I've been taunted by ice dams for a while now. I know, we all have, but these were bad and while I struggled to figure out just what to do about them, a roofer stopped at the neighbor's to look into a leak.
I invited him to pop over and see the dams and to tell me what it would cost to remove them. He barely finished saying, "$20," and I had my wallet out. He and another guy got up there and got rid of them as new snow fell.
Sadly, I wasn't around the remainder of that day and so, guess what, the new snow brought with it new ice dams, although certainly not as bad as the previous ones. And because there was a lot of ice up there, I suspect it's good to get back to zero even if just for a day or two, to get that weight off the roof and the gutters.
I can see this is going to be a very, very long winter ... once winter officially starts.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
