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Eighteenth Job of Bob - The all-mighty "State," Part V - Abandoned bikes, Clinton takes over, no heat in the '67, cold isthmus, warm duplex
This entry was posted on 9/11/2008 6:30 PM and is filed under Jobs of Bob.
I had started working nights at the University of Wisconsin - Madison in November so it was cold. Ninety-eight percent of my tasks were indoors however. The building - Hell-and-see-white - was always warm. Occasionally my janitorial crew was summoned to shovel snow. It was those episodes I began to notice the abandoned bicycles in the many bike-racks. The same bikes sat chained to the racks in the snow week after week - parts missing. These were expensive bikes. I never have figured out why people would just up and leave their nice bike on campus - even if it was an abrupt exit from college. The amazing thing was I began to realize people were doing the same thing with scooters - yikes.
In the city that is a paradox of both anal do-gooders and good ol' drunks, I looked up from my snow shovel while cleaning the walk in front of Hell-and-see-white one night to see an old 1970s Buick spin around the icy corner and side swipe a half a dozen parked cars. The drunk stopped momentarily, threw a bottle of booze out the window and then chugged on down the street - bumper chrome hanging.
On election day in November 1992 a co-worker came past my work area and said, "We have a new President." We did indeed, a guy named Bill Clinton, virtually unheard of just a year back.
It was getting colder and colder out as the winter dragged on - it was our first winter out of the South in over a decade. The heater in my 1967 Ford pickup truck was on the blink. I had bought the truck in Texas so never worried much about needing heat. I bought a heater coil from the radiator shop down from our duplex and drove to Janesville in the freezing air so I could install it in my mom's garage. Looking back now I am desperately trying to figure out why I did not drive one of my other old landscape trucks. I know the 1986 truck got very poor mileage and at the time I had a camper on the back of it. And my dad's old 1983 was in need of an engine overhaul. Not long after we moved back to Wisconsin I had the engine in the '67 rebuilt so I know it was at least usable at the time.
Regardless, I will always associate my brief employ at the State with freezing to death while I commuted the 10 miles from my outskirts location into the inner city of Madison to the University. Often, while on my way in to work late at night I would encounter the cascading snow plows as they plowed out the multi-lane Beltline by putting five big snow plow trucks in a cascade formation to knock back the snow drifts. It was quite a sight - lights a blazing, snow a flying. At the University, the parking lots were always brutal as the icy wind blew off the lakes into the isthmus that is Madison and its flagship campus. The "Hell-and-see-white" library building sat right on the shore of Lake Mendota. Singer Otis Redding's plane crashed in sister Lake Monona across the isthmus on an icy December 1967 day. I was always glad to get back to our little duplex with the warm wood floors,tiny kitchen, and pile of warm cats on the sofa and bed.
Wisconsin military service person of the week
Army Staff Sergent Charles Kiser, 37 died when a car bomb went off near his convoy in Mosul, Iraq, on Thursday, June 24, 2004. Kiser was with the 330th Military Police Detachment, an Army Reserve unit out of Sheboygan, Wisconsin. Charles was originally from the Cincinnati, Ohio area but was living in Cleveland, Wisconsin. He had been in Iraq since January of 2004. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel mentioned Charles had also spent duty time in the Navy. The Journal Sentinel also noted Kiser was remembered in Ohio as a champion high school sprinter. Sergent Kiser is survived by his wife, a son, a daughter, five sisters, and his mom. Staff Sergent Kiser was the 19th Wisconsin military service person to die in Iraq.
As of this blog entry's posting date:
86,661 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
8,530 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
4,147 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
576 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
314 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
360 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
30,561 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
2,379 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
91 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
11 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
130 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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