Nov 1,2010 (Back to it.)

November questions will deal with your courtship, marriage, and my arrival in the world.

Tell about how you first knew my mother.

My mother was the librarian at Duchesne High School. The Duchesne County School District had plans to improve the school at Duchesne but it went through some strange changes to get there. There was an old gym that was replaced just before I graduated from 6th grade. We spent that 6th grade year going to gym classes across the street to the new facility and were very impressed with it. Well that vacated the old gym so while lans were being made to add a new library to the school they took the old gym and made about a 8 foot dividing wall across it and put the library in the east section of it.

Duchesne was also going through some major changes as the government was building a new dam just above town and in the west end of town there was a new trailer court being built for the government families that were moving to town to work on the dam. There were a lot of new families and a lot of new students coming to Duchesne. Well one of those families I would come to know quite well had moved into a home just two blocks (or a block and a half) from the school straight east of the school. I was then 13 years old when this was happening. The old elementary had been town down and a new one built north of the high school about a block.

So during the summer when I was 13 or just turning 14 since m birthday was in August, I was down at the school helping mom get the library ready fro the new school year. My job was to take the new books that mom was putting library cards into at the front desk and move them to the shelves properly putting them into order on the shelves. I was putting books away when the doors opened to the library and two girls came into it. They began talking to mom and I moved to the end of the shelves where I could see them but not really be seen to easily. It was not a real well lit part of the building or room at that time. The older and much taller girl introduced themselves and of course I couldn't really tell what she was saying but I do remember seeing the smaller girl staying somewhat between her sister and the door as if to be ready to make a quick escape. She was very cute, thin and quite petite. Her sister was a little larger and obviously older than I but the second one looked to be close to my age. Well I don't remember if mom introduced me to them at that point or not but I am sure she most likely did but my brain was very busy cementing that first initial image into my memory banks and must not have considered the rest to be too important.

As it ended up we would be in the same ward and her father had bought the house because he didn't want to live in the tin city, as we called it, with the other government families. I think that was a great move for me because as I have mentioned before I was able to watch Marie as she walked to school each day, or at least a lot of them from then until I graduated. We were also able to interact with each other in the ward functions at Mutual and firesides. She was a year younger than I in school but only 4 months younger in age and so we were in similar classes in the ward. She captured my heart at that time and though we steady dated in high school we did go on to date others in college. I was never able to find one though that was quite like her nor that I liked as well. She was asked to be married to another fellow just before I returned from my mission but since I was soon coming home she told him she wanted to wait and see how things went when I got back. (I ended up having known him since he had been at Snow my freshman year and apparently had not gone on a mission and dated her at Snow.) He left most likely quite broken hearted and never returned.

Nov 1, 2010 Oops Sidetracked!

Halloween at Provo Craft and our group won.

We decided to do our costumes around the theme of Toy Story. Then a couple of weeks later Product Development group decided on the same theme. They took a second place.

Ben and I

Ben's group.

HR and Legal took third in group.

Britt and I

1st place in the individual ranking. He made this himself and it took two months.

My boss took second in the individual ranks.

This is another one that made his own costume and he took a tie for third place with the tin man in the HR legal group. I didn't get an individual one of her.

I car pool with this lady and think that she should have won as well.

Another one that could easily have won who also made her own costume.

She didn't want to have her picture taken.

We had a chance to take Ben,Cat and the boys as well.

Oct 31, 2010

Do you have a special Halloween memory?

Besides the ones I just wrote about I would be very far off the mark if I didn't write about the most special Halloween ever. That was the Halloween when Jeff was born. Now he has not been all that fond of the fact that he was born on that holiday but I could have cared less about which day it was since he was two weeks overdue and we were ready to get him here. Dad had also just had the stroke two weeks before when he was due and maybe that was why he was kept a little longer from being born so we could go see dad in the hospital.It was a long day sine he was born in the early morning hours and I still had to work that day and travel to Brigham City to deliver a TV for American Television service where I was employed. My mind was set on only getting there, getting it delivered and getting back so that I could go to the hospital and see Marie and Jeff. Each one of the children's births have been special in their own way and this was just special because Jeff was a spook or rather born on Halloween.

Oct 30, 2010

What did people do at Halloween?

We did much the same things that are done now as far as Trick or Treating. My family, living nearly two miles from town, did not do a lot of it but we did go to grandma's place and some of the relatives homes in town. There were seldom any that came clear out to our place other than the closest friends that lived on the bench also. There was one thing however that we did back then that is seldom done now and that was to have a yearly Halloween carnival. There would be booths set up in the school gym and then lots of games involved with them. In fact one year I was married to Marie at one of those carnivals. (I still have the certificate from it as well.) They were always a lot of fun and involved other things like bobbing for apples and other such games. That was one tradition that could still be used but for some reason is probably not considered safe enough for Halloween and school children.

Oct 29, 2010

Do you have a good ghost story or haunted house story to relate?

I don't have one that I have made up or that really was a good ghost story but I do have one when I was asked to help give a blessing to a house and thus remove a ghost from it. I was in the Mapleton 4th ward and there was a house that was fairly new that was built along the highway. It was built by one family and then they moved from it and a single elderly man moved into it. A few weeks after he had moved in the Bishop and I were at the church one tuesday evening just after out Bishopric meeting had ended when this fellow came in and asked us to use the priesthood to remove some evil spirits from the house. I for one didn't believe him even though I am perfectly aware of many instances in church history where spirits both good and evil were seen by members of the church. I guessed we were past that point but Bishop knew that it would be best to go and asked me as his first counselor to go and assist with the blessing. I did so and we went and gave the house a priesthood blessing. I have seldom passed that house since without remembering that experience. It was needed and the man was then able to live there for some time without further incident from what I am aware.

Oct 28, 2010

Did you ever tell ghost stories?

I missed that important part of campouts and special halloween occasions apparently I did not ever tell any ghost stories.

Oct 27, 2010

Tell a story about a time when you dressed up in a costume.

When I was in high school in the 9th grade there was a practice back then that would now be considered as hazing in schools and that was "Initiation".

The seniors would each be assigned a freshman and they would make them do something for the morning and then in the afternoon both grades would go up to the D on the hill and repair it then whitewash it. Well my senior, and I don't remember who had me, told me to dress up as Cinderella in a gown for the ball. I also had to have high heel shoes to walk around in and I remember walking down main street for our initiation parade in that dress and heels. It was pretty awful but not nearly as BAD AS BEING HIT WITH THOSE PADDLES THAT THE SENIORS MADE AND SEVERAL OF THEM HAD DRILLED HOLES IN THE PADLE which really stung when they hit you, even through your clothes. It was a bad day in the life of every freshman and I for one was not disappointed when the practice was banned from schools.

Oct 26, 2010

Share a memory about being very scared.

An excerpt from my journal stories of 4H Forestry will best answer this question.

Mines and Mt Lions, Oh My.

Another trip found us about half way up Indian Canyon where we had hiked up the east side of the canyon on the slick shale covered hillside. We were identifying different species of trees and different types of rock formations. We were also collecting samples for our presses. We had actually gone several hundred yards up the side of the canyon and had become somewhat spread out when we heard a very strange sound. I can’t recall what it even sounded like now but I very clearly remember everyone’s reaction. Burt’s reaction was very short but very clear, “Get down the mountain” he loudly shouted and we all started running down the hill. I have thought many times about the incident since that day and cannot recall what the sound was but have often wondered if it was a Mountain Lion or a Bear or something of that sort which caused such alarm in his voice. We never did (or at least none of us young men) ever did identify the sound but it was obvious to me that Burt had and he knew the present danger that it posed.

That day ended up being eventful to me in a couple of ways. In the afternoon on our way back down the canyon we decided to hike up to the old Gilsonite mine, the entrance is still visible to this day as you travel the canyon. The road looked like a trail and from the bottom of the canyon the doorway appeared to be pretty small and so I was worried from the start about this particular event. We started up the hill and I soon learned that the trail was big enough for a vehicle to travel. It had the room for a vehicle although I would never have driven it since it was also not very far before the drop-off from the road was straight down. It was a long hike as well though and took us quite awhile to get to the entrance which when we got there was not only two stories high but each story was probably 10 feet tall. We started into the cave but only a few of us had flashlights of which few I was not one. So I depended on the guy in front of me and at times found it hard to see. I apparently have a bit of a dislike for dark, tight spaces (even though it was ten feet to the ceiling) and became somewhat scared that the water, which was steadily getting deeper on the floor, would suddenly be over my head or that the road which was very level would suddenly drop 150 feet to the next level. All of these were not founded on fact and in fact I learned later from my father that the mine actually comes out the other side of the mountain into what we refer to as the right hand fork of Indian Canyon. I was glad though when Burt decided we had gone far enough and to the dismay of several others in the group had us turn around and go out. It was a short hike to the vehicle and that only because we all pretty much ran back down to the bottom. Twice in one day and each time I had been pretty scared.

Oct 25, 2010

What hobbies or collections did you have as a youth?

Wow I was just an habitual collector from old radios, art and marbles to stamps, rocks and trinkets. I came by it naturally as mom was a collector of sorts as well. We always were having to pick up rocks for her gardens, rock gardens. I also collected coins and candy. I would buy Life Savers too and had a cigar box full of them. I didn't like to open the wrappers since they were so fun to collect so I just wouldn't eat the candy inside, they were only a nickel a roll. When I went on my mission I had left them in the box on a shelf in my room and after returning was cleaning out my stuff when I was getting ready to be married and move away when I found the box. I knew what was in it but couldn't believe haw light it had gotten. I couldn't understand how even when the candy would sugar over time that it could get lighter. Well it wasn't due to the chemical change but rather the ease which it provided the ants to go in a make a small hole in the wrapper and then carry away the sugar granules. Every single wrapper was empty and so I did something pretty dumb for a collector and threw them away. I now wish I had them even tough I could repeat the process and get more I would not have the wrapper from the era of the 60's in which they were made.

Oct 24, 2010

If you had a watch tell about it.

I had several watches. One pocket watch and then several that I would put on a leather band around my wrist. I hated them though and didn't like having things on my wrists so eventually I stopped wearing them and would just guess at the time or ask someone else. Now I just use my phone.