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Sixteenth job of Bob - Lawn Service Redux - home after years
This entry was posted on 5/29/2008 3:39 AM and is filed under Cats,Jobs of Bob.
To make an attempt at a smoother transition in the 1000 mile move back to Wisconsin, Heide stayed and worked in Dallas while I moved our lives back to Wisconsin. Years later when gathering information on the story of the Vietnamese in America, I realized many were returning to Viet Nam. Their return had painful transitions - hey, a bit like us moving home as well.
I remember taking many truck loads of items back to Wisconsin on one of my trailers. Once my truck quit running in Joplin, Missouri. The kind old guy that came to try and help discovered an auto valve had activated, shutting off the fuel flow. Man, he really could have ripped me off. For the towing and discovery, he charged me 32 Bucks. It was the spring of 1992.
I remember also putting a cat or two in the cab with me for company during the long rides back and forth. Old Dadio the Cat was a favorite. He usually slept the whole way behind the seat. Once I stopped at a rural rest stop. I left the door open in the shade of a tree as I slept. Three hours later I woke in a panic only to realize he was on the hood asleep too.
My mom let me sleep in the extra bedroom of her house. Dad had died. They had both moved off the farm to town before he passed away. Remember it was the economic down-turn time of George Bush number one. Jobs were not jumping out of the woodwork at me so I put an add in the paper to cut lawns as it was spring in Wisconsin. Low and behold, when I got back from a trip to Texas to pick up some more belongings, Mom handed me a list of a bunch of people that called needed yard work.
I had brought most of my lawn equipment with me. I rented a shed on a hill on the edge of town and set up temporary shop - at least until something else came along work-wise. I remember what a nice feeling it was to sit in a lawn chair on my hill in the evening by my shop and look out at the Wisconsin landscape I had not experienced in eight years. All the sensations of my childhood returned - the warm Wisconsin nights; the extraordinary green panorama; the farms; the lake houses; and, the smell of fresh cut alfalfa. After dying in Texas, I felt like I was in some kind of retro-heaven back home again.
Wisconsin military service person of the week
Private First Class Rachel K. Bosveld, 19, Waupun, was killed Sunday, October 26, 2003, in a mortar attack on the Abu Ghraib Police Station in Baghdad, Iraq. Rachel was in the Army's 527th Military Police, V Corps. She arrived in Iraq in March of 2003. She went to boot camp at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, right after graduating from Waupun High School in 2002. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said she had hoped to at some point go to college with an interest in law enforcement. Rachel is survived by her mother, Mary Bosveld of Oshkosh; father Marvin Bosveld; an older brother Craig Bosveld; stepbrother Aaron Krebs; and, stepsister Jamie Krebs. The Journal Sentinel went on to mention Rachel was the state's first female soldier to die since Sgt. Cheryl LaBeau-O'Brien, of Caledonia, was killed in a helicopter during the 1991 Gulf War. Private First Class Rachel Bosveld was the fifth Wisconsin military service person to die in Iraq since the spring of 2003.
As of this blog entry's posting date:
84,099 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
8,301 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
4,085 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
505 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
312 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
306 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
30,143 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1,992 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
90 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; iraqbodycount.org; and, icasualties.org.
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