The Sunday Series: Sunday July 5, 2015 (Detroit)

The Sunday Series

Sunday July 5, 2015

I wouldn't say he is a hero, but clearly the blood that runs in Henry Ford's veins are the same as mine.  I too have a passion to run an empire.  To organize a series of assembly lines to produce a product or better yet, a beautiful piece of machinery, is like kissing the devil on the lips.  I never liked working for anyone, because I don't like to be told what to do.  I like to do the telling.  No boss over me and watching me sweats over his dreams.  There is only one dream, and that dream is mine and mine alone.  There is nothing more beautiful than an industry making sounds in a factory.   Day-in-day-out is poetry in rhythm.  The meditation of eight or so hours spent in a large room with your employees making a vision - not their's, but your vision, which is pure poetry.  The kind of balladry that is popular and beautiful for everyone.  Today, being Sunday, and I'm in Detroit, I like to look back when I lost control when I came face-to-face with the man who sold the world.  

To be in the mind set of Henry Ford, I have read his four volume set of books "The International Jew."  Nazi Youth leader, Baldur von Schirach, was quoted at the Nuremberg Trials that Henry Ford was the most influential American, a figure that German youth can look up to.  In Hitler's office, there was both a portrait of Henry Ford as well as a well-thumbed copy of the "International Jew" on his desk.   I have spent a great deal of money and capital to obtain copies of books that Ford had in his personal library.   Although personal funds don't allow me to live in his mansion or even the same-size type of house, I can for sure make my bedroom into a tribute to Henry Ford.   Here in Detroit, whenever I walk on the streets, I see his magic on almost every object and structure.  

Antoine de La Mothe-Cadillac, a French explorer and adventurer, is credited as finding "Detroit," in 1701, but it is Ford that made and put Detroit on the map.  Even though the origin of the word "Detroit" is French, make no mistake, that Detroit is all-American.  This city of champions, in everything from making the perfect automobile to the superb athletes who win for the city.   This is where I belong.  With the winners, not the whiners. 

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal." I found a tailor in Detroit to dress me close as possible to Henry Ford.  The pictures I have seen of him, I admired the suits that were tailored made for him.  A man without a suit is like a man without a city.  I never like looking at failure in the eyes.  My thinking is "don't find fault, find a remedy."   The one thing I hate about my life is whenever I felt doubt about something.  I can feel it in my stomach.  The sense of feeling displaced either by history or by a group of people, is a terrifying prospect.  I don't even want to go there.  "If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right."   I need to get on the right side of history, and never balance myself on that moveable line in the sand.  

Detroit is a paradise as a dream.  From my second story bedroom window, i can see the Fisher Building, and one day, I will be able to walk through its golden entrance and the doorman who opens the double door, and the boutique  as well as the gentlemen's shop on the first floor, will know me by name.  "Welcome Mr. Berman, may we serve you."