Waving your goodbye, up there in the sky
February 21, 2016 6:07 AM Subscribe
Last night a mass shooting was carried out over the course of five hours in Kalamazoo, MI. Six are dead, three wounded, with one of the wounded in critical condition. The shootings were carried out in three different locations across the city before the suspect was apprehended near the city center.
Kalamazoo is a town of less than 100,000 people located in southwest Michigan. It is a blue-collar city with a lot under the surface. It is more vibrant and artsy than one might initially expect of the locale. It has been featured in a surprising number of songs by Glenn Miller to Ben Folds. The Kalamazoo Art Museum has a modest but gorgeous collection (Chihuly!), the State Theater regularly attracts bigger and more diverse artists than you would think, and the Kalamazoo Civic Theater puts on a good show and has great opportunities for the youth who discovers there is finally a place where her exceptionally loud voice comes in handy. The city's central park is regularly a host to festivals like First Night, which attract local artists and performers from all around the area and manages to be a family-friendly event that is genuinely fun as hell and not lame. The Kalamazoo Public Library is extremely baller, or at least it was a decade ago.
It is the original home of Gibson Guitars and the location of Bell's Brewery. A proud ex-resident might, in a fit of pique, assert that the residents of this little Michigan city have been enjoying craft beer nearly 20 years before it started getting really popular.
Kalamazoo also contains an amazing Air Zoo, for all your classic, excellently painted plane needs. It is the start of the Kal-Haven Trail, which continues to extend through and past the city. The trail will take you all the way to the beach city of South Haven, where you can go jump into Lake Michigan (or just play in the sand if it's not June yet). Lake Michigan is the most superior of water bodies, being neither salty nor full of jellyfish. Since we're already enjoying the nature, you should also know about the Kalamazoo Nature Center, which will set you up for great disappointment if it is the first nature center you remember. No other nature centers will live up to the grand wooden bridge that leads across to the gorgeous, skylit Interpretive Center. You can go into a room full of butterflies, a huge mock tropical room, and look at blown up ants and caterpillars and learn all about Michigan wildlife. When you go outside you will find over 14 miles off well-maintained (but not *too* well-maintained!) trails, with lots of hidden spots by streams and ponds and overlooks. If you are very lucky, you will get to attend their summer camp and Dan Keto will be your counselor. He has won awards through nature interpreter's associations and has the ability to make a child care deeply about spiders or anything else within five minutes of meeting him.
The schools ain't too bad, either. Kalamazoo made headlines some years ago for The Kalamazoo Promise, which provides up to 100% of college tuition to any graduate of the Kalamazoo Public School system who goes to an in-state college or university. Not too shabby when the the University of Michigan is included in that. Oh, and if you are growing a little nerdling then send them to KAMSC. It will fill their heads with way more information than you expect a high schooler could fit in there, taught by incredible and quirky teachers who will nurture all the nerdy in-jokes your nerdling's heart could desire.
Kalamazoo will work it's way into your heart, and if you leave it for bigger, more cosmopolitan cities you will know it's not perfect--and yet wonder if it might be perfect enough to go back to.
For the next week Kalamazoo will join the growing list of many, many towns and cities across the USA, cited in Twitter debates, visited by candidates, offered platitudes. But during that week, and after that week, Kalamazoo will always be singularly special.
Kalamazoo is a town of less than 100,000 people located in southwest Michigan. It is a blue-collar city with a lot under the surface. It is more vibrant and artsy than one might initially expect of the locale. It has been featured in a surprising number of songs by Glenn Miller to Ben Folds. The Kalamazoo Art Museum has a modest but gorgeous collection (Chihuly!), the State Theater regularly attracts bigger and more diverse artists than you would think, and the Kalamazoo Civic Theater puts on a good show and has great opportunities for the youth who discovers there is finally a place where her exceptionally loud voice comes in handy. The city's central park is regularly a host to festivals like First Night, which attract local artists and performers from all around the area and manages to be a family-friendly event that is genuinely fun as hell and not lame. The Kalamazoo Public Library is extremely baller, or at least it was a decade ago.
It is the original home of Gibson Guitars and the location of Bell's Brewery. A proud ex-resident might, in a fit of pique, assert that the residents of this little Michigan city have been enjoying craft beer nearly 20 years before it started getting really popular.
Kalamazoo also contains an amazing Air Zoo, for all your classic, excellently painted plane needs. It is the start of the Kal-Haven Trail, which continues to extend through and past the city. The trail will take you all the way to the beach city of South Haven, where you can go jump into Lake Michigan (or just play in the sand if it's not June yet). Lake Michigan is the most superior of water bodies, being neither salty nor full of jellyfish. Since we're already enjoying the nature, you should also know about the Kalamazoo Nature Center, which will set you up for great disappointment if it is the first nature center you remember. No other nature centers will live up to the grand wooden bridge that leads across to the gorgeous, skylit Interpretive Center. You can go into a room full of butterflies, a huge mock tropical room, and look at blown up ants and caterpillars and learn all about Michigan wildlife. When you go outside you will find over 14 miles off well-maintained (but not *too* well-maintained!) trails, with lots of hidden spots by streams and ponds and overlooks. If you are very lucky, you will get to attend their summer camp and Dan Keto will be your counselor. He has won awards through nature interpreter's associations and has the ability to make a child care deeply about spiders or anything else within five minutes of meeting him.
The schools ain't too bad, either. Kalamazoo made headlines some years ago for The Kalamazoo Promise, which provides up to 100% of college tuition to any graduate of the Kalamazoo Public School system who goes to an in-state college or university. Not too shabby when the the University of Michigan is included in that. Oh, and if you are growing a little nerdling then send them to KAMSC. It will fill their heads with way more information than you expect a high schooler could fit in there, taught by incredible and quirky teachers who will nurture all the nerdy in-jokes your nerdling's heart could desire.
Kalamazoo will work it's way into your heart, and if you leave it for bigger, more cosmopolitan cities you will know it's not perfect--and yet wonder if it might be perfect enough to go back to.
For the next week Kalamazoo will join the growing list of many, many towns and cities across the USA, cited in Twitter debates, visited by candidates, offered platitudes. But during that week, and after that week, Kalamazoo will always be singularly special.
This post was deleted for the following reason: Hey, sorry, but Metafilter isn't really for writing articles on a topic, which is something better for your own site or blog -- taz
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