WannaskaWriter

   No, it was February when I went over to a neighbor’s place and found the LP gas truck stuck just off a their road. It was on approach to a little steel country bridge that it couldn’t cross because of weight restrictions. It was a single axle truck, weighing about 35,000 pounds empty plus its load of liquid propane on it.  It wasn’t the first time I had seen a propane truck stuck on the edge of a ditch that imperiled it.    The single lane road was packed with snow, and its narrow shoulders were sloped to the wetland on either side bordering the road. It appeared the driver had backed up to the bridge as he was supposed to do, but found himself not quite centered on the road. When he tried to correct it, the rear wheels on the drivers side slid sideways a few inches onto the shoulder and soon he was stuck.    The driver was down to his shirtsleeves, shoveling snow. He said nothing. I had no shovel with me, and even so couldn’t help him because I had...

Beaver Lodge 4    It became a sunny day; the snow was melting. I took a ride to deer camp on my four-wheeler; the first of its kind for us as a team; me and the ATV. I had started out on it last summer when our 11-year old grandson was visiting us from Red Cliff, Wisconsin, but we only made it a mile when it started to stall, so I quickly turned around and went back home before it happened somewhere far from any assistance, like near this old place about 3-miles away.     Vehicles bought 2nd or 3rd hand, like the 2011 four-wheeler now in my possession, are bound to have some bugs in them that the former owners didn't want to fix, otherwise they would've kept them. Add to the fact I was a reluctant purchaser in the first place (the wife just insisted I buy it to save on my old legs, joints, and heart) I could've saved money to boot not buying it; but I did. It's been a learning experience.     It is a four-wheel off-road motorcycle really; not a very big one...

  June 9, 2022    Notes on Aging: Things Your Parents Never Told You. (Page 1 missing.) ... was that while his nose grew larger on the outside of his face, it also grew larger on the inside of his face, and therein developed, as I have, a labyrinth of fluted cavities for nasal debris and secretions to alight; to affix to; to secure upon; to linger, that weren't there a few short years ago.     What used to take less than a few seconds to vacate with reasonable assurance that I had removed or expelled said obstruction, either by protrusion of a singular exploratory digit using handkerchief or toilet paper; or the more grotesque forcible nasal expulsion has become  a virtual minefield of antagonism, as I now have to constantly examine my nasal orifices carefully, practically turning my nostrils inside out, in order to locate and remove hangers-on, hiders, new forestations of nasal-wall lichen and fungi; soil-laced chunks, sawdust, soot, bark, or bugs that hav...

 June 23, 2015     Useless     My daughter is leaving for Bemidji after spending four days with us going through 'her life' in the upstairs-under-the-roof dormers. It was just time that she do it and reduce/organize some room in them that we could utilize, now that she was living her own life after college.      Her visit was timed to coincide with a Palm Family Reunion on the 20th. She tackled the last unexplored dormer in the house. I had hauled three big garbage bags of stuff to Joe's, just before work, so his garbage man could haul it away.      Tomorrow, he's coming over for coffee to discuss the KJ102 radio interview for a "Friends & Neighbors," segment about THE RAVEN. Don't know what good it'll do. We've had a good number of renewals and new gift subscriptions lately, but once again the "What's the point?" feeling has come over me that seeped into other aspects of my life.      Daughter had gone thro...

  June 23, 2015     Heat Exchangers     Sort of an in-between day; the building is unusually warm. My upper body is soaked with perspiration, so I've taken off my cap to soak it in cold water. With my long hair and full beard, I've learned to deal with the energy-sapping heat at work by wetting down my head and neck, and letting the cool water just soak it. People think beards are hot, when the reality, for me, is that when they're wet they act like heat exchangers and cools my face as I drive.      Appearance-wise, you can't tell the difference what moisture is outside your clothes, coming in, or outside your clothes coming out. Further, it isn't like an employee can wear anything they want in a factory setting -- least here in Minnesota -- because of OSHA safety regulations. Long sturdy pants, steel-toed shoes or boots, upper body shirts; sleeves optional depending on what you are doing; as well as safety glasses that tend to hold the heat ...

  June 25, 2015     Effective Communication      Found out that our evening shift supervisor ‘Clint Eastwood’ is going to day shift and two other supervisors are going to other shifts. I haven’t heard why. It’s disappointing to be sure because I liked Clint and had high hopes he would do some good for the department. He helped me with some issues I had too, as he had let me know I could talk to him.     But that’s the way it is at the toy factory, everything is temporary except insanity [and old timers like me with all the seniority, which may be close to the same thing].     Insanity is a constant element in all that we do here; a place where no common sense or initiative exists except in extremely rare forms. I’ve given up trying to recognize its face in either males or females; some days you just shake your head.

     June 30, 2015   Retirement Seems Closer     Perspiration beads my forehead and runs into my beard. My bare shoulders and arms feel clammy. It's terribly warm in the toy factory this late June afternoon. The only breeze I feel is when I drive my forklift or the tugger. The tuggers are much faster than forklifts; not so fast that your hair streams backwards, but enough that you can feel the 'wind' in your face. Still, it's better than having to work in the factory aisles where there are no fans -- and I did that for many years.          Today is another one of those days when I'm experiencing mild depression, possessing that overall feeling of "What's the point?" "You could've done better than this!"     Now that I'm sixty-four years old, retirement feels closer. I realize just how little money we have to live on compared to others. It would be easy to feel 'less-than,' and doubtful, but strangely -- I can't afford...

 August 7th, 2015    Snap Shots     I planted small four food plots over two mornings in August 2015. I had prepared the ground, somewhat, using a little four-bottomed plow, a 7-foot cultivator, and a homemade drag made from two steel I-beams. Working by myself, hooking chains, driving tractor, seeding seed of various sizes using a hand-powered broadcaster; leveling the little fields, picking 'grub' (roots, stones, etc) I spent those mornings in peace. They were beautifully cool, for August.     Now, here at the toy factory when things get crazy and my patience wears thin with people and my station in life at present, I think of those mornings, the little snapshots of doing just those things, and I think myself out of this stress: it works, even if I can only write about it.     As I work in the food plots barehanded, I recognize the coloration of my hands resemble my father's. They're not as big as his, for he was a strong big-boned man than...

  August 14, 2015     Thanks Jerry     Yesterday I wrote that a vacation for me, would be the opportunity to write for several days around the clock as I pleased. I wrote I had written nothing of merit for what seemed years, then this morning, looking for something else, I found a black-covered notebook in a plastic bag. Not recalling its contents, I took it out of the bag and opened it to some extensive writing I had done.      Skimming the text, I tried to get a notion of what the 18-20 page story was about. I could see I had done some editing of it as there were crossed-through words, and deletions; and rewritten paragraphs with reference arrows and numbers. I sat down at my desk to eventually read about a four-mile walk I made in 2005 with our Labrador, Cubby, from the family deer camp to home, after experiencing a flat front tire on the tractor. All in all I deemed it a good piece of work.     I also wrote about not really want...

 Bordering On Depression     The repetitive rhythms of industry are standard fare for him; he’s worked there almost two decades and learned that as much as things changed there, during his tumultuous tenure, they had stayed the same.      People came and went; product went through the door. His co-workers on the assembly lines did repetitive jobs like robots putting washers on bolts; bolts in assemblies, tightening bolts with air gun wrenches. The people pulled things tight and loosened others; they stooped and stretched and sat and stood; they laughed and talked and yelled and fought; and most made the same pay; day in, day out, day in, day out.     Some people enjoyed working at the toy factory. They came to that place for reasons other than a paycheck, deriving a certain pleasure from the work-a-day world in the form of socialization, respect, satisfaction, empowerment, independence, experience or security in the very repetitiveness of their wo...

  Toy Factory Notes 10 years Old     I work at a toy factory in NW Minnesota; I’ve done so for nearly 30 years. I drive a forklift now after various roles of my tenure. There’s not a day that I go to work that I anticipate enjoying my work; but many more, that had I planned well enough in advance, I’d rather be working full time at something I do enjoy, like writing and publishing to earn a living.     These days I hurtle backwards from one extreme end of the building to the other extreme end, hauling raw materials down uneven concrete aisles, sounding the horn repeatedly, slowing for pedestrians and busy intersections, and looking across my industrial terrain through the reflection of an rectangular convex mirror. I sit facing forward on a well-cushioned seat that helps keep my body relatively comfortable compared to the bone-jarring ride of forklifts of old.      Having worked at the facility for so long I experienced lift trucks that were first...

Have A Nice Weekend. Oh, Do You Have To Work? "F@#$%^&*! " loudly growled the woman working behind a pallet of various sized cardboard boxes. I could feel her frustration reverberate through her corrugated makeshift jail, as she worked to make sense of it all. She was a dayshift worker; I worked evenings 3-11 pm. I had just started work; she had another half hour to go. I was checking-in my forklift and electric 'car,' aptly called 'a tugger.' I hauled big parts using the forklift and pulled long trains of parts using the tugger; the latter job one that I said I'd never do over the years, but, toward the nearing end of my tenure at the toy factory, I decided to bite the bullet and just do the job; retirement is just a short time away. A dayshift guy does the same job I do, but he is usually gone before I get to the department. Once in great while our paths cross, but he's just as eager to leave at 3:00 pm as I am at 11:00 pm. Depending on what he...

  "You Won't See The Boss  Down Here on Nights."      "I look at the filthy back wall of the drinking fountain; the old dirty, sooty-gray wallboard with vacant nail holes and scratches in it, only inches from my head, as I lean-in to fill my water bottle. " Good job, " the co-worker said sarcastically. I ignored him, going on about my work filling a shelf near his work area with heavy totes of steel parts used in his work area. The man looked at me, defiantly, as he activated the large machine that rotated horizontally behind him. "I just paid you a compliment," he said tersely. His white bushy mustache reminded me of cartoon character Yosemite Sam, as did the tops of his cowboy boots that his pants were tucked into. "I just ordered these parts." I carried a smaller tote to the shelf, but didn't respond. " Did you hear me? Don't you have anything to say?" Mustache Man said, moving almost to my forklift as I swung myself...