Funny Video From MSNBC's Keith Olbermann

This video clip is funny, but what I find disturbing is how Glen Beck mixes his silliness with implied links to religious references occasionally. I guess he thinks it gives him credibility. Anyone seeking to mislead the public with an emotional argument used that same ploy. It's why I dislike TV personalities like Beck and the rest of his friends on FOX News.

The Recent Passing of my Mission President

This was a ecclesiastical ID that my first mission president issued all missionaries, and it actually kept a zone leader and me out of jail once. We were going door to door in a residential area in the city of Essen, and someone called the police. They arrived, we showed them the passes, they left without us.

President Kindt was my first mission president, and I met him for the first time in March of 1972.

I was new in Germany. It was a time of transition. He was monumental in helping me grow as a missionary.

My first companion shows a couple of things that were important to understand about President Kindt. When he arrived sometime in 1969, the mission was going through a difficult time.

There was a president there, who was very strict. Missionaries all wore black suits, white shirts, even more conservative ties and black shoes.

President Kindt's first message, according to those heard it, was this: either get some color into your life and stop looking like undertakers or go home. He transformed the mission, and everyone started baptizing.

You'll notice my first senior companion wore this particular light blue suit. He always told me that story, especially when I went looking for a German suit after my initial arrival. In the picture above, Wolfgang is the young new member we baptized first in Oberhausen. My senior companion did that, but President Kindt phoned and told how important it was to involve me in the process. I had the chance to do the confirmation. It was incredible, and Wolfgang's sister Delia became a member only a few weeks later. She was at Wolfgang's baptism, and what she experienced during that confirmation was what was motivated her to become a member.

President Kindt had a sense of humor, and his repoire with missionaries was incredible. He made a connection with them.

In this picture at the left, he wore this cookie you found in Germany. It was available during certain times. I just can't remember now when we saw it. But as I remember, it had a citrus taste to it, kind of like Lebkuchen, which is something I still crave during Christmas.

He would put something like this on during a talk at a mission conference. Everyone would laugh, and then he'd teach us how we could be more effective. He was positive. He was always happy. I remember Sister Kindt meeting us at the airport.

"What's your name?" Everything was so new to me in Germany, that it took a minute to respond.

"Jon Ward," I said. My Southern Idaho dialect was strong. She had me repeat my last name three times and then spell it.

Sister Kindt fell ill a year ago during the winter months, when so many were sick with severe flu. She passed away at that time. President Kindt joined her this week.

It's difficult to imagine that time has gone so quickly, and then I realize that I'm almost 58.

President was always a classy dresser, and as a businessman, he knew how to motivate people. He made such an incredible difference in my life at that time when things were a bit difficult.

I adjusted to a foreign culture, lived in a Turkish ghetto in the Ruhr Industrial District, noted for severe smog and large sprawling cities. It was during that time when I had my best times, teaching a lot of interested people, baptizing three converts, working with a favorite companion, who not only remains a friend but who was also one of the two people who stood as Best Man at Ann and my wedding reception.

This was the apartment in Oberhausen, where I lived during those first months in Germany. It was on 498 Duisburger Str. And yes, it was in an area, where most were there as Gastarbeiter or "visitor workers." The Germans always had a way of creating interesting euphemisms, especially this one which made the "visitors," appear so important, although they worked horrible menial jobs in the city.

This was our district in the best of times in Oberhausen. My friend and companion "caught wind" of the two other members of our district having tickets to a soccer match: Bayern versus Rot Weiss Oberhausen. Craig did a "trade-off" to prevent them from going, but I was in the dark about the whole thing and especially about their area. I'll never forget the look on his face when we arrived at the apartment. I had a soccer flag with me. It did not go over well that day, but it was a great memory, something to laugh about almost 40 years later.

What is so interesting about my two mission presidents is the fact that they were also mission companions in their youth.

President Poecker and Sister Poecker also made a difference in my life. In early 1973, he told me that the second half of my mission was to convert missionaries. I had a difficult time with that, because I wanted baptisms. I was immature and viewed success in Germany at the time as collecting baptisms like you filled a deer tag during the annual fall hunt.

The job of converting a small minority of people who didn't really want to be in Germany was difficult, and what made it even more impossible was trying to motivate them to work every day. I forced them to do that. There were some who--plain and simple--didn't go to serve. I guess I'm not really sure why they chose to be missionaries, but for a while, I was angry about my "wasted" time, until I realized how important it was for me to help those few make a commitment to serve.

I never realized that until years after my mission. I hope that my determination and desire to work hard didn't act as a further example of a person who forced them to go on a mission. One told me this: "My parents made me fill out my papers. My bishop made me send them. My stake president made me go. And you make me work every day."

Before he left for home, he spoke in Sacrament Meeting in the chapel in Herne, and he gave an excellent talk. His attitude was better than when he first came to me, but I'll never know whether I really did what President Poecker wanted me to do. Like I wrote earlier, I felt success was something different.

But as difficult as it was, President Poecker only sent me a problem every other time. In between, I had some incredible workers, who became good friends like Dave Palfreyman and a few others, whom I lost track of years ago. That's the other sad note about old friends. You sometimes just lost touch with them.

President Poecker and I became friends, and we talked every Christmas. I would call him in the weeks before Christmas, and Sister Poecker would be so excited to hear my voice and to tell President Poecker I was on the line to talk to him. In one conversation a few years before Sister Poecker grew ill, we talked about the tough year we both had had. And then there was Sister Poecker's passing.

I couldn't make the call, and I regret it now. President Poecker and I had a lot of great visits, both on the phone and once or twice in Orem. He loved showing me his paintings, and they were incredible--so reminicient of the farms I sometimes found in Germany, even in the massive industrial area of the Ruhr.

Then he had his stroke.

I saw him one more time before his passing. I attended a mission reunion, and we sat and talked for a while. He told me Sister Poecker came to him in his dreams and beckoned him to join her. We laughed and enjoyed the short time I had to spend with him.

At that time, I had reached the magic part of my life, when a man suddenly no longer looks slim and in shape, and he teased me, which horrified his daughter, because she chided him for being mean, but we both laughed together. When he knew me in Germany from '72-'74, I weighed less than 150 pounds, which was less than the weight I wrestled for a time my junior year of high school. I starved myself to reach that weight. In Germany, we just walked a lot.

The picture at the right shows how thin I was. This was just a few weeks before I returned home from my mission. My mission companion and I spent Christmas there.

I miss him now. And I miss President Kindt too, but they will remain in my memory as I will always see them--motivating us to be better and to serve more effectively.

Its so hard getting old. My "greenie" died last September. I had a chance to talk with him over the phone and to see him about three weeks before his passing. He was fun, and he was a hard worker. It's difficult to cope with the idea that not only are all of us, who once were so young and strong, getting older, but some have already passed away. Others suffer from various things you get when you begin to reach those magic years. Whoever called old age The Golden Years was very optimistic, or maybe they just didn't feel the need to be narcissistic enough to look at themselves in the mirror that often.

This is Dave Palfreyman on one of the streetcars we rode every day in Bochum.

This second picture shows him on a bridge in late November or early December. I often would crave a visit to the southern part of Bochum, an area rich with farms and open fields. During summer months, there were wild blackberry bushes we occasionally loaded with ripened berries while knocking on doors and talking to the people who lived there. Even though it was strangely rural near a city of over 200,000 people, there were a lot of homes in the area, and we did some great teaching there.

Here is a photograph of the mission reunion I missed in April. Four months later, my last mission president, sitting in the middle on the front row, is now gone too.

But these people who made such a difference in my own life still live in my memories, and they made a positive difference in the type of person I became. Although some people have no idea of my deep religious faith, it will be nice to meet those old friend again, and to appear once more like we did during those confident days of youth, when we thought we knew everything--even if we really didn't. By that time, however, at least I will realize that I'm still doof when it comes to understanding a changing world.

I traveled back to this site where my friend Craig Walker and I posed in front of the apartment in Oberhausen's Marktplatz, where we had church meetings on Sunday, and where the tolling bells of the Protestant Church shook the windows each Sunday during the Sacrament. They have a large meeting house there now. All of us who served there made a difference.

Joining the Ranks of Old Coots

Without a doubt, a person looks at things differently after age 55--especially when things are at a point when you just can't move as quickly as you once did. Life is frustrating enough.

I knew I was old when people began began calling me "hon," which is something I complain incessantly about. Recently a clerk at a register at Home Depot set a world record by calling me that six times in less than four minutes at checkout.

It was the one time I didn't say anything, because I was so pi$$ed, and I had been the entire day any way, so I figured why ruin a beautiful summer day for everyone, but my Annie, however, enjoyed the moment.

She left my side, walked a few yards away, and turned her back to me. She held her hand over her mouth, and I could tell she was laughing. It was one of those moments people try to retell, and when everyone in the room sits with uncomfortable looks on their faces, you rely on the classic cliche: "Well, I guess you had to be there."

Interesting You-Tube Glimpses of My Favorite City in Germany--Dillingen an der Donau

This is a spot called Blau Topf, a natural spring with beautiful blue water. It's not far from Dillingen, my favorite exchange site. Rural Germany was my ultimate experience, not the large cities with sprawling streets, heavy traffic, enormous buildings blocking the view of anything on the horizon.

I was fortunate enough to have been their twice for exchanges before taking another job at a school. The new position was also a German job, and the German exchange was also a benefit for students that was available, but they already had a German host city. My memories, however, will always turn to Dillingen and the incredible summers there in the late 80's.

The fact that I could no longer take students there was a disappointment, but high school students just don't like this kind of vibe. They wanted something else entirely: shopping opportunities, excitement, fast-moving environment.

That just doesn't happen in small towns, but it was something I loved immediately. I would have thought the same way when I was that age.

But the memories here will always be clear in my mind. It is a place I want to visit at least one more time. I want to see my old friends there. I want to see the city again, but hopefully it will be in springtime or early summer.

That's a time when snow is not a factor. Besides, I would like to experience everything as I remember it. Occasionally in the large jogging park at sunset, I could hear the sound of a cuckoo.

It's as if I can't hear that in Idaho Falls. One cuckoo in our area lives down the street. He cranks his dirt bike and races through the neighborhood without looking for small mammals or toddlers. I call him a cuckoo when my grandson is with me. It saves me the guilt of calling the person a crazy ba$t@*d and then hearing my grandson repeat my mistake when he thinks I'm not listening.

And there are sirens occasionally at all hours of the day in Idaho Falls. Just like any city in America, there are lots of "cuckoos." I prefer the one I heard evenings in the park in Dillingen. The city for me was magical, although I'm sure they had their fair share of the folks I often think are too cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.

And even though the last picture isn't actually in Dillingen, it's in a city not far away from my favorite place.

Even the dialect of German there had a musical sound to it.

My New Favorite Picture of Samantha

I remember reading A Tale of Two Cities as a high school sophomore, and at that time, our English teacher--an excellent one with an incredible sense of humor--told us how fascinating one particular line of the book was for an opener.

She was serious when we discussed "the best of times" and "the worst of times," and although I didn't understand what a big deal it was then, I certainly do now.

And more importantly, after the summer of 2010, I understand it even more clearly than ever.

One thing for sure, "the best of times" included moments like this one with each of our four grandchildren, and it included visits from my son, even if it was only a few days, and from my daughter. Lydia stayed for three fabulous weeks, but ironically, the weeks went by so quickly, that it almost seemed to be only a few days.

I remember my dad. He never ceased to coax me to stay another day, whenever I was home from college. It worked, even though it was difficult to get back to classes on time, and that was when my school was a two hour drive away, at least under normal conditions.

That was also the best of times. There were no radar guns for officers to monitor car speeds, so I could make the trip in 90 minutes on a good day without any bad weather to make the road slick. Gas was cheap. And I was young. It's that time, when you think you're invincible. I never thought about the dangers of driving like the young crazy generation of today, but I probably drove as recklessly as the worst I see on the road any given day.

All things considered, the times this summer with family were still the "best of times." They were moments that will always make me smile, although some of those drives in late '71 and early '72 were kind of fun too.

But there have been some awful things too. I wish it didn't happen like that, but life takes strange twists and turns. At least it wasn't like the mid 80's for me.

I had a year where I had surgery. Two former students hit me in separate driving accidents, one incident bent the frame on our car just after I had the engine redone. That one was dangerous. A student "T-boned" me in the car after he ran a stop sign. The second one "side-swiped" me on a rural road, damaging the entire length of my car from bumper to bumper.

During one year, my principal manipulated me into adopting this impossible set of rules. The punishment for any infraction was severe. And contrary to what I had been told, the board not only didn't want it, but they preferred the way I dealt with problems. I sent two students home that year. In a small town, that is not a positive thing--especially when one is related.

I had two brushes with near accidents on the farm, one involving a huge door of a shed and another with a rattlesnake in that same shed on the same day.

And my dad's doctors diagnosed his colon cancer. That was a horrific year. I had another one like that in the 80's too.

It's been a tough summer.

One of the Worst Days of My Life

This was a good day. It was a chance to see cousins come to visit us on the ranch, and since we seldom saw people during the week, unless someone ran out of gas on the Interstate or had mechanical problems, seeing members of the family like this was great.

My cousin Kim is at the far left. His sister Penny is between him and my sister Jill.

The worst day of my life was getting home from my German mission in January of 1974, being home a short time--just long enough to feel comfortable with English--and have to speak at his funeral.

I'll never forget the viewing. He served in Nam, and shortly after he returned home, he wrecked his new vehicle while driving late at night with some friends.

The worst part was seeing him, all bruised like he was in the casket. He never caught a break. It was a bad day during that winter day when I spoke at his funeral in Samaria, Idaho.

This picture was another day I enjoyed with cousins at Power House Canyon. The family had a Sunday reunion.

Years later my dad reminded me why this picture was a sad one. My grandfather had died not many years before this, and my father was still coping. "I felt sorry for myself," my dad explained, "and I wasn't fun to be around for a while."

This day was difficult for my mother too, because my father's relatives didn't like Mormons much. When my dad joined the church, it was devastating for them. One aunt in describing something terrible that happened to another relative said this: "At least he didn't become a Mormon."

When you're young, you don't understand the things that happen at a family reunion that are unpleasant. But the picture speaks for itself. It reminds me of my grandfather's passing and the time coping with that loss. It was difficult for my dad, and it was difficult for me too.

Over 54 years later, I still miss him and feel the loss. I can't imagine what my father felt. He was very young at the time, and to make matters worse, he had the responsibility of running the family farm alone.

In what should have been a glorious family trip, I was a miserable little snot. Not only did I insist on having my father play Deep Purple, The Who and Grand Funk Railroad for music, but I teased my sisters mercilessly the entire time on the road.

However, my dad played the great rock with one stipulation: I couldn't tease or make things miserable for my sisters. And they took advantage of that. One squawk was all it took.

My dad loved Neil Diamond, and we listened to my Neil Diamond cassettes most of the trip.

I had been at odds with my parents for a short while. They didn't like the things my friends and I were doing and had been doing since January of 1972.

In spite of my cockiness and arrogance, my dad organized everything so that we could go on a lengthy trip that took us through Yellowstone, Glacier and into Canada, before I took for Canada. The entire trip, I thought only about a girl I dated once, and I wanted to return home to see her. What is funny about that whole scenario is that I only dated her once, if you don't count the twenty or thirty times we went for drives in my Model A in the weeks before and after the family trip. That friendship fizzled and ceased as soon as I was in college.

This was the only trip we ever took that lasted more than two days. It was incredible, in spite of my acting stupid and unappreciative the entire time. Karma happens when you go through the same thing with your own teenage children.

A few weeks later, I was getting everything ready to leave in just a few hours. Everything was in a few boxes and one larger suitcase.

My mother had been upset the entire day, and years later she told me how difficult it was to see her oldest son leave for college. My friend honked his horn, and I started to leave. My mother said something and seemed stressed.

The only thing I remember saying was this: "I'm so damned glad to be out of this house."

Saying stupid things is human, but it happens more when you're young.

So here I am today, one of the worst days of my life given everything that has happened. But then I realize that my health seems fine, I have family members who love me, I have a devoted wife who smiles at me even when I still say something stupid, but I see a glint in her eye.

We spent three days cleaning my grandson's room. It was small, but there are enough Star War toys to fill a good portion of the galaxy. I just bought him a new Galactic Hero At-At. Jack was talking about it at the dinner table. Ann is putting a plate of food near us. I say this to Jack while looking at my Sweeties eyes: "You know Jack, just like the imperial attack on the Hoth planet, I might have to buy another At-At for your battles." Jack's eyes sparkle with excitement, and he dances in his chair.

My Annie looks at me, her eyes half shut and her teeth clenched as tightly as her pretty little fingers.

"I wish I could read the words going on in your mind right now." I smiled at her teasingly.

"No you don't," she said.

There was a look on her face, that Clint Eastwood look. You know the one: "Do you feel lucky--well, do ya punk?"

I only laughed on the inside.

Yet Another Reason Why I Love David Letterman

The site that offered this clip showed it's original airing as October 27, 2006. It was on my birthday and at a time when things finally began looking better in terms of my physical health.

It is still a fantastic birthday gift for two reasons: first, you see that Letterman is not only a comedian, but he also knows how to think. The icing on my birthday cake was how he toasted one of the several FOX Dudes I hate so badly.

By the way, the final moments of the clip show O'Reilly doing the classic trick, trying to make a complicated issue simple why offering only two alternatives--doing something unthinkable or pathetic or even ineffective or being dangerously careless. Letterman recognizes oversimplification for what it is and says so. It's a great clip.

I wish journalists on FOX and other networks would be responsible, and instead of using scare tactics and devious rhetorical rants used by classic third world dictators, creating a report that allows Americans to weigh the issues and make a wise choice.

I hope it happens one day. In the meantime, I applaud people like Letterman, who recognize a man who should be a carny instead of an overpaid TV personality. Conning people into wasting money on cheap stuffed animals is not dangerous, but pandering ignorant people and tricking them into believing half-baked ideas as political truths is volatile in any society.

By th

The Deal About Expressing My Opinion

My art at being out-spoken has always worried me, especially when I offend friends or associates or people I don't intend to bother.

In the picture at the right, my dad appears as I remember him. It was just at the time, when I began doing work with him on the farm. He protected me from lifting things incorrectly or from things that were too heavy. But it didn't take long, and my weight training program for sports was like all the rest of the farm boys in my hometown--hauling hay, hauling rocks, hauling anything that needed hauling.

I do not, however, remember my dad being out-spoken. When I was in my thirties, we picked up some rolled barley. We took back burlap sacks the company gave us, and we received full ones. One day this one worker, who grumbled about everything, started grumbling at my dad about what bad sacks we brought to him.

I look down at the ones he filled for us. They also had holes. "They're not a hell of a lot better than what you're giving us." The worker shut his mouth.

As soon as we get into the truck, my dad says this: "Where in the hell did you get to be so out-spoken." He laughed about it a little, and then he said something interesting. "You must have picked that up in Germany."

Now my wife and I hosted teachers for 20 years. They were responsible for a number of things that were miserable to deal with. One didn't use the clutch when he shifted gears in my new car. I didn't discover that until I heard him grind the gears. "I'm speed shifting," he said.

The transmission needed work a month later.

One teacher was singlehandedly responsible for breaking a stylus on my turntable. That's a record player for readers who know nothing about "old school" music listening. The price was over $100. She also forced a disk from my new Mac we had at the time. That was expensive. I won't even talk about four or five of my favorite records she destroyed after damaging the stylus on my record player.

Another teacher flooded a level of my home. It was my birthday. She and the other German teacher wanted to take Ann and me to a restaurant. We return and the hallway is wet. "Oh," she says. "I noticed the water was rising after I flushed the toilet.

She also broke the wooden supports on two of my oak chairs by standing on them.

In almost every case, I told them not to do what they did, and in some cases I was not nice when I talked to them. I made one thirty-year-old German teacher cry, when I talked to him about messing things up during the exchange. He was a real prince. He later married one of his students he brought from Leipzig.

In spite of being very clear about my opinion, some people just don't get it, but as for my developing this tendency as a result of living in Germany, I don't believe it.

My maternal grandfather was Jack Williams or Black Jack. In a Welsh community full of people with the same first and last names, it didn't take long to get a nickname. Grandpa Williams died in the 1961, just at the beginning of the year. I wish I knew him better than I did, but I learned to know him through stories.

He didn't leave anyone wondering what was on his mind, not ever. "You don't know $h*% from Shinola," he would say to someone who said something stupid. By the way, Shinola was this waxy brand of shoe polish. His comments were hysterical. He had a sharp wit, a quick temper, a sense of loyalty to family. Grandpa said what was on his mind.

My paternal grandmother was this short feisty Welsh lady. I loved her from my first moments that I remember, because she doted on me my entire life.

"You're just perfect like you are," she would tell me.

Everyone needs someone like that in life.

That did not, however, mean that my grandmother didn't tell someone "what was what," when the time was necessary. She only did that to me once, and that was after her brainstem injury that put her in a nursing home. She said something mean, but I knew she didn't mean it, even though I cut my visit short that day.

I remember a family dinner at Maddox near Brigham City. It was a family tradition to eat there, and we had a horrible waitress. Grandma had the woman come to the table, and then I watched my Grandma Liza tell the woman exactly why she wouldn't get any tip from her that day. And grandma went into detail. Grandma finished her evaluation like this. "And I'm a very good tipper."

In future years, that lady waited on our family in the restaurant several times, but she never did that again.

When my Grandma Liza was in a nursing home for her brain injury after a car accident, a new nurse began working there. The woman was mean. I show up to visit my grandmother, and find her strapped down to a bed firmly. Bruises cover her arms and the area near her neck.

I did a bit of small talk with my grandmother at a time when we hoped there would be some sort of improvement. Grandma looked at the ceiling. I tried not to show my anger at seeing he strapped down to a bed with bed sheets. I waited for the nurse to come into the room.

When she arrived, I asked her about the situation, and especially about the bruising. The woman was defensive. I stood up from my chair.

I told her how I had better never see my grandmother strapped to a bed like that, and I also said that if I ever saw bruises on her like that again, someone's @$$ would be in a huge sling, both figuratively and literally. The nurse left the room quickly after removing the bed sheets. She also quit a short time after that.

I looked down at my grandmother. She smiled broadly from ear to ear with her eyes closed. I'll always remember that.

So when it comes to my mom and dad, they raised me to tell the truth at any cost. I was doing harvesting in a field once. It began to rain heavily, so I dumped the grain into the wheat truck and began to drive down this dirt road to the ranch.

We had a creepy neighbor, who would lift rocks from his field and throw into the road. I didn't dare stop that late August day because of the rain, but I hit a rock, and the truck veered into the neighbor's drilled field for about forty feet. I didn't dare stop either, because I was afraid of sliding off further or getting stuck.

A week later, the neighbor waited for me and my dad. He spoke to my dad. "I wonder what dummy drove into my field." The words were still fresh on his bottom lip.

"I did it," I said. My dad looked at me with wide eyes. "You know, somebody keeps throwing rocks into the road, including that one right there." The fourteen inch in diameter rock I hit was now off the road near my tire tracks where the truck skidded a bit after hitting it. "I tried to miss it without hitting the oil pan, and I didn't dare stop because of the rain and wet road, but I did manage to get back on the road without making a bigger mess in the field."

The neighbor wouldn't look at me. He finished small talking with my dad, and we jumped in the truck and drove home for lunch. As soon as dad started engine of the blue two ton '64 Chevrolet truck, he looked at me. "Hell son, I would never have owned up to that, but you did that rather well."

Oh, and that neighbor didn't throw rocks in the road any more.

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind--Dr Seuss

So it wasn't the Germans who helped me develop this thing I have. My mom is very outspoken as well.

I was in the hospital during my fight with cancer. One member of my high priest quorum, the one who told the entire ward I was going to die any minute in 2004, looked at me as he entered my hospital room. "I just wanted to visit you one more time old friend."

I found it interesting he called me old friend, and I even felt a bit guilty, because he always gave me this pain that settled somewhere near my lower extremity and both cheeks of my lily white Gluteus Maximus. I felt it at that moment too.

He turns to my mother, and asks her about Malad. He then tells everyone in the room about this person he knew from Malad, and then he asked my mom if she knew this person.

Mom turned her head a little to the side and looked through her glasses at him square in the eye. "You know, I'm just barely 70 years old, and I'm not over 90, so no I didn't know them, but my grandparents may have."

Had I had my wits about me, I would have laughed so hard, that I may have choked on something, but I was eating hospital food at the time, and so EIRMC kept me safe as a result of their horrific cuisine. There was nothing that could have done that to me at the time, since I hadn't eaten for a while, and I didn't spend time thinking about their food. Being on chemo is reason enough to gag and squeal into the bottom of a bucket like a pig. You don't want to think about their hospital food.

So I just sat and enjoyed the moment of watching the man squirm a bit uncomfortably, say good-bye and leave.

In January of 2005, some members of the school board in my school district called and wanted to present me with a retirement gift. First, they tried to talk me into returning. That shocked me, but it was such a nice compliment, yet at the time, I have no idea what they were thinking. I look horrible now, but at that time, I didn't look well at all, especially well enough every to return to work.

One was the current chairperson, a man I had offended more than once. I said that to him and explained how I hoped my tendency to say what was on my mind hadn't offended him. His response was classic: "We asked you, because all of us knew you would tell us 'how it really was not what we wanted to hear', so if that was too risky, we shouldn't have asked. You did what we expected you to do."

I liked that.

I come from a long list of people who had no problem expressing their opinion, especially when the situation required it. So there are a lot of people to thank. For the record, my dad could express himself too. None of my family was mean about it. They just did what had to be done.

However, I am an exception. Occasionally, I find humor in things that offend people--not as much as I once did, but I still feel the urge occasionally. My son told me I had "mellowed" unbelievably, but I figure I'll take him with me to Home Depot the next time he visits, so he can watch my reaction when one of the young workers call my "Hon." I hate that.

The phrase made me realize that I'm a Skinwalker. When someone calls me that, I turn into this crotchety old coot that informs then that even though my eyes are bad, I still know they are not my "hon."

A Disneyland Tradition

Since Jack was old enough to walk, Jack would coax to get down from our arms, walk to this door near the exit of the Alice in Wonderland ride, and knock.

Only one year found him unwilling to do it.

"That's just for babies," he said.

I was devastated, especially hearing that from a five-year-old boy, who always loved the park and especially this spot so much.

We talked about that and about his not wanting to go on some of the rides in Fantasyland. For the next trip, everything changed again.

It was a relief. Five or six is too young to become a cynic.