passed on from generation to generation. To grow up believing that you were brought into this world to follow in your daddy's footsteps, just another chip-off-the-old-shoprat, was to engage in the lowest possible form of negativism. Working the line for GM was something fathers did so that their offspring wouldn't have to.
In the case of my ancestry, we had been blessed with this ongoing cycle of martyrs. Men who toiled tirelessly in an effort to provide their sons and daughters with a better way of living. Unfortunately, at the same time, our family was also cursed by a steady flow of uninspired descendants who scoffed at alternative opportunity and merely hung around waitin’ for the baton to be passed from crab claw to puppy paw.
By deftly flunking my way through St. Luke's Junior High, I was already exhibiting symptoms of one who was pointing squarely to the loading dock of the nearest General Motors outpost. Even my father was accurate with his diagnosis. Another Hamper banging at the gate of idiot industry with a ten-foot scowl and a forehead fresh for stampin’. I could practically hear my great-grandfather yelpin’ from his crypt: “Not another one! Hey, don't any of you pricks wanna become lawyers or somethin’? Huh? HUH?” Silent decades drifted by choking on indecision. “Well, piss on ya, I'm going back to sleep. Car, windshield. Car, fuel pump. Car, ignition switch. Car, zzzzzz…”
2
F LINT, M ICHIGAN. T HE V EHICLE C ITY. G REASEBALL M ECCA. The birthplace of thud-rockers Grand Funk Railroad, game show geek Bob Eubanks and a hobby shop called General Motors. A town where every infant twirls a set of channel locks in place of a rattle. A town whose collective bowling average is four times higher than the IQ of its inhabitants. A town that genuflects in front of used-car lots and scratches its butt with the jagged peaks of the automotive sales chart. A town where having a car up on blocks anywhere on your property bestows upon you a privileged sense of royalty. Beer Belly Valhalla. Cog Butcher of the world. Gravy on your french fries.
Flint, Michigan. Detroit as seen backwards through a telescope. The callus on the palm of the state shaped like a welder's mitt. A town where 66.5 percent of the working citizenship are in some way, shape or form linked to the shit-encrusted underbelly of a French buggy racer named Chevrolet and a floppy-eared Scotchman named Buick. A town where 23.5 percent of the population pimp everything from Elvis on velvet to horse tranquilizers to Halo Burgers to NRA bumper stickers. A town where the remaining 10 percent sit back and watch it all go by—sellin’ their blood, rollin’ convenience stores, puffin’ no-brand cigarettes while cursin’ their wives and kids and neighbors and the flies sneakin’ through the screens and the piss-warm quarts of Red White & Blue and the Skylark parked out back with the busted tranny.
“Just like half the other morons…” my old man had warned. He was certainly more wise than most of my friends’ fathers. They questioned nothing. They accepted their birthrights and strode sheep-like into the vast head-fuck of the factories. My old man was at least honest with himself. He realized a ball vise when he saw one. It didn't matter that he was a five-star drunk with the cumulative ambition of an eggplant. The old man held on to a chunk of his soul, concealing it from the fangs of lamebrain labor, accomplishing a small piece of everything while doing absolutely nothing. In Flint, Michigan, that was an achievement in itself.
My old man was determined to make sure that I, Bernard Egan Hamper III, his pipsqueak namesake, the eldest of his five sons, wouldn't follow the feed line into General Motors. When I was at St. Luke's, he tore at my ass relentlessly. When it came time for high school, he often threatened to ship me off to a military academy. My mom furiously opposed this solution. Her suggestion was that I enter the seminary.
In the case of my ancestry, we had been blessed with this ongoing cycle of martyrs. Men who toiled tirelessly in an effort to provide their sons and daughters with a better way of living. Unfortunately, at the same time, our family was also cursed by a steady flow of uninspired descendants who scoffed at alternative opportunity and merely hung around waitin’ for the baton to be passed from crab claw to puppy paw.
By deftly flunking my way through St. Luke's Junior High, I was already exhibiting symptoms of one who was pointing squarely to the loading dock of the nearest General Motors outpost. Even my father was accurate with his diagnosis. Another Hamper banging at the gate of idiot industry with a ten-foot scowl and a forehead fresh for stampin’. I could practically hear my great-grandfather yelpin’ from his crypt: “Not another one! Hey, don't any of you pricks wanna become lawyers or somethin’? Huh? HUH?” Silent decades drifted by choking on indecision. “Well, piss on ya, I'm going back to sleep. Car, windshield. Car, fuel pump. Car, ignition switch. Car, zzzzzz…”
2
F LINT, M ICHIGAN. T HE V EHICLE C ITY. G REASEBALL M ECCA. The birthplace of thud-rockers Grand Funk Railroad, game show geek Bob Eubanks and a hobby shop called General Motors. A town where every infant twirls a set of channel locks in place of a rattle. A town whose collective bowling average is four times higher than the IQ of its inhabitants. A town that genuflects in front of used-car lots and scratches its butt with the jagged peaks of the automotive sales chart. A town where having a car up on blocks anywhere on your property bestows upon you a privileged sense of royalty. Beer Belly Valhalla. Cog Butcher of the world. Gravy on your french fries.
Flint, Michigan. Detroit as seen backwards through a telescope. The callus on the palm of the state shaped like a welder's mitt. A town where 66.5 percent of the working citizenship are in some way, shape or form linked to the shit-encrusted underbelly of a French buggy racer named Chevrolet and a floppy-eared Scotchman named Buick. A town where 23.5 percent of the population pimp everything from Elvis on velvet to horse tranquilizers to Halo Burgers to NRA bumper stickers. A town where the remaining 10 percent sit back and watch it all go by—sellin’ their blood, rollin’ convenience stores, puffin’ no-brand cigarettes while cursin’ their wives and kids and neighbors and the flies sneakin’ through the screens and the piss-warm quarts of Red White & Blue and the Skylark parked out back with the busted tranny.
“Just like half the other morons…” my old man had warned. He was certainly more wise than most of my friends’ fathers. They questioned nothing. They accepted their birthrights and strode sheep-like into the vast head-fuck of the factories. My old man was at least honest with himself. He realized a ball vise when he saw one. It didn't matter that he was a five-star drunk with the cumulative ambition of an eggplant. The old man held on to a chunk of his soul, concealing it from the fangs of lamebrain labor, accomplishing a small piece of everything while doing absolutely nothing. In Flint, Michigan, that was an achievement in itself.
My old man was determined to make sure that I, Bernard Egan Hamper III, his pipsqueak namesake, the eldest of his five sons, wouldn't follow the feed line into General Motors. When I was at St. Luke's, he tore at my ass relentlessly. When it came time for high school, he often threatened to ship me off to a military academy. My mom furiously opposed this solution. Her suggestion was that I enter the seminary.
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