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Fourteenth Job of Bob - Park and Rec Part VII - I killed the grass on the "Grassy Knoll"
This entry was posted on 12/27/2007 3:26 AM and is filed under Jobs of Bob.
As a chemical applicator for the City of Dallas Parks Department one of my many tasks was to over-spay winter weeds that popped up on the dormant Texas turf in the winter. However, the caveat is that if you wait too long into the spring of the year you could nip the new crop of turf grass - bad, bad, thing. A boss of mine who was determined to be mayor someday wanted the "Grassy Knoll" of Kennedy lore in Dealey Plaza to look perfect. Not a weed there need be seen, or some such nonsense, due to all the Kennedy tourists and self anointed sleuths that cased the joint 24-hours a day. A guy I worked with used to drop a few empty riffle bullet shells down by the sidewalk there once in a while to rile up a sucker or two. But I digress.
Boss-man demanded I kill the weeds on the infamous "Grassy Knoll" in the spring of 1985. Problem being however, it was getting too long into spring and the tips of the Bermuda turf grass were already greening up. "Spay'em Mr. Keith," Boss-man demanded. So, for three days I nuked the "Grassy Knoll" and Dealey Plaza - it is a bigger place than one might expect - with a stiff and permanent weed killer. Suffice it to say, two to three weeks later the odious "Grassy Knoll" was dead as Kennedy. A month along it was still like Kennedy - still dead. Bigger Boss-man from City Hall happened by one early May day. Within a few hours my Boss-man and a cobbled-together crew were re-sodding the whole of the "Grassy Knoll."
Yes, good people, Cool Dadio actually killed the grass on the "Grassy Knoll." My finest artistic work to date!
Stupid pop culture, media-complex, distraction-from-reality story
I am thinking, each day I should jot down the stupidest news story that is foist upon us by the big-media-complex as a distraction from the reality that has become America. So here we go - welcome to today's "Stupid Pop Culture, Media-complex, Distraction-from-reality Story."
Hey everybody, President Bush signed a $555 billion spending bill of which $70 billion will fund the Iraq war for the better part of another year. Ah, to hell with all the war arithmetic. The University of Wisconsin Badger football team will play in the Outback Bowl in Tampa, Florida in a few days. The Wisconsin media -television; radio; newspapers; and, university PR machine is pumped to collectively spend thousands of dollars to send some sports wonks to the game for a few days. Oh, but shit...! The said same media companies have only sent six journalists to Iraq in five years. Ah, but what am I thinking? Screw that billion Dollar a day war... let's talk college football minutia about one of a couple dozen bowl games that means little to the overall outcome of the college football season...again!
Wisconsin military service person of the week
This week's Wisconsin soldier to remember is Chief Warrant Officer Joshua Michael Scott, 28, of Sun Prairie. Michael died Friday May 27, 2005 or injuries he sustained one day earlier when his helicopter was shot down by small-arms attack in Buhriz, Iraq, about 35 miles north of Baghdad. His copter was an OH-58 Kiowa Warrior class helicopter. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel mentioned Scott was a 1995 graduate of Sun Prairie High School. He enlisted in the Army just after high school. Chief Warrant Officer Scott arrived in Iraq in November 2004 with D Troop, 1st Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division. The unit's U.S. home is Fort Bragg, North Carolina. This was Scott's first assignment to a combat zone. The Journal Sentinel went on to say that just before deployment to Iraq, Joshua and his wife, Sherri, had just had their third child, a boy named Kross. The couple met at Sun Prairie High School and were married in 1999. In addition to his son Kross, Joshua Scott is survived by his mother, Cathy Scott; a grandmother, Doris Scott; a sister, Beverly; a 2-year-old daughter, Trynity; and, a 16-year-old son, Kenneth. Chief Warrant Officer Joshua Michael Scott is the 37th Wisconsin service member killed in Iraq since the spring of 2003.
3,897 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
468 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
28,711 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1,840 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.
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