Back To Detroit

In less than two weeks, I will be back in Detroit. I was born in Detroit and spent my early, formative years there. I moved when I was 18 to Ohio, but though I have lived in quite a few places, I will never be able to forget that I am from Detroit.
As a teen, I experienced the pride of the Black Renaissance and the power of Motown.
As a child in a family that grew with the auto industry, Studebaker, Ford and the Chrysler Corporation, I looked forward every year to going to the Detroit Auto Show at Cobo Hall.
There, the future was a tangible thing, covered with chromes, fantasy candy coated metal flake paint jobs. With the untouchable allure of the scantily clad girls beckoning you to partake of the fantasy, this was a future I lusted after.
I remember the Sunday comic section of the Detroit Free Press and the strip, The World Of The Future. Each week, visions of a future, the year 2000 would be tantalizingly depicted as if it were just around the corner. Of course it was all too easy to believe, living in a world of miraculous atomic energy, space flight and color television! One vision of the future comic I vividly remember depicted the evolution of the family car into a sort of living room on wheels. Who needed to drive? The entire family could play parcheesi as the car drove itself, guided by a punch card labled "grandma's house" which tracked electronic sensors laid into the pavement of the road.
The car was powered by a silent nuclear reactor which powered a highly efficient steam engine. An interesting aside, you know steam power was used for cars. In the early part of the 20th century, the Stanley Steamer built racing cars which shattered all records. The first car to break the 60 mph barrier was a steam car.
But, of course, the comic strip was all fantasy, by the mid 60's the reality of urban decay, racial inequality, the alliance of industry with the military to create an alternate government which enabled the insane foreign policy decisions which led to the War in Vietnam...........
My reality intruded very abruptly on my fantasies. My family fell apart due to pure chance and natural causes and no real social welfare safety net for a damaged, bleeding, struggling middle class family. By 1967, I was a homeless teen in the inner city. I lived in the middle of the Detroit Riots and I think at that time, I learned how to survive on my own terms.
I want to write more about Detroit, today, the past and my still active fascination with Muscle Cars, so I will leave you with a picture of what I consider the last Muscle Car......The 2010 Chevy Camaro, you have to admit, for the end of entire specie, it's got a great "attitude".