Yes, it is a thing. Teenagers with automotive vee-hickles drive up and down Ashmun Street, which is the main street in Sault Ste. Siberia. Mainly from Easterday Ave. down to Portage Ave. or maybe Water Street. That’s downtown, baby, where all the action is. Up and down, up and down, ad infinitum ad nauseam. If you are from the northern Dee-troit burbs, think Woodward Ave. Except Sault Ste. Siberia is a much smaller venue. I can’t exactly feature how this kind of activity could ever happen on The Planet Ann Arbor’s grid of downtown streets although the GG and I had a kind of snaky route once upon a time… What say kiddos? Oh, probably the equivalent was a River Ride, albeit not the same kind of thing.

What is the purpose of such an activity? To see and be seen, of course. What else? Who’s driving what? Who’s wearing what? Who’s with who? [wink wink].

Slashin’ or draggin’? I think I heard both of those terms in my time. I’m *thinking* we more often called it Draggin’ Ash. Maybe that comes from drag racing? But we called it Slashin’ Ash too. I have a slight preference for the draggin’ version. I am gonna GUESS that’s because it was more likely called that when I was a younger teenager and there were still more “greasers” (think Fonzie) around than “hippies” so being a wanna-drag-ash (but not having a car (or a driver’s license)), that’s the “cool” term I remember. Actually, hippies in Sault Ste. Siberia in the late 1960s? As if.

So, there’s a Slash/Drag Ash event (and car show?) up in Siberia this July. Am I going? Naw. Mainly because I highly doubt I’ll be up there when it occurs. Would I go if I *were* planning to be up there? Maybe. More likely I’d rather sit and watch the sun set over Whitefish Bay. But, although I did occasionally Drag Ash back in the day, I don’t remember ever doing it for a whole evening.

I do think that it is really cool that someone has organized an event to drag/slash Ashmun. These are the kind of things that I LIKE about facebook. Getting people who haven’t connected in years is [usually] a good thing. I love the screenshot I took. Those people at the bottom are all people I actually KNOW in life. I worked with Robin at Tempo a billion years ago. You could not ask for a more beautiful person, inside and out and throughout horribly difficult issues. Kathy? Bank manager and The Comm’s next door neighbor. When PNC closed that branch, she dredged up all kinds of photos of my grandfather from the bank basement and gave them to me! They’d’ve been thrown out otherwise. I put them in my backpack and schlepped them back to our berth at the Hotel Ojibway and then down to The Planet Ann Arbor. Brad and Kelly I don’t know quite as well in a personal sense but I certainly remember them and going by what they post on facebook, they are Class A people.

So, save the date. If you are gonna be in Sault Ste. Siberia on July 10th this summer and want to experience generations of folks driving up and down their hometown main street ad infinitum ad nauseam, go and drag Ash for me. Or sit and watch the sun set over Whitefish Bay. Actually, since Slash/Drag Ash ends at 9:00 PM, you could probably do both.

Love y’all,
KW

P.S. The new father next door was walking the dog so of course we ambushed him! Girl. Last Monday. Everyone is doing well!

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