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Golf course worker sinks pictorial ace
By MARY ZAHN
of the Journal Sentinel staff
Last Updated: Sept. 13, 2001
Brookfield - Imagine this:
You have just watched news reports of thousands of deaths in terrorist attacks in New York and Washington and look up from your job as a starter on a Brookfield golf course. There, walking past your window, is former President George Bush, dressed in shorts and a casual shirt.
Attacks on America
Photo/Courtesy of Charles Cronk
Charles Cronk and Megan Mueske, both of New Berlin, catch up with former President George Bush and his wife, Barbara, strolling Brookfield Hills Golf Course on Tuesday, after the attacks diverted the Bushes' plane to Milwaukee
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"I was sending somebody out on the golf course and I saw him walking by in front of the clubhouse," said Charles Cronk, 55, a part-time employee of Brookfield Hills Golf Course, 16075 Pinehurst Drive, Brookfield. "It was just like a dream. How ironic that on the same day that his son is going through all this turmoil that I should run into him."
Bush and his wife, Barbara, had checked into the Embassy Suites Hotel across the street from the golf course on Tuesday after their plane was diverted to Milwaukee in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. The couple spent the night at the hotel.
On Wednesday morning, they went to Signature Flight Support, 923 E. Layton Ave., a private charter terminal at Mitchell International Airport, where they left on a jet shortly after 9 a.m., according to Jim Cullen, managing editor of WTMJ-TV (Channel 4), which captured their departure on film.
Bush - who was surrounded by secret service agents at the golf course - told Cronk, who rushed out to shake his hand, that he was just getting some exercise. Cronk said a secret service man asked whether it would be all right if Bush walked the golf course.
"He was very relaxed," said Cronk, who works full time as a forklift operator at Delphi Automotive Systems Corp. in Oak Creek. "It was just an honor, on such a day of tragedy, to meet the father of the man who is protecting our country right now."
Linda Stiloski, who rushed to the golf course after Cronk phoned her about Bush's visit shortly after 5 p.m. Tuesday, said she thought he was kidding.
The golf club's owner arrived to see Cronk and a secret service man get into a golf cart, as Bush and his wife - along with other secret service agents - walked behind.
As he walked past the ninth hole, Stiloski said, a man and his three boys, who were about to tee off, recognized Bush and asked if he would hit one of their tee shots. He did, she said.
Bob Livernois of West Allis was another skeptic. Sitting in the golf club bar, he heard Cronk say Bush was there. But when Livernois saw the Bushes, he grabbed an empty scorecard and got their autograph.
"I had on my Marine hat, and he told me, 'It's nice to see a young Marine,' " Livernois said. "But I think I'm older than him."
After Bush signed autographs and allowed pictures to be taken of himself with golf course employees, the Bushes got into a secret service car and went back to the hotel, Stiloski said.
Because the secret service wanted copies of some of the photographs, Stiloski said, Cronk had them developed quickly and later went to the hotel to deliver them. He ran into the Bushes in the lobby, where George Bush signed some of the photographs Cronk had kept for himself, she said.
"The whole day was just a horrible horrible thing," Stiloski said. "I felt numb the whole day and with this - it was almost too much to believe. Almost surreal. I didn't know what to think really. I felt a little bit insecure because he was staying right across the street. I really didn't want to announce it."
Jacqueline Seibel of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this story.
Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Sept. 13, 2001. |
