Remembering the hoarder who came to Warrendale

Reflecting on Detroit - Photo by Garrett Lee Davis/Pixabay

Detroit is a city where every block is filled with memories; filled so thick at times that one doesn’t need to have ever lived or even visited here in order to sense their lingering presence. This now vacant lot on Artesian Street is one of those memories for me.

For several years, the house that was once on this lot only a few hundred feet north of the border between the cities of Dearborn and Detroit was an exceptional eyesore. The gentleman who lived there was both a squatter and a hoarder.

He clearly had mental health issues. The Warrendale Community Organization, the City of Detroit, and others all tried to get him some type of counselling.

Photo by DeeDee86/Pixabay

This individual, who I will call by the obvious pseudonym of Henry T. Hoarder, had no interest in any type of therapy. He simply wanted to be left alone with the trash that he collected.

The fact that his collection of scrap lumber, twisted metal, and odd pieces of plastic attracted rats and other vermin was of no concern to him. The rats, he figured, didn’t bother him or his treasured collection of trash. It seemed obvious to him, therefore, that he shouldn’t bother them.

The fact that he didn’t own this home in Detroit and wasn’t paying any property taxes was of even less concern to Henry still.

Every week that went by, more and more junk was accumulated around this Detroit property. It wasn’t long before one couldn’t even see Henry’s house from the street. All that was there was the mountains of trash that he collected.

Neighbors asked him to at least move everything inside the house that he was squatting in. He replied that he couldn’t do that. He had too much other stuff that he was hoarding that no more could fit inside.

Photo by Ania Klara

As the weeks dragged on, it was collectively decided by the powers that be that they would leave Henry alone for a little while. Winter was fast approaching and the thinking at the time was that, since this home had neither gas nor electricity, the cold would drive Henry from this property faster than the Detroit Police Department could and with less risk of anyone getting hurt in the process.

I still don’t know how Henry did it but he made it through the winter. I know that he didn’t burn any of the trash he was hoarding. This trash was, after all, much too important for him to burn even if the alternative was freezing.

As warm weather returned to Detroit, Henry’s collection continued to get larger and larger. He promised repeatedly that he would do something to contain it but he never did. Instead, Henry’s hoard of trash would soon begin to spill over into the adjacent lots of his neighbors.

The weather continued to get hotter that summer and so did tempers at the southern end of the Warrendale neighborhood. Henry’s hoarding was only getting worse and this expanding raft of refuse was causing ever increasing problems. Neighbors no longer had to worry about the hoarder’s trash being an eyesore next door. It was a problem that had spilled, rats and all, into their own yards.

Henry T. Hoarder was eventually evicted from the house on Artesian Street that he was squatting in. I shudder to think, though, how many truckloads of trash the City of Detroit must have hauled away from that house.

Once Henry and his collection were removed, the house returned to its vacant state - a condition that it would remain in for another year or two as the city of Detroit continued to work its way forward after bankruptcy.

Eventually, the neglect reach a point where it was determined that this once sturdy house had become structurally unsound. It was demolished a couple of weeks ago. All that remains of Henry T. Hoarder’s life in Warrendale is a vacant plot of land and some memories.

The lot where the hoarding house one stood - Photo by Frank Nemecek

Lone Ranger debuted 85 years ago in Detroit

Lone Ranger publicity photo from July 30, 1965/Wikimedia

It was 85 years ago that The Lone Ranger rode into the hearts and imaginations of Detroiters on a fiery horse with the speed of light, a cloud of dust, and a hearty "Hi-yo Silver!"

The Lone Ranger began as a radio program that first aired on WXYZ in Detroit on either January 30 or 31, 1933. The records aren't clear as to which one of those two days was the first airing of the show. It's also not completely clear whether it was radio station owner George W. Trendle or writer Fran Striker first conceived that masked rider of the plains, according to On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio by John Denning.

The one thing that is abundantly clear is that this legend started right here in Detroit and soon became a global cultural icon. A total of 2,956 episodes The Lone Ranger aired from our local radio waves. Dozens of books, comic strips, and comic books soon followed as well as The Long Ranger Magazine and several animated short films.

All of this culminated in The Lone Ranger television series, which aired on ABC and produced 221 episodes during its five-season run from 1949 until 1957. There were also a series of movies that began with The Lone Ranger (1956) starring Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels from the television series and continuing on to the 2013 version that starred Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer, which was nominated for two different Academy Awards.

It's moment like this that one feels a need to step back and marvel at the legacy that was born here in Detroit and that continues on 85 years later with a global audience.

Hi-yo Silver! Away!

Remembering the Twin Pines Dairy

The Twin Pines Farm Dairy used to have one of their main production facilities near the Warrendale neighborhood. It was on Greenfield Rd. north of Tireman in Detroit and produced milk for much of the region.

More than a few people ask when did the dairy close or whatever happened to it. The dairy itself is still operating at the same location. Although, the Twin Pines brand was absorbed into the C.F. Burger Creamery on May 1, 1986 according to filings with the State of Michigan.

As a matter of full disclosure, I should mention that once upon a time, this dairy supplied my grade school with milk for our lunches. I used to volunteer to get said milk for my classroom, mostly because it enabled me to get out of class a few minutes early.

Around 11:15 each morning, a milk truck would pull into the school parking lot where it would deliver crate after crate of regular and chocolate milk for my classmates and myself. I dutifully lugged our milk back to my classroom content that this was a thousand times more enjoyable than listening to some nun drone on about whatever our lesson was that day.

As a sidenote, I used to wonder what was wrong with any kid who ordered regular milk when they could have gotten chocolate milk. I mean, really. Everyone knows that chocolate milk is the best milk.

I was intrigued, therefore, when I found a video from 1957, which I embedded above. It documents both the work that the City of Detroit Health Department used to do to ensure the milk was safe as well as Twin Pines Farm Dairy itself.

This was produced more than a dozen years before I was even born. Regardless, I could still taste the milk from my childhood as I watched it.

And now, I have this sudden desire to haul a somewhat heavy crate up a flight of stairs. Some memories never die.

I hope you enjoy this Warrendale Memory as much as I do.