George Putz, Jr., was a bachelor with no close relatives. When he passed all the photos of his past family and scores of archival items he saved for his entire lifetime was headed for the Shawano Landfill. I was George's friend and I couldn't let that happen. George was a paper mill worker for 41 years. He recycled metals his entire life and kept track of what he sold and how much he was paid. In 1956 the employees at the paper mill thought George had lost all his marbles when he paid a moving and wrecking company $230.00 to haul 133 dump truck loads of rubble, mostly the red brick siding, from the razed Shawano County Courthouse to his property near the Wolf River. George was at the Shawano Flea Market every Sunday and bought many old items- his house was full of old things. He was a champion for cats, and couldn't turn away a hungry kitty. George put together The Shawano Paper Mill Centennial 1894-1994 book. There's a lot you can learn from an oddball!
Paperback book (6 in. x 9 in.) has 87 pages, ISBN: 978-0-9679770-5-8
Ships to APO and FPO addresses. Free standard shipping.
John J. Mutter, Jr., writer and publisher, has been published in many newspapers and magazines and has written several books. Born in Racine, Wisconsin in 1943, he spent his childhood there. In 1961, he joined the Navy which took him from Great Lakes, Illinois for boot camp to Patuxent River, Maryland for shore duty to Little Creek, Virginia on amphibious ships. He also participated in the first bomb shelter test. He worked as a merchant seaman on ships headquartered in Oakland, California. A Vietnam War veteran, he began his blue collar life working in a variety of jobs including machine shop attendant, gas station worker, paper mill employee, bartender, construction worker, security guard, car mechanic, bailiff, grave digger, and meat counter attendant in a super market. His last full-time job was 15 years as a power plant operator at a maximum security prison in Green Bay, Wisconsin. His life-long dream of becoming a writer was fulfilled after he attended a one-week school for creative writing in 1980. Since that time, he has become known as a storyteller, activist, environmentalist, historian, speaker, trophy winning pool player, outdoorsman, biographer and award winning writer.
