Deflection

I am up here in Oconto, Wisconsin, for the weekend in a campground next to Green Bay. This seems to be a fishing campground, with a big boat ramp and each camper seems to have a boat, but it is a nice campground, without any hiking trails. I went in to Marinette and found a sandy beach, but did not walk on the beach, and it was raining. It has been overcast with the high temperature of 74 degrees.

On Facebook today, Kay Grosinske had the obituary for her mother, Joan, posted. I can still remember my preschool years at the Twin Oaks Trailer Park where my grandfather was the developer and owner, and Don was out there delivering fuel oil to the trailers that had fuel oil furnaces, and I was around taking part in the activities, since there was nothing else to do. With dad’s construction business, Dan was always coming by to fill the gas tank. Dad built them a garage just after I got my driver’s license. When I started farming during the spring of my senior year of high school, I bought the diesel fuel from Don. After I move to Iowa, Don passed away.

By going through the Whitewater Banner, I found that Marilyn Fuertenberg passed away about two months ago. Her husband Bill worked in a service station in Whitewater, and we got to know the Fuertenbergs. In Marilyn’s early life, she did smoke, but mom became good friends with her. Every morning for years, mom and Marilyn would walk through the city and it keep mom trim. But, when Marilyn’s emphysema got so bad that she had to carry oxygen, their walking came to an end. Mom never continued with the walking although I asked to, but it seems like mom needed a companion. Marilyn was into crafts, and her water paintings can be seen through out the city, and in mom’s house. The sad part is that mom’s brain has deteriorated to the point, that she cannot comprehend that Marilyn is gone.

This is like the past two years that I have found since I have come back to Whitewater that so many events have taken place while I was gone that these deaths seem to be shock and awe for me, So, I have written the following essay.

Enjoy,

Roger

Essay

After leaving Whitewater for 38 years, my memory went wild remembering people and places. Without me being in the city observing the daily changes, my mind was trying to interoperate the changes that had taken place through the years. This was leaving me with all kinds of feelings, with some being a loss of the past generation to new developments for the city.

By driving through the city, I would try to remember resident that lived in the houses when I left wondering if they still lived there, did they move somewhere else, where they no longer with us, and how is living in the house now? These were all questions going through my mind. Since I worked with my dad to build about fifty of the one hundred houses and duplexes, I knew the first residences that in the houses that I worked on with dad, and this is especial true on Walton Drive, where I spent most of my high school years. I knew the residences of the prominent citizens, businessman, and university professors. It a daunting task to interpolate what has happen through the years, but my mind water to go through.

On the negative side of the buildings, there are the building that are gone that was such a part of our life.

• The building where I went to junior high, the original high school, is gone. It was a three story building in good condition with an auditorium and gym/basketball court. Since I was living in Ames, Iowa, when the building was torn down, Ames has taken their old high school and converted to a city hall, with the gym and auditorium being used for envoys. Instead, Whitewater decide to add on to their city hall and leave the residence with out amenities to enhance the city.
• The American Legion Building was torn down, and was a place of socializing for the community, other than the Legion functions. There was wedding, high school, and family receptions there, including my sister’s wedding, With declining membership, the Legion sold the property that was built in the late 1960s, and it seemed like a sham to tear down a building that was not that old and sound still serve the community. .
• The Hawk Bowl was torn down, With the lack of people having an interest in blowing, the bowling alley had been closed for years.
• By walking down town, there are a whole bunch of businesses gone from clothing to jewelry to hardware to movie theater. With the Janesville mall, forcing these stores to close and, today, there are Amazon trucks filling the streets, with every one shopping on line instead of in person.

There are tons of memories lost in the removal of these buildings. As with my sister’s wedding reception, I can still remember the people that attended.

It is interesting to see the deterioration of buildings through the years. Place not keep up and

As I drive through the city, I remember faces of people, and many of them are gone:

• I remember Don. During my preschool years, my grandfather built a trailer part on the north west of the city and we lived in the trailer park at that time. Don was out there filling the fuel tanks for the trailers, since they use heating oil at that time and I was out there with Don as he was filling the tanks. During the spring of my senior year in high school, I bought diesel fuel from Don for the Oliver 88 to prepare the fields that I rented from my grandfather of a corn corp. The Don when out of the fuel business and bought a hardware store in down town Whitewater. There was a few times when I came in there and Don asked my to watch for shop lifters that apparently was a problem for him. Then Don passes away while I was gone.
• Don owned the lumber yard in the city, and, since my dad was a building contractor, I was in the lumber yard often, and I got to know Don and his family, since they worked in the lumber yard, too. Don was a military veteran. He would open up his lumber yard in the evenings for the 4Hers to come an buy the lumber that they need for their 4H projects and then he would work with them to assemble there projects. Don has also passed away.
• Leland was the local veterinarian here in Whitewater. Lee was born and raised in Lamont, Iowa, and, for my last assignment in the Iowa DOT, I was assigned to the district office that covered the area the Leland grow up in. He told me that he when fishing at Backbone State Park, near where he lived, before he gave his high school valedictorian speech. He graduated with exceptional grads from Iowa State Veterinarian School, and then moved to Whitewater the Dairyland capital of the world in the 1950s. He did treat my grandfather’s cows. With Whitewater being too small for him, he got into genetically breading cows to increase milk production. With Wisconsin not having a Collage of Veterinarian School, he helped build the collage here in Wisconsin. After he retired, I met hm a few times. Once he when out to Backbone State Park and it was closed from a flood. I later found out that he could have gone to the fish hatchery down steam of the park and caught all of the fish that he wanted to, since this was the advantage of working in the district office. Then one Friday night we were out for fish and Lee was there with his local family, and he told my something that will stay with my for the rest of my life: “you grandfather was one of the best herdsmen that he had been around in his career.” Grandpa was not known for him mechanical ability, since he hair lined fractured his wrist in his wedding day and Grandma told care of the books. He was one of the last farmers in the area that farmed with horses, and he was know for his sense so humor and bring the best out of his horses and cows. Grandpa and Grandma retired before I stated school and I do not remember then farming or building their new house. Lee is now gone, too. When we were seeing out the flags last year for Memorial Day in the cemetery, we when all the way to the south and state installing the flags and the first one that I came to was Lee’s.

The many faces that I remember as I drive through the city. It was setting the flags out in the cemetery just before Memorial Day that was hard for me. As I walked through the cemetery I noticed names that I recognized and names of my classmates parents. One could argue that this is a part of life, and that we are all just getting older, and that is true, but I messed out by not being here for 38 years.

Ghost. By leaving Whitewater, I was able to focus on a career that fit my personal qualities, and I do not regret leaving here. I was going to directly build my new house in north central Wisconsin upon retiring from the state of Iowa. But, with my mom’s dementia and the poor home building business at that time, it seem like it was best to move in with mom as she struggled with her dementia. Then came the ghost as I drove through the city. It is a powerful reminder of life.