When is a zinnia not a zinnia? When the woman who plants it defies the canons of good taste. Add family squabbles, religious conflict, small town snobberies. A dash of the exotic, witches in Salem, gangsters in the streets. Mix with the pacing oa novel, the read-aloud style of Our Town, and you have Cameron. It grew in splendid isolation. Sure, it felt every economic downturn, and depended on outside technology to revive it. Yet, Cameron developed a main street, industry, and identity of its own. Then came the economics of scale, Racial, ethni, religious tensions escaled into confrlicts. Conglomerates brough unemployement. One more statistic in the deindustrialization of America. Michigan history, 1830 to 2006 Patricia Averll has a BA in history from Michigan State Univerisy and a doctorate in American studies from the University of Pennsylvania. To contact her, go to xlibris.com/averill.html.