The next day we did the “Roy’s childhood” tour. I only remember the four places we lived from about age 6 and I was able to find all four houses, or in one case where the house used to be
before the state bought it and built a freeway over the site. I also found all four of the schools I went to during this period. The picture here is the last place my mom, brother Dennis and I lived in before we packed up and moved to Arizona with my soon to be step-dad Russ. The house was a duplex and we lived up on the top floor of the house. I was in seventh grade when we left Milwaukee in 1960. The next picture is of the apartment building in which my parents lived when I was born in 1947. They lived in the first apartment on the right side of the building. I know this because the address is on my birth certificate. The building is still occupied as apartments, although the neighborhood is kind of seedy. We spent most of the afternoon driving around different parts of the south-central area of the city that we lived in with me pointing out different childhood memory locations to Jackie like some crazed personal tour guide. The only thing I wasn’t able to find that I thought I clearly remembered was my aunt’s house where I 
used to spend a lot of my time as a kid. Her youngest son, Roger, was the same age as me and was probably my best friend growing up. I knew the area within a couple blocks, but never could pinpoint the house.Later on in the afternoon we visited the Milwaukee Elks Lodge # 46. The lodge is now located way north and west of downtown, but in a very nice building. They have about 400 members. The group at the bar when we visited was very friendly. That evening we went to a Cajun restaurant in downtown West Allis, about two miles from the RV park. We had found the restaurant, called Crawdaddies, in a local tour book and decided to give it a try. It turned out to be one of the best restaurants we have ever been to. The food was outstanding and the service was great. It was true Cajun food, but not overly hot, just the right amount of zing. They also had a great tee shirt which, of course, I had to buy. I would strongly recommend that anyone visiting Milwaukee check out this place. It is at about 71st Avenue and Greenfield Road in West Allis. You won’t find better Cajun outside of New Orleans.
The next day we headed out in the afternoon intending to visit Kenosha, Wisconsin, South of Milwaukee. Jackie lived in Kenosha for about a year with her first husband back in the early 60's and wanted to see if she saw anything she remembered down there. We decided to stop on the way at a costume shop in West Allis to see if they had any pirate costumes. The rally we are going to next week in Oshkosh has a pirate theme. That shop had something for Jackie, but didn’t have what I wanted in my size. But they had another store in one of the northern suburbs that the sales clerk called and they did have it, so we drove up there. In the course of all this chasing around looking for costumes the weather turned bad with heavy rain and the promise of more to come so we decided to wait until the next day to do Kenosha and headed back to the coach for the rest of the day.
The next morning we headed down to Kenosha and spent several hours driving around the area. Unfortunately, Jackie couldn’t remember much about the area and we were unable to find any of the places she lived or remembered. Since we were already down south, I decided to head west to Elkhorn, Wisconsin, where my grandparents lived when I was young. They lived in a farming area near town and close to a lake, however, the area has grown up so much that I was not able to figure out where the house might be. I also couldn’t remember the name of the lake and the maps we had didn’t show the names of the nearby lakes. I have since remembered that the lake was Wandawega and I have found the area on a map. So if we are ever back in the area I think I will be able to find the place. After striking out both places we headed back to the RV park to relax before leaving to head for Oshkosh the next day. Not much relaxation as about 4:00 in the afternoon the tornado warning siren went off and we had to head for the shelter (the office/restroom complex) and ended up being there for over two hours while this torrential set of thunderstorms came through. Luckily there were no tornadoes at the park, but one was sighted at the zoo only about three miles to our north. We have pretty much decided we don’t care for the weather in the Midwest!
The next morning, Sunday the eighth, we headed up to Oshkosh, Wisconsin for our rally. The rally, being held at the county fairgrounds, was being put on by the International Area (abbreviated INTO) of the Family Motor Coach Association (FMCA). For those who don’t know, FMCA is subdivided into a whole series of geographical areas. (Western, Eastern, Southeastern, Etc) Each area then has numerous Chapters set up around common interests. The International Area was created to be the area for those Chapters who were national in scope and didn’t have a particular geographical component. All of the chapters we belong to, such as Monaco International, Elks International, Full-timers, are INTO chapters. Like most area rallies this would be fairly small (200 coaches or so) compared to the full FMCA conventions like the one in St. Paul in July which will have two or three thousand coaches.
I had been asked to serve as a volunteer captain by the rally chairman, so although the actual rally didn’t start until Thursday evening, we were asked to arrive early, so we came up Sunday afternoon. My job was to set up all the signs around the rally site, including the directional signs on the roads coming into the fairgrounds, and all the various signs in the parking lot and inside of the buildings. It is amazing how many signs you need at a large rally! I spend most of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday making and putting up signs. On Thursday the rally started with the evening entertainment and the group was the Marlin’s. We had seen them once before at a Monaco rally in North Carolina. They were very good and played a mix of oldies along with some comedy bits. It rained most of the afternoon and night and there were periods when the rain was so heavy you couldn’t see across the parking lot. Fortunately, most of us were parked on blacktop or gravel. There were a few people parked on grass and at one point the water got so high in one spot the rally master had to air up his coach airbags to keep the water from getting into his storage bays.
Friday, Saturday and Sunday were the rally days. Fortunately, the weather changed and was very nice for the rest of the rally. There were only a couple dozen vendors at this rally so it
didn’t take too long to go through the shopping. We had also been to most of the seminars at previous rallies, so we didn’t attend too many of those. I had to get up early each morning because in addition to being utilities captain, I was also the sound engineer for the Frustrated Maestros at breakfast. The Maestros are another FMCA chapter that provide amateur entertainment at rallies. I had be up and set up each morning by 7 a.m. Yikes! Also, on Friday afternoon I was the MC and DJ for a chapter fair and block party. I played music and ran some contests. This was the major event that was pirate themed. They had costume contests for men and women and a beard contest. Both Jackie and I wore our pirate costumes and looked pretty good, I think. The entertainment for Friday night was an old guy who used to do sound effects for Warner Brothers cartoons and for Disney. He put on a pretty funny show. Saturday night was a jazz band that was OK and did manage to get people up dancing. 
One thing we did do on Sunday was finally sign up for our Alaskan tour. We have waffled back and forth about going to Alaska and finally decided to do it. We signed up for an escorted tour with Fantasy RV Tour and will be going in June of 2009. It’s a 48 day tour and should be a lot of fun. We decided that it would be better for us to go up with a group which included some professional guides rather than do it on our own. When we talked to the lady with the tour company we were originally looking at Mexico tours, but after looking at the timing and the costs, we decided we would rather do the Alaskan one first.
Sunday was the last day of the rally so I spent most of Sunday afternoon going around taking down all the signs I had put up the week before. We thought we might have to stay over on Monday to help clean up the rest of the rally, but we got everything that had to be done finished by late Sunday evening. We came back for Bingo Sunday night and Jackie and I both won, me $60 and her $75. Yea!
Monday morning and the rally is over. I had a brief 8:00 a.m. meeting of the captains for “debriefing” and then we were off to our next destination, the upper peninsula of Michigan. The report on that part of our journey will have to wait for the next blog.
Remember, life is a journey not a destination - enjoy the trip!
