What a day as I ….
What a day as I start this column. Almost 70, no wind and bright sunlight. That will probably change by the time you get to read this, but let’s just say it’s just plain nice for a fall day. Lots of leaves have fallen, but the aspen trees are holding tight and now the tamaracks have gotten into the act. It looks like I’ll have one less chore as the black walnut tree shed all its leaves and I can only see seven or eight walnuts left for the squirrels.
The countryside continues to change as combining soybeans continues and plowing and disking are the order of the day along with lots of liquid manure being spread.
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I’m right in style now. I have my Culver’s cheese curds. This is according to a special that appeared on the six o’clock news a few days ago on Channel 13. The story was about the cheese curds and that they were purchased by Culver’s for their restaurants. Now that is a sizable amount as my computer said there are 878 Culver’s located in 26 states.
The place getting all the credit for them is the LaGrander’s Cheese Factory located just southeast of Stanley in the Clark County township of Worden.
Many times, when coming home from Chippewa Falls or that area, I’ll swing off Highway 29 and take County Trunk N. I’ve seen the sign for LaGranger’s and always talked about going there. This time I took the easy way from here. County Trunk N to County Trunk M south of Thorp, then a mile or so south, then west on Broek Road. It is beautiful country! I’ll have to drive over that way some day and do some more exploring. Like I said, just another jewel of northern Clark County.
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Don’t forget your pumpkin. Looking at all the piles and wagons full it looks like there are tons left. Is it an over production or do so many people just like to grow them? Over the years I learned my lesson. Once Halloween is over, get rid of them. The frost is going to get them and sooner or later they’ll turn into a pile of mush. I guess, if nothing else, take them to the woods and smash them for the wild animals. Maybe something will eat them and the seeds.
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Sometimes you just have to read it in a newspaper. That was the case last week and the article was about my son-in-law Bob (Rupe) Loos and his old Army buddy Larry Edwards from Colfax.
I knew Rupe had been in Vietnam along with Larry, but I never really knew much else. I guess I knew he had been awarded the Bronze Star, as well as Larry but always understood he never wanted to talk about it. That was fine as I know others who were in the thick of things never wanted to bring them up.
They had just returned from an Honor Flight along with a 100 or so other Vietnam vets.
It was four years ago in April that I made the trip. At the time I wondered just what did I do to deserve the trip, besides answering “I will” when my draft notice came.
Maybe the answer came years ago when we had made a trip to Washington, D. C., to attend a newspaper conference. We had taken some of the family along and done a little sightseeing on the way. We stopped at Fort Eustis, Virginia, which is home of the Army Transportation Corps. I had been in the 652nd Heavy Truck Company and had spent 14 months at Camp Stoneman in California.
The problem was we didn’t have any heavy trucks and made do with some old World War II 6x6’s. Again with nothing to haul we simply took the trucks out for a ride, then came home and washed them. Then there was also KP (kitchen police), guard duty and other jobs just to keep us busy.
Then I learned an easy way out. A friend was attending a special class and while there, couldn’t be on any of those details. So I signed up for a typing class. Turns out to be a beginner course and after two years in high school it was a breeze. Next thing I knew I was working at some typing assignments and finally made company clerk. Men who could type back in 1951 were rare.
But getting back to our tour of the Transportation Corps Museum.
Mark had wondered one time if I had ever shot anyone. Just as we entered the museum was a big sign. It read,”For every fighting man, there are eight men in support of him”.
I thought that was a good answer for Mark and back to the trip, what had I done that was important. Well the daily morning report was important.
Enough so I had to make eight copies every day, five of which had to be legible. That’s what you call the “Army Way”.
Probably the most important order I ever filed was to send some of my buddies on a TDY (temporary duty) mission to help move President and Bess Truman back to Missouri.
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I don’t hear much anymore about the Second Amendment rights. One interesting cartoon I saw recently was a man shooting at some people. But then he had to stop and reload his musket, indicating the Second Amendment had been written in 1791. Then I read something else in the Medford Star-News. Seems a couple of men in Taylor County got fined for not having the gun plugged for duck hunting. So if three shots are good enough to hunt ducks, why all the fuss about attempts to limit the capacity on some of the weapons being used in those mass killings we hear about on the national news? And it is like I said before. In the few years I did go deer hunting I only shot one deer. One shot did the trick.
