Colleen's Column

I haven't seen any news reports or other posts about this incident (because miraculously no one was injured - none of the cars were even clipped as far as I know), but as I was driving home from Rochester Hills on Saturday July 16th around 5 pm I had my first experience avoiding what would have otherwise been a full head-on collision. I had just gone through a 4-way stop, turning from 29 Mile Road northbound onto Romeo Plank, when a black SUV pulled out of the line of oncoming cars into my lane.  It was far enough ahead that at first I thought it was just turning into one of several residential driveways on the right side of the road.  I noticed, eased up on the gas...and the SUV kept coming! I remember thinking, "He's going to hit me head-on!" My first split-second escape reaction was to pull to the left, but realizing that there was a solid line of moving traffic there, I slammed on the horn and on the brakes and swerved hard to the right instead, onto a narro...

Yesterday, I was able to see an old friend realize a long-held dream.  She didn't want to go to Disneyworld.  She didn't want to fly in a hot air balloon.  She didn't want to go skydiving.  She didn't want to go horseback riding along the Pacific Ocean. No, at just shy of her 89th birthday, Irene Ulanowski had a very specific dream. To see my younger brother Philip ordained a priest and receive his blessing. For the last six years, ever since he went to the seminary at age 18, she would tell me, "I hope I live to see him a priest!"  Through having to leave her house due to rising crime rates, to suffering a nervous breakdown, several hospital visits, rehab, moving into a senior apartments complex, to having a stroke that paralyzed her left arm and leg - through it all, Irene kept praying, clinging stubbornly to the Catholic Faith as she was raised in it and to the Polish traditions of piety handed down to her from her parents. And yesterday, in a nursi...