Host: Rob Prince (00:07)
In this episode of MI Michigan Story, Life in the Great Lakes State
Keith Rushing (00:10)
There were kids from a country that I could not understand. Really? And they could not understand me. my god. So we had to have some interpreters in there.
Host: Rob Prince (00:23)
Some English to English interpreter.
Keith Rushing (00:25)
Yeah. To interpret between southern and southern Michigan. my goodness.
Host: Rob Prince (00:31)
Keith Rushing moves from Atlanta to the southern border of Michigan, only to discover he doesn’t actually speak Michigan English. Desiree Holly decides to move away from Detroit to give living in the small town of Hastings, Michigan a try.
Desiree Holly (00:44)
Filling each other out, it might not go into anything, you know, so
Host: Rob Prince (00:48)
Well you did bring your luggage.
Desiree Holly (00:49)
well it was it was a trial run.
Keith Rushing (00:53)
Ha
ha ha.
Host: Rob Prince (00:56)
And Andrew Bautista moves from LA to West Michigan and is shocked to discover that Grand Rapids is packed full of members of the notorious Crips gang.
Andrew Bautista (01:05)
it was just me and my mom. I’m like mom like dude the crit the crit population here is crazy.
Host: Rob Prince (01:10)
MI Michigan Move. Up next on MI Michigan Story, Life in the Great Lakes State, I’m Rob Prince.
Moving is inherently a challenging process, involving a lot of struggle to get a new life set up and make new friends, and moving to Michigan is no exception, especially when you’re moving from a very big city to a very small town, like our first storyteller did. Keith Rushing moved from Atlanta, Georgia, population six million plus, to Camden, Michigan, population five hundred plus, to teach marching band at the high school. His experience was the closest thing I’ve ever heard to a real life version of the music man.
He shared this story at our july sixteenth, twenty twenty five Open Mic Live event at Ramshekle Brewing in Jonesville, Michigan. Here’s Keith.
Keith Rushing (02:08)
I moved to Michigan when I was twenty six. Grew up in Atlanta. And I’m a band director. Went you whatever. Met my ex there. Okay. And we ended up moving to Michigan. So I got a job at one of the smallest schools in the world, and it’s called Camden Frontier. It’s south of here. It’s right on the Indiana, Ohio border.
The school I was at was very diverse. It was a part of Atlanta where all nationalities of people came and got their start because their families were already there and it was said that forty-five dialects of language were spoken at the school I was working at. And it was a band.
Host: Rob Prince (03:02)
You were the music teacher there. I was
band director in Atlanta. Okay.
Keith Rushing (03:07)
That pledge. And then, you know, they wanted me to start teaching science classes. So I was like, I don’t know what to teach science. So I decided, those ready to move up here, after several interviews. I got up here in the summer. There’s no air. Everywhere in Atlanta has air. No air. It was like ninety-five degrees outside. We had a little baby, she was just screaming nonstop. My ex was screaming at me. And I
bought every fan I could find, still didn’t know no good. Eventually I got to school and they said you have eight kids in band. So okay. I had had over a hundred that was marching to their school. So I got on the phone and I called every family that had had a kid in band. And I ended up with 20.
Host: Rob Prince (04:04)
Wow.
Keith Rushing (04:05)
So it was pretty good. I didn’t have to play the Mozart octet that I was planning to do for March and Band. March and Band. March and Band had
Host: Rob Prince (04:13)
Wait, this is Marching Band. Marching band had eight kids in it? Well,
it’s hard to make a letter out of eight kids.
Keith Rushing (04:22)
I think you can make a C. You can make
Host: Rob Prince (04:24)
C maybe an L
Keith Rushing (04:25)
a
Host: Rob Prince (04:28)
And what were the school letters?
Keith Rushing (04:30)
CF Camden Frontier, as they say it here, Camden Frontier.
Host: Rob Prince (04:37)
Okay, so you got twenty you got up to twenty kids. What year are we talking here when you six? Okay, all right.
Keith Rushing (04:40)
Got it to twenty. What you first. You know,
I’m I’m still a newcomer and haven’t been totally accepted to this area. Yeah. So I get the kids. I try to teach them a warm up. We can’t even get through like the warm up scale. It’s rough. It’s rough. I mean, the kids had great attitudes. They’re all wanting to work real hard and and do
the right thing, which I wasn’t used to, but they that was novel. Okay. They’re they’re trying. They just don’t have the skills to do it yet. So I’m looking through all the music, trying to figure out what song we can do. Is there a song out there that only uses so many notes? Yeah. And nobody knew there is
Host: Rob Prince (05:30)
So if you’re playing around.
Keith Rushing (05:32)
a song. I did have to teach Star Single Banner.
And their school fight song, which is on Wisconsin. Those came off okay. But then for Marching Band, we did one song for Marching Band. That was We Will Rock You. And you can actually promote March.
Host: Rob Prince (05:59)
The song is over promising.
Keith Rushing (06:02)
We rocked the buttons. All
Host: Rob Prince (06:05)
Wow, that’s great.
Keith Rushing (06:07)
right, so when I would have camp in Atlanta, the stadiums there are massive. I mean the high school stadiums, they’re three, four stories tall, concrete, and the nice stadiums have concrete on both sides and artificial turf and all that. And I get to the stadium and it’s a set of bleachers about Yay wide.
And then they had a press box, you know, half of a pole barn, a giant outhouse maybe kinda like a thing. And
Host: Rob Prince (06:39)
Somewhere between a pole barn and a giant outhouse.
Keith Rushing (06:42)
And in and where I grew up, everywhere you looked, there were people, people everywhere. And I got up there and I looked around and I saw twenty kids in front of me, a school with no one going in or out, and nothing on the horizon. Corn
Host: Rob Prince (07:04)
Literally and metaphorically.
Keith Rushing (07:08)
There was maybe a road that you couldn’t really see the road because there’s a little hedge going on. And the first thing I saw that whole day was an Amish cart going by with an Amishman pulling his wagon full of hay and his giant horses. And I’m like, where the heck am I now?
Host: Rob Prince (07:32)
It
was Does that guy have any kids who wanna play in the marching band?
Keith Rushing (07:38)
So yeah. I I suffered some serious culture shock. I was from the south and I had a thick southern accent at the time. And there were kids from a country that I could not understand. Really? And they could not understand me. my gosh. So we had to have some interpreters in there.
Host: Rob Prince (08:00)
Some English to English and
Keith Rushing (08:02)
Interpreter
to interpret between southern and southern Michigan. my
Host: Rob Prince (08:06)
My goodness.
Keith Rushing (08:08)
the first football game.
I I had been practicing the with the band. I was really nervous. You know, I’m young, full of piss and vinegar. I’m wanting to make it sound good and it’s just rough. It’s rough. So at halftime I go up into the press box and watch the band play. They had a drum major. She was a little whipper snapper. She got it done really well.
Host: Rob Prince (08:36)
Now is this We Will Rock You? Yeah. Okay.
Keith Rushing (08:39)
I’d been working with the band on tone production, writing range, trying to play and tune, all that stuff. It was the absolute worst thing I’d ever heard in my life.
Host: Rob Prince (08:51)
Can you recreate it for us?
Keith Rushing (08:53)
So
Host: Rob Prince (09:00)
Sounds a little like a like a goat.
Keith Rushing (09:02)
Yeah, I like a goat. Maybe a chainsaw that won’t start right. I don’t know.
Host: Rob Prince (09:10)
boy.
Keith Rushing (09:11)
It was it was rough. It was a closed press box. There were steps leading down to the bottom door. After halftime, I getting ready, go out. I get to the bottom. I open the door. There’s about 10 to 15 band parents standing there. Like, crap.
They’re gonna they’re gonna they’re gonna lay into me and they go, Keith, that’s the best the band has ever sounded.
Host: Rob Prince (09:50)
What did
the what did the kids think of this of the experience? Did they talk to you afterwards?
Keith Rushing (09:54)
Yeah, they were very happy with it.
Host: Rob Prince (09:56)
And what did you say to them afterward?
Keith Rushing (09:58)
I thought it I told them they did a great job. You
Host: Rob Prince (10:01)
So you love
Keith Rushing (10:01)
know, okay. Lying is relative. Especially in music. It depends upon where you came
Host: Rob Prince (10:12)
Got it.
Keith Rushing (10:16)
from.
Host: Rob Prince (10:16)
Mm.
Okay. All right. Well, you know, it’s it is subjective. It is subjective. music is subjective, right.
Keith Rushing (10:23)
Yeah. I was there for three years. By the time I left we had fifty kids and band. We were playing whole suite and E Flat. We were doing really well. And then this job at Hillsdale opened up and I was living in Hillsdale, so I came to Hillsdale. And that’s town down there. And I’ve been there since two thousand.
Host: Rob Prince (10:44)
Does anything go through your mind now when you’re in your car listening to radio and we will rock you comes on? Does that bring what sort of feelings does it give you?
Keith Rushing (10:53)
I have been teaching We Will Rock You to beginning bands for a long time. And I I don’t want to listen to it. It really was. You know, kids at school say, I don’t like that song, or whatever song it is. I say, I don’t like Mary Had a Little Lamb, Hog Cross Buns.
Old McDonald had a band or We Will Rock You. I don’t like any of these songs, but I play them year after year for thirty years. You’re gonna play it too. So yeah. I I I appreciate where the song came from. It’s just after years and years of hearing it played every way wrong possible. I I
There can’t be a new player that I’ve heard for it to be played. my gosh. And you know, after a full day at work, you hear thousands of wrong notes. Sundays I go home and no music. I want no music. Just turn it on.
Host: Rob Prince (12:11)
Keith Rushing, he shared that story at our July 16, 2025 Open Mic Live event at Ramshackle Brewing in Jonesville, Michigan. Thanks again to Zach Bigelow, Andrew Stella, and all of the awesome people down at Ramshackle Brewing Company who welcomed us so graciously for that open mic event. I miss you guys and we’ll be back down there to see you again real soon. This is MI Michigan Story, Life in the Great Lakes State, the MI Michigan Move episode. I’m Rob Prince.
Would you like to hear awesome true stories from Michigan live and in person and maybe share your own story for a chance to get it on the radio? Well, you are in luck. We have many free open mic live events planned in March and beyond. We’ll be at Schuller Books in Okamis on Thursday, March twelfth at six PM. Then we’ll be back in Hastings at the Hastings Public Library on Thursday, March twenty sixth at six PM.
Then two days later, we’re in Grand Rapids at the Lit in downtown Grand Rapids on Saturday, March 28th at 7 p.m. And then in April, we’re hosting our first ever open mic live event in Lansing at the Fledge on Thursday, April 9 at 6 p.m. There’s more information about those free events, the show in general, and our podcast at MI Michigan Story.com. That’s michiganstory.com. But you don’t have to come to one of our events to share your story.
You can message us anytime at story at MI MichiganStory.com to let us know you have a story you’d like to share. We can record your story over the phone or meet with you if you’re in our neck of the woods. We’re looking for true stories that happened in Michigan and happened to you, and we’d love to hear from you. Again, that email address is story at MI Michigan Story.com.
Moving from a big city to rural Michigan can be quite a culture shock, and even more so when you don’t look like most of the people in your town. As our next storyteller found out, Desiree Holly was quite content living in the Detroit neighborhood of Palmer Woods when she decided to move to the small town of Hastings, Michigan for love. And in the process, she saw what it’s like to be in the very, very small minority in a very small town.
She shared this story at our December 9, 2025 Open Mic Live event in the Hastings Public Library in Hastings, Michigan. Here’s Desiree.
Desiree Holly (15:49)
So during that time, living in beautiful Palmer Woods, which I lived in, and I it’s a magical place, our reunion came up. So this was in twenty sixteen. I went to East Catholic High School and it was our 45th. And my girlfriend said, Lady, let’s go to the 45th. I said, Right on, let’s go. So we went and we were having a nice time, and so this guy comes up to me. And I know the guy, you know, we were in homeroom.
together the ninth and tenth grade, he real cute Italian looking guy and and w you know, and he he always just said, Hi, Desiree. Hi. And I said, okay, hi, Joe. So then he comes up to me and says, I had a crush on you while I was through high school. And I was like, What? I ain’t that cute. So we went and got us a drink and came back. And so I had been widowed for about three and a half years and I love to dance. So a real great dance song came on.
So I went up to Joe and I said, Joe, you wanna dance? So it was a crowd of classmates standing around. So Joe looks this way, Joe looks that way, Joe looks this way, looks
Desiree Holly (16:59)
that way. And I was like, what is he? And he says, All right, I’ll do it. So we got the ourselves away.
Do you know? So so we connected and then the next day as as with Catholic schools, we always have a mass. We go to a mass. So we were at St. Mary’s downtown. And so we before mass we got a chance to talk. So he was telling me that he had recently purchased a home in Hastings, Michigan. And I looked at him, Hastings, Michigan? I’ve lived in Michigan, let’s see, I w I had lived there
Thirty eight years before I left, I said, I never heard of Hastings, Michigan. So we continue to talk and we got closer and then I said, you know, it’s a beautiful day. I’ma make a ride up to this Hastings, Michigan. So I go out ninety-six and you know, and I’m coming up and then I hit sixty-nine and I get off the freeway in Charlotte, and then I’m driving out seventy-nine.
Driving out seventy nine. Driving out seventy nine. Hastings.
Desiree Holly (18:11)
What am I gonna get to the Hasty? So then I get, you know, to where thirty seven connects. And you know, he gave me great directions and got there. And so then I pulled into his is his driveway and his home and I got out the car and he told me that he was he sub teaches. So he was teaching that day and he said, I’ll leave the side door open for you, just go ahead and so I left my luggage and say, Well, you know.
I’m gonna make me a little walk around. So I made me a little walk around, and I said, dang, if this don’t remind me of Athens, Alabama. You know, the big clock tower, and it’s small, and it’s very quaint, and I saw a lot of white people, and then I didn’t see very many black people or Hispanic people. I said, okay. So I was saying, like, well, you know, we just like.
Filling each other out, it might not go into anything, you know, so it was
Host: Rob Prince (19:04)
Well you did bring your luggage.
Desiree Holly (19:06)
just it was a trial line.
Desiree Holly (19:16)
So so we continued on and and our relationship got stronger and Joe proposed to me and we married in twenty nineteen. I really prayed about coming to Hastings and the Lord said, Make that move. So we came. we have a really great relationship. Joe really backs me up. I had lived here maybe a year and a half, two years. I didn’t have any real friends, you know.
Host: Rob Prince (19:44)
Year and a half, two years you didn’t have any
Desiree Holly (19:45)
Yeah, you know, when you when you what I’ve noticed is when you live when you get older and when you move from places to place, it’s harder and harder to make friends because people in those communities already are set. They have their friends, you know, they grew up with them, they entered you know, everybody knows everybody in Hastings. They either some married or they’re distant cousins or something. And I was particularly an outsider really. You know, I came from Detroit.
didn’t have any family here. Joe didn’t other than his daughter, he didn’t have any family here, and then he didn’t grow up here. So we were kind of on the outskirts. So so I prayed and asked the Lord to give me some friends, and he gave me two great women that are my friends today and just encouraged me and I was so thankful. And then from that, there was the gnawing thing in in me about being a minority, and that’s when COVID hit.
We were approached by the priest at the manual episcopal church and they were doing a study on the dismantle of racism. So she asked me if I would like to join the group. They did it by Zoom call, and Joe said, okay. And we did it, and we read all these different books, and people were asking me questions. And when I talked with our group, it was about 15 of us, I told them, I am me. I don’t speak for every African American. You know, what my experiences are are
They are my experiences and they may be different from someone else’s experience, even though they’re African American. So they would ask me questions about redlining, had I been called the N-word? And I said, yeah. my mom tried to get a job. She was at Wayne State. she wanted to get a job as a clerk at Hudson’s, jail Hudson’s. and they told her she was too dark, she could do the elevator, but she couldn’t be a sales clerk and my mom
having the vernacular that she had, she said, You kiss where the sun don’t shine. And she went on back to school. So, so, you know, I’ve enveloped all of those things. So I wanted to see a change in this area. And for people, as I would walk around, I would see spurts of people of color, but it was like they were hidden. So
Host: Rob Prince (22:02)
What do mean by that? H that they were hidden?
Desiree Holly (22:04)
Well d you know, come out, come out, wherever you are. It was like
Host: Rob Prince (22:10)
They weren’t like public personalities. They were not public. They were sort of keeping a low pro
Desiree Holly (22:16)
People in a very, very low profile. Due to certain things that had happened to certain ones and families, or they had heard certain things and they wanted just to live their lives and go to work and come home and not be harassed. So they kept a very, very low profile. And I was like, you know, this just ain’t right. You know, this just not right. So we had our first and we call it Lift Every Voice. So I got that f not just from the song, but because of what I had seen.
with people of minorities, not just African Americans, but all the minorities that seem to be here, do not feel they have a safe place to tell their story. Really? Yeah.
Host: Rob Prince (22:55)
So what are they afraid of happening?
Desiree Holly (22:58)
Well, some of haven’t have not even telling them stories, the just the awareness of who they are had there’s been a backlash. There’s been harassment. So when we began to come together to talk about, I was talking to the Lord about it and I said, you know, Lord, African American History Month, when you got zero point zero seven percent of minority, all month of African American history, that ain’t gonna work. That just not gonna work. Let’s just be honest, it’s not.
So I said, let’s do multicultural. Let’s talk about all of the different ethnicities and where people come from and give them a platform and call it Lift Every Voice. So our first was in 2023. We started off with Ed. He talked about being privileged, and it was such a poignant story. Him and another white young man talked about that. Then we had Mexican immigrants talk. We had Native Americans come and talk. And it
It really blessed me because the community just poured out. We had 80 people in this library for those talks. It was so funny because at the meeting I got real quiet. And so I don’t know if it was it or somebody said, Why are you real quiet? I said, Because you know this community, you are a Caucasian person, so I must listen to what you have to say so that we can entreat people and come together. Can’t be my way. You know, we gotta lull them in, you know.
And this was God’s doing. And I said that. I said, this is God’s doing. And it’s marvelous in our eyes. And I I tried to tell my African American friends, nothing is gonna happen to you. You’re gonna be safe. You’re gonna be fine if you come. And they just would not. So we we didn’t win that battle, but you know, we try to continue to win on and open it up. And I’m just so grateful to the library, to the staff here, to the Hastings community that have come out and have celebrated us and to show.
And welcome diversity and and different cultures and ethnicities here in Hastings, and it’s just been wonderful.
Host: Rob Prince (25:04)
Desiree Holly. She shared that story at our December 9, 2025 Open Mic Live event in the Hastings Public Library in Hastings, Michigan. Thanks so much again to Barbara Haywood of the Hastings Public Library for hosting us in their lovely venue.
It may seem like there’s not that much difference between different parts of the United States anymore. You can walk into any number of chain stores or drive down any number of suburban streets that look more or less the same as the stores and streets in cities and towns hundreds of miles away. But nevertheless, there are still some linguistic differences across the country, such as the battle between pop and soda, or pasties and pasties, which are two extremely different things.
That are spelled exactly the same and are only pronounced differently. When our next storyteller moved to Michigan, he discovered that we use a phrase here that has a dramatically different meaning in his hometown of Los Angeles, like the most different meaning a phrase could have. Andrew Bautista shared this story at our November 21, 2025 Open Mic Live event at The Lit in downtown Grand Rapids. Here’s Andrew.
Andrew Bautista (26:18)
I am from California. So I got here twenty twenty three. I visited where I go now, Calvin, for the first time in the summer. I don’t know anything about sports, right? So where I’m from, there’s these two gangs called the Bloods and the Cribs. And the Cri you know, the Bloods, their big thing is that they only wear red and the Cribs only wear blue. And they say I bleed blue. So when I got over here,
I hear like people saying this all the time. And I was like, whoa, what is going on with the crit population over here? Like, cause like back home, usually it’s like, you know, younger like Hispanics like myself, you know, like it’s not usually like you guys. So when I got here and everybody’s like, yeah, we bleed blue, I was like, it was just me and my mom. I’m like, mom, like, dude, the crit the crit population here is crazy. Like I’ll
I was getting nervous because like Calvin’s colors are like red and gold. So I’m like, I have to get rid of everything that’s red. And then she’s like, no, like they’re it’s the Detroit Lions. They’re blue. That’s what they say. And I’m like, okay. But I thought it was just like really intense over here where just everybody’s like, yeah, we bleed blue. I’m like, whoa. Like I thought I didn’t know extended over here, but it just turns out I had to like get updated on my sports lego.
Host: Rob Prince (27:40)
Andrew Bautista. He shared that story at our November 21st, 2025 Open Mic Live event at the Lit in downtown Grand Rapids. Thanks so much for listening to this edition of MI Michigan Story: Life in the Great Lakes State, the MI Michigan Move episode. Today’s episode was edited by myself, Rob Prince. MI Michigan Story is presented by WKAR in East Lansing, Michigan.
Would you like to hear awesome true stories from Michigan live and in person? And maybe share your own story for a chance to get it on the radio? Well, you are in luck. We have many free open mic live events planned in March and beyond all around Michigan. We’ll be in Schuler Books in Okamis on Thursday, March twelfth at six PM. And then in April, we’re hosting our first ever open mic live event in Lansing at the Pledge on Thursday, April 9th at 6 p.m.
There’s more information about those free events, the show in general, and our podcast at MI Michigan Story.com. That’s MI Michigan Story.com. Remember, I can’t tell MI Michigan story without your Michigan story. So submit your story today at my MIMichiganStory.com.