Coming from the unpoppable bubble known as Bloomfield Hills, Michigan has given me knowledge which I have recently found is irreplaceable. Bloomfield Hills to some is just a city located in Metro Detroit’s northern suburbs, but to my friends and I, “the 248” is home.
Going to a school out of state has quickly gotten me accustomed to substituting a map for my hand to explain to non-“Michiganders” where I live and often taking the shortcut by saying I am from Detroit to escape from further explanation. There seems to be a never-ending list of things which I have now been able to see are not common to those not from my hometown.
I’ve learned that the saying “it’s a small world” is one of the biggest understatements because somehow, you will run into someone who has a family member from Michigan, or a friend who is rooming with your friend at a different university to connect you back to home. So yes, it is a small world, but something that everyone isn’t familiarized with is that it's an even smaller “bubble”. If you can relate to any or all of these things, you’ll understand what I’m talking about….
1. You spent most of your middle school weekends begging your mom to drop you off in Birmingham so you and your friends could walk around town, hit up Caruso Caruso for Hardtails or Sugarlips, or go to the Palladium or Birmingham 8 for a movie.
2. You played on your country clubs tennis or swim team until you moved on to the Bloomfield Hills local soccer league coached by your friend’s dad
3. Your weekend vacations probably consisted of going to your place “up north”, Cedar Point with friends, or Mackinac Island for the fudge, salt water taffy, and the amazing views.
4. The only radio channels you had memorized were 95.5, 98.7, 96.3, or 97.9 and when all else failed you relied on the AUX.
5. Your high school parking lot could be mistaken for a Jeep dealership if it wasn’t for the occasional luxury car sprinkled in.
6. Leaving Michigan and not having a 24hr Leo’s on your college campus is truly a travesty.
7. You were more concerned with Hockey Season, Bar/Bat Mitzah Season, and construction season rather than if it was Fall, Spring, Summer, or Winter.
8. Redcoat, Hunter House, Leos, Franks, Embers, Beyond Juice, or Social, were stopped at weekly…
9. Coming from Michigan you know how to pronounce places like, Mackinac, Charlevoix, and Ypsilanti without hesitation.
10. The in-state civil war which accompanies any Michigan Vs. Michigan State game day is truly a holiday. You refer to Ann Arbor as AA and knew what the U of M colors and MSU colors were before you even thought about applying to colleges for yourself. “Go Blue” and “Go Green” or “Sparty Hardy” were either said by a friend or posted on your social media timelines at least once, and you’re not being observant enough if you think otherwise
11. Instead of counting the days till dream cruise you would count the days until it ended so that you could use Woodward Ave again.
12. An M.I.P (Minor in possession) should rather be called a M.M.I.P for Michigan Minor in Possession because every time you bring them up out of state they are foreign things called “drinking tickets” or “citations”.
13. You know most of the lyrics to Eminem’s most popular songs and know that “Cranbrook” is on Lone Pine not just “a private school”.
14. You went on a field trip to the Detroit Zoo, the DIA and Greenfield Village at least once in elementary school. You’ve wandered under the arctic polar bear tunnel and pressed your hand up against the frozen wall in hopes of making a melted dent, despite your mom’s warnings about germs, on more than one occasion.
15. You played on travel or club sports teams in the off seasons of your favorite high school sport.
16. When you go off to college you’ll miss the fact that you don’t know someone at every corner and that going out in public doesn’t always mean you see at least one person you know.
17. A BJ is no longer sexual but a smoothie place you go to way too often.
18. You will also learn that it's not normal to pass numerous country clubs on your way to wherever you’re going, every time you need to go somewhere.
19. You count down the days till the Franklin Cider Mill opens.
20. You or a friend has gotten caught hooking up with someone in the Christ Church parking lot.
21. When you go off to college, going “Up North” is no longer a vacation spot to tell your friends where you went, because to most of them, the whole state of Michigan is “up north”. And during the summer, when you weren’t “up north”, you would spend Friday nights at DTE dressed in jean shorts and a crop top, wandering up and down the hill with friends.
22. Hockey or lacrosse season is when you actually got to brag about your school’s sports teams.
23. Getting offended when people say Detroit is dirty is instinctual. You find yourself ranting about how it's on the “come up” and all the new fun and trendy restaurants and activities you got to do with your friends at home.
24. Getting your boating license for the lake before getting your driving license was considered normal.
25. Going to the St. Mary’s Fair and Birmingham Fair with your friends was a tradition.
26. You know that a “rice cake” isn’t just a food.
27. You scream “born and raised in south DETROIT” when Journey’s, Don’t Stop Believing, comes on.
28. When you say to someone that you’re at the mall, they know that it's Somerset.
29. The most frequently asked question during the summer was, Dairy Matt or Dairy Deluxe?
30. Michigan weather has prepared you for practically anything. You know that Michigan weather can’t be predicted or prepared for and that it isn’t unlikely to experience two seasons in one day, or even in an hour span. Growing up you have experienced snowless Christmas’s, and blizzarding Halloweens…You wore your pajamas inside out, kept a spoon underneath your pillow, and flushed an ice cube down the toilet one too many times in the hopes of a snowday.
31. And crossing country boarders to Canada was quicker than crossing state borders into Ohio.
Some call it the “248”, some call it “the bubble”… I’m fortunate to call it home.
