Sunday, October 21, 2001
7 The guy who cleans up downtown
Michael Wigdahl, who used to wear a suit and earn a high salary, loves his current job, picking up trash in downtown Corpus Christi.
He walks 35 miles a week and hasn't missed a day of work in four years on the job.
Nor has he taken a vacation because "this is where I want to be."
"I have something not a lot of people have - control of my life and time."
Wigdahl, who works for One Source, which contracts with the downtown district, looks after the area between Shoreline Boulevard and Lower Broadway and Kinney Street and Interstate 37.
He watches the sunrise, and the transformation from quiet, empty streets to full parking lots and traffic.
To hear Wigdahl tell it, the job has made more of a difference in him than he has made doing the job.
"It's a kind of greed when you wake up every morning and you want more. If you can get that monkey off your back, man, what a relief that is."