Inside the Newsroom @ Chelsea, Dexter

The official blog for The Chelsea Standard and Dexter Leader


Friday, April 13, 2012

A quiet memorial to Chelsea's Titanic victim

The front page of the Boston Daily Globe from April 18, 1912,
announcing the sinking of the Titanic. This hangs in my living
room at my apartment in Clinton.


The Titanic has received a lot of attention this week with the 100-year anniversary of the sinking this weekend.

But something that doesn't receive a lot of attention is a family headstone at Chelsea's Oak Grove Cemetery that is a direct connection with the doomed ocean liner.

The Lingane family headstone is a small memorial to John Lingane, a Sylvan Township resident who died in the ship's sinking while coming back from Ireland visiting family. John's name appears on the stone, with his born and death dates. No remains for him are buried, of course; his body was not recovered from the wreckage.

This leads, however, to an interesting question: What's with our societies obsession with the Titanic?

 Obviously centennial anniversaries are big for any major historical event, but the Titanic has always had this sense of intrigue for me and many others.

Could it be because of its lauded fame when it first launched, being billed one of the greatest things man had built? Or that it sank before completing its first trip across the Atlantic? Or because of the horrible loss of life aboard, including John Lingane?

I think it's a combination of all three, as well as it being rediscovered recently in 1985. For deaces, scholars and the public wrestled with the concept of how it sank. One piece or two? How high in the air did the stern get? What was the last song the band played aboard the ship before it went down?

Several specials are on TV this week trying to find out more information on the boat. One of the biggest ones involves film director James Cameron, along with several other experts.



What questions still remain will likely go unanswered for history, as all survivors from the wreck have now died. But it's still an interesting piece of human history, and a maritime disaster that is the first thing most people think of when they hear the term "shipwreck."


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Friday, April 6, 2012

Comcast in Dexter round two?

Anyone continuing to have issues with Comcast should give me a call. I've heard through the grapevine that as recently as this week some people are continuing to hear from customer service reps that equipment fees will be charged for lost or destroyed equipment.

Keep an eye on the Dexter Leader website for a follow up article in the coming day or two.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Too bad more businesses weren't open yesterday in Dexter

It's always perplexing when I cover a really neat event, like yesterday's visit from Michigan Geocaching, and none of the downtown businesses are open.

The event brought dozens of people to town, all of whom were walking all over the place, which is kind of the point to geocaching in the first place.

The thought didn't occur to ask them if they noticed or were bothered by being unable to access much of the village's quaint downtown district, but I did notice Saturday when I was in town and wanted a fancy cup of coffee that Joe & Rosies closes at 6 p.m. and a trip to Foggy Bottom proved fruitless as well.

I don't expect a coffee shop to be open until 9 p.m. on any given day in such a low population density area, but 6:30 p.m. doesn't seem like reaching too far on a Saturday, and if I were a business owner I'd want my shop to be open when a bunch of people who, in part, have made tourism and urban adventure a sport are in my area of business.

This isn't a new topic. I've had this conversation with many small business owners, not just in Dexter, and the reply is always that they could open but nobody would come.

My response is still the same: people aren't going to know that you've expanded your hours the first time you do it, because you've built up an expectation that you're typically closed at a certain time, but eventually that expectation will change and that new block of time that you've expanded your hours of operation with will be consistently profitable.

Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was the pot of coffee I made at home to perk myself up Saturday evening so I could fully enjoy the Encore's "Godspell" without joining the ensemble with my fatigue-born snoring.

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