The Jailbreak

It's funny how things change when you grow older. The first time I heard Bob Dylan was in '66, and I heard the song "I Want You" on the radio. I hated it, and things stayed that way until the 80's when I discovered how much I loved to listen to his music. Hearing his voice became something that drove me to hear him live twice, once in Berlin in '85 and once in Pocatello in the late 90's.

When it came to cars, something changed too. My grandmother owned a '56 Buick Century. The car had a huge engine, with over 4oo horsepower, at least that's what I remember my dad saying. It only could get 5 miles per gallon, and grandma couldn't keep mufflers on it, so we had straight "pipes" installed. You could hear it for at least five city blocks. In fact, at a scout meeting in the old Malad Stake House, we met to get ready for a jamboree to be held in Northern Idaho in the 60's.

I heard my dad start the engine and drive to the church building. When I told me friends after first hearing it, they didn't believe me. Then dad appeared just minutes later. They thought it was funny I could recognize the sound, but the loud roar embarrassed me.

Then came the teenage years. I would have given anything to have my hands on that car, but the transmission was gone by then, yet had I known then what I know now, I would have had it repaired and driven it when I was in high school.

I still wish I had that car or one like it.

I was 16 when I first starting going with my father for church visits to families in our Ward. For those who know nothing about my church, they call it home teaching.

In the picture at the right, I was 18, which was two years later than the story I'm telling, but I was the same size. I grew early and then stopped growing, until I was in my late 40's. Then I really grew.

Dad and I did a lot of manual labor, so we were both strong and very good sized.

For that home teaching visit, dad and I were in the '56 Buick. We stop outside the house of a older widow and her older daughter who also lived with her. After walking to the door and ringing the door bell, the 80-year-old woman answers, looks at dad and then me, slams the door, and through the large window at the top of the door, we see her crawl on her hands and knees toward the rear of the house.

My dad looks at me. "What in the world?" he asked. Actually I think I particularly remember dad saying "What the hell," but since I'm talking about our church assignment, I'll stick to the other.

We returned to the car and drove home.

My dad was a clerk for the bishop in the Second Ward in Malad, and he told him what had happened. Four months later, the elderly lady enters the Bishop's office on a Sunday morning and says, "Bishop, I'll have you know that we have not had Home Teachers for over four months."

Bishop Max King smiles. "Jon," he says to my dad, what do you think of that?"

Dad looks at the lady. "I'll have you know that you slammed the door and crawled on your hands and knees across the floor."

The older woman was stunned. "Was that you? Why we had heard that there was a prison break at the Utah State Penitentiary, and we thought two convicts had appeared on our door.

For years, we laughed whenever my dad told that story.