Good morning… afternoon, evening, whenever you are reading this. Welcome the “The Life of Bart.” I know what you’re thinking, “Most blogs I read are about something specific. Something like cooking, camping, carpentry, technology, finance, or something like that. What’s your blog about?” Well, I don’t think of myself as an expert on any one thing in particular. But I do feel that I’ve experienced a lot of things throughout my life that some may find interesting. I’ve also learned a lot of lessons along the way due to the multitude of mistakes I’ve made. I thought that I might be able to share those with others to potentially help them along the way, in case they run into the same situations I did. So, I guess you could say it’s sort of a narrative, self-help, cautionary tale with a bit of humor thrown in for good measure. I hope you enjoy it and continue to check it out for new content. I’m looking to try and add at least one post per week at the start. I’m new to this, so I’m feeling the water so to speak. Without further ado, here’s my first official post.
I’m going to start by introducing myself and giving you a background of my family and where my life basically started. I was born in Hartford, Wisconsin the youngest of four children. My sister being the oldest, two brothers, and myself. At the time, my father was a manager of a local welding facility and my mother worked as a waitress. Our house was on a quiet street, but on the back side of our block was the main highway that cut through town. We lived in this town until I was six years old.
A little bit about my parents as some have found this interesting as well. My mother was one of seven children. She was the youngest of the first five with two half-brothers. Her mother passed away when she was quite young. From my earliest memory of him, her father was wheelchair bound as he had lost one of his legs from the knee down to an illness. Her grandfather was a Reverend although I’m not positive where he practiced. She was a wonderfully kind person. In my entire life, I have never heard one person say a bad thing about her. She was almost so polite it was scary. Profanity was not allowed in our house to the point where I can remember being scolded in my teens for saying the word “fart.”
On to my father’s family. My Dad is one of twenty-one children. I’ll give you a moment to process that. He is near the end of the first sixteen with five half-brothers and sisters. His early life was a bit rough as the dairy farm and cheese factory were a no go, he lost his mother, and his father just walked away. He quit school in his early teens due to having to work to survive. He never graduated high school, but he had the work ethic of those of his generation and those before him combined. He was never tied down to one kind of job either. He tried his hand at a lot of things throughout his life. He swept the foundry floor, welded, ran a gas station, built houses, sold houses, insulated houses, sold cars, and worked maintenance at the Green Lake Conference Center as well as Ripon College. No matter what his daily job was, he always had side work going on. It also seemed like whatever house we lived in; it was never quite finished. He has an uncanny knack for being able to just figure things out. It isn’t so much book smarts as his mind just works in a way that he can look at something and just figure it out. As most people, he was not without his flaws and had a knack for making people mad at him. A trait I learned from and do my best to avoid.
My sister is eleven years older than me, has been married twice (she got it right the second time), and had four children. My oldest brother is nine years older than me, has been married twice (we won’t discuss this one), and has two children. My youngest brother is seven years older than me, and like myself, remains single. Many of my life experiences and lessons learned involve these folks so we’ll get into them more as time goes on.
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, I was the “whoops” child. I was also spoiled rotten because I deserved it. At least I think I did. When I was six, we moved to the town of Redgranite, Wisconsin as Dad was “changing careers.” He started selling real estate with his brother. I was ok with the move because I was just out of Kindergarten and really only had one friend at the time. Plus, my cousin, who was the whoops of her family lived there and we were quite close. I’m sure you’ll hear some stories involving her as well. My older siblings were not quite as “ok” with the move as I was. My sister was about to start her senior year and now had to do so in a new school. At the time I didn’t realize how hard it was on them, but as I got older, I understood and felt bad for them.
At age twelve, some issues arose between my parents and I moved with Mom to Ripon, Wisconsin. Things got worked out in the end, and Dad moved in with us a few months later. Aside from a few years living in the local township, I’ve been in the thriving metropolis of Ripon and its eight thousand people ever since.
Well, that’s it for your introduction to me. I’ll have something a little more for you to sink your teeth into next week. If you enjoyed this intro to some of the main characters of my life story, great, I hope you come back for another taste and a riveting story. If you didn’t, well, that’s ok too. I just hope you give me another chance with my next post.
Remember, we’re all in this together, luv luv.