In 2011, John Carlisle, now a columnist for the Free Press but then a writer for Metro Times whose nom de plume was Detroitbloggerjohn, profiled Gus Mills. At the time, Mills repaired lawn mowers in an east-side parking lot.
A small sign announced his impromptu store: What it Dew Lawnmower Repair and Sales. Today, Carlisle's story has become an obituary because Mills reportedly was stabbed to death recently. No details were available.
Carlisle was notified of the death when one of his readers, Michael F. Copado, notified him. Copado, who watched Mills over the years on his commutes, posted a note on Facebook, which said in part:
Yesterday while driving to work, and getting near the corner where the building was, I did see a wooden sign, and plants, and even toy mowers. As I neared it I got excited thinking maybe old Gus went and did it, got the building.... opened his shop...fulfilled his dream.
Sadly this is what I saw. It wasn't declaring his opening as I'd hoped....it was a roadside memorial.
Here is the beginning of Carlisle's portrait:
It's a hot summer afternoon, and Gus Mills is seated on an overturned milk crate in a deserted parking lot. A hand-painted wood sign propped on the sidewalk announces his business: What it Dew Lawnmower Repair and Sales.
For two years now, every day but Sunday, the 47-year-old spreads out his tools next to an abandoned dry cleaner on Gratiot near McNichols, and sits in the deep shade of a wild tree sprouting from the side of a neighboring building.
He'll fix your broken lawnmower on the spot, usually within the hour. Repairs are a flat $45 fee.
"It might be a couple of things wrong, but for $45 you're going home with it running, as opposed to when you take it to the other side of Eight Mile — they want $35 just for you to walk into the building." He gets about a dozen customers a day.
He works from April to August, saving most of what he earns so he can attend community college the rest of the year. He's polite, hard-working, determined to project a professional image despite his rough surroundings.
But this makes him a target for hangers-on and hustlers. In this neighborhood, where a whole lot of people don't have jobs or much schooling or much of a future, a place where scrapping or selling drugs are common careers, a guy like Mills stands out for trying to do an honest day's work. He becomes a center of gravity, like a sun with lifeless planets orbiting him.
