Easter Everyday--redux

I am getting like Randal over in Cloveland. Lazy. I am still limping around town... the left leg feels like shit. Damp cramps and shin splints.
So I am reposting this. I still like it. It's still all true. a good weekend to everyone.

originally posted 8/8/2008


I have a copy of an old newspaper photograph from 1956 that shows a car wreck that occurred on Easter Sunday 1956 on a remote stretch of highway about two miles west to the intersection of highway 21 and 49.

The caption under the photo said that the wife of the driver of one of the three cars involved is still visible in the wreckage. It said that she was the mother of four children, ages seven, five, three and a baby ten months old who were also in the pictured Chevy station wagon.

A longer article explains that there was also a car with six sailors from the Great Lakes Naval Station and a third vehicle containing a young couple from nearby Berlin, WI and their four young children.

It was raining and the road was muddy and someone lost control, something happened and one car hit another and spun out and hit the station wagon head on. A local farm wife is quoted in the article as as saying that she and her husband heard the crash and went out, "picking up babies in the rain."

The nearest town, Berlin, is 15 miles away. The phones in 1956 were rotary dial and most rural phones shared 'party-line' connections. It took some time for the one ambulance in Berlin to arrive at the scene. The article said that most of the 17 injured that needed hospitalization were transported by private vehicles. It must have taken even longer, on an Easter Sunday afternoon, for the photographer of the local weekly newspaper to be located and for him to get to the site and take a photo of the woman in the Chevy station wagon who was presumed dead. There were breathing people to take care of first. There were babies in the rain.

I often wonder, when I look at that photo, how long she was in that car before someone realized that my mother was indeed alive and breathing.

I'm not sure how long my father was hospitalized but Mom did not leave the hospital until the following Thanksgiving. We were sent to live with various relatives and were not re-united as a family until about a year or so later. I know my father went back to his job in Marshfield on crutches with his wife in a hospital 85 miles away and his children scattered.

The thing of it is, it was never considered a big deal in my family. Really. I mean we knew the story and had heard the lore, but life just went on. My sister and brothers and I never thought of our parents as 'handicapped'........ they just walked 'funny'. They never complained. I know that there was no big buckeroo insurance settlement ....that all Mom's subsequent operations wiped out whatever money they had. But it wasn't a BIG DEAL. It just was what it was and we went on. They didn't TEACH us what family was...... they lived it. They got all four of us through college.... we never took vacations....we didn't do a lot of things. But they were always proud of us. That Dad had seven years where one of his sons was a starter on the football team.....that his daughter was the first in the family to graduate from college and become a TEACHER! Damn! He thought that that was the stuff!

They showed us that life was continuity, love, connection, determination, perseverance,lottsa love........ and even more...... humor.

Dad died nine years ago from complications during surgery to fix his leg. The operation precipitated a heart attack. The last time I saw him he was connected to tubes and machines &shit. Couldn't talk. He scribbled me a note that I should tell him a joke. I did. About a Rabbi and a Priest and a Minister. He liked those.

We are getting together tomorrow to celebrate the 85 birthday of the woman in the photo. Fifty some years of walking 'funny' has left her in a wheel chair. She still lives in her own home ( with a lot of assistance) and still does not complain. We get as many of the grandchildren and great grandchildren together as we can. We barbecue chicken and brats and burgers and corn...... and give her what she wants every year for her birthday................................

all of the 'Rain Babies' in one place.



We also chip in and buy her a six-pack. She thinks it's funny. Breaks her up

pain

Now.... there is that pain when the cute girl in 7th grade doesn't think you are cute. And there is the pain of being 6 and having your goldfish die. And the pain of hitting your thumb with a hammer. Limbaugh is a pain. Having your house smell like liver is a pain.......... breaking your nose is a pain......

.... but I went speed walking this morning ( no cartilage... no running ).... and it was pretty chilly. I ended up with two very painful charlie horses (horsies?) I have not felt this bad in a long time


.... and, to make matters worse..... I have an aversion to OTC pain-relievers. Huh.... to be truly honest.... I have an aversion to most drugs...... ( beer is not a drug.... donna letz nobody tell you different!)...& remember I said "most" drugs.

So.... I am trying to figure out.... is it 'heat' or 'ice'?

I'm guessing if I can limp down to Oblio's someone will have an answer. I mean.... I could go to the library and look it up..... but they still do not pour beer.

ok

i shall imagine life
is not worth dying, if
(and when)roses complain
their beauties are in vain

but though mankind persuades
itself that every weed's
a rose,roses(you feel
certain)will only smile

ee cummings

Warren Basketball

NCAA Big Dance. I've liked it for years. In the 70's we were all for Al Maguire and Marquette. In the past twenty years or so Wisconsin as been reasonably represented by UW-Green Bay, Marquette, the Badgers and even an appearance by UW-Milwaukee. Rooting for a home team is fun, the students are excited, the brackets are fun; it is a nice transition into spring.

There was one occassion a few years ago at the start of the tournament that was a little distressing and it is the one tournament I remember most.

I had gone down to the local Brew Pub, Fratellos, mostly to check out the news. It is a nice spot with a huge back bar and 5 huge big screen TVs. I went specifically because Bush was set to announce a military excursion into Afgahnistan. Now the NCAA tournament lasts for a few weeks. We are still at war. No end in sight. No winners. No trophies. But what I remember most, while waiting for Bush to spew stupid on the news.... was a small group of booze fueled fools behind me that were complaining loudly that the New War may pre-empt TV coverage of the basketball games, or even worse, cause them to be canceled. They were loud. Upset.

Today our government is at the cusp of passing a less than perfect health care bill. Most of America will be watching basketball games. What I hear most from folks opposed to the bill and the reform is, "We can't afford it."

Now I am not a math guy and I am not going to try to dig out statistics..... but my heart of heart tells me that if we were not killing folks in foreign lands and not sending kids there that should be playing basketball or cheering on their favorite teams... we could. Easily.

Well it is what it is and I am still not the smartest guy in my corner of the world.... but all I feel I can do at this point is keep voting... keep emailing and calling my congressmen....


....... and keep rooting for the home team.

Beer

And now for something refreshing. Over the past few months I have made the acquaintance of Lee from www.oshkoshbeer.blogspot.com. Lee takes his beer and beer history a bit more serious than I do. Yours truly having fallen into the 'appreciation' phase of beer more than research of history. Anyways...... I am too preoccupied these days to write anything of much coherence..... but Lee has a good alternative..... and while most of the posting is about beer and this neck of the woods..... they are all good reads. His latest post has a bit of history about my favorite bar, Oblio's, a bar since 1874. He even managed to post a pic of me posing with his lovely wife. Go check it out and say hello.

The Kid

My daughter leaves in a little more than 48 hours to study in Europe. It is a very unique program that will have her for two weeks each in some of the most stunning places in Europe; Rome, Paris, Berlin, Florence, London. She is also scheduling week sojourns to Edinburgh and Amsterdam.

She planned the Trip, paid for the Trip, researched the Trip...... in fact.... for twenty years now... she has BEEN THE TRIP!

I am very proud of the Kid. Just Saying.

A view from the bridge

There is a neat clean grace in the serendipity that a brisk fresh walk about town can infuse in one's soul and then there is the just plain dippity in stopping for a cold beer afterward. Rather a Zen-dippity-dat.

A good do-dat walk is down to a spot by the old railroad trestle bridge by the mouth of the river. It was built in 1703 by the native Winnebago in anticipation of the coming of the White Men. I guess they figured that the sooner they could get the White Men north across the river the sooner the could fleece them in the casinos up north.

Most ttimes the bridge is swung open to allow the boats to go through but it is a neat thing indeed to watch it close, what with all the bells and flashing lights and all, and see the train roar through carrying all those un-employment checks &stuff. I fear that some day the bridge will not close in time and despite all the safeguards and signals and warnings the train will run right on through and crash smack-dab into the river. The greater fear is that that very precise thing will occur and I will not be there to witness it. It is that fear that compels me to walk to the river; the chance that a random, cataclysmic event of unique and particular proportions will happen and I will miss it.

Anyways. It is a conveniently close walk to a nice pocket of downtown that doesn't cost a dime and there is a cozy grassy spot to view the boats, wave to the fisherman on the south shore and check out the pelicans. Yupperz. Pelicans. Big White Ones. Downtown. Wing span like a huge honking kite. I have no idea what they are doing here, how they arrived or where they came from. I think climate and habitat change has brought them here. It happens. Someone said that is why we have so many opossum's in town now, too, where just a few years ago they were rare. Climate change rather bothers me. But I have been told that there is nothing to be afraid of and I just have an irrational fear.

Now, see, the case can be made that fear is irrational in and of itself and the the bigger the fear, the more irrational it gets to be..... which brings me to my biggest fear of all..... Grizzly Bears that deliver Chinese food.

Yes... it could happen. I mean, we now have opossums and pelicans were the don't belong, rather like illegal aliens, so I don't think, irrational fear or not, that it could very well be that we could have a bunch of displace Grizzly Bears right here in Eastern Urban Downtown Wisconsin! Now this is where my big fear kicks in. Follow me on this.

First of all.... they are coming. The bears. I know it. And when the DO show up... why would they NOT deliver Chinese food? Absolutely they would! See, all recent immigrants to this town who have a poor command of the Good Lord's English deliver Chinese Food! All of them! The Albanians, the Swedes, the Canadians. I'm guessing there is a shortage of Albanian and Swedish and Canadian restaurants to work for ... that's why they do Chinese.

So here it is.... Grizzly Bears speak very poor English and the restaurants around here, while serving some ghastly food... is very short on Grizzly Food...so naturally they would be forced to deliver Chinese! And one day I could just answer my door and there we be this huge honking bear there and he would say, " Here you Lo Mein." If I did not tip enough... why, gosh, he would just rip my head off! Now that is something to be very afraid of!!!! It could happen..........Really.....

...... and Congress could pass a Bill of Comprehensive Health Care for all United States Citizens.

That could happen to.... I fear.

But in the mean time I'm gonna order pizza. They are only delivered by punk-rock-skate-boarders with facial piercings.

Zippitty-do-dat-dough.