2008

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A fair portion of 2008 was spent tearing down the granary in Waterloo to salvage plywood for the roof.
Also all the corrugated siding on this portion of the granary was removed and used to side the barn on Dean's farm.

This granary was an intact, historic old structure, one side of which had been nailed by a tornado weakening the brickwork.
Inside were these incredible seed-sorting machines of wood from the turn of the century.
They should have been crated up and preserved at a museum (City Museum?).
No one ever got their act together to remove them before the weather destroyed them.

In March of that year, it was necessary for Dean and young Dewey to travel to Germany on torque multiplier business.
Notice in the photo, Dewey accidentally left his hands in America.

Here is Dean hanging out with good friends Barry (left) and Charles (right) of Woosing at the trade fair in Cologne.

Meanwhile, Dewey is scoping out pretty girls from the Kao Jen stand next to Woosing.

Dewey and Dean were working in the yard and up pulls this gentleman in a Lincoln Continental.
He introduced himeself as a vice-president of Emerson Electric and his hobby was log structures.
He would ride around the countryside with a pair of binoculars on his seat looking for old logs peering out from under eaves.
He asked if he could look around. Dean and Dewey were old Soulard survivors and said "sure- be our guest."
The fellow came back panting and out of breath exclaiming "Oh my God, Oh my God".
Dean thought he was having a coronary or at least giving birth to triplets.
Dean and Dewey were advised that this barn was a Pennsylvania Double Crib and was the largest log structure in Illinois and Missouri.
Furthermore, with the log cabin house, granary and smokehouse, these were the largest intact assemblage of log structures in the two-state area.
Later, Dean would discover that, also, the barn was the oldest barn in Illinois (1836).
As can be seen here, the logs were covered at the turn of the century with one-by-twelves which Dean sort of kept painted.
The corrugated, zinced, steel siding salvaged from the granary this year would be installed over the existing one-by-twelves.

Also in 2008 there was substantial rainfall. This is the front road into the farm after the water had subsided (by flowing over the road).
Everytime Dean turned around, he was pumping out the basement of the new building. Good thing he installed that sump.
He also ringed the foundation at ten feet deep with drain pipe that would draw water away from the footings on the outside as well.

Dean did acquire a snappy little Mazda truck which he used to drag home more "stuff".
Here is a forty foot galvanized utility pole of which two will be used for wind turbine towers on top of the building.
See from the rear axle of the pickup how heavy these were.
Driving these home, Dean was passed by a monstrous motor home towing a Lincoln Navigator as the "runabout" car.
Dean did the math and realized he would have to build about two hundred of these windmills just to cover this pig's recreational needs.
There is no hope.

Notice the clever mechanism by which a forty foot cargo is hauled upon a sixteen foot trailer.
Don't try this at home. The Illinois State Police will not approve. Note the Woosing small chain hoists doing their job.
Now that would be one heck of a potato cannon.

A large part of 2008 was spent fighting the guardian appointed to "help" Melba and Dewey.
She "helped" herself to $549,000 of their money and she tried to force them to be put in a nursing home.
Then she could sell the farm so she could further "help" them.
Dean fought this woman every step of the way. She only left when the money was finished.
In six months, Dewey would no longer to be able to afford home care and he and Melba would be forced into a nursing home.
There was nothing wrong with him. His health was perfect. His problem was, he had money from which he needed to be liberated.
Ken Rybicki, their doctor and godson, testified "if you took Dewey from the things he loved, he'd be dead in six months".
Ken was wrong. he was dead in six months and one week.
This is a photo of a broken man. Grew up strong in the Dustbowl of Oklahoma during the Depression.
This is a man who drove Model-T trucks over the Himalayas from Burma into China bringing supplies to the Flying Tigers.
This is a man who educated and sent 10,000 engineers out into the world.
This is one of the "greatest generation".
He deserved better.

Go to 2009.

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