Blown out by one interviewee, I was stuck in Detroit, albeit in the luscious Inn On Ferry Street, trying to transform a wasted evening into a productive one by emailing everyone who was in Jim’s school year at Tappan, thanks to a contacts list that one classmate kindly gave me. These are all people I haven’t met - I will be calling everyone who I spoke to at the reunion once I get back to London.

 

I stopped counting once I’d sent out 300 emails. So far I’ve had around 30 bounce back and had around 25 replies with useful information. I’m told that 8 per cent is a good response rate for unsolicited email.

 

Jim’s school pals are a pretty cheerful lot; almost every email I’ve had confirms the impression of him as distinctly well-dressed, mainstream, with just a little quirky edge. This email from Dan Kett was typical:

 

“Paul - ask Jim about his 8th grade term project on what you want to be when you grow up. Jim did his on being President of the U.S.  That would be a huge improvement over who we have!!  Dan Kett”

 

From the same batch, I got an intriguing note from Don Collier which I will follow up with a phone interview:

 

 

“We headed out Washtenaw Av and I got into the left hand lane to turn into the neighborhood that he had always led me to believe that he lived in. He said that he did not live there and directed me to a trailer court on Carpenter Road. He said his [dad was a] teacher in Dearborn (which is a city 20-25 miles from Ann Arbor).” [Smaller photos above are Coachville Gardens trailer park, Carpenter Road Ypsilanti.]