MAY 29, 2026 COMMUNITY BOBBI from page 9 So I ended up selling it too cheap. I'm kicking myself in the ass for letting it go for peanuts, you know.” Bobbi is a mother of four and a grandmother of seven children. “I raised a family just outside of Clinton, Michigan,” she told me. ”I have my oldest son, my daughter, and then I have twin boys, one of whom was 10 when he died.” “What happened?” I asked. Bobbi describes a feisty elementary school child who, upon disobeying his mother while on a road trip, was thrown from the back seat of a car in an accident. “It was really frustrating," she said, “he's the one that likes to sit on the backseat of the vehicle. He really tries to get into things I don't want him to do, so I couldn't make that any better.” “That was a very tough thing to go through,” I commented. Bobbi replied, “I can acknowledge now that I've been through so much that I've distanced myself from a lot of people.” “How long ago was the accident?” I asked. “About 10 years ago” she answered. “How long have you been at the corner?” I asked. She thought for a minute, then said “I don't know, I'd say maybe a little bit, maybe a little bit after that.” If all you see is a drug-addicted loser, and not a woman who lost her child and her husband and her house and wound up on the streets, then you need to check your moral compass. There was a long pause in our conversation. “What kinds of jobs have you done?” I asked. “I used to scrap once upon a time,” she began. “When I was 16, I worked at McDonald's in Tecumseh. For a brief time, I was at the Busch’s in Clinton. My longest held job was at Somerset Hardware. That’s where I lost my finger. “I used to love doing concrete work. I learned from my husband who did concrete as a trade. There was a job I did, I was quite proud of it. Someone tried to get hold of my husband for doing it and he wasn't available, so I said I'll do it. I borrowed the tools and worked out two 8x10 squares and poured it. It turned out nice. I was really proud,” she said, proudly. “You poured a driveway?” I asked with awe. “Yep,” she replied confidently. “Nice,” I said. “Did you graduate high school?” I asked. “No,” she replied. “My family bounced around a little when I was in elementary and after my parents divorced, I bounced back and forth between them. Because of the grades and whatnot, I didn’t finish 11th grade but, I went back and got my GED. “How did you do in math?” (As a former math teacher, I had to know.) “I was surprised,” she recalled. “That was one of my highest (scoring) ones that I did out of all the tests. I actually had to repeat one and I could pick whichever one, so I ended up picking the math because I knew I did so well. GROUNDCOVER NEWS 15 So, fractions and stuff like that was really, really hard and tough, but I was able to do the GED material myself to get enough to get it back.” Bobbi was referring to elementary arithmetic. She had to teach herself algebra to pass the GED test. “So you taught yourself algebra?” I asked. “Yeah,” she said with a sheepish grin. I paused with reverence. “That’s impressive,” I offered. I’ve thought about that a lot since — she taught herself math.
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