brick by brick - henry ford's greenfield village in detroit

greenfield village is a given in detroit. everyone knows it. in fact it's only one part of the vast complex called henry ford museum. who thinks that this museum is only another tourist trap for "rich" euro owners with some dingy shacks in the backyard is mistaken. this museum is like a small town with more parking spots than any walmart supercenter, with a good chance to get lost in the cold and never finding your car again in the maze of imax theater, ford academy, research center, the henry ford museum museum, and greenfield village, an original turn of the century village.

when the yule tide nears greenfield village invites members and nonmembers to “step into a christmas card of the past”, which jerone and i did. it was freezing cold. i was wearing not only silken unterpants that santa claus had brought but over them a gray thick woolen panty hose topping this attractive ensemble with my jeans as a stronghold against the twenty something degree fahrenheit.

with gloves, scarf, hat and all intention to fight jack frost we merrily entered the lantern and bon fire lit paths of this village of which i had heard about for months. it's indeed remarkable for the houses are originals that ford transported brick by brick into this curious sample of famous buildings: the heinz (the ketchup guy) building, thomas edison’s lab, the wright brothers (who were "first in aviation" says the ohio license plate) house and bycicle shop where they created their plane plus original watch maker, gaffer, tin smith, and toy shops.

tinside the wright brothers' family house we found this sign. their dad was a minister and maybe wilbur and orville were just trying to get closer to god.

hard to miss were the many ford model ts cruising down the streets with quite some speed so that strollers had to jump out of their way.

an outside movie theatre projected an old black and white scrooge on the wall of a house. but even with fire in front of the benches for the audience it wasn’t possible to linger around for longer than a few minutes.

ginger bread house exhibitions are big in ohio and michigan where people compete for creating the most beautiful, most creative, most sugary house. since we couldn't satisfy our hunger with those pieces of art we turned to the grilled roast beef walking by the chestnut booth.

mmh, there comes the freshly over the fire toasted roast beef sandwich with sauteed onions and bbq sauce. unfortunately by the time the sandwich reached out mouths it was already cold again.
village dwellers came in thick clothing and one lady even with a cute little furry muff. but she said that it's all faux fox.

a jester tried to cheer up frozen souls.

and christmas carol singers warmed everyone's hearts.

to put it in a nutshell ford tried to create picture perfect innocent christmas days of the good old times. jerone's grandpa has the theory that ford tried to recreate a world that he helped to destroy.

if you want to check out this highly commercialized but yet worthy to visit site: www.thehenryford.org/village/historicdistricts.asp