Ouch!

    When someone throws a jab at someone that I love/like/admire - I feel it. Another thing about me is that I hate being misunderstood.
    Something occurred last night that I feel I want to address - now.
    A small group of former employees and family members met up for bowling and socializing. Keith went and now wishes he hadn't.
    He was talking with one of the employees who said "When are you guys going to open up something so we can all come back?".  Keith said he didn't think that was going to happen.  She said that when she sees old customers, they comment on how good it was to deal with Dalgleish Cadillac and how unhappy they are now dealing with other establishments.  Nice comments.
   Then she said something like "Boy are they MAD at you all for leaving."  Keith was like What?! Repeat that... Without really defending that point and throwing some other jabs - Keith realized she felt the same way.  The implication was that WE wanted out.
    If we were the kind of people to leave(abandon) the city of Detroit, we would have done that after the 1967 riots.  There had been other opportunities - offers to open up in other locations outside the city.  In hindsight, we most likely would still be in business had we done so.
    As a business owner, you would have the right to sell or change locations. That right was taken away from us and the dealership was forced to close.  No one benefited from this.
    For all the hassles of owning a business in the city of Detroit - the crime, the bums and addicts wandering around all day and night, the high insurance costs because of the crime... we even had higher health care premiums for employees than suburban sites.
    For all that, we still wanted to be in business.  It was ours...
    So, to hear this person throw blame - that infuriates me, especially from someone who had a front row seat to the slow death of our business.  I know the toll.. I experienced the grief, the worry, the sadness, the anger and feelings of helplessness.  I was there.
    My God, we felt that we were the ones abandoned!
    To lose it all and fade into the gray... to watch commercials for Cadillac and know we are not a  part of this anymore - it's like a pencil going over the paper slowly erasing our name.  It still feels this way.  To hear on the radio how GM is coming back and we are not part of that - that is like a knife in the back.
    How could anyone think we wanted this?

  Next time: Summer in the City