Feb 16, 2010

Tell about your first kiss.
This is how I have written about this event in my life’s stories.

A Stolen First Kiss

I hesitate sometimes writing about some of the events of my life since it really shows how human I am and some of my weaknesses but it is for that reason that I write concerning this particular event of which I remember only a short part. Maybe by reading some of these my young friends and grandchildren may be able to side step such temptations.
I was a senior in high school and was also very infatuated by a beautiful junior girl named Marie. She and I had actually liked each other for several years and I had officially started dating her when she turned 16 just a year and a few months before this event. We were in the same LDS Ward and so we had lots of chances to be with each other. I guess in today’s terms we were “Hanging Out” as often as circumstances would allow. We spent time together at MIA (Young Men and Young Women’s activity night) on Tuesday nights and never missed a fireside or sitting by each other’s side during them. I am sure there were other cute girls that I could have sat by but this one was definitely my choice. I also remember the often given council at these firesides, church classes, parental suggestions and advice that asked or suggested that we date many members of the opposite sex so that we would know better the person that we would like to marry. Well being young and stupid as we often are in our youth and having liked several girls throughout my youth in elementary I felt it OK to see this young lady as often as occasion would permit. I think back on the temptations that were created by so doing and am very grateful for liking a young lady that had very high standards and wouldn’t compromise them.
So now on to this stolen first kiss episode. We were going to a school dance one night and I don’t even remember which one but for some reason after I had picked her up from her home, only two small blocks form the school, we went to my home about two miles from the school either for me to change my clothes or for some other reason of which I have no recollection. That two miles however included a drive across part of blue bench where there was no lighting, other than the stars and the moon which was probably full that night, before dropping off a small hill to the rest of the road along the canal below which I lived. We were returning from my home to town and the dance when I decided to stop the car (there is a Stake Center very near the spot now) and steal a kiss from this beautiful girl that made my heart skip so freely every other beat when I was around her. I remember well that it was my senior year because I was wearing something that had been totally foreign to my style throughout my life. I had just received my Senior Key and I never wore necklaces of any kind. I had to be toward the end of the year since we didn’t get them until we were about to graduate and I was wearing it on a chain around my neck. I suppose I felt it was time for a first kiss since I would shortly be graduating and going off to college and then on my mission so I might never get to kiss the girl that had been so much a part of my life for the past few years. Well Marie was wearing a very beautiful knitted sweater. Now I would never have remembered this since I seldom notice what others are wearing and have not really felt the need to memorize what they were wearing except that this particular time that was not the right thing for her to have on while I tried to steal a long and lasting kiss. I pulled the car to a stop along this stretch of dark lonely road and of course she wondered why so it didn’t take me long to let my intensions to be known as I leaned over and stole the kiss. In those days cars seldom had bucket seats and seat belts were not yet popular so she was sitting very close to me as she most always did. It wasn’t a very long or lasting kiss except in my memory, because about that time the Lord sent the needed interceptor along as a car drove up over the crest of the hill so that it’s light were directly on my parents car and well into our eyes. I have no idea to this day who it was but I remember well the fact that we couldn’t just swing back into our seats as though nothing were happening because the loop holding my senior key to the chain around my next had ever so slyly hooked itself through one of the strands of that lovely knitted sweater so that she and I became somewhat inseparable. I was probably a fairly bright red color by the time the car passed and it wouldn’t have been due to the fact that the tail lights of the car were red either. It only took us a few minutes to finally separate ourselves but the memory of the moment lasts to this day. I can’t remember much of the rest of the evening or even when we had our second kiss but I will actually cherish that memory for it put into my mind the lasting memory of kissing my future wife for the first time. Now I am lucky that she ended up being my wife and we have had many kisses since that time. She will often come up to me when I am busy working on pictures or something where I am very involved and give me a very passionate kiss and then I want to continue with more but she puts me back to work just to painfully wait for the chance to steal another kiss.

Feb 15, 2010

Tell about your first date.

I honestly don’t remember my first date but I know that it was with Marie. I had liked her for several years before she turned 16 and we had hung out together at dances and her home. Most of the time at her home it was while standing outside next to her window and talking to her through the window. I do remember however when we went on dates after we were both 16 years of age that we would often sit in the car and talk after getting back to her home. I also remember very well the signal that her mom and dad would send so that we knew it was time to get out of the car. Dad would turn off and then on again a couple of times the front porch light. It was not ignored either as I would then get out of the car and then let her out and sometimes walk her to the porch. I don’t think I went to the porch very often though since I knew her dad would be standing just inside the front door waiting.

Feb 14, 2010 Valentines Day

Tell about a special Valentine you once received.

Marie gave me several valentines that I always liked and below are two pictures of ones that she sent to me while I was in the mission field.

Feb.13, 2010

Tell about a special Valentine you once sent.

I really don’t remember any of the special valentines. I do remember going to the store, “Kohls” and buying valentines in a box then having to lay them all on the table and decide which ones to give to certain people. Of course the girls got the pretty ones and the boys got the stupid ones.

Feb 12, 2010

Tell about the Valentine Day festivities at your school.

Duchesne had one tradition that I remember about Valentines and I hated it because I just couldn’t ever make a winning Valentines Box to put on my desk so everyone could put their valentines to me into it. We had a lot of long nights prior to Valentines writing every girl’s name in the class on a special valentine even when I really didn’t like the girl at all anyway. Oh well it was a tradition and you have to go along with traditions. I must admit it was much easier when Marie started getting them from me. However I think more than Valentines from her were the love noted in shorthand that she would give me and then make me figure out what they said. I did like those notes.

Feb 11, 2010

Who was your first girlfriend?

I can’t really say I had a girlfriend quite as soon as I actually thought I did since I don’t know if any of the first three even thought about me. However I did like Ione Hooper, LeaAnn Weber (pronounced Webber) then Karla Lewis. I think LeaAnn liked me more than I liked her in that relationship and I was 12 when I liked Karla, I remember that because I use to get her folks fast offering route and got to go to her place always hoping she would answer the door. It was shortly after that when I first saw Marie and then they all just vanished from my thoughts because she was so darn cute and very pretty also and I fell head over heels for her.

Feb10, 2010

What was your favorite meal as a child?

I think I related that my favorite meal was bread and milk after sacrament meeting. That was my favorite but not my only one. I loved steak, corn on the cob and baked potatoes.

Mashed potatoes came in pretty close after that but I the taste of the baked potato skin with real butter dripping out the end was really a great taste as far as I was concerned. Those kind of baked potatoes have given way to microwave baked and the skins just never get crispy and hard enough to scrape the potato put of them and then replace it with the butter to eat. Yes that was truly some darn good eatin.

Feb 9, 2010

Tell about a big lie you told.

I am sure I told probably many a lie in my youth but I am blessed to not be able to remember very many in fact I can only think of one right at this moment. My family went over to Price for some reason one day to shop. I remember seeing some glitter that was really neat so I stole it, yes I stole it and got away with it so I thought but the memory of it has haunted me through the years. I was never able to right it because that was the only time we went shopping in Price and I couldn’t even tell you the store or anything about it. That I guess was a lie because I never did fess up to it to my parents. In fact I doubt whether they even ever knew about it but I knew and it has always stuck with me.

Feb 8, 2010

Tell about another influential person in your life.

There were many very influential people in my as I was growing up and my Grandparents also took a very high role in that. Yet another person of whom I have referred to many times over the years when working with scouts was Sister Beverly Caldwell. Beverly moved to Duchesne with her husband Lowell and family the year that I was a senior in high school. She was somehow alerted to the fact that I was not an Eagle Scout and that the whole reason was because I couldn’t swim, remember the near drowning early in my life, anyway she saw to it that I learned to swim. She was a professional lifeguard and took me personally swimming in Starvation Reservoir, and the Roosevelt and Price pools. She spent a lot of time with me those summer days before my 18^th birthday. I had a 7 day a week job from 10 pm to 6 am and we would go swimming just after I finished the chores in the morning or early in the evening before I would have to return to work. I completed those merit badges, swimming and lifesaving, and passed the Eagle Board of Review just 4 days prior to my birthday. I know to this day I would not have been an Eagle Scout without her love and dedication.

Feb 7, 2010

Tell about someone who had a big influence in your life.

When I think about an answer to this question the obvious best first answer was my Mother and Father. However other than them I must write that the Hansen’s were very high on the list. First Sister Hansen was my first Cub Scout Leader and I spent a lot of hours in her home with Doug and Don, her sons, for many years after that because of the relationship I had built with their family at that time. The just a few years later after cub scouts I was lucky enough to have Ray Hansen as my scoutmaster for a couple of years and as a caring friend for many years after that. He was one of the major driving factors in getting me to my Eagle Rank in scouting. That was why Loren had the middle name of Ray, in honor of my scoutmaster.