Everyday Ass Kicker - Dick Lueck

A Guy Who Doesn't Sweat the Small Stuff

My Uncle Dick Lueck married my Aunt Jeanne Hartman in the late 70's.  One of the greatest days of my childhood was when my mom told me Dick and Jeanne would be buying the Hartman house on Hillview Drive in Sussex, WI.  It meant that the house would not be sold outside the family to settle the estate.  Since then, even though it is half his castle, he has generously opened its doors to the Hartman Family, and allowed it to be its central gathering place.

Dick grew up on a dairy farm in Wausau, WI, and after high school, like many boys his age, was sent to Viet Nam.  It was there, he once told me at his basement bar, where he learned not to sweat the small stuff.  He worked a big steel union job at A.O. Smith in Milwaukee until the facility closed.  Today he works full time at Fleet Farm wearing a safety yellow shirt, welcoming customers in to the lumber yard. When he sees kids in the car, Dick talks to them in his famous Donald Duck voice he always used on us as kids.

I believe the one thing friends and family appreciate most about him is his ability to laugh at himself. From tearing up his beer belly sliding down a trunk of a tree attempting to place his deer stand, to the short jokes, and baby face jokes he gets every time he shaves his beard, he can take it.

He and my Aunt Jeanne are two of the most generous people I've ever known.  Time, gifts, parties, food, beer, or whatever it takes to make you feel welcome, they provide it.  And boy is it hard to get them to accept gifts.  When family members or close friends needed a transitional place to live, building houses by hand or starting families; they were welcome to live at Jeanne and Dick's.

When we were kids Dick and Jeanne always bought empty cargo van's and Dick would customize it building benches, carpet, etc.  If he had a van full of kids, when we pulled in to the neighborhood, Dick would swerve and take sharp corners to let us tumble like popcorn in the back.  Sounds danerous, but man it was fun!  He was a Harley guy for a while, and had a bike with a purple gas tank with a black pig.  His biker buddies called him "Purple Dick".

I was 16 in 1985 and thought I knew everything. My mom sent me to Sussex for the summer and Dick got me a second shift job at the local canning factory sorting green beans.  Because of that, I went to college.  When my friends came up to visit, and Dick and Jeanne had to pick us up at Waukesha Park at 1am, busted for drinking. I thought I was a dead man.  When we got to back to his house, Dick took us all downstairs to his bar, lined up shots and beers, and partied with us till 4am.  

Dick has maintained his boyhood friends for 60 years, and extended friends of the Hartman's have become family.  He is Wisconsin to the bone: Hunting, fishing, raw beef on rye, venison sausage, a fifty-fifty sour cream to baked potato ratio, pickled hearing, smoked oysters, sardines, and basically anything you can fit on a cracker.  My cousins and I owe Dick and Jeanne more than we will ever be able to repay. So that is why, Dick Lueck, is the latest member of Gusty Winds' Everyday Ass Kickers.