Out of the Darkness Community Walk

On September 19, the annual 'Out of the Darkness Community Walk' will take place at Gallup Park in Ann Arbor to benefit the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.

This is the local version of a national effort to raise money for various suicide prevention initiatives, including funding clinical research and providing help to those in need.

There are also several other local walks on subsequent weekends, including the Downriver walk in Brownstown on October 10 in which my wife, Jackie, and I are participating.

This is a cause dear to our hearts, as Jackie's brother, Eddie, took his own life just over three weeks ago.

We will be walking in his honor at the Brownstown event, given the location was the best fit for all of Eddie's family and friends who were looking to participate. Many live in the surrounding area.

However, if you can participate locally in Ann Arbor, or at any of the other walks listed on the Web site, please do so.

You can also sponsor a walker if you would like.

The AFSP says 90 people die by suicide every day in the United States, and that 2,300 more attempt to kill themselves.

This is staggering.

Please help in any way you can. Walk, donate, spread the word, whatever.

Our team is called 'Team Edziu.' Here's the link:

http://afsp.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.team&eventID=1052&teamID=17152

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention's Web site is www.afsp.org.

My childhood was parked on Broadway Street

I was driving down Broadway Street in Ann Arbor this morning after a great early interview with Kay Yourist of Yourist Studio Gallery. (They have some wonderful pieces of art there!)

The sun was shining fairly brightly and an intense glare came off of one particular car in the distance parked on the north side of the street.

As I got closer, I realized it was a Delorean. Not only a Delorean, but a perfect, flawless, manual trans Delorean. The stainless steel couldn't have been more polished.

It was just sitting there so I stopped for a few minutes and gawked, no doubt the neighbors thought I was a crazy man.

To understand my fascination with this car, one must realize Back to the Future was the absolute final word in motion picture filmaking according to my 12-year-old self.

Even now, close to 30, I can sit down on a weekend and digest the trilogy with complete attention and awe.

So needless to say, the event made my day.

But wait, there's more.

Not 200 yards down the street, parked on the same side, was an old Ford Taurus painted to resemble the Ecto 1 featured in the Ghostbusters films and tv show.

Of course, the real Ecto 1 was a Cadillac hearse, but I found this amusing non-the-less given my dad had a white Taurus very similar to this one and I always thought it would be cool as a kid if he would paint the Ghostbuster emblems on it.

I'm not quite certain what all of this means, but it made me slow down a bit and remember for a while.

Perhaps that's good enough in and of itself.

My Experience

My name is Devin Bow and my experience at the B.Side of Youth program and my job shadowing at The Saline Reporter was very interesting. What I learned in the B.Side is learning how to do web development. I've learned how to use html code and ap div. I have also no how to do video production. Our group did an interview with Corey about exercising and staying in shape. We also went all over the town to shoot B roll. Journalism was all about coming up with ideas and brainstorming for your articles. We have spent two weeks on journalism. My favorite parts of the program was video production and web development.

In my job shadowing on the last day, I did an interview with Leslee Niethammer, the directer from Saline District Library, about the children's summer program. That was my first time in the Saline library. I have also learn time, date, place of an upcoming event into the heritage calendar. I also talk to a person on the phone who wrote about an upcoming event in Ann Arbor. I asked questions about the event to her.

This experience will guide me through college although my main career is to be a carpenter. I also have a back up career to be in the game designing industry. I'm still in the works of becoming a carpenter due to my experience in the Regional Career Technical Center program in high school.