the matter is that we all need to see people like ourselves. So every day, I'll post a photo, drawing or some other artwork that depicts Same Gender Loving People as what we are... Only Human.
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