Hello to all who are now reading my Blog!……welcome aboard!
I’m Joe Groshek, a Humorous Illustrator from Milwaukee Wisconsin currently living in Jacksonville, Florida. I do hold other titles which I’ll get into as I ramble along…..however, for now, please allow me to introduce myself further. Along with my parents, I have 2 sisters and 1 brother. I come from a huge family of fun over the top personalities that growing up in Wisconsin, kept everything fun and exciting almost everyday.
My Dad comes from a family of 1o brothers and 2 sisters, and due to our alarming and potent fertile genetics, these 12 people produced 57 kids, and then these kids produced over 90 and counting. Today is my Grandma’s 94th Birthday, (Happy Birthday Grandma!) and she can still remember everyone of their names, trust me, I’ve sat playing Pinochle with her as she rattled each name off……amazing!!
Now for those who are not familiar with Wisconsin for other than Cheese, Beer, and the Glorious Green Bay Packers, we have a very unpredictable weather system. It can get into to the upper 90’s during the day, and into the 30’s at night, and this is in July for God’s sake! My parents grew up on farms in the North Central part of the state, going to the same high school, my Dad was a great athlete excelling in Football and Wrestling and was the State Champion in his weight class in 1959. My Mom was the head cheerleader, and they became Homecoming King and Queen their Senior year…..in other words, they were destined to be together, and they still are, just recently celebrating their 49th wedding anniversary.
Like all my Dad’s brothers and sisters, they graduated from high school and immediately moved down to Milwaukee to find jobs. I loved going back to my parent’s home town as a kid and hear the locals tell me stories about my Dad and how great he was in sports, and was always a perfect gentleman, having lots of friends and hanging out in the local bars as a teenager.
The stories quickly moved from “Great Athlete” to an “Amazing Brawler”. Now my Dad would never tell me any of these stories himself, but the locals would gladly tell me tales of my Dad’s heroics at the local taverns. Lets just say, he never started a fight, but he always finished it…..and from what I’m told, there were quite a few of them. I’m not sure if my Dad really wanted me to hear about these things, but yet he never stopped the guys from telling them either, and I’m very glad he didn’t, as these stories just added a little more to the top of the “Pride Mountain” I already had for him, he became a little more “Cooler” than all other Dads, and I couldn’t wait to share these stories with my friends.
Then the locals would bring up my Uncles, all great in sports, and awesome brawlers in their own right. A few joined the Armed Forces right out of school, but most became regular blue collar guys. Hard Workers?…..Oh my God, if you could see their work ethics! They all were “Jacks of all trades”, knowing a little about everything, and being damn good at each.
Their motto seemed to be ”Do it right the first time, and do not stop until the jobs completed!” It still amazes me to this day, with them all being in their 60’s and 70’s now, how hard they work, and continue to have these same ethics, trying to instill them on us (me and my Male cousins). Of course we could never really do things the way they would do it, fixing cars, building things, etc. So we became their “GoFor” statues, meaning we would stand still right next to them with one hand in our pocket, and the other hand holding their beer (Pabst Blue Ribbon), occasionally sneaking a sip when they weren’t looking. Waiting for the moment when they would say “Go downstairs and in my toolbox, get me the big philips screwdriver and a 7/16 inch wrench”.
When that was said, I would instantly pull the bottle of beer away from my lips and take off down the stairs, into the basement, hit the lights, run into the workroom where every tool on the planet was neatly resting in several tool boxes, workbench drawers, or hanging from hooks on the wall. Not to mention the thousands of nuts, screws, and bolts in hundreds of little drawers, clearly labeled by size, and in an order that only my Dad could find blindfolded.
Ok, so I’m looking for the BIG Philips screwdriver….hmmmm….there were only 20 of them,….. ranging from the nubby one, to the 14 inch monster. Now that day, my dad was working on our Buick LaSabre, so I figured the 14 inch was too big, but he DID say the BIG one, so I grabbed it out of the big red toolbox, and now was looking for the 7/16 inch wrench…..”Oh man” I thought, did he want the one with the open end, the closed end, the adjustable, the one with the bend in it, the long skinny one,…..I forgot to ask….he didn’t elaborate as to which one he needed!! Panic struck in,…. my hands starting to sweat, knowing full well if I brought back the wrong one, I’ll have to make the trip back down to the basement humiliated that I couldn’t “Do it right the first time”!!!!……then BAM!….a thought hit me, why don’t I bring ALL of them, keep them hidden in my pocket and ask him which one he wanted, when he’d tell me, then I could just magically flip it into his big monsterous grease filled hand……God I was clever!
FLyingback up the stairs, turning off the lights, I ran up to my Dad’s legs dangling from underneath the car. I asked him which wrench he needed, when he said the open ended one, I proudly handed it to him….no thanks was needed, just the quietness of being “Right the first time” was thanks enough. I grabbed his beer to take a quick sip of it, and then he asked for the Philips screwdriver…….slamming it into his hand with pride, the silent thanks was broken by the words” What’s this, No, not this one, I need one smaller than this, the one with the yellow handle!”
Now in my mind, I just became the biggest “Tool” in the box, failure and disappointment of not getting it “Right the first time” quickly burned through my veins……..almost wanting to cry,….almost,….. but then that would make me a “Big Fat Little Wussy TOOL!!” I ran back into the house, down the stairs, into the workroom, opened all the tool boxes and found 5 BIG yellow handled Philips screwdrivers! Grabbing all 5 I ran back to my Dad’s legs, fanning out the screwdrivers so he could pick the one he needed, he looked up, scanning them all and pulled out the one he needed, then with a glance of approvement he went back under the car and continued to do whatever it was he was doing under there.
Exhausted by nervousness, I grabbed his beer and took a big swig, not realizing I just finished it off!! Oh NO!!….with another wave of panic running through my body, I asked my Dad if he wanted another beer, and thank God he said YES! Running yet a third time down to the basement and into the Fridge, I grabbed one of about 50 bottles of Pabst, popped it open with the bottle opener attached to the wall, and slowly walked up the basement steps taking another swig of the icy cold yumminess!!
Now the funny part of this story is, I could’ve been between 5 and 21 years old….but it doesn’t matter, I was pretty much the “GoFor” for my Dad until I moved out of the house at 23. Not because I couldn’t fix things, I could to a point, but my interests were more wanting to go to my bedroom to draw cartoons, listen to my Steve Martin Comedy albums, and read MAD Magazines……which I did very well! My brother Rick however, was fixing things with my Dad when he was 3 years old. Sometimes I feel I missed out on sharing those kinds of moments with my Dad like my brother did, but at least we had a few things in common, one being we were very good working with our hands…..my Dad with his tools, and me with mine,….a pencil, a pen, and two Regal Nylon Tip Drum Sticks! I consider myself lucky in that respect, at least my Dad’s talents didn’t skip a generation.