The
PUBLISHER’S
Pen
On January 2nd of last year, I boarded United
Airlines flight 3319 from Newark-Liberty
International Airport en route to Detroit. Of
course, nobody really wants to leave New
York on the day after New Year’s to go
anywhere. Unless there is some immediate
call-to-action. My sense of urgency was
driven by what is supposed to happen when
a man dies.
Theodore Nicholas was a father to me. He
had graduated from Miller High School in
Detroit’s old Black Bottom and would go on
to retire from Ford Motor Company nearly
forty years later. Not only did he help shape
my passion for Major League Baseball, he
taught me to never lose sight of what it
meant to be a “Detroiter”. From the time I
was a kindergartener at Crosman
Elementary until his dying day, I could
always count on hearing “Ted” laugh in that
very distinctive way of his: Eh-HAN-HAN!
Through the years, like in many Detroit
households, his telephone number never
changed. Not even once. But, I could tell
that Theodore wasn’t well on July 16, 2014.
(Usually, he’d have an inside scoop for me
whenever I called about a story that
originated “just off The Boulevard” or “over
on the East Side somewhere”.) On this
particular date, there was no laughter. No
Eh-HAN-HAN! The best I could get from
him was: “I’m hangin’ in there, Son.”
You see, Black men from Detroit don’t
believe in complaining. We fight.
Here’s hoping that our content provides you
with a MARQUEE that I learned, primarily,
from Theodore Nicholas. And, one that I
know he’d be very proud to tell his friends:
“You know my Son up in New Yawk put this
together, don’t you?” That rhetorical
question would not be complete without that
one-of-a-kind laugh: Eh-HAN-HAN!
Attached, as always, to the end of it.