We got to Dallas, Texas late at night and it looked just like the TV show. It was 80 degrees at 11:00 p.m. in early December. The buildings and lights were big and the city looked like a Christmas tree at night. We would have to stay in a camp ground south of Dallas while Heide checked in to her new job. She would work in the World Trade Center in Dallas. It was a huge building with an interior foyer the size of a football field. Everyone was dressed so casual for a big city and a big new building. There were lots of men wearing jeans and dress jackets. I would watch the people from the café in the foyer after I dropped Heide off each day.
After a week they sent Heide to Houston for a month and a half. We would stay in a camp ground just out side of Houston in a town called Alvin. There were some fellas that always target shot their pistols by the road to the camp ground. We were in what was affectionately called a "Reagan Ranch." People from economically bad off places came to live in Texas and try to take advantage of the steady jobs Texas offered at that time. A nurse from New Jersey lived in a tent next to our camper. The Texas economy has periodic ups due to technology and oil. Huston was the wild west via high tech.
I was offered a job at 7-Eleven after only a five minute interview. They would pay me 10 Dollars an hour to work nights. The young interviewer asked me if I could start that night. It was December, 1981. I had just left a three Dollar an hour job in Wisconsin. I turned the job down because every night we watched two hours of murders and assaults being reported on the news. Many of the crimes were at convenience stores like 7-Eleven. One man tried to stop someone from stealing his car as he paid for his gas. He ran out and grabbed the fleeing car and the perp shot him to death as he clung to his door handle.
On the home front, mom wrote to tell us Dad had cancer. We knew something was wrong - he had lost so much weight. They did not want to interfere with the wedding and waited to tell us. After we found an apartment back in Dallas I took the camper back to Wisconsin. I had to drive in a blizzard as I neared home and stopped to put chains on the wheels of my pick up. Dad looked better after some treatments. I put my motorcycle and a few more items in a U-Haul trailer and headed back south. Dallas looked like a quiet small town after living in Houston for a couple months, yet the Dallas metro area (The Metroplex) had close to five million people. The apartment assistance people found us a nice little place in amongst two parks and many trees on a hill not far from down town Dallas - go figure. It reminded us of Wisconsin.
I saw a small ad in a Dallas newspaper for a park keeper. I went down to the City of Dallas employment office and applied. I was hired with out much fanfare. The City of Dallas had 20,000 employees. The park department had 2,000 to 3,000 depending on the season. They had 500 parks, hundreds of playgrounds, six city golf courses, museums, dozens of swimming pools and recreations centers, a full operating dairy farm, the State Fair Park, a large park police force, a couple of large lakes, and as well the Cotton Bowl all under the responsibility of the park department.
After scratching for a job in Wisconsin, working in such a thriving community was like a dream at first. Everyone took their jobs for granted. As a park keeper in a city like Dallas I might do anything from push a lawn mower, rake leaves, help the irrigation tech (irrigation had to be every where because of the heat), clean pools, or sweep off basketball courts. One day while we were out picking up litter a guy named Ralph (we all called him The Rabbit Man) said as it began to sprinkle, "We better get back to the service center and get out of this rain." I thought to myself, "What a joker." But when we got back the supervisor was sending people home because of the light rain. Back in Wisconsin you went home only if the rain had drowned you or you were hit with lightning - and then they would only let you go grudgingly. It was February, 1982.
This week's Wisconsin soldier to remember is Ryan J. Cantafio, 22, a Marine reservist from Beaver Dam was killed on November 25, 2004 in an explosion in Iraq. Private First Class Cantofio was with Company G, 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Marine Forces Reserve. He died in during enemy action in Anbar province, Iraq. Ryan was the 30th Wisconsinite killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003. Ryan was the second former Beaver Dam High School student killed in Iraq. Private First Class Cantofio had been in the Marine Reserve for four years and shipped out to Iraq in September, 2004 placing him in the country only two months at the time of his death. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel mentioned Ryan was married and he and his wife had their home in Beaver Dam.
3,857 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
451 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
28,327 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1,708 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
81 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
6 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
123 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
9 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
Soldier of the week, military casualty, and journalist casualty information sources: Committee to Protect Journalists; cnn.com; and, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
