Looking for Something?

Michael Jackson’s Front Porch Moment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmXP9Y1HdWE  Okay, so he never did go back to Indiana, back to where he started from. And it's too bad the Jackson 5 didn't cover Meredith Willson's Gary, Indiana.
Bill Kauffman
June 24, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmXP9Y1HdWE  Okay, so he never did go back to Indiana, back to where he started from. And it’s too bad the Jackson 5 didn’t cover Meredith Willson’s Gary, Indiana.

Enjoying what you’re reading?

Support FPR’s print journal and selection of books.
Subscribe
A stack of three Local Culture journals and the book 'Localism in the Mass Age'

Bill Kauffman

Bill Kauffman is the author of eleven books, among them Dispatches from the Muckdog Gazette (Henry Holt), Ain’t My America (Metropolitan), Look Homeward, America (ISI), and Poetry Night at the Ballpark (FPR Books). His next book, Upstaters, is due from SUNY Press in 2026. He is a columnist for The American Conservative and The Spectator World. Bill wrote the screenplay for the 2013 feature film Copperhead. He is a founding editor of Front Porch Republic and has served as a legislative assistant to Senator Pat Moynihan, editor for various magazines and publishers, and vice president of the Batavia Muckdogs, a professional baseball team that was euthanized by Major League Baseball. He lives with his wife Lucine in his native Genesee County, New York.

3 comments

  • R. Alan Clements
    16 years ago

    With all due respect Mr. K, as a Hoosier I can definitively say that the Jackson Five (Michael included) came back home for the Gary Homecoming Concert which took place May 29, 1971. In defense of the Jacksons, there are may good reasons why they never returned to Gary. As one who has “visited” (accidental exit from the Skyway Toll Road – now owned/leased by an Australian company)Gary is no place to linger if you can help it. It is a city destroyed by the Great Society and the death of the US Steel industry.

    Kudos on “Look Homeward America” and “Ain’t my America”. Both were two very fine reads.

  • Patrick Deneen
    16 years ago

    The NYT had this story today, about MJ’s longstanding ties to Gary, IN – and theirs to him. Sad, though – he’s held in esteem because he was one who was able to get out. And, sad, too, that there’s too little there that seems to be worth staying for…

  • Bob Cheeks
    16 years ago

    Bill,
    Something to help you get over your grief; Les Cooper of ‘Wiggle Wobble’ fame, at 83 years old, is alive and well and living in Harlem, his ‘hometown.’ And, no doubt, resting on his front porch.

Comments are closed.