My Favorite Part Of Christmas

My earliest memory of Christmas was having a pinion pine in our front room, one as high as it was in breadth.  The family home on Bannock Street always had just a hint of sap on the ceiling after my dad and I lifted the tree into the house.  

In the fifties, we had tinsel icicles that I loved.  You could slip your feet across the carpeted floor for a few feet, and gently touch a sister's ear lobe.  It the dark you could actually see the spark.  I loved that.

But those days ended in the 60's, when we began using  the Electrolux vacuum cleaner to spray snow flock on the pinions, making an artificial layer of snow that coated the tree and replaced the smell of pine with a hint of ammonia.  It had been a long time since being around any small children, so I refused to associate the wondrous thing with a diaper.  With large lights of red, green and blue, it truly was something beautiful to see.

And then as soon as that seemed to be the way that everyone decorated their tree, everyone opted for the natural approach.  By then, I was in college.  The night my dad set up the tree, I returned home from college, went to an oral surgeon, and had four impacted wisdom teeth removed.  I sat in a chair for the lighting.

"Jonie, what do you think of the tree?" I gazed in a stupor with fat, swollen cheeks, my senses numbed by pain pills.

"What tree," I responded.  My dad told me the next day how they laughed.  That was just a few short weeks before I left for a two year mission to the Germany Central Mission.
I returned in 1974.  My dad was disappointed that I didn't return for Christmas.  Having stepped off the plane on January 9, 1974, I spent one weekend home, and I began classes at college, which was a partial disaster.  Similar to looking at a Christmas tree in a stupor two years before, I spoke with a slight German accent.  It took me a week before I could understand English in lectures.  
By mid February, Ann and I were engaged to be married, and within only a short time, I built the tree stand like I had seen my dad do in our garage on Bannock Street.  In those early years, my dad would help me lift the tree into the house, one touching the ceiling and as wide as it was tall.  They were beautiful trees.  And of course, it had to be a pinion.
My allergies were worse after returning home from the industrial area of Germany, where I lived for two years.  I began to notice that I became sick every year during the holidays, and magically, I recovered after taking the tree outside.  It was not many years before I noticed that my children shared that "illness."

We bought our first tree in 1990.  There was one more natural tree in Idaho Falls, but it was an Austrian Pine.  Finding a pinion was impossible.  The artificial tree lasted until Christmas of 2006, and by then it was well-worn.  We bought the current one in 2007.  
In the second year of having this new tree, we found that all children decorate trees the same way my own children did it.  All decorations appear in a tiny circle in one area.  We "ooh and aah" at their achievement, and after Jack went to sleep, we do the same thing we did when our own children decorated.  We rearrange everything.  But the process makes us smile at the memories of our own three children doing the same thing.  

The Lesson of Christmas Lights

The whole lighting thing was different this year and even hinted at the global economic situation. I had to call the yard care business after the day the installation was to have been completed.  They maintained that we had not submitted a check, even though that was not what they had said they would do in our contract.  I reminded them that we had received no bill, and that I always paid half when they placed the lights on the house.  We left for Disneyland just after that conversation, and they were to be installed when we returned.
It didn't happen.  I called them again.  And this time they promised to be there within a day.  It didn't happen either.  After another call, a person arrived for the check, although no lights had appeared.  I was beginning to regret having done business with them, and by then I had mentioned it at least twice--once over the phone and a second time in person when they appeared at my door, especially given the fact that we not only paid our bill on time, but we also did it early the previous year.
Finally, I heard the hammering one afternoon, and I felt better, until hours later when I went outside to see the 48 inch wreath that was to be at the top of the garage.  It was all of 12 inches. I called again.  They seemed to have forgotten, but I reminded them that I was looking at our contract that basically guaranteed specific requests for three years.  One basic point was that the wreath was a 48 inch wreath.  It took three calls to correct that, and they did the tree in the front yard incorrectly too.  Oh, and there was no discount that they originally promised that was to be five percent.  They forgot everything like that, but it was only a small amount in my opinion, so I let it go.
Eventually everything seemed to be alright.  We enjoyed the holiday lights and everything seemed fine.  Christmas came and went.  Ann took these pictures one evening after New Years, and according to the agreed time, the lights disappeared.  It was even a week after I unplugged them.  With the economic situation already a concern, everyone in the neighborhood darkened their lights at least several weeks early, and strangely as it seemed, I did the same thing.  I am after all the person who would light them every night until Valentine's Day.  

I actually even looked forward to their coming the next year.  We had forgotten the bad vibes we had from poor service, and I even began to dismiss their poor memory, because after all, the lights were pretty.

And then I noticed the rain gutter on the south side of my house.  I called them immediately.  They made a classic statement.

"Wasn't it already like that?"

I know that Santa Claus is on my roof on Christmas Eve on a yearly basis, but other than that, no one has been there since the installation of the gutter.  During the past summer, a subcontractor actually looked at it momentarily while we examined the vinyl siding on my house, but we looked at everything from the ground, and he never climbed to the roof, and given the fact that if I had been the one who slipped from the top of the cornice and caught myself on that thin patch of metal, not only would I have ripped the entire section down, but the University of Utah would have had seismic recordings of my hitting the ground.

It took four calls to get something done.  They showed up, and I go outside to see the repair. They told me that they would bend it back, so that it looked just like new.  I reminded them that unless it miraculously appeared as it had before the damage, I would not accept it.

It wasn't.  I went from my jovial, friendly self to angry, pissed off me.

I called the next morning.  

"Isn't it looking OK now?"  That was the owner's response.   

In spite of my anger, I was still nice but there was edge in my voice as I explained that it wasn't OK.  Two weeks passed.  I called one more time.  Another bill arrived, and this one had the stamp PAST DUE in bold red print.  

I was not friendly when I left the message, especially when I reminded them that since the middle name of their business was Quality, I expected nothing less.  They called Monday morning.

Nothing happened.  I called again.  This time I was rude when I left the message, and I received a call that finally made me feel better, but that was after I reminded them that I would never allow them on my place again, and I would take care of the repair and send them the bill before paying, just so we knew exactly where everyone stood.

Workers showed up the next morning.  I'm so glad that there are construction jobs for people who obviously have spent time in jail or prison are about to spend time in either one or both, because the two who came to do the repairs appeared to be qualified to do either one.  But they fixed the rain gutter, not as nicely as I would have liked, but at least there are no longer the imprints of two size 10 shoes in the light brown metal.

I don't think the Ward house will have Christmas lights next year, but it was fun while it lasted.

I Cried Once--When Wingers Removed The Patty Melt From Their Menu

When Annie Grins For A Picture . . .

Ann and I booked a cruise during the late 90's. At that time, someone from Florida called, offering us this incredible "free" cruise for just paying a minimal air fare and listening to a "presentation." It wasn't a big deal, because they said it was a "no pressure" thing that only would last an hour. We jumped at it. And when we found it was a Bahamas Cruise, it was even better.

Neither one of us had ever been to Florida, and the thought of sitting on a beach in the Caribbean was too much for us to comprehend. It was just too tempting. Besides, we thought we could say "no," because we never had trouble saying "no."  I remember both of us thinking that, although we never seemed to refuse talking to those callers repeatedly tempting us with yet another "deal."  And I notice that other people say the same thing, just before they buy a condo from a high pressure salesperson in a cheap sport jacket and a pair of white leather shoes.

We arrived in Orlando. The news had been filled with reports of foreign tourists shot by little Florida gangsters, who attempted to hijack expensive rental cars before brutally killing the driver and passengers, so I had a solution: a super idea. We rented this tiny Japanese compact that was almost too small for us and our luggage, and we knew how to pack, so you know that there was not a lot of room in that car.

The morning we were to drive to Cape Canaveral was one that affected me with a bit of nervousness. We had coins for the toll roads, and I began to worry about something I had not remembered to bring.  It was very warm that morning in late May or early June. The road bled black patches of tar in long strips on highways. It was a beautiful day.

Since leaving the car rental spot to get our "free"vehicle, I had continual trouble with our tiny import--a piece of automotive genius that no gangster would want, unless blind gangsters had somehow begun to discover a life of crime.  Letting out the clutch would not do the trick. You had to pop it after pushing down on the accelerator pedal so that it wouldn't stall.   I hit it, right on one of those tar patches on the highway.   Ann and I had our windows down and the sunroof completely exposed.   I heard the tires squeal, and in the mirror I could see white smoke form a tiny but beautiful white cloud that would have made me beam with pride at the age of 15. 

At my age, I didn't know what to do, so I just let my imagination roll with it. "Waaaawhoooooo!"  I howled loudly. Ann sank into her seat and covered her face with her hands.  A bus of Japanese tourists had just unloaded in front of our hotel.  They loved the show we did for them.   "Cowboys!" one shouted while pointing at us.  I have never seen so many cameras clicking at the same time, and in spite of the bright sun, their flashes popped repeatedly in the Florida sunshine.  We smiled because Ann and I knew were now famous in Asia, once again because of my notorious behavior.

During the first days at sea, Ann asked me to do her a favor, and she made me promise that I wouldn't say no before responding. "I really want to do this," she said.

As soon as I determined that it had nothing to do with a parachute and water skis, I decided there wasn't too much I would be afraid to do, so I consented.

"They're going to do some snorkeling in the Bahamas, and I really want to do this?"

I had been nervous about swimming in the ocean because of an experience I had while body surfing in California with one of my early German exchange groups. The tide was strong, so it was difficult to get back to the shore, and there was something even more ominous: a very large fish brushed my leg, a fish as large around as a good-sized telephone pole. 

Most people thought it was a dolphin whenever I related the story, and although I hoped that it was true, the event was still too close to the time when Jaws was a movie in theaters with at least three sequels. But I promised to go snorkeling with her on that day of the cruise, especially after Ann's eyes showed disgust when I began telling the story she referred to as the "damn" body surfing story.

"Let's sign up right now." She didn't let me even think twice about it, and she knew that if I put some coin on the deal, I wouldn't back out of the activity. Ann and I walked to the front desk.

At that time, I was swimming a mile per day five or six times a day at the pool in Idaho Falls. "So are you a good swimmer?" The young man at the counter on an upper deck of the ship was adding names to a list.  He looked at me when I hesitated.

"Well, I swim a little bit." Ann's face flushed.

The young man looked confused at my comment and Ann's reaction. "You meet me at the pool in 40 minutes, and we'll check it out to ensure that you can swim a bit." Ann walked silently ahead of me all the way back to the room. I could see her talking to herself."

"A little bit," she repeated every ten or twenty steps while shaking her head. By the time we returned to the room, I put on my swim suit, a T-shirt and we returned to this fifteen foot pool at the middle of the boat. Twenty people were there, all under the age of four.

The young man saw me and came over immediately. He had a serious look on his face, one that people wear when they are trying not to laugh loudly and uncontrollably.  Ann grinned broadly.

I cursed and began walking toward our cabin. "Where are you going," Ann said.

"I'm not going to make an ass out of myself."  People, sitting around the pool on cheap lawn chairs, stopped talking and stared at me in disbelief, because I actually said a bad word in front of the four-year-old children who were trying to pass the same swimming competency test. I walked quickly to the room, where I could make an ass out of myself privately.

I shut the door.  Suddenly there was a gentle knock. "Ann, I'm not going to embarrass myself with a whole herd of rug rats paddling about in the pool!"  There was another knock.

"Mr. Ward." I opened the door to see the young man standing there with a snorkel mask and fins in his hand. Ann looked over his shoulder at me, still grinning broadly. "Just come down to the pool. The children are all finished, and we will do this so no one will notice you at all."  The young man smiled politely.

I passed the test. Ann said something like, "Doesn't he get a Barney the Dinosaur sticker or something for doing well."  That was the only time I ever heard her laugh at her own joke. This time the steward laughed too.

We boarded a flat-bottomed boat the next day with forty people or more. We anchored about a hundred to two hundred meters offshore over a coral reef, and it was our turn to jump into the water.

Ann jumped in like they told her. There was this step, just like most motor boats have for water skiing. Instead of jumping in, I sat on it and slid into the water.  

It was always more about fear of sharks in the water than anything else. I knew I could swim.

In the beginning of the snorkeling deal, Ann caught me off guard. I thought she was swimming in for me to take a picture. She approached with hands outstretched, and I could hear this humming, faintly similar to the Jaws theme. Just after I took the first picture, she pulled my face mask enough to let water flood it. I cursed and stuck my head into the air and replaced my mask.

Ann did it three or four times, and then I finally decided enough was enough. They had given us little containers of fish food, and I had four or five around my neck. I could hear the Jaws theme, but this time I waited for the right moment.  I released three containers of fish food beneath Ann.  Hundreds of tiny yellow-striped and blue fish began a feeding frenzy. I could see my sweetie's arms and legs flailing at them as she swam away.

I did that two or three more times.  All was well with the world, and I was so proud of myself. 

We never returned the entire ninety minutes to two hours that everyone was in the water. After we finished snorkeling, the steward laughed again, and he really thought it was funny, when Ann told him about my swimming at least a mile daily.

There are a couple of things you have to know about my sweetie--sooner or later she gets to have the last laugh, and she never poses for a picture, unless she clowns around while doing it.  The picture at the right made me angry.  

We were near the city of Weimar in the former DDR or East Germany, and we were on this boat ride that was really beautiful.  I had this picture all set, and just as I took it, here is the pose she did for me, and she refused to let me take a single photograph of her.

When my Annie smiles for a picture, something is "up."

When we climbed back on board the boat to return us to the shore before getting back on the cruise ship, I walked around taking pictures.  People wouldn't look at me.  In fact, they swung their heads quickly, just like drill team dancers do when they perform at a basketball or football game.  And that's what they were doing here.  

People shunned me, and I began to feel self-conscious.  I looked at the back of the boat and took a picture of Ann.  She was the only one looking at me.  Everyone else looked somewhere to avoid a glimpse of me.

I should have known when Ann posed for the picture with "the grin."  

I walked to her, and she kept smiling broadly.   "What's wrong!" I was almost angry, because I felt silly, and I wanted to know what Ann thought was so funny.

"Feel your suit," she said.

I tapped the front of my swim trunks several times.  "No, feel your suit!" she repeated.   I did the same thing again.  Ann stood up, took my hand and placed it on my backside, where I felt nothing but bare skin.  There was at least a ten inch rip in the suit from my sliding into the water instead of jumping in like they told me to do.  People tried to ignore us while we talked about it.  No one laughed.

I worried for hours that I would have to see those people for rest of the trip, but I was wrong, because they never really were able to get a good look at my face.

Winter is for Children

I put this blog together, so my grandchildren would see that there was a time when their Pop Pop didn't call snow a bad name by referring to it as that white s@%t that's on the sidewalk and driveway again.  

There actually was  a time when my dad would take a long rope and tie it securely onto the bumper of our pick-up or car, and drive slowly while pulling me on a sled and several friends on their sleds too.  We could only do it when the roads were covered with a thick layer of packed snow, so I actually looked forward to that too, instead of cursing local city officials for not getting snow removed quickly.

And it was also a time when I went to work with my dad and grandfather.  My dad would bundle me up in boots and hat and this old plaid coat that was thick and warm.  We drove to what we called the hay lands, an area where farmers cut summer grasses, rich in timothy and sometimes a bit of clover, to feed cattle in winter when thick snow blanketed pastures.  It was here that I watched my dad and grandpa load a late 40's or early 50's two ton truck with a load of hay before taking it to an adjacent field where we fed our cattle.  In those days, we brought our cattle into Malad rather than driving to Snowville every day to feed them there.

The old way was safer and cheaper, but it was before farmers and ranchers had to live with laws requiring fees for each cow and calf and bull regarding brand inspection.  

While I am sure that it prevented some thefts of cattle, I have a difficult time thinking that cattle rustlers would transport loads during daytime hours.  Thieves never worry about being accommodating.  They never stop by the house of the brand inspector who lives on the highway just for fun either.  

And even my dad loved snow too.  The picture shows him bundled up for snow in a wooden box atop his own sled.  

I wish he were here to tell me if the picture was in the back of Great Grandpa Ward's place, because that is my best guess at this point, although some of the sheds look familiar to what we had on the ranch.

Even when I was older and in my 20's and 30's, I loved snow, because it was a time when we were able to ride a snow machine, and although we did it rarely with having to feed cattle every day, we still were able to do it occasionally.

The picture below is one of the early times when we participated in the sport.  My dad bought two green machines for a few hundred dollars per sled, something that would never happen today when enthusiasts pay as much for a snow machine as they do for a car.  It was a new sport at that time, a time when it was fun to do something with my dad besides the work we did every day.

The mountains around Malad were loaded with places to ride.  I think this picture shows a trail just above Jess Ward's ranch on the way to Powerhouse, although it may also have been the trip dad took to the cabin one year.  Tom Perry went with us, because dad was nervous that the snow on the roof would create problems.  

When we opened the door and entered, the entire inside of the cabin was coated with a layer of frost, just like what appears on car windows in winter.  We started a fire, and after a few hours, the inside was warm.  Riding the snow machines that year, however, was something that required thick coats and helmets with visors.  Even then we wore a bandana to cover our face, because hte daytime temperatures were never higher than 20 below zero.  We had to worry about wind chill, which explains why we dressed like we did.  

The beauty I found during those winter trips was incredible.  The mountains around Malad had beautiful places to ride too, and to this day, I will never understand why someone there doesn't groom trails for snow machines in winter and bike trails in summer.   At one time there was someone who groomed trails, but that was when everyone rode their snow machines in the mountains.  I don't think it happens as much now.  It became a rich man's sport with the advent of advanced technology that created massive snow machines with cooled engines.  The simple way is sometimes a better path.

Winter was a beautiful time there in my memory.  Everyone decorated yards and businesses for Christmas, and there was always a huge Christmas tree in the center of town.  The fifty or sixty foot tree was a traffic hazard and also a hassle for city police trying to catch teens who stole colored light bulbs, but it was still fun to have that tree there.  Now the town uses a smaller version in a parking lot, and I think it is also an artificial tree.  In years past, property owners would donate one overgrown pine in their own yard to be sacrificed by city officials wielding chain saws.

I wish that I could have been old enough to remember my grandpa feeding cattle with Great Grandpa Ward's team.  Now that would have been a sleigh ride to remember, although the work involved requiring loading that hay rack with a pitchfork was not an "E-ticket" ride at any Disney Park.  It was difficult work.

In spite of the work involved in feeding cattle, I still have fond memories of the evenings with my father.  The skies were sometimes crystal clear, and stars shone brightly in a massive ocean of cobalt blue.  I will never forget the sound of cattle feeding in the silence of winter.  The season in my memory was a beautiful place. 

Minnesota: A Place Meant for Summer Visits

Minnesota is a beautiful place to be during the summer.  There are rolling hills of corn.  Every farm you see is well-kept: the fences appear freshly painted, old machinery does not litter the landscape, homes and sheds are in order.  It basically looks like people, who take pride in what they do, live there.  

And even the summer storms are beautiful.  When it rains, it is torrential, and as bizarre as it seems to appear, I love to hear the echo of thunder that shakes windows in homes, although I hate the fact that tornadoes are a thing to worry about there too, which is something that we have here only rarely.  But even then, every time it rains, I look for things I am accustomed to here in the high plains desert, like the smell of ozone after a storm when everything smells so fresh and clean.  

In summer, you can hear the sounds of crickets and frogs.  To watch grandchildren pick them up and play with them is not only fun, but it also reminds me of my doing the same thing.  

The picture above is of Tommy and Anna at Soldier Park.  Minnesota recognizes that parks are important.  There are incredible examples of playground equipment that any child loves, designed to give them the exercise they need by getting out of the house and away from computer games and television.   

Jack loved the park there when he was with us in September of '08, but there were already changes in the air while we were there.  It began to be cool at night, requiring a light coat and closed windows at night.  In the heat of summer, the windows stay open, if not to create a little cool fresh air, then definitely a chance to hear those frogs and crickets.  The night sounds were still there in September.  You could, however, still notice the anticipation of winter.  

Driving became a NASCAR adventure with people who cut you off frequently or suddenly recognized that cars have horns to be used if someone waits a fraction of a second too long at a light or stop sign.   The smiles were no longer there, and no one seemed to be experiencing karma.  They seemed to know that winter was coming.  I don't blame them.  In fact, the reason I probably interpret the sadness is because it is how I feel in winter.

I can't imagine what they must feel.   Seeing the "white stuff" is depressing enough, so I have no way of understanding what they must feel when they find weeks where daytime temperatures rarely climb to plus degrees.  In fact, the only thing that helps we survive Idaho winter at this point in my life is knowing that somewhere in Minnesota, it is most likely forty or fifty below zero any given night in January and early February.

We will visit again this summer.  I will drive across Montana and Wyoming and the Dakotas, hoping to make it well in advance of the invasion by fans of Harley Davidson who feel that it is their constitutional right to bare themselves at any given moment.  There should be a law that forbids anyone over the age of 45 from acting stupid like that.   

But being in Minnesota means visiting Tommy and Anna with Jack, a rare time when we have all three grandchildren together in one place at one time.  It means driving to the Dutch restaurant to see the workers bring a plate with a European pancake smothered in berries while saying very loud, "Pfannekuchen."  Oh, they don't say it in German.  They use the Dutch word, although I am sure they mispronounce it badly, but it's still fun to be there and watch the fun and eat the great food.

A Loosely Based Interpretation of Star Wars By One Of My Annie's Gifted Students

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

Just when I thought I had seen everything, I find something fun like this, and I have to share it on my blog.