Mar 01, 2010

Tell about being in a school play or program.

It was called “The Man in the Bowler Hat” and it was in my senior year. It was a play that we did for Drama and we were in a regional competition performimg it at Uintah High School in Vernal, Utah. The basic plot of the play is having a man in a bowler hat sitting at the right of the stage on a director’s stool. All he does is sit there until the very last scene when he yells something to the effect “that’s pretty good let’s go from the top one more time.” So you are probably thinking that I was the man in the bowler hat but I wasn’t. I had a part that required that I be tied up by the bad guy and had to try and wiggle around to avoid him while tied to the stool. It was even toward the last of the play just prior to that line by the man in the bowler hat. Well I had tied myself to the stool so I could get out but as we were doing the play on stage for the competition during that part I wiggled a little too well and fell over backwards onto the floor with my hands still tied to the stool behind me. It must have looked pretty good because as I remember we won the competition and that of course could have been the only reason for our success. It actually hurt pretty bad but I couldn’t let on during the play and the rest of the cast really did a great job making it still fit into the script but I won’t forget the fall, ever.

Feb 28, 2010

Tell about other pets you had.

My other small best friend pet was Smokey the cat. She had many kittens but only one made my memory and that was Flame. Both of them were good at catching mice and proved to be very good cats to have on a farm. Smokey loved to have you pet her and would purr very loudly as you did. I know of a lot of people who either love dogs and hate cats or love cats and hate dogs but because of my two lifelong pets I love them both. I can’t leave the subject of pets however without mentioning the large pets. I made reference to them in the story of Pee Wee and that is our horses Blue and Beauty. We did not have them at the same time but one after the other. They were both small horses that I could easily swing up onto their backs and that was the way I usually rode them. I would put a saddle on them if I had time to go for an extended ride but it was usually to ride down to the pasture to bring the cows in for milking. Both times I was thrown from them however was when I was riding bareback. I had some very wonderful animal friends while I was growing up and I do love them all.

Feb 27, 2010

Tell about the best pet you ever had.

Pee Wee was always my best friend and my best pet. A lucky little dog that survived being poisoned when just a pup and dad was able to feed her the lard or whatever it was that he gave that made her survive the poison. Anyway she was always with me when I did chores and always with me when I was walking down to get the cows or riding our horses Blue or Beauty to get them. She was also always to the side of me under the cow licking up milk that I would squirt from the cow onto the cement for her. One year she came up missing for several days and we thought that she had been killed or poisoned. Well she showed up early one morning walking on three legs and a stub. She had been caught in a trap and had to chew her foot off to be able to come home. Dad picked her up and took her to the vet in Roosevelt where he removed the rest of the leg up to the shoulder. She lived for a lot of years after that and was able to still keep up with me on three legs. She loved to climb the haystack, which was made from round bales of hay, and sit on the top watching the traffic over three miles across the valley. She was a good friend. Pee Wee finally had one set of pups when I was in High School. She had two that I remember Pedro and Sparky and they were both very cute pups. I don’t know when Pee Wee died but I think it was while I was on my mission or at college. She had been my friend from early in my childhood until after I had left home.

Feb 26, 2010

Tell about a favorite restaurant or public place you and your friends liked to gather.

It was definitely the Frost Top at the west end of town near the Texaco station. I never got to gather there very often since I lived outside of town two miles and had plenty of chores to keep me busy while the others in town were at the Frost Top. It was usually after Mutual when I might get to go over to the frost top and get a shake or a malt and a hamburger with fries. There was also a pin ball game there that we played once in a while. It was always obvious who spent the most time there because they could win pretty well each game on the pin ball game. Needless to say I didn’t play it well at all.

Feb 25, 2010

Did you or your friends have a secret hideout?

I did not have any secret hideout as a youth and thus really have nothing to write about today. In fact I guess the only “hideout” I could possibly claim were the snow caves we made under the trees at the top of the hill where the snow would drift over the top of them creating a cave or hideout of sorts. It wasn’t my friends that shared it with but rather my brother and sisters and yes they were friends as well.

Feb 24, 2010

Tell about a great victory or personal success story from your school days.

I think that the one greatest victory for me was not a victory as far as the race that I was in at the time but it was still a victory none the less personally.

It was my senior year and in the fall. I was running on the cross country team and was basically the second fastest in our school. We had several races and I had done pretty good all year. A 4 minute mile had recently been accomplished in world competition but all we wanted was a five minute mile average for three miles.

Well it was a race in Price that I want to write about here. It was on a golf course that had a lot of rolling hills to it and we had to run around it twice. I knew it was going to be a rough course and even worse than the one we ran in Tabiona where we ran up a hill for the first part of the race but here it was up and down and up again so that you were having to use up a lot of energy during the entire race. Well I had kind of just ran a standard race for the first round trying to conserve as much energy as possible but trying to not fall to far back. However Coach Josie shouted that I was in 25^th place as we ran past the starting gate at the end of the first round so I knew I had possibly waited too long. Well I kicked it in and started to run much faster yet trying to keep an even pace knowing that I knew what the course was like and tat I could run it OK. I can recall quite vividly the other boys that I began to pass as I went around the second time. It started to hurt and my lungs began to burn but I knew I had to pass as many as possible. I kept going and slowly passed all but four other runners by the end of the race coming in 5^th place overall. I may not have won the race but I passed 20 others on the last lap that had been ahead of me the entire first lap and that for me was quite a victory.

Feb 23, 2010 Happy 34th Birthday Ben.

What is the biggest problem you remember having in Sr. High school?

It was a I entered the ninth grade when I decided that I could be a better student. I had to follow behind an extremely smart sister that was only a year ahead of me in school. She had been a straight A student her entire school career. Pauline had also entered the picture being a year older than me yet in the same grade. The three of us would end up having a lot of fun for the next few years as we grew very close together. I did improve my grade that year and started to get A’s in most of my classes but still had a big climb to make to get straight A’s like Leesa. It was a hard trek but paid off as I graduated only 3 hundredths of a point behind Serena Davies who was our Valedictorian.

Feb 22, 2010

What is the biggest problem you remember having in Jr. High school?

The worst problem in Jr High was having to put up with the seniors since we had 7^th through 12^th grades in the same building. I remember one day when about four of the seniors decided to have some fun with me and it was again due to my size. In our school we had a ramp from the 1^st floor to the 2^nd floor. It had one turn in it just as the stairs would have had if they were in there. It was apparently made so that wheel chairs could go from one floor to the other. The problem with it though was that the side was only about three feet tall. So there you have the best set-up for some hazing seniors and they took full advantage by holding me upside down over the edge of the ramp so that I was looking down about 8 feet to the floor of the ramp. Well here again it didn’t last very long and they didn’t drop me but never the less I was scared. I remembered that little experience and never even threatened a 7^th grader 5 years later as a senior in the same building.

Feb 21, 2010

What is the biggest problem you remember having in grade school?

My biggest problem in grade school was probably my size. I didn’t have a lot of self esteem and my grades reflected it. I was basically a “C” grade student and quite scared to hold my own. I can’t forget the day that a neighbor who was in 3^rd grade and somewhat bigger than me even though he was younger. One day just as our recess was coming to an end Jay lit into me and did a pretty good job of beating me up. It was more of an issue of hurt pride than physical hurt. He beat me up but it was in such a short amount of time that I really didn’t get the thrashing that I could have gotten. The worst part of it though was that we had the same name, only difference was it was my middle name not my first name as it was for him.

Feb 20, 2010

What do you remember as your least favorite subject in school?

My least favorite subject was probably English. Band, PE, even running cross country and track was a lot more fun for me than the English class. It was the English teacher that got me started in photographing the yearbook pictures but it was also the same English teacher that kicked me out of class one day because I had to go take some more pictures again and she didn’t want it to happen that day. I remember having to go down to the library and tell mom what had happened. It was short lived though and the English teacher Mrs. Evans was one of my best teacher’s in the long run.