I never met my grandfather - my dad's father - he died in the mid-1930s while my own dad was still in high school. Grandmother died during World War II while Dad was in the Army in Africa. Dad always indicated the family had weathered the Great Depression better than most. Farmers could produce their own food and sell any extra. It still must have been hard. It also must have been hard to lose your dad while still a teenager. Dad made it through high school as did his older brother Art and two sisters Marion and Helen. That was quite an accomplishment in those days. Dad was the third child. Ol' Uncle Art was the oldest and was said to have taken the role of head of the household. It speaks perhaps as to why Dad took care of Art and all his eccentricities until they finally carted him off to the nursing home in the 1980s.
Art lived alone in that little trailer next to the tool shed on the farm - no wife, no girl friend, no cat, no dog. Just the radio and tv occasionally blasting from behind the curtain-drawn window. He died at almost 90 years old. Damn! That's a long time to spend as an introvert working seven days a week on "the farm."
I never got much information out of dad about how Grandfather Burton Keith even ended up on a farm. Grandmother was a MacArthur and said to be related to General Douglas MacArthur, she like the good general both being in the MacArthur clan from Wisconsin. Grandfather somehow ended up with our farm in 1913. His bunch had come from a big farm family east of Janesville out Walworth County way. He moved on and ended up in Lima Center in Rock County at the farm both Dad and I grew up on. Grandfather Burton's dad my great grandfather had been in the Civil War out Ohio way and ended up on that east-of-Janesville spead. But I digress. Perhaps the east-of-Janesville connection is how Burton met Grandma - there was a MacArthur's Mink Farm out that way even until just recently until the fur industry took an economic politically incorrect beating in America.
Dad was born in the house on our farm - births were done at home then in 1918 - and it was the same homestead I spent my first 18 years, and it was a tough plot to till. Grandpa must of got it for a song. The 160 acres was full of limestone and swamp ground. Otter creek split the farm in two. The famous Lima Marsh spills into the east end of the estate in the shadows of several Hickory tree groves. The arable land (useable) must have only numbered just under 100 acres.
Long story short - by the time I was in high school, Dad had had enough of stuck farm equipment mired in swamp muck and broken axels from plowing limestone slopes. Somehow Dad talked Uncle Art into shedding some of his tucked-away thousands of Bucks, to front the purchase of a small bulldozer.
I remember when it arrived. It was the dark yellow and orange of the Case tractor company. It had no muffler, just a pipe coming out of the hood. It had metal tank tracks, not like the sleek rubber ones used these days. Just like the big machines the road builders used, it had no steering wheel, just the two levers that you pulled to make it turn. It was just the kind of mechanical beast a 14 year old boy who loved loud machines could bond with.
I remember even when new, the damn thing never ran smooth. In fact a hammer had to be always handy in the tool box to beat the carburetor with when the sputtering started. But, if a task required "The Cat," I volunteered.
In the wet fall, "The Cat" pulled the Case diesel tractor with corn chopper and heavy self-unloading wagon in tow. It was silo-filling time. The heavy green corn needed to be chopped and put up in the silos. The marsh was often wet in the fall and the crop had to be harvested in a short time window - wet ground or not.
The Cat had a hundred other assignments. It was the one tractor my dad did not seem to mind torturing. Normally, he nursed his other tractors along like a coach getting one last year out of a favored athlete. Most of Dad's equipment pre-dated my birth.
One spring, it must have been 1970, Dad commission me to drag down the plowed ground to the northwest side of the property just to the north of the creek. The huge maple trees lined the road to the west property line. In the spring that 60-acre plot was subject to be either muddy at best or under a foot of water at worst. It was spring break. For what seemed like a solid week and a weekend, I drove the Cat over that rough plowed ground pulling a disk and then a drag - back and forth until the earth was like powder. They did not have soil saver machines in those days - my era was just a couple decades after house-drawn plows. My Cat was part of the post horse drawn era.
It was a pleasant spring week, unseasonably warm and sunny. My dog Sandy obediently followed the redundant cris-crossing of the fields by the machines, every so often jumping in the creek. There was no roof or cab on The Cat. I was totally exposed to the wind and sun of the early pleasant weather as I sat shirtless atop the machine. The engine of the machine screamed as it pulled the equipment over the clumps of dirt for hours at a time. I sat for hours and rounded the fields pontificating the world - and the cute chicks in my upcoming Freshman class.
As the job finally came to an end, it was clear I had injured myself in the sun. My shoulders were burned as if someone had pointed a cutting torch at me. Nowadays, I would be carted off to the emergency room. Back then, Mom just offered some type of salve.
I remember how painful it was to wear my football shoulder pads even the following fall. To this day, there is a slight scaring on my shoulders. Back then I did not even bat an eye. I was on "The Cat." thinking about chicks, safe from the cruel world of Viet Nam and adults. I was contributing to the farm cause, working as just a teenager, even harder than some adults. I had a sense the experience was somehow important. Sandy the dog always just a beckoning call away.
Great times.
Note: This blog "Jobs of Bob" Category does not list the jobs chronologically - I write about the experiences as they pop up in my memory and I often revisit an older job. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Jobs of Bob Page for an ordered chronology.
Wisconsin Military Service Person Special Mention of the Week
(each week Cooldadiomedia mentions a Wisconsin service person killed in Iraq or Afghanistan)
Marine Reserve Corporal Richard Joseph Nelson, 23, of Kenosha, Wisconsin, died on Monday, April 14, 2008 in Al Anbar province, Iraq. He was killed during combat operations. Nelson was assigned to Company F, 2nd Battalion, 24th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division, Marine Forces Reserves out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He was one of two Marines killed during combat operations in Habbaniya, Iraq. The Website journaltimes.com noted Nelson was killed by a roadside bomb attack. They also mentioned Richard was formally from Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, and was known as "Ricky." As a unit, Fox Company was on its second tour to Iraq. Nelson had attended Kenosha's Christian Life School. He enlisted in the U.S. Marine Reserves in 2004. Corporal Nelson was on his second deployment to Iraq, spending several months there in 2005. This time around he arrived in January of 2008. He would have come back to the States in approximately September of 2008. Nelson was married in April of 2007 to his wife Kristen. The journaltimes.com went on to mention Nelson was a vehicle driver in his Marine unit.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said Nelson graduated from Christian Life School in Kenosha in 2004. He played percussion in the school band. The school is also where he met his future wife and the two were due to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. The Journal Sentinel noted that Nelson was a mortar man during his first tour in Iraq and was a driver on the current assignment there. They went on to say Richard was born on September 4, 1984, in Kenosha. He had five brothers and a sister. His interests included hunting and fishing. In civilian life he did remodeling work, and worked as a carpenter for Cornerstone Construction in Kenosha.
The Website iraq.pigsty.net mentioned Richard intended to go back to college and become an elementary school teacher after his Marine commitment.
The Website marinechat.com notes Corporal Nelson was friends with fellow Marine Lance Corporal Dean Opicka who was also killed in the incident. Nelson's father had served in the Army during Vietnam. The Website went on to mention Nelson and his wife had their wedding at her parent's backyard in April, 2007, his brother Dave, a pastor, presided over the ceremony.
At the time of his death Corporal Richard Nelson was survived by his wife Kristen; parents Lennie and Susan Nelson; five brothers, Scott, Dave, Todd, Mark, James; and, one sister, Katie. Marine Corporal Richard Nelson was the 89th Wisconsin military service person to die in Iraq since the spring of 2003.
As of this blog entry's posting date:
0 American casualties to-date in Libyan "Operation Odyssey Dawn" since March 2011
100,029 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
9,830 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
4,442 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1505 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
318 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
864 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
32,051 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
10,622 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
104 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
28 Wisconsin soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
146 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
21 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
Wisconsin military service person special mention 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; www.defense.gov/news/casualty.pdf; and, icasualties.org.
