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Blondie and the Beast

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Inspiration

This is inspiring. The stone cut without hands shall roll forth. It's amazing to see the growth of the Church.

Happy New Year, 2009!

Wow, 2008 was an eventful year. Three new grandsons, all of whom are healthy and happy boys. I was made a manager at work and now I have 12 people in my organization. I spent a month in Japan and was able to attend the Temple there (a dream come true). Two good managers and a lot of overtime, which was challenging but economically great. Blonde and I still have our health and enjoy each other. Our son reached the end of the Golden Path with his MBA from the University of Utah.

Such a string of blessings!

I am looking forward to 2009. My photography business should start to take off and I am shooting more often. My company may be sending me to Chile for two weeks in the next couple of months, though that is not certain now. Our grandsons all turn 1 year old in a few months so we will be having parties here and in Maryland. Safire, our daughter, is coming for a month to visit and we are doing the parks in Southern Utah. Something I have not done since I was about 6 years old. We intend to take a lot of photographs. In the fall we are headed back to Maryland, possibly to do the Renaissance Festival in PA again. This is still up for discussion, though.

I have just a few of resolutions this year.

1. Spend less time vegetating in front of the TV, idly watching whatever is on. We record most of what we watch, but when my brain needs a vacation I have two places to spend my time, learning more about photography and working on the family history website. It has languished too long.
2. Finish Safire and Juice’s wedding video, complete with case. After 9 years it’s time.
3. Finish Andrew and Angela’s wedding video. This one is done, I just have to do the case. (blush!)
4. Play golf twice a month
5. Use my time more effectively at work.
6. Get my team working like a well oiled machine, complete with appropriate reporting
7. Read the Book of Mormon every day.

I could add lose weight and exercise more, but that’s a given, right?

So, in the course of the year, I hope to be able to blog that these goals are completed and how I got there. I intend to be more consistently active here writing my online journal.

See you in the funny papers!

The Life and Times of Big Blue

In the 70’s there was a popular sitcom on television called “All in the Family.” It featured an iconic character, Archie Bunker. He was uninformed, hidebound and generally ridiculous but seemed to have enough soft spots to make him endearing. One soft spot that I remember was for a chair. It was a simple chair, but the one he always sat in. Edith, his wife, decided one day that they needed to get rid of it. Hijinks ensued and in the end he kept it, because his life was in the chair, he had held his baby daughter in the chair and watched memorable football games in the chair, etc. We retired a similar chair this week.

Big Blue is a large Laze-boy recliner/rocker that has been in our family room for 12 years or so. It replaced another blue recliner rocker that my Dad pulled the arms off of while trying to get out of it (yes, I was annoyed). At first, I didn’t like the new chair. It was larger than the original and I felt a little lost in it. However, time went by and the extra size was welcome. Blondie and I could snuggle a little in it together, it was perfect for holding small children on your lap in, and I could sleep in the chair. This became probably it’s biggest attraction.

I recovered from two bouts of cancer and one gall bladder operation in that chair. My ability to sleep in it, was a great blessing. Lying down in bed after major surgery is problematic. The laying down is not the issue, it’s the getting up. It is very painful. If I could stay in the chair, getting up is not such a big deal, you just rock forward and the back of the chair supports you. This was particularly helpful with the kidney cancer, since the incision was in my back.

As grand children have come along, we have rocked them in Big Blue and they too have slept in the chair. Many meals have been eaten in the chair and many Bronco games watched. Many Sunday afternoons have been spent in the chair, napping or reading. It has been a great chair.

This week one of the springs broke underneath and the reclining mechanism is threatening to poke up through the seat. So, sadly we replaced the chair with two new leather recliners. Blonde says they are colder than Big Blue, which was fabric covered, but I like them. We will need new names for the chairs. My daughter has suggested Dino and Saur, I like Minotaur and Elsie. Any other suggestions?

Stealing Beauty

I was reading an article recently about why people get involved with photography. In many cases, young men get involved to meet girls. For myself, it was the gadgetry and art of it and, okay, later it was meeting girls. I put serious photography down for many years due to monetary constraints and a long relationship with video cameras. I still like video, but it takes sooo long to edit it, that I don’t spend as much time as I would like. Still photography is much more immediate and you can do some pretty amazing things with the new tools, no darkroom needed. (Just Adobe Light-room)

In order to improve myself, I joined a couple of local photography groups to get myself out shooting and hopefully learn a few things. Utah Photowalking is one, the other is Utah Strobist. So, what is a Strobist? I wondered that as well, but it is a person who shoots with a strobe light. Photography is all about shadows and light and a strobe is to a photographer what a lightsaber is to a Jedi. If you can control the light and manage it, you can create amazing images.

On Tuesday, we had a meeting in downtown Salt Lake. It was my first meeting, but I knew many of the people from the Photowalking group. I brought along my niece as a model. I thought it would be fun to shoot her skating on the outdoor rink nearby. We got to the site and I talked to a few of the people there and asked if any were interested in taking pictures of her. A few were interested and we went over to the rink. One of my photo friends, Ann, was very helpful. I am not that great with the strobes yet, but she is quite accomplished. She hauled out her remote triggers and two strobes, hooked them up to my camera and even held them while I shot. We played with light for about an hour, while Caitlin jumped, spun, glided and twirled, always with a smile in spite of the cold. It was pretty chilly, too. She was a real trooper.

The area around the rink was lit with Christmas lights, which made for intriguing backgrounds. By this time, several others had come by and were shooting. Two in particular, Harley and Diane joined us and helped with the lighting. Harley taught me a cool trick with the zoom and flash. I have always wanted to know how to do this kind of picture.

Photographers steal beauty and store it in their little black boxes. There is a magic in it, to be sure, but only if it’s shared. I have stolen beauty from many, including my wife, my daughter and granddaughter. To add another beauty to my black box and then share it with her and her family, well that’s the sweetest magic of all.

Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 30

Now and in the Future

At the moment, I am happy with my life. I have been working at the same company for over 10 years and expect to retire from there. It is a comforting thought. There is money in the bank and we are saving regularly. Virtually no debt. I could pay off what we owe today and be left with just a house payment. The lessons I learned the hard way have paid off now. It’s why adversity, if you learn from it is a good thing. Not so good if you don’t.

I think a lot about what I want to do next. My feeling is that we will be okay in retirement financially, assuming the economy doesn’t completely tank for 10 years or more. I also am working on my heath through exercise and better eating habits. These are all things that everyone should do and I don’t intend to stop there. I have other plans for my later years.

I notice that my in laws are doing pretty well for being in their late 70s and early 80’s. They watch their food, exercise and do one more thing that I want to emulate. They keep their minds and bodies busy. I have this planned as well. I have a second career planned as a photographer and writer. Yep, the career I wanted as a young man is going to be my second career. I start next semester taking classes with the objective to get a degree in Fine Arts in a few years. Obviously I want to learn as much about art and photography as I can so my photos are more than snapshots. You have to find a distinctive style to make it in any photographic endeavor, even stock photography. It has to stand out amongst the millions of photos out there. That is part of my journey.

The other half will be writing about my family history and publishing it. I already manage a couple of web sites and want to start posting stories over there. Eventually all of this will be assembled as a book and published for posterity. I figure that between those two endeavors, I will stay quite busy. Who knows, I may get a break and be able to contribute to some magazine or online community and get paid for it. Woohoo! Grandma Moses did it with her painting, I intend to do it with my photography and writing. The future is mine for the taking.

One more item before I shut this down for a while.

Being a grandpa is something I have known how to do for a long time. Being a parent of adult children is not. It is sometimes hard to see them as an adult from a relationship point of view. It’s like something that was popular in the early 70s called Transactional Analysis. It states that everyone follows 3 basic roles, Parent, Adult and Child. Parent-Child relationships are normal as long as both agree on the roles. Child to Child and Adult to Adult work just fine as well. Parent to Parent is not the greatest as there is no clear idea who is the boss in that situation and Parent-Adult is the worst of all. As a parent of an adult, you want to give them advice and help based on what you know from your experience and observations. As an adult they are not always happy with your intrusion. So, you have to stop being a parent (at times) and be an adult. An adult will let them make their own mistakes and bad choices. An adult will grieve with them, but not at the level a parent does. The same goes for the joyful times, they are far more sweet as a parent. I understand, in a small way, what our Heavenly Father goes through. The joy he feels is great when we do well. The pain he feels when our decisions are not in our best interest is probably greater than our own. I know that’s how I feel.

So, what do I do? I advise when asked, try to set a good example. Show them that they have to be equally yoked and sacrifice for one an other so their families will have strong bonds of gratitude between them. Love them unconditionally (which I do) and support them through success and crisis. If, at the end of my life, my family will sacrifice for one another, have joy with one another and love one another unconditionally, I will die happy.

That’s pretty far off, I think, dying. So I intend most of all to live with joy, follow my passions, play with my grandkids and maybe visit Mount Kilimanjaro or even hike it if I am strong enough, and I WILL remain strong.

Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 29

I, Grandpa

With excuses to Isaac Asimov, I will borrow the title of the story but not much of the substance. The story is about a robot becoming human. This story is about a human becoming a Grandpa.

Grandpa didn’t used to be a Grandpa. He used to be Dad and before that he was Babe and before that he was just Robert the Human.

Robert the Human was a boy who had a Grandpa of his own. We called him Grandpa Ted.

Grandpa Ted was a wonderful grandpa. He built wonderful things of wood, took us fishing and gave Robert the Human church mints.

He was so nice that Robert the Human wanted to turn into a grandpa, just like Grandpa Ted.

When Robert the Human grew up he knew that he had to be Robert the Husband because if you are not a husband you can’t become Robert the Dad.

Eventually Robert the Human met Debi the Human and they got married. Now he was Robert the Husband (or Robert the Babe!) and on his way to becoming Robert the Grandpa.

Robert the Husband and Debi the Wife decided that it was time they changed, so they became Robert the Dad and Debi the Mom.

They loved being a Dad and a Mom, mostly because they had Andrew the Human and Catherine the Human to be parents to. It was a great thing to be able to do.

After a few years of being Human, Andrew and Catherine met other Humans named Angela and Jeff. They got married and turned into a Husband and a Wife like Robert and Debi did.

Robert the Dad was happy that Andrew the Human was now Andrew the Husband and Catherine the Human was now Catherine the Wife. He still wanted to turn into a grandpa, but he had to wait for Andrew and Catherine to become a Dad and a Mom.

Catherine the Wife was the first to change. She became Catherine the Mom first. She had a little Human named Butterfly. Robert the Dad was VERY happy, he was now Grandpa Rob, just like Grandpa Ted! He could hardly wait for Butterfly to get older so he could make things with her, take her fishing and give her church mints when Catherine the Mom will let him.

So, is our story over? No, of course not!

Grandpa Rob gets to turn into a new grandpa every time a new Human joins our family. So far we have Colin the Human, Pirate the Human and Professor the Human. Pirate and Professor are twin Humans! This is a very special thing. Grandpa Rob gets two little Humans to be grandpa to.Colin the Human came one month before Pirate and Professor and he visits Grandpa Rob every day. For a while, Butterfly the Human, Pirate the Human and Professor the Human were all visiting together at Grandpa Rob’s house. He was very happy. Maybe the happiest he has ever been. He could be Grandpa Rob to ALL FOUR of his little humans at the same time. Eventually they will build things together, go fishing and maybe, find church mints in Grandpa Rob’s pocket.

Grandpa Ted would be proud.

Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 28

Adversity, Death and Gratitude        

Don’t let the tag line concern you. As I have tried to be with all the thoughts I have put down on paper, this will be a positive experience. To quote one of the most quotable movies ever, “Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” (Princess Bride). I have seen that as a joke, but as with all the best jokes, there is a core of truth in it. Life is pain, it’s how we learn best, through failures and disappointments, as long as we take the time to reflect on the pain and garner the lessons from it. I have seen a fair amount in my life so I want to share a few experiences and what I learned from them.

I was a serial job killer. After I graduated college, I went into the job market with high hopes. I got a job with Mountain Bell and moved to Denver. Happy with the situation, I didn’t understand that I was in trouble from the beginning. I was there on time, left on time and tried to work hard. After all, that was all I was required to do at any job I worked at up to that point. In a professional environment, you have to go the extra mile. This I did not know. I didn’t understand why so many people worked late, if only an extra hour or so. They also were in the office a bit early. Not me, I was just on time. My manager noticed this and it did not endear me to him. Then I made my second mistake, I tried to be friends with my boss by going to the gym with him an working out every day. He was not in the best overall shape, but he had enormous biceps, making up for other inadequacies perhaps. He certainly tried to use them to flirt with ladies and intimidate men. I was not intimidated. I could do as many curls as he could plus could bench press more and leg press more. I was 20 years younger than him so it only made sense. What this did was put me in competition with him, not a good situation with your boss. I bruised his ego. Between that and the unwillingness to go the extra mile and I was outta there in 2 years. Lesson learned: Extra effort and sacrifice make you a valuable employee and harder to get rid of. Always make your boss look good, no matter where you are.

I lost a job because I disliked another employee and did everything I could to get him fired. I was successful in getting him fired and then I was 2 weeks later. I think the lesson was obvious.

I lost a lot of sales jobs because in the end, I am not a good salesperson. I did work and apply the lessons but I was unwilling to empathize with the customer at some level and tell them what they wanted to hear. They should buy from me because it was a good decision, not because they wanted to. No one buys anything because it’s a good decision, they buy because they want to. What was the lesson? Don’t waste time with something you consistently fail at. Find where your talents are and follow the road they lead you. I love what I do now and it’s NOT sales.

In the course of losing all these jobs, I spent many months out of work. One experience that will forever be etched in my memory happened after I lost the job at Mountain Bell. Not sure what to do next, I decided that computers were the next big thing. I was going to get into that business because I liked computers and thought they were cool. It took me 10 months to find a job. How it happened is the core of this story. I had been out of work 9 months. Unemployment had run out. We were on assistance. We had sold my class ring from high school to stave off the wolves at the door. We had no money at all. So, I swallowed my pride and went down to the day labor place on Larimer Street in Denver and registered at the hiring hall. This place was where all the drunks, druggies and other assorted street people went to work to get enough money for their next fix or drink. I walked in and was faced with a wall of cigarette smoke, so thick you could barely see. It was mingled with the stench of sweaty bodies with a touch of acid sweetness from the vomit. Bad. The hiring desk gave me some papers to fill out, which I did and left the hall. I could not stand the atmosphere. You had to be in the hall, though so if they called your name, you could go up and get your job. From time to time, I stuck my head in to hear, but that was about it. One guy came up to me and told me he had killed a man the night before, another was a hobo, riding the trains from city to city. He was pretty clean, though and reasonable to talk to. Still, I had to get out of there, so I walked down the street a ways, bowed my head and said a prayer, begging Father in Heaven to help me and my family out. I don’t think I have ever felt as humble before or since. After the prayer, I went back to the hall and stuck my head in and heard my name called. The hiring dispatcher asked me if I knew the city and could I drive. I said yes and he sent me to a siding and insulation warehouse where I was to do delivery and sweep up. I drove to the business which happened to be near our home and they put me to work. After the first day, they asked me back for another which I gladly accepted. The next day I was offered a permanent job. I told them I would but that I had interviews that I would be going on for another job. They told me that was fine and allowed me to leave whenever I had to. Three weeks later, I had a job in the computer industry at McDonnell Douglas. Working in that warehouse is one of the sweeter jobs I have ever had, because it was a gift from God. Lesson learned? I think you can figure it out.

I work at a great company now and have for 10 years. I manage a project management group that spans North and South America and Europe or Japan at times. Life is good on the job front now. Would it be without the trials? I don’t think so.

Death. It’s scary for a lot of people. I have no fear of it except that my family is taken care of when I have to leave this world. Why would I feel this way? Well, I have died and come back. It was an amazing experience. I was in Burlington, Massachusetts near Boston on a business trip. I had been there a week and was looking forward to coming home. Friday night I went to bed feeling okay but woke up about 1am feeling awful. I went into the bathroom and vomited blood. It was pretty scary because there was a lot of it and it was bright red, not the blood you associate with veins but with arteries. This went on for a while and I was feeling very light headed, so called the front desk to get some help. They were right there, helped me pack up a few things and sent me to the hospital ... in a cab. It was closest and fastest so it worked. Fortunately, the hospital was right down the street, you could see it from the hotel. The hospital was the Lahey Clinic, the top gastroenterology hospital on the east coast and maybe the US, exactly the place I needed. I was rushed into the emergency ward where they diagnosed internal bleeding but not sure why. After checking in and making sure I was not dying immediately I was put in a room and asked to change into a hospital gown. Change accomplished, I was taken to an operating room where they put me out (or tried to, I am notoriously hard to put under) and stuck what felt like a huge snake down my throat. Gag reflex was strong and I bit the snake so it wouldn’t go any further. The doctors were frustrated so they gave me more drugs which put me out totally and got the endoscope into my stomach. There they saw an ulcer that had eaten through the stomach lining and burst an artery in my stomach. It was clotted over so they thought they would watch it and see. When I was told this the next morning, I was depressed. It was the week before Thanksgiving and I really wanted to be home, not in a hospital in Boston, 2000 miles from home. Later in the day I spoke with Debi and was very upset, I cried some as we were talking and some after. When I am stressed, it usually goes to my stomach and I was stressed. Not a good thing when you have a burst artery in your stomach. As I went to sleep that night, I felt bad again, but they gave me a sleeping pill and I was out. The next thing I remember is floating over my body in the bed and a nurse came in to take my pulse. She checked her watch, looked at the monitor and ran out of the room. Next thing I knew there were 12 people in the room working on me. It was not worrisome, though, because I was at peace. I have never felt like that since. It was a feeling of release, my burdens were completely gone. I have described it as a relief, but it was much much more than that. It was a release and a joy that is indescribable. Like being let out of prison where you were forced to work every day under awful conditions, multiplied by a thousand or more.

The next thing I remember is being wheeled into the operating room where they rearranged my insides and repaired the damage. i have a nice big zipper in my stomach as a reminder. After 2 weeks, they released my to my Aunt and Uncle who drove up from Washington DC to pick me up. I flew home after 3 more days recovering with them. Thanks Uncle Jim and Aunt Beverly!

When I die, I know what is waiting for me and I know who will be there to greet me. My Grandpa Ted will be first to hold out his hand and take mine as I step across. many others will be there as well, all smiling and welcoming me home. It will be a celebration of life, the next one after this test of tribulation. Remember, “Life is Pain.”

Am I grateful for the pain? I am, indeed. Without pain there is no pleasure. If we have no sadness in our lives, there will be no joy. We can’t know one without the other. I have joy in my wife, children and grandchildren because I know what it’s like to be separated from them. I am happy and grateful for my job, because I have been without more than I ever wanted. This life is more of a joy because I have missed chunks of it that I want back and I know that no matter what happens, I will be happy to go when my time has come. I am grateful for the learning, grateful for the pain and adversity. It has made me a better, stronger man.

Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 27

I’ve been everywhere, man, I’ve been everywhere.

In the course of vacations and business trips I have visited 20 countries, all 50 states, every major metropolitan area (and some not so major) in the US and Canada and not nearly as many national parks as I would like, but working on that one. Favorite city in the entire world, that would be Denver Metro of course.

There are so many others. Right now I have 235 total visited on my list but it’s not complete. I suspect that it will reach close to 500 when I am done.
Here is the full list of favorites and a map:

1. Tokyo, Japan


2. London, England


3. Singapore, Singapore


4. Sydney, Australia


5. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada


6. Monte-Carlo, Monaco


7. San Francisco, CA, USA


8. New York City, NY, USA


9. Amsterdam, The Netherlands


10. Copenhagen, Denmark

Here are a few category based rankings across all cities I have visited:
Best Food City - New Orleans
Best Meal I ever had - Black Pepper Crab in Singapore
Best Steak - Racine, Wisconsin
Best Scenery - Juneau, Alaska
Worst Scenery - Anywhere in West Texas
Most History - London, UK
Strongest DejaVu - Copenhagen, Denmark
Best Light for Photographs - Lisbon, Portugal
Least Boring - New York
Most Boring - Lincoln, Nebraska
Place I Never Want to Go Back To: Anywhere in West Texas
Most Interesting People - New York
Worst Traffic - Boston
Best Drivers - Munich, Germany
Worst Drivers - Salt Lake City, UT
Best Spa - Monte Carlo, Monaco (I was NEVER so relaxed!)
Most Surprising Law - No clothes allowed in the co-ed only sauna - Munich, Germany
Most Humid - Houston, TX
Coldest - Edmonton, Alberta
Biggest Mosquito - Whitehorse, Yukon
Coolest Thing I Have Done - Climb Fujiyama in Japan

There is something interesting in every city that I have visited over the years, even in West Texas. It was the sign that said, “Amarillo, Where the West Never Dies.” The LL in Amarillo were a pair of cowboy boots. Travel has expanded my horizons greatly. I still want to go to Africa, The Holy Land and see the Pyramids. Venice and Rome are on the list as well. If I don’t make it, well, I can read, can’t I?

Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 26

’Tis a Privilege to live in Colorado.

This saying was first coined by Frederick Bonfils, a 19th Century Denver entrepreneur who helped found the Denver Post. Today, this proclamation can be found in the Post’s weather page. Fall weather in Colorado is especially pleasant with abundant sunshine and warm days followed by crisp cool nights.

For me, no place is better than Colorado. I do like Salt Lake City, Vancouver BC, Boston and other places all over the world, but Colorado is my favorite. We lived there for 14 years. It’s a cowtown for sure, but it’s also a pretty sophisticated city. I like the combination of chic, granola, cowboy and outdoors. Our kids grew up there and if you ask them where they are from, they will say Colorado. Did you know that America The Beautiful was written about Colorado? Spacious skies, amber waves of grain, purple mountain’s majesty, the fruited plain, all images that you can see from the slopes of Pikes Peak where Katharine Lee Bates finished the poem. We have driven up Pikes Peak numerous times and it is truly breathtaking. We have also been up Mount Evans where the highest paved road in the US is located. How high? Well Pikes and Evans are both Fourteeners, 14,115 and 14,265, respectively. I do have one regret, I haven’t actually climbed a Fourteener. Will I in the future? I hope to.

I have so many memories of Colorado. Most of the adult friendships we have had over the course of our lives started there and many continue to this day. We did a lot with our friends but a couple of things stand out. One is going out to clubs to listen to one of our friend’s band. He played bass and sang harmonies and I danced with his wife because Debi was too embarrassed to dance with me, I tend to be a bit of a show off. One time we all went to Mataam Fez, a middle eastern restaurant, the belly dancer asked me to join her, thinking she had a patsy on her hands. I showed her, I tell ya! I can shake and shimmy with anyone, much to my wife’s chagrin and everyone else’s disbelief.

The other thing about our friends is that we did plays together. Musicals, skits and melodrama were our bread and butter. We wrote most of them ourselves. Debi and her friend Rosalie are quite the authors and we had other friends that contributed original songs. I liked the melodramas because we encouraged audience participation like cheers, boos and ahhs. There was even a fair amount of heckling from the audience, most of which was directed at me because I was always the villain.

Our children learned to play the violin in Colorado. I can’t tell you how many recitals and concerts I have been to listening them evolve from “twinklers” to Vivaldi. Twinklers are kids that play variations on “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” which is actually “Ah vous dirai-je, Maman,” a French folk song, which Mozart made famous by writing a piano concerto consisting of 12 variations on the theme. Those concerts were our only means of entertainment at times so we enjoyed them greatly. Learning music has helped our children think creatively, given them self esteem and a taste for good music and the finer things in life. Our son even got his degree in Music and Sweets played in the orchestra at college.

The most lasting memory of Colorado is probably Fireworks. Now watching them is fine but we sold them from a roadside stand that we built and set up every year. It’s a real good business for 2 weeks worth of work. There were years when we lived for months off the proceeds of the stand. We got started in that business by helping our friends for a couple of years in their stand. After the second year, we decided that we could do just as well on our own and have a stand closer to home. In the third year, we started with hope, plywood and posterboard advertising. It worked. We had a good location and good prices. It’s what you need to succeed. It grew every year until we moved from Colorado. Our kids and the neighbors loved it. We usually had a big fireworks show in front of our house to “test” out all of our wares. We had to know what they did, after all. You need to be able to explain to your customers and also to know what to buy the next year. The test show ended abruptly, though after the cops saw one of the arial displays go off in front of the house. It was called Thunder and Lightning and created a tower of sparks about 30 feet high with multiple concussions and flashes. It went off just as the police drove by on a cross street. The 50 or so people who were watching melted into the darkness, Debi dove for the garage door, closing it and ushering the kids into the house, leaving me standing alone amidst 50 plus burned fireworks tubes, boxes and other assorted debris to face the music. They were cool, though and told me to just clean up the mess,which I promptly did.

We didn’t want to move from Colorado, there are claw marks all the way down I-80 where I was dragged screaming from my home. However, we had something else to do and we finally accepted our fate. Would I move back now? You bet I would. ‘Tis a Privilege to Live in Colorado.

Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 25

Passions

Outside of my family I have probably four great passions, Photography, Electronics, Outdoors and the Performing
Arts. As I have talked a fair amount about the outdoors over several posts, see Scouts, Firefighting, Sweets and other places, I am going to skip that one and focus on the other three.

Performing Arts

The first time I ever sang in front of people was when I was 6 years old. I was in a local play as a part of the chorus. I remember spending a lot of time at rehearsals. They even gave me fake sideburns that they stuck on with spirit gum. In a perverse way I liked the smell but hated the itchiness of it. Maybe that’s why I really don’t like beards. I also remember thinking, “I am too young to have sideburns, but I was pretty tall and I guess it must have been okay. I did like the excitement of it all, it was fun. I never sang in public again other than in a choir or two until I was maybe 15 or 16. In those days we had what was known as a road show. We would put together a locally written skit which was like an oleo act and took it on the ”road“ which means that we traveled around to various churches, set up and did our act. We were judged and prizes were given. I seem to remember winning best actor for a portrayal of Mark Twain, but I could be wrong.

My next experience with acting and performing was in high school as I talked about in an earlier post. After my mission, I really got involved in the local theater scene, doing Arsenic and Old Lace at Promised Valley (the critics torched me, but I was playing a 70 year old man and I was 22 at the time), A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at Pioneer Memorial and probably the pinnacle, Bye Bye Birdie (title role) at Valley Music Hall. Conrad Birdie was close to who I imagined myself to be. It’s an Elvis-based character who gets drafted and wants to go out singing on The Ed Sullivan Show. For you younger folks, The Beatles debuted in the US on Ed Sullivan in 1964. In the show, I got to ride a motorcycle out on to the stage and dance like Elvis (yes, people, I could and still can) while girls screamed and hung on to my arms and legs. Yes, it was quite a rush. There were about 3000 people in the theater each night and all of them seemed to enjoy the show. I did this in 1974. In 2004 I was at my father’s funeral and a couple of ladies came up to me and said, ”You were Birdie, do you remember us?“ I did eventually, but good grief, 30 years later and I am still Birdie. Just goes to show that you only need one hit and you are set for life.

Electronics

All my life I have loved electric gadgets. It started with crystal radios, transistor radios and eventually I built my own 5 band shortwave radio from a kit. I took it to the State Science Fair in 9th grade and got 3rd place, only because I wasn’t there to turn it on and the judges could not figure it out. The switch was on the back. Electronics are addictive and I was totally hooked. Even when we had zero money, I found ways to indulge my habit, something I am not real proud of, actually. Televisions, VCRs ( we had one in the early 80s when they first came out) video cameras (I am on my 4th, I think and finally, HOME THEATER. I started dreaming about Home Theater 25 years ago when I saw a Novabeam projector hooked up to a high end VCR in a friends home. I knew I wanted one then and there. This year I realized my dream. After saving for 2 years, building the room and putting in all the electronics myself, I now have a very nice theater. Full high definition and Blu-Ray capable with gaming and internet access. It’s a great man-cave, but Debi likes it too. Bless her for encouraging me to save for what I wanted. Now, I have to put all my money into new furniture, paint, flooring and carpet, but I don’t mind at all. She deserves it and much more.

Photography

I have saved the best for last. When I was pondering career choices in high school, I determined that I wanted to be a journalist, specifically a photojournalist who traveled the world taking pictures and writing about my experiences. Then someone told me I shouldn’t and I didn’t, to my eternal regret. They said I would never make a living at it and it was not the practical thing to do. What I know now is that if you follow your dreams and work hard for what you want, it can happen. A person who makes a living from their passion is a happy, successful person. A person who sits in a cube all day wishing for something else is not so happy. My advice now, decide what your passion is and make a plan, with contingencies, to allow you to pursue it the rest of your life.

To continue, I got my first camera at age 7, an Argus C5. I took pictures of everything I could snow, the street from my bedroom window, the light-box on the wall, friends and whatever else took my fancy. Something about capturing images that I saw as artistic fed my soul in indescribable ways. I graduated from my C5 to a 35mm SLR with interchangeable lenses. It was a Minolta SRT-101 that my neighbor bought for me in Thailand for $120.00. I loved that camera for many years and shot tons of slides with it. It went on my mission with me and took pictures of my kids when they were young. I eventually bought another Minolta with a motor drive which I snapped happily with until I had to sell it to feed my family. Life’s requirements again intruded. Now, 20+ years later I have another camera, a digital SLR and this time I have a plan. I am studying photography almost every day. I belong to a photo group locally and go to the meetings most every month. I start work on my photo/art degree next semester. I intend to get into the stock photo business and possibly the portrait business over the next 10 years so that when I retire, I will have the career I wanted 38 years ago. Dreams only die if you give up on them. I don’t intend to give up on this one ever. Debi supports me here as well. Fantastic woman, my wife. If you want to see my work go to this link and check it out.

Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 24

Sweets!

My pet name for my daughter is Sweets or Sweetie, because she is. She has a fair amount of sass as well but it’s like salty pretzels covered in white chocolate, you get a little of both and it’s wonderful. She was born on a Saturday about 30 minutes after we got to the hospital. It was very fast and she came out screaming like a banshee. No problem getting her to breathe at all, she was ready to go.

Now some might say that Catherine’s piercing scream was a bad thing, not so! As a baby, she was my church pal. If I didn’t like the speaker or was falling asleep, a little pinch (very little) and she would start to wail so hard that people would look at us like we were killing her. I would carry her out into the foyer where she calmed right down and we could play together for a while. It was great. As she got older, the scream became a game. I would ask her to scream and she would, loud enough to peel paint and sharp enough to shatter glass. It was awe inspiring! It was one of many games to play. Catherine is great fun to joke and hang out with. She was always inventing games for the kids in the neighborhood. The only criteria was that she was a horse of some type in the game. I do remember looking out the window of our house in Colorado and seeing her prancing along pulling a wagon with 5 or 6 kids either running alongside or in the wagon, Catherine whinnying like a horse. It was so cute.

Horses are Catherine’s great passion. On her birthday one year, we decided that we would have a horse party where everyone would get a chance to ride on a horse. Catherine was ecstatic of course and we rode off together, sort of. My horse would not move very far and just stood there until the wrangler came along and gave him a couple of real hard whacks. It took a bit, but we eventually moved out and had a nice ride. Catherine had a natural seat, she knew what to do around the horses and how to sit them, always looked like she was totally connected to the horse.

While we were riding the horse, Debi and her friend Debbie, were left leading the other horses around with the kids at the party on them. At least that’s what we thought. The horses had other ideas. Debbie was videotaping Debi trying to lead the horse and the horse was having nothing of it. It would pull her around like she wasn’t there. The wrangler told her to grab the bridle close and lean into the horse, which she dutifully did. No luck. I have a picture of her leaning into the horse as hard as she could, shoes skidding in the dirt while the horse pushed her back to the corral. Debbie was laughing so hard she could not keep the camera steady. It was truly funny!

After that, Catherine desperately wanted riding lessons. We could not afford it, but when she was older, she got a job mucking stalls at the local horse club in exchange for riding lessons. She would go 5 days a week and clean out the soiled straw in the stalls, wheelbarrow it away and fill the stalls with fresh hay. This is a nasty, dusty dirty job, but she did it. Her passion drove her to it and she was not afraid to sacrifice for her dreams. She did learn to ride English style and even learned jumping. There was nothing like watching her ride, long hair blowing in the wind with legs long enough to almost reach the ground from the horse’s back tucked up in a posting position totally focused on making the jump. I loved watching it.

Catherine was not just a one trick pony though. She is extremely smart and has a very quick mind. She can read and grasp things at an amazing rate and is a first class writer. Just read her blog and see. She graduated from college with honors and was Phi Beta Kappa. Besides that she is beautiful as you can see. She was active in the Girl Scouts with more badges than I ever got and even taught horseback riding at the Girl Scout camp, living in the mountains for an entire summer working hard, bucking hay (stacking 55 pound hay bales) for hours at a time, cleaning stalls, taking care of tack and living the life of a cowgirl. In this we are very much alike. We love the outdoors, working in the mountains, fishing and taking pictures. She is my adventure buddy and whenever she comes to visit, we make a pilgrimage to the mountains to renew that bond. We now include her daughter and twin boys which is a great deal of fun. I treasure every second of those times.

As a daughter she was and is a jewel. Girls always have their father’s heart. I certainly gave mine willingly but that was easy to do. She always laughs at my jokes and often is the only one who will. She loved all the little games we played like hand monsters and bucket ‘o dip (or whatever else comes in a bucket at Costco). I could also say that we played Mommy, There’s a Bug in Your Hair, but that wouldn’t be nice. We only played it a few times. She still calls me to talk cameras and fishing or whatever else is on her mind. She has a strong spiritual center and is as giving and sweet as her mother. That is the highest compliment I can give.

Love ya Sweets! You are the best!

Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 23

The eldest son of the eldest son of the eldest son of the eldest son of the eldest son, that’s my boy. Of course he is much more than that but at the beginning, that’s who he was. He was easy from the beginning, in fact almost too easy. Most babies will cry as soon as they exit the birth canal or soon afterwards. Not Andrew, he wouldn’t breathe, just looked around like he had just fallen on to an alien planet and was unsure of the atmosphere. The doctors flipped his feet, whacked his little bum and aspirated his airways, to no avail. He just stared at the aliens and held his breath. He eventually started to turn blue and the medical staff gave him oxygen and he decided to breathe. Even then he didn’t cry, he was still quietly observant. Maybe it was because the labor was so short and relatively relaxed, I don’t know.

As I carried him out of the delivery room I looked down at him and our eyes met. Something flowed between us and I knew he was my son and he seemed to know I was Dad. Too me he seemed to glow and I was amazed at the feeling. We have been close ever since.

Andrew was always wise beyond his years. He talked with relative ease and by the time he was 2 1/2 he could carry a tune very well. He was sensitive to moods and always willing to help. Once when he was about 3 years old, I was sitting in my bedroom feeling like nothing would ever go right. I was out of work, bills were going unpaid and my faith was at an all time low. Andrew crawled up on the bed and said, “Dad do you need a hug?” Of course I did and he wrapped his arms around my neck, squeezing as hard as his little arms could. It was such a warm and loving gesture, I lived on the warmth of that special gesture for months. It gave me hope and made me feel....so good. Thanks, boyo!

If there is one thing I can say about Andrew, it’s that he always rises. He rises to the occasion no matter what. One Sunday in Primary, they were calling kids up to the front to read a scripture or quote. He was maybe 7 at the time. The leader was asking each teacher to pick someone from their class. When his class's turn came, he didn't wait for the teacher, he just walked up to the front, fully confident that he would have been chosen anyway. It made me laugh. Every job he has had, every school he has gone to, he eventually found a way to the front of the class. Now this is not to say that he had it easy or didn’t fail, he did. He just always rose through his talents and calculated use of those talents. He was always the lead in the elementary school play and had his music teacher drinking Andrew Kool-Aid all the time. We only had to step in a couple of times and make sure we dealt with a bullying teacher.

Spirituality as never really an issue, either. When he was about 7 he came to me and said that he knew the Gospel was true. What child does that with such gravity and sincerity? I was frankly taken aback and proud at the same time. When I was that age, I could have cared less. He looked forward to his mission his whole life and while there, amidst some significant adversity, rose to be Zone Leader, for 10 months. He still believes and still serves in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. He is even an Eagle Scout even though he hates camping. I am very proud of that.

We lived in Denver most of Andrew’s childhood. While there, we would go to Nuggets games together, rooting for the home team. We witnessed the greatest comeback in NBA history courtesy of Alex English, Dan Issel and the rest of the team. We would eat nachos and drink root beer and scream until we couldn’t talk. I probably looked forward to those nights more than he did. We are lifelong Denver Broncos fans and bleed orange and blue all season. One of the Denver Broncos from the 80’s lived near us and we saw him a lot at church and violin recitals. This allowed us to “ touch” the team in an unusual way, further cementing our fanship and friendship.

All our lives, we have been friends and that makes me happiest of all. Sure, I was the parent and did what I had to as far as discipline is concerned, but it wasn’t really necessary. He did have trouble with curfew because he is time challenged and wrecked the car a few times (I suspended his insurance and driving privileges for over a year, which cured the accident issue) but what kid doesn’t make mistakes? We were friends enough that he took the discipline well and it made us closer. He couldn’t drive from school to visit so I would go and get him every two weeks. We had 4 hours together in the car where we talked about everything. At some level I was glad he wrecked the cars so we could have that time together, though I expect we would have found other ways to spend time with each other, though we always did.

I could not have asked for a better son.

Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 22

Getting Married

I have told this story more than any other, over the years. It’s because it means more to me than any other and represents the key turning point in my life. I was frustrated with the direction I was headed. Up to this point I had tried to do all the things I was expected to do, church, school, scouts and family. Family was particularly frustrating because I wanted my own, I wanted out of my parents house and away from what was going on there. I had moved out during my last summer fighting fires and really liked the independence. I could come and go with no one to criticize me if I wanted to stay out all night.

After the summer, things got worse for me, especially in the romance area. I had been trying to date a girl who was only partially interested. She used me as a placeholder while she tried to get some other guy to like her. Shame on me, I let her do it but that was something of a desperate move. I needed someone. It finally came to a head at Christmas. I gave her a sweater as a Christmas present, she gave it back. In retrospect it was a kind thing to do. She was being honest with me, telling me that nothing was ever going to happen. i did not see it that way and was crushed. I made a decision that marriage and the whole monogamous lifestyle was not for me. While I was away in Eastern Utah that summer, there had been more girls interested in me in that small town. It was fun but there was no one I wanted to get serious with. I thought that I would go back to that lifestyle and give up marriage. From what I had seen, it was overrated anyway. So, I made a vow to myself that I was giving up the life I had been taught and doing what girls had always done to me, take advantage.

The vow lasted all of three weeks.

I met Debi on my Mother’s birthday. My parents had planned to go out with some of their friends to dinner that night and at the last minute the friends cancelled. Do you remember Yardstick Annie from a few chapters back? It was her and her husband that were supposed to go. I kind of see that as a karmic thing, the universe turning on a single decision. My parents then called some other friends of theirs they had known from England. My father had been on a mission with Dave and Mabel was a member from England that my mother had kind of known there. Like my parents, they got married after the mission was over and so had several things in common. I was moping a bit so my parents took pity on me and invited me along.

We went to dinner at place called The Balsam Embers which has since burned down, embers indeed. Dinner was nice and it was decided that we would go to Dave and Mabel’s afterwards. In true English pub tradition we all hung around the piano and sang songs at their house. I went downstairs to play pool with one of Dave and Mabel’s sons, David. We were in the middle of a game and it was my shot. I was lining it up when Mabel came down the stairs and said, “I want to introduce you to my Japanese daughter.” That got my attention and as I looked up from the shot I saw this vision in front of me, long golden tresses, fantastic eyes and curves with snow sparkling in her hair. I was taken aback immediately. I went up to her and said hello. She was very cute and a good conversationalist which meant that she liked to listen to me. I liked to listen to her as well and the conversation went on until I had to leave with my parents. I didn’t want to stop, so I asked her to come to a dance at the mall where I worked. it was also a test in my mind. I felt a connection but wanted to make sure she was as interested as she seemed to be. I had been burned a lot you see.

She did come to the mall and we talked until 3am the next morning. In the middle of all the talk, I needed to go home to get some food. She came with me and I opened the door for her in front of my parent’s house, she stood up out of the car and i leaned down and kissed her. Don’t really know why, just did and it was as good as I thought it might be. She told me later that she wondered what the heck I was doing and what made me think I could. I asked her why she let me. i think she didn’t want to be rude.

We saw each other almost every day after that. After 3 weeks, she came to the mall and I asked her if she wanted to see a ring I had put in lay-away almost a year earlier. I still had hope, I guess. I wanted her opinion of the ring. She said she would. We were looking at it and I asked her what she thought. Being a nice girl she said it was very pretty. I said she could try it on if she wanted and it fit almost perfectly. She admired it on her hand and I asked her if she liked it. She said yes, and I said, “it’s yours if you want it.” “Are you sure?” she said and I said, “I think so.” “Well maybe you should think about it” to which I replied, “Maybe we should.” in the background the clerk was going crazy telling everyone in the store that I was proposing “Right There!” It was totally not planned, I swear.

We did think about it, writing down in Benjamin Franklin fashion, why we should and why we shouldn’t. I wish we still had the paper, but I remember only a couple of items on the negative side. Everything else was positive. We set the date for May and were married in the Temple.

it’s been almost 33 years since that January night. I love her more than ever. Marriage is everything it should be, if you both work at it very hard all the time. Debi is a great person and always will be my best friend.

Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 21

“Maw-wage, that blessed awwangement, that dweam wifin a dweam.”

As I have mentioned several times in my posts, girls were always a mystery to me. Intriguing, but a Rubik’s Cube of emotion, curiosity and feminine logic. I didn’t solve the puzzle until after I got married and am still working out the fine points. Fortunately, I met my wife who let me in on a few secrets and saved my life. This is the part where I could get all weepy and emotional, but Debi has asked me not to embarrass her, so I won’t.

Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 20

It took me another 6 months to fully get Japanese. In that period, I had a Japanese companion for about 2 months so we spoke Japanese exclusively. it’s really the only way to become completely fluent. He was one of 17 companions I had over 2 years. Being in a companionship someone once said is like being married with none of the benefits. This is a true statement to a point. Companions can be highly annoying and they can be your best friend, listening to all your troubles. I had both along the way. In fairness, I was both of those myself. At the beginning of my 2 years, highly annoying, for the rest, I tried hard to be a friend and that seemed to work until the end. My last companionship was a trial for both of us. I am not here to dwell on the difficulties, though. Just the good times.

My first companion in Japan was from Wyoming. He was obsessed with whizzers (Japanese men who urinated in public. It was a pretty common practice at the time) and ice cream and could walk faster than anyone I had ever met. It helped that he was 6’ 6“ and had long legs. I was only two inches shorter and had to run at times to keep up. He was a good companion, aside from the whizzer thing, and had great enthusiasm for the work.

There are maybe 3 or 4 companions that were the best for me. All of them brought something special to my time in Japan. Elder Durham was my model for a perfect missionary. He was my 2nd companion in Japan. Always calm, always kind, never ruffled ever. His testimony was tremendous but not obvious as some are. To me, he glowed with the Spirit. We taught some awesome investigators, including Ken Saito who became a friend and joined the Church just before I was transferred. The work was effortless for Elder Durham, a spiritually gifted man.

In my next area, I had some great companions but the area after that was special. Nagaoka is a midsize city northeast of Tokyo about 3 hours by bullet train. I had 3 special companions there. One was my Japanese companion, the others were Elder Richins and Elder Checketts. Two more different people you will never see. Elder Richins was like Gary Cooper, the strong, silent cowboy. Like most real cowboys I know, he was a worker. Always up and at ‘em and worked constantly. In this smaller town, there was not a lot of street proselyting. Mostly we went house to house, trying to lend Books of Mormon. Elder Richins excelled at this and we had a lot of investigators, more than any missionary pair had ever had in that small branch. Church on Sunday was usually 7-8 members. It was a close community and I felt a part of it from the beginning. Elder Richins had been there a while and was well loved. I loved him too.

Elder Checketts was a truly unique individual. I have always called him Screamin’ Chad Checketts because that was his favorite word. Everything was screamin’ for Elder Checketts. It was screamin’ good or screamin’ awful or anywhere in between. It makes me laugh just to think about it. We baptized more people that any companionship ever in that branch up to that time, 5 people. We almost doubled the size of the active branch in large part because Checketts was a driver, a bundle of energy that was so contagious you couldn’t help but get caught up in the excitement. Here is an excerpt from my diary about Elder Checketts.

We had us, as my dode (a slangification of the Japanese word doryo or companion) would say, ”A screamin’ weird day“ today. It started out real fine with a 3rd at (kanji I can’t remember) they are really keyed. the mother said she might have problems with the Word of Wisdom-but she would live it anyway. When we asked them how the benkyo (study) was going-they said, ”Well, we read aloud to each other every day and then pray about it.“ Wow, that’s the greatest, just like our study class. They are getting a good testimony, we were really keyed.

The weather cleared up nice today for a while. All was going well until it started to rain. Then we had a hard time lending books and my dode was getting down again. We had a FHE (Family Home Evening) scheduled with Yoshihara and Ishizuka S. (S is for Shimai or sister in Japanese) but they didn’t show. My dode got madder and madder. Finally in the middle of a downpour Ishizuka came and apologized, said she couldn’t make it. She was really sad. Boy, lo Checketts didn’t give her any mercy-though I really felt sorry for her. After she left, he just blew up! I’ve not seen too many people get that mad before. Sa, I thought it was stupid. But he really blew. About the same time Brough C. (Choro or Elder) came in soaking wet and as mad as a ”wet hen“ (joke). Well, they were both mad together. I thought it was all pretty funny and just laughed to myself.

We went to a camera shop on a dendo (proselyting) day --- TODAY! I couldn’t believe it! But my dode was feeling down so we did. Boy, I don’t know!

We both loved cameras, so it was a forbidden indulgence. I liked it as much as he did, I just had more guilt.

One missionary who I worked with or along side of for 3/4ths of my mission was Elder Memmott. He is the only one I regularly keep in touch with. He was the Zone Leader and I was the Zone Language Leader. We had more fun as companions than I can detail here. We were traveling Elders, responsible for 24 other Elders over a large section of Eastern Tokyo. He was the leader and I was the language teacher. Imagine, I was now in the position of the person who helped me with Japanese a year before. Elder Memmott was more than anything a friend. He respected everyone and everyone respected him. Many ZLs would cause the Elders to run when they came to town. Everyone wanted to work with Memmott because he made you feel good about yourself. He is still doing that today as an oil executive. He has 7 children, all great people and a wonderful wife today. He was for me and is for her, a great companion, though I haven’t forgiven him for not getting a ticket for racing on the freeway at home when I did. Ah well.

Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 19

I was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for two years in Japan. Outside of marrying my wife and the birth of our two children this event was the most important of my life. The lessons learned there have touched every aspect of my time in this mortal sphere. To try and put all of that down in one chapter will be impossible. My journal entries alone would cover at least 100 typewritten pages. So I will be writing two chapters on my experiences and lessons from Japan and this will close out my teenage years. I came home an adult at age 21 with a different view of the world.

It was not a given that I would go on a mission. Being the rebel that I was at the time, I really thought that I would be better served going to school and getting my degree. I wanted to be a journalist, writing and taking pictures for National Geographic or Life Magazine. Consequently I was majoring in English at school and toying with art classes. We had just finished the 60’s and my views were somewhat left of where they are now. A mission was not really on my mind until Grant, my advisor, came to me and asked me if I planned on going on a mission. I told him I hadn't given it much thought. He said, “If you are not going, then you can forget about working on the fire crew this year. If you do decide to go, then you can work this summer and make some money towards it.” Well that did get me thinking, quite a lot, actually. In March of that year, I thought I should ask God about it so I went in the bathroom to pray alone. I remember kneeling at the bathtub asking what to do and telling the Lord that I was willing, but still unsure. The answer did not come until I stood up and went to the door. It flashed in my head that I was going to Japan and then I knew what I should do. I worked that summer as Grant had promised and when the call came, I didn’t even need to open the letter, I knew what it would say, Japan Tokyo Mission.

Every missionary has obstacles to overcome during their mission. For some, leaving home is a terrible thing and homesickness becomes a problem. Others have issues with testimony or pride. For me, it was Japanese, compounded by pride and ego. I suppose that testimony for me was something of an issue at first, but all it took to sort that out was the Book of Mormon. After that, I really didn’t doubt. What I did come to doubt was my ability to learn Japanese. All my life I had been able to learn very quickly anything I put my mind to. The Japanese language was a brick wall that I ran into at 80 miles an hour. We spent 3 months in Hawaii drilling for 12 hours a day all of the 43 sounds that make up Japanese. We also drilled on phrases like konnichi wa (good day) and hajimemashite (pleasure to meet you). We also had to memorize the lesson plan, 7 lessons that explained our church and it’s beliefs. I worked very hard, but nothing was coming. Two months in, I was ready to go home. It was either that or run away and never go home or worse. It got so bad I wrote my father about it. My father and I rarely saw eye to eye on anything, though I have never known anyone who understood the Gospel better. For me to write him was truly a desperate act. Amazingly he responded with a letter that I still have today. It was compassionate, loving and full of good advice. I knew it was pride that was holding me back. I told him so and he agreed. He said that it was OK to acknowledge ability but not good to be puffed up in self pride, which goeth before a fall. He told me that it was OK to grow in ability and that this would take time. Being a farm boy, he used a metaphor from his youth. “When you are thinning beets, don’t look up the row at what you have to do, you will get discouraged. Look back at what you have done and the end of the row will come quicker than you think” I looked back at where I was then compared to when I started and saw the progress. I was encouraged enough to make it to Japan, then it started all over again.

The first 6 months were heaven and hell in Japan. The language was a huge barrier still. Most folks will tell you that I am a talker. That’s Grandma Grace’s family completely. They all have the gift of gab. A person like that who can’t express themselves to the people around them feels like they are drowning in a sea of gibberish. The frustration grew, inhibiting my progress with the lesson plan. I could not give the lessons without the book. At the time, if you had not passed off the lessons you did your reports on a pink sheet. When you passed them all off, you went to a white sheet. All of my peers and some younger missionaries had become white sheeters. All of them, except me. Finally it came to a head and I locked myself in a closet and would not come out. My companion was sympathetic but wanted to work. So our Zone Language Leader, a senior missionary who was responsible for our progress in the language, stayed with me. I stayed in that closet for 6 hours, crying, ranting and pounding the floor spending all of my energy in a petulant, frustrated fit. He was calm through the whole thing, listening and helping me with sticking points in the lessons until he said, “Look, I know you have the language to do this, I think you know more than you give yourself credit for, so I am going to pass you to a white sheet and put this behind you.” It was like a blindfold had been taken off and the mental ropes that had tied me up were dissolved and I could speak Japanese plus give the lessons. Were they flawless? No, they weren’t but that was OK. I could bear my testimony and teach effectively. I never looked back.

My Dad has passed away now and I don’t know where the Elder who helped me is anymore, but to both of them, thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 18

Recently we had a fire on the mountain near our home which I blogged about here. It brought back memories of what was my favorite job, maybe of all time, fighting forest fires. When I was 18 Grant, my advisor from scouting days, came to me and asked me if I was looking for a summer job. I was always on the lookout for more money so I said sure. I was still working at Dick’s but I figured that could be worked out. So he had me come down to his office and fill out an application for a Range Aide at the BLM where he was the operations manager. I passed the physical test and was hired on as a temporary employee of the US Government.

A Range Aide was primarily a fire fighter, but we did a lot of different jobs, which included building reservoirs for wildlife and cattle, building and mending fences, herding cattle, making and placing BLM road signs and even moving crappers from a filled hole to a new, empty one. It was as disgusting as it sounds. We also had to maintain our equipment and stay in shape, which meant volleyball, basketball, running and lifting weights on government time. We also found time (a lot of time, actually) for highjinks as well. Those summers are full of memories. I don’t have time for all of them, so let me pick a few highlights from the 4 summers I worked there.

Roasted Rattlesnake

As firefighters we were what was known as a helitack crew. That means that we would often be choppered in to the hottest part of the fire and be expected to stop it while the big crews mopped up from the sides. Fires always burn uphill in the shape of a hand with several fingers. One of the fingers is inevitably the hottest because it has more fuel or there is an updraft that is providing it with a push up the hill. That was our point of attack. We would jump out of the helicopter with shovels, axes (called pulaskis because they were half axe and half grubbing hoe) and a 10 gallon bladder of water strapped to our backs. Just for reference, 1 gallon of water weighs 8 pounds. Those packs weighed 80 pounds each and had on the end a trombone sprayer which you pumped to get water out. We had another name for them, piss pumps and not for the reason you may think. The pumps were about as effective as urinating on the fire, hence the name. However, in combination with a little dirt thrown with a shovel and fuel removed via the pulaski, we could stop even a pretty major fire quickly.

One day we were working a fireline, cutting trees and scraping the dirt to stop the advance of the fire. I was swinging my pulaski, using the grub hoe to break through some sagebrush. I took a step backward and heard a buzzing sound at my feet. I looked down and there was a small rattlesnake draped around my boot, shaking his rattle for all he was worth (could have been a girl snake, I guess). Naturally I froze. If I had been bitten, I didn’t know because I had thick pants on and tall boots that would have protected me from a bite probably. I yelled at my partner, Paul and told him to get over here and kill this snake. He used some colorful epithets and came over. When he saw the snake, the colorful epithets increased in strength and he used his shovel to cut off the snake’s head. We stood there for a moment contemplating the headless snake until Paul said, “I wonder if we can skin this thing and make a hatband from it?” I said I thought so and he whipped out his knife and skinned it on the spot. He just rolled the skin off like a woman removing panty hose and wrapped it around his hat. It was too small and we were both disappointed. We wanted something out of the experience. Then, inspiration struck and I said, “I wonder what it tastes like?” Paul liked that idea and whacked off a chunk of meat and roasted it over a burning log nearby. When it was done, we both took a bite. We looked at each other and he said, Tastes like chicken.“ We tossed it aside and went back to work.

Always Sleep in the Burn

Often times we would work 24 hours straight but at night a fire ”sits down“ and doesn’t move too much. That’s when you take a nap so you could keep going. One night, I was tired and decided I had had enough of smoke and ash. I found a nice tree with grass at it’s base and lay down to sleep with my helmet as a pillow. I dropped off quickly and slept for maybe an hour when I woke to a roaring sound. Sitting up from my grassy bed, I looked around and didn’t see any real fire until I looked up. The tree I had been sleeping under was burning like a torch. I quickly moved away and a large portion of the burning tree landed exactly where I had been sleeping, setting fire to the grass. I would have been spitted and roasted if I hadn't woken up. Shaken, I walked into the burn, dug myself a shallow hole, piled up some coals around the outside to keep me warm and went back to sleep. I had forgotten the rule, ”Always sleep in the burn“ because there is no fire there, all the fuel is gone.

The Mother of All Water-fights

If you put a bunch of 18-20 year old boys in a compound with fire trucks, mischief is bound to ensue. We had regular water fights with 180 psi nozzles gleefully shredding each other’s shirts with the high pressure hoses. It hurt, but we were having too much fun to care. There was one day that it went to the next level. The main pumper truck was a Dodge Power-wagon that held about 200 gallons of water. The objective of the game was to capture that truck and shoot everyone within range. Two guys had captured the truck, one on the pump and the other driving. I had been a target and felt the need to get even. There was another truck we called the nurse. It’s tank held about 1000 gallons and could be emptied in a couple of minutes via the 3 inch diameter hose out the back. I waited until the pumper was out of water and used the much larger nurse to force the Dodge into a corner. Of course the guy on the pump jumped off and ran, leaving the other in the cab. I turned on the nurse pump and took the hose to the pumper threatening the driver. He rolled up his windows and sat. I waited knowing he couldn’t stay there for very long, it was a hot day. As soon as the door opened, I shoved that 3 inch hose into the cab, rapidly filling it with water and soaking the driver but good. Man, was he torqued! Everyone else laughed pretty hard that day, though. I had gotten my revenge.

Riding the Green

My last summer was spent in eastern Utah near the Green River. I lived there with several other guys in a government house. Of course our job was to fight fires, but we also had responsibility for cleaning campsites along the river. One of our guys was an experienced kayaker and so he made the run weekly. The rest of us rotated in and out to help him. The run started at the base of Flaming Gorge dam and ended at either Little Hole or Browns Park. Of course there were rapids all along the way, which were great fun to take in the Zodiac boat we used. If the water was running high, some of the rapids were class 4. Class 1 is a ripple, Class 2 is a wave, Class 3 will give you a thrill, Class 4 is, ” I am not too sure“ and Class 5 is ” You have GOT to be kidding!“. Further down at Split Mountain, it was all class 4 and 5. We never went that far, it was National Park Service land. One run in the middle of the summer, we went all the way to Browns Park. Browns Park was the home of Robert Parker, aka Butch Cassidy. While we were there we met an old lady who said she remembered Butch and regaled us with tales about him over herb tea mixed with Tang. The one I do remember had to do with what Butch did to one guy who crossed him. They were in a bar, one cold night and some bravo got drunk and was talking about how he could take Butch. Of course, Butch took offense and proceeded to pound the guy until he passed out. Butch then hauled him out to the Green which was frozen over, cut a hole in the ice and stuffed the poor soul into the Green, feet first, leaving his head above the ice and the rest of him submerged. He packed snow around his neck and waited for it to freeze, then left him there to die of exposure and hypothermia. The old lady concluded that Butch was just meaner that a rattler and not a nice man, but she relished the story just the same. It was like touching history to hear her talk.

Blogging My Autobiography - Chapter 17

By the time I was 30 I calculated that I had worked at 33 jobs over the course of my life. It wasn’t that I changed jobs that often but that I worked multiple jobs at the same time, especially in high school. At one time, I worked as a janitor in a dentist’s office and in a grocery store and at the local hardware store managing the electronics and photo bar. All those pizzas, electronic gadgets and photo gear were expensive, not to mention clothes. The worst of it was I never saved a dime except for one summer, but that is another story.

Of all the jobs I had, I worked at one the longest and it was one of the first. Dick’s Market (Winegar’s) and Ace Hardware was about a 10 minute walk from home or 5 minutes on my bicycle. I started there when I was 14 and worked until I was 22 or so with time off in between for my mission. All in all I probably worked there 6 years, holding down a number of positions in both the market and hardware stores. In fact, I helped dig the foundations for the hardware store and worked setting the store up for it’s grand opening. I ran the photo bar and electronics department as I mentioned earlier at the tender age of 16. Dick, the owner and the hardware store manager, Jim gave me the opportunity and I ran with it. It was a lot of work, but somehow fun as well. It was great setting up my department. I was in heaven with two of the things I love, photography and electronics gear. They even let me buy the stock, with some guidance. I was responsible for selling what I bought and managed to do a decent job of it. I was even allowed to buy a 300 mm telephoto lens for my beloved Minolta SRT-101 at cost.

I built most of the display cases and put shelves on the wall and on the islands in front of the bar. The cases were glass and I spent a fair amount of time cleaning the fingerprints off the doors and walls. Being the fastidious person that I was then, I was always frustrated with the number of fingerprints and always had a bottle of Windex underneath the case to clean the glass. To this day, cleaning is something I sometimes do to relieve stress. Jim, our manager, was an interesting guy, he was short and always wore a really bad toupee, but was full of energy and conversation. There were times when it was slow and he would amble over to my bar and chat, telling me about his life and family. He treated me with respect and I gave the same back to him, still do.

We also had a night manager who was in his mid to late 20’s. He was married and maybe had one child. He also would chat with me. One of the most memorable conversations we had was around finding the right girl. I must have been complaining about the lack of a love life ( a constant theme at the time) and he told me the story of how he met his wife. He was older and ready to get married, but had not found his Mrs. Right yet. He was frustrated in the extreme, as only a man who is trying to stay a virgin until he gets married, could be. God had not shown him his intended, so he decided to take serious action and force God’s hand. He decided to fast until he found the girl he was to marry. It took him 3 days to find her. That is faith, my friends. His example provided me with inspiration in my own search, although I managed to turn the faith into anger, but that is another story.

The most important lessons I learned during my time came from Dick Winegar, the owner of both stores. Before I worked at the hardware store, I was a bagger in the grocery store. Being a bagger in those days, was a demanding job. There were no self checkout lanes, no plastic bags, none of the cost saving technologies that we have now. It was a very high touch job. You were expected to keep up with the checker and have everything bagged properly when the customer was ready to go. The store was very busy, especially on Friday and Saturday, so you had to run all the time. Bagging itself was an art form to be mastered. You had to put certain things in the bag in a certain order. Cans would go in one bag and since they were heavy, needed to be double bagged. Eggs usually went with bread, with the bread on top. Chips and other fragile items got their own bag as well. Milk was double-bagged and separated in the bag by a cereal box or similar since the milk was in glass bottles. You had to separate things as they came down the belt and plan your bags accordingly. I usually had two bags going at any given moment with one stack on the side that would fill another bag when one of the two were filled. If me or anyone else on the line was not keeping up, Dick Winegar would be right there, bagging with you until you were caught up, all the while chatting with the customer, listening to them and constantly getting their feedback.

So what did I learn as a bagger? Nothing at the time, which is a shame. Over time, though, I grew to understand what Dick was teaching.

• Lesson one, anticipate what is coming down the belt. You will be more successful if you take a longer view.
• Lesson two, sort your groceries and always put them in the right bag. Certain priorities go with each other better than others.
• Lesson three, double bag the items that are too heavy or need protection. Many things in your life will be bruised or shatter if you don’t protect them properly and heavy things may need extra help to carry them.
• Lesson four, remember that no job is too small and no customer is too insignificant for the boss to talk to. Keep your finger on the pulse of your business if you want it to succeed.
• Lesson five, encourage your employees by working as hard as they do. The power of example is a great motivator.

Took me too long to figure all of this out. I hope that someone will learn from my mistake.