Taken at my father's cabin at a place the locals called Strawberry, we posed while my Grandma Liza took this photograph, one of the few that shows us with our family when they were really young.
This picture is before Kristin was born.
I had only been teaching for a couple of years at this point. My dad's two-tone silver and blue Ford pick-up is in the background, and we drove a white '74 Mercury Cougar, barely visible at the left.
When Lydia and Cles were this age, I would drive purposely after fresh snowfall toward any place with a wide lot--like the spot near the old Second Ward Church in Malad. After gunning the motor and cranking the wheels, the car would spin, and my Annie would scream before damning me all to hell. Lydia and Cles would laugh, Cles with the trademark hysterical guffaw and Lydia with a soft giggle with her hand over her mouth.
Part of me wishes we still owned this house. It only had two bedrooms, and there was no basement. There was a separate brick two-car garage that was very nice, but the house was quite small for a family with three children. It would be perfect for Ann and me now, although there wouldn't be any room at all for visiting family during the holidays.
Kristin is only a baby at this time. We had just had the fireplace installed. The chimney is at the left. We added some soil near the spot where my Annie and the then little ones posed, and I planted strawberry plants. I wish I had had someone take this picture, so I could have been in it too, but you never think of things like that when you're young.
California was always a favorite travel destination for our family, although it took a couple of years for Ann to talk me into that. The first time presented us with a choice. There was a GE 36 inch television we liked with an oak cabinet. It had a rectangular look, and we had searched for one for some time. Vee Peden in Malad found one for us, and I bought it. Ann was not happy about its costing us a vacation that year, so the next year she purchased the tickets and hotel accommodations in advance. One week before we left, I started to make statements about things we needed, and my Annie informed me I could either go with the family and have fun or stay home. It was my first trip to Disneyland with our kids. After that, it became an October tradition.
This picture is from '85 or '86. I grew a beard, and instantly I became an evil person in the eyes of my first principal. His name actually has a connection with a Yiddish word--tuchus.
That beard was what had taken us almost a decade to do: motivate us to leave our hometown, and after leaving, our lives were never the same because of the advantages we found that enhanced our careers.
This year was our last in Malad. My grandmother took this picture, and as I remember, we had Thanksgiving Dinner at the family ranch. By spring, the tension at the school district over my wearing a beard grew unbearable. They couldn't force me to shave, and the harassment was continuous.
I had had enough. Something I would not do now seemed appropriate at that time, because I told another staff member, whom I knew would tell my principal the following statement immediately: a supervisor who was trying to get me to shave my face, couldn't even get his wife to shave her armpits or legs. Within a month, the principal called me into his office and informed me that they would be hiring a home economics teacher from Soda Springs who would teach Spanish, and since the new program wouldn't compete, they would no longer offer German. That way the new program would begin without a "hitch."
Funny thing about that situation was that he did it on his own without consulting with the board or superintendent. Some school board members and the superintendent talked to me personally over the next months about staying in Malad. Within twenty-four hours of that conversation with my former principal, I had a job in Idaho Falls. It was the best thing that ever happened to us, but I truly miss some of the people I taught with in that school district, and our family missed our friends too.
I refuse to talk more about it, because it makes me bitter. The move came at a time when my father needed me most, both helping him on the farm and helping him cope with the reemergence of his cancer.
This picture, taken in the front room of my parent's house on Bannock Street, happened one year later after our move. About that time a colleague saw my car in Malad, and he asked me if I wouldn't return, because that principal wouldn't last forever. I couldn't go back. We were happy in the move, and one minute was too long in the same building with a man I couldn't trust or respect.
People who met us during this time noticed how much happier we were. There were financial concerns, because we were making double house payments on the poor salaries that two teachers made, but regardless, there was no stress like we had previously had.
Opportunities began to happen. In Malad and in some other districts in the area, they discouraged me from finishing my MA in English, because they didn't want to pay extra money for the added educational background. I found a district that wanted that, and within a year, I began teaching as an adjunct: first at ISU and later at Ricks College. The ISU job was only a temporary summer job that happened in 1990.
Ironically, I shaved to teach classes at Ricks. I couldn't miss the chance at teaching at that level, and the pay was very good as well, but it was my choice. They didn't bully me or make me miserable. I had a choice, so I shaved, but I grew the beard back every year after I finished the second semester of night classes, and I wore it until I started again late in the summer or early in the fall. I taught eight sections of English per year for 13 years there, and then I began teaching English and German classes at ISU. The beard wasn't a problem there.
Around this time, I began to see some changes in my father. I talked to
him every day over the phone, just like I did when we lived in Malad. I would always drop by the house. It was something I enjoyed, because we had spent a lifetime working together on the farm.
My father called one night and asked me to drive down to have a family picture taken. He told me to dress nicely, but I was in this phase where I really disliked the whole thing about a shirt and tie or jacket. We appeared in comfortable casual, and everyone else was in "best apparel." You can tell by the look on my Annie's face how she felt about that, because I hadn't talked about it at all. This picture was one of three or four times during our 35 marriage where she was genuinely "pissed" at me. She didn't say a word all the way home, but her chocolate chip eyes flash like lightening when she is upset like that, and it was hurricane weather in those beautiful peepers of hers that night.
This picture happened about three years after my father passed away of colon cancer. By then things were going well for us. We bought a new home in Idaho Falls, and we were both flourishing in our careers. Like me, Ann was also teaching as an adjunct.
We spent hours making a reasonable living, often working two and even three jobs. We still did not have the finances to send our children to the university without their getting costly school loans. That pretty much explains why I became a democrat. Support of education and educators is important, not for self-indulgence but for people to make a living according to what they do in society, but the situation never seems to change, and over the years, I have become even more of a democrat than I was years ago.
In the picture above, I can tell a number of things. By the expression on the faces of my three children, I can tell I'm doing something to tease my Annie, and my sly expression is a dead giveaway, but so is the embarrassed look on Ann's face. It makes me smile to see this.
I can honestly say that our 35 years together have been fun, although at times there were some rough spots. Those "icy patches" were due to life in general and had nothing to do with problems in our relationship. In fact, the love we share is what gets us through the hard times.
And the most difficult time began just after the last family picture. As I remember, we had it taken on July 1, 2003. The year had been a strange one. I had been doing exchanges since 1981, and that year was no exception. We did one of the best exchanges in my career in 2001 with Stuttgart. It was in Southern Germany, not in Dillingen--the tiny city on the Danube I love--but it was in Schwaben. The first one in '81 with a Malad group and my last group from Rigby were my favorite experiences. In '03, we looked forward to another great experience.
Problems began with their visit. The war with Iraq was in full swing, and the school was a type of inner city school with many children of immigrant families, many of whom were Islamic. There were four in particular they told me about, but a fifth one I discovered they kept kind of quiet about during their stay. He did not like America or Americans, which is a strange situation when you think of our activity being an exchange program to promote friendship. Supposedly, it begins with open minds.
Then other situations began to appear. One girl, whose parents were refugees from the Balkans, had little money, and the teachers seemed amazed that she seemed to have plenty of cash to participate in activities while she was in America. A colleague told me after their departure that she had been doing a little fundraiser of her own in the parking lot with some of the enthusiastic students seeking companionship. I resented the fact that I never knew about this until after their departure.
The war in Iraq was a very unpopular situation in Europe, and given the situation with a sizable number of Islamic students in the school in Stuttgart, I began to worry. Then some of the members of the American group began to talk privately about their excitement to go to Europe to party. Rural students going to a large European city have no idea what trouble they can find.
I thought long and hard about the situation, and I believed that I needed to cancel it for the safety of my students.
At the end of school, only a month later, I began to see some problems appear with my right hip. My Annie scheduled an appointment with a surgeon, and she made sure I was there. I tried to tell her to stay home, but she refused. When the doctor told me I needed a hip replacement badly, I began to talk about doing it a year later. The doctor said, "Well, I guess it doesn't hurt badly enough yet, but there is a chance of dislocation and further damage."
This is where my Annie voiced her opinion. Surgery was to happen on July 2, a day after the family picture.
I've always been one who had "vibes," especially when something bad was about to happen, and I really felt I wouldn't survive the surgery, but I did. However, a month later, they discovered my leukemia AML.
I spent two-thirds of a year on chemo, and then I tried to return. It came back within six months of remission. The second experience was not an easy one.
This picture happened on Christmas Eve. My doctor worked frantically to get me out to be home that night, and it didn't happen until very late. Basically, it was my time to go home and die. My doctor told me in January of '05 that I had two weeks to two months to live.
Life takes on a new meaning in times like this. My family and my wife were the ones who were with me during these tough "spots," and there were old classmates who took the time to be with me too. No one has any idea what it's like to go through the "dark" times of chemo, until you sit in the dark, your mind racing and not allowing you to sleep, and then you listen to the sobs of your sweetheart. You can't hold her, because the seven-inch plastic lines in your chest are just another reminder of the whole mess.
During chemo, she was with me every minute she could, and this was while my Anne was still working full time. During each break, she was there. While I was in the hospital, she spent hours with me until 1:00 a.m. or later, and then she'd be back at 7:00 a.m. the next morning to see how my blood work went. She monitored every prescription written by the doctor who was there whenever my oncologist was out of town, and she caught mistakes a number of times that that "substitute doctor" made, which spared me very harmful side effects--the most extreme being almost putting me in kidney dialysis. My Annie would hear of it. Whenever my oncologist returned, he would smile at her and ask her why she didn't go into medicine.
But what I remember the most were the nights we did chemo at home with this little box that looked like a cassette player. It pumped the horrible stuff into my veins until three or four in the morning. Ann would set an alarm, and as soon as it finished, she would flush my lines with a saline solution that goes into the line and apparently into the blood stream. I could taste it. In fact I could feel the cool sensation it created that I always hated to sense. And my Annie was there when panic attacks would hit me.
So in a moment when someone implies or even suggests something that questions anything about her commitment to me, I have something important for that person to know: "Where the hell were you?" That only applies to those who made me feel invisible and ignored me. It's actually a common point that a cancer survivor arrives at during the horrific fight, so anyone reading this needs to remember that being a friend or family member means caring enough to be there.
For my own family, I feel it was extra difficult, because they went through this once already with my father, and hopefully no one else will suffer like he did and as I have, but if any of them do, I will be there. And I'll be there for a friend too.
So life takes funny twists and turns, but if there is justice and fairness in the things that happen, I hope I can show my wife the love, the devotion, the friendship she showed me, and I want to do that by taking care of her every minute of every day. It's what you do when you love someone.
Although I can't read the last word, the line of graffiti in white reads: "When will the guilty finally be punished?" I think the last word is bestraft, which is the inseparable past participle of the word bestrafen. This is a portion of wall near Stazi headquarters in Dresden. In 1989 when the communist regime was near its end, protests began in Dresden and Leipzig. Leipzig was no surprise, because after doing an exchange there, I came to identify how rebellious the people were, but under the conditions of the time at the end of the 80's, it took true courage to stand up and be counted as an opponent to what was going on at that time. Hundreds of thousands of people stood in public squares in those two cities, and on the roof tops the Stazi took pictures to identify them. At that point, it was beyond enforcing anything.
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I couldn't resist adding this picture of Jack while we were at the stop where we drove through the large redwood tree. 
