Virtual Desolation

Nicknames…

Tom Reutebuch — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 03:48:52 +0000

I was going through all the nicknames of family, friends, local residents of the county and here is the list I have complied. I’m sure there are more that I may have forgotten.

TJ (that’s me)

Tink ( My Dad)

Zeke

Skeet

Spook

Suck

Flat top

Shotgun

Popcorn

Rusty

Dutchee

Suck

Boob

Cricket

Pudge

Doc

Wild Bill

Peaches

Pooch

Puggy

Nette-Nette

Spark

Slug

Edgar the Barber

Tom Reutebuch — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 07:10:35 +0000

Edgar the Barber was one of those characters I remember from my youth. He looked like a cross between “Doc” from Gunsmoke and Floyd the Barber from The Andy Griffith Show.

It was said Edgar could cut hair better drunk than sober. I know he cut my hair a couple times but I don’t recall how good a job he did or if he was drunk doing it. I remember him taking a few sips of beer while cutting my hair though.

He had a little shop in Pulaski up the street from the local tavern, Bill and Babes, where he frequented in his idle time.

My Dad tells the story of how one time Edgar had got into a race with another guy and ended up in the middle of a field. The guy with him was thrown from the car and passed out in the field. When asked if he was still alive, Edgar took the heel of his boot and dug it into the other guys hand. When the guy flinched from the pain, Edgar pronounced the guy was OK.

Edgar ended up losing his drivers license so he bought a horse to ride into town. Edgar would get drunk and get on the horse and ride it home. with the horse knowing the way. Who needs GPS anyway? One time the locals hid the horse from Edgar as a joke. I think it took awhile for Edgar to find the horse, but he eventually was able to find him and get a ride home.

Then there was the time Edgar bet a local farmer that he could out run the farmer driving a grain truck while Edgar was on foot. They raced up the street in town. As Edgar neared the finish line, he dove onto the asphalt head first to try to beat the farmer. Not sure who won but Edgar got pretty scraped up, but felt no pain from a few drinks he had before the race.

Good times. Good times.

The Cool Down Ride…

Tom Reutebuch — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 05:31:55 +0000

It’s been a hot summer for much of the nation and with at least one more month to go, I can’t help but think about a story of my Grandpa Reutebuch and his cool down rides. On those hot muggy evenings in Northwest Indiana, he would announce he was going on a cool down ride. This meant jumping into the car wearing only underwear and shoes and taking a quick spin with the windows rolled down.

I can feel the cooling breeze in my mind as he cruised the rural Indiana roads, perhaps giving a wave to any neighbors hanging out on the porch. that’s what we do in Indiana, give a wave to people we pass.

I wish I could have known my Grandpa but he died of a heart attack when my Dad was a senior in high school.

Another story I liked hearing about Grandpa Reutebuch involved a plug of tobacco and a baboon. I’m guessing he was at a zoo and took a plug of chew and threw it to the baboon, who promptly picked it up and ate it. Not long afterward, the baboon puked. I find this pretty funny and just a glimpse into what a character this man was.

So, some night soon, a cool down ride may be in order…in celebration of summer nights and Grandpa Reutebuch.

As for baboons eating chew, now that we all know what happens, I will leave that to Grandpa’s legacy.

“Well I was born in a small town…” John Mellencamp Small Town

Tom Reutebuch — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 19:31:08 +0000

One of my goals with this blog was to document the characters and stories from my childhood growing up in rural northwest Indiana. I have been listening closely to my Dad whenever he relates them to me and have mentally written them over and over but just have not digitized them yet. I hope to start doing that now by “setting the scene” for you…

My Dad used to work at a small gas station that was started by my Dad’s Dad and one of Dad’s uncles. Since my grandfather died before I was ever around…my Dad took the business over with his uncle…who we called Uncle Clarence, or as he was more widely known, Uncle Skeet. More about him in a future post.

The “garage” as we called it, consisted of one side with some groceries, “pop” machine, coolers with ice cream and other frozen goods, a candy cabinet, and other assorted things like a few fishing lures. They even made milk shakes and my parents still have the metal cups and milk shake maker at home. The other side of the garage had one bay with a lift for doing car repairs and oil changes. At the back of the bay was a tool bench with vises and grinders and tools of all sort scattered about. In other words, a kids dream to wreak havoc. It was always fun to hang out at the garage with Dad.

Uncle Skeet did many a small engine repair, fixing the local’s lawn mowers. The usual problem was burned out points, gummed up carburetors, and dirty spark plugs. I can still hear Skeet revving up the mowers as loud as they could after repairing them. I wonder how many lawnmower blades he sharpened in his life as well. It was cool to see the sparks flying as he set the blade to the grinder.

Tire repairs were also another service that was performed often. The local farmers kept them busy with truck and wagon tires. Dad repaired a helluva lot of tires. You can bet on that. It was not an easy task either.

The garage was located in the small community of Pulaski, Indiana and sat on a hill near the Tippecanoe River, which flowed behind the garage. Over time, the garage became to known as the “Eighth Wonder of the World” to us because as you walked towards the back, you felt the slope of the foundation going downhill, like it was going to go over the side of the hill at any moment. It never did.

This was not one of those self serve stations either. Dad or Skeet would go pump the gas, check oil, clean windshields…check tires pressure if asked. Sounding like a scene with Goober in the “Andy Griffin Show”?

One of the great things about the garage only being a couple miles from home was Dad would get to come home for lunch nearly every day. It was great to see him pull into the driveway.

The garage would serve as a central point for many of the characters that I recall from youth. Next time I get back home, I will try to find some pics…and add them to this entry.

On the google map below…the garage is located near the center of the image. The Tippecanoe River is at the top of the image…

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The “Eighth Wonder of the World” still stands, albeit, a mere shell of itself from days long past.

View Larger Map

The Worst Day of My Life…

Tom Reutebuch — Fri, 28 May 2010 14:33:30 +0000

Today, May 28th, 2010, marks the twelve year anniversary of the death of my youngest brother, Ronald John Reutebuch.
He died from a fall off a ladder while at a construction job, just mere inches from the ground. He missed a step coming down the ladder and hit his head just so on the concrete floor, rendering him brain dead. I still find it hard to grasp.

There are two things that I carry with me from this tragedy.

First, I remember my Dad telling about a guy none of the family knew but Ronny had treated with kindness. I don’t remember the specifics but I believe the man was overweight and possible wheel chair bound or something to that effect. My brother’s actions touched this person and he wanted to pay respects at his wake. That is why I never try to make fun of other people in a cruel manner. I only tease because I love…not for hate. You never know what may seem like a small, insignificant gesture to you might mean volumes to somebody else.

Secondly, I try to use this date to remind me to take the time to do something that makes me happy. Usually, that means heading to the lake to do some fishing. It makes me realize that you never know when your time is coming…and we should live our lives like there is no tomorrow. It’s easy to get caught up in jobs, home life, and all the demands on our time. It’s all necessary but set aside time to do something that will create lasting memories. That is when you are truly living.

Event Two: Family Fun (pt 2 of 3)

Tom Reutebuch — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:15:28 +0000

Camping:

The next vacation was spent the first week of August at Moose Hill Lock campground in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, about a hour and a half from home. We rented a pop up trailer and had a spot next to my wife’s sister and her family.

Days were spent at the pool, which had a fun water slide, playing my “redneck horseshoes” game (which I will have to post about some other time, but is a great game to play while drinking), and drinking adult beverages. I won every game I played…very rare!

Evenings were spent around the campfire, drinking more adult beverages. ( Really, I don’t have a problem).

There was even a trout pond for the kids, but I couldn’t resist, and ended up taking two rainbows on a flyrod and popper designed for bass/panfish. I’m a big kid, that counts, right?

All in all, the weather was great and a fun time was had by all!

Event Two: Family Fun (pt 1 of 3)

Tom Reutebuch — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:05:08 +0000

During the course of 2009, the family took a couple vacations. The wife and I are fortunate enough to have been with our respective jobs for 20+ years, earning roughly four weeks of vacation per year. Now, the wife is a traveler, and her idea of taking a week to just get things done around the house is not an option. I spend a lot of time after work, working on the honey-do list, that a week of vacation would help whittle down. But I digress.

Disney:

The first trip of the year was to Florida. We stayed outside of Disney, at Seralago Main Gate East and had passes to go to a particular park for each day of the vacation. We had a great week of weather and hit all the highlights of each park. We even had special moments like John getting picked to open Animal Kingdom, which allowed us to get front row seats to the Lion King show, where I was leader of our seating section, the Warthogs…there’s a stretch. Ha! Amanda found a paint brush on Tom Sawyer’s island, which earned us a fastpass for any ride, any time of the day. We spent down time at the resort pool, drinking some adult beverages. The trip ended sadly went we arrived home to find our camera was stolen from out of our luggage. Thus, no pics from that trip!

Event Three of 2009: The Social Media Branding of Tom

Tom Reutebuch — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 06:42:42 +0000

My choice for event three of 2009 is the social media discovery of Facebook and Twitter and what the mean to me.

I had already been on Myspace for some time and met some really cool people. I liked the way you could customize the look but there was some really bad designs.

Then I checked out facebook. I didn’t like the less restrictive designs options that Myspace had, but in time, it seemed I was able to start connecting with old classmates as well as friends from work who were showing up there. It also has some neat little apps and features like posting pictures but I was looking for a blogging feature on the site. There was a notes section, which I tried out, and seemed just shy of adequate.

At about the same time, I also heard about twitter and the micro blogging moniker that was placed on the service. This appealed to me since I felt I did not have time to do a full blog. It was a slow go at first. What was I going to say? Who was reading what I posted? I then decided I needed to establish a “brand” for myself and focus on people who shared my interests. I decided on following fellow Cub fans, Outdoor enthusiasts, and people who shared common musical tastes. Once I was able to find and follow people that fell into these categories, I made it a point to engage in dialog with them. If I received feedback, great, if not, that was fine too, but at least I was trying. I quickly found out the difference between a genuine person and someone just looking for eyesballs to try to market products and services towards. I don’t mind following somebody who represents a product or service that takes the time to get to know me and converse. If I can use their product or service, I would strongly consider going to them because a trust has been built up. They are using Twitter the correct way, IMO.

I have been fortunate that people I converse with have allowed me to actively be part of their twitterverse. There are some amazing people who I am proud to call friends. The obvious next step is to meet up in person, which I have not done yet, but is a goal of mine in the new year.

I have even added people I have met on Twitter to my facebook list of friends as well. Seems to be quite a few people that use multiple avenues of social media to connect with the world.

Who knows where this social media will lead. Maybe someone will use my “open” policy to do harm to me, or maybe I will gain employment if I was ever to lose my job. I guess that is what makes life interesting. Nobody knows, but I am willing to bring you along with me for the ride!

Event Four of 2009: Home Improvement

Tom Reutebuch — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 05:51:56 +0000

If you own a home, you know that repairs and improvements are never ending and it’s no different at my house. The wife has a seemingly never ending list of stuff she wants done. This severely cuts into my fishing time, but ain’t nobody happy if the wife ain’t happy. Ha!

Here are a few of the things I did get accomplished in the year 2009. (pics to come)

Interior painting of some walls and baseboards.

Hang lattice under room addition to hide junk under the room. We planted Morning Glorys to help cover even more, which grew really well.

The big project of the summer was to put in a new fence. I will never forget all the post holes I dug this past summer. Talk about a workout. I still need to ge rid of the old fence and apply stain to the fence, work that can wait until spring. Wait a minute, that’s some prime fishing time…I’m screwed.

Event Five: Musical Stylings

Tom Reutebuch — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 06:47:45 +0000

I like music but usually only certain genres so I was happy to find out two of my favorite bands were releasing new music in 2009. I also picked up music from a “super band” whose members were made up of established musicians from other groups, and finally a “Best of” that was long overdue for my collection. Here they are:

Chickenfoot:

I picked this CD up without hearing any of the songs before hand. The band was made up of Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony (of Van Halen fame), guitar wizard Joe Satriani, and Chad Smith (drummer from Red Hot Chili Peppers) so I had an idea what I was getting. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked the songs. I’m no music critic so I am not going to break down the CD but I highly recommend it.

Dream Theater- Black Clouds and Silver Linings:

Dream Theater is one of my favorites bands and this two CD set was one of the bands better releases in the past couple efforts, IMO. The first CD is original songs from the band and I love three out of the six songs, with the other three being solid efforts as well. This CD has been in my truck for months. The second CD is composed of covers with my favorite being a Queen remake of the epic song “Tenement Funster/Flick of the Wrist/Lily of the Valley” . Dream Theater comes up with some great lyrics to go along with awsome musicianship. I like to tweet the this bands lyrics from time to time.

Porcupine Tree-The Incident

Another release from a favorite band that isn’t quite as heavy as Dream Theater but I like their music and lyrics as well. This is another double CD release with the first CD loaded with a stretch of songs that I like to jam when driving. There are some great lines in the songs as well, with one of my favorites being “…And silence is another way
Of saying what I wanna say…”

Lynard Skynard-The Best of Lynard Skynard

Just a collection of classic songs from the greatest southern rock band ever (although, I do like Molly Hatchett as well) and every body has heard most of the songs a million times. My favs are “Sweet Home Alabama” (although I can be heard replacing Alabama with Indiana), “That Smell”, and of course…play “Freebird”! Nuff said.