During my summer after graduation from high school I dated a girl who lived out by the lake. Those lake folks were a culture un-and-to-themselves, none-the-less it remains what it was, the summer after K-12 ended (actually I never went to kindergarten) and the summer before my real life began and a time never to return again. This girl's dad owned a plumbing company in a nearby town and they had a few bucks. Their house by the shore was not the usual summer cottage - it was an expensive house to a country kid like me. Anyway, for some reason her dad liked me - maybe because I was blue collar. He asked me if I would spend some time that summer building a retaining wall in the water to protect his shore line which he claimed was slowly but surely being eroded away up his yard.
It basically involved mixing some gravel and cement in an electric mixer, putting it in big bags and dumping them in the water by the shoreline. Remember this was 1974 and the average wage was around a Dollar an hour. He always handed me about 20 bucks after each day I finished. Sometimes I only worked a couple hours. Between working on the farm, pumping gas at the station, and now this gig I thought I was a big operator. This, in a quickly sagging economy.
I was so tired her mom often insisted I sleep a bit on the couch before I drove home or to one of my other jobs. This I remember thinking, was odd - the idea of sleeping at a girl friends house in 1974 was still not a main stream concept even after the 1960s. It was rural America after all.
The real scandal which I have always kept under my hat is that I had not completely broke up with my other girl friend. She coincidently lived on the other side of the lake. What are the odds? I could see her house as I dumped the bags of cement in the water. I could see her house from the picture window of my new girlfriend's house. I suppose this means nothing to the current generation. It is my observation that they have little concept or regard for the one-boyfriend/girlfriend-at-a-time model. But in those days you were supposed to dump one partner before you hooked up with another. It was just the mores and norms of the time. The free love mystique of the 1960s existed mostly in pop culture literature I think.
Both families live somewhere else now. I have long since lost track of both girlfriends. I suspect some of the parents, now almost 35 years later may no longer be with us. Mine are both gone as well. Mom thought both girls acted too immature. But moms are moms. Dad was cautiously optimistic as usual, with all my relationships. Gas prices are once again a national issue just as they were in 1974. Perhaps since the weather is nice now, and my motor cycle gets 52 miles to the gallon, I should crank the teal and cream Harley up and take a road trip out to the lake.
This week's Wisconsin soldier to remember is Private First Class Rachel K. Bosveld, a member of the 527th Military Police, V Corps. Pfc. Bosveld was killed Sunday October 26, 2003, in a mortar attack on the Abu Ghraib Police Station in Baghdad. Rachel would have turned 20 on November 7, 2003. She was a 2002 graduate of Waupun High School. Rachel Bosveld was the fifth Wisconsin resident to die in the Iraq War. She was the state's first female soldier to die since Sgt. Cheryl LaBeau-O'Brien, of Caledonia, who died in a helicopter accident during the first Gulf War in 1991.
3,385 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.
25,245 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring 2003.
72 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring 2003.
Soldier of the week and military casualty information sources: cnn.com; and, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
