Joel On The Road

By Joel Thurtell

The 80-year-old old guy with the shock of white hair wore a fading maize and blue University of Michigan t-shirt, but this old man was not just any Michigan fan. Nor was it just any UM t-shirt.

The younger woman, maybe in her fifties, quite evidently from Ohio, didn’t know either of these things. And neither I nor my two sons who were listening knew something this old man was about to reveal to us, a story I would not piece together for several years, even though I’d known this onetime Michigan football star and coach for more than three decades.

I ought to – I was married to his oldest daughter for forty years.

The conversation — if you can call it that — took place in summer 2003 near the dock at J & G Marina on McGregor Bay in Ontario, a few miles by water from an island where this old man and his family had a summer cottage bought in the mid-1960s, when he was a UM football coach, second-in-command under another well-known Michigan player and coach, Bump Elliott.

The Ohio woman spotted the yellow and blue t-shirt with the UM logo and some script she didn’t understand. The shirt was a gift from UM to Hank and those 1948 team-mates still living at the time Michigan won the Rose Bowl game on January 1, 1998. The shirt commemorated two Rose Bowl victories and two National championships 50 years apart. Hank was a member of that New Year’s Day 1948 UM team that blew the University of Southern California away. The score was Michigan 49, USC 0.

The program for the October 4, 1947 Michigan-Stanford game described “diminutive ‘Hank,’ stout-hearted little speedster from Knoxville, Tenn., weighed about 150 pounds when he flung his compact frame against Army’s giants in 1945 at Yankee Stadium. Army players dubbed him ‘hardest to stop.’ He weighs about ten pounds more now and still is hard to strop. He scored thrice in 1945, averaging 4.1 yards per game, and last year he scored two touchdowns and averaged 3.23. He’s 23 and five-eight.”

The Ohio woman didn’t know this. When her eyes detected blue, her brain saw red. All she knew was that this old man was wearing a t-shirt belonging to the enemy, the hated University of Michigan. She was an Ohio State fan. An easily perturbed Ohio State fan (aren’t they all?). Had she stopped to learn who this old man was, she might have heard an interesting story. But the ending of that story would have perturbed her even more.

My sons and I watched the Ohio woman, unforgettable because she came on so angry, so full of bile, so hostile to an old man who had said nothing to offend her. Hank could not respond round for round to this woman’s incessant, nasty volleys. Hank had Alzheimer’s Disease. His memory had long been gone for the people, places, things and events that once were dear to him. I wonder sometimes if all that knock-about football play with the flimsy leather helmets might have contributed to his memory loss.

But I knew who Hank was and I could have told her some phenomenal things about him. Most of it has nothing to do with football. Why, it was Hank who took me fishing in McGregor Bay and put us over the best bass and pike grounds. It was Hank who coached me to filet a bass or pike. It was Hank who helped me with the summer-long project of replacing the porch roof on our first house in Plymouth. I can hear him still: “Measure twice, cut once,” or he would declare, “level and half a bubble over!”

Hank loved language. His father, who played football for the University of Tennessee, was a poet. Hank did not write poetry, but he had a way of using language that is unforgettable. When he shook your hand, he would say, “Put ‘er there for ninety days!” If you dropped something or made a loud noise, Hank would shout, “Shoot him in the pants! The coat and vest belong to me!” If you were a tall person, he’d tell you, “It’s a long drink of water.” If you cut a fart, he’d say, “Who fired that shot?”

“Some low-down, dirty, good-for-nothin’, thievin’, cussin’, cattle-rustlin’ dirty dawwwg…put GLUE ON MY SADDLE!”

Edith, his wife, would say, “Henry, does this dress make me look fat?”

Hank would reply, “No,…It’s the fat that makes you look fat.”

He had special nicknames for his kids. Karen was “tin can cottontail the cottontail that willy wag.”

Mark was “Marcus Aurelius Vestpocket Pucius.”

You could count on hearing some saying from Hank “the good lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise.”

Hank was proud to hail “from the hills of East Tennessee, home of Andrew Jackson, Andrew Johnson, Cordell Hull, Jellybean Birchfield and other great American statesmen.”

(I’ve posted a collection of Hank’s sayings on my blog, joelontheroad.com.)

Football was an undying love — even with the Alzheimer’s he could correctly call a play. Hank was a high school star in his hometown of Knoxville, where his team once stood four other teams in succession, playing fresh teams a quarter apiece. Hank played something called “scatback,” and helped Knoxville knock off all four teams.

Then there was the memorable movie somebody put together from that January 1, 1948 Rose Bowl game. “Seven Touchdowns in January.” On the screen you can see a small but agile halfback — Hank — scooting around Southern Cal players and lofting the football to a Michigan man for one of those seven touchdowns.

For 10 years in the 1950s, Hank was head football coach at Ann Arbor High School, from 1949-58. In his first eight years, his team lost one game. His overall record was 69 wins, six losses and four ties. Four of the losses occurred his last year, when he and his players knew he was leaving to coach at UM. From 1959-68, Hank coached at UM under Bump Elliott where the win-loss record was nothing to brag about, though it was surpassed, if that is the word, during the era of Rick Rodriquez. Still, Hank coached a Michigan team that won the Jan. 1, 1965 Rose Bowl game against Oregon State, 34-7. Furthermore, the two Michigan coaches in 1965 – Bump Elliott and Hank Fonde – have the distinction of having played on a winning Rose Bowl team and then gone on to coach a team that won the Rose Bowl.

Turns out there was more to learn about Hank and Michigan football, things I didn’t know.

But here was this Ohio woman coming on with her nasty, Michigan-bashing comments, taunting an old man who under normal circumstances couldn’t remember the beginning of a sentence he would try so hard, with such frustration, to conclude.

Yet the Ohio woman wore on, making her crude remarks, getting no response from the old man in the maize and blue t-shirt.

Despite the Alzheimer’s, somehow Hank understood the gist of what the Ohio woman was saying.

As she paused for breath, Hank at last found words.

Amazingly, he put together a sentence rooted in a core memory, a recollection that even the brutal Alzheimer’s could not erase.

“I BEAT OHIO STATE!”

It was amazing to hear him utter a complete sentence, and to do it with such sternness, such authority.

The Ohio woman looked at Hank as if she finally understood that this old man was demented.

I have to admit, his comment puzzled me.

The Ohio woman went silent.

I thought about it: “I BEAT OHIO STATE!”

What could Hank have meant?

The Ohio woman drifted away, maybe looking for her next victim, one with a green Michigan State shirt.

Hank died May 6, 2009.

Several years after the conversation on the dock, I was visiting Hank’s son, my brother-in-law, Mark Fonde. (Edith Fonde died in 2007; Hank Fonde died in 2009; Mark Fonde died February 28, 2015, one week before his older sister and my wife, Karen Fonde, died on March 1, 2015.) Mark had – and his wife, Stacey Fonde now has — one of the footballs Hank was given after games when he made crucial plays.

This particular football, faded, worn and deflated, has painted on it, “Michigan 7, Ohio 3.”

What was the significance of that? I asked Mark.

Mark told me the story. It was 1945, the last game of the season, and Michigan was, as usual, facing arch-rival Ohio State. World War II had only recently come to an end. This was a wartime team. Thirteen players, including Hank, were Navy trainees. Four were Marines. Four were discharged veterans.

Michigan’s coach was the legendary Fritz Crisler, and the teams were called the “mad magicians” because it often was hard to tell exactly what they were doing when they drove for touchdowns.

Ohio scored a field goal for 3 points early in the game. The score stayed 0-3 until the last quarter. With eleven minutes remaining, Pete Elliott (Bump’s brother) threw a 25-yard pass to Hank at Ohio’s 19-yard-line. In two plays, Elliott brought the ball to the 10. Elliott was stopped on the next play. Fourth down, one yard for first down. The 85,132 fans in Michigan Stadium were on their feet. Hank crashed the Ohio line and took the ball five yards for the first down. Ohio was off sides on the next play. Penalty. The ball was on the one-yard line. Hank crashed into the end zone. The extra point was good. Final score: Michigan 7, Ohio 3.

According to Mark, Hank was knocked out during that play. He came to in the locker room, and someone handed him the ball.

Years later, I mentioned the Ohio State story to my older son, Adam. He reminded me of what granddad said to the Ohio woman.

Finally, I understand what Hank meant.

If she could only know: How many people can say what Hank told that Ohio woman?

“I BEAT OHIO STATE!”

Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com

Originally published here on February 1, 2012

By Joel Thurtell

The answer:

MOROUNOPOLY.

The question:

How do you spell Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority?

According to Gongwer News Service, Gov. Rick Snyder might use the port authority to bypass the Legislature in his quest to build a new international bridge between Detroit and Windsor.

Gongwer reported in Volume #51, Report #1, Article #3, Tuesday, January 3, 2012:

Exactly what option the (Snyder) administration might pursue is unclear at this point. The options said by one source to have been under closest review are, in no particular order, an intergovernmental agreement between Canada and public entities in Michigan, using the Detroit-Wayne County Port Authority or turning the project over to the federal government.

The chief obstacle in the Legislature has been all the pressure Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun has put on state reps and senators using that ever-so-persuasive policy argument, his check book.

So, when the governor thinks of working around the Legislature, he needs to remember that what he’s REALLY trying to sidestep is not lawmakers, but the BILLIONAIRE, Manuel “Matty” Moroun.

That being the case, using the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority would NOT be a good way to avoid the heavy hand of Matty.

The Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority and Matty Moroun are pretty much the same thing.

Oh, I know, the port authority has a grandiose title, making it sound governmental. And it was established under some 1978 state law allowing local governments to establish port authorities to promote transportation.

All the same, Matty owns the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority.

How can that possibly be?

Doesn’t the governor appoint one of the authority’s board members?

Aren’t the other four members appointed two each by the Detroit City Council and Wayne County Board of Commissioners?

Those are good questions, given the fact that a fair number of elected and appointed officials have been complicit in handing over control of this potentially lucrative and powerful body to the billionaire, Matty Moroun.

There is much to question in the contract between Matty and the port authority, because the governing document setting up Matty’s Ambassador Port Company as “master concessionaire” for the port authority is shrouded in secrecy.

“CONFIDENTIAL” — that warning is typed on the header of each page of the “Master Concession Agreement by and between the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority and the Ambassador Port Company.”

We the citizens were not supposed to know about this cushy deal made in 2005 when Kwame Kilpatrick was King of Detroit and hardly anyone knew who owned the Ambassador Bridge.

According to the Research and Analysis Division of the Detroit City Council, the Master Concession Agreement may violate the Michigan Open Meetings Act.

Despite its labeling, the contract can’t be confidential, because the open meetings law requires that “all decisions of a public body be made at a meeting open to the public” and “all deliberations of a public body constituting a quorum of its members shall take place at a meeting open to the public.”

According to a March 17, 2006 report of the council’s research agency, it is unclear whether the 2005 contract was adopted in an open meeting.

If it was adopted openly, then it can’t be confidential. If it was adopted secretly, then its legal standing could be challenged.

Why would Matty and his public official cronies want to hide this document?

Because it gives the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority to Matty!

The pretext for this legalized piracy was a roughly $2 million debt the port authority owed.

Kind-hearted Matty stepped in to pay off the debt.

Then Matty worked a deal to repay himself — for a price.

His price was control over the operations and revenues of the port authority for 25 years, renewable three times for up to a century.

That’s right — for 100 years Matty agreed to pay the port authority a paltry 2.5 percent of gross revenues.

Well, not exactly 2.5 percent.

You see, there are deductions for interest costs.

The Master Concession Agreement is 30 pages long.

Lots and lots of words.

Remember, the port authority is supposedly a public body.

Not only is it subject to the Michigan Open Meetings and Freedom of Information laws.

But it is required under the state Constitution to be run for the benefit of the public.

Which is to say, for the good of you and me, taxpayers and citizens of Michigan and the United States.

The port authority was not meant to be given away to a pirate like Matty whose every intention — you can read it in the contract’s wording — is to milk the bejesus out of the port and line his billionaire’s pockets.

What happens to the remaining 97.5 percent of the port’s gross revenues? Matty has control of that, too.

So, Matty could actually reap more than 100 percent of port revenues. That’s because whenever he needs to invest in the port, he gets to charge the cost of construction or equipment or whatever to the port authority — that is you and me! — plus 6 percent interest.

Matty — excuse me, the port authority — uses the Nicholson Dock and Port Company to move freight, so-called “stevedoring” work. Matty gets to charge Nicholson “a percentage” of Nicholson’s revenues.

Whatever Matty wants, he gets.

Translated to the Master Concession Agreement lingo, “The Authority shall not unreasonably withhold the Authority’s consent to any Budget, Master Plan, Price Schedule, Operating Procedures or other proposals or requests of the Concessionaire.”

If Matty orders the authority to do something and it declines, it better be ready to defend its reasoning.

Nobody else can make such a request. Not you. Not me. That makes Matty the port authority’s one and only head.

As I said, Matty and the port are the same thing.

The port authority has 30 days to respond to Matty’s requests. If the authority fails to respond within 30 days, according to the contract, Matty gets his way.

The Authority can’t “pledge, sell, assign, let, lien, option” port authority property — public property! — without Matty’s permission.

The port authority gave up its right to sue Matty for breach of fiduciary trust.

Yes! Can you believe that?

In other words, Matty gets to screw them and they get to smile.

Public officials actually agreed to this language:

The Authority understands and acknowledges that master Concessionaire or its affiliates owns real property in and around the Premises that Master Concessionaire is interested in incorporating into the operations of the Facility and has agreed to perform the Facilities Work in part for the purpose of maximizing the value of such other properties and the profits to current and future business operating thereon. Preference shown to such other properties owned by master Concessionaire or its affiliates over the Facility shall not constitute a breach of any duty of Master Concessionaire hereunder or a breach of the Facility Operation Standard. The Authority, hereby waives any claim for breach of fiduciary duty or other cause of action in connection with any actions taken by Master Concessionaire or any Facility Operator whereby other property owned or controlled by them receives disproportionate benefits to the Facility. (Emphasis added)

The “emphasis added” was done by the author of the “confidential” contract, by the way, not by JOTR.

So what does the public get from this deal?

Not taxes: The contract exempts Matty from paying real estate taxes.

Matty’s whole purpose is “maximizing the value” of his own property, and if that happens to hurt the public, hey! It may have happened in secret, but we know this much — we got screwed.

Matty has the exclusive right to run a port in Wayne County.

Want to start a harbor at Detroit?

Fine, as long as you don’t mind Matty’s thumb on your business.

What if you wanted to spend a few hundred billion on a modern railroad tunnel under the Detroit River?

Great idea, as long as you don’t mind handing Matty the keys.

If the port authority wants to sell property to an outsider, first it has to offer the same deal to Matty.

Not surprisingly, the city council’s researchers had a few problems with this contract.

Homeowners, think about this: What would your mortgage-holder say if you failed to buy insurance on your house?

Matty’s got that base covered: “If insurance is not maintained by Master Concessionaire or the Facility Operator, such failure shall not constitute an independent cause of action and shall not result in liability of Master Concessionaire to the Authority or any other party for uninsured damages that may occur.”

If one of Matty’s trucks is full of dynamite and blows up, the port — that is, the public — can clean up the mess.

If Matty decides to assign his rights to run the port to someone else, the authority “can not unreasonably deny the Concessionaire’s request to assign its rights under the Agreement.”

Back in December, Gov. Snyder signed Public Act 258 of 2011 allowing a “public” agency like Matty Moroun — excuse me, I mean the port authority — to team up with a local government such as the city of Detroit or Wayne County to do pretty much any economic development project. In such a partnership, Matty would have the power to levy taxes, condemn property — eminent domain — as well as issue bonds. Matty, who runs ads excoriating government, could BE government, thanks to this new law and the Master Concession Agreement.

According to the city’s researchers, “The entire flavor of this Master Concession Agreement gives ‘preference’ to one business entity for the benefit of paying off the $2 million bonds. It also appears to render the Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority nearly constructively powerless to independently exercise its legal rights, duties and privileges.”

The contract “could relinquish control over the Authority’s options to finance current and future debts,” according to the researchers, who concluded:

“The Concessionaire could build a bridge, then bill the Authority.”

Hear that, guv??

Matty can build that new international bridge.

He doesn’t need you!