It was 8:30 a.m. on a frigid February morning, but Dan Korn was already running hot.

 

Korn, a 60-year-old longtime Eau Claire resident, had a lot on his schedule. He had to spend a couple of hours cleaning the Elbow Room bar next to the parking lot where he parked his multi-colored van adorned with a hand-painted “Wolf and Co.” insignia and the 1991 black bus he bought in the fall.

 

Those vehicles aren’t Korn’s mode of transportation. They’re his home. He slept in that bus during this unusually harsh winter, bundling up mummy-like in sleeping bag and layer upon layer of warm clothes in an effort to stave off life-threatening nightly low temperatures that plunged as low as 25 degrees below zero.

 

The frigid, arctic conditions inside the unheated bus were evident by the snow-white layer of frost that coated the vehicle’s interior for much of this winter.

 

“It was cold, I tell you what,” Korn said with a laugh. “Sometimes I think it was colder in the bus than outside.”

 

After cleaning the bar, Korn cleared snow from one of the eight properties – some of them large commercial lots – he contracts with as part of his snow-removal business. Five inches of snow fell overnight, and Korn had his work cut out for him. Making matters worse, his snowblower was broken, leaving Korn to wonder how he’d move all that snow. He did it, one shovel full at a time.

 

"It's a lot of work," Korn, 56, said later that day "but as long as my back holds out, I'll be fine." 

 

Korn was diagnosed with schizophrenia in his mid-20s, when he landed in jail after repeated run-ins because of problems with alcohol. He has been given numerous medications in ensuing years to treat his mental illness, but none of those medications provided a successful longterm answer, he said.

 

“I was over-medicated for a long time,” Korn said one mid-March day as he proudly showed off his refurbished bus, home to his beloved musical instruments, some of which he built himself. “They just couldn’t find the right medicine for me. I was having panic attacks a lot of the time.”

 

Last year his doctor found a new medication for Korn to try, one that seemed to work. These days his panic attacks are infrequent, Korn said, and he has discovered a relative sense of calm. “Most of the time I feel like I’m in a good place now,” he said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_________---__________--------

 

“You know, I’m doing pretty good,” he said. 

__________

 

By late February, most Eau Claire residents were more than sick of the snow. The city would receive 75 inches by winter’s end, a winter in which snow was still falling in mid-April.

 

But for Dan Korn, those white flakes that continued to fall from the sky represented green.

 

Early on the morning of Feb. 20, Korn emerged from his bus, tromped through 8 inches of new-fallen snow across the street to Positive Avenues, quickly gulped two cups of coffee, then headed back to the bus and grabbed a shovel. He had work to do.

 

For years Korn has operated a lawn-mowing business during summer months and shoveled snow for business owners and residents each winter. On this morning he told Biddle he was headed out to shovel at Family Video, a half mile or so away along Wisconsin Street. Biddle should meet him there, he said. Then Korn, his shovel strapped to his back, hopped on his bicycle, and rode, slipping and sliding, to his destination.

 

For much of the winter, Korn used his snowblower to clear sidewalks, especially after heavy snowfalls. But the blower was having mechanical problems, so Korn had little option but to clear snow the old-fashioned way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His legs and feet were covered by a thick snow pants and heavy boots while his upper body was encased in multiple layers covered by a thick leather Polaris coat and warm gloves. His bushy, curly hair was protected by a warm, lined leather hat with earflaps. His graying beard was speckled with snow and ice as he worked, the frequent clouds of breath emanating from his mouth evidence of both the cold and the labor.

 

A short time later Biddle arrived at the site and joined Korn. Their shovels slid rhythmically along the lengthy corner sidewalk, slowly clearing swaths through the snow as vehicles passed nearby. The couple labored methodically, intent on finishing the job before them. They still had multiple other locations to clear.

 

Later that afternoon, Korn trudged up steep Gray Street hill, his shovel slung over his shoulder, headed to clear snow for the last of his customers. His back ached from lifting countless shovelfuls. His arms burned from the effort. So did his thighs. His beard was a mass of ice.

 

But Korn felt a sense of satisfaction too. He had worked hard. And he and Biddle had made more than $100 combined.

 

“On a day like this, it’s hard work,” Korn said. “But it’s good, honest work.” 

__________

 

Dan Korn should have been happy. He had a musical gig lined up for the night of April 9, in Medford.

 

Never mind the unseasonably cold, snowy weather. Korn was set to hit the road, helmet on his head and hand-written sheet music packed into a carrying case. He was ready to travel 80 miles to the east and back again on his motorcycle. He would be paid just $20 for the small-time performance.

 

For Korn, playing music isn’t about the money. It never has been. It’s about the creative joy he gets from plunking each note on piano, strumming each chord on guitar. It's about the soulful joy he feels with each verse he sings.

 

But shortly before noon, instead of preparing to play music later that day, Korn sat in a chair at Positive Avenues, a mental health drop-in center in downtown Eau Claire. He was waiting to use the phone. He needed to call the party for which he was scheduled to perform in Medford. He needed to cancel his performance, courtesy of his malfunctioning 1979 Suzuki motorcycle.

 

 

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

His blue jeans were grease-stained along with his hands, the result of having spent this chilly morning working on his motorcycle. Despite his efforts, the vehicle wasn't running right.

 

“It bums me out,” Korn said between sips of V-8 juice. “I really like to play my music.”

 

Korn spent the next 10 minutes describing the many problems with his motorcycle and all he has done to try to fix it. “It’s running, but it’s got no power once you get it over 30 miles an hour,” he said. “I’m going to try the fuel filter next. But it’s got so many things wrong with it.”

 

The recent weather warm-up had melted the ice that coated the inside of Korn's bus and van for much of the winter. Korn and Biddle appreciated the warmer temperatures, but they had created a problem: the bus had a small water leak and the van a bigger one. They set up a tarp to keep water from seeping through a rusted-out spot on the van’s door “but there is still some water getting in there,” Korn said.

 

Still, Korn said he was extremely grateful for the climbing temperatures.

 

“To get through this winter, it was no small task,” he said, a pinch of snuff protruding from behind his lower lip like a golf ball. “No matter how warm I dressed, it was real cold in that bus.”

 

A moment later, as Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’” played from a boom box on a nearby table, Korn brought the conversation back to music. He talked animatedly about a band he played in during his days in the military, a band comprised of a variety of characters from all walks of life.

 

“We named that band ‘Louise Brown’ after the first test-tube baby,” Korn cackled in his distinctive loud, high-pitched laugh. “That was quite a group. We played everything from Bach to rock.”

 

Korn went on to describe how, after so many years of struggling, he is in a good place mentally and emotionally. He said he receives regular counseling, and a medication he began taking last year appears to be the silver bullet to calm his nerves and the voices in his head.

 

“Right now I’m in a good place,” he said.

 

Then, suddenly, Korn grew antsy. The phone he had waited 45 minutes to use still wasn’t free. He had to go, he said. He had things to do.

 

Korn rose swiftly from the chair and walked briskly through the back door at Positive Avenues, attempting to complete the never-ending list of tasks in his head. He never made the call to cancel his music engagement.