Dad

You died last year.  On February 23rd.  You were a small but strong man.  I know you cared about people very much.  I think you were neglected as a kid, not by design, just by Catholic baby boomer family on a small town dairy farm standards.  You were the oldest.  You had to run that place with your Dad while going to school and he sold insurance.  You had 7 younger siblings who you also cared and looked out for. You had an awesome, classy, academic and life skills talented sister just behind you.  You both got college degrees in the 60s which not everyone did.  Especially when you had to do it on your own as the eldest farm children from Lomira.

You had old work shirts with a "Standard" logo that you wore to take care of the three acre plot we lived .  You worked in the 50-60s era service stations and knew how to fix the classic autos.  You went to Detroit to learn drafting, but then decided you wanted to apply the math and science so you went to sweet MSOE where they train the best engineers a corporation could ever hire.  Grandma says you lived down there in a campus apartment that had cockroaches that ran across the floor when the lights went off.  It was totally ghetto but you were from the old school non entitled days.  You worked every angle in any environment.  I remember when Todd and I used to look through the piles of mail for the Catholic Appeals fund that you chaired when you had a house full of kid and a full time job and a farm full of beef steers or steer.  I like steers.   Every minute of every daylight hour was spent working.  Sometimes you took a 45 minute nap on the couch, even though you had screaming kids in the house and chaos on the farm.

You lived on a farm before silo unloaders, manure spreaders, barn cleaners, automated milking machines...and tractors that required more maintenance than output.  You were taxed in a manner that my entitled Gen X self could never appreciate, until I started reading historical fiction more.  None of your little siblings had to deal with any of that as you were on the cusp of the industrial farming revolution.  Despite all that work, you taught us all to love Wisconsin and its farming roots, not to mention its sports and political ones...you watched the Packers every Sunday in the 70s when they sucked and you knew Bob Betts and got Packers to speak at events and even stalked Al McGuire once to his car until he caved to host your fund raiser, per your pal/BOL, JG.

I probably wasn't your favorite kid other than the fact that I was the first girl *yay* or likely the most rebellious and limit pushing kid any parent could ever not wish on their worst enemy.  Your favor was consumed by concern and energy sucked making sure none of the other four strayed so far off the beaten path. I am sorry.  I am glad you now know that it was never at the level your 80s media consuming parent mind would think of a child who got home at 2 and slept all day until I had to go work at the gas station, where I gave my friends free food when they visited.  I still have never done the cocaine you told the school counselor you suspected me of doing.  I was a Miller Light gal.  Now I like wine.  Thank you for being conservative, sometimes micromanaging, when other 80s parents were permissive.  I am certain as a 40-something that you and mom knew intuitively that is what I needed and I never said, thank you, Dad, for not taking the path of least resistance, especially when I was a surly brat.

I am not sure what any one of the many people you knew in life saw but what I saw was you always still tried, even when I or others who should have had your back became so completely detached from everything that you had to deal with.  All the stress that I cannot even imagine.  I think most of it came from being a people pleasing community builder.  You did make many friends.  You had a creative and good business mind but really, you were an engineer.  I think you and Grandpa Schill are conferring on that now because he told you that too.

It is admirable that you had farming in your heart, or wanted to be your own boss, or a combination of both that drew you to farm the land.  I remember you on the Ford tractors sold at West Bend Implement, down the road from Puppyland, where we usually got our farm dogs.  I remember that red and yellow combine.  I remember your gold Mustang you had when MC was born.

When I went to the Museum of Natural History in NYC with TM in the late '90s, we both agreed that you would like that place.  You were an agricultural engineer as well as an industrial one.  Even in the drought of '88.

I am so sorry that you were so stressed and I never stepped up to help as much as I could have or should have.  Your live was amazingly busy and you liked it that way.  Lance remembers you gold Cadillac and your tan leather car coat type jacket back in the 80s.  You liked your car and your smokes.  I am glad you didn't have to suffer for too long without your life and your community.  You went away for three months in a maze of interventions before you died.  You tried so hard to live.

Thank you for everything you taught me.   I heard and knew you even when I didn't acknowledge it. You raised us all to have solid values and traditional character that is sometimes lost in the world. Your whole family misses you and cannot wait to see you again.