Fifth Job of Bob - Army - Forgotten in an outpost of paradise; American soldiers in Europe? - Jobs of Bob - book version

3 May 2012

Fifth Job of Bob - Army - Forgotten in an outpost of paradise; American soldiers in Europe? - Jobs of Bob - book version

This entry was posted on 5/3/2012 1:30 AM and is filed under Jobs of Bob - book version.

    Years after I got out of the Army, somehow the phrase "Outposts of Paradise" appeared in my vernacular. I don't remember now where I came up with it; perhaps, there was some inspiration by the famous line in the movie, A Few Good Men (1992), when the character under scrutiny in court blurted out, "You can't handle the truth."  That now infamous line was blurted out by Colonel Nathan Jessep (played by Jack Nicholson).  It was in regards to the rigors military service members must endure in the damnedest places and what they really do to survive.  In Jessep's case, being party to the death of one of his Marines.  The incident in question in the movie took place in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba where the United States has maintained a Naval Base for over 100 years - much to the chagrin of a less than friendly Cuban government. 

    I have told the story often enough over the years.  Often to less-than-interested ears.  I had only been in my German duty station a few weeks.  We often worked in our white t-shirts.  Ol' Lieutenant "J" came up to us and said, "We got a quick task to do up by the border. You should be back by supper."  About a dozen of us loaded on a Duce-and-a-half cargo truck and headed up north - still in our t-shirts. 

    Five days later, we got back late for supper.  The small task took days, and eventually more men.  Each group that came in continued to bring  warm coats and pants.  Finally, on the third day, I ended up with some one else's stinky field jacket coat.  

    Germany is much like Wisconsin - perhaps why so many Germans settled there in the 1800s.  The summer days are warm; but, even summer nights can be frosty.  We all froze our asses off.  I never trusted Lieutenant "J," or the Army again.   

    There we were up by the then Czechoslovakian boarder, which was a hostile border with the communists at the time.  I was a long forgotten potential hot-war zone in the American pop culture psyche.

    Later that same summer, our benevolent, yet rather dufus Captain insisted we all see the World War II Dakau Concentration Camp Museum near Munich.  It was a solemn journey and visit.  We were walking around the grounds in our uniforms and berets.  

    An American lady from a tour group with a New York accent, dressed in up-scale cloths, with lots of jewelry said, "Who are you people?"  

    "American Army, Ma'am," some of us said, I suppose subconsciously expecting some nod of appreciation.

    "Americans?" she said with a quander in her voice and a befuddled look.  "I thought the American Army left here in 1945. You jokers are French or something and I don't think your joke is funny. If it weren't for the United States, France would be speaking German now."

    Welcome to..., "The Outposts of Paradise." 

Note: This blog "Jobs of Bob" - 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 Jobs of Bob Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).

Fifth Job of Bob - Army - Kirby has a plate in his head from 'Nam; no Pfennigs for "die toilette" door-lock? Just use the urinal - Jobs of Bob - book version

2 May 2012

Fifth Job of Bob - Army - Kirby has a plate in his head from 'Nam; no Pfennigs for "die toilette" door-lock? Just use the urinal - Jobs of Bob - book version

This entry was posted on 5/2/2012 1:30 AM and is filed under Jobs of Bob - book version.

    Ever go to a sporting event and the bathroom stales are all occupied?  Somebody made a comment not long ago at work regarding said dilemma and it reminded me of Ol' Kirby and an experience I witnessed back in the Army.  Ol' Kirby had done a tour in 'Nam and had a metal plate in his head from a combat wound.  I don't know what his personality was prior to the addition of the plate, but when I knew him, he was subject to fits of random excited anxiety. And another memorable trait, he looked just like Sammy Davis Jr. - same size, same crooked eye, same hair, same speech.  

    One day we were in convoy up the Autobahn highway in Germany.  At their rest areas you had to put some German coins in the toilet stall to get in the damn door - about five cents, or Pfennigs, in German.  Poor Kirby did not have any change.  The couple of us in the bathroom at the time did not either.  

    Poor Ol' Kirby said, "Hey, Keith baby. Give me some goddamned fucking Pfennings...I got the shits man!"

    Me and the other guy just shrugged.  We just did not have any damn change that day. 

    "Oh hell," Kirby said with a sick look.  "I got to shit bad, Keith baby!"  

    The next thing we knew, Ol' Kirby was dropping trou' and heading for the wall-mounted urinal.  Me and the other guy booked on out of there.  Ol' Comrade German cleaning dude had a little surprise waiting for him later that morning compliments of Kirby.  "Comrade" was a name we gave the collective German population. 

    I will say this, that the first time I ever saw a sink or urinal flusher that was activated by a movement scanner, was in Germany.  It was way back in 1975.  Hell, some of the guys I served with from some podunk towns in America did not even have running water as kids.  

    But then again, during the height of the Cold War we Americans numbered around half a million military personnel in Europe.  I guess since us podunk suckers were carrying old Comrade's water for him, and we took care of the defense of his nation against the "commie hoards," he could focus on developing motion scanners in his fucking shitters. 

    I remember the first time I used a sink with no handles in Germany.  The Army vernacular was that, "I was lost as a motherfucker."  I looked all over the sink for those non-existent handles. Some of the more tech-savvy guys got a big kick out of my naivety with that good German technology.  

    On that fateful morning at the Autobahn rest stop, Ol' Kirby kind of evened the score for us lesser mortals.  

Note: This blog "Jobs of Bob" - 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 Jobs of Bob Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).

Fifth Job of Bob - Army - the decision - Jobs of Bob - book version

29 March 2012

Fifth Job of Bob - Army - the decision - Jobs of Bob - book version

This entry was posted on 3/29/2012 1:30 AM and is filed under Jobs of Bob - book version.

    I was thinking about how convoluted "the media" and pop culture reacts to super stars and entertainers and their petty lives that are thrown in our faces. An entire nation is riveted to what team an overpaid primadonna professional sports player will choose to move to. 

    Everyday us rabble make life-changing decisions. No one cares. I was reflecting back to 1973 and '74 when I made the decision to join the Army. Viet Nam was still rumbling in the background of an entire generations' minds. The military draft had just ended - although we were still required to register yet. The economy was hitting the dumper. Nixon's Watergate capers were about to bring down a Presidency. The Cold War was a way of life well into its second generation. The Baby Boom was starting to collectively realize its mortality.  It was clear to almost every soul in the country baring a few hardliners, that our American Viet Nam War had been a catastrophe - and at the time still lingered in limbo. The Arab Oil Embargo had contributed to high fuel prices.  Unemployment was climbing.  The entire nation was cynical. 

    As for me, my dad was reflective - and wise - insisting small-operation family farming was on the precipice of national collapse. Yes, people hung on over the decades. Farmers adapted to other schemes - turning their farms into golf courses; starting vineyards and winerys; planting alternative crops; raising exotic animals; turning to corn or soybeans as a mainstay; and nowadays in the Twenty-first Century, turning their operations into organic farms. Dad foresaw that all these schemes and the old dairy scheme had a couple things in common. They would require a great deal of back-breaking, seven-days-per-week work; and, they would still often be contingent on the one owner of the small businesses. If he or she got sick, the operation could perish. Dad knew this, he had functioned on the margins of this dilemma for decades as a small family farm operator.  He often worked while sick - it just was what it was. 

    A high school classmate of mine had joined the Army. He came home from Basic Training and I had a chat with him. 

    "No body is being beaten with sticks in the Army, as far as I can tell," my classmate had said to me. "And, it is a paid full-time job," he added.  

    He continued with, "And, I am getting to see parts of the country I could never afford to see otherwise."

    Take your self out of the Twenty-first Century for a second.  Fifty years ago, people did not just hop on a plane and go the Paris for the weekend, like some of my college colleagues recently did.  Back when I was a kid, often the only way you got to travel was to..., join the damn military.  Like it or not. 

    Then he quietly added a caveat, "'Nam is for the most part over now."   

    The catastrophic end to our Viet Nam War would come a year later in 1975 as our forces scrambled to get what was left of our presence there out as the communists overran what was left of South Viet Nam.  Neither of us or anyone else saw it coming; or, if anyone did, there were few who cared. 

    I remember taking a walk around the farm with my dog to think about the possibility of joining the Army. A co-worker at the gas station I worked at who had recently got out of the Army was constantly feeding me tips on how to negotiate the nuances of military life. One variable was that if I joined for three years as opposed to two years, I could lock in a duty station - baring any major new war or any re-ignition of 'Nam. My co-worker had managed to stay in Germany all through his service even in the height of the Viet Nam War. 

    I remember thinking about what I would be leaving behind. The beautiful farm land; my family; a possible future as a farmer; a beautiful state; my girlfriend; my truck; and, my beloved dog Sandy. 

    In retrospect, it was an amazing decision for an 18 year old kid. And to be honest, if confronted with a decision like that today, I am not sure I could do it again. The price is just too high. Youth tempers mortality. 

    My decision to go, changed my life forever. It was a quiet decision that millions of young people made in the same era. No television news conferences, no publicity, no one cared but the many families. 

    The time I lost in the Army with the things and people I left behind can never be recovered. It leaves a hole in my life I will take with me until I die. 

Note: This blog "Jobs of Bob" - 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 Jobs of Bob Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).

First Job of Bob - The garden; the buildings; the barn; the house; and, the rhubarb - Jobs of Bob - book version

28 February 2012

First Job of Bob - The garden; the buildings; the barn; the house; and, the rhubarb - Jobs of Bob - book version

This entry was posted on 2/28/2012 1:30 AM and is filed under Jobs of Bob - book version.

The spring of the year always brings back memories of my mom's large garden.  It was tucked between two large machine sheds and south of the old apple orchard.  There was grape vines, strawberries, raspberries, asparagus, and of course..., rhubarb.  I was never a fan of rhubarb, but it is a Wisconsin thing for sure. There was often a rhubarb pie sitting on the kitchen counter.  Also, asparagus is rather hard to get growing and then keep growing.  Many people would peruse the roadside at times in the summer hunting for wild asparagus.  Keeping it in a garden plot is quite another story.  

At times of the year my mom would prepare the various produce in what we called, "putting-up" the product, or "canning."   Some people call it "preserves."  At any rate, at times the kitchen smelled and looked like a production facility.  In the end, there would be jars of grape jelly, grape juice, rhubarb, and asparagus.

There was a pear tree around to the east side of the large old apple orchard and at the north end of our big barn.  We did not have time to care for either pears or apples. I do remember the pear tree was prolific and pears dropped from the tree in the fall coating the ground all around it.  We all thought the pears produced from that particular tree were a bit hard in texture. 
There was a gaggle of buildings on our farm.  There was the huge old but reliable barn.  It ran to the north and south as also did  Lima Center Road at our stretch of that old and notoriously winding township road. The barn had the consummate gambrel barn roof (a change in slope and pitch part way up both sides of the roof).  Three lightning rods with stained-glass balls topped off the peak of the roof at equal intervals. When I was young they built a pole barn at a right angle off the north end of the barn and it pointed to the east.  It was then we verified the legend that the original barn burnt down about the turn of the century (1900) a decade before my grandfather bought the place.  During construction while laying cement forms, melted glass and pieces of old buried foundation and wood were revealed at the end of the barn.  What we found indicated the original barn was mammoth, going 50 feet further than the already existing giant structure.  

The barn was unique in that it is the only barn I have ever seen that actually had a slope in the dead center of the lower milking area.  The barn had been built on a slight ridge and the original builders did not let that deter them in the least.  When the first barn burnt down, the re-builders just put the new one on the same foundation and spot.  The slope stayed in the design by default.  It presented some challenges, but like all farmers, we adapted. That lower south end of the long barn was mainly used for pens to hold calves and heifers.  The milking stanchions that did exist down there were designated to my Uncle Art's purview and he took care of all things on that end of the barn.  When we built the pole barn on the north end, that old south end was fitted entirely to milking stanchions and a modern electric powered and chain driven barn cleaner gutter - dairy farm state-of-the-art at the time. 

Of course the barn was red. I remember at least one painter coming to re-paint it.  A barn that size was an ordeal to paint and maintain - there was a cost to keeping the mammoth structure preserved.  Every couple years or so, the whitewash company would come to blow the thick substance completely over every wall, stanchion, and crevice in the lower part of the barn.  You can cover up a multitude of sins with thick whitewash. 

Then too, a structure that size would need a new set of shingles from time to time.  The barn paint and roofing my dad and uncle left to a professional.  But, every other building we painted and re-roofed ourselves. And too, when we added the pole barn, my dad and uncle helped in the construction to cut a bit of cost off the price. 

A family of Barn Swallows taking up residence in the production facility I currently work in, reminds me of the perennial arrival of barn swallows to our farm.  A co-worker recently asked me why the birds insist on coming in the building when the big doors are open.  To keep them out, you might as well ask them to live on the Moon.  They have been piggybacking on human structures as long as humans have built stuff.  Dad always tolerated the several nests they plucked on the sides of the barn beams in the lower milking area.  The intelligent creatures knew just where to place the nests out of the reach of the wily barn cats. Dad was wise.  Like centuries of preceding humans, he knew cows and their manure as well as the various sources of moister around a working barn, attracted insects. The swallows besieged the "bugs" with relentless vigilance.  And a couple times a year, each ruddy nest produced a family of baby birds chirping over the edge of said nest.  Each year the birds would rebuild their nests with patient endeavor.  It was much like the farm itself.  Fields as well were worked and planted with patient endeavor.  It was a relationship of quiet tolerance and unity.  Dad would always leave a small opening for the Swallows to dart through in the big barn doors at each end of the lower milking area.  

The barn was accompanied by three upright silos.  The original one was brick with a tin roof. It sat at the halfway mark along the big barn on its west side facing the house. The three were equally spaced along the length of the barn like sentinels.  Next to the old brick silo sat the milk house.  There was space between silo and milk house that made a great spot for a kid to build a fort in lieu of a tree house.

The house was also huge.  Those old farm houses reflected eras when farm families had lots of kids.  Rooms were added from time to time.  It seems odd now after living in such small houses over the years, I was an only child in my era at the farm.  There was at least five extra rooms we did not use much in that old house.  One walk-in closet I used back then would be considered a room in the neo-suburb culture of today.

The roof of the house was covered with asbestos shingles.  No mater how old the roof continued to get, black dust always collected in the rain gutters. Back in the old days, water was collected in the cistern pit by the back porch for washing cloths and hair.  That water was caught by the huge roof and directed down eavesthroughs to said cistern. Disturbingly, my dad and his two sisters all of whom grew up on the farm, each eventually died of cancers; and, so did my mom who of course lived there later, but the cistern system was still in use for part of her life there as well.  It makes one pause.  By the time I came along, a modern well pump provided all our water. I was apparently spared..., so far.

The house was big enough for an upstairs apartment with a full bathroom; and, there even was a wooden stairs above the cistern going up to a stained-glass door above the back porch.  There was a neat wood railinged tin porch facing the east. My uncle lived up stairs for a time before he got his little trailer home.  Mom and Dad would board a visiting minister from time to time up there when I was small.  Later I lived up there during high school and then for a brief time after I returned from the Army.  A girlfriend of mine always insisted the house was haunted.  
There were always signs of what used to be on an old farmstead.  There was a large pig shed.  I remember it was built like a fortress.  Perhaps it had extra support because pigs have a reputation for wrecking things.  By the time I came on the scene, the shed only stored some no longer used horse-drawn harvesting machines. You never know though when you might need a part or bolt and be able to adapt something from the old equipment.  New parts were becoming cost prohibitive even in the 1960s. Next to said pig shed was a pile of ashes from one hundred years of wood burning furnaces in the house and shed. The pile had been there so long, full grown Willow trees created a small wooded area marking the end of the homestead area and the beginning of the south fields. 

There was an old wood corn crib slowly falling down by the barnyard. There was also several small chicken houses.  We did not have chickens and pigs by the time I came on the scene.  But the little buildings once used for the chickens found other uses.  One old chicken house I made into a small work shop. Another we stored barn lime in - a product that when spread on the cement floor that ran the length of the barn, kept down the odor of cow manure. This little "lime shed" was tucked at the south end of the barn and because of the mild slope, I could walk off the raised area by the south silo and be right on top of the roof.  There was a mysterious 10-foot cement barrier at that point to hold back the earth from falling into the beginning of the barnyard. It was a great place to play made-up war games with neighbor kids. Yet another chicken shed stored equipment oil - "the oil shed." There was an old house adjacent to our house that Dad and my uncle used for a proper work shop.  We called it..., "the shop."  It had tools and ancient parts tucked in corners that Ol' Thomas Edison would have probably been impressed with. 

As a kid, and being an only child I remember putting two structures to good use practicing football and baseball.  One of the sheds by the garden had a roof angled perfect to throw a football at.  Hitting the roof just right propelled the ball back at me like a down-and-out pass. 
That silo to the south end of the barn was perfect to throw a hardball at and have it bolt back at me like a rocket.  I learned to catch a fastball off that silo.  And the cylindrical nature of a silo meant some of my tosses went errant and awry.  It helped me learn how to shag challenging grounders and line drives. The same patch of ground by the silo sloped down to the low area south of the pig shed. It served as a dandy sledding spot in the winter when Dad piled snow there from our long driveway.  

But maybe most stunning, as you looked out the back porch windows of the house where my mom kept the washer and dryer, you would be facing the east.  There, you would witness the most beautiful sunrises over that low end of the barn, past the barnyard, and down to the tree line of our hickory woods, that I have ever seen, still to this day, in my life.

Note: This blog "Jobs of Bob" - 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 Jobs of Bob Page for an ordered chronology of the book vignettes (chapters).