My Day

Work bit ass. Went to tailor shop afterwards, tried on some threads. Looked smashing. Par for the course. Came home, wrote and submitted JS column, it may run Tues. Wrote it intending to stir up some schtuff, so less than 50 JSonline comments will mark it as a failure.

Stick to the Story

If I were asked to name the . . . writer who I think has stuck most closely to that idea—STICK TO THE STORY, STICK TO THE GODDAMN STORY—it probably would be James M. Cain. There’s not a word in Cain that does not apply to the story he’s telling you - Rex Stout

The Tenth Anniversary of 9/11

I know nearly a month has gone by, but I want to be sure to mention that the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks did not go unrecognized here in the Slapinions household.

Discouraged by the lack of *any* apparent teaching about 9/11 in their school we took care to explain, albeit in age appropriate terms, what happened on that horrible day. On the anniversary itself Lisa and I sat down with Lulu and YaYa and watched the DVD of "9/11", the Naudet brothers eyewitness footage taken while embedded with a fire engine company that morning.



It is a powerful film, almost suffocatingly so, and we first watched it on the 6 month anniversary of the attacks. Although we had the girls exit the room for some (brutal) parts, we felt it was important they be sucked into the moment and know the fear, shock and horror that washed over every American that day. As a bonus, the structure of the film - it was conceived as an effort to follow a single probationary fire fighter during his rookie year - sucked the girls in. By the end they were frantic with concern for 'Tony', and thus were all the more immersed in the emotions of that day.

I am also proud to say that a column I wrote ran in the Pulitzer Prize winning Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel the morning of the anniversary, my first Sunday appearance and an emotional one for me, given the subject matter.

Early on the anniversary, while I was at work, Lisa's Mom took LuLu to a Brownie field trip to a local Air Force reserve base. While Lulu looks like a typical fun-loving eight year old in some of the pictures, rest assured there was some solemnity to the visit.


































To the victims of that horrible day - We Remember, and we will Never Forget.

Wish Me Luck

I should mention that I tossed my hat into the ring for a writing job of some significance. While it's a long shot of a long shot, I was happy to see that not only wasn't I rejected out of hand, the editor passed news of my interest up the ladder. So say a prayer, offer to fund a bribe, or just send good thoughts my way - whatever your preference, I'm grateful for the help.

The only thing that writers write for themselves are shopping lists

"I do not belong to that gang of bad writers who say that they only write for themselves. The only thing that writers write for themselves are shopping lists . . . All the rest, including laundry lists, are messages addressed to somebody else. They are not monologues; they are dialogues." - Umberto Eco, Confessions of a Young Novelist. (emphasis mine) 

When I first read those words they spoke to my heart; it so aptly describes me that I'm surprised I didn't write it myself. I certainly wish I had. I can say with absolute certainty that I have never strung together more than a dozen words without first considering an audience. Never mind that my 'audience' was usually composed of exactly no one, and the words were destined for the trashbin. They were 'important'. 

This practice even predates my ability to print letters. I still have a copy of a story I dictated to my Grandparents when I was four years old. It always irks me when I stumble across someone who professes to be a 'writer', yet refuses to submit their work. At four I knew the only point to spewing words on paper is to share the noise in your head. Why don't they? Of course, that opens the door to the question of personal and artistic integrity. If I'm sitting here typing my "deepest darkest emotions" with one eye on a Grandma in Budapest who might someday buy a copy of the text, I can't in all honesty claim my words will reveal, well, all honesty. Consciously or not I will edit it to the liking of my Unseen Reader. My most glaring example of this trait: a diary I kept in 1994. In those pages I glossed over some embarrassing tidbits, eliminated a few anecdotes, and most telling, actually made sure to include some (true) dirt to spice it up for the reader. It was so nauseatingly forced I couldn't bear to keep the diary going. It lasted all of a week. That's a good sign tho', no? If I had the self awareness *then* to recognize and fight the need to tidy up the world, I think I'm pretty safe in saying there's a raw honesty running through whatever I write now. So, Unseen Reader, I thank you. I thank you for keeping the fires of my imagination burning, for forcing me to always improve my work, and for - every once in a while - actually being a real, live reader who enjoys my work. See you soon. Dan

The Best Quote about Writing. Ever.

 I can't understand why a person will take a year to write a novel when he can easily buy one for a few dollars. - the late great Fred Allen

Quote

A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it - Samuel Johnson

Rule #1 for the Modern Filmaker

Rule #1 for the  thriller/action/horror filmmaker: in the first act you must either explain why the protagonist's cell phone isn't working, or conspire to destroy/lose it before the action starts. If you don't, four minutes into the flick the audience is wondering why the dummy doesn't just call 911.

I got a column done

I just finished writing and submitting a piece for the Journal on a computer with a mouse that doesn't track and a copy of Word that error'ed out and lost the complete first draft. I'm not even sure the attachment was correct, because that was finicky too. Jeez, except for the fact that I was clean, safe, & sitting on my ass, it was one step up from coal mining.

Crud I wrote for an internet gig that didn't work out

Debt Consolidation or Bankruptcy? Which is right for you

- Like too many people in America, you lost your job when the economy crashed. You always paid your bills on time in the past, but now you're forced to pick and choose: do you pay the mortgage this month, your utilities, or your credit card bill? Of course you can't risk losing your family's home, but you also can't live with the constant, humiliating harassment by your creditors.

Is debt consolidation the answer? Your creditors may say it is, since under consolidation they'll continue to make money even while your family suffers. But for you, and those you love, it may mean years of endless payments and interest; years where you'll be struggling under the burden of a debt you can't afford. When all is said and done, it may feel like less of a solution, and more like the status quo.

No one wants to declare bankruptcy. But in the end, what you really need is a clean slate, a way to start over and begin anew. Bankruptcy can give you that chance - and in most cases let you keep your house and car while you do so.

When you decide to consider bankruptcy, it's important to have the guidance of an experienced lawyer at your side. They can help you determine if its the right option for you, and determine what you owe and what you can keep. They can also can help you restore your credit rating in the quickest time possible, sometimes in as little as two years.

Remember, you are not alone. If you are in Houston, contact our lawyers at XXX-XXXX for a free consultation.


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GM must make deadline deal on debt or face Bankruptcy


- General Motors and Chrysler face an upcoming June 1st deadline to negotiate a deal with debt holders or risk defaulting on $1 billion in notes.

It's one of two high profile dates on the automakers calendar. On Tuesday the companies must submit a progress report to Washington on their post-stimulus restructuring program. If the data they present doesn't meet expectations, the Obama administration could call in the $17.4 billion loans, an action that would undoubtedly drive the companies under.

Washington has signaled that unpopular scenario is unlikely to happen.

More pressing is the $1 billion in bonds that mature on June 1st. Neither GM nor Chrysler appears ready to meet the requirements of the loans, despite viability plans submitted February 17th.

If they can't reach a deal with bondholders, GM has warned they will seek protection under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

The main sticking point in negotiations is GM's $28 billion in unsecured debt. The loan terms require the company to try to shed all but a third of that total, as well as convince the United Auto Workers to accept half of the money owed to them for its retiree health care trust as stock, rather than cash.

Despite agreeing in principle to concessions with the automakers, UAW has accused bondholders of disrupting changes dictated in the loans. For their part, bondholders are critical of the viability plans, believing among other things that the sales projections in the plans are too optimistic for the U.S. market.

Sources say a last minute deal is unlikely to happen.

David Cole, chairman of the Center for Automotive Research, summed up the atmosphere of the negotiations. “It's a cage match,” he said, “The idea is for everybody to come out of the game alive.”

Just finished polishing a piece I wrote, went to send it and the word processor crashed. Now, no trace of the file remains - no file, no anything. It's like someone took an eraser to it. F**k.

"Emma Retts" a story by YaYa written 6-2-09

This story is cross-posted on YaYa's (private) blog The Monkey House. Any and all of her 'invited' readers, please comment on her site and click on 'follow', as she *does* pay attention to such things. Thanks!

* * * * *

Emma Retts
by [YaYa]

I looked up at the board we were learning the cursive letter "z" the last letter! My friend named Sofie said "did we learn th letter " y" ? " yet ? she said . Mr. Comma said yes we did Sofie . He said to start are page. Do we curve the "z" ? I asked. A boy named Nate whispered to me yeah Dumbo! I just stared [at] my work.

When I walked home with my friends, my mom said welcome home Emma! I said bye to my friends. I walked inside my mom made a cake . What for? I said to my mother. She said my cousin Gina just won being vice president. Who cares I thought?

mom and I got changed my brother was already there. why can't he just take us in his own car? Teens are just that way,if thy get caught with family they get embarrassed from girls. When is dad coming back? Is he still in China? I miss him ! why don't you cheek the mail,maybe there's a letter from dad. I went on the porch mom! there"s a letter from dad!

it says: dear Lisa,Dan, and Emma I won't be home till May. sorry, my store was poor for awhile then , it was filled ! love ,daddy

Some writing news

The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's book editor just answered a query letter of mine with a positive 'send it in'. Which means that she'll look over some book reviews of mine and *potentially* publish them in the paper.

That's a big deal to me, bigger even than the columns. The columns are, by the requirements of the job, Milwaukee themed and unlikely to sell elsewhere. A book review can be sold and resold to any market, and with a published review in the Journal I'd have a solid track record to reference.

Small money, small sucess, sure - but hopefully another step in the right direction.

I'll keep my fingers crossed.

My first professional submission of 2008

Well, I did it. I submitted my first, well, anything to a  publication in a long time. Nothing fancy mind you, just a book review. It spawned from winning an online contest on a popular book site, with the prize being a free copy of an upcoming release delivered straight to your door from the publisher.

So I figured what the heck, write a review and send it in.

It was hard to plow through the book at first. For a moment or two I got tangled in long, twisting passages that seemed to go nowhere. When I complained about this my wife said, and I quote: "That's just because it's different than your writing. Your writing is simple."

Cue my jaw dropping open. She scrambled to recover: "Not . . not.bad or anything, per se. . .. Just simple. You know. Like . . like, uh, like Hemingway!"

Ok, so I exaggerate; it's always fun to paint a spouse as a villian. Once my jaw dropped she actually said "I like your writing, but it's simpler, more down to earth. His style is different."

 To quote Hawthorne: Easy Reading is Hard Writing.

Anyhow the book picked up steam and wound up being a pretty good read. Here's a copy of the review (and I hope its presence here doesn't void any potential publishing opportunities):

* * *

Now You See Him

By Eli Gottlieb

ISBN: 9780061284649

262 pages

William Morrow, $22.95

By the time Now You See Him begins Rob Castor is dead and buried, reduced to nothing more than a lingering and tawdry story in the tabloids.

But make no mistake: Nick Framingham may be the narrator of the novel, but the story is Rob Castor's at every turn.

Now You See Him is the sophomore effort by award winning author Eli Gottlieb, who returns after a decade's absence with a novel of friendship, obsession, secrets, and the ever present clash between the nostalgic memories of the past and the harsh reality of the present.

Nick Framingham and Rob Castor were childhood friends and neighbors, but from the start Rob seemed destined for something more than their small, upstate New York town could provide him. While Nick would marry and settle down, Rob would become a minor celebrity as a writer - and a national obsession when he murdered his girlfriend and then committed suicide.

In the wake of his friend's death Nick is unable to resume his normal life. His marriage to his college sweetheart continues to deteriorate, with his wife unable to empathize with his loss as she is increasingly drawn to another man. His sons grow distant and his job performance puts his career in jeopardy.

It will only get worse.

Like a siren call Rob's family begins to draw Nick further into the chaos that envelopes anyone who grew close to the writer. Rob's mother, a bitter and alcoholic widow, is quick to wound with harsh words and hint at something sinister as yet unspoken. His sister, Nick's old flame, returns to town and seems eager to resume their relationship, further putting his marriage in jeopardy.

And somewhere beneath the surface lies a pair of secrets that will consume two families and haunt Nick for the rest of his life.

The publisher calls Gottlieb's prose 'extraordinarily luxuriant and evocative' and it is - but at some cost. Gottlieb has a knack for spinning a memorable and breathtaking phrase, but at times he tries too hard.

For every " . . .we found the quiet itself a fraught, richly communicating thing. If we listened carefully enough, we were certain that the distances had a hiss; that trees sighed, even on windless days; that clouds breathed their way backwards across the sky," there are four passages that seem strained and cumbersome, filler created not to fulfill a page count but that of a silent, self-assured quota of talent on display.

If at times, and only at times, the prose inhibits the reader's enjoyment, the framework of the story itself never fails to keep your interest. What seems at first like a pedestrian story about loss amid a midlife crisis soon morphs into a blistering attack on every facet of Nick's life, with a final plot revelation that changes the entire foundation of Nick's existence and how you relate to him.

All of these plot twists, each change in Nick's life, big and small, flow from his relationship with Rob. It is as if his death has broken a dam of long suppressed pain and secrecy and allowed the water to wash away every iota of what Nick thought was safe and secure.

Not bad for a character who only appears in flashbacks, and then usually at the lowest ebb of his life.

Now You See Him is an impressive and deceptively complicated novel about friendship, love, and the steep cost of living a lie, even one deferred. It's an impressive sophomore effort by Eli Gottlieb and no doubt a precursor of things to come.

-00-

Tags: Eli Gottlieb, book review, Now You See Him

My 2nd Submission piece

 

Okay, hello again. I notice that I popped online after a long absence, bombarded you with a bunch of posts, and disappeared for a month.

I'm probably about to do it again, lol.

First things first: I didn't get that Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel job, and it was no suprise to me. My submission sucked, and even if it didn't the Journal isn't looking for a guy like me. To quote the rejection letter:

 We have tried to choose a group of quality columnists who will be representative of the public we serve – politically, geographically, racially, ethnically, by gender and age.

As you can see, they were eager to hire a 32 year old straight white guy.

The vastly embarrassing thing is that they chose 25 other writers - poor submission or not, no way I'm the 26th best undiscovered writer in Milwaukee.

Oh, and since the subject of this piece (one of the two I sent in) was smoking, please note: nearly five weeks into life as a non-smoker, I'm still doing well. I fell off the wagon for a day or two last week, sneaking smokes during a high stress day, but I'm back to clean and phlegmmy :)

********************

Unless you enjoy being seen as a social outcast and a proponent of all things Evil, it’s best to just smile and nod your head when people bring up the idea of a smoking ban in Milwaukee.

Now personally, I think a citywide smoking ban will hurt local businesses, and more importantly I see it as yet another erosion of our dwindling individual rights.

After all, if the customer demands it, a business will ban smoking on their own. Why mandate it?

In other words, I’m as social outcast and a proponent of all things Evil.

But I’m also a realist, and I can see far enough down the road to know the days of public smoking are numbered. I could live with a smoking ban.

I wouldn’t like it, but I’d deal - in part because I believe that it would be enacted with genuine concern for public health, even though I know it was pushed not by the citizens of Milwaukee, but by special interest groups .

There’s no such saving grace behind talk of a citywide tax on cigarettes. I’ve heard the reasons behind it, and I don’t believe a single one of them is the true reason behind the tax.

According to the Council, cigarettes allegedly account for 1/3 of the city’s litter, adding to the cost of street cleaning and sewage treatment. They cause accidental fires, add to the cost of health care for government employees, and increase water and air pollution.

(No word yet on whether they contribute to tooth decay and global warming, but I’m sure our enligtened Council will educate us soon enough)

Tacked onto the end of the discussion is the one true reason for the tax: the need to fatten the city‘s wallet.

In 2004, 40,730,000 packs of cigarettes were sold in Milwaukee. If as hoped, cigarettes were taxed at an additional $0.25 a pack, $10,182,000 would be raised to ‘help pay for the above mentioned city costs’.

It’s not a unique idea. Cook County and the city of Chicago both tax cigarettes. and we all know how healthy and financially sound the folks in Illionois are.

Oh, and, um, naturally property taxes are currently used to pay for those costs in Milwaukee. If you read between the lines, the idea is the tax would lower that burden for homeowners.

Riiight.

Sewage treatment, street litter, careless house fires? C'mon, give us some credit!

And the bit about property taxes - implying the cigarette tax would lower them - is laughable.

[full disclosure: I am a smoker, albeit one that resents my own addiction. Sure, I don’t look forward to a cost increase, but unless I’m completely misreading my own heart, financial self-interest doesn’t play a role in this debate]

I just find it revolting that the council would try to increase the city's bank balance in the guise of an anti-smoking measure. Isn’t it a tad ghoulish to profit from something you yourself label destructive and deadly?

Not an ounce of me thinks that money will go to anything related to tobacco related costs, save perhaps for a token school program or two. The rest will go to fill whatever shortfalls the budget creates.

Years from now, when smoking is passe and the tax peters out, the people of Milwaukee will be left scrambling to meet the reduced revenue. What will happen then is self-evident - another tax will be created to take its place, only it won’t be as easy to find a willing victim.

Next time, everyone will pay.

I say, if your goal is to ban smoking, then do it. Do it on the basis of public health, do it because it means it will be that much harder for my kids to pick up my vile habit in the years to come, do it on principle or because it gives you more federal funds to repair the damage cigarettes caused.

Heck, do it with the long disproved reasoning the increase in price will reduce demand and limit smoking.

Just don't hide your motives behind some ad campaign - you're trying to profit off of someone else’s pain every bit as much as the tobacco companies you despise.

 

MJS Entry

Ok, what follows is a lesson in how NOT to audition for a writing job. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel held their second annual open audition for columnists. Unlike last year, when I did my dangdest and still feel miffed at losing out, I barely paid attention to the contest. My wife and Dad kept encouraging me, but until the last day I didn't even have a word typed out.

And this, my friends, is one of two sorry a** examples of how rusty, unmotivated, and lousy I can write when the mood strikes me.

Like most Milwaukee natives, my opinion on the Parks system is strangely contradictory.

On one hand, I’m proud of the vast expanses of green and timber that help break up the monotony of city life.

More often however, I take the parks and what they mean to the city for granted. To be honest, most days I tune them out as I drive by, almost as if they didn’t exist at all.

Judging by the current state of the parks, as detailed in the recent Journal-Sentinel series on their future, that last part might be dangerously close to reality.

You’d think I’d pay more attention, since almost every memory I have involves a park. I grew up across from Pulaski, saw concerts in Wilson with my grandfather, played in Kosciusko (and like many kids, argued about the pronunciation. To me, it’s Ka Shoe Ko. Sue me.).

I marched in parades at Humboldt, proposed to my wife at Sheridan, take my kids to play at Copernicus and Burnham, used Washington as a landmark daily for a year, and camped at Whitnall.

And yet, other than noting my wife’s complaint that the restrooms at the park were locked last weekend, I didn’t have a clue they were in trouble. If you’d asked me, I’d have told you the biggest crisis facing our park system were the blasted geese and the droppings they left behind.

(note to the reader: once this current crisis is over, we have to talk about the geese. I genuinely hate them. If I was a vegetarian, they’d make me want a steak).

Ponds are full of lime and weeds, windows are broken, pavilions are locked, attractions like the Domes are curbing maintenance, pools are in danger of closing, and the only real publicity of late has been the horrifying shooting at South Shore.

So what to do?

Money. The Journal-Sentinel proposes a quarter of a percent sales tax with revenue to go directly into the park system.

If the parks were new, or looking to expand, I would welcome the tax. It would be well worth it, for myself and the community.

And yet, as columnist Patrick McIlheran points out, only 8% of my county taxes - taxes paid in one of the most heavily taxed cities in one of the most heavily taxed states - goes towards the park system.

As recently as 20 years ago, a full 29% went to the parks.

No doubt social services have eaten part of the missing 21%, as Milwaukee’s population continues to fall victim to the suburbs, and those that remain share more of a burden with less ability to pay.

But I too have to look to the County pension scandals of recent years and wonder if this is a case of shifting priorities - or just shifting the blame.

Would adding to our overwhelming tax burden genuinely help the parks, or help the next round of crooks line their pockets?

If you think I’m paranoid, then you haven’t lived here long enough.

Mayor Barrett has already publicized his belief that any tax increase must do more than help ‘only’ the parks. To my biased ears, that reeks of more than just ‘mission creep’; it says to me that this is just another hackneyed attempt to fuel an oversized, unproductive local government.

It’s one of the few reasons that this life-long Milwaukeean would ever consider leaving the city.

That and, you know, the weather.

And why an add-on to the sales tax? Recently the Common Council spoke of taxing cigarettes to pay for ‘costs’ incurred by the city. It was, to put it mildly, a ridiculous and hypocritical idea, with most of the ‘costs’ sounding suspiciously like poppycock, but if there is going to be a park tax why not make take it from this (or any of a hundred) other tax ideas our politicians spend their career?

If there is to be a sales tax, fine. But prove it to me.

Prove to me that there’s no other way, that union raises, managerial incompetence, and political whitewash play no part in the decay of a once proud institution.

Prove it to me, and I’ll gladly pay the tax.

 

An Interview with a Pearl Harbor Survivor

My family has a strong military tradition - no career soldiers (except for my brother-in-law), but vets of Guadacannal, D-Day, Korea, Vietnam,WWI, etc. On this Veteran's Day, I extend a thank-you to all the members of our military, past and present.

When I was 17 I interviewed my Great Uncle Leo, a Navy vet that was present at Pearl Harbor. I was a shy, nervous kid, and if I had a time machine I'd go back and ask a hundred different questions. Still, at least his memories are on record. The complete transcript is on file with the local historical society.

                                                       *   *     *    *   *

My Uncle Leo was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1920. A Machinist’s Mate 1st Class in the Navy, he was a survivor of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and served his country for five years aboard the USS Vestal - a vessel moored alongside the Arizona that fateful morning. His 49 year marriage to  produced three daughters and an equal number of grandchildren. A retired employee of General Electric Medical Systems, he died in 1999 from complications of a stroke.

At the time of this interview he was 70 years old, and the interviewer 17.

A: [I was a] machinist I would run lathes, mills, repaired, went and repaired ships that were sunk or brought up. If we had to repair ships we had to go on ships and repair them.. . .

Q What was wrong with the Arizona, that you were moored alongside?

A: Well, we were doing a routine…a routine overhaul on it. Supposed to. That day we pulled alongside of them.

Q: You pulled alongside on the seventh?

A: No, the sixth.

Q And that was supposed to start Monday or something?

A: Yeah. We pulled over Saturday. So we pulled over Saturday night over to the Arizona, ‘cause I was gonna see a bunch of buddies of mine aboard the Arizona that I went through training with.

Q: Did they make it through?

A: I didn’t see….[sad]

Q: Now that morning [12-7-41] you were heading to church right?

A: Yeah, we were going to church. There was, well all together there was about 13 of us. And..

Q: Were you already on land?

A: Oh yeah. We were going to church and then they started their bombing..that’s when these two airplanes started dive-bombing us and shooting machine gun bullets at us. The guy next to me got killed, from my department. His name was Kerrigan. He was, I think, the first guy that died.

Q: Did you know what was going on right away?

A: No, no. We thought, I looked up there and I saw them and I said "Jesus, [unintelligible; perhaps ‘mock warfare’] dressed as Japanese". ‘Til they turned around and started machine gunning. We were going [into the] church, we tried to get into the church. Now they had a round concrete thing [gesturing] that went over like that. It went from one end open to the other. Well this guy would shoot these machine gun bullets through there and we . ..but we were running to get out of the way when he got killed, when he got killed we were alongside of a fence. And . . the bullets went all in between, you could see the cars behind us all had holes in ‘em, and out of thirteen guys he was the only one killed. One guy out of thirteen of us. And we were all close, one alongside of each other. How them bullets got between us and hit him only, I don’t know. Because the cars in the back with all holes [in] ‘em.

Q: What’d you do after that?

A: Well, then we ran. They told us to get back to the ships.

Q: Did you make it back to the ship?

A: No. Couldn’t get it. We couldn’t get..they wouldn’t let ya, they were gunning, machine gunning. So then I had … we went to the dock, and we were supposed to go aboard [a] submarine, ‘cause they didn’t have enough crewmen. Then somebody said to us to go man a machine gun on a beach, so that’s where I went. And then about half of the day, at night I delivered camels, these big wooden squares they call it. They put between ships so they don’t collide [with] each other. I delivered them between these ships, at night, so they could maneuver around, the ships. So, we had that duty at night, and after we got back we machine gun…the ship got sunk, our ship. We rammed it into the beach. Then I went back there and we manned machine guns, the whole ship.

Q: Is that how you spent the day, just at a machine gun?

A: Yeah, spent the whole day. It only took a few minutes. I mean the attack was [laughs] aboard the Vestal and there it didn’t take long. [The Japanese] dropped two bombs aboard our ship, one was in the back and it didn’t explode. One was forward, it hit the deck, went through the mez deck [sp?], killed I don’t know, 3 or 4 people aboard there, the mez deck . . . and then went into what they call a metal locker, where we kept billets for machining like for, and material for machining, like brass, copper, menal [sp?], stainless steel for repairing ships. Well, the bomb hit that and exploded see, otherwise maybe it would have gone right through the ship too.

Q: Shrapnel everywhere, eh?

A: Oh God, yeah.

Q: Is there anything else you remember about that, about Pearl Harbor?

A: No, just that [laughs] I was scared like hell.[laughs] We all were running, you know, trying to get away from him. And there were two of ‘em, and they coming, one would come this way and the other one would come this way. Everybody was running around. Then we, they sent us to eat. And then we got into the line then they stopped all the lines and said all the food was poisoned, nobody could eat. Yeah, we didn’t have nothin’ to eat. I didn’t have anything to eat from Sunday morning ‘til Monday morning. I went aboard my ship, on deck, and we had the cook made eggs.

Q: So there were rumors going around …

A: Yeah. Blood was splattered all over the mez deck. But that was the first meal I had in say, 24 hours.

Q: Were you worried, like, there were rumors, like, Hawaii was going [to be invaded]. . .

A: Yes! Well, that’s why we were manning the machine guns on the beach, to, for an attack. And I don’t know how many of our planes, they wouldn’t even let our own planes come in to Hawaii, they were knocking them down. Because they didn’t know…

Q: Everyone was jumpy and everything. . .

A: Yeah. And we, they killed dogs, and cows. Yeah! Anything that moved they shot at, I mean everybody was afraid, you know?

Q: Afterwards what did you do?

A: Well, we would…after Pearl Harbor?

Q: Yeah.

A: Then we were all sent out to repair ships.

Q: I mean right after Pearl Harbor. In the book it said you went to the Oklahoma and cut it open, or you went and repaired your own ship . . .

A: Yeah.

Q: What did you do? Did you go to another ship, or. ..

A: No. I was aboard my ship, making parts for the ships, like the ones that needed repair, especially the Enterprise, carriers or that, that had to go out. And we worked like that for two weeks, then we went into dry-dock. And repaired ourselves. They had a big hole in our rear end. So what we did, they made a wooden box and he took a big piece of canvas, put it underneath the hole, brought the cranes up, pulled the box up, and we poured concrete for a whole…I think it was fifteen hours they poured concrete down in that hole to plug that hole up. Then they kept air in it, as they were pouring, then we took it and pumped out all the water right?

Q Yeah.

A: Then we got the ship [to] come up. We righted the ship up. Then we went and repaired all these other ships. We sent crews here, and crews there. Well I was in the machine shop, so we needed parts, so I was working on lathes and stuff. And, after we got done repairing as much of these ships as we could, ones that were so bad that they had just patch ‘em up so they could go to a repair base where they could put ‘em in a big dry-dock and repair them. Because you had to cut big holes in it. That’s what we had to do. We had to go into a dry-dock. But we repaired our own ship. We cut the plate out and we welded a new one up in there, and fixed our ship so it could go on the way.

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New entry - Gurda speech

I'm going to try to get a 'brand new' post up soon, but in the meantime here's another college-era project.

ps. Fred - long time no hear. Drop me a line, will ya?

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When writer/historian John Gurda was working on a project several years ago he took in some photos for processing. One of the workers at the lab pointed to a photo of a South Side bartender. “That looks just like someone I knew back home in Alaska,” the man said. “Was he Polish?,” Gurda asked. The man shrugged. “I didn’t know what anyone ‘was’ until I came to Milwaukee,” he said.

“In Milwaukee ‘ethnic’ is anyone,” Gurda said in a speech at Centennial Hall, 733 N. Eighth St. “The title ‘ethnic Milwaukee’ is almost redundant.”

Gurda, who holds degrees from Boston College and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, is vice president of the Milwaukee Public Library Board of Trustees. He was appointed by Mayor John O. Norquist to the board in January of 1993. He has studied his hometown of Milwaukee for more then 20 years, and has written several books concerning the city.

Gurda views Milwaukee as a combination of united but distinct ethnic groups, as “the mosaic it is rather than the (traditional) melting pot.” Ethnic, said Gurda, means simply “roots”. “(In Milwaukee) the roots are certainly deep but is the tree still alive?” Gurda said. Too often, he believes, ethnicity is seen as something of value only to people of color. Lately however, Gurda has seen a change in Milwaukee.

“(In the) last 15 to 20 years there is….strong evidence there is a reawakening of (ethnic) pride,” Gurda said. He points to popularity of ethnic festivals - eight including the new Asian Moon- as one such example. “Attendance at (all eight) the festivals totaled about 500,000 people, which (shows) the continuing importance of ethnicity,” Gurda said.

Milwaukee has been diverse since pre-European contact. According to Gurda there were “dozens of tribes” in the Milwaukee area before contact. “(Although) by 1700 the most important tribe was the Potowatomi,” Gurda said. By 1940 however most Native Americans had been “removed” West. In there place came Yankees of English decent.

“We don’t usually think of the English as an ethnic group,” Gurda said. He believes their importance can ot be denied. “They called the tune to which the rest of us have danced.” Gurda said.

By 1850 however two-thirds of Milwaukee’s population was foreign born. These first true immigrants were of Irish and German descent. By the 1860’s the Germans had become the majority, a fact which has not changed even in the present. “There are more Schmidt’s (in the phone book) than there are Smiths,” Gurda said.

Later in the century, as Milwaukee converted to a manufacturing base, a “constant infusion of new blood” brought Poles and Italians to the city. In 1866 St. Stanislaus Catholic church was built by Polish immigrants. “(It was) the first Polish church in any American city,” Gurda said.

After World War I, a wave of nativism, or anti-immigrant feelings, closed Milwaukee to European workers. To meet the need for workers, African-Americans and Hispanics, especially Mexicans, were recruited to work in Milwaukee factories.

“The roots of African-Americans in the Milwaukee area are…deeper than most people realize,” Gurda said. The first African-American church in Milwaukee was built in 1869- a mere three years after the Poles built St. Stanislaus and nearly half a century before most churches were built.

“The fastest growing group since 1980 has been Southeast Asians,” Gurda said. Their culture is vastly different than what they encounter here, their language is unknown, the climate different. In short, they are not that unusual.

“The same pattern holds true for virtually all the groups that have made their home here in the last 150 years,” Gurda said.

“(It’s) an old story that is constantly renewed…and still in the process of telling,” Gurda said.

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Excerpt from Little Grandpa August 17th

It seems an opportune time to reproduce part of the book I wrote about my relationship with my Grandfather.  Written for my Grandmother's 79th birthday this chapter, appropriately enough, was originally entitled 'August 17th" . . .

In the middle of August 1983, little less than three weeks before he died, my Grandpa and I took a road trip together.

It was my idea. I had asked him if we could spend the day together, take in some local sites, and maybe take a short drive. He agreed. So the night before we left I took a map and circled a half dozen cities without any concept of distance or travel time. I showed the map to him as he sat watching TV in the living room.

“You’re crazy!” he said.

We went anyway.

We pulled the car out of the garage at 8 o’clock and drove down to the Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory – better known as the Domes. It was our first stop for the very practical reason that admission was free on that day, provided you arrived early enough.

There are three glass domes, greenhouses really, that stand a few stories high. Inside, each of the domes features a different botanical landscape: one desert, one tropical, and one much like our Wisconsin scenery.

We took our time walking through the Domes, spending a lot of time in the desert landscape. My Dad had worked there in his teens and we’d visited only a few weeks before, so I tried to impress Grandpa by pointing out what plant was what. Nevermind the little identification cards stuck right next to each plant – it was important he hear it from me.

Ironically, what I remember most from that stop is that Grandpa had to use the restroom. I was stuck waiting for him outside the stall, keeping an eye on the cane he draped over the side.

As we were leaving the parking lot Grandpa pointed to a building across the street. “See that?” he asked. “I helped build that in the fifties. It used to be an insurance building, but now they just rent out the office space.” Having a Grandpa that could point out a building and say, “I made this” made me proud, and bumped him up even further in my eyes.

We took 27th Street up to Forest Home Avenue, passing Paul’s Diner along the way. Paul’s was a tiny hamburger stand that had been on that corner since the invention of ground beef, and I’m sure Grandpa had downed a meal or two there. “You hungry? We can stop for some burgers,” he said.

This became one of those silly moments that take on too much importance in life. I was hungry, and I wanted to stop for a burger. In fact, I thought it would be neat to eat at the old diner, but . . . somewhere inside I got nervous. I had never eaten there before. What if the burgers were nasty? What if the place was dirty? I shook my head no.

Obviously, far from an important decision, but it bugged me for years. What if we had stopped? Would the day have lasted just that much longer, instead of ending when it did? Would I have another memory to treasure forever? How could I have been so scared?

Well, we didn’t stop, and I doubt that if we had it would have altered the course of human events. And I did eventually eat at the diner – with my wife, who happened to have waitressed there in her teens.

Our next stop was the Experimental Aircraft Association museum out on Hwy 100. Later that year the EAA would move the museum to their home in Oshkosh, where it became a mammoth display of aircraft that stretched for hangar after hangar. When it was in Franklin t was just a single large building packed to the rafters with flight memorabilia.

Here Grandpa was in his element. Most of the planes were WWII vintage, and he’d been trained, as an anti-aircraft gunner, to identify all of them by sight. We didn’t have to get close to the plaques on their sides – he’d stop ten paces away and say, “That’s a Zero. It was made by Mitsubishi, the same guys that make cars now,” or “That’s a P-40 Mustang. That John Wayne movie, The Flying Tigers? That’s what they flew, but they painted shark teeth on the nose because the Chinese thought that was lucky.”

There was a replica of Fat Man, the atom bomb that dropped on Japan, and actual pieces of the Hindenburg. We’d just got done watching a movie on the dirigible, and in one of the display photos was a passenger describing the even. In the movie he was played by the French guy from Hogan’s Heroes.

Hanging from the ceiling was a model of Lindbergh’s plane, and again, Grandpa, consciously or not, combined cinema and history to teach me something. “You remember that Jimmy Stewart movie, Spirit of St. Louis? Can you believe he flew across the ocean in that thing?”

Amelia Earheart was mentioned too, and lo and behold, we’d seen a movie about her too. (God Bless the Late Late Show on Channel 6 – how do history teachers manage without it nowadays?)

Grandpa stopped and talked to someone with the same love for the aircraft, and picked up a souvenir card that featured an optical illusion that spelled out EAA. I still have the card, but I have more trouble spotting the letters nowadays.

Afterwards Grandpa took me to the one hamburger joint I’ve never turned down: McDonald’s.

It was a beautiful restaurant compared to the one we frequented, with crisp white paint and new tile. It was five minutes from home but seemed a world away, just me and my Grandpa on the open road. It was marvelous.

The restaurant was packed for the lunch hour, but we found a seat. I had my standard hamburger, milk, and fries and Grandpa had a large coffee (his cream and sugar milkshake) accompanied by an oar-shaped stirrer that’s permanently burned into my memory.

To my left sat a family. Mom, Dad, infant child – and Japanese exchange student. It was his first day in America, and the family wanted to treat him to some genuine Americana. They would ask him a question, he would feign understanding, and then they’d all laugh and ask another one. This went on for the entire meal.

On my right was another family, identical but minus the exchange student. They were trying to feed their crying child an ice cream cone, but the kid just wasn‘t having it.

Midway through our meal the infant on the right had enough, cocked his arm, and launched the cone in the air. It landed upside down on the floor by Grandpa. All three tables were quiet for a moment. Then the Japanese student spoke.

“Ahhhh, ice cream!”

We all burst out laughing.

From there we hit the open road. We went to St. Francis, Cudahy, New Berlin, and from there we ventured outside the county. It was more or less what I’d planned: a haphazard route that went nowhere in particular.

We found ourselves driving past Lake Donoon. “When I was a kid your age we’d go swimming in that lake,” he said. I looked out at the vacation homes strangling the lake and wondered aloud how he could have afforded it.

“Oh, it was different then. This was fifty years ago, even before the war. You could just come up here and swim with your buddies. You didn’t have to worry about who owned what back then. It was just a lake, and we were kids. We didn’t know any better.”
We drove for an hour, maybe two, but nothing else sticks in my mind. I just had fun riding shotgun with Grandpa, watching the Wisconsin countryside go by in the last great summer of my youth.

We had one more scheduled stop, the Boerner Botanical Gardens in Whitnall Park. If you forget the fancy name, the Gardens were just what they advertised – a huge public flower garden run by the County.

By this time Grandpa’s legs were hurting him, but he still followed me up and down the path. In truth, the Garden’s always bored me a little, but he seemed to get a kick out of them. He always had more of a green thumb than I did.

As we were winding down our tour he stopped and talked at length with one of the County gardeners. The subject was, of course, plants, but the guy did interrupt to scold me for scraping my shoes on the gravel. “That’ll ruin your shoes son”. Yeah, well buy me a new pair or mind your business old man.

Grandpa apparently missed this proof of the man’s ignorance and continued talking to him. He loved a type of plant that, to my eyes, looked like it had been splattered with a florescent paint. I’ll give the guy this much – he seemed to give Grandpa some good tips on how to make the plant flourish.

By then it was nearing late afternoon, and Grandpa treated me to an early supper at Denny’s. He stopped and bought a paper on the way in – it would wind up tucked beneath his recliner by morning – and we sat down to eat.

When dinner was over Grandpa graciously allowed me to get desert. Remembering the boy at McDonald’s, I ordered an ice cream sundae. “One scoop or two?” the waitress asked. Two, I said.

Gramps waited for her to leave and then jokingly kidded me for emptying his wallet with the other scoop. “She asked me! I thought the second scoop was the same price!” I said. Gramps laughed and told me to relax, that he could certainly afford another scoop for the Piper Man.

We came home in late afternoon, and Grandpa stretched out his tired legs on the couch. We watched Laverne and Shirley, then MASH. It was the episode where a undetonated bomb lands in the camp, and Hawkeye and Trapper have to defuse it before it’s too late. They approached the bomb carrying mattresses over their shoulders.

“What are the mattresses for?” I asked.

“In case the bomb explodes,” he explained.

I thought for a minute. “So, what do they expect the mattress to do, break their fall?” I replied sarcastically.

Grandpa roared with laughter, and I felt proud to have made him laugh.

A few weeks later I started the fourth grade, and for the first and last time in my academic career I actually had to explain what I did over my summer vacation. I chose Grandpa’s Day as my theme - our day deserved a title, just like any other day you want to celebrate each year. On a sheet of drawing paper I made a collage of our day, start to finish. It was pretty darn good, earning me one of the few A’s I’d receive in that troubled year.

A week later, Grandpa was dead.

It’s a tradition, at least in my family, to include with the deceased mementos of his or her life. Notes from a loved one, pictures, and perhaps a small cherished object. Among the notes and pictures placed inside Grandpa’s suit was that art project. I wanted him to remember, as I always will, how much fun we had that day, and how special it was to me.

For a few years I celebrated Grandpa’s Day by recreating the spirit, if not the actual itinerary, of our trip. In 1984 Mom took me out; in 1985 Grandma and I went to see Back to the Future and ate at a pizza parlor. Then, as my memory began to blur, I pushed the day aside. I’m not even sure of the exact date anymore - it’s either the 16th or 17th - and it really doesn’t matter.

Midway through each August I think of Grandpa. Sometimes I visit his grave, other times I treat my wife to a special dinner out. In 2001 my wife’s baby shower was scheduled for Grandpa’s Day, and in return Gramps successfully petitioned God to turn off the rain long enough for the picnic to be a success.

When my daughter is older I will ask her to climb in the car one hot summer day and take a look at the lake where her Great-Grandpa once swam in the heat of an August sun. God willing, decades from now her son will do the same.

And each summer, from now until the end, I will think of that day we spent together. Even if it was a crazy idea.

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The Steve Bentley article July 25th

While my stuttering work on my book continues, I've decided I've ignored Slapinions for far too long.  Here's a sample of some of my old work: expect some new stuff (relatively) soon.

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I wrote this in or around 1994 while enrolled in a journalism class at UWM. The instructor, a longtime sports reporter named Gregg Hoffman, graded on a simple scale: an A indicated work that could be printed as-is at a newspaper with minimal tweaking, a B meant it was in need of at least one solid rewrite, etc. As I recall A's were few and far between from the man.

This article earned me an A and a "Great Job!" in the margins. Naturally a yahoo who earned a C (in need of major revision) managed to get his version printed, courtesy of some connection at a campus paper.

Ain't that just the way life goes . .

 

Like most of the 2.8 million American's who served in Vietnam, Steve Bentley looked much the same when he returned home in 1969.

He had no wheelchair, no physical wounds, no Purple Heart. The wounds he carried home were buried inside, but their effects were just as long lasting.

"I used to use (rape) as an analogy for (what happened to) Vietnam Vets," Bentley said in a speech Thursday at the UW-Milwaukee Lutheran Campus Ministry.

It has been a quarter century since Bentley left Vietnam. Middle-aged, with a graying beard and soft spoken manner, it is easier to picture him as an uncle or father than a young man at war. Upon hearing of his accomplishments, it is just as hard to imagine what negative effect the war had on him:

- Masters in Education in Rehabilitation Counseling

- Recipient of the 25th Gamaliel Chair, a Lutheran award for community activism

- author, television producer, lecturer

That is, until you hear him speak about what his biography doesn’t mention.

"When I got home I went through a litany of drug addictions, alcohol addictions, and hospitalization," Bentley said. "I went through 16 to 20 different jobs, I slashed my wrists, I overdosed . . "

"I felt I failed the manhood test (in Vietnam)," Bentley said.

Bentley volunteered for the Army in 1967. He served two tours in Vietnam as a Rome plow operator in the 599th Combat Engineers, 1967-69. It was, even for Vietnam, a dangerous occupation.

Sent out alone to clear jungle for future Special Forces camps, the plow operators often were easy targets. "You can’t tiptoe through the jungle on a 25 ton bulldozer," Bentley said, "and they know where you are everyday."

"In one . . . four month period I lost three assistant operators. One was blown apart by a rocket propelled grenade, one was blown apart by an anti-tank mine, and one was captured," Bentley said.

It wasn’t long before he realized the myth of his father "singlehandedly winning WWII" was an illusion.

"The ground was pulled out from under me," Bentley said. One of the reasons he volunteered for a second tour was his realization of how deep the war had affected him.

"There was no delayed stress. I went cuckoo real fast," Bentley said.

It wasn’t until years after his return that he was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. According to Bentley, some 480,000 Vietnam veterans have been diagnosed with the disease.

Unfortunately, according to Bentley, for too long the government has denied vets treatment on the basis of pre-war problems.

"If (that’s true) then they should be obligated for stamping us A-OK and sending us there," Bentley said.

A half a lifetime away from the war Bentley has spent years speaking to high school and college students about his experiences. "(Kids respond) really, really well. That’s why I keep doing it."

"You can’t take 45 years of experience and in an hour give that to a 16 year old, but what’s incredible is how many connect," Bentley said.

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