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Thoughtful tips thoughtlessly ignored - Fate Fairies - book version
This entry was posted on 11/15/2011 1:45 AM and is filed under Fate Fairies:Fate Fairies - book version.
I had only been out of the Army a week or so. I arrived home around the first week in November. The corn was being picked. The weather was getting cold. The fall leaves were well on their way to covering the ground. But, one day, I remember walking down the sidewalk in downtown Whitewater with only a sweatshirt and jeans. It was a cloudy but nice November day.
Along came an old classmate named Carl. He was a personable fellow who had been a year behind me in school. His father ran a funeral home in town. Ol' Carl picked up his calm demeanor no-doubt from always being around grieving families. You never know what someone else has just experienced and flippant comments could be taken wrong. It would take me another 20 years to pick up on this life's nuance.
None-the-less, there was Ol' Carl before me on the sidewalk.
"Bob, your home. I hope you are ok," Carl said and he had that perennial likable smile on his face.
I just smiled, and mumbled something probably like, "How ya doing man?"
Years later I would ponder Carl's response as both civic and thoughtful. Here he was confronted with a Veteran. It was incumbent on him he must have figured, to offer some help on my return. This was rare after 'Nam. Years later during Iraq and Afghanistan this culture would be resurrected on a national scale. But in that era when Carl breached the collective norm of fashionably hating the military, and offered a tip, I was of course, completely aloof.
"I know old Johnson outside of town needs a couple guys to help with his big corn operation," Carl said with a pleasant smile. "You are just what he needs. Doing anything yet since you been home? Ol' Johnson keeps asking my dad if he knows anyone because Dad knows everyone in the region."
I am not sure what my total mindset was that moment, but I am guessing a dash of pride set in.
"Oh, yeah Carl, I got a couple gigs going on, but thanks anyway," I lied.
Carl smiled, turned and headed on his way. After a few steps he turned and said, "Think about it Bob, I mean it, he'd love to have a guy like you."
I took the few steps up the sidewalk; just enough steps necessary to enter the Woodshed Tavern.
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Not too long after my encounter with Carl, the Wisconsin snow began to fly. One cold day a neighbor came to call on my dad. Dad was on the Township Board. The neighbor was a guy with the first name of Glenn and he lived on a farm down a mile driveway. There was a lot of farms like that in Lima Township - too many to count.
Mr. Glenn, I will call him, did not farm anymore, but the buildings were all still there. I remember riding the school bus down the long driveway to pick up his kids - a couple of which were my classmates. Mr. Glenn now worked in construction for the State of Wisconsin. Back in the 1970s, the State was in its heyday of building and expanding just about every thing it managed. The economy was in a shambles but the State was a coveted safe haven for work.
It did not dawn on me until much later that Mr. Glenn did not want to see my dad at all. Mr. Glenn, I have a hunch had made up an issue to actually hunt me down via my dad.
Dad hollered up to my room and said, "Mr. Glenn wants a word with you." I remember thinking how odd, I had never talked to the man in my life.
There on the snowy steps, in fur-collared parka, winter boots, and wool cap, stood Mr. Glenn.
"Stop by the office at Old World Wisconsin, and ask for me. We are refurbishing many of the old buildings there," he said and in his farmer way, turned and trudged down the snowy sidewalk to his pickup truck.
I returned to my warm room complete with, television, stereo with head phones, and mini-refrigerator..., stocked with beer.
A few years later I was driving school bus - a thankless and poorly paid job - and I had taken a group of grade school kids to Old World Wisconsin. It is a complex just east of Whitewater that is a museum of sorts with old authentic buildings from by-gone eras. There, working on a Norwegian grass-and-reed-roofed house was Ol' Mr. Glenn and his crew. There was about a dozen of them; they looked content in their task, and they looked well taken care of.
I crawled back up into my bus driver's seat and had a good reflective moment with my pea brain.
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Just before the Christmas holiday break at the college and only a few weeks after my return from the Army, I was of course..., in one of a couple dozen taverns in Whitewater. It was Thursday night - the big college drinking night as most students that lived on campus traveled back to their homes on Friday afternoon after class.
In one such college ginmill a hand suddenly grabbed my shoulder.
"Bob, I am so glad to find you," said a classmate named Dean.
He was a thin kid and back in high school, I had demolished him in an intramural wrestling tournament. But now Dean was in college in town, had joined ROTC, and had become a Lieutenant in the local National Guard unit.
"Bob, I need a Sergeant that has actually been in the military and been overseas. My guys are all college guys and dumber than shit. Stop by the office and I will have you reactivated and promoted faster than flies on shit," Dean said and patted me on the shoulder.
I was taken aback for a second. Wrong timing, wrong place; I was looking at college girls. That night, it was a putpourri of tight butts and perky breasts. I had already drank my share of domestic beverage - and it went down like water after drinking German beer for three years.
From somewhere came the diatribe. I did not even bother to say, "Hi, good to see you again, Dean."
But I did tell Dean to stick his promotion and his goddamned Army up his skinny ass. The friend I had come with stepped between us and said, "God damn it Bob, what the fuck is wrong with you?"
Although only twenty, Lieutenant Dean had apparently picked up some psychology and people skills along the way.
"That's alright Chuck, Bob just needs to get resettled back home. You be sure and call me after you get to feeling comfortable," Lieutenant Dean said. Then he smiled a cautious smile.
"Fuck the mother fuck'n Army," I said.
It was the last time I ever saw Dean.
Note: This blog "Fate Fairies" - book version Category is a work in progress. The original vignettes are being edited for book form. Go to the Cooldadiomedia Web site and the Fate Fairies Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).
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