Here's more the Flint, I remember (when searching for investment properties) and this was 30 yrs ago! Automotive left, and so did the neighborhoods/properties! And haven't been back since....NO WAY!

 

I never saw anything like that last pic but one day I saw where 2 houses were burnt to the ground, both in one block IIRC. People get tired of abandoned houses being there and torch them. I think it was a few years later that a titty bar just down the street from there burned down. Where a Chevy plant used to next to that a 60 acre park will be ready to open this summer. My best friend still works for GM in Flint but the plant we used to work at is gone. It was one of the smallest GM plants around, only 1.6 million square feet. It was on the chopping block longer than I worked there and people were always saying it's going to close. Finally it did and now the whole area is covered by a shopping mall. Some areas are being fixed up but not all of them.

 

I remember driving thru Flint, as a kid with the parents, heading up to grandparents farm, in Gladwin, the next day, after the great tornado disaster, that ripped thru downtown Flint, seeing a locomotive laying on its side, and the entire town leveled! I'll never forget it! Look at the town now, after being rebuilt, and right back in the devastation, it was in then! Unbelievable!

 

I was born in the '60s and have only seen pictures of the 1953 Flint-Beecher Tornado. The places it hit were flattened out like Hiroshima was when it got nuked. If you think it's anything like that in Flint now then we see things very differently. The tornado was rated as an F5 and they just don't get any worse than that. There were a bunch of tornadoes in Michigan that day, but that one was bad enough to have at least 2 different National Weather Service pages, a Wikipedia page, and lots of other webpages about it. It was the deadliest tornado in Michigan history and the 10th deadliest tornado ever in the whole country. I look around and don't see that kind of devastation, but I haven't been in the north end lately.

 

Thats what polotitions do, build up comunities until they are to big to support themselves, the big local employer moves out and srats over somewhere else. Town officials are always wanting bigger and better to fatten there paychecks but when it all goes to crap they move to another town and start over. When a big company leaves town they should be required to demolish all there buildings and return th land to the tax payers! Every big city in the country suffers from this same industrial blight. And the towns just beg for more and thw cycle starts over. Like in Toledo not much area left to build unless the taxpayer pays to remove the old buildings so new stuff can be built.
. You mentioned tornados, nothing good about them in any way, been thru 5 in my lifetime and been able to survive them all but that doesnt mean they dont leave horrible memories from all the destruction...

 

I've been messing with ya Frank, just trying to get you interested in moving up north, away from that overcrowded, big old nasty city there, so you'll head up north and build a huge log cabin, way back in the woods, close to all our better trails, then invite us all to stay there with ya ''free'' of charge just to show your appreciation for our concern for you, and for your need for the companionship, living way back out there, and for someone to ride with ya! We'll stay for weeks on end, with your bunks on the ready for us, frig filled with our favorite beverages, along with your offer of your mouth watering, belly filling, hot breakfast, lunches, dinner spreads, just waiting on all of us, after a long hard day out riding! aren't you the nice guy! now lets talk when, and how soon, for this big get together!....i'm ready!

 

I'm at it again....pork loin special, buy 1 get 1 FREE! It might be frigged outside but nice an cozy in my big ol tub of BBQ mess'ins! Can you smell em now!
Now see.... if you guys take me camping/trail riding this might be whats for dinner! No cold ol sandwiches when I'm out there!
You should see my whole chicken on the grill, split open, cook'en off the bone....delicious! w/baked taders/drawn butter n baked beans, yeah!/chow!

 

With all the riding you have planned, when will you have time to cook?

 

When we're riding.

 

O I didn't show you guys my new ATV grill! This way dinner will be ready after a long all day ride....no sampling along the way!

And here's something for you weenies if you cant keep up lol

You two clean up before supper, I'll get a real hot bath ready lol

I got a couple hot rods for you guys to ride too! lol


We'll definitely stay well fed, if you take me along!!