Trading Seasons: How you can miss Detroit from California

By Dave

Editors Note: While Mike's the analytical one that usually dissects the issues, Dave's more along the lines of an editorial style. Take a moment to read and enjoy.

I'm one of the lucky ones.

I woke up one day and told myself that I was going to leave charcoal colored skies and abandoned sky lines. I saved nickels and dimes for months in order to do one thing I’ve always told myself that I would do. With a heavy heart and stars in my eyes, I decided to engage my Manifest Destiny and make the move from Detroit, Michigan to beautiful San Diego, California.

This morning I took a beautiful walk through Balboa Park. It was a warm day. Close to eighty degrees, if not just above. The birds were out singing their summer songs. Children were laughing and playing soccer, showing their grass-stained knees and scabbed elbows with pride. There were groups of tourists in khaki-colored shorts and sunscreen waiting in line to get into the world famous San Diego Zoo. The afternoon sun made my skin expel a slight sweat; enough to where I needed to stop and buy a bottle of water from a hot dog vendor near the dog park. This is a great way to spend an afternoon before I start my new job; a new job that starts on Valentine’s Day.

That’s right, it’s February.

My friends and family in Detroit that I telephone daily tell me how much snow I’m missing out on. What should I be jealous of, that I don’t get to wake up in the morning and play the “reverse, drive, reverse” game that I love to play at six in the morning before work? My friends also remind me how great it is to involuntarily spin your freshly salted 2004 Saturn Ion three hundred and sixty degrees into a snow bank packed ever-so-neatly in the fast lane on southbound I-75 just past the Warren exit as you're on your way home from some conch bar in Royal Oak that you didn’t even want to go to in the first place.

I interpret their stories as a way to make me home sick to the point I can come be a regular part of their lives again. They express their concerns that my job paying me nearly twice as much in southern California may make me soft and not respect the value of a dollar.
Sorry guys, try harder.
They tell me about how the city is almost done tearing down Tiger Stadium. How the corner of Michigan and Trumbull is nothing but a giant fence and a blast crater. How there is a half finished hotel in the middle of Greektown because the Casino that was building it ran out of funding and stopped paying the builders. They say words like 15-18% when referring to unemployment.
Try harder.
I heard Punxsutawney Phil says six more weeks. In six weeks the surf starts picking up.
Try again. Try harder.
The Wings have nine home games in February. (Slight inhale).
You don’t need to try anymore my friend. You win.

I see the twenty minute walk to 2.9 miles of circular track, raised about fifteen feet off the icy, gray concrete below. Yes, I’m speaking of Detroit’s answer to the L-Train, The People Mover. Only nine stops away from the largest staircase I’ve ever climbed. I see the most expensive Molson XXX I’ve ever drank, along with the best damn Little Caesar's pizza in the world. By now I know I'm at my home away from home: The Joe Louis Arena. Thinking of the smell of those troughs in the bathroom makes me home sick every single time. The endless sea of Winged Wheels, thinking of it brings a tear to my eye.

Granted, I have been lucky enough to watch the Red-and-White defend their championship in some great venues. The Staples Center in Los Angeles, The Honda Center in Anaheim, and The Jobing.com Arena in Glendale, AZ all come to mind. In all of these places I have met many Yzerman’s, Shannahan’s, and Osgood’s. I’ve been lucky enough to meet a few Konstantinov’s, Coffey’s, Datsyuk’s, and Zetterberg’s. I even met a five year old Doug Brown impersonator in a jersey that was way to big for her. (I think it’s funny that you can tell how long someone has lived in California by whose name is on their sweater). Whenever the red light sparkles and the horn doesn’t sound, all of my new friends and I jump up, cheer, slap hands... and get told to sit down by someone in a different colored jersey. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Except, of course, if I could hear the horn when that red light goes off.
Except, of course, if I could find the one or two people not proudly representing the Motor City and welcome them to my city by chanting “YOU!” in unison with 20,066 of my neighbors.
Except, of course.

I miss bundling up during my eighteen minute breaks to go smoke a cigarette and talk about Hossa’s team leading 28 goals, Pavel’s 42 assists, and Conklin’s 5 shutouts. Overhearing talks of how opening day is right around the corner and how our boys of summer, the Tigers, are going to snap out of that funk we got ourselves into last year. Someone asks me how to get to The Well on Gratiot because they hear it’s a great place to get a beer after the game, and that sometimes Cheli stops in there to get a Budweiser before heading home.

Instead, I’m stuck rolling up the sleeves on my hoodie so not to over heat on the smoking patio. Sore losers heckle my friends and I about our 0-16 Detroit Lions. We laugh and say there is nowhere to go but up. People tell us to go back to Detroit. Emotionally beat up, we smile and ask them to tell their fellow Californians to quit paying us so much. Some “tie under my jersey” over-served DUI waiting to happen type mumbles something about Allen Iverson becoming a sixth man. We chuckle and talk about how well Chauncey Billips is doing in Denver. When the smart-ass Fox News advocate yells something about our mayor going to jail, we stand up, proud and united, and proclaim that we are Detroiters at hockey game; nothing you can say will affect us because today, we will win.

I guess I’ll sit here in eighty-two degree San Diego, checking stats in between sips of my fancy imported beer and bites of my avocado-spinach-olive oil pizza. I'll be calling my friends to ask if they heard anything about Aaron Downey being called up for a game as I walk barefoot down the beach. I'll be opening letters from my Grandmother in which she writes stories of the six or so feet of snow piled in her backyard, with a postscript that reads “I hope you don’t become a Ducks fan.” Don’t worry Grams; that will never happen.
I’ll do all of this, and I’ll sit here and be miserable.
Nine home games in February;
You know how to cut me deep...