Uneasiness turned to gratitude recently in a battered neighborhood near I-94, where WDET senior news editor Quinn Klinefelter and his wife were stuck with a flat tire and no way to replace it.
He describes what happened in a broadcast essay, also posted in text form at the station's website. The tale begins as the couple "limped off the freeway to a barren gas station on the east side of Detroit in a section police say numbers among the most crime-ridden in the city."
Sadly we did not have a functioning jack in the car, so we called for road side assistance. A knot of people at the station looked us over a bit suspiciously – a white couple in a solidly black neighborhood. . . .
I tucked my wallet in the glove box and got out of the car as one guy approached wearing a stained baseball cap sideways on his head. . . . Then he glanced at the blown tire, told us to wait and he’d be back in a moment. Sure enough he returned a few minutes later armed with…a lug wrench…and a jack. He lifted the car off the ground and strained to remove the lug nuts -- all but a single rusty one that refused to budge.
Then a second, older gent got out of a pick-up truck bearing an even shinier, stronger lug wrench. The pair bent over the wheel, the older guy grunting and offering suggestions as both wrestled with that last lug nut. It finally came free and the spare tire was quickly in place. The men smiled, turned and went back to their vehicles.
Quinn Klinefelter gets a valued hand from "people who have not been touched by any of the ongoing investment in Detroit’s downtown or Midtown." (WDET photo)
The helpful passersby didn't ask for anything, says the broadcast journalist, who had no cash to offer.
The older man said, “It’s cool. Things are tight out here. You gotta help when you can.”
And it struck me that these are people who have not been touched by any of the ongoing investment in Detroit’s downtown or Midtown, in a community that could easily become an economic casualty, post-bankruptcy, when officials decide whether it’s worth providing water service or public safety there. Yet they offered the one thing no investment can ever purchase: Kindness towards strangers – with no strings attached.
Klinefelter, who joined WDET in 1998 after working with the British Broadcasting Corporation, National Public Radio and Wisconsin Public Radio, comes away with this suggestion "as federal, state and city officials shape Detroit’s future:"
This is what needs to be considered – these people who live where the media spotlight rarely shines. With them, and their spirit, Detroit can truly be a great city. Ignore them and you ignore – and perhaps destroy – the city’s soul.
-- Alan Stamm
