by Mike McDowell

Depending upon your perspective at the time, spending the years 1967-1971
at Crestwood High School was either an endurance test or an opportunity to
live out the Riverdale dream, as depicted in the pages of Archie Comics.

But regardless of which side of Ford Road you called home in the late 1960s,
the general consensus was that Michigan was the place to be during that
tumultuous era. The Detroit area was a cultural catalyst in a number of fields
and actually led the rest of the country in music and sports. Ironically, it was
that leadership that would enable Michigan to recover from a near
devastating turn of events in the summer of 1967.

By the beginning of 1967, the war in Viet Nam had begun to seriously divide
the country. President Johnson’s insistence upon a growing military presence
there encountered opposition in a number of ways. Musicians such as the
Royal Guardsmen and solo artist Keith (of 98.6 fame) found themselves
facing considerable legal opposition for their conscientious objector stance
with respect to the draft. The city of San Francisco even celebrated a Summer
of Love in opposition to the military escalation, with bands like Jefferson
Airplane and Big Brother and the Holding Company encouraging people to
demonstrate their opposition to the war via “peace and love”, as well as the
indiscriminate ingestion of a variety of chemical substances which remain
illegal to this day.

The war in Viet Nam was as much of a concern in Michigan in 1967 as it
was throughout the rest of the country. But Michigan had its own issues to
confront, as the Summer of Love turned into the Summer of Hate. Cultural
tensions in the Detroit area had been escalating for years, and finally came to
a head. The riot that broke out in Downtown Detroit on the 23rd of July
resulted in several dozen deaths and millions of dollars in damages.

In the aftermath of the riot, it seemed as though it would take a miracle for
the Detroit area to recover. Not only had its national reputation been
tarnished, but once-thriving streets such as Michigan Avenue, Woodward
Avenue and John R Street were reduced to piles of rubble. However, by the
following year, Detroit would have its miracle in the form of a proud little
baseball club that met at the intersection of Michigan Avenue and Trumbull.

Despite setbacks like pitching ace Mickey Lolich’s ten consecutive losses
and the team’s season-ending collapse to the California Angels during the
1967 campaign, the Detroit Tigers knew that with some fine tuning, they
would be a serious contender in 1968. They also realized that the City of
Detroit, which briefly teetered on the brink of extinction as a result of the riot,
desperately needed a public relations makeover.

And in 1968, the Tigers gave Detroit what it so desperately needed: a public
relations makeover and a renewed sense of purpose. Fielders Gates Brown,
Al Kaline, Stormin’ Norman Cash, Dick McAuliffe, Willie Horton, Don
“Coyote” Wert, Ray Oyler, Bill Freehan and Jim Northrup combined with
the crack pitching staff of Joe Sparma, Earl Wilson, John Hiller, Mickey
Lolich and the amazing Denny McLain (who clinched an unprecedented 31
victories that season) to give the Tigers an upset World Series victory over
the defending champion Saint Louis Cardinals that October.

In contrast to the previous year’s calamity, the people of Detroit took to the
streets that October in celebration of the Tigers’ victory. From Detroit’s Herman’s
Gardens to suburban Harper Woods, people rallied together in support of
their hometown heroes.

With all due respect to the Pistons, Lions and Gordie Howe’s Red Wings,
the Tigers in 1968 put Detroit back on the map and did more to turn around
the setbacks of 1967 than any politician or social program could. “I believe
that the 1968 Tigers were put here by God to heal this city”, Willie Horton
later observed. Few would contest that assessment.

Southeastern Michigan also excelled in music during those heady times. In fact,
Detroit (along with New Orleans) was considered a test market by the
recording industry. New singles would first be released in Detroit and New
Orleans. The recording industry would then gauge the record buying public’s
response before opting to promote a given release in other markets.

The Detroit area also flourished as a hotbed of local talent during those
years. The weekly music charts of WKNR Keener 13 radio were liberally
peppered in 1967 with such superlative homegrown garage bands as the
Wanted, Woolies, Unrelated Segments, Tidal Waves, Underdogs, Capreez,
Southbound Freeway and Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, as well as the
Rationals and Bob Seger and the Last Heard from nearby Ann Arbor and
Terry Knight and the Pack and the Bossmen from Flint. These bands often
ran head-to-head on the WKNR playlists with their national counterparts like
the Beach Boys (who by 1967 had forsaken the surf and hot rods for the
psychedelic exuberance of Smile), the Monkees, the Lovin’ Spoonful, the
Blues Magoos and the Electric Prunes.

Simultaneously, Detroit was leading the way in the crusade to make rhythm
and blues music a major cultural contender, rather than a special interest
pleasure. The Motown family of labels was the front runner, with the
infallible Temptations, Stevie Wonder, Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, Miracles
and Supremes. Numerous smaller labels such as Ric-Tic, Groovesville and
Revilot were also helping put Detroit R&B on the musical map via the
Fantastic Four, Edwin Starr, J.J. Barnes, Darrell Banks and the Parliaments
(whose I Wanna Testify topped the Detroit charts at the beginning of the
1967-1968 school year).

True to form, Detroit embraced both musical ideologies with equal
enthusiasm. Radio stations such as CKLW in Windsor and the
aforementioned WKNR espoused playlists with healthy variety. And Robin
Seymour’s essential Swingin’ Time television program provided a daily live
showcase for local talent of all stripes, as did such clubs as the Mummp and
the Hullabaloo.

By 1971, the names and faces had changed. But Detroit remained a leader in
both fields. Although Denny McLain had been traded to the Washington Senators,
Mickey Lolich managed an impressive 25 wins for the Tigers that season.
Musically, the garage bands and R&B pioneers had been succeeded by the
hard rock of the MC5, the Amboy Dukes, SRC, Funkadelic, the Stooges, the
Frost, Grand Funk Railroad and Savage Grace. Crestwood’s own Silverhawk
even scored a WKNR top ten single in early 1971 with their hard-rocking
cover of George Harrison’s Awaiting On You All.

Although primarily a blue collar community due to the presence of the Big
Three automakers, the Detroit area enjoyed considerable economic prosperity
during that season of cultural growth. Shopping was as state-of-the-art in
Michigan as it was elsewhere, with upscale retailers such as Hudson’s,
Montgomery Ward, E.J. Korvette, Crowley and Federal competing with such
big box discount outlets as Arlan’s, Shoppers Fair, Topps, Atlantic and
Spartan. Of these, only Hudson’s has survived to the present day, although it is undergoing a corporate name change later this year.

And for pure recreational value, Edward Hines Park and Camp Dearborn
were hard to beat for low-cost outdoor fun. Neighboring Windsor, Ontario
also provided a convenient way to sample international flavor for the cost of
passage across the Ambassador Bridge or through the Windsor Tunnel.

But in June 1971 graduation came, and with it, the end of the Crestwood
years for the class of 1971. Those who called Dearborn Heights home were
soon scattered throughout the country to pursue higher education, the job
market or even the military in those final months of the Viet Nam conflict.

The Detroit area went on to endure a major economic downturn in the
mid-1970s, but it has since bounced back remarkably. So much so that a
national news magazine recently voted nearby Livonia as one of the ten best
cities to live in the United States. Sporting News also awarded Detroit the
distinction of being the top sports city in America in 1998 in honor of the
Red Wings’ Stanley Cup victory. So whether you moved on years ago or
have weathered the storms to reap the benefits, there can be no doubt that
Michigan was one of the best places to call home during the Crestwood years.