It was a day spent mostly with the Fords, with some pictures of stadiums and sunsets at each end, all set to a Motown soundtrack.
I don’t believe that the stepfather of Gerald Ford, Michigan’s only president, is related to Henry Ford. After visiting the presidential museum in Grand Rapids yesterday afternoon, I went to the library today in Ann Arbor, home of his alma mater the University of Michigan. There were exhibits on both Jerry and Bette Ford and his post-presidency office.
Next was the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Dearborn. It’s a massive place – I was there for 4 hours and probably saw about 80%. It has an amazing number of unique items – the car JFK was shot in, the bus in which Rosa Parks sat, the first Sikorsky helicopter and the only Buckminster Fuller-designed Dymaxion house ever lived in.
The Motown record label was founded in 1959 by 29 year old songwriter Berry Gordy, with the studio in the basement of his house on a busy residential street in Detroit. The Motown Museum is in that house and the house next door. We had a tour led by a very enthusiastic young man named Vernell, with a video of music clips and interviews (Gordy is still around at age 89), photos, album covers, gold records and the original control room and studio, where our tour group sang and danced the first verse of “My Girl” together.
Then quick stops outside the current homes of the Detroit Tigers, Lions and Red Wings (no bears, oh my!), along with the site of the old Tiger Stadium, opened the day before Fenway Park but closed in 1999. Just before sunset, I walked around a very nice and busy park along the Detroit River, with Canada on the other side.
Instead of Lake Michigan, sunset over downtown Detroit 
Love those Tiger mascots 
Guitar, keyboard and over 100 year Steinway piano in the original Motown studio 
Berry Gordy’s house, later used as the studio and now the Motown Museum 
A recreation of Orville lying down on the first manned flight 
An early toll house on the Merritt Turnpike 
I remember Fire Test gasoline and Marfax service at Texaco gas stations 
JFK’s presidential limousine 
Students sitting where Rosa Parks sat 
Kids in the “green room at the MTV Studio 
The only lived-in Dymaxion house, designed by Buckminster Fullet 
The Sperry-New Holland Combine 
Michigan Stadium, the largest sports facility in the country 
A cute sign at the Gerald Ford library in an exhibit on Betty Ford
Out of the hundreds of Motown songs, I am choosing one of the first big hits that to me epitomizes the lasting appeal of the sound – “Dancing in the Streets” by Martha Reed and the Vandelles.
Mark's cross-country trip 