C.G. Mitchell (his friends call him Carl) of St. Petersburg has seen a lot in his 81 years.
He grew up in a children’s home, one of many boys in a regimented ward where they always saluted the flag.
He ran five different businesses in the late 1960s — a coffee-sandwich shop, a clothing boutique, an eclectic shop called Leather, Feathers and Fur, a head shop and, perhaps his most successful venture, a store specializing in military collectibles — along storied Plum Street, Detroit’s answer to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury
