Yes, that Flint. (The pic is not from Flint. It’s from yesterday’s ICE protest in Saline.) But, yes, that Flint. The one where Michigan’s “leaders” poisoned people with crappy water from the Flint River. Flint’s population is about 80K. That’s apparently up from recent years. I’m not sure why I am suddenly obsessed with populations. When I was a kid traveling down to Ann Arbor and DayTwa from the yooperland in the back seat of my parents’ car, I always thought Flint was a bigger city than the Planet Ann Arbor. And maybe it was. Over the years, A-squared (as we like to call Ann Arbor) has grown a LOT and I think Flint has shrunk. Our populations have very different characteristics.

On those childhood trips, I would spend a lot of time in the back seat looking at the Michigan road map and following our progress. I *think* it listed at least some populations. There was a distance, hmmm, what do I call it? It was a graphic representation of how far apart many Michigan cities were. After years of writing functional specifications and designing informational graphics, I think it’s one small reason why I was good at making informational graphics. Okay, ’nuff navel gazin’ KW.

So FlaMan lives in Flint and he doesn’t drive so we (and other siblings) supply him with food, supplies, and pretty much anything he wants. I don’t exactly know how to describe FlaMan but he has some interesting wants. Light bulb cameras are a recent one. We’ll talk about the nose hair trimmer some other day. Or not. I am a HUGE fan of FlaMan and support pretty much whatever he wants as long as it doesn’t involve a telemarketer or bank fraud…

It is difficult to visit FlaMan because it’s an hour away on the freeway and when you get there, Gunsmoke reruns are on, both in the living room and his bedroom, where he usually is. But I asked the GG, “Can we take Argentine Road home?” The answer was yes (as I knew it would be) and so I accompanied him. I didn’t spend a lot of time with FlaMan, who was in the bedroom the whole time and the GG turned down Gunsmoke in the living room so I could hear myself think.

Argentine Road is a little (but paved) road and I know about it because there is a girl scout camp along it where I went for weekend trips quite a few times with a couple troops. We always had a lot of moms on those trips and once we got caught with STRICTLY VERBOTEN whine. We were not caught by a camp official. We were caught by the extremely religious mom around the corner (who was with our group) and guess what? As we were packing up to go, she giggled, “Somebody left their Chardonnay in the refrigerator.”

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