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Fourteenth Job of Bob - Park and Rec Part XV - Charles
This entry was posted on 4/3/2008 10:45 PM and is filed under Jobs of Bob, Here is to Old Friends.
One of the first persons I met when I started with the Park Department in Dallas was a guy named Charles. He said he haled from the Bryan/College Station, Texas area. He had spent a year or two at Bishop College in Dallas. He had a knack for clever conversation. It was not unusual for him to wait until an upper management type was walking by and then say something to you like this, "I hear you got good dope up there in ol' West Consin.
Once Charles walked up to me after I had worked all day in 100 degrees and said, "You know you will never get rich working for some one else."
Other times it was not unusual for him to walk up and say, "Give up yet?" And then he would say, "Your problem is you keep working long after you should have given up."
After it seemed like the management was having one of its frequent melt downs he said, "Some day if I walk in the door and see these people beating employees to death it would not surprise me a bit."
Charles used to take great glee in chastising me over and over again about my military basic training. "You never seen a black man 'til you got to boot camp, Bob ol' boy," he would say as he smiled.
"I am going to tag after you Bob," he said once, in reference to sliding into jobs at work I had vacated from to move to another.
"Charles had a medical dilemma and it took its toll on him. He was a couple years older than me so I eventually began to ponder how I might coup with what he often dealt with.
Once I helped him move and we swung by my apartment to pick up some tools to take apart his appliances. He looked at Heide's neat arrangement of the furniture and said, "You can tell you do not have children because you do not have great gaping gouges ripped out of our furniture."
I would meet up with Charles now and then at his house after work. We would sit and drink beer for a bit before I would head home. On one occasion I went to the bathroom and when I came back I realized he had not only finished his small bottle of bourbon, he was well into my six pack of beer.
Over the decade we worked together, we often ended up on the same crews from time to time. We spent many lunch times together in the 1980s pontificating about the politics of that odd decade. "Shake-a-leg-professor," we called him. There was little he could not pontificate about. And pontificate he did. He kept a running monologue going on the eccentric actors around us - Big Max; Ol' Sonebitch; Shop Andy the mechanic; Larry who thought all big cities had the same road grid template; Rabbit Man; Little Momma who had been married nine times; and, last but not least Little Danny.
Charles was one of the last people I talked to the last day I worked for the City. That last conversation has always haunted me. About a week after I left the employ of the City another friend of mine called to tell me Charles's medical condition had suddenly got the best of him. He had left work not feeling so good. The next day he was going to try to come in at noon - he never made it - he died.
Stupid pop culture, media-complex, distraction-from-reality story
I see the main stream pundits are still up to their old tricks more than ever while I was gone to Iraq. So, I am thinking, each day I should continue to 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."
The war in Iraq languishes on; the dollar collapses; gas prices have us working stiffs deciding between filling our car tanks and buying necessities; and, Washington apparently continues to be run by two-party paradigm lunatics. Good God! But wait, the nanny-state America that has become the real-time world of Orwell has had a conundrum set back?! It seems a study is suggesting because of smoking bans, some drunks are driving around looking for bars that allow smoking. In the process they are getting arrested for driving while drunk. What's a nanny-state to do?
Shouldn't it be obvious - ban both smoking, and drinking. Besides, there are some empty chairs in state sanctioned gambling casinos. We could fill them up with frustrated former smokers and drinkers. Oh wait, those same bastions of contradiction are sanctuaries of smokers, drinkers, and gambles. It's just a nanny-state crisis of paradox. Now there is some real God damned news!
Wisconsin military service person of the week
Sergeant First Class Trevor J. Diesing 30, was killed by a bomb in Husaybah, Iraq, on Thursday, August 25, 2005. Treveor was from Maiden Rock, a western Wisconsin community. He grew up and worked on his familys' dairy farm. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel mentioned Diesing played basketball and baseball for Plum City High School. He joined the Army Reserves before graduating. Diesing was assigned to Headquarters Company, U.S. Army Special Operations Command in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He was on his third tour of duty in Iraq. Trevor Diesing is survived by his wife and three children one of which was a baby; his mother Debbie Diesing and father; and, a younger brother Toby. Sergeant Diesing spent several years in the Army Reserves and joined the Army full time in 1997. Sergeant First Class Trevor J. Diesing was the 45th Wisconsin military service person to die in Iraq since the spring of 2003.
4,013 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
487 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
308 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
294 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
29,628 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1,912 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
87 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
10 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
127 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
15 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.
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