September 2020 – Welcome

Senior Year: Class of 1990

Good morning my friends. Today we talk about my senior year of high school and the summer leading up to it. This was an eventful time for sure. Both good and bad. It had a profound affect on me for not only the short term, but for a majority of my life. As I stated before, parts of this are going to be a bit difficult for me to discuss. Please enjoy joining me on this journey.

Working at McDonald’s had helped me to come out of my shell a bit. I am by nature a bit shy with self-esteem and self-worth issues. However, it seemed the more time I spent at work, the more open I became. With the revolving door of employment that fast food seems to breed, I was meeting and becoming friends with people I never talked to in school on a regular basis. Quite a few females in particular. I learned fairly quickly that my form of “flirting” though, lent me more to acquiring many female friends and no girlfriends. Let’s just say I ended up with a lot of women who “loved me like a brother.” Hey, at least people seemed to like me.

Alcohol also began playing a larger part of my summertime fun at this point. I knew a guy who knew a guy who ran a liquor store, so it was easy to come by. We began partying at various locations around town. The occasional random corn field. Someone’s hunting land. One spot in particular was known as Rabbit Trail. It was a large gravel pit where parts of it were no longer being used on a regular basis. This meant that some holes had filled with water and there were trees growing up around. It was almost like camping by a pond. This is where I was the last time I drank beer. The beer was Black Label, it was nasty, I got violently ill, and I then switched to Schnapps and Wine Coolers. Insert joke about a guy drinking wine coolers here.

Another common tradition was road tripping. As you age, you realize just how dumb this was to do, no matter how much fun you had doing it. One of my friend’s brothers had an old Dodge Diplomat. We’d pile in with some adult beverages of choice and head out on the back roads to just drive around and drink. We even made custom mix tapes that were specific for this action. I can remember one night in particular where we decided that we wanted to collect “No Trespassing” signs. This of course is illegal and not recommended. We came across one that was metal and attached to a metal post. One of my friends decided he needed that sign, and when it wouldn’t come off, he wrestled it to the ground. Needless to say, the sign won that round and he woke up the next day trying to figure out why his hands were all cut up. Ya, we weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed.

This summer was made up of a lot of this kind of stuff. Working, partying, hanging out at the lake, you know, normal teen age stuff. Green Lake is just a few minutes away from Ripon. On the South-West end of the lake is the beach of County Park. This is the common hot spot in the summer for just hanging out. Due to my larger size and self-esteem issues, I tended to be one of those guys who never took his shirt off, even when in the water. Regardless of this, I still had a lot of fun out there.

When the summer came to an end and it was back to school, it felt different. This was our senior year. This was it. Our last time being “forced” to go to this stupid place. Our last chance to tear things up before becoming men and women in charge or our own lives. Our last chance to stick it to the establishment.

We came in with the brilliant idea that as soon as we turned eighteen, we’d start writing out own excuse notes to get out of classes. They couldn’t tell us not to smoke, we were Seniors. Nobody was going to tell us what to do. We knew better than those “old” people. You could just tell when my friends picked me up that first day back that we all were thinking the same thing. We were in charge now. This attitude may be why I racked up so much detention this year, but I’ll dig more into that at graduation time.

If I remember correctly, we made it two days before we skipped our first day of the year. There was a concert down in Milwaukee and we were not going to miss it. Somehow it took us the entire day to get to it. We were walking around a mall in downtown Milwaukee when an officer approached us and asked why we weren’t in school. I saw my friend’s chest start to pump up, but my mind was working faster than his and I said, “we aren’t from down here and we don’t start until next week.” Probably a good thing, because my friend was kind of an idiot and I can’t imagine what he was going to say.

Early in the school year, Moraine Park Technical College had something they called the “Skills Olympics” where students were invited in to participate in different technical tests. My two closest friends and I decided we needed to sign up for this because it was a day off school. We all signed up for the welding part. I did the arc welding part. My welds weren’t pretty, but my metal box held water and couldn’t be broke with a hammer and pliers. One of the other guys did MIG welding, and the one who didn’t set himself on fire in class did the gas welding test. We then spent the rest of the day walking around campus with my boombox in my duffel bag listening to Metallica. Much time was spent sitting outside the Cosmetology area for some reason. None of us won by the way, but we did get reprimanded by no less than four instructors for our music being too loud.

I had missed enough school by Christmas break that I had been placed on probation. If I missed one more day, I was going to be suspended. I thought it was kind of nice of them to award me with three free days off for missing so many days, but my parents did not see it the same way as I did. So once break ended, I started becoming the model student. Sort of. I was at least there every day. We were creeping up on February where I was going to turn eighteen and was going to put my whole “I’m an adult and can write my own excuse notes” plan into place.

But then my life took a turn. Wednesday, January thirty-first. I had gone to lunch with four friends to McDonald’s. During lunch it was discussed to take the afternoon off and go to Princeton. One of my friends’ uncles lived there and would have beer and booze. Due to my probation situation, I had to pass. One other friend was failing a class and had to take the test that day to try and bring his grade up, so he passed also. The other three dropped us off and headed out.

I ended up walking home from school that day. I didn’t figure they’d be back in time, so I thought nothing of it. When my best friend didn’t show up for his shift that night, I just figured he got too drunk. I got home and gave him a call to see how things went, but the person on the other end, who’s voice I didn’t recognize, told me he couldn’t come to the phone. Something didn’t feel right. I didn’t sleep very well that night but couldn’t quite figure out what was going on.

The next morning, I got ready for school and went to sit on the front porch to wait for my ride and hopefully figure out what was up. A different friend of mine showed up and asked if I needed a ride and my heart sunk. I guess I knew something bad had happened, but I didn’t want to believe it. My friend asked if I knew what happened. I said, “something bad or you wouldn’t be here.” But I had no details.

He filled me in on more of the details. There was an accident. One of my friends was in the hospital in bad shape. The driver was ok and being released. My best friend didn’t make it. I don’t remember speaking another word the rest of the day. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t process anything.

I got to school and put my stuff in my locker. The next thing I would have done is wait for those two to show up and walk a few laps before classes. Only today they wouldn’t be coming. So, I just started walking by myself. A couple of other friends joined in behind me. I picked up a few more as the first lap continued. By the end of lap one, I had about fifteen people behind me. I don’t think those people even realize how much that simple act meant to me.

I didn’t go to any classes that day and didn’t come back after lunch. I instead went to my friend’s house to see his Mom. He was the only child she gave birth to, and I couldn’t imagine what she was feeling at this time. I gave her one of the biggest hugs I’ve ever given and sat with her and cried while listening to her tell stories of when my friend was child. Times before I even knew him. Other relatives showed up and I worked my way out. The family had things to attend to.

I walked the two blocks back to my house not knowing what to do, what to think, how to react, or even what I “should” feel. I was full of anger at the driver for what happened. Wasn’t he paying attention? I was full of guilt for not going with them. I could have seen the danger and warned the driver. I was full of sadness over the loss of one of the best friends I’d ever had. I was about to turn eighteen, an adult, and I felt more lost than I’d ever felt before.

The friend that showed up the day after it happened to drive me to school showed up every day after that. He started bringing me to his house at lunch time and his Mom would make us lunch. We had been friends before, but we became much closer through all this. I don’t know what would have been my outcome if he hadn’t stepped up. He pulled me out of my funk and helped me through the most difficult period I had lived through at that time.

The school year continued, but it wasn’t the same. I tried to avoid the hallway where his locker was. I stopped volunteering to pick up attendance sheets because I didn’t want to walk past the classroom I saw him in every day. I tried to visit his grave at least once a week and have a cigarette with him and fill him in on what happened that week. Sometimes I’d play him music. He was the one who introduced me to Metallica, so I figured I owed him that much.

Because of what had happened, they dropped my probation. With the attitude I had at that time, that just meant I’d miss a lot of school going forward. I knew my grades were good enough for me to pass as I continued to do well on tests, I just didn’t feel like being there most days. The detention would pile up because I usually didn’t show up to serve it. As we reached graduation time, it caught up with me. I was told that if I wanted to walk across the stage with my classmates, I would have to serve detention the two weekends prior. I didn’t care if I walked the stage as long as my diploma had all the signatures on it, but I knew my Mom would have been devastated. So, for two weekends in a row, eight hours on Saturday and eight hours on Sunday, I sat in a room while the Vice Principal would occasionally pop in to make sure I was still there. She was new that year and took her job very seriously.

The school stepped up and did a wonderful thing. They had determined that my friend would have had enough credits to graduate, so they allowed his Mom to walk across the stage and get his diploma. I doubt there were very man dry eyes in the building during that moment. I welled up just now thinking about it.

Well, we made it through my high school years, and now you understand why this year was so hard for me to write about. I hope you enjoyed this story and I hope you tune in next week as I get to tech school and continue my process of becoming one of those “adult” things.

As always, we’re all in this together. Luv Luv.

Ripon: Junior Year

Sorry for the missed week. I was fighting an illness and didn’t feel my brain was working well enough to write something coherent. I’m back this week to continue my original timeline and talk about the time of my Junior year and the summer leading up to it. This was a little bit of a strange transition year for me and the family.

Dad had quit his job as Maintenance Director out at the Conference Center due to “political reasons,” and began working at Ripon College in their Maintenance Department. Without a license or a family member out there on a regular basis, that would have made it difficult for me to continue working there myself. Plus, I was looking for more of a year-round employment instead of just a seasonal three to four-month stint.

So, a decision was made for me to get a job at McDonald’s in Ripon. Over the summer I would take any shift and any job they asked me to do. I had a goal to reach. At that time, I still wanted to go to culinary school and knew I was going to need money to make that happen. I was constantly being scolded for being on overtime to which I simply reminded them that they called me in to cover those shifts. Heck, I’d even be the one who came in on his day off to mow the lawn. Seventy-five to eighty percent of every paycheck went into my savings account with the remainder being for fun.

Working that many hours, and not having a driver’s license at the time severely hampered my ability to have fun though. I still would manage to walk uptown on the weekend nights I wasn’t working and hang out with friends. Usually hitching a ride with them to cruise around and listen to music. The nights would normally end with us heading down to Country Kitchen, Hardee’s, or of course McDonald’s to eat. Occasionally this would lead to me jumping back into the grill area and cooking our food as it was close to closing and I knew what a pain it was when you are trying to get everything done for closing and someone comes in.

I worked with some interesting characters there as well. The managers all had very different personalities. Everyone’s favorite was a female who primarily opened. She’d go from manager to Mom to friend in quick progression. She did her job well, took care of her flock, and ripped on them mercilessly when they did something dumb. There was the confidant and slightly arrogant store manager who seemed really nice, but something about him made you question his motives. The assistant store manager who felt he was better than everyone and that he should be store manage already. There was no pleasing that guy. Your crew could set a record for quickest average drive thru times for a shift and he’d complain you wasted two more cheeseburgers than yesterday.

I spent almost five years working there, so I’ll have a few more stories at time progresses here including the acquisition of my nickname. But that’s further down the pipe. As far as my first year goes, that is pretty much it. I worked hard and as much as possible. So, let’s get back to school.

Junior year for me was a pretty uneventful one, but one that would also change my direction in life. As I chose to focus on work, sports were pretty much dropped all together. After taking typing and realizing how important computers were going to be going forward, I decided to take word and data processing classes as well as computer programming classes. At the time, this was Basic and Pascal programming languages. I seemed to take to it rather quickly, however programming was a bit too boring for me. Far too much work for such little return.

Then came career week. They had speakers come in and talk to classes about what they did for a living to see if there was any interest. I was a bit excited to hear a chef was coming to talk. Unfortunately, he was very underwhelming. I didn’t feel he wanted to be there. I asked him questions on his schooling and he told me he had gone to a Culinary School in Chicago and graduated near the top of his class. He then went on to tell us he was working at Old Country Buffet.

That was not what I expected. I’m not sure what I expected, but when you have spent several years focused on what you wanted to be when you grew up, you have a certain image in you head. You don’t think about for every five-star chef in a fine dining establishment, there are thousands of chefs running buffets. I’m not saying there is anything wrong with that, but my dream was to make new and innovative dishes, not meatloaf and fried chicken every day for the rest of my life. Doubt began to set in. I started questioning my own dreams. I didn’t know what I wanted anymore.

Then I heard a guy speak about being a Computer Engineer. He had a two-year Associate Degree. He got hired within a month of graduation. He worked in Milwaukee. He was making six figures. I was sold. Less school, more money, an industry that was growing in leaps and bounds, and still something I was interested in. I had my new career path. Although, mine would not quite follow the same path as his as we will learn in later installments.

Outside of this, school progressed at a fairly gradual pace the rest of the year. Just normal stuff. Walking the halls in the morning. Taking all of study hall to collect attendance sheets. Boombox in my locker playing Metallica and Megadeth on a regular basis. Skipping school to go to concerts or to just go fishing with friends. Normal stuff.

I know this is a very short one, even though I missed last week, but not much happened this year in my life. The next installment is going to be a tough one. I’m not looking forward to typing it up, but I owe it to myself as well as you guys to put it out there. I’m probably going to start writing it tomorrow just because I feel I will need to re-read it about a hundred times to make sure it fully conveys what I need to say before posting it.

Stay strong my friends, and Covid is no joke. It sucks.

We’re all in this together, Luv luv.

Caution: Detour Ahead

Today we are taking a slight detour, but I just need to get it out of my head to help my mind calm down a bit. We will return to our regularly schedule blog next week. Just a heads up, this is kind of a mind dump. If you are Facebook friends with me, you know what that means. For those that don’t, it just means that there is no real structure to this. It may jump around a bit, but it is something I need to do from time to time to clear my mind. Sort of a reboot.

This year has my anxiety and depression on such a roller coaster ride it’s unreal. My health, home life, and happiness are much better. My financial situation is somewhat stable and about twelve months from making a big turn to the good. But everything outside my control is going nuts.

This country seems to be at war with itself. Not so much a full-on Civil War, but a cold war for sure. Hate is at an all-time high. The politicians running this country (not just the President, EVERYONE) seem more concerned with cutting each other’s jugulars than actually doing something productive to help our nation. Sad thing is, I don’t feel this upcoming election is going to change anything regardless of the outcome. I only feel it will get worse. I have never been so close to throwing my hands up, selling everything I own, saying I quit, and moving to Costa Rica to become a bar tender in a beach tiki bar.

This America is not the country I grew up in, but I suppose every generation can say that. I guess change is inevitable, both good and bad. But for all the good strides we’ve made over the years, the bad seems to keep finding ways to be dominant. Racism is bad. Racial profiling is bad. Racial violence is bad. But damn, if half the effort and money put into “bringing awareness” to a problem we all know exists was actually put into helping prevent the situations from arising, I feel we’d make better strides.

I know, I know, “if you don’t have a valid alternative solution, don’t complain about what is being done currently.” How about we look into what’s causing the violence in these communities? How about we investigate why the police force is spending so much time in these areas to begin with? Maybe instead of spending millions of dollars on coach busses to bring people to protests, we take that money and donate it to struggling public schools to help improve education. Maybe we stick it into public transportation to make it easier for people to get to other areas of cities for work. Maybe we stick it into scholarships for adult education. I’m not talking four-year colleges; I’m talking trade and technical schools. I’m talking paid intern or apprenticeships. Something to help get people struggling back into the work force.

Will that fix racism. Of course not. But it might help get people struggling to improve their lives. Maybe allow them to help others. Maybe get some off the streets. Maybe quell some of the crime. If you earn money, you may be less likely to steal it. If you make your life better, you may be less likely to turn to drugs and violent behavior.

Right now, you may be saying, “he’s being racist by saying minorities are poor uneducated drug users who commit crimes.” I get it. That’s what it looks like. But I’m not talking about any race in particular. This covers all races. If you think the situations I mentioned above are exclusive to prominently minority filled neighborhoods, then you are sadly mistaken. “But Bart, you were talking about racism. How can you now be saying this helps all races?”

Let’s look at the definition of Racism. “Racism is the prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular racial or ethnic group.” Does the definition say anything about one specific race? Racism can be against anyone of any race.

Is Racism a problem? Of course it is, but it’s only one part of the bigger problem facing this Country. Hate. People in this country hate because of race, religion, sexual preference, political affiliation, gender, social class, and so much more. Hell, I once went to Philadelphia for work and couldn’t get served at a bar because I was wearing a Packer hat. I’m not even kidding here folks.

Hate is toxic. Hate tears apart communities. Hate snowballs. Just a small amount of hate can turn into something horrific. After Germany was defeated in World War I, Adolf Hitler blamed the Jewish community back home for undermining the war effort. Charles Manson wrote a song that the Beach Boys recorded, and he didn’t get credit for it. These two instances in particular led to hate that snowballed into horrific levels.

With the election looming, I’ve also been seeing a lot of abortion talk again. Everyone has their stance on this topic, and I’m no different. I don’t think the government should be the deciding factor on whether or not someone can legally have one. I feel there are far more important things our government should be focusing their time on. However, I don’t agree with late term abortion in any case. I do feel that abortion in the case of rape or molestation should be completely legal in early term for sure. I don’t agree with using it as birth control though. If you had consensual sex and produced a pregnancy, that’s on you. But that is also my feeling today. If you’d asked me in my late teens and early twenties, I know I would have had a different opinion on this.

That’s another point I’d like to make. Our opinions on just about everything changes as we get older change. Through our personal experiences and knowledge gained throughout the years, we tend to draw different conclusions. People my age look at the next generation and the one after that and say they don’t understand. They know what they are talking about. The generations before us said the same thing about you and me. And we are all right. When we were in our teens and twenties, we hadn’t had the experiences that taught us what we know now. If I went back in time with my current knowledge and mind set, I can bet my stance on many topics and political policies would be different. There’s a good chance I would have voted differently back then too.

This next one may be a very unpopular opinion, but I feel that religion has no place in politics. A majority of the people in this country owe their existence to people fleeing religious persecution. They fled England and other European countries that enforced laws of only one true religion. Yet here we are again, with people trying to force their religious beliefs as law. How many times have you heard the statement, “the Bible says….” I am not saying you can’t believe that way. I’m saying not everyone should be forced to believe that way. There are eight major religions practiced in the United States, and at least a dozen minor ones. Many of these do not believe the same thing, yet I continually hear people saying that laws need to be made because the Bible says so. And many of the people I hear saying those things I know for a fact do not follow all the rules of that bible they are thumping so proudly.

Every election, I hear the same rhetoric. If my guy gets elected, everything will change for the better. I got news for you. No, it won’t. Some stuff might, but only if they are allowed to. The only people who can fix hate are the people hating. The only people who can fix racism are the racists. The only ones that can stop the violence are the people committing violent acts.

Our country is going to hell and we’re responsible. All of us. I see it in Facebook every day. Hate. The anti-Trump versus the anti-Biden. The BLM and Antifa comments and arguments. The attempts to justify the hate with facts and figures both made up and actual. There is no justification for hate. If you feel your stance is the right one, then good for you. But if you go out there and spout hate toward those who feel differently than you, then you are part of the problem. If you don’t think so, go back and read your posts and comments over the last year or so. Pretend someone was saying those things to your child or your Mom. Would you get angry with them? Then you too are promoting hate.

Maybe it’s because we don’t have a common enemy anymore. We’re not talking about what’s happening in the Middle East anymore. Everyone seems to have forgotten all that. The Cold War with Russia is long since put to bed. When was the last time you heard something about North Korea? Maybe we need that outside foe to focus our anger on.

I don’t have the ultimate solution to hate. I don’t know how to get people to stop being so angry at each other. I don’t have the magic wand. I know running away to Costa Rica to be a bartender might help me, but it doesn’t help those I care about. Maybe I should run for office. Maybe I could make a change. Probably not. The extreme right and the extreme left will both hate me because I fall somewhere in the middle. I don’t want to leave my country, but it gets harder every year to be proud to be an American.

Thank you for letting me get this out. I hope to see you tune in next week for our regularly scheduled programming.

We’re all in this together. Luv Luv.