Just In Case I Ever Meet An Ancient Egyptian

I find the internet fascinating.  First, I have been able to find Cd's that have long been unavailable. I loved finding this store in St. Petersburg, that actually had two things by the musician who played drums for The Moody Blues.  I wanted to buy the LP's, but by the time I actually had a bit of money in those early days of my marriage with college, children and other more important responsibilities, the music was unavailable.

It was difficult to order things in those early days.

The music to a movie from the early 80's called "Man's Quest for Fire" becomes available in late March.  I plan on having that music.  It was a beautiful musical score.  My family hated it when I watched the movie, because not a word of English appeared.  It makes sense when you consider all of the characters were early harvesters and gatherers who battled each other and ran from saber tooth tigers.

And then a new toy appeared, just when everything I thought was available--a site that actually translates words and phrases into ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Now, if I could just figure out how to paste them into this blog, because there are some really important things I learned, like how to say, "I don't sweat much for a fat guy."

Or "I smell like old people." Then there is the classic made famous by the 60's folk group Peter, Paul & Mary, "I dig Rock 'N Roll Music."  

I learned all this while thinking I knew everything there was to know.   You just never know when something incredibly important appears on the Internet.

 

Nothing Like A Thanksgiving Trip To Disneyland To Get Everyone Excited About Christmas

The final day at Disneyland on the last trip was one that went typically fast.  Lydia and Jeff and the kids left for San Diego that morning, and although we originally planned to start home a day earlier, we added a night and spent one more day at the parks.  

Our premium passes were there for us anyway, and it only amounted to a night's stay at the hotel.  Ann added one day at a reasonable price.

It was a perfect trip from the very start.
I always love the way they light the park at night, whether at Disneyland or the California Adventure Park.  We enjoy both equally, and it seems like we go back and forth between them, depending on how crowded either one is at the time.  This view of the recreation of the Golden Gate Bridge in Frisco is fun.  This year was the first time we didn't travel by monorail at least one time over it on the way to Goofy's Kitchen.  There is something about attending a brunch and trying to succeed at Weight Watchers that just is not compatible.  By the time I returned home, I lost an additional 10-12 pounds.  We were careful about the food we ate at the park, and we did as much exercise as possible, even if I did rent an electric cart.
That last day found us running to see favorite rides that Jack enjoyed.
The films we watched with Jack and Tommy and Anna will always make the trip a place full of memories.  When we first took Anna, she was just learning to talk.  She still wore a diaper, and her way of saying she wanted to ride The Adventures of Winnie the Pooh was saying, "I wanna go poo."  That comment from a little voice turned a lot of heads in the park during those visits. And the memory still makes me smile.
And there is nothing like starting out the day or ending it by shooting aliens on the Buzz Lightyear ride.
During Christmas, the Haunted Mansion ride evolves into the Nightmare Before Christmas, and all three of the grandchildren love it, although each one covers their eyes at a couple of spots that scare them still.   
The lights this year on the castle were spectacular.  Like I said, it was a perfect trip and a great way to begin the holidays.

My Grandchildren's Favorite Christmas Decorations

Already at the age of three, we began showing our copy of "A Christmas Story" to our grandsons during the weeks before the holidays, and the networks also contributed well, since it also appeared an additional two or three times on television too.  I never grow tired of watching it, because although the story--based on a novel--happens during the late 30's or sometime during the 40's, it reminds me of Christmas when I was young during the 50's.  It depicts simple times when Christmas seemed to pass on a turtle's pace, a time when stores didn't begin showing Santa Claus displays on Columbus Day. This year, we actually began seeing things on Labor Day.

The toys and the school in "A Christmas Story" remind me of my youth.  We also had the "old desks" with a hole in the upper right corner where an ink well once supplied students with black or blue stuff for their pens.  At least, I think that is what they were.  

A second decoration came from another children's show that first appeared during the 60's. They had multiple versions of the Rudolph story, but there were a couple of early ones that we prefer to see each year, and the decoration below displays characters from the film.  My grandchildren love this ornament too.

  

One video clip shows our two "favorite" ornaments that our grandchildren love, and the other one shows the many different articles of kitsch that we have purchased for grandchildren to see. The funny thing is the fact, that for the first time in many years, we didn't even get out our German nutcrackers and incense burners that are called "smoker men."   They have always been the things we enjoy having out, but there was no room.  

Surfing Santa

While in Boise during a late fall teaching seminar one weekend, Ann and I were in the mall.  We came upon this "Surfing Santa," which played an old Christmas song that The Beach Boys released in the 60's.  As soon as I saw it, I knew I had to have it and realized immediately where I would put it.

"Where will it go?" 

I didn't understand when Ann first said that to me.  "Just where in the house are you going to put this?"  My wife looked at me, her hands on her hips and shaking her head in unbelief at the thought of putting out one more thing during the holidays.  We already had fifteen German nutcrackers and incense burners that we often left in storage bins, because I couldn't find room for them during the holidays.

But this time I knew the perfect spot.

A new tradition began.  I used it at school at Rigby High every year before Christmas break, and then I brought it home.  I'm sure my students were tired of hearing the Wilson brothers do the Santa thing every day for weeks before Christmas.  But I never became tired of hearing it, and I loved playing it and listening to Christmas music occasionally too.

After retirement, I continued to use it every year, especially as my three grandchildren became older, and it became a favorite too. Jack and Tommy loved it, and this past year, Jack played it every time someone came to visit.  When he was only old enough to walk, he would coax for someone to lift him high enough to push the button to make Santa do the twist on the surf board.

This past Christmas, he played it at least ten times after I first put it out, and then he eventually limited himself to playing it three or four times a day.  I never grow tired of seeing his eyes sparkle every time the plastic Santa begins to dance, only regretting that Tommy and Anna weren't there to enjoy it too.

But those days of enjoying grandchildren at Christmas are almost over.  Tommy and Anna need to be home near their own toys during the holidays, and it is only a matter of time when Jack too will find more fun being home than with his Pop Pop and grandma, listening to ancient pop stars sing Christmas songs.

All Aboard The Christmas Train

When Jack and Tommy were almost three, we went to Sam's Club for a look at what was there for Christmas decorations.

It was a great Christmas that year.  It was Anna's first Christmas, and the boys were excited.  

On that visit to Sam's, there was a display of a large LGB style Bachmann train set. The boys were excited.  I was too.  

I slid it into the cart.  Jack rode inside the chrome shopping aide. "All aboard," he shouted all the way to the check stand.

Tommy insisted running at the side of the cart, so he could see the picture of the frontier train.  He had been inside it with Jack, but he had learned that we occasionally placed things into the cart and then put them back on the shelf.  The boys decided to monitor the situation, Jack from the inside and Tommy from the ground floor.  

"Toot, Toooooot!" Tommy imitated the whistle he imagined the train make on the packaging.  Both boys repeated their comments until we loaded the prize into the car outside the store.  

The next morning, I opened the box in the front room, where we planned to set up the tree.  Both boys were impossible, because they were so excited, and the only way I could keep them out of the train box was to have them sit on my back.  

It was a great Christmas with all the grandchildren home that year.  Cles and Leslie were the only ones who couldn't make the trip.  
The train became a holiday tradition.  It takes at least four hours to set it up correctly, but as soon as I have the connections perfect and the batteries installed, I start the train in motion.  It makes a chugging sound, and the headlamp shines in the darkness.  Batteries also light the passenger cars, when I engage them, but I usually avoid using it.  It's the paranoia about having the batteries rust and ruin the cars, so we only use them rarely.  Neither Jack nor Tommy really even notice when the lights are on, so at this point, we wait for a few years.  I turn them on only once on Christmas Eve and then quickly remove the batteries.
The engine and cars are classic, and it makes each Christmas fun.  This year was a first.  Ann and I would be watching television, and we could hear Jack play with the train, sending it on another trip around the tall tree surrounded by gifts.
The caboose is a classic Western piece.

It was fun to take a few tiny film clips of the actual train as it makes its loop around our tree in Christmas of 2008.  This was the night in January when we put all the decorations away.  This year was the first time we didn't get our nutcrackers and incense burners out for the holidays. The first clip is a classic, because Jack is playing some little instrument like a kazoo.  

We wanted it really quiet, but since he wants to make science fiction movies when he grows up, I think Jack was thinking that he was doing the musical score.

The second version has the best view of the train, and I don't think it includes the kazoo.

My Favorite Part Of Christmas

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Lesson of Christmas Lights

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

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

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

"Wasn't it already like that?"

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

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

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

I called the next morning.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

When Annie Grins For A Picture . . .

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Feel your suit," she said.

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

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

Winter is for Children

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Minnesota: A Place Meant for Summer Visits

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Wish Joni Mitchell Would Write A Song About Karma

Just when I thought I could resist reading any letter to the editor in Idaho Falls, it happened. I take a quick glance at titles, refuse to allow it to act upon my day, and do the crossword. It helps to do that ritual, because if I read one of the letters, I undoubtedly get angry. It's kind of like that movie The Sixth Sense, except unlike the young boy. I see stupid people. And they irritate me.

So when I opened the paper on Wednesday, January 28, I began the ritual true to form, and then it appeared: a title in bold letters. It was like the late 50's horror film I once saw entitled, From Hell It Came!

Teachers must sacrifice

There has been much discussion on what the state government must do to stay within a balanced budget during these sad economic times. When the subject of budget cuts surfaces and especially eduactrion cuts are suggested, the uproar begins. In the "Our View" section of the Post Register on January 14, the article states that if education gets less, then the quality of teaching will be less. For every 10 dollars, nine goes to salaraies and benefits.

Being in the building business, I know what it means to have to bid on projects including homes for teachers. If I want the job, I must bid the project at the lowest possible cost, but the people do not want the lowest possible quality. No, they still insist on the best top quality as if I were the highest bidder. Where is the double standard today? Everyone should have to sacrifice at a time when economical tough times occur.

Perhaps teachers should bid for their jobs and experience what everyone in teh competitive world has had to do forever.

Now, I don't have any problem with the word sacrifice. As a teacher I did it for 25 years. I never owned a car that didn't have over 100,000 miles on it before I purchased another, except for the last red Ford I owned with a bad transmission, but that is another story.

I also spent thousands of dollars every year out of my own pocket buying classroom materials and doing other things that I didn't have to do. It was money that I chose to do, but it was a sacrifice for my family. And money is only the beginning. I sacrificed a great deal of time too. Whether after or before school, I spent hours in my classroom creating an atmosphere that students could enjoy and developing materials that would help them learn. It is what you do as a teacher. I did it, and I know others who did it and still do.

I paced for a while. During the afternoon, I even listened to some mellow 60's music that usually has a calming effect, but it didn't work. Then I turned to the annoying journalists on ESPN who hate some of my favorite teams and ridicule some of my favorite players. I thought, Hey maybe they can annoy me enough to forget about the man from Sugar City who obviously hates teachers. But like the not so nice woman in The Wizard of Oz--who by the way reminds me of my fourth grade teacher (See, I dislike a few in my profession for good reason too, but it doesn't make all teachers bad.)--I hated the man and his little letter too.

My letter began to form in my mind, and suddenly there was this smile that began to crawl across my face. I sat at the computer, while my Annie watched something on TV. "What are you doing Jon?"

She knew I was up to something. She saw all the danger signs of my having read another one of those--in her words and not mine--damn letters to the editor in the Post Register. And then I looked at the finished copy. I can never be sure, but as I looked at it, the words "It's alive!" came from my mouth. I smiled in satisfaction with my creation.

As a retired teacher, I gratefully acknowledge the Sugar City businessman who is a builder and who took it upon himself to teach me and other educators what we should have done years ago—giving our expertise to the highest bidder.

I never succumbed to the highest bid when it came to teaching, and after 25 years—almost 16 of which were in a district whose students were exactly why I am glad I didn’t go for the highest bid when a job in Oregon came calling, when a job in Nevada came calling, and even when a job in California came calling—I stayed because I believed in what I was doing here.

And so did many other excellent teachers, who in the past 25 years have not seen exorbitant pay or benefit increases. That’s why you, as a builder, don’t build expensive homes for teachers, and that’s why you don’t see new, expensive cars in their driveways every year either.

You see, teachers believed that the state and even individual school districts would use “rainy day funds” when economic bad weather appeared, but call me pessimistic if you must, but I always knew what politicians and officials would do when that day came: initiating cuts rather than using those funds for schools.

Don’t you love people who always think someone else deserves to stand in line at the local soup kitchen? When the new world emerges for teachers, maybe you could submit a bid on my outhouse.

I was so pleased with myself. "I've got a letter to the editor I want you to read," I said to my Annie.

"Please don't. It took months for some people to forget about the last one. I don't want the hate stares at church, and I don't want you to be a whacko, just like the others who write letters to the editor."

I would do anything for my wife, except throw away my collection of Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin or Emerson, Lake and Palmer CD's. So I put my response on my blog.

The Circus That Came To Town

I never liked hunting.  It was the red licorice I liked, and I liked the chocolate kind too. Whenever we go on a road trip that lasts more than a few hours, we always buy some, and the taste reminds me of when I was young.

On the opening day of deer hunt, my dad would put our lunch in a saddle bag, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for both of us.  That is where I learned an important thing about peanut butter and jelly: they taste better after you smash them.  My dad would make them, carefully wrap them, and then smash them.  

He watched my response the first time, and then he explained the ritual.  They are going to get that way anyway, so why not just get down to it, and besides, he would explain, they taste better that way.  The funny part about that was the fact that they are better when smashed.

The ritual was the same for years.  Sometimes we were successful, each of us shooting and tagging a dear, but mostly, it was a day of riding horses in the mountains, listening to the occasional distant rumble of a rifle.  Whenever I smell sagebrush, I think of those great times with my father.  But my dad always reminded me that the work started after you shot a deer.  It wasn't that I was lazy, because I am not, but I also had this thing about gutting the animal.  I would have to leave the area, because I would start to get light-headed: a sure sign that I would never have been very good in any branch of the medical profession.  

People told me that deer meat was great.  That statement is a classic.  It's right up there with the phrases like "fun run" or one describing the new age grocery product that is a scientific mystery: fat free potato chips. Running is never fun, and fat free potato chips taste like thin wooden shingles passionately tenderized with who knows how many chemicals.  People devour masses of them in good conscience, thinking they will magically make them thin by sacrificing themselves on the altar of a fat free diet.

To make a long story short.  Deer meat sucks.  I tried to soak it in buttermilk.  I cooked it with onions and herbs.  I even tried spicy sauces as a marinade, but whenever I tried to cook it--regardless of how I did it--dogs began barking near and far, not because they were hungry, but because they sensed something more hideous than Alpo.   

Because I refuse to eat deer meat, I find no inclination ever to hunt again, because my best friend, my hunting partner, and my maker of peanut butter sandwiches passed away in February of 1991.  Those trips with my father remain only in my memories now.

I kept my guns, because my father gave most of them to me.  The rifles and shotguns will eventually go to my son, because he actually wants to hunt.  I have no problem with that at all.   However, no one in my family will ever get my handguns, because it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why people have them.  

Call me a liberal, but I figure that if it takes a gun to defend myself on a daily basis, I am living in the wrong place.  And given my family's temperament, I will not give any of them a handgun.   

So at this point, I decided to go to a gun show in our town this past weekend to see if I could sell my Smith & Wesson .357, a pistol that I bought when I was young.  At the time, Ann and I decided I needed it before going to the cabin my father owned one weekend.  At that time I had ten days to finish a Shakespeare home study course in order to graduate from ISU in 1979, and there had been a number of attacks by a black bear in the area of our family cabin.  I bought the gun, and the pistol is still in the original package in pristine condition.   Given the present economic situation, I figured some extra money would be nice at this point, but I learned an important lesson. 

As soon as I arrived at the gun show, one very nice man saw me and motioned for me to take his parking place, since he was leaving for home.  I was about to find out that he was the only nice person at the little "get together" for right wing radicals.  I walked in the door.

There were hunting rifles, and I don't have a problem with that.  But no one seemed interested in any of that, or at least not many did.  They gathered and salivated at this table with automatic weapons.  And yes, they were officially semiautomatic, but everyone knows that people there know how to alter them.  The vendor spoke loudly, "Why, after the Obama-na-tion, these have tripled in value."  He was trying to be funny in his appraisal of the inauguration of America's new president, whose politics he obviously didn't like.  I guess he wanted everyone to know that he believed the democratic process was an abomination, because he didn't agree with the majority of voters.  Regardless of how unfunny he was, and how stupid he and others were, I really hated the wretch.  And I hated his customers too.  I had seen enough.

See, I have a difficult time understanding why a person would want an Uzi or an AK-47 or any automatic weapon.  It's because I saw three kids shoot a deer once.  It fell against a large chunk of brush, and they continued firing their 30-30's.  The animal had long since hopped into another dimension, and the carcass had forty or fifty holes in it.  Why would a person need an expensive weapon to do what I watched three idiots complete successfully so many years ago with their own deer rifles?  And if these "Great White Hunters" think they need more than two rounds to shoot wild game, they should practice before going into the hills.  That's why it's a sport.  My father only needed one shot.  But he was an incredible shot and an exceptional hunter.

Every one--those buying formidable weapons and those resenting the fact they are accessible--knows why people want them.  They are not for hunting.  Once I saw this couple in a store, the husband admiring an expensive assault rifle with a bayonet.  "It's shaped like this so the blade entry wound does not heal."  

The salesmen then told the customer, dressed in tatters like his wife, about the price tag of the weapon: almost $2000, and that was almost 20 years ago.

So in this time of economic difficulty when I figure I could get $600 or even more for a pistol, which I have rarely used, I decided that I will not place it into the hands of those people I met at that show.  Not only are they crazy, but their parents were never married.  

In the town where I grew up, there is a word, used immediately after "crazy," that locals once used to describe Utah fishermen and hunters who invaded our reservoirs, fields and mountains every year.   They still do, but now because of the large number of people living in Utah, many new residents of my hometown are Utahans, who chose to live there permanently to get away from newcomers in the state.   Or maybe they just wanted to get away from large cities.  Regardless of their reasoning, many of those "crazies" now live there.

The people I saw at the gun show, who deserve being called both of the words I mentioned, are kind of like a particular Utah fisherman, who reportedly went into a highway rest stop for a bathroom break.  He leaned over to pick something up, and his glasses fell into one of those toilets that once existed.  It was the kind that still exists in most parks, the chemical kind which doesn't need flushing.  This fisherman could see the glasses floating in the horrific dark waters below, so he went back to his truck to retrieve his fishing pole.  

While dangling hook and line into the abyss, another motorist accidentally opened the stall and saw him with his fishing pole trying to retrieve the glasses.  The embarrassed fisherman reportedly had an interesting comment.  He looked at the puzzled bystander.  "I've been here all day without a single tug on my line."  

The traveler shut the door of the stall and returned to his car, probably to speed away in horror.  

Like I said, I refuse to consider selling a pistol to any of the fine people I met that day at the gun show, all clamoring to arm themselves against imaginary adversaries in order to keep safe.  I hope someone will protect the rest of us from these people I met at the gun show, young and old and all buying automatic weapons and boxes of ammunition instead of food and clothing and necessities for their families.  

No terrorist in their right mind would want to meet people like this.