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You can take the globe-trotting journalist out of Detroit, but you can't take . . . you know the rest.
In this case, the city's enduring hold is felt by Ron Fournier, who flew around the country and world while covering presidential campaigns and presidents as White House bureau chief for the Associated Press. He joined National Journal, a Washington magazine, in 2010 and now is senior political columnist and editorial director.
Ron Fournier: "My father's beloved Detroit Police Department is cash-starved and, like the city, a shadow of its former self."
The 51-year-old writer, whose wife Lori grew up in this area and who vacations at a cottage near Lake Huron each summer, last month drove past his northeast-side childhood home on Coram Street while attending the Detroit Homecoming conference sponsored by Crain's.
A tree stands on the bare lot where he grew up with three siblings, one of whom -- Raquel Fournier -- finished Sunday's Free Press/Talmer Bank Marathon in five hours and three minutes. The family's former home burned to the ground earlier this year.
"From that same driveway," he says in a National Journal essay that's also in an Essays From Expats section of Crain's website. "I can see the lot where my mom's childhood home once stood; a victim of arson a decade or so ago, its charred, wooden skeleton is buried beneath a thicket of wild flowers and brush. Dad's old house is still in good shape, the only one on the block to look habitable for a middle-class family."
September's memory-coaxing trip, as well a late August visit to scatter his late father's ashes on the Detroit River, coax reflections about a city he says is "a shadow of its former self."
Fournier, a 1985 University of Detroit Mercy graduate who lives in Arlington, Va., is the son of a Detroit motorcycle cop. He came to the three-day Detroit Homecoming event with a reporter's sense of objectivity and eyes wide open about the agenda.
The city's corporate and political elite hope to dazzle the Detroit expats, mostly wealthy businessmen and women who might lay bets on the city. . . .
The organizers didn't invite me for my money. They're angling for a glowing story about the city's rebirth, and I suspect they'll be disappointed by what I eventually write. I'm a cup-is-half-empty guy, a professional skeptic—and Detroit is struggling through bankruptcy that might, finally, mark the rock bottom of a decades-deep hole. The climb out will take years, maybe generations, if it happens at all. . . .
It's all so impressive, this conference, and yet . . . well, this is still Detroit.
[Mary] Barra doesn't bother telling us that she's moving GM's Cadillac brand to New York, of all damn places. [Warren] Buffett laughs off [Dan] Gilbert's attempt to secure investment commitments. [Mike] Duggan has no good answer for the fate of Detroit's schools.
But the Beltway-area journalist isn't just a professional skeptic. This son of the city feels "Homesick for Detroit," as his headline says.
In addition to quoting conference speakers, he tells readers what he heard from his mom over breakfast at a St. Clair Shores diner:
"I think Detroit is coming back. I do, really. There are some great things happening downtown and Midtown.
"For years, whenever you said you were from Detroit, people looked at you with sympathy or made a joke. Now they want to know what you know about the city, or tell you about somebody they know moving back into Detroit. . . . When are you moving back?"
Newcomers here include his 26-year-old daughter.
Born in Arkansas and raised in suburban Washington, Holly decided after graduating from college to spend a year or two in community service. She joined City Year and asked to serve in Detroit — a city she had visited three or four times a year while growing up, because my wife and I were determined to remain connected to our families and to the Midwest. After City Year, Holly quickly got a job at The Detroit News, then fell in love and married a local guy. They live in Midtown.
Her 22-year-old sister, Gabrielle, graduated from James Madison University in rural Virginia a few months ago, and now attends law school at Michigan State University, 90 miles from Detroit. . . . Detroit still feels like home.
As for the answer to his mom's move-back question, see Fournier's reply at the end of his essay via the "Read More" link below.
Earlier coverage of Ron Fournier at Deadline Detroit:
Detroit Cop's Son 'Hears' Late Dad's Wait-for-Facts Reaction to Ferguson, Sept. 19
