Jim Mitchiner leads the Memorial Day parade down Bardstown Trail through the Glacier neighborhood. (Photos by Dave Askins)

The Monday morning event is the only Memorial Day parade in Ann Arbor. Though it includes some of the usual parade fare – a fire truck, drum corps and people campaigning for elected office – it’s a relatively low-key affair that winds through this east side neighborhood of wide, tree-lined streets and ends up at Glacier Highlands Park.

There, more than 200 people converged to stand quietly during a brief ceremony. A trumpeter played “Taps,” a bagpiper played “Amazing Grace,” and resident Stephen Landes made brief remarks, thanking soldiers for their service, and for “your dedication to our country and to your comrades here or in our thoughts.”

To a silent crowd, Landes read a list of Michigan residents who were killed while serving in the military over the past year and who received flag honors from Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder. Jim Mitchiner, who had carried the American flag at the head of the parade, then retired the colors.

After the ceremony, Girl Scouts sold water to raise money for a trip to Switzerland, and the Optimist Club passed out red, white and blue popsicles. A table was set up in the park for people to make cards that will be sent to military personnel serving overseas – this year’s goal was to make 100 cards.

Here’s a chronicling of this neighborhood tradition, which is hosted by the Glacier Area Homeowners’ Association and the Ann Arbor Breakfast Optimist Club.

The photographs below provide snapshots of the day, but it’s worth beginning with a list of those who were honored at the Memorial Day event. More details about their lives and the circumstances of their deaths are provided on the state’s flag honors website. Most were in their 20s and all were killed over the past year in Afghanistan:

• U.S. Marine Staff Sergeant Vincent J. Bell of Detroit
• U.S. Army Private First Class Jackie Lee Diener II of Boyne City
• U.S. Naval Senior Chief Special Warfare Operator (SEAL) Heath M. Robinson of Petoskey
• U.S. Army Capt. Drew Russell of Scotts
• U.S. Marine Staff Sergeant Nicholas A. Sprovtsoff of Davison
• U.S. Army Specialist Chazray C. Clark of Ecorse
• U.S. Army Corporal Joseph A. VanDreumel of Standale
• U.S. Navy Seaman Aaron D. Ullom of Midland
• U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Joshua A. Throckmorton of Battle Creek
• U.S. Army Private First Class Brian J. Backus of Harbor Beach
• U.S. Army Spc. Robert L. Voakes Jr. of L’Anse
• U.S. Army Pvt. Thomas C. Allers of Plainwell
• U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Ergin V. Osman of Harrison Township
• U.S. Air Force Technical Sgt. Matthew S. Schwartz of Traverse City
• U.S Army Captain Bruce Kevin Clark of Addison

Leading up to the ceremony, a full complement of American parade traditions were on display. Here’s a sampling.

Parade watchers were reflected on the side of this Ann Arbor fire truck.

Bob Droppleman. marched in the parade playing bagpipes. He also performed “Amazing Grace” during the ceremony after the parade.

The parade started with just three girls carrying the “Our Honored Heroes” banner. They were later joined by another friend.

Members of a volunteer drum corps from Huron High School.

A hand-crafted eagle float added to the festivities.

One of many American flags in the Memorial Day parade.

A parade of bikes brought up the rear.

Incumbents on parade, from left: mayor John Hieftje and Ward 2 city councilmembers Jane Lumm and Tony Derezinski. Derezinski, wearing a Vietnam veterans cap, is running for re-election this year and faces Sally Hart Petersen in the Aug. 7 Democratic primary. Hieftje will seek re-election. Lumm is not up for re-election this year.

Democrat Sally Hart Petersen, right, is challenging incumbent Tony Derezinski in the Aug. 7 primary for a Ward 2 city council seat. The Glacier neighborhood is located in Ward 2.

Sumi Kailasapathy was not passing out her own campaign literature at the parade (the parade is held in Ward 2), though she’ll be running for city council in Ward 1. That seat is held by Sandi Smith, who isn’t seeking re-election. Kailasapathy faces Eric Sturgis in the Aug. 7 Democratic primary. Sabra Briere, the other current Ward 1 councilmember, also attended Monday’s parade. Briere is not up for re-election this year.

Christina Montague is running for the Washtenaw County board of commissioners in the new District 7, which includes the Glacier neighborhood. The former county commissioner will face Andy LaBarre in the Aug. 7 Democratic primary.

Democrat Andy LaBarre is running against Christina Montague for the new District 7 seat on the Washtenaw County board of commissioners. The incumbent in that district, Democrat Barbara Bergman, is not seeking re-election.

Erane Washington is one of four candidates in the race for 22nd Circuit Court judge. The judgeship is currently held by Melinda Morris, who is retiring. Other candidates are Jim Fink, Carol Kuhnke and Doug McClure. The non-partisan Aug. 7 primary will narrow the field down to two candidates, with those two candidates facing off on Nov. 6.

Adam Zemke greets potential voters – he’s running for state representative in District 55 and faces Andrea Brown-Harrison in the Aug. 7 Democratic primary.

Former Ann Arbor mayor Ingrid Sheldon was parade marshall.

Local entrepreneur Dug Song was chasing a decent photo opp on his vehicle of choice – a skateboard, which is not visible in the photo, but accounts for his posture.

Kathy Griswold, who’s active in local school and government issues, was one of the parade organizers in its early years, more than two decades ago.

Kirk Westphal, who serves on the Ann Arbor planning commission, helped organize this year’s parade.

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Marquee at the Michigan Theater on Sunday, April 5

Marty Stano, director of the film “Taffy, Cigarettes,” called The Chronicle a couple of weeks ago – he wanted to know if we’d be interested seeing a screener DVD of the 12.5-minute effort in advance of its premiere on Sunday, April 5 at the Michigan Theater.

The name “Stano” sounded familiar. I’d seen it somewhere. Ah yes, I’d edited a piece for The Chronicle on the 2009 Millers Creek Film Festival – Stano won an award for his “Runoff Lemonade.”

So, sure, I’ll look at a screener DVD from an award-winning director.

Whereas the Millers Creek submission seemed to be more of an independent effort, “Taffy, Cigarettes” – written and directed by Stano – was produced as part of the EFEX project: Encourage the Film-making Experience.

At Sunday’s premiere,  the founders of EFEX – University of Michigan grad Sultan Sharrief and senior lecturer in screen arts and culture at UM Terri Sarris – were on hand to talk about the program’s goals: To provide through filmmaking “a comprehensive approach to teach young people how to live prosperous, socially valuable lives and to provide pathways to diversity in higher education.” EFEX is a collaboration between Sharrief’s production company, Beyond Blue, and the University of Michigan.

Actors from "Taffy, Cigarettes" left-to-right at the premiere: Adam Alpert, Lauren Jane Bryden, Zach Goldasich, Jack Meluch.

As he created the film”Taffy, Cigarettes” from the script he’d written,  Stano – a UM grad himself – worked with students from Sarris’ film class and partnered with metro Detroit high school students. The script evolved in part through “workshopping” it at Belleville and Van Buren high schools.  That entailed dividing up roles and just reading through the parts – a “table read” – then discussing whether it rang true. Auditions resulted in casting of Atif and Omar Hashwi, two brothers from Dearborn, in the roles of two bullies, Jake and Jimmy.

In the film, Jake and Jimmy antagonize two friends, Kevin and Travis, played by Jack Meluch and Adam Alpert, who are spending a summer playing baseball, playing pogs, and collecting empty pop bottles, before starting middle school in the fall. Stano describes the film as a coming-of-age story, which is also reflected in the tagline on the poster: “Childhood has to end sometime.”

And the film certainly works at that level. Kevin goes from getting shoved to the ground by Jake out on the train tracks and getting the cigarettes he’s bought for his mom stolen, to wielding a pop bottle with startling effectiveness in the final scene. This theme is supported with attention to detail throughout. The graffiti on the railroad bridge was added by the film crew and includes “Jake” in the design, marking the tracks as a place controlled by Jake and his brother. At the Q & A session after the premiere, Sarris stressed that she’d insisted on water-soluble paint – consistent with the general principle of not leaving a mess at places where they’d filmed.

Atif and Omar Hashwi, who play the bullies in "Taffy, Cigarettes."

It’s this notion of place explored by the film that’s more interesting to me than the coming-of-age theme. Who controls what place?

The hangout in their tree with the stash of money from pop bottles is Kevin and Travis’ place. The convenience store is Sid, the owner’s, place – where he closely monitors  Kevin’s cigarette purchases. The railroad tracks and the playground – or really any place they happen to be – are places controlled by Jake and Jimmy. Kevin’s house is his mom’s place. The trampoline is Sarah’s place.

As I pre-screened the film, it’s the idea of place that lept first to mind, because I recognized so many of the places in the film – it was shot in Ann Arbor.

Even on the small-screen of my MacBook, when Wurster Park appeared in the background as Travis gave Kevin a ride on his bicycle pegs, it gave me a little thrill, because I recognized it as a place only three blocks away from where I live.

The thrill was repeated at the premiere and was amplified by the size of the image projected on Michigan Theater’s screening room.

What kind of place is my neighborhood? In “Taffy, Cigarettes,” it’s a place where kids get duct-taped to playground poles.

The mic is returned to director of "Taffy, Cigarettes," Marty Stano.

The duct-taping scene is presented in an understated, matter-of-fact way. Kevin and Travis look on with interest as the hapless victim gets strapped to the pole, but there’s no discernible inclination to intervene on his behalf. It’s apparently par-for-the-course.  Par-for-the-course that the bullies duct-tape kids to poles. And par-for-the-course that Kevin and Travis look on passively. Later, we see the evidence of duct-taped kid’s eventual freedom in the form of duct-tape remnants still stuck to the pole, but how he escaped is left to our imagination.

In this, the film succeeds in Stano’s stated goal not to present its themes in a way that hits you over the head. Literal hitting-over-the-head, however, appears in the final scene.

Though the actor who endured the duct-taping said at the premiere he’d happily work with director Stano again, about the duct-tape he allowed, “It burns!”

I felt a delightful disconnect between the peaceable place I imagine my neighborhood to be and the idea that it’s a place where kids can get duct-taped to a pole.

The film also drove home to me something I already knew about Ann Arbor as a place. It’s small. I noticed in the credits that special thanks was given to Laura Fisher. Like Stano’s, that’s another name I recognized as having a previous Chronicle connection – but of a different kind. Fisher minds the code and the styles for The Ann Arbor Chronicle website. I wondered why the filmmakers wanted to thank her. It turns out her thirteen-year-old son, Jack Meluch, plays Kevin in the movie.

Mike Lafond (right), shoots some footage at the premiere as an unforgiving historian for the film "Taffy, Cigarettes." Lafond is a senior at UM in the screen arts and culture program.

Sultan Sharrief and Terri Sarris, founders of the EFEX project, at the premiere of "Taffy, Cigarettes."

Free! What's that fine print, though?

Free Stuff: Kevin’s wife Lauren Miller answered the door and explained that they had put out a variety of items using a dresser drawer as a container for them. Today the drawer remained on the front porch, because of the still-threatening skies after a light rain earlier in the morning. The purge was prompted by Lauren’s grandfather’s move from the house where he’d lived since getting married in 1939 (Youngstown, Ohio). Their inheritance of items like the dining room table and chairs, Lauren’s grandmother’s chair, a cedar chest, and a snow shovel provided the extra impetus to make some additional room in their own house.

The sign on the drawer indicates they’d most recently set out video tapes. As Kevin explained when he joined us on the porch (after finishing the dog’s walk in Water Works Park), books and video tapes didn’t seem worth the trouble of trying to sell on eBay or in a garage sale for $0.25, when you could set them on the curb and they’d just disappear.

Kevin and Lauren agreed on the need to just get rid of a lot of their stuff, citing the example of a candlestick that had been left in their house when they bought it four years ago, which they had, until now, kept for no particular reason. A minor disagreement emerged when it came to a copy of Al Gore’s book, An Inconvenient Truth, which Kevin had put out in the drawer to pass along to someone else “because that’s sort of the point of the book.” Kevin learned about the same time The Chronicle did that Lauren had retrieved it from the drawer and taken it back inside.

"Please take videos but leave our drawer – we need that ..."

Slowing Down: The fine print on the sign, “… if you promise to slow down,” reflects Kevin and Lauren’s frustration – shared they say pretty much universally by neighbors – with the excessive speed of the passing cars on 7th Street. First there’s the noise factor, which is exacerbated when the city seals the cracks in the road, creating a lattice of tar ridges that lend an extra level of hum to a passing car’s tires.

Free ... if you promise to slow down.

And then there’s the difficulty of turning safely into their own driveway. Their concern comes from close-following cars, who just don’t respect their turn signal enough to slow down adequately. They’ve reported several near rear-ending events. And they’ve lost one of their cats to a young speeding driver who, after striking it, knocked on their door to report the sad news. Kevin is convinced that if the Ann Arbor Police Department set up a speed trap at the bottom of the hill near Washington Street, they could write plenty of tickets to drivers going over the limit of 30 mph.

What Chronicle readers could do now, or else wait for The Chronicle staff to find the time to do, is:

• inquire with AAPD how to request that speed limit enforcement be stepped up along a particular stretch.
• measure speeds of cars between Liberty and Washington to assess empirically how fast cars typically drive on that stretch. [No need for a radar gun: use a stopwatch and measure of length and some mathematics.]