by Mitch Albom | Jan 30, 2005 | Detroit Free Press
A few years back, a friend named Sonya told me about her father, who survived the Auschwitz death camp but lost everything else, including his young wife and 2-year-old son. He had come to America after the war, started a new life, a new family, worked into his old age as a sign maker in Detroit.
“He reads your column,” Sonya said. “He’d like to meet you.”
I promised it would happen, then, of course, never followed up. Now and again, she would mention it, and I’d say, “Oh, sure, sure, let’s make the time,” but again, I fell short.
by Mitch Albom | Jan 25, 2005 | Detroit Free Press
I’m taking New England. What about you?
Hurry. Pick now. It’s almost too late.
What’s the rush, you ask? There’s still 12 days until the Super Bowl. Please! That’s the rush. The 12 days are a trap, pure poison to any thinking fan.
Already I can feel the Super Hype oozing out of radio speakers. Already, I can see the television talking heads turning “pro” into “con” and “con” into “pro.”
Already, I can see newspaper ink thickening in evenhandedness: “Why The Eagles Will Win” and “Why The Patriots Will Win.”
by Mitch Albom | Jan 23, 2005 | Detroit Free Press
I once worked at a football stadium. I sold programs. I was 14. Before the game, I lined up with the other vendors, including the guys who sold beer. They had to be older, of course, but they still trudged through the stands, like me, hoping for customers.
At the end of the day, like me, they pocketed, in cash, a small percentage of what they brought in. And they went home, many via bus or subway.
by Mitch Albom | Jan 21, 2005 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
Steve Yzerman is on the phone, and I can hear his wife and his daughters and a barking dog in the background. It’s a domestic life for Yzerman now, as it is for most NHL players. But most of them aren’t wondering if the situation is about to become...
by Mitch Albom | Jan 16, 2005 | Detroit Free Press
Here’s something I’d like to see on Thursday. George W. Bush, being sworn in for his second term as president, then shaking hands with a few dignitaries.
And everyone goes home.
by Mitch Albom | Jan 13, 2005 | Detroit Free Press
Grant Hill wanted to buy a house. This was years ago, when he was still a Piston, still figuring his future would be in Michigan. He asked if I could show him around a particular neighborhood.
So one afternoon, in the off-season, we took a ride. Hill was looking for privacy, and we saw a “for sale” sign at the bottom of a long, hidden driveway. We drove up through a thickly wooded area and emerged into a clearing that surrounded a huge, modern house.
“Whoa, this is nice,” Hill said.
by Mitch Albom | Jan 9, 2005 | Detroit Free Press
I’m sure winning the lottery is good for something. But that something obviously isn’t marriage.
Take the recent case of Robert Swofford, a postal worker in Florida. He had been separated from his wife for three years. That’s a long time to be separated. That’s longer than many marriages. You figure that much time apart, you might as well finalize it. But they never got around to it.
Then Swofford won the lottery. A fat $60 million. And wouldn’t you know it? Just like that, his wife served him with divorce papers — and claimed half of his prize.
by Mitch Albom | Dec 30, 2004 | Detroit Free Press
The coach sits in a janitor’s closet. Two mops rest in yellow buckets. A faucet and drain are in the corner. There are no windows. No desk. A telephone, tethered to the wall with a loose gray cord, sits on the floor.
“My office,” Ben Kelso says with a chuckle.
And you should see the gym.
The gym is a tile floor, dirty white linoleum, with tape marking lanes from the 1950s, before Wilt Chamberlain forced them to be widened. There is one basket hanging loosely on a tin backboard. The whole “gym” is the size of a large classroom.
by Mitch Albom | Dec 23, 2004 | Detroit Free Press
On the morning of Oct. 12, a homeless man was pushing a shopping cart down Lincoln Street in Highland Park. He came upon a body, lying near the sidewalk. It was a slender body, tall, athletic, only a teen, wrapped in two T-shirts, jeans and black athletic shoes. The homeless man took a better look. Maybe it was sleeping. Then he backed away. There was a bullet hole in the rear of the teen’s head and another in the front where the bullet exited — police call that a “through and through” — and this body wasn’t sleeping and it wasn’t waking up, not that morning, not ever.
by Mitch Albom | Dec 22, 2004 | Detroit Free Press
How could they go that fast? You turn your vehicle at the blinking yellow light and you come off Northline Road to Murray Street, a straight line of asphalt into a working-class neighborhood. How could they go that fast? On this street? A dusting of snow covers the...
