OUR FRIEND, VIC

                         OUR FRIEND, VIC

     I first met Vic in early June of 1942.  I had come to Green Lake to work for Mrs. V. A. Kutchin who owned and operated Maplewood Hotel.  While the hotel was opened for business shortly after I arrived, they were still preparing for the summer trade which had its first large attendance during the July 4th weekend.

     One evening after finishing supper dishes, Emily, a co-worker, told me that she had heard that the Maplewood pier had been installed in the lake.   She asked if I wanted to go down with her to see it.  When we reached the pier there were two men standing on it talking.  I was not particularly interested in them.  Emily began a lively talk with one of them, Vic.  The other one was Charley who worked occasionally for Kutchins as a handyman, and had been asked to install their pier for the summer.

     He had finished the installation and was picking up his tools when Vic had happened to drive by, recognized Charley's car and stopped to talk with him. 

     While Emily and Vic carried on a "get acquainted" conversation, neither Charley nor I had much to say.  I was more interested in the pier than I was in the men.  I saw his carpenter's level lying there and wondered how accurate he had leveled the pier.  I picked up the level intending to place it on the pier railing, when Charley reached out to grab it.  He thought I had intended to throw it in the lake, which was about ten feet deep at the end of the pier.  I told him that I had only wanted to see how level the pier really was.  He kept his hand very near to it while I placed it on the railing and watched the bubble.  I was surprised at the accuracy it showed.  Charley was surprised that a girl knew how to read a level.

     Emily and Vic began talking about going into Green Lake to the "Hitching Post" for a soda.  Charley asked me if I wanted to join them to make a foursome.  I declined.  I knew nothing about the men and was very leery about strangers.  Vic took Emily for a short enjoyable time at the "Hitching Post" while I returned to the hotel.

     The next day in talking with the cook at Maplewood, she told me that she knew the men, that they came from good families, and that Charley was a brother of John who worked for Maplewood Farm.  I had already become acquainted with John who received his meals in Maplewood Hotel as part of his wages.

     Charley's parents owned the large farm adjacent to the Maplewood Farm.  His father was getting too old to handle all his farm work alone, and had hired Vic as a farm laborer who received room and board as part of his wages.  Charley, who hired out as a handy man for doing odd jobs, also helped his father with farm work, so Vic and Charley not only lived in the same household sharing many work activities, but also developed a very close friendship.

     Vic wanted to date Emily, but Emily wanted to double date if she went out with him.  Vic talked to Charley, Emily talked with me, and a double date was planned.  She and I were ready when Vic drove up alone.  He said Charley didn't come because he was plowing his mother's garden.  Vic and Emily wanted me to go out with them but I figured, "Two is company, three is a crowd."  I thanked them but declined to be the odd wheel.

     About that time I received a letter from my good friend, Mary Margaret, who had moved with her family to Ohio.  She was visiting her grandmother in Wisconsin.  I dearly wanted to see her, but I couldn't just up and leave my job.  If I went to see her, it could only be in the evening, and I had no means of transportation.  Emily told me that I should ask Charley to take me.  She was sure that he would be glad to do so if I only let him know I wanted to go.  I felt it would be too forward of me to ask for such a big favor of a fellow I hardly knew, so I offered to pay him if he would take me.  He said his car insurance would be canceled if he received any money for taking me.  His insurance had a clause stating that he could not use the car for "hire."  I was very disappointed, but I accepted what he said as final, and dropped the matter.  Mary Margaret managed transportation to come to see me.  Quite a while later Charley told me that he would have gladly taken me gratis if he had known how badly I wanted to go.  He just didn't want to receive any money for it.

     A big dance was being held.  Vic and Emily wanted to go.  Other girls, workers at Maplewood, also wanted to go.  When Vic's car could not hold all those who wanted to go he asked Charley to go, driving another car.  In the end, there were the two men, two cooks, and about six or seven girls who piled into the two cars.  It was to be a Dutch treat.  Vic's car led; Charley followed.  I happened to get in Charley's car.

  
   When we got to the dance hall we all lined up at the ticket window.  It so happened that Charley was the last one in line, I was second to the last.  When I fished out money to pay for my way, Charley reached around me and put down the price of a couple for us.  We passed into the hall together.  He promptly disappeared for the rest of the evening.  I saw nothing of him until it was time to leave.  I spent much of the time sitting and talking with the cooks.  John, Charley's brother, came and talked with us.  Vic was the only one who asked me to dance.  It was my introduction to the ways of the Shikoski brothers; one paid my way into the dance hall, and the other willingly came there and talked the evening away, but neither attempted to dance.  Much later Charley told me that he paid for me because he didn't want to be known as a cheapskate who wouldn't pay for a girl he had brought, but he sure didn't want to pay for the whole car load!

     When it came time to leave Emily refused to ride with Vic.  She claimed he was drunk, though none of the rest of us considered him drunk.  Vic had a fun-loving nature.  He joked around, finding many things hilarious.  It was his nature to laugh a lot and act in a crazy manner.  When he was young he had been trained as an altar boy, but the priest had refused to let him serve because he laughed too much when around the altar.

     Vic began dating with Mary Ellen, who was another girl who worked for Maplewood Hotel that summer of 1942.  Like Emily, she preferred to double date, and again they asked Charley and I to go with them, which we often did.  It was a gay summer, the first summer I spent away from my family.  The war was on and cast its shadow, but still seemed far away.  Gas rationing was on, but we found amusements not too far away.  Princeton and Berlin had bowling alleys, Thrasher's Hall had dances and entertainments and movies were shown at a drive-in theater on highway 23 between Green Lake and Ripon.  We managed to go to county farm fairs in Green Lake, Fond du Lac and Oshkosh where Vic and Charley tried to show off their strength and prowess, an extension of their rivalry on the farm where they had raced to see who could pitch the most hay, or accomplish some chore the fastest.

     One act or display common at the fairs, was a high pole marked off in feet.  It had a ball that could be raised straight up in a transparent column by hitting a lever with a hammer.  Theoretically, the  harder the lever was hit the higher the ball raised in the column, supposedly a test of strength.  If the ball hit the very top a gong sounded and all the people around would look to see who had had the unusual strength to hit the top.  When Vic and Charley tried it, they had a friendly argument about whether the ball rose highest because of their strength, or because they had happened to hit the lever at the proper angle.

     A part of the fun that summer was bringing up tales and laughing about by-gone events.  Vic and Charley were quite similar to each other.  Both were devout Catholics practicing their religion, had come from Polish families, and felt that men were to be the supreme protectors and support of women.  But Vic had had a devastating experience not too long before I met him.  He had asked a woman to marry him, had given her an engagement ring, bought her a cedar chest and had filled it for her with gifts of household items.  He had bargained for a farm to rent, expecting to be married and live with her on the farm.  When his friends told him that she was "two-timing" him, he refused to believe them.

     One night while working for Charley's father an anonymous telephone caller asked to speak to Vic.  He told him, "If you don't believe us go see for yourself.  They are parked in the schoolyard where she teaches."  With his car lights off, Vic quietly glided along the woods near the school, parked out of sight, and walked toward the school yard.  He caught her in a car "necking" with her other beau.  Vic pulled his rival from the car and proceeded to pound him up.  By nature Vic was gentle, and though he might have laughed or teased someone, it was always in a non malicious way, but her deception had pushed him beyond his limit.  Vic was charged with assault and battery.

     The pain was still with him when I met him, but his inmost nature told him, "It is better to laugh than to weep."  He did his best to laugh about it.  At that time there was a popular western song, "I got spurs that single, jangle, jingle, as I go riding merrily along, and they say, 'oh ain't you glad your single,' and that song ain't to very far from wrong."  Vic would greet the song with a sardonic laugh.  It was a long time before I realized his deep pain.

     The days drifted by.  We were busy Labor Day weekend, and after that I left Green Lake to continue classes at Stevens Point Teachers College.  Charley got a draft notice.  His father, unable to continue farming without help, had to give up farming, and leased his farm to Charley's sister and her husband.  On October 1, 1942, the farm was turned over to them.  Vic was out of a job and looking for other work.  In October Charley left for basic training, making remarks about "pushing up daisies" in some foreign battlefield.  The summer became memories.

     Charley was one of those "38-year-olds" who had been drafted.  When the army discovered that 38-year-old men seldom had the strength or stamina of younger men, they began drafting seventeen-and-a-half year olds instead.  Charley received an honorable discharge to go back to farming which was classified as a "defence industry."  On May 20, 1944, Charley and I married.  We had a small wedding with only my sister and his brother as attendants.  Just family were invited.  We both worked for Maplewood that summer, Charley as farm manager and I as hotel help.  On Oct. 1, 1944, Charley and his brother John took over their father's farm which they had bought.

     We were busy getting established, in farming as well as marriage.  Twins were born in 1945.  A son was born in 1946.  Charley wanted Vic to be our son's godfather, but he didn't know where Vic was.  There had been no communication between them since they had parted in October, 1942.  Charley inquired all around of their friends, but none seemed to know where Vic was, or what had happened to him.  Then one day we got a post card inviting us to the wedding dance of Vic and Erna in Red Granite.  Charley was so glad to be in touch again, but between the responsibilities of our family and the farm, we did not feel able to go, though communication between us was rekindled.

     Vic was working for an ice and coal company in Oshkosh, delivering coal in the winter and ice in the summer to families in Oshkosh.  He could swing blocks of ice around the same way he had before handled bags of grain on the farm.  He and Charley again had their friendly arguments.  Once when Vic and Erna came to visit us the men argued about how much electrical equipment could be plugged into a single circuit.  They plugged in all the appliances and tools they could find, just to see how many it would take to blow a fuse.  They tried several sizes of fuses.  Charley left the refrigerator door open, plugged in my iron, some of his electrical tools, and turned on all the lights in the house.  I don't remember how many fuses they blew before being told that the last spare fuse, in house and barn, was already being used, and to stop the experiment.

     A part of the fun of Charley and Vic being together was to remember all the common things they had been involved in.  Both of them had gone to the Catholic school that had been conducted in St. John the Baptist Church basement.  There were two rooms in the basement; each had a nun to teach the lessons.  The church owned quite a bit of property along the mill ditch which had been dug from the Mecan River to Princeton to furnish power for the mill.  Along the west end of the church property was a heavy grove of trees.  This area is where the church now has its annual picnic in August, though it has changed considerably since Vic went to school.  At that time, no school or any other buildings were there, and the trees were much thicker.

     Vic's family lived on a farm a ways off, on the opposite side of the mill ditch than the church.  Vic was sent to the school conducted in the lower part of the church.  He had to walk to school every day.  He was expected to walk down his side of the ditch all the way to the bridge, cross it, and then walk back on the other side of the ditch to school.

     Vic devised a routine to save himself some walking.  He came to the edge of the ditch opposite the grove of trees.  He took off his clothes, wrapped them around his shoes, and threw the bundle across the ditch.  He then swam across the ditch, put his clothes back on and walked to school.   One day, just as he was throwing his bundle, he looked up and saw the nun who taught him standing on the other side of the ditch.  Startled, his aim was thrown off, his bundle fell apart, a shoe fell out and began floating down the ditch.  At that moment he was more afraid of what his father would do to him if he lost a shoe than of what Sister would do.  He dove into the water and rescued his shoe.  By the time he reached the rest of his clothes Sister was nowhere in sight.  He dressed and walked to school.  He sat there in his damp clothes and soggy shoe "quaking in his boots."  Sister completely ignored his condition, not making so much as a "peep" about it, but Vic never again swam the ditch instead of hiking down to the bridge and back.

     Vic enjoyed our children.  He and Erna never had any of their own, but I always thought Vic would make a wonderful father.  When our son was born in 1950 Vic and Erna became his godparents.  They delighted in his growth and achievements.  They remembered all our children on their birthdays, first communions and holidays.

     Charley admired Vic's ability to split rocks.  He could take a stone, turn it over a few times, study its grain, place it in position and give it one well aimed blow.  The stone would split where Vic had hit it.

     One day while Vic was at work, he started sliding down a coal chute and injured his leg, damaging the sciatic nerve.  He was off work for awhile and seemed to recover, but from then on he seemed to decline, very slowly but steadily.  At first he complained about not having the strength he should have.  The blocks of ice were harder to handle.  Sometimes he stumbled.  One day a housewife complained that Vic was drunk when he delivered her ice, and refused to allow him in her house again.  His boss knew that Vic had a physical problem and was not drunk, but he had no other choice than to take him off the route.  At first he found other work for Vic to do, but the decline continued, and eventually Vic was discharged from the company.  His disability was believed due to a minor stroke.

     At that time Charley and I were taking real estate lessons once a week in Oshkosh.  Classes were in the evening.  We went early, stopping in to see Vic before class.  He always seemed just a little bit worse than he had been the last time we saw him.  Erna told us that he was having more mini-strokes.  We asked about what the doctor said, but Erna replied that they didn't always see a doctor.  If Vic seemed worse she just called it another stroke.  At one point she said that Vic had had over 200 strokes.  Charley questioned that because Vic had never showed any improvement, at any time, between the so-called strokes.

     Vic lost his ability to talk.  Erna said he didn't talk because he was stubborn.  Vic shook his head sideways.  He heard all that was said, his eyes plainly showed that.  He seemed depressed, but when Charley spoke of the good times they had had together, Vic brightened up for a few moments and seemed to enjoy remembering the good times past that they had had together.

     The time came when Vic was in bed when we got there.  Erna said Vic didn't want anybody to see him.  Charley went into his bedroom anyway.  When Vic saw him he shut his eyes and tried to turn away, but not before Charley saw the tears in his eyes.  It was the last time Charley saw him.  The man so proud of his strength was devastated.  He didn't want anyone to see him reduced to such a piteous condition.  The death certificate listed the cause of death as a neurological disorder of unknown cause.

     Erna wanted Charley to be a pall bearer and to also ask his brother John to serve as another bearer.  At the time the two brothers were not on speaking terms, but at Erna's request and for Vic's sake Charley sought out John and spoke to him.  Vic's death brought them together and they again acted as brothers.  The funeral was held in Sacred Heart Catholic Church, Poi Sippi.  He was buried in Oakland Cemetery, Berlin.

     Vic was a good, upright man, faithful to his church and to those who loved him.  He loved life and his ability to work, to accomplish things.  He could laugh and tease, but deep down he was also concerned about others in a quiet and unassuming manner.  He was a good friend to us.