The Silence After Everyone Left in the Jetta

It has been a full day since Tommy came looking for me to watch a DVD with him or since we went for a tractor run, when we found both a John Deere and a Case International. It has been a day since I found any more rocks that Anna found in the yard.

Anna always found the perfect stones: mostly flat ones you would use to skip across the smooth face of a pond. The flowers in our yard in Idaho Falls remain intact, but the heat is wilting them anyway, so I wish I had Anna here to pick them.

And it has been a day since I had Lydia to laugh at my jokes or Ann to tell me how unfunny they were. Only Tom Hanks on Castaway told his own jokes and laughed at them, and that was after being alone on an island for years, so it is way too soon to feel sorry for myself at this point.

As for the topic of this blog, it has been at least a day since I saw any of Anna's princess T-shirts that flash and glow in the dark, waking Lydia every time our little blond firecracker wiggles while sleeping next to her mom.

It is now 5:16 p.m. I figure the Jetta should be arriving after the two-day trip, some time between now and the next hour. Lydia and my Annie will unload the car, feed the kids, and then everyone will collapse from the exhausting trip across Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota and into Minnesota.

If you check this blog, tell Tommy that his two dinosaurs came today, so grandma will need to buy Anna at least one pair of shoes with a matching princess outfit.

And grandma, if you do not want to do that, we can always do what I promised Anna I would do. She wants a dinosaur plush toy. I found the one she wants, although any of those below would work well:

The Apatosaurus is my personal favorite, although Anna likes the Stegosaurus at the right; however, they do have a great T-Rex.

The T-Rex might give her nightmares. The others are fun. The cost is not bad either. My favorite T-Rex is the $200 one. It is not the T-Rex that I showed on this blog. It has to be at least four feet tall and I do not remember how long.

Anna's Pink Hippy Hat

I'm not sure, but I think I picked this hat out for Anna in one of grandma and Pop Pop's shopping sprees. It was her favorite color, and it also had prints of flowers like I remember from the late 60's. Anna likes pink. Anna likes flowers. It made sense to buy this hat for her.

While Ann and I were in Minnesota in June, there was not a time when she went outside that Anna did not find a flower and pick it. She would bring it to grandma or to me.

Anna did the same thing in Idaho Falls. I'm sure this day at the Tauphus Park Zoo in I.F. was exciting for her. There are flowers everywhere.

One day when I went into the computer room to find a DVD for Anna and Tommy to watch, there was Anna's hat on a top shelf. I had heard Tommy teasing Anna earlier, but I had no idea it was about the hat. I picked the DVD and balanced Anna's hat on my size 8 head.

Tommy laughed immediately. Seeing a tiny thing like that on an adult whose head has its own weather patterns is something you do not see every day.

Anna was not thrilled with the idea of my wearing her hat, but she sat on my lap and gave me a hug while her mom took a picture of the infamous day when Pop Pop wore Anna's pink hat.

I watched Jumanji with Tommy and Anna at my side the night before they left. I adjusted the volume on our new Bose system as loud as I could make it without creating too big a stir in the neighborhood. Tommy loved the film. Anna liked the movie too, but at the sound of anything sudden like the slam of a door, she would jump in my arms. It was not a mere flinch. The reaction was a gold-medal winning jump. Writing it now makes me feel a bit guilty, but she told me she liked the film.

"Do you like the movie?" Anna nodded her head gently and quietly without taking her eyes away from the screen. When Lydia and grandma returned from getting some treats for the trip the next day, Anna told her mom about the elephants and the rhinos and the zebras. "Is the movie scary?" Again, when I asked Anna that, she nodded her head the same way.

When the film was finished, it was bedtime for Tommy and Anna. That is when the crying started. We put them in bed with grandma and Pop Pop long enough for Anna to fall asleep. That took about forty-five seconds. Tommy followed his mom downstairs. He had insisted on sleeping with grandma and Pop Pop, but I wanted grandma to have a good night's rest before the long car trip to Minnesota.

Anna wiggles all night long. Tommy does acrobatics. He sleeps sideways. He sleeps upside down. He sleeps with both legs dangling over the edge of the bed. It is only a problem, when I worry about grandma driving a long time the next day. And it would never worry me, but Ann sleeps soundly whenever I drive, so I worry.

The next morning was supposed to be one where grandma and Lydia left well before seven. We had the car packed at 10:00 a.m., and they left at 10:15. Anna had a terrible morning. I did not say a word, because I figured she had dreams of elephants and rhinos and zebras all night long.

I have dried roses in the basement, and I picked a small one for Anna, stripping it of leaves and thorns. This could be a metaphor for how I try to shelter my loved ones. Lydia smiled when she watched Anna take the flower from my hand. Anna fell asleep for another hour before they left, and when she roused out of a deep sleep, she wanted her rose.

It was hard to see them go. Even worse is the silence in the house. I hated seeing them go, but there was no room in our Jetta for Pop Pop, and besides, Ann and I leave for Washington D.C. for my meetings at the Holocaust museum a few days later. Ann worried about my legs giving me problems, so she booked a flight for me on Saturday.

Anna will greet me with flowers. Tommy will give me hugs and tell me about his trains and tractors.

Best Friends

Jack talked to his teachers about his friends, and he told them about their adventures, whether in California or in Minnesota or in Utah or in Idaho. They would smile whenever I picked him up, because they wanted to know who Tommy was.

Jack told them he was his best friend "in the whole world." The two boys play together, laugh together and fight together. They are like brothers.

The fighting happens less often, maybe because they have less time together, but I like to think it is something else entirely.

I had a cousin like that. We fought when we were lttle, but in high school, he was like the little brother I never had. I teased him mercilessly, but I loved having him stay with us during the summer. I watched that same thing develop between Tommy and Jack. A year ago when we spent time in Minnesota, they were fighting. "Don't fight each other. Learn to help each other. Lock arms and fight those who would hurt either one of you." Lydia looked at me like I had lost my mind, but my dad told me that story. I am certain it was how he viewed his own first cousins, Jess Ward and Dan Daniels. They were cousins, they were best friends, they were like brothers.

Then Anna came into the mix. At first, the scrappy little blond would follow them about the apartment. If she talked, it was like listening to one of my favorite musicians, Bob Dylan. You needed subtitles to understand my little princess.

But times change quickly, and now the three of them play together. On occasion, both boys look out for Anna, except when teasing her is too difficult to resist. Teasing people is easy to enjoy, but if a person is feisty, it makes it even more enjoyable.

The three genuinely care about each other and enjoy being able to play and talk to each other. During the first days in Idaho, Jack was able to visit one night when we watched a DVD. I had a grandson on each side, and Anna found room too. For me it was so much fun to have my three little ones enjoying a film together. It is when everyone is gone and I am alone in the house that I notice the silence.

That's when I get this craving for Bug Juice.

A Day in Logan With Aunt Connie

There is nothing like putting your hands in the air when you ride a roller coaster, and for some reason or another, they sometimes do this when they ride with grandma in her Turbo VW Bug.

In the event that there is not enough excitement, you just give the kids some more Bug Juice, a wonderful fruit drink with 10% fruit concentrate and 90% sugar.

Yes, Bug Juice does the trick, helping the little ones appreciate even those small rises in the road that they would normally never notice as they stick both arms in the air and squeal.
Tiny flailing arms and voices are so loud that their faces are red, and if they had taken the picture, you would have seen the blood vessels in mom and Lydia's neck beginning to throb.

All joking aside, I wish I could have been there that day, but my sweetheart let me stay home to prepare for the next trip we would take later in the week.

The trip to Logan was fun for the entire group of grandchildren. Jack had been coaxing to see Connie and her kids for several months.

In the event that Tommy and Anna would have forgotten the trick with holding hands in the air, Jack would have reminded them to "get their act together."

I was always paranoid about a trampoline, and jumping on one was something I threatened my children not to do. Jumping on some neighbor's tramp was the possible cause of everything bad: fractured necks, sprained ankles, twisted knees. "Don't let me catch you jumping on one of those!"


My worries and concerns made the activity more fun for my children. Not every child's eyes glow with ultimate joy as they spring into the air, but mine son and daughters did, and if their adventures ever cost them pain, they never admitted it openly, not even once. But trampolines would become a family tradition.

For Lydia it was a beginning. This kid took her on a date in Salt Lake City, and when they returned that evening, he looked at me and said, "Do you want to see what we did today?" He took the VHS tape he had in his hand, turned on the television and pushed play on the video machine.

I found myself grinding my front teeth together and gripping my fists tightly as I watched my little girl jump from a plane, strapped to a trainer of course, but my leaving the room was not necessitated by nausea. It was fear. I was afraid of going to prison for doing what I wanted to do to that kid. I was afraid of experiencing the terror that I remember while watching this 50's horror movie where a man--gentle and kind--lost total control of two hands that led him to do horrific things. Suddenly I became those hands, so I left the room, and the unsuspecting boy left my home without my saying goodbye, but he left without having red marks on his neck like Clint Eastwood had in his movie entitled Hang 'em High.

Then I let loose "The Furies" when I heard the young man leave. Lydia never jumped from a plane, a car, a train--that I know of--in those years after high school. She just jumped from bridges and cliffs into cold river water.

Now she is a parent of two beautiful children. And she is a wonderful mom, but in those innocent brown eyes of my Tommy and Anna, I see my Lydia standing with these eyes that sparkle when they jump with voices that sing screams of ultimate joy at the effects of gravity.

I never jumped from planes or bridges, but there was this haystack in Malad with an adjacent stack of loose wild hay that was fun, and then there was the second story window of a church where my friend Randy and I would hang for a few minutes before falling to the ground. We would laugh hysterically at the numbness in our legs.

When adults caught us doing it, well, it would never happen again from that spot, but at the right of the tall steps, we and several other friends jumped again. My friend and I still have the memories, and we both have bad knees too. Whether football did the trick or our jumps, no one will ever know for sure.

At the edge of the last pine tree at the left, you can see the second story window, probably fifteen to twenty feet from the ground. The top of the tall steps in the front were a bit less of a challenge, but it became a favorite spot too.

The old church had this neo-gothic design in the windows, and just looking at it brings back memories--the hidden door behind the huge pipe organ in the chapel, the gymnasium and stage in the basement, the friends and classmates who experienced everything there like I did. There were swimming trips to Downata in spring and summer, riding inner tubes on snowy mountains in winter, and watching the leaves turn on trees in fall. Those large, ancient trees are not visible in this picture, but they were old when I was a child, and I think at least one of them is still there.

Sledding, A Family Tradition

My dad is ready for his ride in this picture. I remember his telling about using the cattle dogs as a team and having them pull him, but I do not remember whether he was talking about his story involving a sled or a wagen. In any case, he was too young to do that in this picture.

It appears that this photograph happened at my Great Grandpa Ward's house, with their barns and sheds in the background, but I do not recognize it at all. The picture does after all come from the 30's. There were a lot of changes in the next twenty years, and since my Great Grandfather Ward died when I was still very young, I really did not spend the time there that my dad did as a child.


In 1949, seven years before my grandfather's fatal heart attack, he and Uncle Merle fed their cattle with a sleigh. My Great Grandpa Ward always took pride in his team of horses. Uncle Jess broke them, while my Grandpa Cles broke the saddle horses for the family. From what my dad told me, they worked together as a family.

In a history book written about Malad Valley, it reports that many in the valley were taken to their final resting place with Great Grandpa Ward's team of horses. The Ward family took pride in them.

My dad always told me what his dad said that Great Grandpa Ward told his sons when they left with the team on Saturday nights. "Don't race the horses, but don't lose either." My dad always said that when he gave me the keys to the car. That was a mistake on his part. When I was in college, dad told me he could never figure out why he couldn't keep a drive line in his cars, until I went to school.

Few know the work involved in the picture below. Grandpa and Uncle Merl most likely loaded the hay on the wagen with pitchforks, especially as loose as it appears in the picture, although by '49, they may have used a tractor. Given what I know about them and the hard work they did, I still believe they did it by hand, just like they harvested grain, just like they dug water lines, just like they put up fences.

Controlling the team was not easy either, and those who have ever held a set of reins in their hands know that. This job would have been fun to experience from a distance.

Here I am sitting on my first sleigh. I remember this coat, because I wore it whenever I went with my dad and grandpa to feed cows or to load hay on the truck. By the early fifties, dad and grandpa used bales.

After my grandfather's passing, I cannot imagine how lonesome my dad was. He took me with him, telling me that he would take me sledding when we finished chores. The old green two-ton truck from the late forties or early fifties had things I still remember interesting.

There was a strange looking plastic knob on the dash that controlled a wiper that swept snow or rain back and forth intermittantly. Although there was a key that you turned on before the truck came to life, there was a starter on the floor next to this wide and long accelerator pedal.

I could not reach the pedals at this age to go faster or to shift gears, so dad would prop the pedal in place, and I would steer the truck right or left of the place where he threw hay the day before.

He taught me how to turn off the key in case of an emergency. Although it was a small role to play in helping my dad on Saturdays, the main intent of the job was keeping dad company, especially when he drove to the ranch alone.

A few years after my grandfather died, my dad began feeding the cattle on the ranch, although some years he moved them into town as well. He fed them in the back of the house on South Main.

My dad always came through on his promise for a ride on the sleigh. He would attach a long rope to the front of the sled, long enough he could watch me carefully, and he would let me ride behind the truck. I remember his doing that for us on city roads behind the car too, and many parents in town did that for their children too.

The fun we had was simple fun, and it all happened outside in the fresh air, and it still works in our family today, although we also have a few musicians, who of course, can only perform indoors.

Jack's and Tommy's First Christmas

I loved this Christmas with the boys, and for Annie's sweater I invoke the words of Lennon and McCartney, "Get Back Loretta, I love that sweata."

My Annie looks pretty in any color, but I always preferred greens and red, which by the way are Christmas colors.

This is Tommy and Jack's First Christmas. It was a time when they began new adventures, crawling on hands and knees to find more "fun" things. Kristin put child locks on cabinet doors. We moved anything questionable in terms of cleaning materials into very high places, or we put them into the garage. It was the first time since the early 80's our house was "kid proof."

Tommy and Jack often sat in the computer room and tasted their favorite cuisine, Indonesian wicker coasters. For Tommy and Jack that year, it was the rage.

It was always interesting watching how Jack began to get into things, but with two of them, things really changed. In spite of their young ages, they communicated too, in this strange set of clicks and winks and gestures. But their communicating set us and the house in disarray.

I miss having them small like this, although the two boys, and now Anna too, never cease making me smile. Being grandparents, Ann and I know you never wish time away. You can never return to a time of innocence like this, a time when things are so simple. They play with things of no consequence, unless you like wicker coasters or unless things are more important than these little ones. I will never forget those times.

Advantages of Living in the West

The first time my dad showed me the Teton Range, was when he pointed at them while driving on Highway 20 to Island Park. We were on our way in two vehicles, the Blue Chevrolet two-ton truck and the family car.

We were on one of the "business" trips we did. There was a bit of fun after dad and I cut, trimmed, and carried the long green poles to the truck where we loaded them and then secured them with a chain.

The work, depending on the weather, began on the second day. We secured permits from the U.S. Forest Service the first day, and then traveled to our lot where trees were already marked for us. I still remember the fascination I had with the sound of the wind in the trees, and my dad always felt the same way about the scent of the pines. It was such a change from the sagebrush and cedar landscape of our desert ranch.

On the second day we were up at six for breakfast and away before seven. Dad cut the trees with his chain saw, and I would push against it, sometimes lifting it and running with it so it would fall to the ground. Once it slammed against the forest floor of grass and wild flowers, I trimmed branches with an axe. Dad cut the top We would attempt to drop all of the trees the first and second day.

Then loading began. As I became older, I packed a pole on my shoulder just like dad. It was incredible exercise for sports in the fall, because of the weight of those green poles. Given the fact that dad preferred an eight inch end at the bottom, the weight was very heavy: usually at least 100 pounds if not even double that amount. Lifting it was only the beginning. The walk to the truck with it on your shoulder was where the real work began.

I still enjoy taking pictures of those beautiful mountains my dad showed me on the way to Island Park; however, I prefer taking photographs from the Jackson Hole side of the mountain near Jenny's Lake.

The best time of year is September, when fall colors begin to become the second dominant feature in any picture.

The Quaking Aspen make a different sound in the fall. During summer their leaves offer sounds like seasonal rains against sun-baked ground and window panes, and in the forests you can hear birdsong and the sounds of insects, but September is different: the crispness of leaves sings a different tune. There are course whispers now, but some things remain in spite of the cold nights that make colorful changes.

The musk of pine and the rush of wind through swaying pines is incredible to hear.

Near Jenny's Lake, there are few Quakies and more pines. It was this lake my dad wanted to visit again in the final years of his life. When you are younger, you look at things differently, thinking there will always be another trip, another year, another chance.

The advantage of getting older is realizing how important it is to savor every moment.

There are times when I miss the hike I once could do around the lake and to the first stop, where there was a beautiful view of what glaciers once carved. I only wish I had discovered the hiking path decades before I found them.

But there are more spectacular views of the Tetons on that hiking path to the water fall. It is a picture that I took many times, but one I have not been able to find to put on this blog. And not finding it is not really such a bad thing. I still see it in my mind.

I have traveled all over the world, and I have never found the beauty that I discovered here, a mountain range my father showed me a long time ago.

The Summer At Utah State

In order for Ann and me to finish our graduate degrees at Utah State, we attended one summer session on campus. The picture shows the inside of the quad where children played, while parents were either at class or studying.

Our Macintosh computer was the cutting edge at the time, and I did not want anyone around it at all--especially given the fact that Ann and I needed it in order to complete papers for class. The rule was not to have anyone in the apartment when Ann and I were in class.

One day I left something sitting on the kitchen counter, so I made a quick walk back to retrieve it. I ran inside, but the scene was an interesting one. There had to be at least 40 children in the kitchen. There had been this muffled roar of all of them talking at the same time, and when they saw me, they all ran out the door. My three children had told them how Ann and I did not want anyone there when the two of us were not home.

The other children were mult-national, some from India, China, Africa, Iran, Iraq and even a few foreign countries where people actually spoke English.

A few of them could not say or understand a word of English. Whenever I returned home from class, Cles and my two girls would wave and shout, "Hi dad!" Before long the children of the entire complex began doing that. I was talking with a group of fellow graduate students one day after an English class. Seventy to eighty children were playing on a large grassy area outside a classroom building. Suddenly I heard them all shout in unison, "Hi dad!"

The children were multi-national and represented a number of different races. Those graduate students had the most stunned looks on their faces, and in their eyes, I could hear the voice of Ricky Ricardo, "You've got some splaining to do."

Discovering the Parks in Utah

It is sad to say that I never discovered Zion National Park or Bryce Canyon, until I began taking German exchange students there. Every one of the student groups I took there went grudgingly.

They wanted to see the lights of Vegas and the beaches of California, but parks were something they were not excited about in any way at all.

The first group was in a fifteen passenger van. I remember we went to both parks, and getting them out of the van at the end of the day was like the scene from Sparticus, where victorious Romans try to get the slaves to "rat" on their leader, so that the Romans can embarrass, torture and crucify him.

The exception to the dramatic example I just used is this: they were too bored to jump from their seat to say anything. Instead of saying, "I am Sparticus!" They whispered German words like, "Ja und?" or "Scheiße."

In other words, they did not appreciate the natural wonders.

And then I began taking my own children there. The funny part of that story is the fact that Ann tried to get me to stop at Zion National Park for years.

It took a long time for her even to persuade me to drive to Disneyland, but once I discovered the fun of being there with my family, I was an immediate Mickey fanatic. In fact in 1980, Ann wanted to get me to go on a trip with her and the kids to Disneyland. I talked her into buying a TV instead. It was a beautiful television encased in oak.

Vee Peden was able to get it for me, and that G.E. set lasted through two moves in Malad, the initial move to Idaho Falls, and the final move into our new house. We kept it until the around 2001 or so.

However, I will always regret not taking that Disney trip a year earlier. Ann didn't give me a chance to say no. She basically said, "You can stay home, or you can come with us. I have your entrance tickets."

Once I visited Disneyland, I always drove like a madman to return there, usually in a single drive without stopping at a motel on the way, and in the early years with a 55 mile per hour speed limit, that was an epic feat.

I also refused to take the family to Zion National Park until I went there with exchange students. The next Disney trip found our family hiking there on safe trails on the way home. I was, however, always too nervous and protective to take them to Bryce Canyon, because of the deep ravines and the strong winds.

A Great Picture, A Fantastic Memory

The year that Lydia and Jeff married, they set a date for their reception in San Diego. We were the unfortunate owners of one of those sink whole investments called a time share condo, but that year it worked well for us. We reserved a week in Ramona, a small town in the hills above San Diego during the time we would need to be there.

Our kids changed the date, but Ann and I never flinched or hesitated. As I remember, some were worried we might be upset because of the reservation we couldn't change. We were not.

The week we were there in November, we stayed in a hotel and enjoyed the beautiful weather and the fantastic seafood restaurants near the site of the reception.

Ann and I drove to San Diego and stayed for a week in the condo for the entire week we reserved it. It was the greatest. The weather was 85 degrees, although it cooled a bit at night.

Every day we went to Disneyland, and we watched people walking about in winter coats. Ann and I were in long shorts and sandals without socks. Since we were some of the only Idaho residents who could really appreciate those temperatures, we did not mind the strange looks, and we even occasionally laughed at people wearing thick winter coats in such beautiful weather. It was like Idaho weather in mid September. Even at night there was no chill in the air.

Ann took the picture of the mailboxes on one of our last days there. It remains one of my favorites. It is one of those "artsy" things, and besides, it brings back incredible memories.

We drove home and smiled the entire way until we reached Cedar City. The snow started. We found our coats, and by the time we arrived in Idaho Falls, we discovered some of the coldest weather in a long time. It was -25 degrees for at least a week. I have never been able to take the weather since . To experience a change in temperature of over one hundred degrees in one day is too much to take.


And as for snow--even on Christmas Eve--I have but two words, Bah Humbug!

Life on the Ranch

This picture is an important one. Great Grandpa Ward is at the left. I am guessing that the picture was from 1949 or 1950. My dad looks to be at least a junior.

There is not a time when I don't see a picture of Great Grandpa Ward that I do not regret not knowing him. I have one picture where he holds me as young child of one or maybe less. I can tell the way he holds me that he cares about me. The stories my dad told me about him are fascinating. He truly was an original.

Uncle Merle and his daughter are next in the photograph. I always enjoyed being around him. He, like dad's cousin Jess Ward, were story tellers. They had a way of telling a story that made it easy to relive.

Aunt Janice sits on the hood of the truck. I think it was an International. Great Grandpa Ward had to pull some strings to get it during the war.

Grandpa Cles and Grandma Liza were standing next.

My dad is at the right. He was 5'11" throughout his life. He told me once that Grandpa Cles was close to six feet tall, but after seeing his driver's license, it shows him at 5'10" or so.

I also was about 5'10" until I begin shrinking as I grew older.

As I remember, this picture is from the early 40's. It is the same International truck shown in the picture above, but this shows it when it was new. My grandpa and grandma look really young in this picture.

Grandpa was also able to get a John Deere pull-type combine. It was anything but an easy machine to use. There were large metal wheels, and to adjust the cutter bar, there were no hydraulics. There was only a large wheel that grandpa would turn to make adjustments.

My dad drove the Caterpillar tractor that pulled it. They always had a hired man. My dad resented the fact that the hired man slept in the truck while dad was on that tractor. The hours were very long, but dad also told me that Grandpa Cles didn't trust anyone else on the tractor.

During afternoons when it gets hot, it is easy to doze while at the controls of a tractor. Dad told me that grandpa would throw a handful of grain at him. The work that this type of machine required was incredibly difficult. It makes me appreciate the self-propelled combines we ran on the farm.

Favorite Pictures of My Dad

Jess Ward, Dan Daniels and my dad appear in this picture. When I had a copy made from the negative and had it framed for her, my mom referred to them as The Three Musketeers. She smiled when she looked at it, thinking of the memories of the three of them.

I always wanted to have Jess tell me stories about their youth. I was going to have Jess do that for me, but I waited too long. It is sad how we do not take the time to get something done when the time is right.

I asked Dan about it when I saw him after the funeral of Jess, but Dan was not interested in doing that. He did not want to tell stories like that. Dan found it disrespectful, yet he was as polite as usual when he refused.

I admired his reasoning behind not wanting to respect the memory of Jess and my dad, but I really did not want to dig up any dirt or anything. I was just curious to know about what my dad was like when he was young.

I then began to reexamine the stories I enjoyed telling about me and my friends. Maybe it is better that they vanish into the past, so I just tell stories about me now, unless I am with those friends and they want to hear them. At times when we are together, we laugh about the fun we had in our youth, but times are different now. And I would never want a child or grandchild to think they had to do something outrageous to earn respect from me, and besides, my Annie always reminds me how much I embellish the story.

The telling, however, is always how I remember it in my mind.

I only know one story that Jess once told when I went with my dad and Jess and others snow machining during the winter in the 70's. Jess explained about how the three of them liked eating honeycomb. They spotted some hives, and they made their plan.

They would undress down to their underwear and canvas shoes, tip over the hives, take a large section of honeycomb, and race for a stream below the hives. In the springtime the water was deep enough for them to avoid the angry stings of bees, but the comb was not ready in the spring, and besides the water was too cold.

They decided to do it in August. Jess told about how the plan went badly. The three of them ran down a dry stream bed with only a trickle of water, bees swarming about their flailing arms.


This next picture is how I think of him now.

It was my second birthday, and the little toy with wheels is something I still remember. The reason that I think of my dad like this even now, is that it portrays in the picture how my dad always watched over me. There was safety in his arms. And I believe he still watches over me, just like I try to do that with each of my grandchildren now.


I was always big for my age--now more than ever--but as a sixth grader one summer at Lagoon, I was as large as a high school boy who was in the Fun House. I helped my dad on the farm, so I had bulk that none of the "city kids" expected. I was not any different than any one of the other farm boys who lived in Malad or Northern Utah.


This older boy from Utah was the "King of the Hill" on the saucer ride, which was something they had in the Fun House at Lagoon near the large slide.


The young man bragged about how he had been the winner each time they started. It began to spin. Everyone ran to the middle and sat back to back. Before long, the two remained: I was still aboard and the older boy was too, and then with a slight shove I sent him sailing too. I remember staying on the ride for a moment, smiling and basking in victory. My parents stood proudly watching.


I lay down and slid to the side, and suddenly when I stood up, something spun me around. The older boy had grabbed me, thrown me off balance, and had his fist back ready to hit me, but then everything changed. Not only could he not swing his fist, but he rose in the air at least eight inches.


"You go ahead and hit him and give it your best shot, but then I'm going to hit you," my dad told him. The boy wiggled like a rag doll. My dad had lifted him by that arm with the clenched fist. "You are bigger than him, and I'm bigger than you. That ought to work, hadn't it? Go ahead and try it." As soon as the boy's feet touched the ground, he tore away.


I was embarrassed, and I remember my dad asking my mother if he had done the right thing, or if he should have let me stick up for myself.


Whether or not my dad was too protective is not the question. That is how he took care of me. When I began doing tractor alone on the farm in '64 or '65, I would watch the trail of dust signal my father's driving up the dirt road. It would stop well below the ridge, and suddenly, I would see him peer from the side of a large, bushy cedar tree.


He was just checking to see if I was alright, and he always did that, until years later. The funny thing about it, I still sense that trail of dust just below the ridge line occasionally, and I still feel he watches over me, even though he passed away in 1991.


This last picture is one I took with a camera my parents gave me. My dad was out of patience, because I made them stand so long.


I wanted the picture to be perfect, and although my family was not in the center, in my child-like mind, the photograph was still perfect. I wanted the tree I loved in the picture as well.


On the right side and in the middle, I can see my Great Aunt Ada's car. As I remember, it was a '56 Chevrolet. She drove it every day to her work at the City Water Office.


Occasionally, I would stop to see her. She would always give me a dime to get an ice cream at Allen Drug, directly across the street from her office. Both drug stores in town still had 50's style fountains with the tools to make cones, ice cream sundaes and milk shakes.


Aunt Ada always drove the car to work, but my uncle Earl never learned to drive. He worked at the hospital, and he rode his bike every day. It was fascinating to see how fast he rode it.

Before Aunt Ada purchased her Chevrolet, she had a Model T Ford. For years my dad would tell about how sad he was that he didn't know she wanted to sell it. He would have given her a very good price for it, and she sold it for almost nothing.

Favorite Spots--Dillingen an der Donau

I found these photographs that I took in the late 80's of a German exchange I did in Dillingen, a beautiful little city on the border of Bayern and Baden.

Cles went with me that year. It was the first time I took someone in my family besides my Annie. He had just finished the sixth grade, so I wondered at the time if it was a stretch on my part taking him while he was so young.

Like everyone who experiences a new culture, Cles did some things that were sometimes funny, sometimes interesting. He would smell his food, not just on his own plate and not just a quiet sniff. When I passed plates of food to him, he would put his face inches from the food and smell so loudly that he would wrinkle his nose.

I had talked to him about it. But he continued to do it every meal. Finally Erika talked to me about it. One evening at the main meal, Cles takes the main course plate in this hands, and he puts the plate in his face and snorts. I felt the need to be dad, so I took the plate told Cles to take whatever he wanted, reminded him about smelling the food, and gave him a little swat--more like a tap--on the top of his head. It was like what you would do to yourself if you forgot something important.

Tears well up in his eyes and his dimpled chin quivered like it did when he was young. "Ohhhhh!" Erica said while giving me a dark look. Willi chuckled a bit. Erika came around the table immediately and began doting on Cles. It was cute, but I was the one most embarrassed at that point.


The pictures are from the window in the guest room on the top floor. It was not only very comfortable, but it also had a beautiful view of the entire neighborhood. I only wish I had taken more pictures and actually labeled them. I am sure I have some pictures of Dillingen, but after 20 years, I am not able to identify some of the buildings I photographed.

Each day Cles and I would teach Cles German, and every day when we walked together to school, I would drill verbs with him. Cles would use the language too, more than some of my students who had had five years of German in the classroom who refused to try to speak.

The summer of 1988 was the last year that I taught in Malad. This exchange was one that was truly magical--it was in Southern Germany where I always wanted to be, and it was in a small city where I always wanted to visit. The people were so nice and the area was so beautiful. The summer days were full of endless blue skies, and Willi and Erica's house was in a spot that had a "rural" feeling. It was far enough outside the city that you didn't hear traffic.

During that final exchange I did in Malad, I decided that it would be my best one for the students there. We had a beautiful city. We developed many friendships there. And we traveled to fantastic places.

We spent five to seven days in Italy, and we spent another nine days in Austria. I knew I was leaving for Idaho Falls, and Ann was already trying to sell our house in Malad while Cles and I were in Germany.

Three weeks before leaving on the trip with my students, my slimy principle I worked for in Malad for almost nine years told me that I would be teaching only English there in the future, since he hired a Home Economics teacher from Soda Springs who would begin teaching Spanish classes. He told me that they did not want anything competing with this new program. I had a job in Idaho Falls two days after that conversation.

I did everything to make the trip memorable for Malad students, since I knew it would be the last one I would do for them, and from what the principle told me, I assumed it would be the last one anyone could do for them, since he told me the program would no longer exist at the high school.

Cles and I were sitting at a table in a restaurant during one of our long trips. The students sat separately and were whispering and laughing at me. When I asked them what was so funny, one girl said, "We know something you don't know."

I don't remember what else she said, but she implied that she knew about my no longer teaching German in Malad. They knew how hard I had worked in Malad to create the program I had developed there, and they knew how sensitive I was to hearing anything that threatened to weaken what I had done. All of them knew how angry something like that would make me.

My reaction was shocking to them. "I know something you don't know," I said grinning from ear to ear. I then told them that I would be teaching German the next year, just not in Malad. Their reaction was interesting. I was anger, shock, amazement.

Ann began getting calls in Malad from people who were upset about our leaving. And then Ann called me. That year I took Joe and Louise Davis with me, a husband and wife team I worked with in Malad both as a teacher and formerly as a student at the high school when I was young. The plan was to have them take the students home while I went to a seminar in the German Democratic Republic. Only 25 teachers from the U.S. were able to participate in that program, and it was both an honor to be selected and an opportunity to visit a university in former East Germany.

Once the word was out in Malad that we were leaving, the time was prime to sell the house. Ann called and told me that either I would come home with the rest of the group or she would tell the superintendent that I would return to Malad School District. I changed my ticket the next day.

Cles wanted to attend a Judo class that afternoon, so Willi and Erica and I told him to stay at the school until we returned. We expected to be back by 5:00 p.m. It was 10:00 p.m. when we returned, and we could not find Cles anywhere. We looked everywhere near the school, but Cles was not there.

We drove home and found Cles sitting in a chair in the garden area sipping a soda and eating a candy bar. I gave Cles a 5 DM coin to use, and I made sure that he had one in his pocket every day, so he did not have to ask his "dad" for money when we went somewhere. Cles did not insist on that, but I could see that it was nice to do that, and a couple of the students had teased Cles about asking me for money. He would step up to a counter in a store and say perfectly to anyone what he wanted in German. It made me proud, because my students who could have done that and more refused to speak anything but English. The next week, Erika told me how one shopkeeper had smiled as he told her about the little American who spoke German.


The garden area at Willi and Erica's house was beautiful. They had a little pond with plants, and they originally had purchased frogs for it, but they never stayed in the pond.

Cles walking home alone and stopping at a store along the way to buy a soda and candy might not be significant for some, but for me, it was amazing. Dillingen was a small town for German standards, but it had 20,000 people living there.






One field trip we did while there was a visit to Blautopf, the site of this beautiful spring that feeds into the Blau--a river that eventually feeds into the Danube, or the Donau as it is known in German speaking countries.
I found this picture online which shows the spring in late fall or early winter. It is in my opinion one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

On weekends during the exchange when Erika had a lot of papers to read, Willi would take me on little trips. These lengthy afternoon rides would take us through beautiful country, occasionally across the border into Austria.I would have been content to walk about the streets in Dillingen, but my friends there were incredible hosts. It is a regret I have about not being able to travel like I once could. It would be so nice to see Dillingen and my friends there again, but I do have the pictures and the memories.

When I was in Dillingen on the second trip with a group from Idaho Falls, I traveled to Stuttgart to see Pink Floyd in concert at Neckar Stadion. I remember telling Willi and Erica how difficult it was to understand the German dialect in Stuttgart. Years later when I did an exchange in Stuttgart, I remember how easy it was to understand the German there. While in Dillingen, I never realized that their dialect was the one I had become accustomed to hearing: a mixture of Schwabisch and Bayerisch that is like music to my ear.