What's good for General Motors was good for me in Detroit

It was the best of times when I went to work in the GM building in 1964. I was an up-and-coming copywriter at the Chevrolet ad agency working on the largest account in the world then.
GM had 51% of the US market. We sponsored Bonanza and Bewitched, the top two shows on television. Dinah Shore was singing, "See the USA in your Chevrolet, America's the greatest land of all". And so it was. The cars were selling and the money was pouring in. The Tigers and the Red Wings were winning and Motown was swinging. Then it became the worst of times. In July 1967 the riots came and all hell broke out. The carnage is chronicled by John Hersey in "The Algiers Motel Incident". We wanted out. I asked the agency (a different GM ad agency) for a transfer to anywhere. In six weeks I was working in Amsterdam and Zurich and in March 1968 our family was living in London. I became "The Mid-Atlantic Man" Tom Wolfe wrote about. I had my clothes made on Savile Row. I bought a turquoise velvet safari suit. I vacationed at Davos and Verbier. Julie Christie smiled at me and I had long literary conversations with the young Salman Rushdie. I had left Detroit far behind in its rubble and, of course never went back.
And yet, and yet I shall always remember a wonderful Detroit. Come back my lost city. O glittering and white!