Jacktown U.S.A.

Sorry for the lack of postage the past few weeks. Inspiration has been evading me like it has a restraining order against me.

I realized that a large part of starting blogs such as this was to keep in touch with other people and to share stories about what life is like for those few months outside of East Lansing. And when I think of being outside E.L., there's no other place I would rather be than Jackson, Michigan. When you think about it, there isn't a single "Jackson" city that's desirable. Jackson, Mississippi? Too hot and too much in Mississippi. Jackson, Tennessee? Too much country music. The other seven Jacksons? None of them are in Hawaii, so they don't matter.

Still, the amount of comedic gold that comes from this little hole in the map ceases to amaze me. As I'm chasing down incredible stories about teen swim meets, Fourth of July parades and raucous local government meetings, I get to meet and see some of the most interesting people God decided to put on this Earth to make the rest of us feel better about ourselves. Not to say all of Jackson is sketchy -- there are some nice neighborhoods and the eight people that live in them. But for the most part, Jackson is a land that time forgot, probably because it's awfully forgettable. It's still living in the 1980s, when factories were still running and Michael Jackson was still black. With it comes the people and stories, as mentioned below, that make Jackson the birthplace of substandidarity. I made that word up.

-- A county commissioner who is running for township supervisor doesn't know how to work a computer. He doesn't want to know because he's afraid of junk mail.
-- A sign on U.S. 127 denoting a factory: Screw Machine Services. I've racked my brain and come up with six interpretations. Three are inappropriate.
-- I've seen three signs outside churches that make me believe I'm going to hell in a waste basket. God is watching, people. And judging.
-- The biggest celebrities to hit the town in my time in Jackson: Erik Estrada, Rich Rod and a guy from the Blue Collar Comedy tour.
-- The Independence Day parades aren't really parades. They're tractor pulls.
-- A woman running for the township board of trustees doesn't want to talk to me because she doesn't know the issues affecting her town.
-- In case you haven't heard this gem yet: A man stabbed his mother in the neck with a dinner fork. Then stole a bike from a neighbor's garage. Then got into an argument with a woman on the street. Then hit said woman in the head with 10 pounds of frozen chicken. He was in our paper for man on the street two weeks earlier.
-- In an attempt to find people who knew about an assault, I knocked on the first door in a neighborhood. A young woman answered. She said she didn't know about anything. She also said she was an "entertainer in Las Vegas." She proceeded to put on shoes and walk around to three houses. She called me sweetheart the entire time and commented repeatedly on how young looking I was. She might have been drunk. I decided against leaving my card. I don't have a card.
-- Side story: The best part of my day sometimes is reading the letters sent to the one-time editors of Dear Abby. Too many people have screwed up marriages.
-- The headliners for the Jackson County Fair? The Nuge and the naked girl from High School musical. Classy.
-- Completely unrelated to Jackson: Ryan Field signs off of the Tigers pre-game show by saying, "Stay classy, Detroit." An oxymoron from a moron.


This was a completely random and probably unnecessary post, but that's the report from Jackson, Michigan: The place that elementary school forgot.