Oct 15, 2011

Ben and Cory mix-up Dad’s

When we were young we would often, during the summer, go swimming in the canal that ran above the yard past our home in Duchesne.  As I started to get interested in photography I took pictures of various things around the yard, which of course included events such as the swimming hole.  (It was a good thing I didn’t do it when I was younger because the swimming hole use to be behind the slaughter house and that’s where dad would take us after we had been hauling hay so that we could all take a skinny dip in the canal to get cleaned off of the hay leaves and sweat. And when I say skinny dip I mean all of it off for all of us.) Anyway to get to the point of this story of boy’s mixing us up I am sharing this part of the story because they were not the first to do it. In one of the pictures of the swimming events I had sneaked up to the bank so Lynn and Leesa could not see me (or I would have gotten wet) and took a picture of Lynn and Leesa splashing each other as they were in the water. Several years later as we were looking at some of the slides I had taken we happened upon that one and everyone thought it was Leesa and I in the canal playing but I knew better and had to explain that it was Lynn because the picture was part of my collection of pictures that I had taken during those teen years. Well later after several years and we Lynn and I had both married and we had both had children there were two separate occasions where Cory and Ben had mixed us up as dad’s. I remember the one best where Lynn and I were standing inside a new garage that Harold Gividen (Lynn’s father-in-law) had recently been building. We were talking about the shop area and as we were standing there Cory came running through the door into the area where we were and came up to me and grabbed me around the legs and then looked up into my face. It was then very obvious that he wasn’t sure he had made the right connection and as he looked at both Lynn and I there was some puzzlement in his face and he couldn’t be sure which one was dad. He did finally decide a few seconds later that he indeed was hugging the wrong dad.

Lynn and I looked a lot like each other and there have been numerous occasions through out my married life where I knew instantly here in Utah county who had attended one of Lynn’s classes at Snow. They would look at me trying to get the courage to ask if I had a brother at Snow since I looked so much like one of their professors that they had been in class with while attending there. I have even been asked the same question when shopping in stores in Ephriam. I can always tell when a checker at local stores ahs attended his class because when they would see the name on my checks they were a little less hesitant to ask.  It has actually been quite fun for me at times as I would question them as to where Snow College was or where Ephraim was located so that they would almost become embarrassed by having even asked the question.

Lynn has been the one that I have always reminded people of when they would meet me and already knew him. However now as I am getting further along in years I have hed people ask if I am related to Stan or Clair because they could see such strong characteristics in me that would remind them of my brothers. And now even I will often hear myself speaking just like them or doing things just like them. I would think it was because I grew up as the youngest of the brothers and would most likely have mimicked them as I saw what they would do but many of the things that I do now are things that I cannot ever remember seeing them do since I am sure they are traits that they have even developed after having left home. They have even commented that they also have found themselves sounding like me and noticing similarities that are so close to each of us. Well there may be some things that you learn as children in families but I am starting to realize just how much we really do learn from our siblings and I am ever so thankful for such wonderful role model as my brothers have been for me.