Josie Parker with a bouquet given to her by Ann Arbor District Library board members to celebrate her 10th anniversary as AADL director. (Photo by the writer.)

During her director’s report, Parker spoke at length in praise of the library’s staff and their service ethic, saying ”that ethic is what makes this library a great library” and one she is proud to lead. The board passed a resolution recognizing her decade of leadership, citing a list of accomplishments that included the opening of three new branches and the library’s role in taking on the Washtenaw Library for the Blind and Physically Disabled and the digitization of the Ann Arbor News archives. Cake was served.

Earlier in the meeting as part of the board’s committee reports, Ed Surovell noted that for the first time in more than 15 years, the library staff doesn’t have sufficient information at this point to draft a budget for the coming fiscal year. Typically in March the board’s budget and finance committee, on which Surovell serves, will review the draft budget before it goes to the full board in April. That committee review process has been delayed because of uncertainties regarding future revenues, including funds the library receives from personal property taxes and penal fines.

Parker, who chairs the Michigan Library Association’s legislative committee, later told the board that she’s been spending a lot of time in Lansing, talking with state legislators and testifying in committee hearings about the importance of funding public libraries. She told The Chronicle that the budget process is expected to be back on track in April, after Washtenaw County’s equalization report is completed. That annual report is the basis for determining taxable value of property in the county, which in turn indicates how much tax revenue is collected by local taxing entities. The library board typically adopts a budget in May, for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

As part of another committee report, Prue Rosenthal noted that a new facilities committee had met to discuss the condition of the downtown building and what kinds of issues the board should be thinking about going forward. Board president Margaret Leary later clarified that the group met informally and that the committee hasn’t been officially created – that’s expected to occur with a board vote at the April 16 meeting.

Financial Report

Ken Nieman, AADL associate director of finance, HR and operations, gave a brief financial report for the month of February. At the end of the month, the library had an unrestricted cash balance of $11.179 million, and had received nearly 97% of its budgeted tax receipts for the fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2012.

Two items that are currently over budget – software licenses and Lcard/circulation supplies – are expected to come back in line by the end of the fiscal year, Nieman said. [The report indicates that to date, software licenses are $15,027 over budget, while circulation supplies are over budget by $2,723.][.pdf of financial report]

The board had no questions or comments on the financial report.

Committee Reports: Budget, Facilities

Two brief committee reports were given at the March 19 meeting. Ed Surovell reported from the budget and finance committee, in the absence of committee chair Barbara Murphy. He noted that at this time of year, typically the committee has received a draft of the budget for the coming fiscal year. [The AADL's fiscal year runs from July 1 through June 30.] The committee normally would review the draft, he said, then “pretend to fiddle around with it and send it back to have the crumbs brushed off” before bringing it to the full board for review and approval.

This year, however, there are some “imponderables,” Surovell said – certain unknowns related to future tax revenues. Until the revenue position becomes clearer, the budget is “playing possum,” he quipped. This is the first time in 15 years or more that the library doesn’t have a clear indication of its revenue outlook, he said.

In a phone interview later in the week with The Chronicle, AADL director Josie Parker elaborated on Surovell’s remarks. Every revenue source that the library has is uncertain, she said, including local property taxes, personal property taxes, and penal fines. So the staff is looking at how to handle a budget projection with a lack of real information, she said.

They’ll have a better idea in April, she said, after the county’s equalization report is completed. That annual report is the basis for determining taxable value of property in the county, which in turn indicates how much tax revenue is collected by local taxing entities. With that information in hand, the AADL staff will be able to prepare a draft budget for the board’s budget and finance committee to review and present to the full board at its April 16 meeting. The expectation is to adopt the budget formally at the May 21 meeting. Adjustments can be made as more information becomes available.

When asked about last year’s Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board decision regarding “excess” taxes captured in the DDA’s tax increment finance (TIF) district, Parker said “we would have preferred a different outcome.” At issue was the interpretation of a city ordinance about TIF capture in the DDA’s downtown district, and DDA board’s view that the city ordinance did not require the DDA to return money to taxing authorities in its TIF district.

Although the library board discussed the issue with its legal counsel, “we’re not pressing,” Parker said. She said the library had requested to have a conversation among all taxing entities about resolving future TIF distribution, but said it’s up to the DDA as to whether they want to have such a conversation. The legal position of the library on the question has not changed, she said. [For background, see Chronicle coverage: "Library Weighs DDA Excess Tax Decision" and "Column: Tax Capture is a Varsity Sport"]

Committee Reports: Facilities

At the AADL board’s March 19 meeting, Prue Rosenthal reported on a meeting of a new facilities committee that includes her, Surovell and Nancy Kaplan. She said the group discussed the condition of the downtown building and what kinds of issues they should be thinking about going forward. In a way, she added, “we are playing possum, too.” Rosenthal said she didn’t intend to be flip, but the work is just getting started. There’s a lot to do, and the committee will work with AADL staff to make sure the process moves forward in a thoughtful, careful way, she said.

Board president Margaret Leary later clarified for The Chronicle that the facilities committee hasn’t been formally created – that’s expected to occur with a board vote at the April 16 meeting. Leary said the three board members who will be on the committee had met informally at her request.

Director’s Report

This month, Josie Parker’s report began with an update on her efforts as the Michigan Library Association’s legislative liaison, and ended with some personal reflections after 10 years as AADL director.

Director’s Report: Action in Lansing, Funding for Public Libraries

As chair of the Michigan Library Association’s legislative committee, Parker said she’s been spending considerable time in Lansing meeting with state legislators and testifying at various committee hearings regarding the funding of public libraries. Of particular concern is the potential elimination of the personal property tax (PPT) and of changes in Renaissance Zone reimbursements that should be coming to libraries.

Another concern is that there have been ordinances passed in Monroe and Eaton counties that take revenues from state level penal fines – which are required by the state constitution to fund libraries – and divert those revenues to fund law enforcement. The penal fines in question include: firearms violations, hunting and fishing violations, dog law violations and traffic violations. The ordinances are redefining a fine as a fee, Parker said. The issue matters because penal fines can account for a significant portion of overall revenues, especially for smaller libraries. For one library in Eaton County, it’s as much as 25% of the budget. [The percentage is much less for AADL. For the previous fiscal year, AADL received $228,735 in penal fine revenues. The library has budgeted to receive $250,000 this fiscal year, out of a total $12 million budget.]

The sad thing, Parker said, is that these actions pit local governmental units, or departments within local governments, against each other as they vie for resources. The units have typically had relationships that were supportive and team-oriented, she said. But the economic situation has led to fussing over money, Parker said, and that’s hard to accept.

Parker said she’ll do her part to secure library funding to which libraries are legally entitled, but she won’t try to get funds that are meant for other organizations. She admires the library profession for not being aggressive, and for simply asking that governments respect the funding that libraries are supposed to receive. Unfortunately, she added, it’s time-consuming and takes energy to educate legislators on how libraries are funded. The funding process is complicated, she said. But the good news is that every legislator she’s spoken with has been willing to listen and ask questions.

Director’s Report: Valentine’s Day Project & VA Recognition

Parker noted that the library had been invited to participate in a program to make Valentine’s Day cards to send to patients at the Ann Arbor Veterans Affairs hospital and C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital. Children made more than 400 cards that were sent to hospital patients through the library, in partnership with Logan Elementary, Carpenter Elementary and Clague Middle schools. It’s a small thing, she said, but a meaningful one.

As a result of that program and other outreach efforts, the library has received two certificates of appreciation from the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs. The library is a venue for meetings held for discharged VA patients with disabilities, Parker noted, and library staff help veterans access the Washtenaw Library for the Blind and Physically Disabled, which is managed by AADL. The Ann Arbor VA hospital has an outreach coordinator who’s very good and approachable, Parker said – nationwide, the VA has started to recognize that local outreach is important, as many patients who are discharged from VA hospitals remain in the community and unfortunately are younger, she said.

Parker praised AADL staff for their work, noting that a lot of effort goes into these programs, which are not typical for a public library.

Director’s Report: Reflections on Tenure

Parker concluded her director’s report by saying that she wanted to get a little more personal. She was proud to say that she was marking her 10th year as director on that day – it made her smile to say that, she said. The person in the director’s job has a lot to do with setting the direction of the library, Parker said. But no matter how much vision or passion that person brings to the job, if the rest of the staff isn’t aligned with that, nothing happens. ”I inherited good alignment, thank goodness,” she said.

Parker said she knew she’d embarrass some people, but she wanted to recognize the AADL staff. When she was offered the job as director, the first thing she did was walk into the office of Ken Nieman – AADL’s associate director of finance, HR and operations, who at the time was the library’s controller. He had tremendous responsibility for getting the library’s finances in order and putting internal controls in place, she said. [Financial issues under the library’s previous leadership included a deficit of nearly $1 million in 2000. Later that year, the library’s former financial director, Don Dely, was found guilty of embezzling $119,387 from the library from 1997 to 2000, according to a report in the Ann Arbor News.] Parker said she asked Nieman one question: “Will you stay with me at least a year?” He said he would, and has been there ever since.

Parker described Eli Neiburger, AADL’s associate director of IT and product development, as watching her grow into her job over the years. She said she appreciated his patience, and was thankful that “he’s waited me out.”

Parker also thanked human resources manager DeAnn Doll, noting that they’ve worked through three contract negotiation cycles together. Doll and another HR staffer – Jennifer Meunier – are a lot of the reason why the library hasn’t seen any union grievances, Parker said.

Also acknowledged was Karen Wilson, Parker’s administrative assistant, who “makes all this happen seamlessly every day,” Parker said, adding that Wilson doesn’t get as much praise as she deserves.

But the point isn’t simply to praise people at this moment, Parker told the board. It’s to acknowledge and explain how special the Ann Arbor library is – residents often don’t realize it until they move away, and discover that not every library offers the services and programs that AADL does.

Many of the AADL staff are pillars of the library’s service ethic, and in turn teach the younger staff to take the same approach so that over time, the service is consistent. ”That ethic is what makes this library a great library,” Parker said. She admires that ethic and is proud to be the leader identified with the AADL, she said. She thanked everyone who had anything to do with making the library this way.

Resolution Honoring Josie Parker

At the end of the meeting, board president Margaret Leary introduced a resolution honoring Josie Parker for her 10 years as AADL director. The two-page resolution highlighted accomplishments of Parker’s tenure, including construction of three new library branches – Malletts Creek, Pittsfield and Traverwood – as well as increases in circulation, cardholders, program attendance and library visits. [.pdf of board resolution]

The resolution was approved unanimously, and followed by a round of applause. The board then presented Parker with a large bouquet of flowers and cake to commemorate the occasion.

Present: Rebecca Head, Nancy Kaplan, Margaret Leary, Prue Rosenthal, Ed Surovell. Also AADL director Josie Parker.

Absent: Barbara Murphy, Jan Barney Newman.

Next meeting: Monday, April 16, 2012 at 7 p.m. in the library’s fourth floor meeting room, 343 S. Fifth Ave. [confirm date]

The Chronicle relies in part on regular voluntary subscriptions to support our coverage of public bodies like the Ann Arbor District Library board. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

Nina Juergens of Acme Mercantile with a cake marking the downtown Ann Arbor store's 9th anniversary in November.

When I worked on the business desk at The Ann Arbor News, we were awash with press releases about various business anniversaries, awards and other achievements. In hindsight, it’s fair to say we did not treat these accomplishments with the respect that many of them deserved.

Perhaps it takes being closely connected to a small enterprise – whether it’s a business, nonprofit or independent professional, or a program you launched or service you’ve been providing  – to appreciate the milestones that might seem trivial to an outsider. If you understand that making it through the day without quitting your business can be a pretty significant achievement, it gives you a visceral connection to those announcements.

That’s one reason why here at The Chronicle, we’ve started allotting some of our monthly milestone columns to congratulating others who’ve reached some kind of marker. Generally, large institutions are more likely to log higher numbers and get more attention for that. The University of Michigan, for example, is gearing up to celebrate its 200th anniversary in 2017, and is already marshalling its considerable resources for that event.

But I have a soft spot for smaller, human-scale endeavors.

This month, we’re highlighting three such ventures: Local businesses – Acme Mercantile, Le Dog, and Anderson Paint – that all celebrated recent anniversaries, and whose owners have strong ties to this community.

And because tonight, Midnight Madness and Kerrytown Kindle Fest are launching many Ann Arbor shoppers into the holiday shopping season, with several downtown stores open late and offering special deals, I’d like to start by sharing a couple of thoughts about that, and by sharing a Twitter hashtag: #a2shoplocal. 

Local Shops, Local Shopping

What I enjoy about spending money locally is seeing the direct link between what I spend and the livelihood of the people – my neighbors, in some sense – who are getting my business.

It’s not abstract.

The ownership isn’t dispersed worldwide through shares of stock, or at a corporate headquarters in New York or Los Angeles or Bentonville, Arkansas. You can actually talk to the person who makes decisions about the business. You run into them at Michigan Theater or Michigan Stadium, at Arbor Brewing or Knight’s Market, The Ark or Power Center. They might, when sufficiently provoked, even turn up at a city council meeting.

The global economy has reached a level of complexity that we might feel like we have no control over what happens in our local communities. But in a very concrete way, we do have that control. We can choose where we spend our money, and how. And that has a tangible impact on where we live, work, play – and shop. It doesn’t take rampant consumerism to make this work. But it does take a shift in our spending habits.

So in the spirit of taking action and not (simply) wringing my hands, I’ve started highlighting local options on Twitter, using the hashtag #a2shoplocal – stores, restaurants, events, online businesses (run by local folks) and items like gift certificates for Ann Arbor parks and recreation. It’s an idiosyncratic collection of things that strike me as worth noting, as I come across them, and obviously not all inclusive.

But anyone can use the #a2shoplocal hashtag – and I hope you readers who always keep your Twitter feed within arm’s reach will do that, too. At least for the Twitterverse, it could be a low effort, possibly high impact way to share suggestions and keep the “Buy Local” meme alive. While this message gets more traction during the holidays – when almost everyone is on the hunt for gifts – it needs to stick beyond December.

Three Local Business Milestones

People deciding to shop at locally-owned businesses have made it possible for the following folks to celebrate their own milestones.

Nina Juergens once told me that she opened Acme Mercantile because it’s the kind of store where she wanted to be able to shop downtown. Nothing like it existed, so she created it herself. (She also owns Salon Vertigo on Fourth Avenue, so it’s not like she needed something to fill her days.)

The West Liberty store, which celebrated its 9th anniversary in November, reflects the quirkiness of Nina’s vision. It’s a place where you can buy shoelaces and duct tape, dish soap and rubber gloves, chew toys for your pup, lovely flax clothing, tea, gag gifts, clocks, pens, gum – you get the idea. Nina also makes her own “Canned Acme” by filling what looks like an oversized soup can with merchandise, then using a device that seals a metal lid on it. You don’t know exactly what you’ll get, but that’s the charm.

Nina has also been a long-time supporter of the Ann Arbor skatepark, and is a member for the Friends of the Ann Arbor Skatepark board of directors. (The group is working toward a goal of $1 million, to build the skatepark at the city’s Veterans Memorial Park.) That passion is reflected in the store, which sells skatepark merchandise – T-shirts, mugs, keychains, skateboard decks and “Canned Skateboard” – to promote and raise money for the project.

And since it’s the season, Acme is selling skatepark Christmas cards, too.

Le Dog's Main Street location, managed by Ika Van Dyck-Dobos, opened in 1996. The metal sculpture adorning the napkin box is by Middy Potter, an artist at the neighboring WSG Gallery – which is celebrating its 12th year anniversary.

While Acme is celebrating nine years, around the corner, Le Dog is marking 15 years at its “satellite” shop in the former Kline’s vestibule at 306 S. Main.

Jules Van Dyck-Dobos opened the original Le Dog in 1979, and if you don’t know the small red hut near the corner of Liberty & Thompson and the amazing soups concocted there, I’m not sure you really can claim to be from these parts.

In many ways, Jules and his wife Ika – who runs Le Dog’s Main Street location – are my heroes. There is no one else doing what they do. Le Dog is extraordinary, eccentric and grounded in this community. It’s a place where the personality of the owners is front and center, where the signs are hand-written, and where you’ll find a photo of the family’s third-generation newborn posted on the window.

There are no empire-building, franchise-proliferating expansion plans. No focus-group-driven decisions about what to serve, no social-media-savvy campaigns to bring in more customers. It’s a small, old-school business that provides a living for a family and jobs for a few other employees.

In rummaging around the Internets for this column, I stumbled onto a 2007 review of Le Dog written by Domenica Trevor – who coincidentally now writes an occasional book column for The Chronicle. Here’s an excerpt that captures some of the reasons why Jules and Ika have staying power:

Among some in town, Van Dyck-Dobos is considered to be, well, curt (OK, he’s been called Ann Arbor’s very own Soup Nazi), a reputation reinforced by such Le Dog signage as “If you’re talking on your cell phone, don’t talk to me!” and “No Coke! No Pepsi! No soda! Ever!” One could argue, however, that the clown who requests that he “hold the cream” or the cretin asking for the salt shaker deserves a measure of disdain.

And consider this: A friend whose mother was laid up with a broken leg explained the sad situation to Van Dyck-Dobos, who agreed to make her a few gallons of his freezer-friendly Italian wedding and six-bean soups. Loving daughter drove them to upstate New York, divided them into serving-size portions and stashed them, providing soul-deep sustenance until Mom was back on both feet. So. Meditate on such kindness. And be glad he won’t sell you soda – that stuff rots your head. Have the lemonade!

Another family business passed a milestone that’s also measured in decades. Bob Anderson of Anderson Paint Co. runs the business that was founded by his grandfather and that’s now located on West Stadium Boulevard. In a recent newsletter, Bob included some reflections about those early days:

This year marks our 60th year in business, so we thought it would be nice to talk a little bit about the founder, and our Grandfather, William Brady Anderson. After a year long stint of working at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York as a Chassis Lecturer for General Motors, Brady decided to move his young family back to Pontiac, Michigan. There he found a job working for the Pontiac Varnish Company as a Bookkeeper.

There were opportunities for promotion within the company at that time managing the various stores located all around the state, so Brady jumped at the opportunity to manage the Ann Arbor store in 1946. In 1949 Pontiac Varnish Company decided to get out of the retail paint business and offered each manager the opportunity to purchase their store. Brady saw this as an opportunity to be his own boss, sold his small side business of renting radios, took the proceeds of that sale and bought the Ann Arbor store.

In the late 1940s there was plenty of competition right smack dab in downtown Ann Arbor. Our store was located at the corner of Fifth and Washington, currently where the Garris Law Firm is now located. At that time Sherwin Williams, Pittsburgh Paint, and Glidden all had company-owned stores within a four block radius of Anderson Paint Company.

Brady decided to focus on the do-it-yourselfer, rather than the paint contractor at that time to differentiate himself from the competition. He figured out that to be successful selling to retail customers, he needed to provide higher quality products and exceptional service. It was not uncommon for Brady to make “house calls” for his customers to help them solve problems. This philosophy of providing high quality products and exceptional service for all of our customers is still our goal 60 years later. Our family is indebted to Brady for having the courage and entrepreneurial spirit to start his own business.

Congratulations to Bob, Jules and Ika, Nina and all the other local business owners who’ve carried on despite the odds.

Do you have a milestone to share? Drop me a line at mary.morgan@annarborchronicle.com and we’ll try to include it in an upcoming Chronicle monthly milestone column.

About the writer: Mary Morgan is publisher and co-founder of The Ann Arbor Chronicle. The Chronicle could not survive to count each milestone without regular voluntary subscriptions to support our coverage of local government and civic affairs. Click this link for details: Subscribe to The Chronicle. And if you’re already supporting us, please encourage your friends, neighbors and colleagues to help support The Chronicle, too!

The Ann Arbor Chronicle pocket watch in a totally staged attempt at an arty photograph just for this column.

About a year ago, Dave Askins gave me a pocket watch. It’s a lovely device: simple in design, functional, evocative of a different era. The pocket watch holds all sorts of meaning for me, and it wasn’t a random gift – you might have noticed that here at The Ann Arbor Chronicle, we have an affection for watches and clocks.

Exactly a year ago today, Dave and I launched The Chronicle – with a watch in its masthead – intending to provide in-depth coverage of issues we felt were important or intriguing to the community. We believe that a critical part of the media’s watchdog role can be played by sticking to a simple premise: Just show up and watch. Observe, listen, notice, revel in seemingly unimportant detail – that’s how you discover what decisions are being made, and why. That’s how you learn about relationships, and how you notice the small things that sometimes turn out to be really important.

When we started, we also wanted to have some fun along the way, and make a living publishing The Chronicle. A year later, we’ve done that. And honestly? I can’t quite believe it.

We’ve made it through one year because of the support of hundreds of individuals who’ve found value in what we do. Many of you have passed along information to us that we’ve sometimes been able to turn into stories. And many have taken time to post comments on our stories that have added information, analysis, insight and novel perspective. Some of you have taken the time to send along corrections when we got something wrong, and we’ve learned from that.

We’ve made it because columnists and freelancers have begun to expand the range of our coverage. And this summer we got a welcome boost from interns, too.

We’ve made it thanks to those of you who’ve supported us financially with your voluntary “subscriptions.” I’ll never forget the giddy feeling of getting our first Chronicle check in the mail – now I know exactly why merchants frame the first dollar bill they earn. We’ve made it because of the local businesses and institutions that support us through their advertising dollars, even though their budgets are tight – we’re grateful to you all.

So what’s next? It’s tempting to make grand pronouncements on occasions like this, or to set ambitious goals for the coming year. That’s for later. For now, I’ve got some celebrating to do.

For those of you who don’t know, Dave Askins – the man who gave me the pocket watch and who edits and writes for this publication – is also my husband. And today, along with The Chronicle’s anniversary, we’re also celebrating our own. One year for The Chronicle seems like a long time; 20 years of marriage seemed almost unimaginable back in 1989. And yet, here we are – still discovering new things, still having fun, still happiest to be in each other’s company.

I can only hope that as we watch another 19 years go by, we’ll be able to say the same about The Ann Arbor Chronicle.

About the author: Mary Morgan is publisher of The Ann Arbor Chronicle.

Washtenaw Dairy T-shirt with design drawn by Chris Frayne.

On Saturday, May 30, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. the Washtenaw Dairy will throw a 75th birthday party for itself.

Jim Smith, president of Washtenaw Dairy, didn’t send out any special invitations to people – everybody’s welcome to come enjoy the free hot dogs, 25-cent milkshakes, and entertainment from “Elvis Presley” and “Buddy Holly.” Not even Bill Martin – president of First Martin Corp. and athletic director of the University of Michigan – got a special invite.

So when Martin dropped by the dairy on Thursday, and a tableful of morning regulars wanted to know if he was coming to the party, Smith wasn’t buying the “Nobody invited me” excuse that Martin was selling. “We don’t send out invitations!” admonished Smith. “Well, you didn’t call!” replied Martin. Martin wound up saying he’d try to attend, asking, “About what time are you guys going to be there?”

The Chronicle didn’t hear anyone take advantage of the obvious opening for a wisecrack: “Are you asking so as to avoid us, or what?”  Missing that chance was a rare exception judged against the hour we spent on Thursday soaking up the atmosphere at the corner of First and Madison on the west side of Ann Arbor. 

The morning regulars at the Washtenaw Dairy dish out their wit as generously as the ice cream cones get dipped in the evenings. Topics on Thursday ranged from Big Ten baseball to attitudes on egg salad and its idiosyncratic gastrointestinal effects [here we discretely redact], to a sudden nationwide enthusiasm for the Three Wolves and the Moon T-shirt that’s reputed to increase the wearer’s attractiveness to women.

A morning routine is to assemble the donut trays. The flat boxes get folded up with a staple in each corner, then nested together in an alternating pattern.

The dairy offers its own T-shirts for sale – but as far as the Chronicle is aware, they enjoy no special powers of attraction. Smith told us the dairy’s shirts were designed by a Zap Comix artist in the ’70s – Smith thought his last name sounded like “frain” or “frame.” With help from erksnerks on Twitter, The Chronicle has concluded the artist was probably Chris Frayne, after whom an Ann Arbor Film Festival prize for animation is named.

And on Thursday morning it was a pink Washtenaw Dairy T-shirt that Lara Aljammali was after, which she put on right away. Why the need to wear the shirt? Aljammali is a student at Dicken Elementary, and she’d written a report on the Washtenaw Dairy that she was presenting to her class that same day.

Aljammali wasn’t the only person at the dairy on Thursday with whom we felt some kind of writer’s bond. Morning regular Tom London told us about a monthly features publication he’d given a four-year run back in the ’70s called “Did You Know?” Some of the stories he wrote included ride-alongs with hot-air balloonists and skydivers.

Back to Bill Martin. It was only briefly that he dropped by the dairy that morning – in fact he departed saying, “I’m a public employee and I’ve got to get my butt back to work!” What was he doing there in the first place? He’d printed out a page from Flickr with a photograph of the hopper railroad car that’s displayed down next to the new First Martin building at 201 Depot Street. On that photo there’s a comment left about a year ago by Flickr user Wystan:

Jim [Rees], I met John Siller, the retired Ann Arbor building contractor, at the Washtenaw Dairy this morning. Siller, who is 75, is an old pal and sailing buddy of Bill Martin (68), and he tells me that he located this hopper car for him. He found it parked on a siding in Durand, and brought it to town on the Ann Arbor Railroad. It was he who made sure that it got welded to the track.

The baseball mitt wall inside the Washtenaw Dairy.

Siller, who’s one year older than the Washtenaw Dairy,  was sitting at the table on Thursday, too. He told The Chronicle that he drops by the dairy most days when he’s in town.

So Martin was there to set the record straight and give his buddy a friendly hard time. Siller was not the guy who’d located the hopper car, Martin said, and it was brought down on a flatbed truck, not on the railroad.

Martin said that his son was the one who’d gone up to find the hopper car – ahh, but it was him, said Siller, who told Martin’s son to go!

Throughout the hour or so The Chronicle spent at the dairy, plenty of people stopped in for coffee and donuts and left with their refreshments, as some morning regulars filtered away from the table, and others filtered in to replace them.

As The Chronicle headed out the door, we passed a vaguely familiar face, and by the time we hit the sidewalk at First and Madison, we had pieced it together. So back inside the dairy we went to tell Jim Rees, the photographer who’d posted the photo of the hopper car on Flickr: “Bill Martin was just here with a printout of your picture.”