The Big Bear

World War II

2010-02-13T06:17:00.000-08:00

As I reflect back on WW II one of the things that really stands out is our attitude towards the Japanese. There was a couple who worked for Grandma Robertson that were Japanese. Nobody would speak to them and she gave them their work orders on a piece of paper. Shortly after Pearl Harbor was bombed I recall my mother taking all of the articles she had on her whatnot shelves and laying them on the bed. She looked on the bottom of them and if they were made in Japan, she threw them in the garbage can hard enough to break them. I suspect that the “Bookworm” book ends that I remember eating raisins from met their end in this manner.

Our attitude towards the Germans was completely different from our attitude towards the Japanese. We had an old German man who lived in the Third Ward, who apparently bore his testimony in support of the Nazi regime. I don’t remember what he said but I do remember the Bishop coming down off the stand and telling him he would have to stop or leave the meeting. After church I asked Mom why the Bishop had come down and she said that Brother Mueller was speaking in favor of Germany even though he had two sons who were in the U.S. Army.

A lot of things were rationed during the war. I remember Mom counting the ration stamps when I needed a new pair of shoes. I also recall her talking about trading the coffee stamps for sugar stamps so she could can peaches.

Along with the ration stamps it was a big thing to collect savings stamps. You would save them in a little book and when it was full you could get a War Bond. I remember taking a nickel to school with me on Fridays and going to the office and buying a savings stamp.

I remember listening to the radio and hoping that the war would end so there wouldn’t be any more news on the radio. Apparently the only thing I remember hearing on the news was about the war.

During the war years we recycled all the paper and metal. I have often wondered why we didn’t continue this after the war because obviously the infrastructure was in place to collect and process these items. It took another 50 years before we started doing this again and had to put the infrastructure all in place.

I remember having blackouts where we would turn off all the lights in the house and no cars were allowed in the street. The lights on the Salt Lake Temple were turned off for the duration of the war. It was an exciting time after the war when we rode the bus up to Temple Square to the Temple with all the lights on again.

Learn something

2010-02-08T20:55:00.000-08:00

I am falling behind on my life story, but hopefully I can write about World War II before the week is over.

But so I have something on the page, I love the following:

The context is the young King Arthur, struggling with depression, frustration, irritation, and a life of leisure that needed to be translated into a life of meaning. These things weren't being managed too well in the mythical story. He goes to the magician, Merlin. Merlin, talking to the young King Arthur, says:

The best thing for being sad . . . is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then—to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you. Look at what a lot of things there are to learn—pure science, the only purity there is. You can learn astronomy in a lifetime, natural history in three, literature in six. And then after you have exhausted a milliard life times in biology and medicine and theocriticism and geography and history and economics— why, you can then start to make a cartwheel out of the appropriate wood, or spend fifty years learning to begin to learn to beat your adversary at fencing. After that you can start again on mathematics, until it is time to learn to plough. (T.H. White, The Once and Future King, p. 183.)

1941

2010-01-30T18:50:00.000-08:00

In January of 1941, Dad went back to work for Zion’s Wholesale Grocery as a route salesman. This included driving a delivery truck. Each week he would leave Salt Lake on Monday morning, stop at Alpine, go through Provo, stop at Mapleton, travel up Spanish Fork Canyon and stop at Thistle. From there he stopped at Soldier Summit then down Price Canyon to stop at Helper. He spent the first night at Price. The next day he stopped at Huntington, Castle Dale, Orangeville, Ferron and Emery. Then he drove through Salina canyon to spend the second night at Salina. On the third day he stopped at Mayfield, Manti, Ephraim, and Fairview. Normally he spent the night at Fairview, and drove back to Salt Lake on Thursday. I often went with Dad on the route. Sometimes when we reached Price, I would stay with one of my grandmas and then Dad would pick me up the next week when he made the rounds. I can’t image how I fit, but occasionally I would sit on Dad’s lap and try to steer the truck. Occasionally we would stop and fish either on the reservoir up Salina Canyon or north of Fairview. I caught my very first fish on the reservoir.

Our first home in Salt Lake was on Wall Street just west off the hill from the Capital building. It was an apartment set some distance back from the street. The only thing I remember about the interior was taking a bath in the kitchen sink. There were some neighbors that had a boy a year older than me and a girl a year or two older than her brother. They had a car and I remember going for rides with then. The boy and I would play out front of the apartment – most often we played in the water in the gutter. I remember that he had a wagon, but when I have driven past the place, I can’t believe we played in the wagon since the street was quite steep.

Wasatch Springs was not far from our home, down on highway 89. I recall going swimming there with my Dad.

The first time I remember church was in the building that is just to the west of the Capital building. It was a great spiritual experience (ha.) The only thing I remember is playing “train.” The piano stool was one of those round ones that was used as the engine. We would place our little red chairs in a line behind the stool.

In December of 1941, we moved to a house at 33 Kelsey Ave. – just north of 13^th South, between State and Main Streets. Some years later when I was in grade school, the teacher asked us where we were on “Pearl Harbor Day.” Most of my classmates could say what they were dong when they heard about the attack, but I could not remember anything about it. I recall asking my mom about it and she explained that it happened on the day we moved.

Why Twin Falls?

2010-01-24T14:08:00.000-08:00

Both of my parents were from Price, Utah and met the fall of 1934 while Mom was visiting home after 2 years in nurses’ training. They started to correspond when Mom returned to Salt Lake to continue her schooling and dated whenever Mom was in Price. In the fall of 1935 my Dad cut off two of the fingers on his left hand. The doctor told him that he shouldn’t work on the ranch because there was too great a chance that he would break open the skin, so Dad when to Salt Lake and started working for Zion’s Wholesale Groceries (a part of the Church owned ZCMI.) In March 1936, Mom and Dad were married and Mom had to drop out of nurses’ training because back then you could not be married and attend school. In May of 1937, Zion’s transferred my Dad to Twin Falls, Idaho to manage the warehouse there. Before they left Salt Lake they were Sealed in the Salt Lake temple.

A year later in May of 1938, I was born at Twin Falls. I came into the world with three great advantages. 1) I was born in the Covenant, 2) I was a native Idahoan and 3) I had two parents that loved me (after all, they sold their car to pay for me.)

My grandfather Robertson had died just before I was born and my grandmother was having trouble running the ranch, so my dad quit Zion’s and we all moved to Price, Utah in May of 1940 to help grandmother Robertson.

I was just starting to talk and with all of the family around calling Mom, Gennie, that is what I called her. Mom tells the story of us taking a bus trip to Salt Lake and I was “entertaining” the two ladies in the seat behind us when one of the ladies asked if that was my mommy. I put my arms around her and said no she was my Gennie. Mom had to explain.

My very earliest memories where while we lived in Price. I can remember going to bed with the “Bookworm” bookend figurines with raisins on the open books. I don’t think they were real Hummel’s, but rather copies made in Japan.

The Wards

2010-01-21T15:07:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I drove down to Salt Lake to attend the funeral of Patty Jo Ward Jones. As I drove home, I was thinking of all the great times that I had because of the Wards.
When I was born, my parents had become very close friends with Katherine and Ross Ward. Even though we would live 200 miles away for 12 years, The Wards would always remain my parent’s best friends.
The first things I remember about Idaho were from a bus trip we made from Salt Lake to Twin Falls in the fall of 1942. After passing through Snowville, my folks pointed out the longest section of straight road I had ever seen. The road just seemed to disappear in the distance. After we crossed into Idaho, I remember seeing this abandoned grain silo off to the side of the road- it seem so strange to have this silo out in the middle of nowhere. It can still be seen from the freeway southwest of the weigh station east of Burley. Once we had gotten into the “Magic Valley” I could not understand all the sugar beets that were piled up at the dump center. I just could not imagine that many beets being grown. I don’t recall much about the visit, but the trip was sure impressive.
When we lived in Salt Lake you knew when the Wards were visiting. There was that great big Cadillac parked out front with the funny license plate with a baked potato on it. On two occasions, Katherine brought the Young Women down to attend June Conference (that was the church youth conference with dance festivals and a number of other cultural activates.) On these occasions our house was turned into a girls dormitory. I was working at this time and would tiptoe between the sleeping girls as I left in the morning and be sound asleep before they retuned at night, so I did not meet any of the girls, but when I was at BYU, I did meet a girl from Twin Falls that said she had stayed at my house.
When we moved to Burley, it seemed that there were almost weekly visits with the Wards ether at their house or at ours. Each visit seemed like the Fourth of July or Thanksgiving. There was always a lot of food and great activities.
The Wards had four children – Georgeanna, who was 10 months older than me. Patty Jo who was 18 months younger than me, Grant who was the same age as my brother Neil and Kathy who was a year younger than Grant.
Kathy was what we used to call a “blue baby” because of a heart defect. If she exerted much energy or got excited, she would get faint and her lips would turn blue. When she was 12, they took her to Salt Lake for the first open-heart surgery performed at the Utah Medical Center. They thought she had a hole between two of the heart chambers and they were going to close the hole. Kathy died in the recovery room. When they did the autopsy they found that she had two holes. They had no idea of this possibility because nobody had lived past the age of one with two holes. So thought we did not have the miracle of successful surgery, we did have the miracle of knowing her for 12 years. Dad was asked to speak at Kathy’s funeral, which he always said was the most difficult job he ever had.
During fall vacation I drove truck for Ross (we got 2 weeks of school vacation in October so the kids could help in the harvest of potatoes.)
While I was attending BYU, Dad and Ross would come down to Salt Lake for General Conference and I would join them there. Ross had been a missionary companion to Gordon B Hinckley and we occasionally would see him and have a brief conversation as we were coming or going to the meetings. At one of these meeting, Elder Hinckley told how President Kimball would suggest that they create a mission in Utah, but every time the subject came up, Elder LaGrand Richards would say: “This is the Center Stake of Zion, we need the missionaries elsewhere” and the subject was dropped. One week Elder Richards was out of town and President Kimball proposed the Utah mission and all those present sustained it. At the next week’s meeting the minutes were read and as soon as they were finished, Elder Richards hand went up. Well, Elder Hinckley said everyone gasped and almost sucked all the air out of the room. When President Kimball recognized Elder Richards, he said “ I propose that Bother so-and-so be called as the mission president – as long as the subject was up for discussion, Elder Richards was opposed to it, but once the decision was made he supported it a 100%. This was a great lesson for me as I have sat in a number of councils.

Turning 30

2010-01-17T22:06:00.000-08:00

Not a whole lot has happen this past week.

I was reading Robert Kirby and he was telling about his 6 year-old grandson and how much he loved his birthday, but Robert was dreading each of his birthdays.

When we first lived in Boise, most of my friends were a year or two older than me and really had a bad time when they turned 30. After I watched how hard it was on them, I was quite worried as my 30th birthday approached.

It was the day before my 30th birthday and I was flying home and had a stopover in Denver. As the plane touched down, they turned the music on and the song was "This Is All I Ask" sung by Frank Sinatra. The words are:

“As I approach the prime of my life
I find I have the time of my life
Learning to enjoy at my leisure
All the simple pleasure
And so I happily concede

This is all I ask
This is all I need

Beautiful girls, walk a little slower when you walk by me
Lingering sunset, stay a little longer with the lonely sea
Children everywhere, when you shoot at bad men, shoot at me
Take me to that strange enchanted land
Grownups seldom understand

Wandering rainbows, leave a bit of color for my heart to own
Stars in the sky, make my wish come true
Before the night has flown
And let the music play as long as there's a song to sing
Then I will stay younger than spring”

This made me think that getting older was something to enjoy, not dread.

The Robertson family, December 1968

Begining 2010

2010-01-13T15:41:00.000-08:00

I hate making resolutions for the New Year, but I still find that January 1st is a good time to start things that you have been putting off.

I had hoped to update my blog weekly, but already I see that it is the 13th of the month and I am just getting around to my blog.

We ended the old year on a high note by going to Idaho Falls when a nephew and his family that we hadn’t seen for 6 plus years was visiting. A number my of nephews and a niece managed to show up so we had a great time getting caught-up on what was happening in their lives.

I am much more involved with genealogy than I want to be. I am teaching the Family History class in our ward and am now working at the Family History library. (Everyone at the library is thrilled to have someone on staff that knows how to use a Mac.) It is funny that I never considered myself as a genealogist, but I seem to always get drug in to doing it. It started when I was in college, before my mission, when I got called as the ward genealogist, because I had said in a priesthood meeting that I knew who my great-grandparents were. The next time I got drawn in was when the Church asked for the 4 generations and I made a deal with my sister that I would do the research, if she would do the typing – there was no way I could do the typing. All my life I had heard about how much genealogy my Dad’s cousins had done, so when I got my first Mac, I found a genealogy program and volunteered to put all the information on the computer, if the relatives would give me their information and then verify it after I put it in the computer. Well, when I got the books, I found that no real research had been done and that there where multiple copies of a few families. What was worse was that none of the copies matched and there was almost no documentation. After more than a year of trying to get the “genealogist” to correct the information, I decided to do it myself. So I got in to the documentation business and grudgingly in to the research effort. Since I was one of the early users of the computer, I was called to teach the Family History class. And so it goes.

Diane and I did a fun road trip last Saturday. It had been a long time since we did the loop over to Stanley and Sun Valley, (something we used to do 2 or 3 times a year.) The snow-covered mountains were beautiful and we even saw some deer along the roadside. The highlight was at Sun Valley when we went to the new lodge at the base of River Run and had lunch. We sat next to the windows where we had a perfect view of the skiers coming down the hill and getting on the lifts. I had very mixed emotions about the experience – it was fun to watch, but I sure wished that I were skiing.

Summer

2009-08-29T16:39:00.000-07:00

I am still alive and taking nourishment. (Way to much nourishment.)

The past 4 weeks, I have, once again, been teaching the Family History class in our ward. This is the first set of classes I have taught since we had access to the New Family Search program, so I have spent some time going thought the training and trying to use the new system. I guess I am spoiled being a Macintosh user, also being a past manager of information technology. To be kind, let me say that the New Family Search is a “work in Process.” When I was in business, I would never expose my company to a Beta version of a system, yet that is what the New Family Search program is. That makes us all “Guinea Pigs”, who get to debug the system. Everyone who asks me, I tell them to continue to use whatever system they are currently using. If they have not been using an existing system, then go with the New Family Search, but expect a lot of changes as the system evolves. I’ll get down off my soapbox now.

We have had a great summer with the family. The non-Boise families have all come to visit and we have had a wonderful time. (At least I did, I did not have to feel like they had to be entertained every minute they were here like someone I know.) We have been involved in a number of activities with the Boise families – ball games, dinners, plays – you name it and it seems like we have done it.

For a test run to see how well I would do on a road trip, we drove up to La Grande, OR to visit some old friends that we have not seen since Noelle was born. (Now I can’t say how many years that has been.) I survived the trip, so I have no excuse for not making a couple of trips this fall. The first will be to Billings, MT. for, I think, Diane’s 20^th class reunion. (I sure it is not more than that since she is only 39 years old.)

Since we are getting old and I still refuse to ask for directions, we purchased a GPS unit for our anniversary. Before we headed to far-a-way places, we thought we would test it on some local locations. So Diane was very kind to me and let me take a drive to Celebration Park, which is located close to nowhere. By golly, when we finally found an address for the Park, the GPS took us right there. Here are some photos.

Replica of a ancient tepee Train bridge that crosses the Snake River that is now a foot bridge

Petroglyphs on rocks

Late July

2009-07-25T17:33:00.000-07:00

Last week Gage, Kinsey and the boys spent several days with us. Diane wanted to make the visit memorable and help the cousins to all get to know one another better, so there were several outings. My job, that I failed at, was to try and keep Diane from overdoing. Everyone came to our hose most evenings for food and play. One morning they went to a children’s play area called Rafiki. You pay so much per child (we had 7) and then they can play in a clean, bright well-equipped facility. There was a huge area like you see in McDonalds or Burger King, a craft area, dress-ups, a well-stocked kitchen, a puppet theater, dolls and a playhouse, a Wii, air hockey, and table tennis. They also have couches and magazines for the adults who accompany the children. It was a wonderful place to be instead of outside in the heat. However, the next day they all went to the Zoo – which is definitely outside. They went in the morning and lasted two hours before hunger, thirst and heat made them move on. Everyone came to our house for a lunch of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and fruit. There wasn’t one complaint, which Diane deemed a miracle. That evening we had dinner for 15 and then a bunch of people went swimming in our subdivision’s pool. We all had a great time, but by the time the Layton Robertsons left, Diane was exhausted. We certainly aren’t as young as we once were.

I need to give you an up-date on the hip replacement. The surgery went well and I have had little or no pain from the hip itself. There is some discomfort from muscles that are being used differently than before the surgery. I used a walker for a month and I am still supposed to be using a cane, but I set it down and forget to pick it up again and then forget where I left it so I have just given it up. I am on the mend because at 6 weeks from surgery I was able to walk a mile and a half and have been doing that every other day. My big problem is getting started when I have been sitting down for a while and I still limp a little, but it isn’t even two months yet.

I have been working with the New Family Search genealogy program. To say the least, it is frustrating. The program is still a Beta version and you know the joys of working with Beta versions. I was hoping that they would have the multimedia function working, but it is not. I have copies of documents that I wanted to add as sources, but instead I have to try and write a 100 word essay to describe the document, then if someone questions my source, they have look up an on-line document or pay to get their own copy. Right now I think I am going to sit on the sidelines and wait for a stable version with the multimedia function.

I did make contact with a genealogist in West Virginia to work on the Margaret Thompson line. For years, we thought we had this line traced back to the first settlers in Massachusetts but then a cousin found that we had connected to the wrong Margaret, so now we have to start anew.

Mother Nature

2009-06-23T16:23:00.001-07:00

There is no question that Mother Nature has created a number of sites that man in his most talented moment cannot even begin to compare with the natural beauty around us. But when you live a few hours drive from mountains like the Tetons and have seen Old Faithfull put on her show more than a hundred times, it is not hard to let the magnificent wonders of nature become common place in your life.

Still there are a number of sites that make your jaw drop and you are transformed by what you see. Once again I have picked out a few that I have enjoyed as I have traveled the world.

Andes Mountains and Lake District
The day we crossed over the Andes mountains from Chili to Argentina, we started on a bus, then moved to a boat and then to a second bus and then a second boat. After s short stop for lunch it was on to bus number three and to boat number three. At this point we had to show our passport since we were somewhere near the border between Chili and Argentina. But then it was on to bus number four to be delivered to boat number four only to sail to across the lake to bus number five to be deposited on boat number five and finally our last leg on bus number six that took us to accommodations for the night. With all the transportation shuffling you almost missed the beauty and grandeur of the mountains and lakes you were crossing.
Ayers Rock, Australia
If Ayers Rock, also know as Uluru, was located in the Four Corners area, I doubt it would be on anyone’s list, but when you travel for hours across the flat land of central Australia and come upon this massive sandstone dome, if is really impressive. As the sun sets it is fascinating to see how the color of the rock goes from rust red to almost a dark purple.

Victoria Falls, Africa
I cheated on this photo. When we got to Victoria Falls we were supposed to take a helicopter ride to view the falls, but because of all the currency problems they were having, they would not take our credit card and we were $20 short of the cash we needed, So I found this photo on the Internet. As you travel along in front of the falls, it is hard to believe that there could be that much water coming down the river. When we landed at the airport in Livingstone, some 8 miles away, I thought that there must have been a forest fire. But we later learned that it was the mist from Victoria Falls.
Grand Canyon
Whenever I see Grand Canyon, I am reminded of the two Scouts that send post cards home. The one Scout tells of the deep canyon and the array of colors. The second Scout wrote, “Today I spit a mile.” Any attempt to describe this spectacular site is closer to the second Scouts description than it is to an accurate portrayal of the true magnitude of size, color and environment. I have had the privilege of seeing the canyon from both the South and the North rim and also from the bottom as we rafted the Colorado River.
Gudvangen Valley, Norway
The fjord area of Norway is impossible to capture in one photo or for that matter, a hundred photos. This photo shows how deep the valleys have been cut and how the giant glaciers that have covered this region have rounded the tops of the mountains.
Matterhorn, Switzerland
We had visited Switzerland on two other occasions and had never taken the time to go down to the southern border where the Matterhorn is. We were in Italy when bad weather drove us out and we had a couple of extra days before returning home. We decided to drive into Switzerland and see the Matterhorn. As we took the train up the canyon and the Matterhorn came into view it was sheathed in a halo of light and clouds. When we reached Zermatt the clouds began to move away and we got to view this great mountain in all of its glory. When we returned home, our daughter who had spent a year and a half in Switzerland, was shocked that we had been able to see this magnificent mountain because it’s peak is only clear one day in seven
Milford Sound New Zealand
This is the other photo that I had to copy. The day we were in Milford Sound the wind was blowing so hard that there was a waterfall that was pushed straight up by the wind. Between the clouds, you could get glimpses of the skyline that made you wish you could come back another day and see the sound as it is shown in this photo.

Pamukkale, Turkey
I have been to a number of places where a hot spring has left the white rock deposits, but no place comes close to the size of the deposits at Pamukkale. For more than a mile and a half you look across the tiers of ponds being held up by white icicles.
Torres del Paine, Chile
I had a picture of these mountains, but had no idea where they were located. I would search the Internet and would ask fellow travelers if they knew the location. Finally, after more than three years of searching I found that they were located in the southern part of Chili. Wouldn’t you know it – the next month, National Geographic had an article on them. They were well worth traveling to the far end of our hemisphere to see.
Yosemite
If you cannot tell by now, I love mountains with their high peaks and cascading waterfalls. Few places in the world better display theses attributes that the Yosemite Valley in California. Is it because I live in the Mountain West that I love the mountains or is it because I love mountains that I live in the Mountain West?

I have shared my choices with you, so now you have to tell me what you would add (or subtract) and why.

Wonders of the World - Man-made

2009-06-22T18:36:00.000-07:00

As I have perused the magazine stands and the Internet, I have noticed a number of “Wonders of the World” lists. I decided that I have been to enough places in this glorious world that I needed to make a list of some of the great places I have been. (I’m sure if I were to wait a week, the list would be different.)

I have broken the list into two parts. The first one is of “Man-made” sites. Later I will post a “Natural” sites list.

I think I might have found better pictures had I searched the Internet, but I wanted to share the pictures that we had taken. The sites in each of these two lists are in no particular order.

Thorncrown Chapel, Arkansas.
I had read about this chapel some years ago, so when I found that it was not far from where we were in southern Missouri, we thought it would be worth the short detour. You have to walk a short distance through the forest to get to it. When I finally realized what I was looking at, I was overcome with the simplicity of the structure and how beautifully it fit into the surrounding forest. Thorncrown was chosen 4th on the American Institute of Architects top designs of the 20th century.

Terra Cotta Warriors, Xian, China
The sheer magnitude of the numerous rows and columns of life-sized warriors is enough to put it on any “top ten list” I might make up, but then when you look closely and realize that each warrior, horse and cart is unique, it moves to a status beyond my imagination.

Taj Mahal
There are two man-made structures that I have seen, whose beauty cannot be captured in a photograph. I don’t care how many pictures you have seen of the Taj Mahal, you have no idea of just what a magnificent structure this is to behold. It has to be one of the most flawless architectural creations of the world.

The Treasury, Petra, Jordan
The other structure that is impossible to capture in a photo is the Treasury, Petra, Jordan. You can watch “Raiders of the Lost Ark” a hundred times and still not comprehend the detail of this facade carved into the mountain in one of the most desolate regions of the world.

Great Wall of China
The first time I actually saw the Great Wall of China, I would almost have to say it was a “religious” experience. It was unbelievable to see this magnificent wall climbing and dropping over ridge after ridge and realize that I could not see even a tiny fraction of the existing wall. It was really fun to climb and descend the irregular steps that make up a large portion of the wall.

Sphinx and pyramids, Egypt
The size and engineering skills required to build the pyramids demands that they get put on my list. Before visiting these great structures, I assumed that a vast army of slave labor was required to build them. But as I learned of the technology that was required to place a stone every three minutes, I realized that there had to be a number of skilled craftsmen to build and decorate these structures.

Machu Picchu, Peru
Take the engineering skills that were required to build the pyramids and put them on top of an 8,000 foot mountain and you have Machu Picchu. Talk about a “room with a view,” this is beyond any place you have been.

Cappadocia, Turkey
We have all tried to build a sand castle only to have it come tumbling down. Imagine packing the sand until it was roc -hard and then building your castle. That is what they have done at Cappadocia. They have dug an entire city out of the sandstone mounds that fill the valley.

Stonehenge
I have included Stonehenge because of the things it stirs up in my imagination. The first time I went to England I remember trying to figure out how to skip out of my meetings and get to Stonehenge on public transportation. That didn’t work out, so I was sure that Stonehenge was on my list the next time I was in England.
Coliseum in Rome
I think that the Coliseum of Rome shows the ups and downs of civilization better than any other place I have been. The fantastic workmanship contrasts with the violent deaths that were exhibited here. The great luxury of one civilization compared to a later civilization that had become so backward that they tore down part of the building to salvage the iron because they no longer had the knowledge to smelt iron.

Well that is my list. What would you add or subtract and why?

Hip Surgery

2009-06-16T18:46:00.000-07:00

Well, I made it through the first week, so I thought I would provide you with a summary of my hip operation and first week of recovery.
Last Monday, June 8th, started with a visit to the doctor’s office for a final check-up and a chance to answer my questions. I passed the check-up so we walked to the hospital wing of the building for admitting for the surgery. I was stripped down, scrubbed down and laid down. The anesthesiologist came in to see if I wanted a spinal or a general. I asked if she was being operated on what would be her choice. She said the spinal, so that was what I got. Later it would become apparent that being laid down and getting the spinal would be a problem.
After an hour and a half, they let a very unhappy Diane back to be with me. We didn’t understand why she could not be with me during the pre-op, and why it had taken so long. She had been told that she would only have to wait 30 minutes. We had a short visit and off to surgery I went. I was aware of the preparations they were making in the room, but I was completely asleep before the operation started. The next thing I knew, I was being wheeled back to the recovery room and I was flat on my back. It didn’t seem long before I was taken to my room where Diane was waiting.
A year or so ago, I had had some problems with sciatica, but it has been fine since I was given a steroid injection. Well, as the anesthetic started to wear off I had a major flair-up of the sciatica. Lying on my back and having a spinal combined to aggravate my sciatic nerve. When I sat up and was able to dangle my feet off the edge of the bed, the pain started to subside, but that was the last time I would be laying in bed in the hospital. A resourceful nurse found a “cardiac chair” that I slept and sat in until I was released. I had absolutely no pain from the hip surgery, but it took 2 or 3 days before the sciatic cleared up.
The food was surprisingly good. Whenever you wanted to eat, you called “room service” and ordered off a menu. One evening, I was not really hungry, so I ordered chocolate malt and a raisin cookie. With no questions asked, it was delivered to my room. The hospital staff was very pleasant and efficient, so it was not an unpleasant experience at all.
Physical therapy at the hospital consisted of moving my ankle up and down and going for a 100-foot walk using a walker and learning how to get out of the bed – not what I would call tough. On Thursday about 2 o’clock Diane brought the Sequoia to take me home. The last phase of my therapy was learning how to get in the car.
It was sure nice to get home. I practiced getting on and off the most of the chairs in the house. The “cardinal rule” that must be obeyed at all time is never let your knee be higher than your hip. This means that you have to sit on a stool or slouch with your leg out in front of you. This is okay for a while, but soon the chair starts to cut into the back of your leg. I have tried some pads to sit on, but that is not a whole lot better. The real problem at home is getting comfortable at night. Even with the pain pills, I don’t get more than a couple of hours of sleep before I have to get up and walk around or sit in a chair.
Twice a week the home health nurse and the physical therapist come to the house. The nurse checks my vital signs and changes the dressing on the incision. The therapist has given me a bunch of exercises to do and takes me for a walk with my walker. Her first visit was on Friday and after going through all the exercises, I asked her how I was doing. She said: “not bad for 2 weeks,” so I must be doing OK.
I am sporting extensive black and blue colors on my bum and down the surgery leg. Diane took a picture of my back so I could see what I looked like. We thought that might be a tad revealing, so Diane took a picture of just my leg to share with you.
Last night we got together with our “Family Home Eatin’ ” group. It was nice to get out of the house and it was especially nice to visit with good friends and have an excellent meal.
I’m starting to have “cabin fever” now so I might ask Diane to take me for a ride.
I think the operation was a grand success and I just have to be patient until the muscles have a chance to heal and I can pitch the walker and cane and get back to full activity

Horatio auto trip

2009-05-27T19:01:00.000-07:00

We had a great time when we drove Route 66 a few years ago, So when I saw the special on PBS about the first trans-continental automobile trip taken by Horatio Nelson Jackson in 1903, we thought it might be a fun trip to follow Horatio’s route across America. The same PBS program also told of the first trans-continental highway system called the Lincoln Highway. The two routes overlaid each other from Ohio to Utah. On the East end of the route, Horatio went across New York State and the Lincoln Highway crossed Pennsylvania. On the West end, the Lincoln route went across the center of Nevada and California on what is now U S route 50. Horatio’s route took him from San Francisco to the northeast corner of California, then across to Ontario, Oregon then across Idaho to meet the route of the Lincoln Highway near Evanston, Wyoming.

Since Horatio’s route would take us through Boise, we decided to do the western portion of both routes now and then at some future date; we could do the trip to the east.

We started the trip by driving to Utah where we made a stop to see Gage and Kinsey’s new home. Of course the highlight was to see the boys and their folks, but it is a nice home. The house is small, but well laid out. Kinsey has already done some nice decorating. With a full-unfinished basement, they will have plenty of room to grow.

We spent the night in Layton and started our trip on the Lincoln Highway. Our first stop was to see what remains of the old Saltair resort – not much. We took a picture of it and the old Magna smelter that is just to the south. I recalled the days when Saltair had a giant roller coaster that was a real thrill to ride and a large ballroom where all the famous Big Bands came to play. That day is certainly far gone.

When we turned off the freeway towards Tooele, Diane saw the signs for the Benson Grist Mill. I thought it would be out by Grantsville and didn’t want to stop, but it turnout to be just a block or two west of the highway, so we made a stop. Apostle Ezra T. Benson, who was sent by Brigham Young to help develop the area west of Salt Lake, originally built the mill in 1854. The site was not supposed to open for a while, but the lady in the office said she would unlock the buildings for us even though there were no guides there yet. We wandered up and down the three floors of the old mill and found it very interesting and the signs informative. There is no way that they are going to restore the old mill so that it can actually function, so next door they have built a small mill so that people will be able to see how a grist mill actually works. We got a brief demonstration when one of the workers turned the waterwheel by hand. We visited the blacksmith shop, the barn and a few old log homes that they had on the site. Diane also got to grind a little wheat on a small hand grist mill, called a quern, that they had in the Visitor Center. We had a great time and would recommend it to anyone who was in the area. Kids from six on up would really enjoy it.

Since we could not actually follow the Lincoln highway across Utah because it crossed through the Dugway Proving Ground, we headed south to Route 50 at Delta, Utah. From there we headed west across the dry Sevier Lake and intersected with the actual Lincoln route at Ely, Nevada.

Just outside Ely, we wandered around for an hour looking for the Ruth Copper Mine pit, which is supposedly the largest pit in the world. All we saw was a lot of mine tailings, but not a large pit. It is not like Bingham where there is one very large pit. From there we headed for Eureka to spend the night. The drive was quite interesting. From the Nevada board to Eureka, we crossed over four major summits. With a population of 1,500, there was not a lot to do, but we did have a nice dinner.

The next day found us doing the same climbing over summits and dropping into long valleys as we had done the day before. There are state road signs stating that this is “The Loneliest Road in America.” When we got to Austin, Diane noticed a drugstore that advertized having an old fashioned soda fountain, so we stopped and went in. I had a milkshake and Diane had a hot fudge sundae. It was a fun stop. Not far down the road I saw a tree with things hanging from the branches. Diane had read about it and said they were shoes that people threw into the tree. Sure enough, when we got closer you could see hundreds of shoes hanging from the branches.

Just before we got to Fallon we were winding around a dry lake and noticed a couple of girls placing rocks on the far side of the borrow pit. We then noticed that there was lettering all along the side of the road with all sorts of messages. The writing had to go for over a mile. At the same time we saw a large sand dune that looked like it had ants crawling all over it. They were ATV’s crisscrossing the dune. At the base of the dune, there had to be well over a hundred campers parked.

At Fallon we visited the Pioneer museum. It had some fun stuff displayed. Diane took special note of the quilts and even had to stop and sew a few stitches in the display room. They had one of the nicest sleds I have ever seen – it was very well preserved. They had a lot of old equipment and a few antique cars. We did not stay long, but we really enjoyed the displays.

Our next stop was Virginia City which is an old mining town still getting rich from all the tourists in town. We took a 20-minute tour of the town in a cart pulled by a tractor. Back in its “heyday” it must have been quite the place with a number of mansions and more saloons than you could count. The cemetery was interesting because every group of people had their own section. If you were a Catholic fireman of Irish decent who belonged to the Odd Fellows, They would have had a major problem figuring out where you should be buried.

Our reservation for that night was in Carson City where we arrived about 3 o’clock in the afternoon, so we decided to see a movie. We saw Angels & Demons and really enjoyed it. After the movie, we drove around town to see the state buildings.

On Saturday we headed out of Carson City over the mountain to Lake Tahoe. I was sure glad we were going west – the traffic coming up was bumper-to-bumper. As we examined the route we would be taking to cross California, we realized that we would not be very far from where Michelle and Masonga lived. We had to call Neil to get a phone number. Then we called Michelle to see if they would be home. They had an appointment, but if we hurried we would have time for a short visit. We got the instructions on how to get to their house, which included: “Call when you get close and I’ll come out to the road to meet you.” (I didn’t realize you could live that far out in the sticks in California, but they do.) We had a great time visiting with Michelle and Masonga and getting to see their cute little boys and oh, having a great lunch which Masonga cooked.

After lunch we headed off for San Francisco. We had planed on eating at the Tadich Grill for dinner, but since it had been more than 10 years since we were in San Francisco we wondered if there might be some better places to eat. So who better to ask than our good friends the Stewarts who we knew would be able to recommend the best places in town? We gave them a call and after a couple of calls back from them, we had a great list to chose from.

My hip was really giving me fits, so there was no way I was going to do much walking. So we stopped by the hotel to see if we could check in early, but they said the room would not be cleaned until 4 o’clock, so we drove around town. Diane had her head buried in the map trying to figure out where we were. I said I could get around without the map and for her to watch the sights. We checked out the parking at a couple of places to eat. We then drove along The Embarcadero past all the wharf area. It was fun to see all of the people and the sights. By then it was time to check into the hotel.

We decided that the easiest place to park was near Tadich’s, so in spite of all the good recommendations from the Stewarts, we drove to the Tadich Gill and had a great dinner. Our timing was perfect. We had to sit at the bar, which was fine, but within ten minutes the place was packed and people were standing all around waiting for seating. As we got up to leave, I asked the people behind us how much they were willing to pay us for our seats. They asked if the food was good and Diane said that I had been coming there for 40 years. They then asked where we were from and I said Idaho. They said that’s where they were from too.

After dinner we drove over to Ghirardelli’s for desert. We were very lucky and found a parking place right by Ghirardelli’s. We each ordered a sundae and then waddled back to the car and drove back to the hotel. By the way, the view from our room was spectacular. We could see the Golden Gate bridge and a lot of the bay. Too bad it was a little foggy, but we enjoyed the view just the same.

When we reached San Francisco, we had completed the Lincoln Highway portion of our trip. Now it was time to start the Horatio’s part of the trip. The next day we took the freeway to Sacramento and could not imagine what the route must have been like in 1903. From Sacramento we headed north passing rice fields and a variety of orchards. At Oroville we headed into the mountains. The scenery was great, the road was a challenge. I was very surprised at how courteous the drivers were. Any time I came up on someone, they would pull over at the next turn out.

As we approached the Oregon border the landscape started to look like the area between Boise and Mountain Home. At the time we did not realize that this would be the terrain for the next 300 miles.

We spent the night at Lakeview Oregon. At the motel we noticed that a number of the parking stalls had motorcycles in them. The place where we ate dinner was on the corner of the highway intersection and we saw a number on motorcycles passing by. After dinner we drove to the service station to fill-up and asked the attendant about a motorcycle that had just pulled away. It had a wire cage mounted behind the driver. We were told that there were two dogs in the cage wearing Oregon Duck sweaters. There was a piece of Plexiglas on the front of the cage to break the wind. As we were filling up a couple of motorcycles pulled in and we asked the attendant how many motorcycles usually stopped at the station. He said that on an average summer day he had about 250 motorcycles stop for gas.

We circled town twice to finish listening to an audiotape. With nothing else to do in town we went back to our room and watched the movie Taken that I had copied to the computer.

The next morning we started across southern Oregon. Whoever labeled highway 50 in Nevada as “The Loneliest Highway in America” had obviously not driven across southern Oregon. Other than a few cars that we passed there were next to no signs of civilization. Even the lakebeds were dry. Quite to our surprise, when we thought we were in the middle of nowhere, the phone rang and it was Jason, Chris, Ethan and Fiona singing Happy Birthday to me. The connection only lasted a couple of minutes, but for the life of me I can’t imagine where the signal came from.

We hit the freeway at Ontario, OR and quickly drove the rest of the way home. As I reflected on the day’s journey once again it was beyond my imagination how Horatio was able to survive the trip across this no-man’s land.

2009-05-12T17:41:00.000-07:00

After reading Ann's blog, I thought I would go looking for the gypsy groups that might have anything to do with Ann being part of our family. I think I found one of the four groups.

Best Friends

2009-04-27T15:28:00.000-07:00

A good friend sent me the following story:

A man and his dog were walking along a road. The man was enjoying the scenery, when it suddenly occurred to him that he was dead.
He remembered dying, and that the dog walking beside him had been dead for years. He wondered where the road was leading them.
After a while, they came to a high, white stone wall along one side of the road. It looked like fine marble. At the top of a long hill, it was broken by a tall arch that glowed in the sunlight.
When he was standing before it he saw a magnificent gate in the arch that looked like mother-of-pearl, and the street that led to the gate looked like pure gold. He and the dog walked toward the gate, and as he got closer, he saw a man at a desk to one side. When he was close enough, he called out, 'Excuse me, where are we?'
'This is Heaven, sir,' the man answered. 'Wow! Would you happen to have some water?' the man asked.
'Of course, sir. Come right in, and I'll have some ice water brought right up.' the man gestured, and the gate began to open.
'Can my friend,' gesturing toward his dog, 'come in, too?' the traveler asked.
'I'm sorry, sir, but we don't accept pets.' The man thought a moment and then turned back toward the road and continued the way he had been going with his dog.
After another long walk, and at the top of another long hill, he came to a dirt road leading through a farm gate that looked as if it had never been closed. There was no fence. As he approached the gate, he saw a man inside, leaning against a tree and reading a book.
'Excuse me!' he called to the man. 'Do you have any water?'
'Yeah, sure, there's a pump over there, come on in.'
'How about my friend here?' the traveler gestured to the dog. 'There should be a bowl by the pump.'
They went through the gate, and sure enough, there was an old-fashioned hand pump with a bowl beside it. The traveler filled the water bowl and took a long drink himself; then he gave some to the dog. When they were full, he and the dog walked back toward the man who was standing by the tree.
'What do you call this place?' the traveler asked. 'This is Heaven,' he answered.
'Well, that's confusing,' the traveler said. 'The man down the road said that was Heaven, too.'
'Oh, you mean the place with the gold street and pearly gates? Nope. That's hell.'
'Doesn't it make you mad for them to use your name like that?'
'No, we're just happy that they screen out the folks who would leave their best friends behind.'

This reminded me of a dream I had a number of years ago. In this dream we had been call to a giant hall for the “final judgment”. After taking our places, the Lord came and said that because of some difficulties, there would be a short delay. He said that there were refreshments and that we were free to mill around. Well, it did not take much time until we had gotten together with a group of our friends and were have a great time. The only thing that I notice in other groups is that it some the husband was in one group and the wife was in another. After a short time, the Lord came to our group and asked if we were enjoying ourselves or would we like to join some other group. We all said we where happy with the people we were with and where not really interested in joining another group. The Lord then said to the group: “Come with me, I have a mansion prepared for you.”

Quilting

2009-04-25T20:31:00.000-07:00

This should be on Diane’s blog, but since she seldom updates her blog, you get to see it on my blog. Great strides have been made on Noelle’s wedding quilt. It has only been the better part of 3 years, but the quilt is ready to be quilted. (I don’t know what you call all the work that has been going on to get to this point, but now the quilt will be quilted.)
Anyone visiting will have to stay in the yellow bedroom

I have been doing something

2009-04-16T14:08:00.000-07:00

As I was having more and more pain in my leg, I thought that my bad hip did not likely cause the location of the pain, so I went to a young man that just moved into our ward who is a chiropractor and a physical therapist. He explained that because of my hip, I was walking abnormally and was having muscle spasms. So for the past 2 weeks, we have been working to balance the muscles in my legs. To stretch out the muscles that were having spasms, I have a hard tube that I put under my upper-leg and then I roll back and forth on it. Diane had not seen me doing it, but could hear me moan and groan and thought I was in some sort of torture chamber. During the day it is certainly getting better, but the pain at night has not subsided.

The last two OSHER (adult education) classes we have attended have been fascinating. The first was on bioengineering and one of the examples the instructor used was a hip replacement. I am now much more informed on hip replacement and know what questions I need to ask the doctor. (By the way if you don’t know, my doctor broke his leg so my surgery is on hold until he is on his feet again.)

The second class was on genetic testing. It was very informative about what they can test for and what genetic factors cause problems. The lecturer was quick to point out that her job was to let people know what testing can be done and what the statistical factors mean, but she does not advise if the test should be done, or if it is done what action should be taken or not taken. That is an ethical issue and the person must make the decision based on their beliefs and values.

On Fridays, I help at the dry-pack section of the church cannery. I really enjoy helping the people get their food storage items, and getting to see people that I haven’t seen for years is an added bonus. But watching how the bureaucracy of the welfare system works is just crazy. I’m so glad that I’m just a volunteer. If I had any responsibility for the program, I think I might be inclined to run over those in charge with a forklift.

Years ago, when the Goddard chapel was approved, J. Richard Clark was the bishop. He was going down to Salt Lake to see about having some changes made to the building. When he got back, he said that there was no question that he had visited with the church building committee, he just wasn’t sure which church it was associated with. Well in a few years, Bishop Clark was called to be in the Presiding Bishopric. In his calling he presided over the building committee. When next I saw him I asked how he was doing with making changes to the committee. He just rolled his eyes and said: “Scott, if you think that government bureaucracy is had to work with, you can’t imagine what a benevolent bureaucracy is like to work with”.

Off to Malad

2009-03-09T21:38:00.001-07:00

Yesterday we drove to Malad to visit Duff. It was a very quick trip. We left after church and got to Malad, had a visit with Duff for just over an hour and then drove back home.
Duff has congestive heart failure and could go anytime, but you would never know it by looking at her or listening to her. In fact, it was one of the best visits I remember having with her. She was confined to the hospital bed and could not run off to fix something for us to eat. She could only lie there and talk to you.
We got all caught up on her family and her funeral plans. The family is doing well and the funeral sounds like a music recital. She wants her grandson, Jeff Carter and his family to sing (they have performed numerous time at the summer theater in West Yellowstone.) She wants a granddaughter to play the flute and she wants Noelle to sing. But the most interesting performer is the young man that deliverers her groceries to her. He is the organist at the Presbyterian Church and when he makes his delivery, he sits down at Duff’s piano and plays for her.
We went the back route that leaves the freeway just west of American Falls and enters Malad from the west. On the way back we ran into some snow but it wasn’t too bad. When we got to the freeway, the temperature was just below freezing. On the dark pavement, with all the traffic, the water was not frozen, but when it was sprayed on to the side of the car it froze in a very unusual pattern. This picture was taken when we stopped for gas in Burley.
We got home just before 11:00 PM.

10 seconds on channel 7

2009-02-25T07:27:00.000-08:00

For the last two mornings, I have been sitting in the state Tax and Revenue committee meeting. I had signed up to testify for a new law that would increase the tax on beer and wine to fund the alcohol rehabilitation program for the state.
Well, yesterday I got 2 minutes to make my case. I don’t know if I changed the minds of any of the legislators, but I did manage to make the lobbyist for the wine industry mad. An acquaintance of mine, Marilyn Shuler was sitting next to the lobbyist and said that during my talk the lobbyist murmured: “damn him.”
I knew there were cameras in the room, but I didn’t know that one of them was channel 7 until the 10 o’clock news when I saw my round glasses on the TV.
For someone who doesn’t get involved in politics that much, I have managed to make the news. Last summer I got quoted on the front page of the Statesman and now I have had 10 seconds on channel 7.

Sixes

2009-02-23T15:12:00.000-08:00

I got tagged. This is how it works: go to the pictures folder on your computer, go to the sixth file, go to the sixth picture, post it, then tag 6 people.

This is a picture of Diane and me taken in McCall, Idaho in February, 2006. We went up with the Bernhardts to look at the ice sculptures.

I tag Diane, Colin, Patrick, Jason, Gage and Kinsey Good luck!

Improbable story

2009-02-16T07:28:00.000-08:00

Back in 1988, I attended a Steve Covey Management Conference. During the conference I got very well acquainted with one of the Covey staff members. Sometime later, I was in Provo and went to the Covey office for some materials. While there, I learned that this acquaintance was in the hospital. He had helped a kid that had knock down some power lines from being electrocuted, but in the process he was badly shocked and was now in the hospital recovering. I visited him at the hospital and was surprised to see a copy of Louis L’amour’s, The Last of the Breed, by his bed. I knew that he liked fiction about as much as I did. I asked what was with the book. He said he would make the same challenge to me as another friend had made to him, that was, if I could read the first page without reading the rest of the book, he would give me $5.00. Well I took the book home knowing I could make an easy $5.00. A few days later, I read the first page and could not put the book down. I have never been hooked like that on any reading material, but I was that time.

Over the years this story has seemed improbable and I had begun to think it was some story I had made up in my own mind. I could not believe that I would visit an acquaintance in the hospital, so I kind of wrote it off as my imagination.

A couple of weeks ago, one of our ward members, Grant Lee was absent from church to attend his brother’s funeral.

Later I was talking to Grant and he said that his brother had worked for Steve Covey. I asked if he had ever been electrocuted, Lee said no, but that his brother-in-law who also worked for Covey had been electrocuted and he was going to be in Boise the next week and attend our ward’s Empty Nesters group.

So last Monday, Grant introduced me to his brother-in-law, David Conley. I related the book story to him and he said: “yes, he remembered giving the book to someone and giving him the $5.00 challenge.”

Well, I guess my mind has not completely slipped into neutral. And sometimes I am a “good guy” and visit acquaintances in the hospital.

Last night we went to an organ recital by Dave Young. We have known Dave’s family for years and Dave was the organist in the Goddard ward before we moved. The recital was in the Cathedral of the Rockies where Dave in one of the organists. The music was great, but there were a bunch of people from the Goddard ward there, so we got to do a lot of visiting and catching up on news and gossip.

Groundhog Day

2009-02-10T19:18:00.000-08:00

I’m getting behind. The highlight last week, of course, was Groundhog Day. We invited Jason, Chris, Ethan, Fiona, Brent, Whitney, Mackenzie, Abby and Brooke over for Dinner. Mom made my favorite, lasagna, and there were chocolate covered raisins. After dinner Grammy thought we should have some games. So we started with Pin the Nose on the Groundhog (always a favorite of mine.) After that we played a version of “hot potato”, only we had a groundhog to pass around (not a real ground hog.) The kids had fun and everyone got a prize.

Tuesday morning I could not sleep, so I dug out an Economic text from a class I had in 1962. (Can you think of something better to put you to sleep?) As I got studying, I got to wondering what had gone wrong with Keynesian economics that made Reagan switch to Supply-side economics in the 1980’s. Macroeconomics has never been my strong suit, but I have done enough microeconomic modeling that I thought I might figure out what went wrong. Well, it didn’t take a very complicated model to find the culprit. Nixon pulled the trigger that would destroy Keynesian economics when he implemented price controls back in 1971. The price controls put such an imbalance in the economy, that it still had not been able to correct itself 10 years later.

Well my theory might not be right, but I sure had a lot of fun doing the analysis. As a sidebar, the professor that I had the economics class from was Richard Wirthlin, who would become the chief strategist for President Reagan.

On Saturday we drove over to see Granny. She had had a ”spell” that morning and had fallen, but by the time we got there she seemed fine, but a bit tired – probably from the adrenaline rush during the “spell”. Granny wanted a taco for lunch so I went to Taco John’s and picked-up lunch – last of the big spenders. After lunch we visited for a couple of hours and then headed home.

We called Neil and RaeDene and they joined us for dinner in Burley. We had a great time visiting with Granny, but I guess I’m getting old because that much driving in one day really gets to me now.

All is well with us and I hope all is well with you.

History of the Mac

2009-01-28T21:32:00.000-08:00

I started recording our checks on the Mac August 2, 1985. (I still have all of our check records back to that date.) I know that we had Colin buy the Mac at BYU so he could get the school discount, so it must have been purchased before May of 1985.
Colin did the first upgrade. He actually had to hand solder the new memory.
I did trade that first Mac to a fellow at work so that we could buy the latest model. I still have that Mac out in the shed, I think. In the back of the cover it has the signatures of all the people that developed the Mac.
At that point I was buying Mac’s for Ore-Ida and got a great deal from the local computer store. I don’t remember the name of the store, but it was located on Capital Blvd. just north of the Library.
We always had the latest model within a few months of them coming out.
After we quit buying Macs for Ore-Ida, I had the kids buy them at collage with the student discount. I remember going to the BYU Book Store with Ann to purchase the first portable.
Gage and Ann have been the recipients of the last few Mac’s since they are the only kids still using a Mac.
So, for almost 24 years, we have had a Mac in our home.
History of the Mac.
I started recording our checks on the Mac August 2, 1985. (I still have all of our check records back to that date.) I know that we had Colin buy the Mac at BYU so he could get the school discount, so it must have been purchased before May of 1985.
Colin did the first upgrade. He actually had to hand solder the new memory.
I did trade that first Mac to a fellow at work so that we could buy the latest model. I still have that Mac out in the shed. In the back of the cover it has the signatures of all the people that developed the Mac.
At that point I was buying Mac’s for Ore-Ida and got a great deal from the local computer store. I don’t remember the name of the store, but it was located on Capital Blvd. just north of the Library.
We always had the latest model within a few months of them coming out.
After we quit buying Macs for Ore-Ida, I had the kids buy them at collage with the student discount. I remember going to the BYU Book Store with Ann to purchase the first portable.
Gage and Ann have been the recipients of the last few Mac’s since they are the only kids still using a Mac.
So, for almost 24 years, we have had a Mac in our home.

Time for some sunshine

2009-01-25T12:50:00.000-08:00

Not a whole lot to report on this week. The big downer has been the weather, we have not seen the sun in almost 2 weeks and I’m sure this has had a major impact on my mood and attitude. I have been faithfully attending water aerobics, music class and did a stint at the cannery on Friday, but what I wanted to do was hibernate. My bad hip only allows me to lie for a limited time, so If I don’t want to sit in the closet for the next 60 days, I’m just going have to grin and bear it.
On Friday I gave Diane a choice of going to the symphony or to an Irish band and dance performance. Thank goodness, she chose the Irish group. (I think the symphony would have been very depressing and I didn’t need any more depressing – it was the passion of Joan of Arc.)

The Irish band and dancers were fantastic. The dancers were as good as I have seen and the band could keep your blood flowing. They had the local Irish dance group perform – they were very good and had very elaborate dresses, but that made the costumes the focus rather than the dancing. It was a great evening and well worth the trip to Caldwell.

Last night, Saturday, we went to the Community Concert. It was a violinist who was a great technician, but he seemed so bored with what he was doing I could not get interested in this program, so I would rate the performance as poor which is not the norm for the Community Concerts.

Exciting week

2009-01-15T16:59:00.000-08:00

We started the week with the “Empty Nesters“ – the old folks of our ward – meeting at our home. I was able to get the DVD, “Nobody Knows: The Untold History of Black Mormons”. It was very well received by almost everyone, but there was one person that thought it was too critical of the church. As people were leaving most said how much they appreciated learning about the history of the Blacks in the church. Mom and I decided it had been a very successful evening.

Last night we went to the kick-off activity for the OSHER group - the BSU adult learning program. It was called “A Celebration for the Spirit”. It was in two parts, with both parts based on a composition by Igor Stravinsky entitled “A Soldier’s Tale” which tells of a soldier who trades his fiddle to the devil. During the first half, a 7-piece orchestra would play a short section of the composition, then a Jazz quintet, would improvise on the section by setting it to a jazz pattern. It was fascinating to see how parts of a very classical piece could be performed in a jazz format. In the second half, the orchestra played the piece in its entirety, which included a narrator and a couple of dancers. All in all, I was a very enjoyable evening.

This morning, I went to second session entitled “A Celebration for the Mind”. (Mom had book club, so she could not attend.) This session was based on a format that was created by Fred Friendly back in the mid 70’s. Friendly collaborated with some of the country's leading lawyers, journalists and politicians to create a series of roundtable debates on media and society. This morning’s roundtable was moderated by a couple of retired political science professors that are well known in the area for their political commentary. The panelists included a couple of political sciences professors, a couple of well known political journalists, the past Idaho Speaker of the House, the past Minority leader, and a political lobbyist. The moderators would set up a situation and then assign a couple of the panelists to take differing sides and debate the issue. Most of the time, the panelists were assigned the opposite side that they were known to support. It was very enlightening and very humorous at times. The main lesson I learned was that to be effective in governing, you had to be willing to compromise and take the political risk that it might be against your principles or opposed to the wishes of the majority of your constituency, but it was the best for governing to provide basic services and the rule of law.

2nd week of 2009

2009-01-12T16:59:00.001-08:00

I think it has been a very uneventful week. It hasn’t even been worth getting the mail. We did buy an additional kitchen chair. So I would have to say my highlight this week was driving out to Parma Furniture to see if they had a chair that would match –they didn’t, but it was a fun drive.

Oh yes, I had my teeth cleaned. I knew I had a couple of chipped teeth, so when Dr. Widdison came in I was not surprised when Michelle, the technicians, said that I had some chips that need to be filled. But to my surprise and dismay, Dr Widdison, repaired the chip on my front tooth. How could he do that – I have proudly had this chip for 62 years. It was a symbol of my childhood. It was chipped when I was using my teeth to pull the tires off from small toy trucks – now it’s gone. That’s all right–I still remember the fun it was to use the wheels on other road building equipment that I made from wooden blocks.

I have been teaching a genealogy class in our ward. It is impossible for me to teach how to access the online systems when I know that in a few months we will have access to the new Family Search program. Any data that class members would input would just have to be entered again. So I have been focusing on personal histories and interviewing family members. I feel good about this. I remind them that if they put-off doing online research, there will be more and better information in the future, but if one of their relatives dies, that information is gone, never to be recovered.

Christmas 2008

2009-01-01T21:22:00.000-08:00

It was a great Christmas. We started Christmas Eve with dinner at our house. Ann and both of the families that live here, along Brent’s folks joined us.
We started Christmas day with Fiona, Ethan, Chris and Jason to watch the kids open their presents. I don’t know how Santa did it, but Ethan got a tub with 50 pounds of Legos. Fiona got a 3-story dollhouse – it even has an elevator in it. We had a great time watching the kids. Chris and Jason made a great breakfast that included “monkey bread”.

After breakfast we returned home to see what Santa had dropped off at our place. We received a number of fantastic presents including donations made to some of my favorite organizations.

That evening we went over to Brent and Whitney’s place to see what presents were at the Edward household. They invited us to stay for a fondue dinner, which we were more than willing to accept.

Abby had gotten a Guitar from her Edward grandparents, so after dinner, with the aid of her grandpa Edward, she accompanied us for a few simple tunes – not bad for the first try. Mackenzie then played the piano for us to close out a great evening.

It was fun to have Ann here at home for a week. We hope she got caught up on her sleep because she certainly did a lot of it - in between projects.

Today, January First, we took down Christmas, Most everything is put away. Mom is keeping some “winter “ items for a Relief Society function next week.

We are looking forward to a great new year and hope you are too.

Party time

2008-12-23T14:57:00.001-08:00

I must apologize for my lack of up-dates on this blog. Whenever I think I need to add something, I go blank as to what is going on in my life. But there are a number of things I should report on.

On Saturday we went with Fiona, Ethan and their folks on a “Polar Express” ride that leaves from Horseshoe Bend. It was a great trip. The Santa and singing group were wonderful with the kids. On our way home we stopped in Horseshoe Bend at one of our favorite hamburger places.

This past week Mom and I have been “party animals”. Last Monday we got together with our Family Home Eaten’ group. We had an excellent dinner at the home of Kelly & La Vonne Pearce. Their home is always so beautifully decorated (they have had first or second place in the neighborhood contest for a number of years.) After dinner we all told stories of Christmases past. It was rather late when we finally left.

Then on Friday night we were invited to a party with Roger & Ellie Kynaston. A number of the people were the same as were at Monday’s party. Once again we had a great dinner, then sang Christmas carols and once again told stories (by our age you have lots of stories, if only you can remember them.)

Sunday night was Mom’s book club party. No dinner this time, but there were fantastic treats. Mom took chewies and home made caramels (thank-heavens there were a lot of goodies, so I got to bring home some of the chewies and caramels.)

On Fridays I have been volunteering in the dry-pack section at the cannery. The first day I was there, I helped a lady break into her car – she had left the keys on the seat. A short time later, I had to get the jumper cables out to help start another car. The next week I went, a lady got her finger smashed in the car door, so I took her to the hospital to get some stitches. I missed one week and there were no emergences – makes me wonder if I might be “bad luck.”

an interesting week

2008-11-09T21:56:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been an interesting week. On Monday, Mom and I got our flu shots. I’m wondering if I really got the shot. I didn’t feel a thing when I got the shot and I had absolutely no soreness afterwards. (Great as long as I don’t get the flu.) Monday evening we went out to dinner with Amy and Gordon Stevens. We went to the new Flatbread Pizza restaurant that has opened in Meridian. We haven’t seen the Stevens for 12 plus weeks. Amy is doing very well. We had a great time catching up on families and trips.
After dinner, we said good-by to the Stevens, and went over to the Paramount clubhouse to set-up for Tuesday’s election. The set-up when very quickly and easily. (This was not how the rest of the election went though.)
On Tuesday, I went over to the Paramount clubhouse with Diane at 7:00 a.m. to be sure everything was in place. The polls were not to open until 8:00, but there were people waiting to vote when we got there. We have an OSHER class on World Religions each Tuesday, so I left Mom and her crew (Diane Kelson, Jan Ditman, Evelyn Nuffer, Iris Hunter and Cheryl Bernhardt) to do their thing.
Class was great. This week’s subject was about Taoist and Confucian beliefs. The instructor is Elton Hall, he was a professor of philosophy at a California university, but has spent a lot of time in China and India, so he is very well versed in the subject of Eastern religions.
After class, I came home to do some chores that I have been putting off since we got home from the trip. But at 3:30, I got a panic call from Diane – they were about to run out of registration forms and I was to go to another polling place and see if I could steal some more forms. The people at the Catholic Church were very helpful and gave me more than I asked for. When I got to Paramount, I found that this was just the beginning of the panic situations that would occur during the rest of the day. They ran out of ballots 4 times before the day was over. At one point there were no ballets for over an hour. I stayed the rest of the day to run for supplies and do crowd control. There was some murmuring as the people had to wait but for the most part they were very unruffled by the whole thing. The underlying problem was that almost half of the people had to register before they could vote. This meant that a lot more people showed up to vote than were registered in the poll book and it meant long lines. Anyway, to say the least, Diane was happy when the last person voted at 9:00 pm, an hour after the polls closed. I was pleasantly surprised when the entire book work and clean up was finished by 10:30. When we got home, Diane fell into bed.
On Wednesday, Diane had a Relief Society Presidency meeting, so I went to organ class by myself. We always have a good time at class and even learn a little about the organ.
On Saturday we started the day attending a class called: Chemistry for the Curious. It was a great class. We learned about the “universal gas law” by putting a blown up balloon in liquid nitrogen. We learned about catalysts by seeing how much foam is created when you add a catalyst to a mixture of liquid soap and hydrogen peroxide. Then we got to test what kind of soda pop reacts the most violently with 7 Mentos. I chose ginger ale, but was beat out by diet coke that reacted the most. We had a great time and even learned a little.
Saturday afternoon, I helped Jason power wash his house. Then in the evening, we had dinner and played “hand and foot” with the Workman group.
Today I started teaching a Genealogy class that will last 5 weeks during the Sunday School hour.

Service – on Three Strings

2008-10-30T16:24:00.000-07:00

As I get older and find that there are more and more things that I think I can't do, or if I can do them, it takes a lot longer. So some times, I say, “poor me” and stop trying – to be of service, to take an active part, or to keep learning. But then I came across this story that reminds me that I can do it - It will just take a little more effort and more skill.

"On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is a sight. He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play. By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. They wait until he is ready to play. But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap. It went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do. the people . ... figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage - to either find another violin or else find another string for this one. But he didn't. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before. Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that. You could see him literally changing and recomposing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was "coaxing" the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before. When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. They were all on their feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything they could to show how much they appreciated what he had done. He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said, not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent one, "You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left." What a powerful line that is. ... Here is a man who has prepared all his life to make music on a violin of four strings, who, all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three strings. So he makes music with three strings, and the music he made that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that he had ever made before, when he had four strings. So, perhaps our task in this world in which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then, when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left. (Jack Riemer, Houston Chronicle).

Israel/Jordan/Egypt

2008-10-22T15:43:00.000-07:00

For the past 18 days we have been traveling in the Middle East. We started in Jerusalem. After checking into our hotel and having a short introduction meeting we took a cab to the BYU Jerusalem Center for an excellent concert. The next day we visited the Garden of Gethsemane and the Mount of Olives for an overview of the city’s topography. Next we walked the Via Dolorosa and saw the 14 Stations of the Cross that are depicted in almost every Catholic Church we have visited around the world. We missed the last 3 stations in the Holy Sepulcher because Diane had a reaction to the higher dose of blood pressure pills she had started to take just before the trip. She soon recovered and we were on our way again. We were surprised to find that they have moved the model of the Old City to a new location near the Shrine of the Book Museum where the Dead Sea Scrolls are displayed. I had another surprise when we visited the Holocaust Museum and found that it had moved since we visited it 19 years ago. We toured the temple mount and had another surprise when we were unable to go into the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock. We had a couple of excellent lectures from an Israeli and a Palestinian who tried to provide an insight to the current issues.

Next we were off to the Mediterranean coast, to see Caesarea and Akko (Acre), where the Crusaders had a fortress. We just did a drive through of Nazareth because we had to get to our hotel in Tiberius before Yom Kippur began which brought our program to a stand still for 24 hours since every thing shuts down and no cars are allowed on the road. The next day we explored Capernaum and the Mount of Beatitudes. From there we crossed over into Jordan (which was a major hassle because of Israeli security) and visited some excellent Roman ruins at Jerash before driving to Amman.

The next day we visited the National Archaeological Museum, viewed some sites in Amman before driving to Madaba where we saw the sixth-century mosaic map in St. George’s Church and visited Mount Nebo where Moses was allowed to see the Promised Land (which makes the desert between Boise and Mountain Home look like the Garden of Eden. I think this is why the Lord let them wander in the Sinai for 40 years so that anything looked good.)

We spent the night in Aqaba at a 5 star hotel. The next day we visited Petra, which exceeded my expectations, which were very high to start with. No matter how many times you have seen “Raiders of the Lost Arc”, this place is fantastic.

The next day we visited the Dead Sea before flying to Cairo to see the Great Pyramids and the sphinx.
We next flew to Aswan and saw the High Dam, the Unfinished Obelisk and the Temple of Philae before getting on our boat to travel down the Nile River to Luxor to visit the Valley of Kings, Queen Hatshepsut’s Temple, and the Karnak and Luxor temples. (As we visited the temples, the guide told us that they were all painted, but until we saw how they were painted inside the tombs we could not imagine just how magnificent they must have appeared when they were first built.)

From Luxor we flew back to Cairo to visit the Egyptian Museum, the Citadel, the Coptic Church and visit the Khan el Khalili Bazaar.

It is hard to believe how much history is packed into the places we visited. Most of the time my mind was on “over load” as I tried to comprehend what we were seeing and the history that had taken place at each of the sites we visited,

The group that we traveled with was great. We have never been with an Elderhostel group that was so interested in knowing about the Mormons. We had a number of conversations where we were able to talk about the church and in some cases correct some of the misconceptions the people had about the church. (A few of the people commented that we had certainly destroyed their stereotype of a Mormon.)

As we have traveled the world, we have often run into the missionaries, but we knew we would not see any missionaries in the Moslem countries, but to our surprise, we did see Elder Holland in the hotel in Cairo.

Great Week

2008-09-27T21:30:00.001-07:00

I saw the Orthopedic Surgeon this week and we have set a February date for a hip replacement. While I was there I got a steroid injection in my thigh. This time I got stuck lower on my leg than in the past and my leg has not felt this good in a year, but now I can feel how bad my hip hurts, so I’m very glad to have a date set.

We attended a family birthday party for Brooke. Whitney had a great dinner and had made a spectacular cake. It was fun to see the girls. (Mackenzie’s math is getting a little harder, so I got to help her with some math problems.)

On Monday we had a picnic with our FHE (Family Home Eating) group. We just sat around after dinner and talked. It is such a great group of people to be around (sometimes I wonder how I managed to be a part of the group.)

On Friday night we got together with the Hand & Foot group. We were a few minutes late and when we came through the door we could hear the high pitched discussion going on about how terrible it was that we were doing a bailout of the fat cats on Wall Street. I kept my mouth shut and only gave very brief answers when I was asked a direct question. (My politics is far to the left of the rest of the group although I consider myself a conservative. The rest of them believe that truth is only spoken by Rush Limbaugh.) I still enjoy visiting with the group.

I have been attending a day-time Book of Mormon class taught by Morris Bastian. Whenever we need to check on the validity of anything that comes up in class, Brother Bastian asks me to do the research. I’m sure the rest of the class is wondering who this Scott is that gets to settle any questions.

It’s been over a month since we have been to an organ class, but this week Lowrey had one of its artists come and give classes and perform a concert for us. We didn’t attend any classes since Mom was subbing at Fairmont, but we did go to the concert and had a great time.

I started today watching Abby’s soccer game at 9:00. This is the first year that she has played on the big fields, so the girls all get pretty tired. In addition, there are not enough players to have any subs, so every girl has to play the full game. At today’s game all the girls on both teams ran out of steam with about 10 minutes left in the game. There were times when the ball sat idle and nobody was trying to kick it. All the parents were yelling, but I just had to laugh.

We ended the day with a visit from Ethan, Fiona and Chris. It was great to see them. We have a new game that the Johnsons introduced us to called Walk the Dog, so we played that with Chris and the kids.

Well, it has been a great week and I hope it has been the same for you.

Yellowstone and beyond

2008-09-19T18:47:00.000-07:00

We decided to visit Old Faithful and started out on our journey. Just a few miles before the Park entrance we ran into road construction. After a mere two hour wait we were on our way again. Right behind us in line were a couple of motor homes. The nice people in them were willing to share their bathroom facilities which made the wait much more bearable. We got lunch to go at the Old Faithful Inn Deli and took it up to the balcony to eat it outside. The balcony provided a perfect viewing place to watch Old Faithful erupt, which it did about 10 minutes after we finished eating
We returned to Teton Village much more quickly as the road construction at least allowed one-way traffic. The wait was only 15 minutes. We had dinner at a very nice, very expensive restaurant in Teton Village. Unfortunately the dinner was less impressive than the price. Back at the condo we put together another puzzle, which was much easier than the previous one. And another bonus, it had all of it’s pieces.
The next morning we were up bright and early headed for Cody, which meant we had to pass through the road construction one more time. We made a quick stop at Fishing Bridge to pick up goodies (and diet coke) before proceeding on to Cody. Our primary destination in Cody was the Buffalo Bill Historical Center, which is a collection of five different museums. We began in the Firearms museum where we learned the history of gun making and saw way more guns than we were really interested in. Then we moved on to the Whitney Gallery of Western Art, which includes the largest collection of Charles Russell and Frederick Remington paintings in the US. It also included other painters and sculptors. We spent an hour in that section and didn’t do it justice. From there we went to the Plains Indian Museum where we saw many Indian artifacts including beautiful beadwork, quillwork and headdresses. The Buffalo Bill Museum was next on the agenda. This is the original collection of the museum and is very extensive with wagons, Wild West show film footage, clothing, furnishings, photos and things that were presented to Buffalo Bill by European royalty and US Presidents. Lastly we went to the Museum of Natural History, which had a trail through the Yellowstone ecosystems. It included many animals and interactive exhibits that kids would like.
After leaving the museum we drove past the house that we lived in when we were in Cody 40 years ago. It has had some major renovations including changing the garage into a room and the addition of a bay window to the living room. It’s appearance was much changed from when we lived in it, but the house next-door, which was a duplicate, was unchanged so looked very familiar.
After dinner we visited the LDS church which we had attended to view the historic mural in the lobby. The painting is in a dome that is about 20 feet in diameter and depicts the first 120 years of church history. It is fascinating to see how the artist has depicted the historical events, the modern prophets and the emotions of both LDS and non-LDS people that were evoked by the times.
The next day it was back through Yellowstone Park but this time we didn’t have to pass through the South Gate and the construction. We went to Yellowstone Canyon and saw the waterfall. Along the way we saw a large herd of buffalo fording the river. We saw extensive wildlife all over the park, including elk, deer, pronghorn antelope, moose, a bald eagle and buffalo, but no bears.
When we got to West Yellowstone Marlys and Gary Carter were unavailable but we did go visit the Carter Gallery where we ran in to their son, Jeff. We had a great time reminiscing and catching up on his family and their numerous activities. As usual we enjoyed seeing the paintings on display.
We headed off to Rexburg where we visited the temple grounds. The temple sits on a very prominent hill and can be seen from all over the valley. The temple itself is very similar to the Twin Falls temple. We drove around the BYU-Idaho campus, which reminded us of what BYU was like in Provo when we attended it almost 50 years ago.
This morning we returned to Idaho Falls, dropped the Stewarts and Wrights off at their car, and then went to visit Granny. We had a nice visit with her before heading home to Boise. At the Kimberly exit we exchanged waves with Jason and his family who were headed in the opposite direction on their way to Idaho Falls.

Teton

2008-09-16T07:29:00.000-07:00

After a brief visit with Granny in Idaho Falls, we met the Wrights and Stewarts and headed off to Jackson Hole. We are actually staying in Teton Village in a very roomy 3 bedroom condo.
On Sunday, we took a quick tour of Jackson where they were just finishing up a street fair. As with all tourist towns there is always a lot of change. Our favorite gallery, the Trailside has moved off from the square. But for the most part Jackson has a very familiar feel to it. We ate dinner at Nora's Fish Inn at Wilson which has always been a favorite dining place. We ended the day putting together a jigsaw puzzle. (Always one of my favorite activities.)
On Monday, we headed into Teton Park. It was really great to have Dale as a guide. He has been here a lot of times and has scouted all the best places to get fantastic pictures of the mountains, wild life and the valley.
We started our travels at the new Park Headquarters where they have some excellent displays. From there we went to Signal Hill that is near the center of the valley and gave us a 360 degree panorama of the valley.
Of course, with this group, you know you are going to eat well. So for lunch we stopped by the Jackson Lake Lodge for a nice lunch. From there we headed south for some for photo ops.
Dale has good friend that has an excellent gallery just north of town. They had beautiful works of art but there was a sculpture that just tore at my heart. It is called The Last Farewell.
We finished up the day eating an excellent dinner and then putting together another puzzle.

Birthdays and Visitors

2008-09-08T12:00:00.000-07:00

This week it was birthday cake, football and visitors. We started the week celebrating Brent’s birthday and ended it celebrating Jason’s birthday. The cakes were great. Whitney had made a cake that looked like a giant I pod for Brent. For Jason, the cake was a little more traditional. It was three layers, two chocolate and one white.
Noelle and Patrick flew down for the weekend. We can claim it was to visit with us but if you check the calendar you will see that it was Art in the Park weekend in Boise. On Saturday the men got together to watch the BYU-UW game while the girls had a second round of visiting Art in the Park. It was a great game but I was sorry to see it end on what I think was a very poor call by the officiators.
I had not been aware of it but Chris found that Sunday was Grandparent’s Day, so Grammy was given a box of Fernwood Mints and Pops received a new shirt from Ethan and Fiona.
Having the Johnson family stay at our house the past two weeks has been quite enjoyable. They are with us while they wait to get into their new home in Boise. It has been nice having somebody besides Diane and me to say the blessing on the meals. We got to see their new home and they will be in it later this week. When we return from our trip to Wyoming the house will be a little too quiet again. People are always asking how the Johnson’s are related to us and we have to explain that there is no blood relationship. Derek’s grandmother, Catherine Ward, and my mother (Granny) were closer than sisters, so even though we can’t locate them on our genealogy file, we still consider them family.

Chelan & Pendleton

2008-08-29T20:50:00.000-07:00

Since we had nothing on our calendar for a couple of days we decided to take a quick trip. We looked on my list of “places to go” and nothing was feasible for only a few days. Wednesday as I left water aerobics, I thought about Lake Chelan so I went past the AAA office and picked up a Washington tour book. By 1:00pm we were on the road. We got to Chelan and had dinner and made reservations for a boat ride up the lake for the next day.
On Thursday, we were on the boat at 8:30 a.m. It was an interesting trip, but the scenery was not all that great. Knowing that a glacier had formed the area, I think I was expecting to see something like the fjords of Norway. At the far end of the lake we took a quick bus ride up to a beautiful waterfall. I got back on the boat to save seats and Mom went into the restaurant to pick up something us for lunch. I got a great sandwich and we sailed and ate on the way back down the lake.
We got back to Chelan about 3:00 then headed for the quilt store. There as a nice bench outside, so I was content to people watch. We looked in a few other stores then took a ride along the lakeshore. From the boat, you had no idea how many homes there were along the lake.
This morning we got up and drove to Pendleton, We had a great lunch then when on a tour of the Pendleton underground. We saw where the Speakeasies were during the days of prohibition, and where the Chinese laundry and living quarters were beneath the buildings. And of course we had to see where the local brothel had been. A non-profit group has done a good job of collecting period pieces and restoring the underground facilities.
We next stopped by the Pendleton Woolen Mills and had a very enjoyable tour there. The only things that they make at the Pendleton mill are blankets, and most all of them are some sort of Indian pattern. We saw how the wool was carded and spun into thread as well as seeing the blankets woven and inspected for flaws.
From there we headed home to Boise.

highlights:

2008-08-21T12:08:00.000-07:00

It was great to have a couple of daughters visit, even if I was a bystander to most of the activities.

Being invited to the movie by a granddaughter, even though the movie was not all that great.

Celebrating a birthday and having an official teenager for a granddaughter.

Having Family Home Eating (others might call it Evening) with our friends. The food was great; the game was okay (Facts in 5, with church subjects) and a good but brief discussion on the Pearl of Great Price.

Mom’s highlights:

Making progress on Noelle’s wedding quilt (two rows sewn together).

Having the family that was in Boise over for dinner on Sunday and singing “Happy Birthday” to Mackenzie.

Spending Saturday with my daughters

Love the process

2008-08-14T10:37:00.000-07:00

After the lecture and study of geology that I have been involved with the past 2 days, I learned something new about myself. I love processes and hate lexicons. I can’t remember the names of the rock but I can tell you how they were formed and how they got to their current location. I know how Lake Boise was formed and later drained, but I don’t know hardly any of the rock names, and what’s more, I don’t care what their names are.

As I look back on my education, this was always the issue. I loved story problems because I could figure out the process. I loved history and the movement of clans and the formation of nations, but never knew the kings’ name of the county or even the county’s name. Classes like biology where the emphasis was on learning the various naming structures was not something I did well in.

I remember when we were visiting a winery in Chile. When it came time to sample the wine, I of course refused to the amazement of a couple of the men stand near by. They said: “you have been asking most of the questions and yet you’re not interested in the wine. How come?” I said it was the process that fascinated me, not the product.

The greatest joy of my working days was studying and “modeling” the process. I could learn computer languages very easily because they were the language of a process.

Hi-lights August 14

2008-08-14T05:10:00.000-07:00

Eating white peaches off Jason and Chris’ tree – I forget just how good they are because they don’t come every year.

The dog-days-of-summer brings corn on the cob. Had some twice this week.

When to the show in Nampa (low brow art-in-the-park) – Mom wouldn’t let me buy the sign that said “An old bear and his Honey live here” – she said it was too tacky – she was right. (But it's still a cut saying and true.)

Water aerobics have been my salvation this past 9 months – but it’s time to see the doc about the bad hip.

Went to a lecture about Idaho geology – so I had to spent most of yesterday looking up information – the geology of Idaho is about as complex and you can find any where in the world

Idaho Panhandle

2008-08-05T19:04:00.000-07:00

Along with a bike ride on the Hiawatha trail, we did a number of other fun things while visiting the Idaho panhandle. We flew into Spokane and used it as our home base. After arriving we drove to Farragut State Park on the south end of Lake Pend Oreille. I had always heard that it was a Navy submarine training base. But we found that it was just a Naval boot camp during World War II. Between it’s opening in September, 1942, and its decommissioning in June, 1946, it served as temporary home to almost 300,000 naval recruits. After the war and even today Lake Pend Oreille is used for studying underwater detection systems. (I guess this is where I got the idea that it was a submarine base.)
It is a beautiful lake. It reminded me of the fjords in Norway, The steep mountains go straight into the water with no beaches. We learned how it was cut by glaciers and about the ancient Missoula Lake flood the scoured most of Eastern Washington.

From there we went up to Sandpoint to look in the shops. Coldwater Creek will always be my favorite ladies store. They have some very nice chairs for the husbands to sit in while the wives shop. (In my case they had some nice chairs for me to nap in.)

The next day started with the bike ride that you can read about below. After the bike ride we stopped in Wallace where we took a Mine tour. It was an old mine that they used for a high school class back in the 80’s and 90’s. Since mining was the main industry in the valley, it was a popular class. We also took a short tour of the old Northern Pacific railroad station and the bordello museum. From there we made a quick visit of the Cataldo Mission

On Saturday we started the day at Coeur d’ Alene with a walk along the world’s longest boardwalk. (It circles the marina at the big resort hotel.) There was a street fair going on that was kind of like Art-in-Park. From there we took a boat ride around the lake. It is a beautiful lake, but you cannot imagine the size of some of the homes along the shore.
We had heard that the desserts in the hotel restaurant were great, so we stopped off for a taste. (Very good indeed.)
We then drove over to Spokane where we visited the site of the World Expo that was held back in the early 70’s. We then made a quick visit to see the temple. It is one of the very small temples and is right next to the Stake Center.
It was a great trip, but the bike ride was certainly the highlight.

HiawathaTrail

2008-08-04T22:29:00.000-07:00

I find it interesting that you can travel all over this great planet and then find one of the greatest adventures right in your own state. This past week we traveled to Northern Idaho and did the bike ride on the Hiawatha trail. The trail is 14 miles long and passes through 10 tunnels and over 7 trestles. You start and end the trip by riding through the St. Paul tunnel that is 1.7 miles long. It was great fun following the beam from your light through the almost pitch-black tunnel. From the tunnel, it is all down hill. The trail is an old abandoned rail line that has a 4% down hill grade almost all the way. You pass over a couple of trestles that are about 250 feet high. It’s a little scary looking straight down, but the view is spectacular.

.The mountain vistas are hard to describe – timber covered with some snow covered peaks. The flowers along the route were in their prime with blossoms of almost every hue. And I can’t forget the wildlife – a few chipmunks.
Along the route there are interpretive signs that tell the history of the railroad construction, the trains that traveled the route, the colorful people who worked and traveled in the area and the 1910 fire that was the largest forest fire in the USA.

Once we reached the bottom, there were buses to shuttle us and our bikes back up to the St. Paul tunnel. It took just under 3 hours to make the trip from top to bottom. Much of the time was spent reading the signs and taking in the scenery.
We rented the bikes, helmets and lights at the Lookout Pass Ski Area. They also provided a bike rack for the car to travel the 7 miles to the trailhead.

Guess Where?

2008-07-23T17:59:00.000-07:00

Mackenzie and Abby joined me for a trip to southern Idaho where we visited the Hagerman Fossil Bed's Museum. We were very disappointed when we found out that they didn't allow visits to the fossil beds. The steep and sandy terrain make it impossible to monitor the visitors and the condition of the fossil beds. After a delicious lunch at a very old-fashioned cafe in Hagerman we proceeded to the National Fish Hatchery. All that they had there at this time were fingerlings which were less than two inches long - but there were thousands of them. We did get to see some juvenile Sturgeon that were between four and five feet long. The girls were quite impressed that these were not full grown fish. I told them that I had seen a picture of a full-grown sturgeon being pulled out of the Snake River by a team of horses. As we left the National Hatchery we took a short-cut through the Idaho State Hatchery and were pleased to see that their fish runs were full of various sized and kinds of Trout. The most interesting were yellow Brook Trout, which I had never heard of before. From there it was off to World Famous Balanced Rock. We were disappointed that the other visitors there were from Oklahoma and not some foreign country. It was a little difficult hiking to the rock since both of the girls were wearing flip-flops. It was another great day visiting the sites of Southern Idaho . I am looking forward to the time when I will be able to introduce the next group of grandchildren to these Southern Idaho sites.

Birds

2008-07-20T10:31:00.000-07:00

In the small tree outside of my den is a bird's nest. Earlier this year a robin hatched one egg and mother and child were gone by the first of June. Shortly thereafter, I noticed a robin flying in and out of the nest. I check it out and saw that there were 3 eggs in the nest. Now there are 3 big mouths poking out of the nest.

Actresses in the Family

2008-07-17T20:16:00.000-07:00

We have some actresses in the family. The Paramount neighborhood children did the play, “A Midsummer Nights Dream”. It had been adapted for children and the number of participants was flexible. You could vary the number of narrators, fairies, swordsmen, etc. to accommodate the number of kids who wanted to be in the play. Forty children have been practicing twice a week since May. Mackenzie was a narrator and Abby was Robin Starveling, a tailor (Moon in the play within a play). Even though we are proud grandparents, Mackenzie was the best actress in the play hands down, and Abby wasn’t far behind. Mackenzie came out and talked like she was telling a story to a few good friends – all very natural with the proper inflection, articulation and projection. Most of the children just raced through their lines. The girl who played Hermia was the next best and she did a good job too. Abby was a good little actress and spoke right up with her lines. The play was performed outdoors with the audience sitting on a knoll, just like the Shakespeare Festival across town.

Twin Falls Temple

2008-07-16T03:19:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, 7/15/08, we traveled with Brent, Whitney and the girls, to Twin Falls to attend the Temple Open House. The Temple is fantastic. I'm so glad that they have gone away from the "Boise pattern" to the squarer format.

Inside the temple, the highlight was the mural in the ordinance room. It is a great depiction of the Magic Valley. You can see Shoshone Falls, Mt. Harrison, Mt. Independence. and the Snake River Canyon as is widens out into the Hagerman Valley. The original Minerva Teichert painting was quite impressive too.

Danube trip

2008-07-10T21:43:00.001-07:00

I have not posted anything about our trip on the Danube River. It is impossible to put in this limited space any meaningful summery of the trip. But as I was organizing the pictures, one photo stands out and so I thought I would share it with you. During the trip we heard a lot about World War 2 and the impact it had on the part of Europe we saw, but nothing was more poingnant that the shoes that stood along the Danube in Budapest in memory of all the Jews that died during that terrible war.

First of July

2008-07-08T19:28:00.000-07:00

I told you earlier about the having the CAT scan. Well I have now been to the doctor to learn of the findings. I have “gray hair” in my lower spine, which means that I have a lot of arthritic spears, but nothing that can be fixed. I’m getting old and that’s what comes with old age. When it does flare-up and gets too painful, they can give me an epidural steroid injection, which has helped in the past. It was also concluded that the arthritis in the hip is causing some of the muscle weakness but as long as I can walk a block, they don’t want to operate on the hip. So for now it is “grin and bear it.”

Braces

2008-07-05T11:29:00.000-07:00

Since Mom does not have a blog, I will pass on the information of changes in her life. After spending 2 weeks with Paul Kelson on the Danube trip, he was able to convince Mom and Cheryl that they should come in and see him about getting their teeth straighter. So now Mom and Cheryl are wearing braces. (Bernie and I think it was Paul's way to get us to pay for his trip)

LGB Train

2008-07-03T20:52:00.000-07:00

Well the LGB train now looks like a permanent part of the house. I cut an inch off the side of the track so that the brackets would fit and painted the track base and brackets to match the walls (with a lot of help from Mom). I have included the cars that are part of my history.

The sound system is really nice. It has the chugging sound as it moves then there are magnets on the tack that as the engine passes by it rings the bell or blows the whistle.

Mosaic

2008-07-01T09:08:00.000-07:00

If the next Generation can do it, so can I

Testimony

2008-06-28T23:27:00.000-07:00

This month's Ensign suggested we uses the Internet to share our testimony. Since this is the only public location I uses on the Internet, I decided I should post my testimony here

I affirm that God is my Heavenly Father, and take great comfort in knowing that he knows me. I have had those in authority tell me that my name has been whispered to them as they were seeking inspiration from our Heavenly Father.
I testify that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of all mankind, that he died that I would, to paraphrase Samual the Lamanite, be resurrected and brought back to the presence of my Father-in-Heaven. Not only did he die for me, but he lived for me and set the perfect example that I can follow to live eternally with my Father-in-Heaven.
I witness that the Holy Ghost testifies of all truth. I have heard his voice and have come to understand things that were far beyond my intellect's ability to comprehend on my own.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is divinely established and endowed with God's priesthood power. I have had the privilege of being an instrument in the hands of the Lord and witnessing first hand the miraculous power of this priesthood.
I also affirm that God has called prophets to direct his work in these the last days. Joseph Smith was the first such prophet and that under the direction of God, Joseph translated a record of God's dealing with the ancient inhabitants of America into what we have today as the Book of Mormon. The line of prophets has continued to lead the Church and does so today. In this world that seems to consume us, the Lord has provided a beacon, a ‘Moses,’ to help us through the turmoil.
Baptism and temple ordinances performed through God's priesthood are necessary for exaltation. Every human being is free to act and is responsible for his or her actions, to the degree that gospel truths have been well taught.
Furthermore, in order to return to my Heavenly Father's present, I must be able to "abide a celestial law." To do so, I must become celestial in nature through embodying essential Christian values. Primary among these values, I believe, are love, knowledge, integrity and faith. I am free to turn my back on the atonement of my Savior or to follow the path that leads to happiness.

The Week That Was

2008-06-27T20:09:00.000-07:00

Well it has been an interesting week – given nothing important happened. On Wednesday, I had a CAT scan on my lower back, but two hours before the scan they had to inject a dye in my spinal column. So I started out under a fluoroscope so they knew where to do the injection, then I played sudoku for 2 hours. When I got to the tray that you lay on to get a CAT scan, they had me lay on one side for 7 minutes, then I had to roll over to full turns “so the dye got all around the spinal column.” Five minutes of CAT scan and I could have Mom drive me home. I asked if the dye would turn me blue – there was a group I wanted to join. In a very serious tone, the nurse assured me that the dye would not change my color. So much for my humor.

On Thursday, we drove over to Idaho Falls for Granny’s birthday. When we got there, Tom Gerrard, one of Gail’s friends, was there from Burley. We visited with them for a few minutes then took Granny to lunch at Jakers. When we got back to her apartment, we showed her some of the pictures from our Danube trip and pictures from the family reunion. Granny is doing very well. She did scare us for a minute when she had a mild seizure, but as soon as she felt it coming on, she reached for a chewable pill and the seizure was over as soon as we realized something was happening.

Late last evening, Mom asked if I wanted to go on a bike ride with her. I said yes and off we went. We went across the dirt road that you take to get to Whitney’s and Mom worried that there might be stickers. I assured her that there were no stickers to worry about. We wandered around in the north part of our subdivision where there are very few houses. Mom was riding down the middle of the road and I was on the sidewalk. All of a sudden, there was a cracking sound under my tires. I looked down and the sidewalk was covered in goat head stickers. I started to race home but only made it half way when my tires went flat. I have had to remove goat heads before when the kids rode their bikes, but this was a first for me. In one shot I made up for all the stickers I have missed.

Fly Fishing

2008-06-15T20:42:00.000-07:00

Mom and I have been taking a fly fishing class. It is an OSHER class through BSU. The teacher owns a fishing shop here in town and is the most enthusiastic fisherman I have ever met. He and his profession are a match made in heaven.
The first class was just an overview of what fly fishing was all about – the equipment, the place to go close by and a number of other things. The next class was on how to read a river – where were the most likely places to find the big fish. The next class was on bugs – what are the fish feeding on – will they be looking for the nymphs or the adult.
The last class we attended was on casting. The instructor had a pole for each of us. We walked over to the park next to the classroom and spent an hour or so practicing. It has been years since I was fishing and I was never any good, but in 5 minutes I was casting better than I ever did back when I did fish.
We will only attend one more class then we are off to Cannon Beach. As part of the class they are going fishing on the South Fork, but we will be out of town. When the instructor learned that we would not make it on the fishing trip he said that when we get back to give him a call and he would arrange to take us fishing – what better services could you ask for.

2008-06-05T15:51:00.000-07:00

For the first day of Summer vacation, M, A and I headed off to the Bruneau Sand Dunes. We hiked to the top of the little dune with a couple of saucers that the girls had brought along. When we got almost to the top I suggested that this would be a good place for the girls to slide down. When the girls looked over the edge they thought Pops had asked them to commit suicide because it looked so steep. With a little coaxing the girls slid off the edge and had perfect rides to the bottom of the dune. I stayed on top and when the girls got back up, A and I rode down together laughing all the way and M followed us. I said I would stay at the bottom and take some pictures. M said she would stay at the bottom with me, but A was quick to head up again. Both the girls made one last climb for another great ride down. As we returned to the car they both said the hour-and -a-half ride it took to get to the dunes was worth it for the fun they’d had.
While we were so close we decided to drive down to the overlook of Bruneau Canyon. The girls had to agree with me that it was really surprising to find such a deep canyon out in the middle of the flat desert.
We returned to Mt. Home and finished up our outing with lunch at McDonald’s. I don’t think McDonald’s was the highlight, but the girls enjoyed that part of the trip too.

Maple-Glazed New Potatoes

2008-02-26T17:49:00.000-08:00

Mom has been subbing at Fairmont this week and so today I tried to plan dinner so that she didn’t have to worry about it when she got home. We had ham and maple-glazed new potatoes. I had seen the recipe for the potatoes in Better Homes and Gardens and it sounded like something we would really like. We enjoyed it so much that we decided to share the recipe with you. We halved the recipe and it is enough for 4 people (if two of the people are small). It is plenty for 3 people.
Maple-Glazed New Potatoes
Prep: 20 minutes
Roast: 55 minutes
Ingredients
* 3 lb. tiny new potatoes
* 1/4 cup butter, melted
* Salt and cracked black pepper
* 3 Tbsp. white balsamic vinegar
* 2 Tbsp. pure maple syrup
* 3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
* 1/4 cup chopped green onions
* 2 Tbsp. chopped fresh thyme
* 1 Tbsp. finely shredded lemon peel
Directions
1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Halve or quarter any large potatoes. In shallow dish large enough to hold potatoes in a single layer, toss potatoes with butter; season with salt and pepper. Spread in single layer. Roast potatoes, uncovered, for 45 minutes, stirring once or twice during roasting.
2. Meanwhile, in small dish, stir together vinegar, maple syrup, and sliced garlic. Drizzle potatoes with vinegar mixture, gently tossing with a spoon or spatula to coat. Continue to roast about 10 to 20 minutes more, until potatoes are fork-tender and glazed, stirring once or twice.
3. To serve, sprinkle potatoes with green onions, thyme, and lemon peel. Makes 6 servings.

Reading is Dangerous

2008-02-09T11:44:00.000-08:00

This morning we attended the World Wide Leadership meeting broadcast by the church. At the close of the meeting, President Monson gave his first talk to the adults of the church. He gave us 3 principles that we need to have as part of our daily lives. They were: 1) Prayer. 2) Reading and 3) Love.
I found it interesting that he said “reading.” He did not say study, nor did he say reading the scriptures. He spoke of the joy you find in a good book.
This reminded me about an article I read in the Southwest Airline magazine entitled: “Why reading is Dangerous.” You would enjoy it, I’m sure. It can be found at: http://www.spiritmag.com/2008_02/clickthis/02reading.php

Southern California

2008-02-07T17:14:00.000-08:00

Diane and I enjoyed out trip to “sunny” southern California. We flew in and out of San Diego. When we landed, we picked up a rental car, checked into a motel and still had the afternoon to enjoy. We took a trolley tour around San Diego to get the lay of the land and see the sights.
The next day we visited the USS Midway. We learn about life on a Navy ship and how aircraft landed and took off from the carrier. We toured all the operational areas as well as the living quarters. We also saw a number of restored aircraft. Volunteer docents, many who either served on the USS Midway or are former Navy pilots, provided explanations of the catapult and other operations. It was very enjoyable.
That afternoon we went to the zoo. Even thought we have seen many of the animals in the wild, it is still very enjoyable to visit the San Diego Zoo.
For lunch that day we went to a little place that Ann had recommended. Diane’s lunch was good, but mine was fantastic. In the evening we went to the Indigo Grill that had been recommended by Gage and Kinsey. It was so good that we went back the last night we were there.
The next day started with a visit to the Scripps aquarium. We had been there some thirty years ago, but we think everything has changed including the building the aquarium is in. From there it was up to Santa Monica to visit the Getty Villa. We took a couple of tours that were excellent. The docents were very knowledgeable. The J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa is home to the antiquities collection, so it is mainly Greek and Roman artifacts.
We didn’t know when we made the reservations, but our motel was just a quarter mile west of the L.A. temple. That evening we walked to a small pizza shop where we enjoyed the cosmopolitan clientele as well as a good pizza.
The next day we started our day at the Farmer’s Market, which is a delight with all the displays and fun shops. Then it was off to Pasadena to visit the Huntington Library and the Gamble house. The collections at the Huntington Library are amazing. As I viewed the art I realized that I had seen reproductions of almost every painting. The manuscripts were enjoyable and I gained some important insights as I toured the collection.
At the suggestion of our daughter, Ann, we visited the Gamble house built by David and Mary Gamble of the Procter and Gamble Company. It is an outstanding example of the Craftsman style architecture. As we were leaving the home, Diane said that that is what she had wanted our house to look like. I though that you could not even buy the wood in one of the rooms for less than a $100,000 and the workmanship would have to be added at I don’t know how much. It was a lovely home and not extravagant, but certainly out of my price range.
That night we drove down Hollywood Boulevard and down Sunset Boulevard. It was fun watching the people and seeing the sights. As we went past the Kodak Theatre, there was a huge crowd almost boiling into the street. Diane read the marquee and saw that Mandy Patinkin was performing. I’m not sure who that is, but my grandkids seem to be in the know.
The next day we went to the Reagan Library. I think it is miss-named. I think it should be the Nancy Costume Gallery. I could not believe how many of Nancy Reagan’s dresses were on display. Diane certainly enjoyed them, but I just kept finding places to sit and wait for Diane to move on to the next collection. I think the highlight of the Library is Air Force One.
We finished up the day at the Getty Center. There are four buildings that house an unbelievable amount of paintings on the second floor of each building and a varity of other art works on the main floors. It was a beautiful clear day and we could see from Santa Monica to downtown Los Angeles.
The next day we stopped at Mission San Juan Capistrano. I was very pleasantly surprised on how enjoyable it was to tour the mission. We learned a lot about early California history. We spent more than two hours at the Mission.
We ended the day touring Old Town San Diego. We took a guided tour provided by the California Parks Department. I was surprised at how much credit they gave the Mormon Battalion for the early development of San Diego.
All the locals were complaining how cold it was, but it was certainly warmer than Boise. It was a great trip and a real good escape from winter.

Epidural Steroid Injection

2008-02-07T09:42:00.000-08:00

On Monday, Jan. 28th, I had to go to the hospital where I got an epidural steroid injection to relive my sciatica (which mainly bothered me at night when I went to bed). It had to be done in the hospital because they use a fluoroscopy to place the needles. The procedure only took a few minutes and I was ready to leave an hour or so after I had arrived. I had to put ice packs on my back three-time that day, but I was free to do what I wanted. There was very little pain associated with the procedure and by that night my sciatica was greatly improved. By the next night the sciatica was gone. Since then I have a minor pain just one night, so I think it was a very successful procedure.
I still have a problem with my right hip, which is not going to get better until it is bad enough to replace. I’m not sure why the doctor wants to wait. I still have good motion in the joint, so the doctor wants to put off replacing the hip.
I must be getting very old since most of my reporting is about medical procedures.

Lincoln

2008-01-15T22:02:00.000-08:00

On Monday we attended an Osher lecture given by Judge Trott who is a member of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. His subject was Abraham Lincoln. It was an outstanding lecture. He made some comparisons between Lincoln’s suspensions of civil liberties and what is happening in today’s war against terrorism. He ended the lecture by playing Aaron Copland’s Lincoln Portrait. It was very moving.

some place warm

2008-01-05T14:33:00.000-08:00

If you haven’t been informed, Mom and I are off to San Diego for 5 days starting Jan 30th. Mom said she wanted to go somewhere warm. I thought we could spend some relaxing time – maybe a few sites, but mainly eating and relaxing in the San Diego area. It is not to be. Mom is making up a list of places to see that would take 2 or more weeks to cover and she has us going clear to Pasadena. Oh well, She is doing it for me. She thinks I can’t just relax.

I planed a similar trip to England some years back, I came home 2 inches shorter – Mom had run me to so many places.

Update

2008-01-04T20:12:00.000-08:00

Well it was a great Christmas. All the family was here on Christmas day, and on Christmas morning we had youngsters in the house and got to see the real excitement of the day. It was great just to see the excitement and all the coming and going of the family. I’m sure it will be a long time, if ever, before we have this much happening at Christmas time.

I am enjoying the gifts that I received. I suspect that it will be June before I have watched all the DVD’s that I received.

For New Year’s Eve I volunteered Mom and my evening to chaperone the youth dance. It turned out to be quite the evening. Fifty years has certainly changed the music and how the kids participated. The music was 3 times as loud and for the most part the kids just stood around in groups rather than danced. The kids were very well behaved so for the most part we just sat around and watched.

As part of my New Year’s resolutions, I have been going to water aerobics 3 days a week. As Noelle pointed out,”when was the last time Dad was in a bathing suit.” Well I do own one and have been faithful in attending the class.

Fix the hand

2007-12-18T14:56:00.001-08:00

On December 13, I had surgery on my left index finger. It went very well. By the time the numbness was gone it felt better than before the surgery. The surgery was to relieve a "trigger finger" that would lock up my index finger. The bandage and stitches will be gone Thursday, the 20th.

On Friday we drove to Utah to see the Mo Tab Christmas program. The King’s Singers performed and did a fantastic job. There was a dance number set to the 12 Days of Christmas that was great. The costuming was very creative.

Idaho Statesman

2007-12-07T20:17:00.000-08:00

Well today I made the front page of the Idaho Statesman. Wednesday, Kelley Pearce called and asked if I would be willing to talk to a reporter on what I thought of the upcoming speech by Mitt Romney. So after listening to the speech yesterday, I got a call from Bill Roberts who asked me a bunch of questions – I knew he had a long list of both Mormons and Non-Mormons to talk to so I certainly did not expect to be quoted, but this morning there was my name right on the front page saying:

“That's just fine with Scott Robertson, a lifelong Mormon from Meridian.

"If I vote for him, it's not going to be because he is a Mormon," Robertson said. "Even though I share his value system on a religious or moral point, I am much more interested (in) a balanced budget and factors like that. I care less what he does on Sunday."

My grammar is not that good, but that what happens when you don’t pass it through MS Word.

Status report

2007-12-05T20:00:00.001-08:00

Monday was not a good day. It started at the Orthopedic Surgeon’s office. I had hoped that he would say that he would replace my hip and all my problems would be over, but he said the biggest problem is muscle spasms and if they could be corrected, the hip would be fine for a while. He gave me a shot in the thigh and told me to come back in 6 weeks. The Church missionary department does not like having medical needs unresolved, so a mission is on hold for a while.

While there, I asked about a sore left index finger – hoping I could get a shot and it would be fine – NO! The problem is called a “trigger finger” and must be operated on. Great - I wanted the hip to be operated on and I got a shot. I wanted a shot for the finger and it has to be operated on. The finger surgery is scheduled for December 13. It is just an outpatient process with a local anesthetic – but I can’t drive myself home, so I foul up Mom’s very busy day.

I am wearing out and I don’t like it.

On to better news.

Earlier this year, we signed up for an Elderhostel trip to Egypt, Jordan and Israel for the spring of 2008. We were on a stand-by list, so if there were no openings, we would get our money back. Then the group that we play Hand & Foot with (Bernhardt, Nelson and Kelson) decided to take a cruise up the Danube River from Budapest to Nuremberg and we were willing to go along. So from April 26 to May 7 we will be cruising with an add-on to Prague.

After signing up for the cruise, Elderhostel called and said that they had added an additional trip to the Jordan, etc and we were now signed up. Well this was just too much for the spring and so that we did not lose our $1,000 deposit, we had to sign up for some other trip. We chose to go to Greece, October 12 to 25. It looks like we will continue to be world travelers for the year 2008.

Oregon coast

2007-11-27T16:00:00.000-08:00

Mom had spent the better part of two evenings checking the Internet for places to stay this summer for a family get-together. She was having no luck - even some phone calls went nowhere. I suggested that we drive over and see what we could find, so Sunday morning, after taking Ann to the airport, we left for the Oregon coast.

Mom’s preference was the Tolovana Inn at Cannon Beach. I thought it was rather remote, but was willing to take a look at it. We stopped there first and found that they had rooms during June. We decided to look at some other places so we drove through Cannon Beach and looked in the area where Brent and Whitney had stayed last year. The only place we saw that might accommodate all of us has dollar signs plastered all over it, so we moved on. I thought that Seaside might be a better place just because there were a lot more places to eat and shop. When we got to Seaside we checked a couple of places and found that the prices were not bad, but when I looked at the beach access, I knew this was not the place. You either had to walk 100 yards or you were in big crowds. Even in November, late in the afternoon, there was a crowd. During the summer you would have to tie a string to every kid or they would be lost in a minute. All of a sudden the remoteness of the Tolovana was looking up. It is much more “kid friendly” than anywhere else we looked.

We spent the night there so we could visit with the manager before 7am (She was training a new night accountant and working the 11pm to 7am shift. She gave us a good price, so we made a deposit.

We had planned to maybe go up to Seattle, but Mom had a bad cold and had not slept much. I checked out the weather forecast and was not interested in waiting a day to cross the mountain, so we headed home. When I got up this morning and saw the road report, I’m glad we came straight home, even thought it would have been fun to visit in Seattle.

On the way home we stopped at Camp 18 for breakfast. (Brent had said we needed to check out the cinnamon rolls.) We had a great meal and took most of the roll home with us. (5 pounds of cinnamon roll is more than I can eat for breakfast.)

Great Music

2007-11-21T18:54:00.000-08:00

The past few days have been “Music Appreciation” week. On Sunday we went to the “Hymns of Thanksgiving” at the Qwest Arena. It was a community choir and orchestra. We estimated that about 75% of the choir was LDS and that the orchestra was probably about the same mix. You would have thought I had picked the program - Amazing Grace, Shenandoah, For the Beauty of the Earth, and others. They had the Highlanders there to play Amazing Grace. There was a fantastic violin solo of “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms” by Brookann Hessing, wife of Jason Hessing. The program was great, but trying to leave was like going thought a reception line. There were so many people to talk to that we have not seen in sometime - old Twentieth Warders and others. It took at lease 30 minutes to exit the building, but what a great time visiting.

Last night we went to the Taco Bell arena to hear the Mannheim Steamroller’s Christmas program. We went with the Ornellas. They really put on a great show. The visuals are fine but the versatility of the sound was fantastic. (We took earplugs, so the sound level was even great.)

We have certainly started the holiday season out on a high note.

One sad note - Amy Stevens had a heart attach. She is at home and doing fine. With her diabetes and other problems, I worry how long we will have her around.

More BSU class

2007-11-10T21:14:00.000-08:00

As I said earlier, I am taking an “Old People” class sponsored by BSU. The text is The Question of God, by Dr. Nicholi. During the class we have been watching excerpts from a PBS special on by the same title. I think most of us in the class thought that the subject was to “prove” the existents or non-existence of God. But as I have stepped back and reviewed what the video and in part what the book is doing is showing how the belief of C. S. Lewis and the non-belief of Sigmund Freud directed their lives. The question is not is there a God or not, but rather how does it impact your life. I would not recommend the book to anyone – it is far to bias showing Lewis in a very favorable light and is very down on Feud. However the PBS video is excellent and is much more even-handed in showing the lives of the two men. But the best part of the video is a discussion group that breaks in and talks about the following subjects: A Transcendent Experience, Science or Revelation, The Exalted Father, Why Believe, Miracles, Love Thy Neighbor, Human Condition, Moral Law, Suffering and Death

The group is made up of:
Dr. Nicholi – the author of the book and a “Believer”
Margaret Klenck - a practicing Jungian analyst and a “Believer”
Louis Massiah - an independent documentary filmmaker and journalist.
Jeremy Fraiberg - an attorney, former student of Dr. Nicholi and a “Non-believer”
Douglas Holladay - Partner at Park Avenue Equity Partners, LP. and a “Believer”
Michael Shermer - editor Skeptic Magazine, director of the Skeptics Society “Non-believer”
Frederick Lee is a practicing physician, former teaching associate of Dr. Nicholi and a “Believer”
Winifred Gallagher is an author on spirituality and a “Believer”

I found myself most aliened with Dr. Lee. In fact he is the only one that I can relate to.

During our class, following the video, we have some discussion on the same subject as the group covered. The non-believers are much more vocal than the believes.

I have become the de facto Lewis authority – whenever there is a question on what Lewis wrote, the instructor turns to me for an answer. It is obvious that I have read a lot more of Lewis than anyone else in the class, which is a surprise. I would have thought other would be more familiar with C. S. Lewis.

It has been a good class and I would recommend you get the PBS Video from the library and watch it.

Ireland & Scotland trip

2007-11-04T19:10:00.000-08:00

If you would like to see Mom's write-up on our trip, it can be downloaded at: http://homepage.mac.com/scott55/FileSharing11.html

Bad Hip

2007-10-29T11:01:00.001-07:00

I have been having problems with my right hip for the last 15 months. After the Ireland/Scotland trip it got worse. I saw the orthopedic doctor and he sent me to the physical therapist. So for the last 4-week I have been seeing the PT 3 time a week. I have one more visit, but baring a miracle on the last visit, not a whole lot has changed. The PT’s summery is: “ well the muscles are in a lot better shape and will speed up the recovery after your hip surgery.” I go back to see the doctor in December. So until then I will continue to limp and do my exercises.

Re-Tire

2007-10-19T08:25:00.000-07:00

I thought More Evil would post this, but since he is being slow, I will pass on the historical event.
For almost 40 years there has been a tractor tire half buried in the sandbox. It had started to fall apart and make a mess. J.R. found a tractor tire just lying on the side of the road. After a week or so, he dragged it home (literally). I helped with a little digging and we removed the old tire and some historical artifacts.
The new tire is about the same diameter, but half again as wide so it is much easier to stand on. The new tire is more worn, so it doesn’t sift sand quite as well.
So a 40-year-old landmark has been “re-tired”

Prison

2007-10-16T18:31:00.000-07:00

On Sunday I was assigned speak at the prison. Over the past 33 years, I know I have spoken at the prison more than 20 times. There are actual 6 different sites at the prison, so you usually speak to more than 1 group. This Sunday we were assigned to one of the minimum-security groups and to the privately run prison located at the site.

The procedures is to first fill out an information sheet about 6 weeks before you go, then when you get to the site, you are met my the LDS Branch President who escorts you through the double gate to the office. Here you sign in and trade you drivers license for a badge. You are then escorted by one of the guards to the chapel or a classroom. Usually you take a seat on the front row and wait while the prisoners file in. A long with the songs and prayers, you give your talk on an assigned subject after which the prisoners fill out and you are escorted out of the facility.

This week I was assigned to speak on “the worth of the soul”. As I was preparing the talk, I felt very uncomfortable that I would be talking to a group of total strangers on this subject. So this Sunday, rather than taking my place on the front row, I went to the back of the room and greeted some of the men as they came in. I asked them their name and where they were from. In a couple of cases we had a brief conversation about some general subject. When I spoke, I mentioned that I had met men from Yukon, Filer, Boise, etc., that I recognized them as individuals and that their Father-in-Heaven recognized them as individuals. I talked about growing up in Burley and going on a mission. When the meeting was over, I was mobbed by a number of men who wanted to talk. I learned about 2 of the guys that were retuned missionaries. I talked to men who wanted to know if I new their family in Burley, why had I been to Dacha in Germany and a host of other things. To be honest, it was very enjoyable talking with the men, but soon the escorted told me I had to leave and the prisoners had to move on.

In the past after fulfilling an assignment at the prison, I would have said that I had spoken to a group of prisoners, but this time I have to say that I spoke to some men I knew, that came from all over Idaho, and that I share a lot in common with them.

BSU Class

2007-10-15T12:10:00.000-07:00

I signed up for an adult class at BSU. It meets once a week for 6 weeks. The title is “The Question of God” The Text is: The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life. The instructor is a Unitarian minister from here in Boise. On the first day she asked us to submit a paragraph that outline are own felling of God or lack thereof. Last week she reported that about half the class of 70 believe in some sort of supernatural and the other half believed that everything could be explain by natural law. There is one other LDS person in the class, Fred Ornellas, who is not the most orthodox member you will run a cross.

The class my be equally divided, but the nonbelievers are much more out spoken. I have managed to speak up, but have managed to stay out of the fray by quoting C.S. Lewis, Viktor Franky and others so that it’s these writers they have to attract rather than my beliefs. I’m not sure that anyone besides Fred and the instructor know that I’m LDS and I don’t think it’s necessary that any others know. If the class does find where I’m coming from, I hope they remember that I was able to support my point of view from sources out side of the church.

Conference

2007-10-14T21:24:00.001-07:00

October 6
Since it was conference weekend, I had to go for a ride and got Mom to go with me. Jump Creek Falls was our selected destination. It is located about 40 miles South West of Meridian. It seemed like we were on the wrong road because of all the “No Trespassing” signs, but we decided it was for the property next to the road and not the road its self. There is a short hike required to see the falls that includes fording the creeks on some small rock. The hike was well worth the view. On our return to the car Mom spotted a small rattlesnake crossing the trail. It was the first time she had see a rattler in the wild and the first one I had seen 50 years or so. We were able to move around the snake with no incident.