A-SQUARED: Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan, which so aspires to join the Ivy League that it admits all the Chicago and New York suburbanites who can’t get into Yale. A few people from Michigan go to U. of M. too Bob Seger’s song “Main Street” is about Ann Arbor. Iggy Pop and the MC5, who claimed gritty Detroit origins, got their starts here too.
THE BIG TIRE: Six-story tall Ferris wheel refurbished to look like a Uniroyal tire, on I-94 outside Romulus.
“D’JA GET YOUR DEER?”: Heard whenever two hunters meet in late November or early December.
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FIP: Fucking Illinois People. Used mainly in the resort towns of southwestern Michigan, where Chicagoans vacation. Summer people are among those attempting to prevent locals from building a casino. Someone spray painted “FIPs Go Home” on an overpass near Union Pier.
THE GENERAL: General Motors. Was also called Generous Motors before the layoffs of the 1980s.
JACKTOWN: The Southern Michigan Penitentiary in Jackson. There has never been an execution here, or one in any other state prison since 1841, and Michiganders are proud of it. Every schoolchild is taught that Michigan was the first English-speaking government to abolish the death penalty.
MICHIGAN MILITIA: A group of deer hunters who banded together in the mid-90s to protect the state from the United Nations.
