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A "Job of Bob" that never happened - Date with fate post 50 - A run for County Board - "The people" decided otherwise....thank your gods I lost
This entry was posted on 8/25/2011 1:30 AM and is filed under Jobs of Bob, Rock County Board Candidacy, Fate Fairies.
I have touched on jobs that never happened before in this book - like the strange case of "loading beer." But that job that never happened required no preparation. When I ran for County Board, that potential job cost me some preparation. I had to get 50 signatures from people in my county precinct. Not a huge task...., except that you must get them in the month of December. In December of 2007 it maintained about five below zero with constant excess snow storms almost every day. It was a miserable experience. I got 20 extra signatures just to be sure.
Some people said, "If you want the job this bad, you've got my signature." Then they looked at me like I was a fool.
Also, for a year prior to the election I sat in on monthly County Board meetings. I got to know a couple of Board members and some of the County government players.
Unlike our working-for-free City Council, the County Board members actually get a stipend for their service. And by 2007, as I have written many time, our economy was already in the dumper. Aside from my altruistic aims, I needed a damn extra job.
There was a pending conflict for me in my quest to run for public office. I would be going to Iraq for two months just before the election. As it turn out I made it back just a week before voting day in April. So, I had no chance to campaign. Not that County Board candidates actually campaign too much anyway. There were a couple of survey forms I was asked to fill out. One for the local paper and one for the local auto workers union - the General Motors plant was still open then.
I declined the surveys because the questions were multiple choice and the answer choices were lame and in the caliber of sixth grade intelligence level.
While I was in Iraq, Heide did a video for the League of Women Voters who were doing a collage of videos with local candidates giving their shticks.
I ended up losing only by a few votes, even though I did virtually no campaigning. Some rube won who was a Democrat union lackey for the district State Assembly person of our area. The Assembly person was actually the Speaker of the Wisconsin Assembly and another Democrat union hack. As it turned out, a couple years later, said Assembly person lost his seat mostly due to President Obama and Governor Doyle's poor economy...., and the fact said Assembly person was allegedly slipping the love monkey to a pay-day loan lobbyist lady. It did not help that Assembly dude was a dick, but I digress. And said Assembly dude was deep into the pay-day loan legislation. But I digress again. What goes around comes around.
The story gets better; another County Board seat was won by said Assembly person's secretary. When Assembly dude was de-throned by the "many people," secretary chick gave up her County Board seat. No fun any more apparently. The Board selected the original poor guy who had lost his County Board seat to secretary chick to replace said chick. He had been the victim of big time partisan politics - even worse than me. Poetically, after Assembly dude and his secretary left a devastating trail of political destruction and blew the political scene, original poor guy got his Board seat back.
Non-partisan candidates are elected in the spring in Wisconsin and are supposedly to leave their allegiances to political parties at home. But we all know that does not happen. Point-in-case...., the union lackey that won the election over me; and, secretary chick that worked for Assembly dude.
By the by, no one seems to know what happened to pay-day-loan lobbyist lady. For the record Assembly dude's union lackey is still in the Board seat I ran for and lost.
I bring all this up because it speaks to politics. It is of course why so many people want nothing to do with holding political office - even local office.
I toyed with running for office again two years later. I even picked up the paper work. But in the end, I thought better.
There are other reasons besides sleazy shenanigans that I did not want the job. One reason is that I have lived a tough blue-collar life and have a bit of baggage that often comes with 45 years of tough working life. And I am not up to continually apologizing to the "many people" for being permanently...., "unapologetic" about my life.
One of the main reasons however, that I lost interest in running for public office was that I did not want to compromise my writing activity by self-censoring my work in order to not offend the good citizens I would be serving. My stuff is posted world wide of course...., and all in my own name.
I eventually came to the same conclusion as Ol' Billy Shakespear did....,
"The pen is far more powerful than the sword."
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.
Note: This blog "Fate Fairies" Category does not list the brushes with fate chronologically - I write about the experiences as they pop up in my memory and I often revisit an older event. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Fate Fairies 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)
Army Reserve Corporal Justin David Ross, 22, Green Bay, Wisconsin, died Saturday, March 26, 2011, in Sablughay, Kandahar province, Afghanistan. He was killed when his unit was attacked by small arms fire. He was assigned to the 428th Engineer Company, 863rd Engineer Battalion, 372nd Engineer Brigade, out of Wausau, Wisconsin.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said that Justin graduated from Bay Port High School in 2007. He was the son of a Green Bay pastor. Ross' Reserve Unit was deployed in August of 2010.
The Web site for WLUK-TV station channel 11 says Ross actually lived in the Village of Howard, Wisconsin which is in the southern part of the Green Bay metropolitan area.
The Green Bay Press Gazette notes that Corporal Ross' Engineer unit specializes in "route clearance." Combat Engineers are often the first soldiers to enter an area to clear land mines and booby-traps before other units move in.
The Web site legacy.com notes Ross was a Green Bay native. He had joined Army Reserves in 2006, a year before graduating from high school. He graduated from Universal Technical Institute in 2009. Ross was posthumously promoted to corporal.
The Web site gorapidsobituaries.com mentions Justin was born on September 14, 1988, in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. At the time of his death Army Reserve Corporal Justin Ross was survived by his parents Reverend Ronald and Debbie Ross; brother and sister-in-law Nathaniel and Kristi Ross; brother Collin Ross; nephew Joshua Ross; paternal grandparents the Reverend Robert and Roberta Ross; maternal grandparents David and Ruth Freeberg; and girlfriend Caitlyn Lewerenz.
Army Reserve Corporal Justin D. Ross was laid to rest which full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery, in Arlington Virginia. Army Reserve Corporal Justin Ross is the 29th Wisconsin military service person killed in Afghanistan since October of 2001.
As of this blog entry's posting date:
102,174 Iraqi civilians have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003 (actually documented).
10,125 Iraqi Security Forces have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
4,478 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1745 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
318 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
939 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
1 American/Coalition casualty in Libyan "Operation Odyssey Dawn" since March, 2011.
32,172 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
592 Wisconsin Service persons have been wounded in Iraq since Spring 2003.
13,316 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
192 Wisconsin Service persons have been wounded in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
107 Wisconsin Service persons have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
34 Wisconsin Service persons have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
3 Wisconsin Service persons have been killed in the U.S. related to "The War on Terror" since September, 2001.
149 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
21 journalists (various nationalities) have been killed in Afghanistan since September, 2001.
5 journalists (regional and independents) have been killed in Libya since March, 2011.
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 .
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