As a supervisor over the playground maintenance and construction crew for one of the City of Dallas Park Department regions, I remember my crew getting conned into some strange projects. Once we were summoned to build a basketball pole, backboard, and rim for the fire station down in the deep ghetto of South Dallas. At night the area was rife with hookers and old gangsters. It did not have the neo-gang flare of some of the newer refurbished neighborhoods down that way. None-the-less, the fire fighters appreciated our effort in their parking lot.
I looked down the street and said to the firefighters looking at their new basketball goal, "The people here are going to want to know why their park basketball goal ain't being patched up."
A muscular firefighter looked at his new backboard and then looked at me and said, "Fuck'em."
We built countless playgrounds. We repaired ad nauseam the vandalism. There was always some ordeal involved. It usually involved a shortage of personnel, equipment, vehicles, parts, or supplies. But once it took an extra ugly turn. My ball-diamond guy's truck got a flat tire at a park poetically called Green Bay Park. There was always a layer of broken glass on the whole of the park. I called in to the tire shop for assistance and waited with my ball-diamond guy who happened to be black. The apartments next to the park were notorious for drug houses and crack. A lookout on a balcony began to heckle us. He hurled insults at us, accusing us of being undercover cops. Then our hearts sank as the balcony man began to wave an automatic pistol at us.
My ball diamond guy hollered up to the balcony man, "You wouldn't shoot a brother. Man, give a working brother a break."
The balcony man grinned and fired a shot over our heads. "Fuck you, brother-my-ass," the balcony man said with a maniacal grimace on his face.
We ducked behind the trucks. I called for help but no one came but the tire man. The balcony man must have ducked back into the apartment for a break. We slapped the tire on the truck and beat the hell out of there. No one back at the service barn seemed too surprised by our story .
Just before I quit the City, they started to bring in a bunch of day-labor workers every day. They paid them 12 Dollars a day and then charged them three dollars for the ride to and from the work site. Many of them used different names every day. Instead of washing their cloths they just picked up new ones at the homeless shelter. Each spring we were assigned to clean and repaint the large outdoor pools. These were not the four-foot deep neighborhood pools. These things were deep monsters. There was a half dozen in my region. One day-labor guy who was a frequent flier with us was singing one day in the bottom of the bright white pool. We often had to wear two pairs of sun glasses because the Texas sun and white paint were so blazing bright. I can never get the disco-rock group the Talking Heads out of my own head because of that persistent day-labor guy. "This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no fool'n around...."
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."
You can't make this shit up. This story makes our category, Wisconsin-logic Hall of Fame. Accused Dodge County, Wisconsin drunk driver calls 911 on self. Now there is some real God damned news!
Wisconsin military service person of the week
This week's Wisconsin soldier to remember is Army Specialist John O. Tollefson, 22, from the Fox Valley city of Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Specialist Tollefson was killed by a bomb while on patrol in Ashraf, Iraq, on July 27, 2005. John was a 2001 graduate of Fond du Lac Goodrich High School. Specialist Tollefson was with the 411th Military Police Company, 720th Military Police Battalion, 89th Military Police Brigade. John is survived by his parents Walter Tollefson of Fond du Lac and Mary Steinman of Rosendale, and two sisters, Katie and Jessica. Specialist John Tollefson was the 42nd Wisconsin service member killed in Iraq since the spring of 2003.
3,943 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
478 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
306 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
275 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
29,038 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1,868 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
86 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
10 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
125 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; Milwaukee Journal Sentinel; washingtonpost.com; thehighground.org; Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs; and, icasualties.org.
