going to Wisconsin

I went to see my parents this past weekend. We had a great time. We were there for a short time, however. We left Oak Forest at 8 am, took 2 breaks along the way and got to Ithaca, WI @ 1:15. We mowed lawn there. Andy and Ted took a crack at mowing loan. Surprisingly, Ted did a slightly better job of driving than Andy did. The key was I made the area where they were mowing very easy and didn't have them go up and down hills where they could risk tipping the lawn mower over.

Now, some would look askance at having a 13 yr. old or a 10 yr. old on a tractor/lawn mower. But I feel very strongly that they should be doing that. I was driving tractors starting when I was 7 yrs. old. I remember they gave me the job of mowing lawns when I was in 6th or 7th grade. & other than being upbraided by Jerome when I made mistakes, I really enjoyed doing that. So the next spring I was looking forward to doing it again in 8th grade, but there was one catch. My parents had Kelly, my younger brother mow the lawn instead. It wasn't that I messed up the year before but they thought that he could handle mowing the lawn after being in 3rd grade. I was really upset with my parents and argued with them, but there was obviously nothing I could do to overrule them. It turned out that Kelly did an ok job mowing the lawn. Like the year before, I'm sure he enjoyed doing it except when being upbraided by Jerome for the occasional mistake.

Unfortunately, we could not finish mowing the lawn because the mower belt started smoking so we couldn't do anymore mowing (& no, it wasn't Ted's fault either!). I was going to use the push mower to continue mowing the lawn but Mom said that would be too much work.

Another highlight this week was that I bought this book at a bargain price. It's a spellbinding book. It's a Russian who fought on the Eastern Front of World War II. Of course, the Eastern Front was the deadliest sector of World War II. Tens of millions of people were killed during that area of fighting. It was very vicious fighting. Unlike other areas of fighting, Russians were in a very difficult situation when they fought. If they were taken prisoner, by Nazi Germany, they were usually taken to concentration camps (Hitler not only hated Jews but also Blacks, gypsies and in the Russians' case, the Slavic race). If they were prisoner in the concentration camps but somehow survived they were taken to a Russian gulag/prison after the war as they were accused of "allowing themselves to be captured". If they were not taken prisoner but things were nasty and they tried to retreat there were Russian "blocking units" which would shoot fellow Soviets that were retreating. The author was one of the lucky ones. He didn't retreat, didn't get captured. He got wounded twice (once in the neck) and was afflicted with lice. But that was considered "minor problems". The book is called Through the Maelstrom if you are curious Google the title. The author's name is Boris Gorbachevsky.

Of course, my natural inclination when I was in Wisconsin was to read the book all hours of the night or until at least 1 or 2 in the morning. However, doing so was not without its problems. Dad woke up twice and told me to go to bed. I could hardly say no to him the 2nd time. So I went downstairs to the room where MB was sleeping and turned on a little dim light and read until 1:30. Whether I'm 45 or not, I'm still my Dad's son so I had to act like his kid and follow his orders.