At some point around my third year with the Dallas Park Department, I settled into the role of trimming the hedges in the district that our service center covered. This may seem like something to yawn about at first blush, but remember the Parks Department had vast numbers of buildings, museums, recreation centers, civic centers, and the whole of State Fair Park which all had year-round hedges and shrubs. The plants thrived in the long warm season and the irrigation. It was an overwhelming assignment. I had gas trimmers, chain saws, hand trimmers, electric trimmers, hand saws, tree saws, and a generator to name but a bit of the equipment needed. What qualifications did I have to get that job? - I could trim in a straight line. Remember, I used to plant corn in Wisconsin. Your farming honor is represented in your straight corn rows.
Because the clean up portion of my tasks were menial, they often gave me a helper by the name of Danny. He was a tiny man. Maybe just over four foot tall. He would rake and rake the clipped leaves. Danny had been cast out of another work crew because in preparation for an event at Fair Park - there were many - he was assigned to pull weeds in a very large central flower bed that all the dignitaries might walk through. After five hours on location, Danny had moved only a couple feet, pulling one blade of grass at a time. He would alway fain mental retardation when called on the carpet. Little Danny got assigned to me.
Danny liked to haunt the peep-show shops after work. They usually were near the bus stops. Cotton said you could hold Danny upside down and one hundred dollars of quarters would fall out of his pockets. Danny said his sister-in-law went around and cut all the labels off their canned food in his house because there was a picture of a Devil on those labels. Danny would never know what was in the cans to cook with. After enough chiding from Cotton, Danny would fire back his patented answer, "Look at me and look at you - I got it made." And then he would grin. He had long shoulder length hair and he was skinny as a rail. He never missed work, so he never got fired like so many in our department had before him.
Once while at a local store for break, two men came in with a kid over one of their shoulders. The other man had one of my hedge trimmers from the back of the truck. "We caught this little punk stealing your hedge trimmer man," The one with the trimmer said. "Watch your stuff better white boy," the other said. "If they steal from you the will steal from us too."
I asked if I should call the police. "We will take care of this punk, don't worry yourself about it white boy." With that they handed me back the trimmer and disappeared out the door with juvenile in tow.
Once Big Max helped me trim. Big Max and Little Danny made quit a pair. Hornets and bees liked to build nests in the Holly bushes. Big Max cut into a wasp nest with the long trimmers and they blasted out of the hive straight at him. Danny grabbed the hornet spray, but only a pathetic dribble leaked out the nozzle. Danny and I booked, Big Max stood like a statue and calmly quoted foul expletives as the bees just flew right by him.
There is a couple of intimidating plants that thrive in Texas. Both have long woody needles. Some people are allergic to the puncture. The Pyracanthia grows mostly as a bush but can also be a tree. It often has pretty bright red or orange berries. The Mesquite tree as well is a menace with its nasty needles.
Sometimes Sonebitch worked with me if he was in the dog house for one reason or another. "I ain't joining no damn Army," Sonebitch proclaimed as he pondered my military tattoos.
"I really don't care, dude," I returned to Sonebitch, and then said, "But perhaps your future task is to better predict who might take offense to a statement like that - you know, like perhaps a boss who may have lost a family member in a war, you know, the same boss that routinely punishes you for running your mouth before you think, and then you find yourself trimming thorny bushes with Ol' Bob and Danny instead of riding around on your beloved backhoe."
"I got it made, Sonebitch," Little Danny said, smiling as he raked.
Sonebitch looked at me thoughtfully as he reached for a pile of clippings. "Sonebitch," Ol' Sonebitch said, and he pulled a Pyracanthia needle out of his hand.
This week's Wisconsin soldier to remember is Staff Sergeant Todd Olson, 36, who died December 27, 2004, at the 67th Combat Support Hospital in Tikrit, Iraq. He had sustained wounds a day earlier from a roadside bomb detonated in Samarra, Iraq. Olson's home was in Loyal, Wisconsin. Todd was killed two weeks after his Wisconsin National Guard unit arrived in Iraq. He died on patrol when hit by the bomb in Samarra, a town north of Baghdad. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel mentioned Olson had studied finance at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse; he was married and the father of three teenage boys and a 5-year-old girl; he was a member of the Loyal School Board; a loan officer at the M&I Bank in Loyal and Neillsville; a youth group leader at Trinity Lutheran Church in Loyal; and a youth football coach. Staff Sergeant Olson joined the National Guard after he graduated from Loyal High School in 1986. He was attached to the Neillsville Unit Detachment 1, Company C, 1st Battalion, 128th Infantry Regiment, Wisconsin Army National Guard. They had been activated for training in Mississippi in June of 2004 and arrived in Kuwait in November. Staff Sergeant Olson was the 33rd soldier from Wisconsin to die in Iraq since spring 2003.
3,876 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
464 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
28,530 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1,797 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
82 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
6 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
124 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
14 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.
