Citizen Wausau

I really thought that this bit would be an easy one to write. I have spent the better part of the week trying to figure out exactly how I wanted to approach this. By the time all of the thinking had been thought, I still had absolutely no clue what would end up here.

So, I have my picture of an angry Henry Rollins in my head, and I have instead opted to forge ahead and get it done. By choosing honesty and spontaneity over the best laid plans, perhaps in the end the following paragraphs will say exactly what they were supposed to all along.

Explaining what Citizen Wausau means to me is complicated at best. At first, it was an experiment, yet another link sent by an old acquaintance, on that silly little site known as Facebook. I really had no clue how to operate a blog. I always considered blogs to be a diary of sorts, and I certainly wasn’t interested in keeping a daily account of a life that reminds me enough of its mere presence as it is. However, I made my first post, noted my confusion, and decided to pound away.

It’s doesn’t really matter what is left there now, and since you were smart enough to get to this here page, if you really want to find what resides there I am sure you are more than capable of locating it on your own. Those are things that are not significant to me right now. What is important is what I found along the way, and for me, what I ended up finding was something more important than anything that sits in my blog right now.

I found that this place is scary.

Seriously, there are some amazing people here, and it frightens me. The first time you hit the community button, you don’t realize that Citizen Wausau is more than a place to pen. In my experience it is a community in every sense of the word. It expands far past this page and into the vast expanse of social networks, technology, and life itself. It is an open community, and if you take the time to talk to some its members, you will get invited into it as well.

Beware, it is bloodcurdling.

There are amazing writers here. People that do it for real reside here, and most of them that don’t certainly could explore that option if they ever chose to. When I open a page of Nealistically Speaking or A Stable Personality, I am often completely floored. That is only the beginning. Every page you open is stunning. Each and every blog post is a view into the life of someone, someone who has donated it to the world. That on its own is spooky, no matter what synonym you use. I mean for gods sakes, this thirty-six-year-old former pothead spends time thoroughly enjoying a blog about editing and diaper changes, perhaps two of my least favorite things.

It is chilling.

What scared me most was a rogue poster named Katie. Her piece called “My Dada” may be the most miraculous thing I have ever read. It was powerful, it was astounding. It was fantastical. I stared at it for almost an hour.

It was frightening.

Perhaps the most unnerving aspect, is that I really hate to read. Crucify me if you will, but I am about as far away from a book guy as you can get. I prefer to read my laptop (which coincidentally is another reason to support your local library – they have the technology available for those who favor that route), indulging in the works that reside there instead. I even find the comment section of Citizen Wausau to be filled with amazing works of thought and writing.

Can I say crapping my pants on here?

Then, there are the behind the scenes people, the dedicated staff and heartbeat of the operation. I still don’t know all of them, or what they do precisely, but those I have met alarm me the most. They are machines of progress and service to this community. You don’t have to write a whole lot to be amazing around here either.
Now I am not fluent in dorkenese at all, but this Andy Laub character has to be an artificial life form, something similar to the Terminator. When I first started writing here I could barely figure out how to fire up the options this site has to offer. I would often find myself irritated, spamming poor Andy with question upon question after coming to my wits’ end. The poor guy took it all with a grain of salt, and answered each and every inquiry without hesitation and without ripping the apparent frustrated look right off my face, as I imagine he wanted to on more than one occasion. Like I said, I am not a tech guy, but I can barely run my own blog much less a hundred others. Even though he cancelled the best podcast on the planet, Andy Laub is tremendous, however you dice it.

It is fear provoking.

Do you know they have editors here? One is named Cheryl, and she scares me, too. She can take an article such as this one, and whip it into shape before you can say “red pen.” The most astounding thing is that she actually likes to do it. She does it willingly. She does it without belittling, without regret, and without hesitation.

That is Freddy Kruger scary.

See what I did there? Probably not, but it is really funny to me.

Now if you think Freddy in a dark alley is scary, then you haven’t met Dino Corvino. I would say without hesitation that this thing called Dino is perhaps the most unique figure I have ever run across. If Santa Claus took up bare knuckle fighting, that would be perhaps the best explanation I can come up with. He is passionate, he demands the best, and he brings out the best as well. I can’t begin to elucidate what Dino has meant to me. It goes further than words, so I won’t even try.

Dino is redoubtable.

There are many more, and I have yet to figure out their roles in the process. But, they all make this community an ominous place for me to be.

It is scary for me to be a part of something this positive. It is scary to be part of something this amazing. It is scary to realize that this thing called Citizen Wausau allowed me to participate in the phenomenon.

I often don’t feel worthy of the support I have received here, or the invitation to contribute that I have been given.

I feel out of place, out of my element, and most certainly out of my league.

Sometimes I feel like I can’t live up to the rest of the treasures I read every day.

Want to know the scariest thing of all?

None of them care about things like that.

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For anyone who doesn’t know, I grew up on a hill in Wisconsin located in the fine city of Rothschild. It was a nice place to grow up, and I often take a drive past the old house a couple of times of year, quietly reliving my moments as a whole, allowing only a few blocks time to take it in.

Like many children we had a basketball hoop hanging on the garage.

When I do drive by, the first thing I always check out is this childhood fixture. It most likely isn’t the same board my father struggled with twenty some years ago, but last time I checked, it still remained as it had for decades.

One would expect this story to continue with the follies of father and son, or the battling of brothers in the heated spirit of sibling competition. It certainly could, as there are many fond recollections of that nature to go around as well. Yet, to this day, that basketball hoop will forever remind me of one thing.

My neighbor ¬ – Lyle Kurtenbach.

Since the time we moved to Rothschild, we had lived across the street from the Kurtenbachs. Lyle, his wife Karen and daughter Dawn, were permanent fixtures as you looked out our large bay window on the front of our own proud homestead. Lyle, who kept a remarkably well kept home, always made a point to wave or stop on over and talk to us kids on the weekends for a minute or two, as he faithfully attended to whatever daily chores were on his docket. Lyle was a lawn guy, and he could often be found outside on a regular basis. My brother and I would often be outside as well, standing in the street, heaving our basketball great distances in an effort to make the world’s longest, and most incredible, shot possible. We would occasionally hit all net, and Lyle would sometimes walk on over to join in the game, and although nothing was ever said, I think he enjoyed heaving that basketball just as much as we did.

I always thought that Lyle was a pretty cool cat. He was into car racing, and as a young kid fascinated with everything that went zoom, he pretty much topped the chart in the “that guy is pretty awesome category.”
I slowly grew up with the Kurtenbachs, watching each other in unison while occasionally stopping to actually interact for a moment or two.

It was nothing more than life in motion.

In 1987 I was fifteen years old. It was a May afternoon mid-week when Lyle once again took a moment to try his hand at an ultra amazing shot to the netted rim on the garage. We chatted about our perspective weekends; our family was to head to Illinois for a family gathering, while Lyle and his would head out on the yearly trek to watch the Indianapolis Five Hundred. We were enamored with his story and insanely jealous that we would be spending time at Granny’s while Lyle watched the idols of our television and electric racetrack scream around the black beast at breathtaking speeds. We listened to his story with undivided attention as we tossed the ball a few more times before the evening ended.

We returned from our excursion a couple of days later. We resumed our lives as normal, but as the day wore on, it was noticeably quiet across the street at the Kurtenbach residence. I started if wonder if something was wrong, as Mom and Dad seemed unusually subdued for some reason.

I don’t remember exactly how the conversation transpired, but I believe my parents pulled me aside alone at first. I was the oldest at fifteen and perhaps the first test subject of the conversation before the younger siblings would hear the same.

Lyle Kurtenbach was dead.

Lyle had made it to his annual outing at the Indy Five Hundred. He was at the top of the grandstand when Tony Bettenhausen’s race car lost a wheel in turn three, and Robero Guerrero hit it head-on at full speed with the nose cone of his machine. The loose wheel was thrown over the safety fence and fatally struck Lyle in the head, killing him instantly. He was the first spectator killed at the race since 1960, and as of this moment, is the last one as well.

Things were never the same in the neighborhood after that day. The lights at the Kurtenbach residence would never shine as they had before, there would be no more half court shots, and eventually the remainder of the family would leave our bay window forever.

I would never be the same either.

This was my first experience with death. This was the first time I realized that the unknown will always play a factor.

This was the first time I lost someone I knew.

This was the first time I experienced what it felt like to bring a casserole across the street. The first time I watched sadness truly manifest itself. The first time I realized that life was so fragile.

My thought at the time, and still to this day was, “I just shot hoops with him, and now he’s gone.”

It was reality that even a fifteen-year-old boy understood. It was a lesson we all learn, but still, even right at this moment, remains a painful one for me at best.

There are many old basketball hoops on many homes, in many a neighborhood in many a city.

Mine reminds me of Lyle Kurtenbach, and I hope somehow he knows that.

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