Our house

I heard that our old house in Flint (well, one of three) is boarded up and abandoned.

This would be the one with the ghostly happenings, but I don't think that's why it would be boarded up.

This was the house we moved to from Clio, a town about 15 miles north of Flint, and where I grew up from age 7 to 17.

But when I Google the address of the house, it comes up as the residence of someone who is listed in the University of Michigan e-yearbook as a 1959 grad. Now there's a coincidence.

I once was told that the houses in that neighborhood were all built by General Motors, for sale to its workers. The houses on the corners, which were larger and more elaborately styled, were where the managers lived. Ours was on the corner of Milbourne Ave. and Copeman Blvd.

The ghost aside, that was a nice house - until anything and everything would be stolen from the yard, the garage, the cars ... in which case, one was never sure if the shadow you saw out the kitchen window was a spectral presence or someone cruising the yard for something to snitch.

I remember once being at my grandfather's house, in England, and answering the door to my uncle's knock. I opened the door a crack and peered out.

"C'mon, Gill," my uncle said. "You're not in Flint now."

You got used to it, just like I'm used to living here now. But things change, and thieves don't go where there's nothing worth stealing and/or nobody worth mugging.

My sense of safety on Plum Island might be very misguided indeed.