Tomorrow, we travel north to see the cottage in the dead of winter. It may seem silly, but that’s the main reason for the trip. We’ve heard the stories – of snow drifts to the rafters, the lake as hard and flat as concrete, of narrow, “seasonal” summer roads slammed shut by the “other” season. We’ll see if it’s true.
This morning started, well, differently. An early-morning opera singer did vocal gymnastics in the room next door. More on that in a minute.
We were staying at a hotel in Auburn Hills, a northern suburb of Detroit. If you don’t know the Motor City, you should know that its core is hollow, and the money has fled outward, including north. Up along Interstate 75.
Chrysler erected a new headquarters in Auburn Hills 14 years ago, when its prospects were better. And that’s where The Palace is located – the arena home for the Pistons.
You can see the Chrysler high-rise from our hotel window.
But all’s not well even in Auburn Hills. Chrysler, as you probably know, declared bankruptcy last year. The government rushed in to prop it up, and Fiat agreed to roll the dice as the official rescuer. If all things go well, Fiat will emerge at the majority owner. But a lot must happen before now and then.
You don’t appreciate the enormity of what’s happened in Detroit until you visit and tour the Henry Ford Museum. There you see in comprehensive, historical detail the rise of the American auto business. You see great names along the way … not just Ford, of course, but Olds, Cadillac, Packard, Buick, Nash and Willys. And more.
What you don’t see in the presentation is any sizeable dedication to the force that started the decline of America’s Big Three (G.M., Ford and Chrysler). That is, the Japanese.
While the museum is a sea of Yankee ingenuity … hundreds of planes, trains and automobiles … the Japanese domination of the auto industry is represented by the single display of the first U.S.-produced Honda Accord, a gray model that rolled off the line on Nov. 10, 1982, at Honda’s Marysville plant. Oh, there’s a short video snippet that goes along with it.
Perhaps it’s too much to ask the museum to call more attention to Japan’s far-reaching impact on U.S. automakers.
Then again, maybe it’s a moot point. After all, the next wave of competition already has slapped ashore, from South Korea. And the Chinese are now stirring. Even Tokyo seems concerned. No one is sure how it’s going to shake out.
Which gets us back to our morning. At about 8 a.m., the woman in the hotel room next door began singing. But this wasn’t just singing. Apparently an opera singer, she was stretching her voice.
It’s hard to know what gig she had … who performs opera so early on a Saturday morning? But clearly she was warming up. It was a series of high shrieks and low growls, of unending scales and octaves leaped. I’m sure it was great music, but given that we didn’t get to bed until 2 a.m., it was about as welcome as long fingernails on chalkboard.
But appropriate, given the locale. After all, we’re now waiting to see what happens to the Big Three. Ford, of all of them, seems on the best footing. But the federal government – actually, the taxpayer – is the majority owner now of G.M. And Chrysler hangs in the balance.
I’m not sure what the girth of our singer was. But the saying about how it ain’t over until the fat lady sings applies across the street at Chrysler and throughout Detroit.
The Big Three are now in the final act of a drama worthy of opera. And we wait.
Sadly, the story already seems a tragedy … one that would make even Puccini weep.
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