9/8/2006 -- One Score 

One score or years. That’s what I’m working on now. I started this job back in August 1987, and just finished the 19th one. Working on 20. Only 15 more until IPERS retirement minimum!!! Oh my, am I looking forward to that or dreading its arrival????

I’m going through some old financial records and it’s interesting to see what memories they trigger.

Our first office computer…$2000 back in 1991. Before that we had a typewriter with an eraser tape cartridge that you could push a button to erase a mistake (from the ink tape cartridge). Seems like the eraser one emptied first.
After that, we had a typewriter with a very small screen that would display about 4-5 words and allow you to type into that before it hit the paper, kind of a delayed effect. Then came the computer, publishing programs, paintbrush programs, creativity galore!!!

Fishing contests. Our first experiment into putting trout into Kuennens quarry. We snuck them in during the dead of night and didn’t tell anybody. Didn’t take long for a few to get caught, but word only slowly spread at first. Then there was a fishing contest to see who could catch a tagged trout (nobody did). We held that a few years until the interest waned. We did have winners in catching the most fish, or the biggest categories. It was fun to note that a father/son team took home two of the cash prizes one of the first years. I wonder if Mark declared the financial windfall on his taxes (I wonder if Mark will read this and laugh).

Backpacking trips. Seeing the bills and receipts brought back those memories of traveling to Isle Royale and Yellowstone to back pack. Moose, dehydrated foods, tents and sleeping on the ground. Boy scouts backpacking. Scout leaders who had rocks snuck into their pack (to make it heavier). Filtering drinking water. Making pizza over the fire. Dehydrating hamburger.

Canoe trips with boy scouts. Catching fish, showing the kids how to cook them. Putting food way up high in trees so the bears would not be attracted.

Bills for film and processing. Don’t use that anymore. Pure digital photography these days. Most of my picture taking is now digital and goes into POWER POINT presentations. Some of my old slide shows are still used however. As hard as you try, digital copies of film slides don’t quite equal the picture quality. (Power point of course goes along with the increasing computer complexity we have.) (Have we really gone through 6 different computers in that time)?

Steak frys. It seems so familiar now but every June like clockwork we put one on. Some of the early attendees have passed away, but many of the regulars still come by and it’s fun to see them there.

Maple syruping. Found a bill for supplies. Going to Hanlontown to tap trees, making a sap boiler, fixing the sap boiler, fixing the sap boiler again.

Building a shelter house at Kuennens Quarry was a big project for us (OK, I didn’t build it, but I did watch the construction crew on occasion). One of the concerns at the time was vandals breaking in. We discussed various scenarios. The results, we seem to have had a few break-ins early by main force on the doors. But only a couple times has a window been broken. With all that glass it would seem a simple matter to break some, and it is surprising to me that it hasn’t happened more than it does.

With not much to steal inside, there really isn’t much to attract a big thief. We did have the small children's picnic table stolen once, but it was found along side the road a day or two later. Apparently it flew out the back of the escape vehicle and landed hard breaking the legs off. We were actually able to replace a board or two and put it back out there in good condition.

The big loss early on was we had placed a handful of prints and some stuffed animals inside the shelter. Those did attract a thief and they disappeared.

Playground equipment. Neither Kuennens Quarry or Worth County Lake had much of any playground type equipment. So we made some. I had the high school shop class produce one set. I drew up the plans and they milled the boards. It’s interesting to see the growth in that area when you look at parks, and peoples’ own yards. It’s showing its age and needs to be updated.

Kuennens seems to be full of memories, some strange. We had a well drilled one winter. Up until that time, it was common to see people drive their truck out onto the ice to fish.

The well drilling seem to have disturbed the normal ice conditions, however, and one person fell through and needed rescuing, and there was a vehicle or two that came pretty close to dropping in. Drilling the well involved pumping water into and out of the hole and it seems like there must have been some sort of ground water circulation that affected the quarry that year. After that, it seems like nobody ever drives out on the ice anymore even though the thick ice conditions returned to normal after that year.

Kids. Some of those early students that I remember well have their own little kids in my classes now. Kind of fun to see the family resemblances when you look at the next generation down the road. (I’m not of course getting old yet).

1992 appears to be the last time I gained a lifesaving (swimming) certification, at least a record of the payment to the pool appears in the books to jog my memory. I remember that taking scouts on an outing with canoes required that at least one person be certified as a lifeguard. We took the Manly scout troop to boundary waters canoeing that year. Having been an occasional lifeguard during my high school years and shortly after in college, it was a snap to do a challenge (I think that’s what they called it) and pass through the class at the time. The only part I ever had trouble with was swimming with the brick held above your head. I’m not at all buoyant and even though I’m a very strong swimmer, when denied the use of both arms, I would sink pretty fast under the weight of the brick. Perhaps if I could have balanced it on my head….

This brings up another memory (not at all work related) of seeing my uncle doing a dive off the diving board at age 80. He quit after that, said “that’s enough” and lived another 9 years in relative good health. Perhaps he should have kept diving…

That’s about as far forward as I got so far. Be interesting to see what else if jogged in my memory as the review continues.