Rummaging Henry's Attic

We also decided to “go somewhere,” and, though my brother and father are into cars about as much as they are Justin Bieber, no one objected to my suggestion of an afternoon at the Henry Ford Museum in nearby Dearborn.

- St. Antoine

I HAD THE GOOD FORTUNE TO have all deadlines temporarily squared away and no immediate engagements, so I flew from L.A. back east to Ann Arbor, Michigan, to visit my dad for a long weekend. As luck would have it, my always-busy attorney brother also had a slight lift in his schedule, so he flew in from Philly and joined us—just the three of us “batchin’ it” for a few days in my long-ago hometown: dinner at the Gandy Dancer (a one-time railroad station turned dark-wooded ode to seafood and steak), animated conversations about football coach Jim Harbaugh and the prospects for our beloved Wolverines, a quiet visit to my Mom’s gravesite.

It had been years since I’d visited the place, but all was immediately familiar. Opened to great fanfare October 21, 1929—the 50th anniversary of Thomas Edison’s first successful light-bulb experiment—the museum, on its façade, resembles Philadelphia’s Independence Hall. (It’s said that Ford originally tried to buy and move the real building, but Philly’s leaders rightly decided to keep one of their city’s most celebrated attractions right where it was.) Inside the museum are 12 acres of exhibition floor in hand-laid teak. The building’s architect tried to convince Ford to build a three-level museum, but Ford rejected the idea in favor of one giant open space—so he could look from one end to the other and ensure none of his workers was slacking off.