I Wish Joni Mitchell Would Write A Song About Karma

Just when I thought I could resist reading any letter to the editor in Idaho Falls, it happened. I take a quick glance at titles, refuse to allow it to act upon my day, and do the crossword. It helps to do that ritual, because if I read one of the letters, I undoubtedly get angry. It's kind of like that movie The Sixth Sense, except unlike the young boy. I see stupid people. And they irritate me.

So when I opened the paper on Wednesday, January 28, I began the ritual true to form, and then it appeared: a title in bold letters. It was like the late 50's horror film I once saw entitled, From Hell It Came!

Teachers must sacrifice

There has been much discussion on what the state government must do to stay within a balanced budget during these sad economic times. When the subject of budget cuts surfaces and especially eduactrion cuts are suggested, the uproar begins. In the "Our View" section of the Post Register on January 14, the article states that if education gets less, then the quality of teaching will be less. For every 10 dollars, nine goes to salaraies and benefits.

Being in the building business, I know what it means to have to bid on projects including homes for teachers. If I want the job, I must bid the project at the lowest possible cost, but the people do not want the lowest possible quality. No, they still insist on the best top quality as if I were the highest bidder. Where is the double standard today? Everyone should have to sacrifice at a time when economical tough times occur.

Perhaps teachers should bid for their jobs and experience what everyone in teh competitive world has had to do forever.

Now, I don't have any problem with the word sacrifice. As a teacher I did it for 25 years. I never owned a car that didn't have over 100,000 miles on it before I purchased another, except for the last red Ford I owned with a bad transmission, but that is another story.

I also spent thousands of dollars every year out of my own pocket buying classroom materials and doing other things that I didn't have to do. It was money that I chose to do, but it was a sacrifice for my family. And money is only the beginning. I sacrificed a great deal of time too. Whether after or before school, I spent hours in my classroom creating an atmosphere that students could enjoy and developing materials that would help them learn. It is what you do as a teacher. I did it, and I know others who did it and still do.

I paced for a while. During the afternoon, I even listened to some mellow 60's music that usually has a calming effect, but it didn't work. Then I turned to the annoying journalists on ESPN who hate some of my favorite teams and ridicule some of my favorite players. I thought, Hey maybe they can annoy me enough to forget about the man from Sugar City who obviously hates teachers. But like the not so nice woman in The Wizard of Oz--who by the way reminds me of my fourth grade teacher (See, I dislike a few in my profession for good reason too, but it doesn't make all teachers bad.)--I hated the man and his little letter too.

My letter began to form in my mind, and suddenly there was this smile that began to crawl across my face. I sat at the computer, while my Annie watched something on TV. "What are you doing Jon?"

She knew I was up to something. She saw all the danger signs of my having read another one of those--in her words and not mine--damn letters to the editor in the Post Register. And then I looked at the finished copy. I can never be sure, but as I looked at it, the words "It's alive!" came from my mouth. I smiled in satisfaction with my creation.

As a retired teacher, I gratefully acknowledge the Sugar City businessman who is a builder and who took it upon himself to teach me and other educators what we should have done years ago—giving our expertise to the highest bidder.

I never succumbed to the highest bid when it came to teaching, and after 25 years—almost 16 of which were in a district whose students were exactly why I am glad I didn’t go for the highest bid when a job in Oregon came calling, when a job in Nevada came calling, and even when a job in California came calling—I stayed because I believed in what I was doing here.

And so did many other excellent teachers, who in the past 25 years have not seen exorbitant pay or benefit increases. That’s why you, as a builder, don’t build expensive homes for teachers, and that’s why you don’t see new, expensive cars in their driveways every year either.

You see, teachers believed that the state and even individual school districts would use “rainy day funds” when economic bad weather appeared, but call me pessimistic if you must, but I always knew what politicians and officials would do when that day came: initiating cuts rather than using those funds for schools.

Don’t you love people who always think someone else deserves to stand in line at the local soup kitchen? When the new world emerges for teachers, maybe you could submit a bid on my outhouse.

I was so pleased with myself. "I've got a letter to the editor I want you to read," I said to my Annie.

"Please don't. It took months for some people to forget about the last one. I don't want the hate stares at church, and I don't want you to be a whacko, just like the others who write letters to the editor."

I would do anything for my wife, except throw away my collection of Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin or Emerson, Lake and Palmer CD's. So I put my response on my blog.

The Circus That Came To Town

I never liked hunting.  It was the red licorice I liked, and I liked the chocolate kind too. Whenever we go on a road trip that lasts more than a few hours, we always buy some, and the taste reminds me of when I was young.

On the opening day of deer hunt, my dad would put our lunch in a saddle bag, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for both of us.  That is where I learned an important thing about peanut butter and jelly: they taste better after you smash them.  My dad would make them, carefully wrap them, and then smash them.  

He watched my response the first time, and then he explained the ritual.  They are going to get that way anyway, so why not just get down to it, and besides, he would explain, they taste better that way.  The funny part about that was the fact that they are better when smashed.

The ritual was the same for years.  Sometimes we were successful, each of us shooting and tagging a dear, but mostly, it was a day of riding horses in the mountains, listening to the occasional distant rumble of a rifle.  Whenever I smell sagebrush, I think of those great times with my father.  But my dad always reminded me that the work started after you shot a deer.  It wasn't that I was lazy, because I am not, but I also had this thing about gutting the animal.  I would have to leave the area, because I would start to get light-headed: a sure sign that I would never have been very good in any branch of the medical profession.  

People told me that deer meat was great.  That statement is a classic.  It's right up there with the phrases like "fun run" or one describing the new age grocery product that is a scientific mystery: fat free potato chips. Running is never fun, and fat free potato chips taste like thin wooden shingles passionately tenderized with who knows how many chemicals.  People devour masses of them in good conscience, thinking they will magically make them thin by sacrificing themselves on the altar of a fat free diet.

To make a long story short.  Deer meat sucks.  I tried to soak it in buttermilk.  I cooked it with onions and herbs.  I even tried spicy sauces as a marinade, but whenever I tried to cook it--regardless of how I did it--dogs began barking near and far, not because they were hungry, but because they sensed something more hideous than Alpo.   

Because I refuse to eat deer meat, I find no inclination ever to hunt again, because my best friend, my hunting partner, and my maker of peanut butter sandwiches passed away in February of 1991.  Those trips with my father remain only in my memories now.

I kept my guns, because my father gave most of them to me.  The rifles and shotguns will eventually go to my son, because he actually wants to hunt.  I have no problem with that at all.   However, no one in my family will ever get my handguns, because it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why people have them.  

Call me a liberal, but I figure that if it takes a gun to defend myself on a daily basis, I am living in the wrong place.  And given my family's temperament, I will not give any of them a handgun.   

So at this point, I decided to go to a gun show in our town this past weekend to see if I could sell my Smith & Wesson .357, a pistol that I bought when I was young.  At the time, Ann and I decided I needed it before going to the cabin my father owned one weekend.  At that time I had ten days to finish a Shakespeare home study course in order to graduate from ISU in 1979, and there had been a number of attacks by a black bear in the area of our family cabin.  I bought the gun, and the pistol is still in the original package in pristine condition.   Given the present economic situation, I figured some extra money would be nice at this point, but I learned an important lesson. 

As soon as I arrived at the gun show, one very nice man saw me and motioned for me to take his parking place, since he was leaving for home.  I was about to find out that he was the only nice person at the little "get together" for right wing radicals.  I walked in the door.

There were hunting rifles, and I don't have a problem with that.  But no one seemed interested in any of that, or at least not many did.  They gathered and salivated at this table with automatic weapons.  And yes, they were officially semiautomatic, but everyone knows that people there know how to alter them.  The vendor spoke loudly, "Why, after the Obama-na-tion, these have tripled in value."  He was trying to be funny in his appraisal of the inauguration of America's new president, whose politics he obviously didn't like.  I guess he wanted everyone to know that he believed the democratic process was an abomination, because he didn't agree with the majority of voters.  Regardless of how unfunny he was, and how stupid he and others were, I really hated the wretch.  And I hated his customers too.  I had seen enough.

See, I have a difficult time understanding why a person would want an Uzi or an AK-47 or any automatic weapon.  It's because I saw three kids shoot a deer once.  It fell against a large chunk of brush, and they continued firing their 30-30's.  The animal had long since hopped into another dimension, and the carcass had forty or fifty holes in it.  Why would a person need an expensive weapon to do what I watched three idiots complete successfully so many years ago with their own deer rifles?  And if these "Great White Hunters" think they need more than two rounds to shoot wild game, they should practice before going into the hills.  That's why it's a sport.  My father only needed one shot.  But he was an incredible shot and an exceptional hunter.

Every one--those buying formidable weapons and those resenting the fact they are accessible--knows why people want them.  They are not for hunting.  Once I saw this couple in a store, the husband admiring an expensive assault rifle with a bayonet.  "It's shaped like this so the blade entry wound does not heal."  

The salesmen then told the customer, dressed in tatters like his wife, about the price tag of the weapon: almost $2000, and that was almost 20 years ago.

So in this time of economic difficulty when I figure I could get $600 or even more for a pistol, which I have rarely used, I decided that I will not place it into the hands of those people I met at that show.  Not only are they crazy, but their parents were never married.  

In the town where I grew up, there is a word, used immediately after "crazy," that locals once used to describe Utah fishermen and hunters who invaded our reservoirs, fields and mountains every year.   They still do, but now because of the large number of people living in Utah, many new residents of my hometown are Utahans, who chose to live there permanently to get away from newcomers in the state.   Or maybe they just wanted to get away from large cities.  Regardless of their reasoning, many of those "crazies" now live there.

The people I saw at the gun show, who deserve being called both of the words I mentioned, are kind of like a particular Utah fisherman, who reportedly went into a highway rest stop for a bathroom break.  He leaned over to pick something up, and his glasses fell into one of those toilets that once existed.  It was the kind that still exists in most parks, the chemical kind which doesn't need flushing.  This fisherman could see the glasses floating in the horrific dark waters below, so he went back to his truck to retrieve his fishing pole.  

While dangling hook and line into the abyss, another motorist accidentally opened the stall and saw him with his fishing pole trying to retrieve the glasses.  The embarrassed fisherman reportedly had an interesting comment.  He looked at the puzzled bystander.  "I've been here all day without a single tug on my line."  

The traveler shut the door of the stall and returned to his car, probably to speed away in horror.  

Like I said, I refuse to consider selling a pistol to any of the fine people I met that day at the gun show, all clamoring to arm themselves against imaginary adversaries in order to keep safe.  I hope someone will protect the rest of us from these people I met at the gun show, young and old and all buying automatic weapons and boxes of ammunition instead of food and clothing and necessities for their families.  

No terrorist in their right mind would want to meet people like this.

January 1, 2009

In January of 2005, things were not good. I lost the ability to use my legs. I lost the ability to reason. The visit at the oncology clinic of Dr. Mulvey was a disaster. Hallucinations were bothering me. Before my arrival, I was sure that opening up a certain set of drawers in a random way would allow the light to go on in the bedroom that morning. Things worsened. Ann sat by me in the chemo room at the clinic, and everything she said, I still remember saying, "Prove it!" I kept repeating the words. I didn't recognize anyone by name, by the end of my day there, I had everyone in tears--my wife, other patients, the nurses and staff. My doctor seemed to choke up a bit too. I could not get my legs to move, so after a blood transfusion I had had to receive, I sat without being able to get up out of the chair.

Finally they were able to move me into a room. I remember the doctor telling my Annie that he believed the cancer had spread into my spine and brain. There was not much time left. In the room, he asked me if he could try one thing. He injected some chemo into my spine with a syringe after telling me how much I was loved by so many people.

An ambulance took me to the hospital. To make matters worse, I had had a bad line, tubes going under the skin across my chest and ribcage and connecting to the jugular. Within a short time, the new line that created the staff infection--as if I didn't have enough things going on at the time--was gone and a new one replaced it. A local dermatologist took a sample of skin to have it analyzed, but the chunk was the size of the tip of my thumb, not a smooth move considering the fact that I was on blood thinner. For two days, they could not get the bleeding to stop.

I have to remind myself that I was in a first class seat on the Crazy Train at the time, so as good a memory as I have always had, I will never be sure that I was aware of everything or that I recall everything as it happened. The last night before everything changed, Dr. Mulvey and Megan his PA were in my room. I enjoyed seeing them. I trusted them with my life, because they were incredible, but they were my friends too. Dr. Mulvey whispered to her, but I guess he didn't know an important fact that I always told my high school students: I can hear a gnat flatulate at least 500 meters away. He told her, although I don't remember the exact words, that he didn't know what to do, because I was losing blood as fast as they could put it into me through additional blood transfusions. The staff infection was very bad, and I had a high fever.

He came in the next morning with a solution that he dreamed in a dream. He used a sanitary napkin under the bandage to stop the bleeding. It worked. The bleeding stopped. In another week or so the infection subsided. I returned home very weak, so weak that I could not walk five feet without stopping to rest. Dr. Mulvey told Ann that he figured I had two weeks to two months to live.

My Annie worked hard to make me feel comfortable. She was so sad. One day, she told me that we needed to go somewhere for fun. She asked me, while I sat in a chair, where I would like he to take me.

"Disneyland!" I answered immediately. I also said I wanted Jack and Kristin to come too. When I told Dr. Mulvey, it shocked him. He laughed, and then when he saw that I was serious, he said, "Why not!"

The day we left, it was a bleak day in February. I insisted on driving. My arms shook the entire way to Salt Lake City, but I said nothing, because I was afraid if I said anything, my Annie would take me straight home. We arrived at the hotel, and we left the next morning on an early flight. The trip was fun. I only wish the rest of the family could have been there too, similar to the trip we had taken in late May of 2004 when my cancer seemed to be in remission.

I rented an electric cart, and we spent every day at the park.

When I returned, Dr. Mulvey saw me within days at an appointment. "What ride are you going to tell me about?" He looked at me, expecting me to say that I rode the train around the park a couple of times. I told him about my rides on Tower of Terror.

His response was a classic. With eyes the size of silver dollars, he listened to me tell the story. "You've got to be kidding!" And he began to laugh. Within a month, I started swimming again. First I swam half a mile, and a week later I began swimming a mile a day. In two months it was two miles, and a couple of times I swam four miles. The people at the pool were so good to let me stay in a lane to get the exercise I needed.

In the fall, an administrator asked me if I could return to work. It please me. I thought it to be an incredible compliment, but it made my friend and doctor angry. His reply was another classic. "You remember that drug trial we did with you in conjunction with Loyolla University? According to them, you are not alive."

Like all of Dr. Mulvey's patients, I miss my incredible doctor and friend. This past September, Ann and I traveled to Mayo Clinic in Minnesota to get help with the circulation in my legs, and while there, we visited one of the leading oncologists in the world. When I told him the story, he told me my doctor was right. In fact, when I asked him how many patients survived that drug trail, he told me I was it.

I would be a fool to recognize my survival as anything less than a miracle. Dr. Mulvey is one of the best oncologists in the country, but he told me something important one day. "Jesus must really love you Jon. He wants to keep you around." He teared up when he told me that too.

Rubbing my religious beliefs in someone's nose is something I never do, unless I feel they want to know or if they ask me, but I will say that anyone who thinks that there is not a God or that faith does not make a difference is the foolish one. Friends and family who witnessed what I suffered know this fact, but the reason for this blog is not to talk about this. It is about looking at what I have four years later.

1. Realization that I have a devoted and loving wife is something I have always believed, but now I know it to be true.

2. Recognizing that family is the most important thing in life is a blessing.

3. Having children married to soul mates who treat them well like mine treats me is a small piece of heaven.

4. Laughter of grandchildren is the real nectar of the gods.

5. Loving every second of life is what really keeps you young at heart, although frequent trips to Disneyland with grandchildren are a major asset in maintaining that goal.

Having Cles and Leslie stay with us for a few short days after Christmas was so incredible, but it went by so quickly. And it always does that. I write the same thing when Lydia visits, whether it's for a week or a month.

We saw them just before they left on a shuttle that took them from our hotel in Salt Lake to the airport. Ann and I spent the rest of the day with Jack.

The first stop was at Gateway Mall, where we went to the Apple Store. We finally bought our Apple Computer, after talking the name of Bill Gates in vain for at least 10 years. I hope he knows what he can do with Vista.

We stopped in Layton. After checking Toys 'R Us for any additional Star Wars toys that had been unavailable in our area during the Christmas shopping season, we went to Target which was just a short distance away. Ann called me within minutes of entering the store. They had piles of Star Wars Galactic Heroes Cinema Scenes, and they also had the one I wanted to get Jack and Tommy for Christmas, Jabba's Skiff.

Jack spent the rest of the trip clutching the new toy in his arms. Tommy will get his when he returns to Minnesota. I will mail it to him.


So how is January of 2009 different than 2005? I can't begin to express in words what I feel with every beat of my heart. To see the happiness of a grandchild when I spoil any one of the three of them or all three at the same time is what I live for each day. It is a family tradition for those who knew key people in my family.

It is wonderful to take my Annie's hand and press it to my lips as often as I can. She rolls her eyes every time I do it, just like she will when she reads this, but I will never stop doing it. It is so nice not to hear her sob gently in the darkness over the loss she feared would happen. After almost 39 years, we still enjoy each other, although we will never have the money to drive a Porsche, a Cadillac or even a used Mercedes. We won't have a mansion on the hill above Idaho Falls either, but we do have fun every moment of the day.

And did I mention that I not only filled one I Pod with over 19,000 songs or about 1800 albums, but I am still putting my jazz and classical music on another. There might be a big of room for some books and of course music my children enjoy while they travel with us. It's nice to hold my entire music collection in the palm of my hand.

But I still hope for the day when my Annie and I live in a spot where it is always warm and comfortable, where I can have palm trees in the front yard and citrus trees in the backyard, where my childen and grandchildren can visit often.

The Advantages of Being OCD

In As Good As It Gets where Jack Nicholson plays an author who suffers from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, there is a part near the end of the movie where he looks at the artist's suitcase and says, "Great packing!"

While my daughter went through her things today, she and my wife found a packing list I made whenever I began putting my suitcase together for an exchange trip.

Here it is:

Levi 8 blue 5 black 1 shorts 2
socks 13 grey 4 red 3 blue 4 brown 2
(cowboy) underwear 12
deodorant
shirts 14 green 2 red 2 beige/white 3 blue 3 brown 1 maroon 1 orange 1 rust 1
slacks 1
clippers 2 toe 1 finger 1
money pouch/passport holder 1
gifts
tickets, etc.
rain poncho 1
shoes 2
water socks 1

I never forgot anything whenever I traveled, and I always began packing two weeks before the trip. My large bag always had 35 pounds or less, and the carry on was only 10 pounds.

The entire group also had a number that they put on their bag with duct or electrical tape. It made it easy for the group to find our bags when we arrived in Germany. I separated the group into two groups, each one waiting at different ends of the baggage claim conveyer. A group of 25 could retrieve bags in 30 minutes, something absolutely necessary when you had a train connection to make.

Cles and Leslie Visit Snow Country

Jack looked forward to having Cles and Leslie visit. Cles teases Jack, just like I do and just like I teased Cles when he was little. It's the gift that keeps on giving. My Grandpa Williams teased and tickled me unmercifully. I remember getting tickled until I couldn't get my breath. They are some of the good memories I have of him. The first day that Cles and Leslie were in town meant that we made a trip to Toys 'R Us or as Jack calls it--Toys 'R Bus. We spent at least two hours there, while Jack examined every toy in the store, and while Cles tormented me by trying to buy Jack any number of play weapons. Ironically, I may have to buy that toy machine gun he showed me.

The time went too quickly. As soon as they arrived, we tried doing everything we had been wanting to do. But on New Year's Eve, we started back for Salt Lake City. After our dinner and spending some time at Trolley Square, we returned to the hotel, where Uncle Cles taught Jack how to prank call Pop Pop.

The trip wouldn't be complete without Cles and Leslie emphasizing the need for Jack to love North Carolina's Tarheels. There was a game that night, and Jack enjoyed it with Cles and Leslie, although I figure that he liked the exercise more than the game.