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The Lost Job of Bob - Food tent at the annual fest - a one day affair
This entry was posted on 7/24/2008 3:04 AM and is filed under Jobs of Bob.
All the fairs and fests going on this summer 2008 got me to thinking. I forgot about a job that should have been tucked in between the Twelfth Job of Bob - Bowling Alley and the Thirteenth Job of Bob - School Bus Redux. I will dub it "The lost job of Bob." It has the honor of being my only one-day job. Ol' Murry (wounded in Cambodia), one of the disc jockeys at the disco in the bowling alley basement asked me if I would help him and a partner of his out at a local fest. It was 1980 - the fest was a typical small-town-event fest. The partner owned a café in Walworth County - now long gone. He and Murry operated a food tent at the fest. I needed the cash and our bar opened in the evening so I reluctantly accepted the invitation. What was I thinking? I did not ask what I would be paid.
I arrived at 5:30 a.m. to help set up the rickety and cumbersome wood booth and tent. I remember pulling tools out of my own pickup truck tool box. I remember the grounds not be very well kept as the grass was knee high and the ground was rough as if a plowed field never planted. I remember some teenage girl being there that was suppose to help - Murry's partner tended to his kitchen wares.
I remember finally getting the booth and tent up. My teenage helper giggled during most of the prep setup. I remember tending to the garbage cans, condiments, supplies, tables, chairs, and other duties as assigned. Murry of course, showed up around 1:00 p.m. I believe they had pork chops and chicken on the menu. Later that evening I remember Murry and said partner trying to figure out how much to pay me after 14 hours on the job. The parter reluctantly handed me a 20 dollar bill. That worked out to around $1.40 per hour - poor even by 1980 wage standards.
I don't know who helped them pull down the booth and equipment a couple days later - my calender was unexpectedly full. One odd memory was of them all pondering for quite a while in the afternoon and alleging some one had walked by the night before we set up and shot a hole in Murrys partner's van radiator. At the time I remember not giving it much thought as while they fused over the van, I was stuck with all the work. Later that night after they had paid me and I took my leave of them, it dawned on me that the perp was probably some poor sap they had got to help them from the previous year or some other sucker they had hoodwinked somewhere along the way. Welcome to the manual labor, blue-collar, make-up-the-rules-as-you-go-along, murky, eerie, quasi-carny, small town world of "local fests" from the last century.
Wisconsin military service person of the week
Army Ranger Specialist Robert J. Cook, 24. He was killed in an explosion at a weapons cache west of Ghazni, Afghanistan, near the village of Dege Hendu, about 90 miles southwest of the capital, Kabul on Thursday, January 29, 2004. Specialist Cook was sent to Afghanistan in August of 2003. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said Robert graduated from Sun Prairie High School in 1997. Cook played football and was a defensive tackle when the team went to the state championship in 1995 and won the state football championship for Sun Prairie. After high school Robert spent three years working in construction and carpentry. Cook joined the Army in 2000. His first duty station was in New York. At the time of his death, Cook was assigned to Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division. Robert is survived by his mother Sandra Selheim and a sister. Specialist Robert J. Cook was Wisconsin's first soldier to die in the Afghanistan War.
As of this blog entry's posting date:
86,120 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
8,461 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
4,125 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
554 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
314 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
332 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
30,409 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
2,205 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
90 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
11 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
129 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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