Our move back to Wisconsin started in the Spring of 1992. I moved first and Heide still kept her job in Texas and would come back up to Wisconsin a bit later. By August of 1992, it became clear cutting grass to hold me over was truly just a temporary task in a place like Wisconsin with such short summers. I had been spending my spare time snooping around businesses to see if they might be worth applying at. Madison was where I was focusing on because Heide left instructions that a larger city might be a better place for us to start out in. It is also the center of government and academia in the state.
One day I walked into the consummate farm retail store up in Madison. They have around 40 stores in the Midwest. I inquired at the service desk for an application. The girl on duty summoned the assistant manager, he listened to my story, sized me up, and asked rather matter-of-factly if I could start full-time the next day. I was taken aback a bit but later realized it was the beginning of the 1990s and a return to better times. Later on in the decade you could quit a job in the morning and have another retail or pizza-flipping job by noon.
The farm store place summoned some nostalgic memories for me. My dad had been a customer of their flagship store in Janesville in years past. Like any local business there were some nuances and quirks. They had a breakroom as big as, or small as, my bedroom - a room that needed to accommodate a couple hundred employees. One day shortly after I started to work there, I sat in the packed little room at break-time. A man came in, he must have been in his forties. His eyes bugged out, his hair was disheveled, and his face was red with anxiety. The conversation in the room slowed. The bug-eyed man looked around like a lunatic and then planted his gaze on me.
"What the hell is your story?" said Bug-eyes.
"I am stocking oil today," I said invoking some Stanley Milgram-esque response. Now however, I was curious as to who cared, and besides, I stocked oil everyday - it was my job.
"We need auto parts moved down from the warehouse, damn it," said Bug-eyes. "What the hell do we need to beat oil to death for?" he continued. Then as quickly as he came in, he vanished.
"Who the hell was that?" I asked the girl sitting next to me at the crowed table as she peeled her orange. She did not even have enough room to move her shoulders to negotiate the orange.
"Oh, don't pay any attention to him," she said with a hint of a person who had just seen a specter. Then she looked up from her orange at me and said..., "He's just the store manager."
Over the three years I worked there, I moved around to several of the more male oriented departments - oil and batteries; then to auto parts; then to the auto service desk; and finally, to the auto repair shop as a mechanic.
One of the most interesting and real characters in the auto shop was an African American guy named Fraido. He had a shaved head, bowling ball size biceps, a friendly demeanor, and..., Tourette's. The crazy policy of the shop at the time let customers roam around while the cars were being fixed. One day a man stormed up to Fraido and demanded to know why his mini van was not ready. If nerved up, Fraido's Tourette's kicked in. It also kicked in with the loud noises of the shop. Fraido tried to zip a lug nut on the raised car as he looked to the side at the Yuppie-esque customer. The lug nut flew off into the shop as the pneumatic gun spun it at two hundred miles per hour. Fraido grabbed another lug nut. But Tourette's stopped him in his tracks. He began making air gun noises with his lips - "vvvvippp, vrrrrippp." The customer paused and looked closer at the veins in Fraido's head and those biceps a' bulging. Poor Fraido could now not stop making the "vvvippp" sound. He might as well have tried to hold his breath to try to kill himself - something scientists say is impossible.
"Fuck it," the Yuppie cautiously said as he backed away. "I will come back for the car later this afternoon - maybe tomorrow if need be - take your time dude!"
My auto shop days were an era where I noticed my waist line was perennially larger than it was in high school. A customer came into the shop about my age with a Coast Guard emblem on his truck. It said, "Retired from the Guard." I had looked into going into the Coast Guard after my Army tour. It dawned on me then that I would have had 20 years in "The Service" as well if I had stayed on a military course in life.
I had already been approached about, asked about, considered for, and pondered the pros and cons of the shop manager's job. That job that had remained unfilled for over a year. No one was crazy enough to take it.
Fraido and his shaved head, bowling ball size biceps, friendly demeanor, and...Tourette's, liked the ladies. But for all the macho attributes bequeathed to Fraido by the good lord and nature, the one thing he did not have and that was essential in the modern world of ladies..., was a..., car.
The damn shop stayed open late so the assistant shop manager was often already gone home at closing time. Therefore, one of us guys had to keep an eye on things. It quickly became evident one did not have to work out there in the shop long to garner some seniority. Be careful what you wish for. The task usually fell on..., me.
Each night the cars already repaired and not yet picked up, and the cars to be repaired the next morning were parked in the area next to the shop. Their keys hung patiently on a pegboard over night in the shop office. At some point I began to notice Fraido would often slip into that office momentarily before we locked up.
One night I was in the office finishing up some task; in pops Fraido. Not willing to wait for me to leave first, in a brazen performance, he shrugged at me and looked at the keyboard and said, "Corsica, too utilitarian. Mini-van, too White-boy. Ahh..., Cadillac, I got a special date tonight."
He snatched the key ring off the board and was gone. The next day, a fellow came in the shop and was chatting with the assistant shop manager. "Wow," the man said. "It sure is easy to lose track of my miles these days. I usually keep good track of my mileage on this Caddy. But it seems like there is an extra 600 miles on it."
"It adds up fast don't it?" our rube assistant manager said.
Later that night I passed by Fraido while he was zipping some lug nuts on a wheel.
"What the fuck did you do, drive to St. Louis?" I said wryly.
"I love jazz and the blues," said Fraido with a pleased smile. Then the Tourette's kicked in and he went, "Whoop-Wup...b-b-b-b-bu-bu-bu-bluuue Caddy."
I smirked and asked, "What the fuck would you do if you broke down?"
He paused a second, smiled and said, "I got the Triple A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-A, b-b-b-baby!"
The Bug-eyes had asked me if I might be interested in being the shop manager. A clue to the empty position might have started with the perennial assistant manager rube that was not even dumb enough to take the head manager job. The Bug cornered me in the tire recycle trailer one day and interrogated me as to my declining the role of shop manager.
"Alright damn it, why the fuck don't you want the job, Bob?" the Bug-eyes asked as he glowered at me trapped in the semi-trailer amongst all the worn out tires.
"Going back to college," I embellished.
I went back to school alright. I did not however actually decline that job because I was going back to school. I declined that job because I wanted nothing to do with the culture of the many Fraidos that lurked in that blue-collar world - that insane work strata I had weaved in and out of for so very long and came to hate.
I did however, go back to college to try and escape a blue-collar world of never ending underpaid jobs; eccentric co-workers; neurotic customers; broken backs; ruined lives; constant debt; psychotic bosses; broken spirits, and...
...., lost dignity.
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 National Guard Sergeant Earl Delmer Werner, 38, Mondovi, Wisconsin, died on Friday, August 28, 2009, in Rashid Iraq. He was one of two soldiers killed when insurgents attacked their vehicle with an explosively formed penetrator, or EFP, an armor-piercing explosive that turns into a projectile when detonated. Sergeant Werner was attached to Company B, 41st Special Troops Battalion, 41st Infantry Brigade Combat Team, with the Oregon Army National Guard out of the Portland area. Werner was driving a vehicle in a convoy security mission in eastern Baghdad. Private Taylor D. Marks was also killed in the attack.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said Sergeant Werner had ties to Wisconsin. At the time of his death, Werner was living in Amboy, Washington. The military still listed Mondovi, Wisconsin as Werner's home of record. Mondovi is in Buffalo County in western Wisconsin, about 25 miles southwest of Eau Claire. Sergeant Werner was on his third deployment with the Oregon National Guard. His first deployment was part of the 2nd Battalion, 162nd Infantry in 2004. Later he deployed with the 234th Engineer Company in 2007. On a previous tour of duty in Iraq, Werner was awarded the Bronze Star for his service. And, during his Guard service he received two Army Commendation Medals and the Combat Action Badge.
The Web site militarytimes.com using information from the Associated Press notes that Earl Werner was an animal lover who raised horses and enjoyed fishing. The site indicates Werner was an Idaho native.
An obituary posted on the Web site obits.columbian.com says Earl D. Werner was born on November 9, 1970, in New Plymouth, Idaho. He attended school in New Plymouth and moved to La Center, Washington, and then later to Amboy. He married his wife Casey in May of 2007. He was a truck driver and a heavy equipment operator by trade and worked for Red's Rock in Battleground, Washington, for the two years prior to his death. Werner had two years of prior Army Service before enlisting in the Oregon Army National Guard in September of 2001. The columbian.com Web site went on to note, "Earl had many hobbies: fishing, hunting, horses, riding his Harley as well as four-wheeling, driving his jeep, and, cooking and barbecuing. He loved animals and spending time with his family and friends....He will always be remembered as a gentleman, a family provider and a wonderful, caring person. "
The Web site theoutlookonline.com notes that members of the Oregon National Guard’s 41st Infantry Brigade, known as the Sunset Division, headquartered in Tigard, Oregon (just south of Portland) deployed to Iraq in mid summer 2009 for 10 months to provide convoy security and support services. The 2,700 members of the brigade were part of the largest deployment of Oregon troops since World War II.
At the time of his death he was a resident of Amboy, Washington, and was survived by his wife, Casey; son Justin; sister Barbara Pierce, and, father-in-law Duane Royer. Sergeant Earl Werner was laid to rest at Willamette National Cemetery near Portland, Oregon.
A year after Earl Werner's death, the Web site katu.com published a story regarding the struggles his wife Casey was having on one income, trying to keep the home she and Earl had build several years before his death. At the time of the article, area Oregonian Congressman Brian Baird's office said it was looking into Casey's loan modification problems on her behalf.
Army National Guard Sergeant Earl D. Werner is the 105th military service person that has been identified by Cool Dadio Media as having Wisconsin connections and that died in Iraq since the Spring of 2003.
As of this blog entry's posting date:
104,568 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.
4,487 Americans have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
1865 Americans have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
318 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
992 Coalition soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
1 American/Coalition casualty in Libyan "Operation Odyssey Dawn" since March, 2011.
32,226 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
592 Wisconsin military service persons have been wounded in Iraq since Spring 2003.
15,183 U.S. troops have been wounded in action in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
192 Wisconsin military service persons have been wounded in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
107 Wisconsin military service persons have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
36 Wisconsin military service persons have been killed in Afghanistan since October, 2001.
3 Wisconsin military service persons have been killed in the U.S. related to "The War on Terror" since September, 2001.
151 journalists (several nationalities) have been killed in Iraq since Spring, 2003.
22 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 .
