[jmlowman]

Disregarding the current state of the city, what do those of you who lived there in the past (or, for that matter, are still there) remember fondly about Flint?

I'll start with these: (i grew up in the 50s and 60s, for reference)

Living close enough to downtown that we could walk everywhere. My mother didn't drive until after I had left for college. The old public library, with a stop on the way home at the Karmelkorn shop; the department stores

Elementary school at Stevenson (now part of the Hurley complex)

Football games at Atwood Stadium (also walkable)

Picnics on the summer holidays at Flushing Park

The two years spent at (then) Flint JC

I may think of more later. What do you have to say positive about your years in Flint?

[mr penguin]

Angelo's coney islands

The annual bike hike to McIntosh's orchard

Merrill Elementary

Jimi Hendrix at the IMA auditorium February 1967

Forest Park

Hobbies Inc on Corunna Rd

The Marching Wildcats

[jeanniepep]

The CRIM!!!

The Fullerenes playing downtown, wish I could remember the name of the bar...

And the White Horse Tavern is still great - awesome food at great prices!!

[jmlowman]

If Hobbies, Inc. is the place that I remember, it was once called Flynn's Hobbies. I liked to go there and drool over the model trains as a pre-teen.

Funny that you should mention Angelo's. The east side/west side dichotomy being what it was, I was going to Flint JC and dating a girlfriend who lived on the east side before I was properly introduced to Angelo's. Last year I paid a small fortune to have the Kogel's franks and Angelo's chili shipped out here to SoCal, to introduce my friends to what a real chili dog was like.

How about Freddie's Donuts/Dawn Donuts? Freddie's was a Monday morning staple as I was growing up.

Third Avenue Fish and Chips

All of the small, independent markets where we could buy candy on the way home from school.

The soda fountain at the Rexall across 3rd Avenue from Atwood Stadium - flavored cream Vernors

Kewpies/Haloburgers

Walking from Stevenson to the IMA Auditorium to see the circus - and the big Halloween bash that they put on for us kids

Trick-or-treating in my neighborhood - mostly older people who loved to make things for the kids

[jaynarie]

I am a bit younger, but...
I remember walking to Angelos for milkshakes as a child.
Going to Waterstreet Pavillion or Windmill Place
Pennywhistle Place (not quite in the city).
Autoworld (I was very young, so my memories are kind of vague)

[jmlowman]

Water Street was two blocks from where I grew up, but at that time it was nothing but old warehouses. A bunch of us used to play baseball in a large vacant lot between two warehouses.

I was gone before Autoworld came into being, or the new hotel downtown.

[sun1sander]

Walli's Drive-In on N. Saginaw Street in Beecher. Remember the carhop service?And the best ever fish n' chips.

[Tiger Beer]

I just remember always having to drive through FLINT in the 1980s, and having the worst radio stations possible on the air all the time. I'd have to drive a good ways out of it to pick up something decent from either Lansing or Detroit.

[MI-Roger]

I had never eaten olives on a hamburger before I attended GMI, but now I order that condiment everytime I see it offered at a burger joint or restaurant.

Ruggero's Italian Restaurant on Chevrolet Ave(?) where you parked in the middle of the street to enjoy the best lasagna in town. Not to mention the attractive waitresses who were all members of the family. My wife and I went back to Ruggeros ten years later, and some of the waitresses I remembered from college were still working there.

Bob Perroni's Pizza. I still have never seen a pizza with as much grease on top as one of Perroni's pepperoni & mushroom pizzas. But boy did they taste good!

[jmlowman]

Apparently the olives on the burger is at least an upper-midwest thing, although the only place that I remember it from in Michigan was Haloburger (which, years ago, was Kewpie).

But, when we were in Duluth this summer, I found the venerable oliveburger on the menu at Fitger's. However, they were part of a cream-cheese spread that went on the burger.

Ruggero's is still around, but at a new location on Linden Road, in an area with a number of restaurants. Really good pizza!

John's Pizza on Davison Road and also in Davison. We ate at the one in Davison and the pizza was as great as I remember. Either the pizza in Michigan in the independent places is the best, or they just don't know how to make one here in soCal.