Samuel Roseberry died December 21st after a long illness. You don't know the name but his passing is worth noting. Mr. Roseberry was one of a relative handful of remaining World War I veterans alive in the USA today. It is estimated that there are less than 500 veterans of that war still with us.
Whatever story they had to tell, it is fair to say that it had better have been told by now. For the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who marched off to war in Europe in 1914-1917, their story has gone to the grave with them. Or they remain in the memories of their grandchildren - people like me. My grandfather was a lumberjack in northern Wisconsin when the call to arms came. Despite the fact that neither he nor others from the area around Tigerton spoke good English - German was their first language - they answered the call. And served admirably. An American of German ancestry warring against the Germans.
What a story that in itself must have been. Cousins fighting cousins. Fuhrmans killing Fuhrmanns. His was an American story. Heinrich, son of Gustav, ein auswanderer von der alten land sein, willing to risk his life for ... the United States of America. Like his fellow veterans, my grandfather never talked about his experiences in France. He chopped down trees for a living, then went off to war and fought the Germans, returned to Wisconsin, married my grandmother, Ida, provided for and raised a large family. A family that included my father, Harold Fuhrman, a man who was destined to answer a similar call and to go off to fight the Germans himself many years later in a place called Normandy.
End of story. Unfortunately.
My grandfather died a quarter-century ago. Son, husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, now great-great-grandfather to Chase, Kaid, and Jayla, lumberjack, hero. American. A marker in a cemetery. Dwindling memories.
A generation of our collective family passing into history.
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Monday, December 20, 2004
I Could Have Bet Money On It
I woke up this morning, staggered into the kitchen to fix some coffee, and looked out the window at the thermometer.
Weather.com had advised the evening before that I could expect the temperature to get down to 8 degrees.
We should have been so fortunate.
The temperature was 5 degrees below zero. I immediately got chilled. We have two heat pumps keeping the house nice and toasty in the wintertime and they were running full blast just to keep up. My thought was, after half a cup of coffee got my brain to actually functioning, "Man, am I glad we didn't lose power."
And then the electricity went off.
Five degrees below and we have no heat.
Paula and I learned a valuable lesson a number of years ago when we lived in Hartland, Michigan (This was the first time we lived in Michigan. We didn't learn anything about the great frozen north that time so we moved there again several years later.). On Christmas Day, 1984 the temperature hit a bone-numbing 20 below zero. Our house was heated with fuel oil. It got so cold, the fuel oil turned to jello and clogged the line going to the furnace. On Christmas Day. Imagine our ... consternation trying to find a repairman. On Christmas Day.
Well, from that day forward, Paula and I have always had plenty of alternate sources of heat. Today we gave both the fireplace and the kerosene heater a good workout.
And we survived. Finally, after eight hours of living like pioneers (we heated water for coffee on top of the kerosene heater), the power came back on.
I write this in part to tell the fine workers at the power company to please disregard the threatening voice message I left on your machine. I was only kidding. I realize you are not the people I want to have mad at me right now. What with Christmas Day coming.
Weather.com had advised the evening before that I could expect the temperature to get down to 8 degrees.
We should have been so fortunate.
The temperature was 5 degrees below zero. I immediately got chilled. We have two heat pumps keeping the house nice and toasty in the wintertime and they were running full blast just to keep up. My thought was, after half a cup of coffee got my brain to actually functioning, "Man, am I glad we didn't lose power."
And then the electricity went off.
Five degrees below and we have no heat.
Paula and I learned a valuable lesson a number of years ago when we lived in Hartland, Michigan (This was the first time we lived in Michigan. We didn't learn anything about the great frozen north that time so we moved there again several years later.). On Christmas Day, 1984 the temperature hit a bone-numbing 20 below zero. Our house was heated with fuel oil. It got so cold, the fuel oil turned to jello and clogged the line going to the furnace. On Christmas Day. Imagine our ... consternation trying to find a repairman. On Christmas Day.
Well, from that day forward, Paula and I have always had plenty of alternate sources of heat. Today we gave both the fireplace and the kerosene heater a good workout.
And we survived. Finally, after eight hours of living like pioneers (we heated water for coffee on top of the kerosene heater), the power came back on.
I write this in part to tell the fine workers at the power company to please disregard the threatening voice message I left on your machine. I was only kidding. I realize you are not the people I want to have mad at me right now. What with Christmas Day coming.
Friday, December 10, 2004
Stalingrad, USA
I once spent a good deal of time working in the Cleveland / Akron / Youngstown area for a former employer. An AP article, entitled "Newspaper in Hard-Core Ohio Union Town Is Hit With Its First Strike in 40 Years," reminded me of the business climate there, particularly in the Mahoning Valley around Youngstown.
I was an avid talk radio listener and would tune into a local show in the afternoon whenever I could. To listen to the conversations between the host and his local callers was like stepping through a time/space warp into Soviet Russia in the 1920's. There was such hostility, even overt militancy expressed by many of the callers there that I, if I were a manager in one of the plants in the area, would fear for my life. When the title in this article refers to the town being hard-core, it is not exaggerating.
The odd thing is, one of America's largest employers is situated there. Lordstown, OH, just up the road, boasts a state-of-the-art General Motors plant that is the envy of the world, employs 8,000 workers (some of the highest paid hourly employees in the country), and has just gone through a retooling by GM at the cost of an estimated $500 million. The jobs there would be coveted by 98% of America's labor pool.
But you'd never know it by listening to the workers there bitch.
I would hear GM employees call in and complain about work rule (UAW and other union contract) violations relating to overtime, start time, lunch time, shift times, break time, overwork, stress, an endless array of management transgressions relating to the manner in which the employees are treated, environmental issues, sexual harassment issues, race issues, physical abuse, mental abuse, emotional abuse, preferential treatment, nepotism, unsafe working conditions, unsafe equipment, unclean air, impossible production schedules, unrealistic production quotas, inadequate restroom facilities, poorly situated drinking fountains, insufficient lighting, inadequate and hazardous parking facilities, oppressive cigarette smoking rules, and on and on. And the employees make, on average, nearly $60,000, which they think should be supplemented with more attractive overtime pay and better benefits. Add to this group of malcontents all the union personnel in shops in nearby plants, offices, and worksites and you have a cacophony of disgruntled, Marxist Leninist wage earners.
Welcome to Youngstown, Ohio, the friendliest little city in America.
And now the unions at the newspaper have gone out on strike. I think we should show our solidarity. Let's read only weblogs until their demands are met.
I was an avid talk radio listener and would tune into a local show in the afternoon whenever I could. To listen to the conversations between the host and his local callers was like stepping through a time/space warp into Soviet Russia in the 1920's. There was such hostility, even overt militancy expressed by many of the callers there that I, if I were a manager in one of the plants in the area, would fear for my life. When the title in this article refers to the town being hard-core, it is not exaggerating.
The odd thing is, one of America's largest employers is situated there. Lordstown, OH, just up the road, boasts a state-of-the-art General Motors plant that is the envy of the world, employs 8,000 workers (some of the highest paid hourly employees in the country), and has just gone through a retooling by GM at the cost of an estimated $500 million. The jobs there would be coveted by 98% of America's labor pool.
But you'd never know it by listening to the workers there bitch.
I would hear GM employees call in and complain about work rule (UAW and other union contract) violations relating to overtime, start time, lunch time, shift times, break time, overwork, stress, an endless array of management transgressions relating to the manner in which the employees are treated, environmental issues, sexual harassment issues, race issues, physical abuse, mental abuse, emotional abuse, preferential treatment, nepotism, unsafe working conditions, unsafe equipment, unclean air, impossible production schedules, unrealistic production quotas, inadequate restroom facilities, poorly situated drinking fountains, insufficient lighting, inadequate and hazardous parking facilities, oppressive cigarette smoking rules, and on and on. And the employees make, on average, nearly $60,000, which they think should be supplemented with more attractive overtime pay and better benefits. Add to this group of malcontents all the union personnel in shops in nearby plants, offices, and worksites and you have a cacophony of disgruntled, Marxist Leninist wage earners.
Welcome to Youngstown, Ohio, the friendliest little city in America.
And now the unions at the newspaper have gone out on strike. I think we should show our solidarity. Let's read only weblogs until their demands are met.
Thursday, December 02, 2004
Go See Loudoun County
I'm reminded by an article in the Washington Post this morning that I have a nominee for the most beautiful county in the USA. Loudoun County, with its ancient farmsteads and rolling, board-fenced pasturelands, should be Virginia's tourist mecca (unless you have a fascination for trees, rocks, and Herefords. Then head to Bland County.)
Unfortunately for Loudoun Countians, there are two circumstances that are going to destroy its pastoral beauty. It is across the river from Washington D.C. And it has the perfect geography and demography for growth. Explosive growth. Multi-unit, family dwelling growth. Condos. Apartment complexes. Walmart.
The local residents will fight it. And they will have occasional successes. But change there, as with life itself, is inevitable. If you ever travel to Franklin, TN to walk the Civil War battlefield, you'll know what I mean. The site of the famous cotton gin house, around which horrific fighting took place on November 30, 1864, is today a Pizza Hut parking lot.
And that is, whether you accept it or not, the way it is. And should be. I would have enjoyed seeing Franklin as it existed on that fateful day. But the local residents there probably appreciate their sewer system and electricity. I understand.
So life goes on. I would suggest, if you want to see the beauty that is Loudoun County, you'd better head up there soon. I hear Pizza Hut is in expansion mode.
Unfortunately for Loudoun Countians, there are two circumstances that are going to destroy its pastoral beauty. It is across the river from Washington D.C. And it has the perfect geography and demography for growth. Explosive growth. Multi-unit, family dwelling growth. Condos. Apartment complexes. Walmart.
The local residents will fight it. And they will have occasional successes. But change there, as with life itself, is inevitable. If you ever travel to Franklin, TN to walk the Civil War battlefield, you'll know what I mean. The site of the famous cotton gin house, around which horrific fighting took place on November 30, 1864, is today a Pizza Hut parking lot.
And that is, whether you accept it or not, the way it is. And should be. I would have enjoyed seeing Franklin as it existed on that fateful day. But the local residents there probably appreciate their sewer system and electricity. I understand.
So life goes on. I would suggest, if you want to see the beauty that is Loudoun County, you'd better head up there soon. I hear Pizza Hut is in expansion mode.
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