OT Goose

Do you know Dr Clayton Peters? He was the dentist in Milford for years. His wife is my wife's Aunt. They are retired and living in Lincoln now!

Shore do! Or did.

From 1981 to 1986 I was Buildings and Grounds Supervisor for the Milford Public School district and Clayton was on the School Board the entire time.

Gotta admit the road wasn't always paved, though. I always hired a half dozen students every summer for various duties. Two consecutive summers Peters decided it would be fitting if his son (I forget his front name) worked for the school over the summer. I wasn't at all comfortable with the idea of the son of a school board member working for me at the school. Like any employment situation, nothing is ever perfect, and you always have to wonder what kind of stories the kid is telling at home.

But, the Superintendent caved and overruled me, so we hired him and I hoped for the best.

Also, the Superintendent was an alcoholic, the town drunk, if you will and commanded about that level of respect around town. Sometimes when we met with contractors and engineers on various projects, he stunk from booze to a point where I was embarassed to be in the same room with him. And the School Board, Peters included, didn't have the guts to do anything about him.

In March of 1986, I sat in my office one Friday and asked myself, "Why am I putting up with this bulls--t?" I thought about it over the weekend and Sunday evening I sat down a wrote a letter or resignation. I skipped the Superintendent and hand delivered the letter to the Chairman of the School Board on Monday morning. I gave three weeks notice, but didn't even bother to finish out the school year. In effect, I just said, "Hell with it". In fact, I threatened to walk down Main Street in Milford with a sprig of mistletoe tied to my coat tail my last day on the job.

To put it in perspective, I live half way between Seward and Milford, right on the line so that I have a Seward telephone and a Milford mailing address. And that, my friend, is the only connection to the town of Milford I'll admit to. Seward will forever by my hometown.

The entire town of Milford is so intermarried and interrelated, you don't dare talk about someone to somebody else on the street 'cause you're probably talking about their cousin or brother-in-law. The school Superintendent came to Milford from Sidney, Nebraska, and about the only thing he ever said that made sense was he came from Sidney where it was unusual for any two students in school to have the same last name, and then he came to Milford where 90% of the student body has one of three last names. Maybe that's why he was the town drunk.

Didn't mean to get off on a rant, but even after 25-30 years it still bugs me. It was a job I did well at and could have thoroughly enjoyed if I hadn't been sabatoged from about three different directions. I could write more, but I'd better quit.