Grandpa Hippen

Early Employment

2011-08-03T21:23:00.007-04:00

Newspaper Assistant Circulation Manager

My first formal job was with The Holladay Neighbor newspaper. I was just 16 years old and had only had my driver's license for a couple of months. My mom was talking to one of the managers there and found out that they needed someone to help deliver the bundles of newspapers to the paperboys. My brother, Dave, was one of the paperboys.

It was a small weekly newspaper, put out by a Mr. Anderson. He had a few other employees. Only one, the office secretary, was full time. The paper was to be delivered by the paperboys to every home in each delivery area. Then, they went to each home each month to ask for volunteer donations. They kept a percentage of what they collected, and turned the rest in to the paper.

My job was to report to the Murray Eagle Newspaper printing office, where the paper was printed, pick up the bundles of papers and take them to each boy's home. I was also to help recruit additional paperboys. I had a route with about 15 boys, for which I was paid $5 each week. After a couple of months, one of the other bundle deliverers quit, and I was asked to take over his route also. So I was making $10 per week. I had to pay for gas out of that. Fortunately, gas was only about 25 to 30 cents per gallon. I think I ended up earning about $1.50 per hour.

I really learned how to find addresses all over Salt Lake County while working there.

The only problems I had were when there was bad weather, or when the presses broke down and I had to be out really late delivering the bundles. One night there was a combination of both problems. It was snowing, and I didn't finish delivering bundles until after 11PM. I had to have the defrosters in the car going all the time, and I was jumping in and out of the car to make deliveries. As I got near the end of the routes, I started having problems with my vision. Apparently the cold air blowing into my nose caused my sinuses to swell and press on the nerves to my eyes. I lost all peripheral vision and had a hard time keeping the car in the proper lane. Fortunately I was only about a mile from home at the time. Mom said my speech was all jumbled when I got home. After a good night's sleep I was fine. It was just really weird when it happened.

After about 1 1/2 years, the paper was purchased by 2 young political entrepreneurs, the Rosenblatt brothers, Norm and Steve. They changed the paper from a neighborhood news focus, to a left-wing propaganda focus. They even hired an avowed Communist to be the editor. They must have been trying to annoy their father, who was the long-time head of the Utah Republican Party. They also expanded the circulation far outside the Holladay area.

We had been using our personal vehicles for the deliveries. They bought some Ford Econoline vans to make the deliveries. The vans were not heavy enough to handle the loads of papers, and overloading them made them very unstable and dangerous. They had moved the printing to a plant in Tooele. Driving back from there with a load, the van would suddenly, without warning, change lanes. Once I found myself in the wrong lane, with a cement truck coming head-on toward me. I quickly dodged back into my own lane with a near miss. I was happy to quit shortly after that.

I started out using Mom and Dad's cars at first, but eventually saved enough to buy my own car, a 1957 Chevrolet. Soon after getting my own car, I finished my Lifeguard and Water Safety Instructor classes at the University of Utah and was able to earn more money that way, so I quit that job.

Lifeguard and Swimming Teacher

My first lifeguard job was at the Club Fontainbleu. It was a small neighborhood swimming club, with grand designs to become much bigger. They had an Olympic size pool, meaning it was at least 25 yards long and wide enough for several lanes, which had been built by one of their members. He had only previously built small backyard pools, and really botched the job on the bigger pool. That caused us several problems in maintaining the pool.

There was a clubhouse, divided into men's and women's dressing rooms, and a common area with vending machines and where we stored deck furniture. Just outside the clubhouse was a foundation, with a basement where the clubhouse was to be expanded.

The filters for the pool were inadequate for keeping the pool clean, so we had to clean them and reinstall them every night. Cleaning them required back flushing with pool water. We had to dump the dirty water somewhere, usually in the empty basement foundation. That became a large frog pond after a while. The procedure also lowered the pool level a few inches, so we had to refill the pool with cold water every night. While the pool was filling, I would finish all of the other clean up and closing tasks. A couple of times I forgot to turn off the refill system when I locked up for the night. By the time I remembered and returned to shut it off, the nearby empty field was a swamp.

I took Georgia and some other friends there one night after closing hours. That was approved by the powers in charge. I trapped her behind one of the pool ladders, but didn't do anything more than say, "Gotcha trapped." She later admitted being disappointed that I did nothing more. I gave her the first hug I had ever given her while wrapping her in a towel. She was totally surprised by that.

My next lifeguard job was at Willow Creek Country Club. I also taught lessons and helped coach the swimming team. I remember teaching one young boy how to do the butterfly stroke. He went on to win the country club league championship.

One of my duties was to clean the locker rooms after we closed up. One evening a young, recently engaged couple came to swim just before closing time. He came out of the locker room about half an hour after we closed. I had already completed all the outside cleaning jobs, so I then went in to clean the men's locker room. That took me about another half hour. I came out and waited another 15 minutes or so, to make sure the lady had gone. I couldn't imagine that she could still be in there. So I opened the door to go in and there she was, sitting at the mirror in just a lacy black bra and slip, still putting on makeup. I made a quick exit, very embarrassed, and went to sweeping the pool deck until after I saw her actually leave. I had had no idea it could take a girl so long to get ready for a date.

The next year, 1965, I was able to get a job lifeguarding and teaching swimming at the Deseret Gym in Salt Lake. I had not been selected to work there when they first opened, but a month later they decided they needed more staff, and I was hired. That was February, and I worked there until I had to leave for ROTC Summer Camp in June.

When I got back from camp, it was less than 2 weeks before my marriage to Georgia, so I decided to wait until after the honeymoon to ask for my job back. When I returned the first of August, all the positions were filled, and it looked like I would have to wait until school started in the fall, or until someone quit. The pool manager asked one of the lifeguards, who had his mission call, when he planned to quit. He had already decided to leave as soon as a replacement was available, so I got to start the next day. The Lord blessed us with that job.

I worked there while going to school until January of 1967, when my schedule got too heavy to both go to school and work. I loved that job and was sad to leave it. I loved teaching, and apparently got pretty good at it, because I was rewarded with the best teaching position, teaching the lifesaving class. I taught future lifeguards from the summer of 1966 until I left.

One of the challenges I faced in that position was when a group of young men from the Cyprus High School state championship swim team signed up for my class, along with some college PE majors from Utah State University. There were also some average swimmers in the class who were pushed along faster than they felt ready for, as a result of the way-above-average students' pace. Everyone did quite well, and all graduated feeling confident in their knowledge and ability.

Concrete Construction

After I finished my graduation requirements at the University of Utah, I only needed to wait for my orders to come through from the Air Force. But they were slow in coming, and the first orders were in error, so it took even longer. I had some time to work for a few weeks, from the end of February until the first of May. Granddad got me a job working concrete construction for a contractor who was working on some of the projects Granddad was a supervisor for.

A couple of things that happened while I was there included a nearly broken toe and a near electrocution. Working in the rain, the ground was quite slippery. As I rounded a corner carrying a heavy concrete form, I slipped and planted the corner of the form on one of my big toes. That night when I removed my blood filled shoe, the toe was extremely painful. My dad took me to an orthopedist the next morning. He x-rayed my foot and found that the toe was not broken. Then he heated a needle in a Bunsen burner and used it to pierce the toenail to relieve the pressure. As the needle penetrated the toenail, a spurt of blood and water came out and sprayed clear from the floor to the ceiling. But the severe pain was gone. I went back to work the next day.

A few days later I was standing atop the recently poured cement wall using a tool called a vibrator to get the bubbles out of the wet cement. It was raining, and the vibrator suddenly conducted the electricity through me. The power threw me off the wall, still holding onto the vibrator. I guess I couldn't let go. The boss quickly unplugged the machine. I was just fine, but he wouldn't let me operate the vibrator the rest of the day, and I had to go back to hauling forms.

Black Lightning

2011-05-15T17:23:00.008-04:00

Another story from my US Air Force days that my grandchildren often ask me to tell.

Part of my assignment as an aircraft maintenance officer at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Nebraska, was to be part of an accident investigation board and head of the base crash/recovery team. This is a story of an Air Force plane from our base that crashed near McCook, Nebraska.

Six expert pilots from Offutt AFB were returning from a conference at Moffett Naval Air Station at the south end of San Francisco Bay. They were flying in a T-39 jet, a small 2-engine airplane sometimes called a Sabre Liner, which had seats for 4 passengers in addition to the crew of pilot and co-pilot.

They stopped at Francis E. Warren AFB at Cheyenne, Wyoming for refueling. As they were ready to leave, they received a report of thunderstorms developing along their route home, along with a recommendation that they stay overnight there in Cheyenne. After discussing the thunderstorms, they thought they would be able to get past them, and so decided to get home.

As they got over Nebraska, they received a report that a large thunderhead was looming directly in their path. After finding out that it was at about 36,000 feet, they decided to fly over it. The maximum altitude for a T-39 was 42,000 feet, at which altitude the air was so thin that there was just barely enough flowing through the engines to keep them going. Any air turbulence at that altitude would cause the engines to shut down. They call that a "flame-out".

Just as they got to the thunderhead, it bloomed to 45,000 feet. They were flying at maximum altitude, and the updraft from the storm caused a double engine flame-out.

They immediately began to plummet toward the ground, but felt they had plenty of time to get an airstart on the engines. That's where the plane gets up enough speed to force air through the engines fast enough to restart them. They were flying through the thunderstorm as they fell. Monitoring the guages, the pilot and copilot were surprised that there was no reading on the engine rpm guage. But they felt they must have enough speed up to start the engines, so they started the fuel flow and ignited the spark to start the engine.

They immediately had an engine fire warning light, so the emergency fuel shut off was engaged. Now they were getting too close to the ground for comfort, so they tried again to get an air start, with no results, forgetting that the fuel was shut off at the emergency shut off.

Now it was too late for anything but emergency landing procedures. They spotted a truck weighing station along side a highway. The lighting from that facility supplied what they felt like they needed for a landing on that highway. They turned and lined up on the road and let down the landing gear.

Just as they were about to touch down, they saw vehicle brake lights come on a short distance ahead of them. Rather than run into someone from behind, they turned sharply to the right into the highway barrow pit. The landing gear were sheared off, and the plane slid on its belly. Suddenly they hit a hill, which was actually the side of another road which ran at a right angle to the one they tried to land on.

The sudden change propelled them back into the air, broke the wings off the fuselage and broke the tail off the plane. The plane spun half way around and finally crashed going backward into an irrigation canal on the other side of that road.

Only the pilot was injured. His upper right cheek bone was broken when he bounced off the back of his seat and hit the steering wheel. The group opened the door and scrambled out. They saw lights from a farmhouse about 200 yards away and made their way over through the rain.

At the farmhouse they managed to telephone Offutt AFB to report the crash, and then sat down to await rescuers. As they chatted with the wife in the home, the farmer and his hired hand came in, having been out adjusting irrigation gates to allow for the storm waters.

They described their crash to the farmer, and he replied, "So that's what that noise was. My pickup truck must have been the vehicle whose brake lights you saw. I was just turning onto that side road. We heard a loud bang, and the truck was sprayed with mud. We couldn't see what could have caused it. It sounded like lightning, but there was no flash. So we decided it must have been black lightning."

Everyone got a good laugh out of that. But it was also very sobering when they realized how close they had been to death, as the plane had apparently bounced right over the top of the pickup.

As the accident investigation proceeded early the next morning, my chief assistant on the crash recovery team pointed out to me the probable cause of the lack of airflow through the engines, which prevented them from airstarting. The lens on the nose wheel light had been broken our, and there were large spherical dents in the metal reflector for the light. Hailstones the size of marbles had dented that reflector. Apparently the engine intakes had filled with hail as they dove through the thunderstorm, thus preventing any flow of air. By the time we got to the scene, all the hail had melted, but the evidence was there in the nose wheel light.

The ultimate cause of the crash was "get-home-itis" on the part of the crew and passengers.

Wrestling With an Octopus

2011-05-14T21:57:00.003-04:00

This is one of my granddaughters' favorite stories. And it is true!

I was in the Bahamas for a sales conference. One afternoon of the conference we had been set free to enjoy the recreation available there on Paradise Island, Nassau.

I had planned to go scuba diving, but the weather was nasty. It actually snowed in Miami, Florida that day, and was the only time in recorded history that it had snowed in the Bahamas. It did not snow where I was, but at Freeport, an island a few miles north, they actually had snowflakes. The sea was very rough, and no one was able to go out scuba diving, or much of anything else either.

I decided to just go beach combing. Much of that area is built up coral. Coral is the remains, or skeletons of coral polyps, that has been built up over centuries. The coral where I was was mostly a dark gray, not the pink that often comes to mind when thinking of coral.

Sea urchins eat coral. There were many tidal pools in the coral. I could see some of the black spiny sea urchins moving around in some of the pools, where they had eaten holes down into the coral. The holes were filled with sea water from high tide that covered the area.

As I walked around, I spotted a large snail shell sitting at the bottom of one pool. The pool was about two feet across and two feet deep. The snail shell was about the size of a small fist. I thought it might make a nice souvenir for my children.

I reached down into the pool and grasped the shell. Suddenly I felt something grab me! Something had grabbed my hand! What a shock! I yanked my arm out of the pool.

I looked back down into the pool and could see nothing except the shell. I wanted to know what kind of creature was protecting that shell.

I looked around and found a stick about four feet long. I returned to the pool and prodded the shell with the stick. Then I saw an octopus tentacle reach out from a crevice near the bottom of the pool and wrap around my stick.

I thought to myself, I'd like to see the whole octopus. I let the octopus get a good grip on the stick, and attempted to pull it out into the open. It was much too shy to let me get it out of its crevice. It let go of the stick and retracted out of sight.

I then worked up the courage to once again reach down into the pool. I grabbed my snail shell. It was empty, the octopus had already extracted the contents.

Poor octopus lost his prized shell. I had my souvenir.

Family History Experiences

2010-07-25T19:46:00.001-04:00

These are memories of experiences from doing family history research.

In about 1975, my brother, Dave and I decided it was time to do some family history research. We were both living in Salt Lake City, Utah, and had access to the Family History Library there. It was located in downtown Salt Lake. We started meeting there for lunch.

Dave had served a mission in Austria, and I had taken a year of German at the University of Utah. So we thought we could possibly read the German names on the microfilms there. It was very difficult, as the names were all hand-written and the writing was different from what we were used to.

Mom had started the research by asking Dad's mother about her ancestors. We started with this information. It turned out that the spellings she had used for the names were very different from what was recorded.

Dave and I were both attracted to names that were only similar to the information we had. The Spirit was guiding us, and we were able to put together a large list of Polish and German ancestors. Our success was primarily in a section of Poland that had been divided off from Germany after World War I. It had changed hands between Germany and Poland several times throughout its history. That was Silesia (Schlesien in German).

There was some confusion because one ancestor, Juliana Rathusny, one of our great great grandmothers seemed to have had two husbands, each with the first name of Sebastian. Then we found where the first Sebastian had died in a fall from a roof.

Other problems that we had were caused by spelling uncertainties. One last name could be spelled one way at birth, another way at marriage and even a third way at death. We had to rely on the Spirit to help us sort that all out.

While we were thus researching, I had the opportunity to go to Germany with the Utah Air National Guard. We knew that Oma, our German grandmother had a younger sister living near Frankfort, Germany, where I would be staying. I managed to call her and make arrangements to visit with her on a Saturday.

With my limited ability to speak and understand German, I was concerned about this visit and its success. I need not have worried, because the Holy Ghost was with me and temporarily gave us the gift of tongues. For quite a while during the visit, I was able to understand everything my great-aunt Marta Gothardt was saying. And I was able to speak well enough that she was able to understand what I was saying. I was able to verify much of the information Dave and I had extracted from the records. The information we had from Oma included Juliana Rathusny's first husband Sebastian Wiechulla and their family. Aunt Marta was younger and did not know that family, but she knew the family of the second husband, Sebastian Gatzka. I knew when it was time to say goodby to Tante Marta, because the Gift of Tongues was withdrawn, and I could no longer understand all she was telling me. It was quite a testimony of the importance of this family history work.

Dave was able to prepare most of the names for Temple ordinance work, and perform much of the work at the Orlando Florida Temple while he was living in Tallahassee. I found through New Family Search that there were some that had been left out. I am currently working on those at the Palmyra New York Temple.

Courtship and Marriage

2010-05-15T19:10:00.009-04:00

This is a story of the most important phase of my life. It is a continuing story because I am still courting my wife, and continuing to try to improve my marriage by improving myself. My wife is already nearly perfect.

In the Beginning

I first saw Georgia Smith in Sunday School class. She had just moved into the East Mill Creek Ward with her parents and 2 brothers. My first impression was that she was dressed like a greaser girl (as in the Pink Ladies from the movie "Grease"). So I was a little turned off. But she didn't fit in that group. It was only that the style from her previous neighborhood was different. With that style of dress she immediately attracted the friendship of other girls in the ward, especially Eileen Anderson, who was kind of a greaser girl. Georgia was really not that kind of girl. But she was sweet and kind and treated Eileen nicely, even though she didn't want to be in that group.

Then I was ordained a Teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood, and was assigned as the junior ward teaching companion to Larry Morgan. We were assigned several new families at the east end of the ward where the houses had been recently finished.

One of those families was the Robert Farr Smith family, who lived at the top end of the same street where I lived. I lived in the house, 2787 E 3400 S, on the southwest corner of the block, and they lived in the house, 3398 S 2890 E, on the southeast corner of the block.

The first time we visited them, I sat on a couch in the corner of the living room, right by the stairway to the basement. There was no carpet on the floor, yet. The house was still not quite finished. They had two little chihuahua dogs, named Poky and Tia. They got under the couch at my feet and I played with them while we visited. Georgia's dad called her to come in and meet the ward teachers.

Her first impression of me was not very good. She was not happy to have moved from her previous neighborhood and friends. She had the thought that she would likely meet her future husband in this new neighborhood. As she looked at me and thought that I might be that person, she was repulsed. Here I was, a really skinny little boy. She had already developed into a beautiful young lady. She was half a foot taller than me. My prospects must have seemed very dim at that point.

Our relationship did not advance for a long time. She continued to try to find her place in this new society. I continued to struggle with being shy, but wanted to have the fun that others had in dating the opposite sex.

We Get to Know Each Other

Once I decided I wanted to go to any particular dating function, I sometimes spent weeks trying to work up the nerve to ask someone. I don't even remember what the occasion was when I first decided to ask Georgia out. But when I called, I was told that she was in the hospital having her appendix removed. By the time I got up the nerve again, I discovered that she was 'going with' the bishop's son, Paul Pitts. That fit, because she was a former bishop's daughter. Paul was a friend of mine, so I was not about to cut in on him.

Eventually, Georgia and Cheryl Cutler became best friends. Cheryl lived next door to Bishop Pitts and his family. Cheryl first asked me out, and we double dated with Georgia and Paul. I was trying to be a gentleman, so I returned the favor and asked Cheryl out. Once again we doubled with Georgia and Paul. Cheryl and I continued to ask each other out, and we always doubled with Georgia and Paul.

Steady dating was discouraged in the church. I wanted to date other girls, other than Cheryl, but being so shy, it was just easier to call her. So we dated regularly. Toward the end of our regular dating, I did take her out without having Paul and Georgia along. But that did not end well. She was just not very fun when Georgia was not with her.

The custom in those days for the teenagers at church meetings, was to sit with your friends if you did not have an assignment. Priests sat at the Sacrament table through the entire meeting. Teachers frequently served as ushers and sat near the doors to the chapel. Deacons stayed on the front row even after they had passed the Sacrament. If you were dating someone regularly, you sat with the person you were dating. I did not want people to think I was going steady with anyone, so I joined the ward choir.

Sometime during my senior year in high school I decided to break up with Cheryl. I did it very clumsily and I was not very kind in doing so. I just wanted to date other girls. I did start dating others, but still had problems with being too shy to really enjoy the experiences.

Cheryl and Paul and Georgia and I were called as Ward Dance Directors. We were in charge of promoting ward dances, and in participating in stake and regional dances. I don't remember why, but Cheryl and Paul dropped out and no longer participated, leaving Georgia and I alone in the calling.

During my senior year in high school, Georgia approached me and asked if I would please ask Cheryl to the Junior Prom. She put all her feminine charm into the approach, and I totally melted. I agreed to ask Cheryl. So Paul and Georgia, and Cheryl and I were back together for one last time. But that was a big turning point. I had wanted to ask someone else to Prom. But as I thought about why I agreed to ask Cheryl, I realized that I would do anything for Georgia. I realized that I was falling for her. I really wanted to start dating her, but she was going with Paul, and I would not cut in on him.

One of the fun social activities for the youth of our time was the ward Saturday afternoon movies. It was a fund raising activity for the ward. The ward would rent 16mm movies and show them in the cultural hall. They charged for admission, and they also sold candy and treats out of the kitchen. The cost was very reasonable and most of the kids in the area attended, along with many parents. The teenagers would gather toward the rear of the hall to socialize before the movie started.

One Saturday after I graduated from high school, Eddie Nicholson and I were sitting together, waiting for the movie to start, when Georgia came in alone, looking very upset. I say it looked like she had smoke coming out of her ears, she was that mad. I didn't want to talk to her while she was in such a mood, but Eddie was not so shy. He asked her what was wrong. She turned and said, "Paul and I just broke up." She says the look on my face scared her half to death. Needless to say, I was actually delighted.

Our First Dating Experiences

I was not dating a lot at that time, being busy with my freshman year at the University of Utah. But I started looking for an opportunity to ask Georgia out. I knew she was not too fond of me, because I was the guy who had dumped her best friend, Cheryl. I had joined an LDS fraternity at the Institute of Religion. I was in Alpha Chapter of Lambda Delta Sigma. We had a lot of fun and spiritual experiences. We also frequently had joint activities with the ladies' chapters, which made it easy to socialize without the need for the expense of dating. My mentor for this group was Dennis Mead.

Finally, an annual function of the chapter provided an opportunity to ask others. It was the annual Alpha Chapter Polygamy Party, in the spring of 1963. We pretended that we were back in pioneer times and asked young ladies to join us. Bruce Dehaan, the chapter president, rented a bus and took thirty-two young ladies. I asked five girls, Georgia being among them. They were all still in high school, so they thought it was really cool to be asked to a college function. Georgia says that if it had just been her and me, she probably would have turned me down, but since there would be others, she agreed to go with me. The other young ladies named Georgia my number one wife. I guess they could tell I was really sweet on her. We all had a great time.

I continued to date Georgia through that spring and summer. We often doubled with her cousin, Deanna Chamberlain and others that she would bring. Eddie Nicholson was often with Deanna.

That fall, Georgia was also enrolled at the University of Utah. She was also employed at ZCMI, a large department store in downtown Salt Lake City. I often met her at the bus stop when she would come from work to take some evening classes. I looked for any opportunity to be with her.

I loved to go to the Utah State Fair with dates. I took Georgia that year. We doubled with Deanna and Eddie. Afterward, we dropped Eddie and Deanna off at their homes and I took Georgia to her house. As we sat and talked on the patio, I kissed her for the first time. But she did not kiss me back.

A few days later, after another date, I tried kissing her again. This time she kissed me back and I almost fainted. Then she asked me why I had kissed her. How do you answer that? I stammered something about how I thought I was falling in love with her. That seemed to satisfy her, so she really kissed me. She had me. As if there had been any question before, I was totally in love after that.

We continued to date through the fall. I was going on vacation with my family between Christmas and New Years to southern California. I felt badly that I would not be able to celebrate New Years Eve and Day with her. I did give her some really nice Christmas gifts. One was a sweater that she really liked. Another was a record album by Bobby Vee titled "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes."

A Rough Spell

Paul was trying to get back into the picture. Obviously he didn't share the same honor code with me. Georgia did wear the sweater I gave her on New Years Eve as she went out with Paul. He even asked her where she got it.

After I returned from vacation I tried to get back to dating Georgia. She was conflicted. She still liked Paul. She was not sure about me. She subtly let me know that she wasn't sure about me. I finally suggested that we break up and date others for awhile. She agreed. We'd had no agreement to be exclusive up to that time, and she felt I was trying to monopolize her time. I was, and she didn't particularly care for that.

I did date several others over the next few weeks. I also bought my first car. It was a 1957 Chevrolet. Then several of the youth of the ward were called to be Youth Missionaries. I was called, as were Georgia and her younger brother Stephen. Paul was not. We had our first meeting of the Youth Missionary Committee shortly after I bought the car. I also had a date that evening with Laura Setterberg, a girl I knew from work. So I was really dressed up. I was also wearing a nice cologne that evening for the first time, English Leather. At the end of the missionary meeting I offered to take Stephen and Georgia home, before heading out to my date. Georgia didn't want to, but Stephen readily accepted, so I drove them home. I was hoping just a little to make her jealous.

Laura was a very popular girl who had been a prom queen at Jordan High School. I had dated her a couple of times before. I don't remember where I took her that night, but at the end of the evening as I was saying goodbye at her door, she leaned out and kissed me. The emotions that stirred scared me, and all the way home I kept thinking, "I've got to get back together with Georgia!"

Things Start to Get Serious

I told her I'd had enough of dating others and took her out more. We often double dated with Deanna and her dates again. One night in May, as Georgia and I sat in my car in her driveway, she decided to find out my true intentions. After several hours of discussion I finally told her I thought I wanted to marry her. She had intended to tell me to get lost. But she didn't. She finally felt much the same about me as I had felt about her. So we were informally engaged. We didn't tell anyone at that time.

We started stopping to look at engagement and wedding rings, so I knew what styles she liked. Sometime later that year, I had enough saved to buy a set of rings. I talked to a salesman at Zales Jewelry in the Cottonwood Mall about what I wanted. But there was a problem. I was only twenty years old, and there was some law at the time that any man under the age of twenty-one could not make major purchases without their parents permission. I had him put the rings on hold for me while I tried to figure out how to talk Mom into going with me to purchase them.

One problem was that I was grounded. The night Georgia and I had talked until almost 4AM, I was in trouble when I got home. I couldn't tell Mom and Dad why I was so late. They didn't like how serious I was getting with Georgia. So they grounded me. I finally talked Mom into going to Zales with me to buy the rings. I agreed to wait awhile before I presented the engagement solitaire to Georgia. She hoped that the thought of such a serious commitment would cause me to reconsider.

Engagement

I did not give up. I was determined to marry Georgia. I was emotionally committed. I was also completely in love. Soon after Thanksgiving I decided it was time. I scheduled a date with Georgia to discuss our desires with her parents. I asked her to my house first, where I presented her with a single long stemmed red rose in a fancy florists box. I told her it was for courage in talking to her parents. Around the stem of the rose I had place the engagement ring.

I hardly remember everything that went on that evening. I think I got down on my knees and formally proposed marriage. She agreed! We then went to her house and announced our engagement to her parents. I probably asked her father's permission, but I don't really remember. It was all such a blur. It was such a happy time.

Later that month, Georgia went with my family to Camarillo, California on vacation. She got to meet my Oma and Opa, my German grandparents.

We originally set the wedding date for September twenty seventh. We thought that date sounded good.

Soon after we returned from California, we decided that waiting until September was not a good idea. We were both too anxious to be married.

I was in the ROTC program at the U. So I was scheduled to go to a military boot camp that summer of 1965. I would be away for four weeks. I didn't want to go away after marrying. I thought that would be too much torture. So we decided to get married as soon as possible after I returned.

We decided to be married in the Salt Lake Temple. However, the temple would be closed for most of the month of July. It was to open for marriages on July 23 for those who were previously endowed. We decided on that date. We received our endowments in the temple on June seventh. I left on the tenth to go to Lowry AFB in Denver for ROTC summer camp.

When we went to get our marriage license, the problem arose that men had to be at least twenty-one to obtain a license on their own. Women only had to be eighteen. Once again I needed Mom to accompany me to get her permission. It was her last chance to hold things up, but she went willingly. She had decided that it was no use fighting the inevitable.

Earlier that year I had obtained employment as a lifeguard and swimming instructor at the Deseret Gymnasium in downtown Salt Lake. I was also in my third year of classes at the University of Utah. The last term of those classes I got the best grades I had yet had. Being engaged really made me buckle down.

I had to give up my job at the gym to go to summer camp. But I had a promise that I could come back after I was through. I decided to wait until after the honeymoon to return. There was only a few days from the time I came back from Denver until we left on our honeymoon, so I didn't think it was appropriate to go back just then. And we had a lot that we needed to do to get ready for the wedding.

We had secured an apartment in Stadium Village married student housing at the University of Utah. We moved our furniture into that apartment at 1563 Sigma St. #5 during the time we were waiting to be married after ROTC camp.

Marriage

So we were sealed together for time and all eternity on the morning of July 23, 1965. The sealer in the temple was Eben R.T. Blomquist. The temple was partially under construction at the time. The entrance was through what is now the North Visitors Center.

We had a wedding breakfast at my Aunt June and Uncle John Hartman's home on Dallin Street near the Salt Lake Country Club.

Later that afternoon we went to the site of our reception to decorate for the wedding. Georgia had made most of the decorations herself. Our reception was out in the garden at the Garden Park Ward on Yale Avenue in Salt Lake. Mom and Dad had been married there in a double ceremony with Mom's sister June, and Dad's best army friend John Hartman. Georgia's parents had also had their wedding reception there. We had daisies floating in the duck pond there, and ribbon roses festooning everything around the yard. Georgia had made the roses from extra ribbon while she worked at the gift wrap desk at ZCMI.

As I worked helping decorate for the reception, I looked at my watch and discovered that it was not working properly. I had ordered the flowers from Mildred's Flowers, a place I always had gotten corsages. Mildred was also a friend of Dad's. It was too late for me to get from the Garden Park Ward house to Mildred's before they closed. I called home to see if Dad could get there. Mildred had already called him and the day was saved. I went home and picked up the flowers and got back to the church in plenty of time.

Georgia had asked her cousin Deanna to be Maid of Honor at the reception. Cheryl Cutler and my sister, Tawny, were also in the wedding line. My best man was Dennis Chamberlain, Deanna's older brother. The ushers were my brother David, and Georgia's brothers Stephen and Stuart.

The guests at the reception were served from a fresh fruit buffet. We had invited many people from the East Mill Creek wards who had watched us grow together. Georgia's dad had been the Bishop of the North 21st Ward on the Avenues, and many of them had been invited. We actually had over five hundred guests come to the wedding. When it was all over, there was no food left for the bride and groom. Georgia's uncle Ernie, Deanna's father, bought us hamburgers from Dee's drive in for us to eat as we left the church.

We left the church in Dad's '59 Chrysler station wagon. It was a good thing we hadn't planned on taking my '57 Chevy, because my brother had let all the air out of the tires. He was in deep trouble with Dad, as Dad had planned on taking my car home.

Georgia and I went to the Imperial 400 motel on the corner of Main Street and 6th South in Salt Lake. The Grand America Hotel now stands on that block.

Olympus High School

2010-03-17T11:58:00.005-04:00

Well, I got through the posting about my junior high years without too much pain. So here goes on the high school era.

I attended Olympus High School from September 1959 until June of 1962. There were many highs and lows while I was a student there. I still remember the school motto, "With freedom comes responsibility." I truly believe that.

Sophomore Year
One of the highlights of every young man's sophomore year was drivers' ed. We actually got to drive. The car I drove in was a 1960 Pontiac. The first day out on the road in the car, I felt that I was too close to the side of the road. I only felt comfortable in the middle of the road. The instructor had to keep pulling the wheel to the right to get me into the proper lane. I overcame that tendency by the second time behind the wheel. I eventually passed my driver's license test the summer after I completed the sophomore year.

Seminary that year was Old Testament with Brother Max Moffat. He made the subject fun. I still remember learning the order of all the books. I think I can still recite them up through the major prophets. I didn't ever get the minor prophets down.

For math that year I had Mr. Jensen for geometry. I loved it. He was an excellent teacher, and by the end of the first grading period, we were ahead of the advanced math class that many of my friends were in. But he had bought a dairy farm in Heber City, which he had hired a manager to run. That didn't work out well and he had to quit teaching half way through the year to run his farm. We had a series of substitute teachers the rest of the year, and made almost no additional progress.

I also took a typing class at the encouragement from Mom. She had taught me a little before on our little portable typewriter at home. I was able to stay ahead of the class on speed tests for the first few weeks. But when I got to 30 words per minute I hit a plateau. No matter how hard I tried, I could not get any faster. My old problem with poor finger dexterity had bit me again, just like when I tried to learn to play the piano. I still type about the same speed, today. I did learn touch typing and it has been a great blessing through all the years.

I did have a lot of friends at Olympus, but I was still suffering from shyness, and from problems with Dad at home. One of the boys who had tormented me was giving me a hard time after a class, and I pushed him down, hard, into some of the desks. Then I just walked away. He was very nice to me after that. The boys who had been so cruel in junior high were not at the high school. The worst of them were in juvenile detention for some really bad things they had done. The one who seemed to hate me the most ended up killing himself and some others, including a couple of police officers, when he grabbed the steering wheel and forced the police car into oncoming traffic while being transported between court and the detention center in Ogden. He thought he could escape that way. No seat belts in cars at that time.

Junior Year
My English teacher, Mr. Lynn Reading, was also one of the coaches. He thought it would be good to give more boys the chance to participate in sports, so he started an intramural program. There were 2 divisions, a team division, and an individual division. I didn't know enough people who were competing in team sports, so I only entered the individual events. But I entered every one: golf, tennis, swimming, track, rifle shooting, table tennis, badminton, bowling, skiing, chess. There may have been others, also. I did well enough at enough of them to win the first place trophy in the individual division. In high school it was socially important for a boy to be a jock. That success helped my self esteem. I didn't get to keep the trophy. Mr. Reading took it to get it engraved for me, but he moved away and I never saw it again.

My poor study habits carried on from the years before. I got by, but I could have done much better. I frequently forgot assignments, or put them off until the last minute and did them sloppily, so my grades were not as good as I could have. My friends in the advance placement classes moved further and further ahead of me.

For Seminary, I had Brother Olsen. He was very enthusiastic and I enjoyed my New Testament studies. For my class essay, I wrote about the Savior, and referenced Jesus the Christ by James E. Talmage. I'm afraid I copied too much from the book, because I remember the teacher's comment on the paper, "Next time more Hippen, and less Talmage!"

All 3 years at Olympus I took Spanish. I had started that in 8th grade at Evergreen Jr with Mr. Cooper. Mr. Cooper had been a pretty good teacher. He had also introduced us to Mexican cooking by taking us to the Casa de Tampico restaurant at the end of each year. I went with other students to the BYU campus to participate in the "Festival of Foreigh Languages" that the Y put on each year. I loved the college atmosphere. Every year I spent the time with Dave Powers at the competition. I remember having a comment on one of my presentations that I spoke Spanish with an Italian accent. However, the Spanish teacher at Olympus was not a good teacher. We never made any progress, because he never had us practice speaking. We called him "The Berb Brain." All we ever did in class was conjugate "berbs" (verbs, with a Spanish accent.)

I also got involved in more serious science classes. I took physics and chemistry. Mr. Poulsen was the physics teacher. He was quite good and I did well in his class. He invited me to join his advanced physics class the next year. I loved being in an advanced class.

Senior Year
My last year at Olympus was much better. I had better teachers for one thing. I dated more regularly, although it was still a painful experience to ask a girl out.. The main other thing was the swimming team.

Olympus had never had a swim team before. We didn't have a pool. But arrangements were made to use the Granite High School pool, and a coach was called. The coach was Mr. Sullivan, who had been my chemistry teacher the previous year. We had a pretty good team, especially considering that Mr. Sullivan had no training as a swimming coach, and we were limited to 3 days per week practice. At the end of the year we placed 5th at the state championship. I swam breaststroke as my primary stroke. Gerry Carlson, whose father ran a swim school, was the other breaststroker. I occasionally beat him. I also swam individual medley at times. That's 2 lengths each of butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle crawl.

In seminary I had Brother Groberg. He lived in the East Mill Creek 1st Ward, so I knew who he was long before I had him as a teacher. We studied the Book of Mormon for the first half of the year, then Doctrine and Covenants and Church History the second half. Brother Groberg had a reputation of being very boring. He did have a monotone voice, and showed little personality in his teaching, but he was not as bad as I expected from hearing him speak in church.

My English teacher was Mrs Clemmons. She was brilliant. She was a Vassar College graduate. I was familiar with Vassar, because my cousin, Kathryn Stein was going there that same year. Vassar had the highest entrance standards and the toughest curriculum of any liberal arts school in the country. It was an all girls school. The first week of class she passed out a list of about 100 classic books that she said were required reading for anyone going to Vassar. She said every girl going there was expected to read them all before starting as a freshman. She had us all check off the ones we had read. I had read 6 or 7 of them. But that was more that anyone else in any of her classes, so I started out on a very good footing with her.

We studied Shakespeare that year. Macbeth was the main point of study, but we studied parts of several other of his plays and many of his sonnets. We also studied other British authors, like Chaucer, and Bacon. For one of our term papers, we were given the choice of an essay on Macbeth or to write a Shakespearean sonnet. There were other choices also. I intended to write the essay on Macbeth, but put it off until later, and then forgot about it. Most of the other students wrote the essay. The morning of the day it was due, one of my friends asked me how I did on the paper. He could tell from the look of panic on my face that I had forgotten it. I decided the only choice I had time for was a Shakespearean sonnet. I had read all of his sonnets so I was very familiar with the format and style. The subject of my sonnet was 'virtue'. I cranked it out in the few minutes after I finished lunch. My friend was surprised when I handed in the assignment, but he was furious when I got the top grade in the class on it. Mrs. Clemmons actually read it to the class before she handed our papers back to us.

That was the only year she taught high school English. The following year she was teaching at the University of Utah. I was blessed to have her.

I started dating Cheryl Cutler that year. Her best friend was Georgia Smith. I had called Georgia for a date earlier, but she was in the hospital having her appendix out when I called. By the time I worked up the courage to call her again, she was dating another friend of mine, Paul Pitts, our bishop's son. We were encouraged to double date as much as possible by our church leaders, so it was just natural for Cheryl and me to get together with Paul and Georgia. We dated often, many times just Friday nights at Cheryl's house for ice cream and to watch the Friday night horror movies that were very popular on TV at that time. (That was the inspiration for Michael Jackson's Thriller.) We also went to all the church dances together, and eventually were called as Ward Dance Directors, all 4 of us. The problem was, I found myself liking Paul's date more than my own. Much more. But I was too good a friend to try and cut in on him then.

I tried to break up with Cheryl towards the end of the year. I did it very clumsily, and I probably hurt her feelings. Then Georgia asked me to ask Cheryl out for a special occasion, Jr. Prom, I think. I then realized that I had fallen for Georgia. I did ask Cheryl out again. I did it because I would do anything for Georgia. But she was still going with Paul.

I also took a couple of other girls out that year. One was Marjorie Debenham. At first I really enjoyed her, but after a few dates, her giddiness started to wear on my nerves. Her mother was also putting pressure on me to make some kind of commitment to her. I was definitely not ready for that.

I started school an hour early that year. My advanced physics class started an hour before the regular school day. We had a great time there. It was all laboratory work, and we designed our own projects and experiments to demonstrate various principles. One very cold winter morning we got to class and the heat had gone off in the night. It was barely above freezing in the room. Mr. Poulsen turned on some of the gas jets that we used for powering bunsen burners, and lit them! We had several 2-3 foot long torches going all at the same time. Warmed the room up pretty quickly.

I grew a lot, physically. When I started as a sophomore I was about 5 ft 2 in. When I started my junior year I was 5 ft 6 in and weighed 135 pounds. When I started my senior year I was 6 ft 1 in and still weighed 135 pounds. My entire junior year, and especially the summer between those years, I was tired all the time. I could sleep 12 hours a day, easily. The rapid growth took all my energy. When we went outside for gym the fall of my senior year, I had difficulty running because I was not used to the size of my body. I felt like I was falling over forward all the time I was trying to run. Being on the swim team helped me catch up by strengthening my muscles. I was still only about 145 pounds when I graduated.

Our graduation was a big deal. It was one of the largest graduating classes in the state. I think it was over 700 graduates. After graduation, Jeff Anderson, Charlie Nielson, and I took dates to Charlie's house for dinner and games late into the morning hours. I do not remember who any of our dates were.

I started working at the Holiday Neighbor newspaper during my junior year. I delivered bundles of newspapers to the carrier boys. I started using Mom's '52 Buick, then our '54 Chrysler Imperial, and eventually in my '57 Chevy. I made about $20 per week. I saved more than half of everything I earned, and used it to buy the Chevy and to pay tuition for my first year of college. I kept that job for about 3 years.

Junior High

2010-03-06T21:39:00.004-05:00

This part of my life story I have been putting off as long as possible. But now is the time to suck it up, quit feeling sorry for myself, and just write it!

We were moving into our house in East Mill Creek when I started 7th grade at Evergreen Jr. High. The first week or two was ok. I met some good future friends. Don Cowan and I kind of raced walking up Evergreen Avenue. I was ahead of him, walking alone. He decided he wanted to pass me. I heard him coming up behind me and I decided to not let him pass. We ended up almost running up the hill until we started laughing at the situation.

Jeff Anderson and Charlie Nielson stopped by the house and introduced themselves. They ended up being some of the best, most loyal friends I had for the next 8 years.

I started going to church regularly. Sister Barney was my first teacher. I was still in Primary for the first few weeks, and she saw to it that I completed my requirements for Primary graduation.

I also walked past the East Mill Creek library on my way to and from school every day. I got a library card and made it a habit to stop there and check out books on a regular basis. My favorite author that first year was Jim Kjelgard. He wrote about dogs, Irish setters mostly, and forest animals. His stories made their lives sound very interesting.

My study habits in 7th grade kind of slipped. I read a lot, and I watched a lot of TV. But I didn't organize myself and didn't apply myself very consistently to my studies. In my English and history class I succumbed to teasing from a boy who sat near me. It seemed that I always retaliated against him just as the teacher turned around, so I was frequently in trouble.

In my first Home Room I was seated next to Bill Haskins. He and I became good friends for the next several years. I even nominated him for 7th grade president, the class voted for him, and I became his campaign manager. I had no idea how to do that. I was also too shy to ask for help, so the campaign didn't go very well. He didn't win.

I don't know why I suddenly became shy. I had not been that way before, but I became terribly shy. I guess it had something to do with teenage hormones. I was afraid to talk to girls. I was afraid to talk to adults. I was afraid of my teachers. All the things I'd done successfully before then left my memory, and I lost all self confidence. Things were not very good at home. Dad was not acting nicely. His friends became more important than his family. He seemed to get very hard on me and I was always in trouble at home. He wasn't interested in helping me with any of my school work, but would yell at me and punish me if I didn't do it right. He became antagonistic toward the Church. I couldn't seem to do anything right. I was still basically happy. Happy was my natural state. But I was also quite miserable much of the time.

I kind of withdrew into a shell. I read a lot, and watched TV. I went to school, church, and not much else. Withdrawing was not the best thing to do. It just made things worse.

I made my first enemies in 7th grade. There were a few social groups, and I didn't seem to fit in any of them. The group I was most afraid of were the 'greasers'. I thought I could befriend them by combing my hair like they did. Mom was my barber, so I was not able to carry that out well. The 'greasers' just laughed at me. A couple of the worst of them started bullying me, and my shyness put me at a great disadvantage. The only time I tried to retaliate, I just made them mad, then I became even more afraid.

The other groups were the 'betas', the 'brains', and the 'jocks'. The betas were the rich kids who set the fashion trends. Mom bought all my clothes, and I was not 'in' with the expensive fashions the betas wore. Beta was derived from the Greek letter and indicated that these kids were destined to be fraternity members in college. They also were the kids with the most self confidence, so I didn't fit in with them in any way.

The brains were the top students. I fit in with them socially, but my study habits made me so I didn't fit in with them very well, either. They were the guys I hung out with. I ate lunch with them. But they left me behind when it came to grades. I just had no self discipline at this time in my life.

I didn't fit in with the jocks either. The other boys started filling out and getting taller. I was short and skinny. And I was kind of a weakling. I was afraid to try out for any sports. I lacked coordination. I started practicing basketball in our driveway, and eventually got to be a pretty good shot. But I felt I was too short to actually participate.

Mr.Walker, my 7th grade gym teacher, organized a baseball league for the summer. I was encouraged to participate. All who came were guaranteed positions on a team. I played shortstop and got to be a pretty good fielder. I was still afraid of too many things, especially failure, and that made me very nervous when I played, so I was not able to perform at my best.

There were a lot of others that didn't fit with any of these 'in' groups. I started hanging out with some of them. We kind of formed our own group, the 'losers'. Anyway, that's how I felt. Staying just on the edge of the 'brains' group kept me from becoming a total loser.

Toward the end of 7th grade I got to be friends with Hugh Coleman. He was popular because he was often the class clown. He made people laugh. I invited him to go fishing with Dad and some of Dad's friends for the opening day of fishing season at Moon Lake. Fishing was Hugh's favorite activity so he readily accepted. We had a great time, and Hugh became a great friend.

Hugh and I were locker partners in 8th and 9th grades. At the end of 8th grade Hugh ran for student body office. He used his ability to make people laugh to good advantage and was successful in his campaign. A result of his popularity was that I was no longer 'in' with his new group of friends. We started to drift apart. Toward the end of 9th grade some of the greasers who were bullying me started to intimidate Hugh, also. That pretty much ended our friendship. He no longer wanted to be associated with me if it meant he would be one of their targets also.

Eighth grade is just a blur. Things got worse at home. My grades did not improve. I withdrew even more socially.

Ninth grade was a little better. I was assigned to Mrs. Herman's English class. Mrs. Herman was a short Jewish lady. Many of her students were taller than she was. She also had a reputation of being the toughest teacher in the school. But she really challenged her students to do their best. I accepted her challenge and started to improve my study habits, if only for her class. She singled out those in her class that were doing well, and we kind of became members of an exclusive club. We spent time with her outside of school on special projects. I really enjoyed the attention and I responded with much of my best work.

Some of my classes served me well in later years. As I worked as a handyman, I remembered many of the lessons learned in shop classes. Woodworking shop, sheet metal shop, and electrical shop were all good learning experiences.

I actually started dating in ninth grade. No one at that time had suggested we wait until we were 16. The dates were just to school dances. My first date was with Marian Florence. She was a good friend. Mom had to drive us, since I was still a couple of years away from having a driver's license. I only remember one other date, it was a group date to a girls choice dance. I had never met the girl before she asked me, but she was a friend of Kathy Harrington. I think every boy in the class wished that Kathy would ask them, but she made arrangements for all of her friends to have dates. We all went as a group. I don't remember how we got there. The girl who asked me was a very cute blond. If I hadn't been so shy, I would have had a much better time with her. Now, I can't even remember her name. I did remember. It was Jane Rasmussen. She is now married to Kathy's brother Bob.

Boy Scouts

2010-03-01T20:44:00.004-05:00

All things considered, Boy Scouts has been one of the best experiences of my life.

I was 12 years old when I first got involved there. My first Scoutmaster was Jerry Snider. One experience I had with him was passing the cooking part of my First Class rank in his back yard. I built a fire in the middle of his garden area. It was Autumn and all his vegetables had been harvested.

Other Scoutmasters were Charles Crosby, and Tom Wall. 'Bing' Crosby, as we all called him, was a retired U.S.Army cook. He was a great positive influence on my life. Most of my Scouting was done under his leadership.

Tom Wall had us earning the money we would need for our activities, including summer camp. He organized us and took us out almost every Saturday to sell stuff. We went all over the Salt Lake Valley to a different neighborhood each week. We sold Maxfield chocolates and pecan bars, bath oil, and bags of light bulbs. I earned much of my camping gear, my uniforms, as well as my camping fees. It was a great experience which would be the basis for being a salesman later in life.

My first year I was not able to go to Scout Camp in the Summer. I do not remember why. They went to Camp Steiner in the Uinta mountains. The stories they told about it made me want to never miss another one.

The next year they went to Camp Hunt at Bear Lake. I got my Canoeing and Nature Merit Badges and passed a few other requirements and generally had one of the best times of my life.

The following year we went to a camp near Bryce Canyon, Camp Pine Lake. Once again I thoroughly enjoyed myself and being out in nature and the friendship with the other boys.

Each spring, when we had a 3 day break from school, we'd go to Mount Topaz for a campout. There was a dry stream bed there that had a lot of clear gem stones, topaz, in the sand. Around the stream bed were rock outcroppings where you could dig into crevasses in the rock and find the orange colored gems. Once they were washed into the stream, the sun would bleach all the color out of them. We would also stop on the way home to climb and jump in the sand dunes in the area. One night we had a spring rain storm, accompanied by some strong winds. Most of the tents had blown over in the night, leaving us with puddles of water on the sleeping bags. Another night, there was a full moon and we went on a nighttime hike. As a I jumped onto a rock while coming down a mountainside, the rock moved a little, and I heard the unmistakable buzz of a rattlesnake's tail. I think I cleared about half of the mountain in one jump, getting away from it.

Each winter we would have a campout in the snow at Tracy Wigwam. It was only a few miles from our neighborhood up Millcreek Canyon. We slept in bunks in 3-sided Adirondack cabins. I always had a hard time sleeping, because I could not keep warm. I was very skinny, and would always wake up in the night shivering. One morning a very cold pocket of air had settled in there during the night. It was so cold that the leather on our boots was frozen and several boys could not get their boots on. We were trying to cook breakfast on an open fire in front of the cabin. It was so cold that the sausage we were trying to cook would be burnt on the bottom and still frozen on the top. Eggs would not come out of the shell. The camp staff finally realized that it was too cold for us and came and collected everyone to the lodge and finished cooking breakfast for us in the kitchen there.

In between time I passed my other rank requirements. We went to the YWCA swimming pool every week in the winter. I earned my Swimming and Life Saving Merit Badges there. I really started to learn to swim well during that time.

Other merit badges I remember were Reading, Music, Hiking, Cooking, Camping, Citizenship in the Nation, Citizenship in the Community, Home Repairs, Personal Fitness, and Geology. I ended up working many years later when we lived in Orem, Utah, for the man, Dr Preston Hyatt, who taught the Geology Merit Badge class. He once showed us evidence on a hillside in North Salt Lake where the Wasatch Fault had slipped some 50 feet in one quake. That would level everything in Salt Lake Vally were it to happen now.

I also went with a bunch of other Scouts from our troop to The University of Utah to take Aviation Merit Badge classes from the Air Force ROTC. That eventually led me to join the ROTC when I was at the U, which led me to a career in aircraft maintenance in the Air Force.

Other merit badges I worked on but never completed were Pioneering, Rifle and Shotgun, and Astronomy. I learned a lot from every badge I worked on, even those I didn't complete.

My final rank earned was Star. I was about to earn my Life rank when Dad grounded me from Scouting. I had been with some friends who decided we should work on our Cycling badge. When we got home from school, we grabbed our bikes and headed for the Salt Lake airport for our first long ride. No one was home when I got there from school, so I was not able to get permission. I left a note, but that didn't cut it. I stopped to buy some food on the way home and got way behind my friends. I got home very late, and Mom was very upset because she was worried.

Dad blamed the whole problem on the Church, and since the Church sponsored Scouting, I was taken out of that. Dad was socializing with a bunch of anti-Mormon friends at the time and looked for any excuse to get us away from church. I think he was also a little jealous because I had passed him in Scout rank advancement.

When I was in the Air Force in Omaha, Nebraska, I had the opportunity to work with the Scouts again. I was working with the Young Men, and the Scouts were going to drive to Yellowstone and Teton National Parks for their summer adventure. I was asked to go along to help with the driving. The troop rented several cars. We visited Yellowstone for 3 days and nights. We camped out on the banks of Yellowstone Lake near Fishing Bridge. We went to Teton National Park, swam in Jackson Lake. It's very cold, but not as cold as Yellowstone Lake. We also went to Custer Battlefield, Devils Tower, Mount Rushmore, and the Badlands of South Dakota as we were traveling homeward.

It was a wonderful trip except for one incident. The Scoutmaster was a very high strung, nervous man. He was an excellent organizer, so the trip was well planned. He also had a medical problem that was exacerbated by stress. He had medication for the problem, but he was very worried about the boys. They were fine, but he still worried. His medication was therefore not handling his problem, so he took a double dose. Big mistake. That caused him to hallucinate, and there was a very scary outburst in front of the boys as we were getting ready for bed one night. The other leaders anointed and gave him a priesthood blessing and then took him to a clinic for medical treatment. I was left behind to calm the boys and get them to bed. He was brought back late that night and the rest of the trip went without further incident.

However, he was very embarrassed by the incident, and soon after the trip he asked to be released. I was subsequently asked to serve as Scoutmaster.

We had a lot of good times while I was Scoutmaster. The Air Force encourages it's officers and others to support Scouting. I was essentially given as much time off from my duties as I wanted to serve in that position. I took advantage of that and spent at least 2 weeks each summer with the boys on Scout campouts. I read in Boys' Life magazine about a canoe outfitter in Minnesota that catered to scouts. I talked to the boys and their parents, as well as the other leaders, and then organized a trip to Ely, Minnesota and the Canadian Border Waters Canoe Country. We went for 9 days each of the 2 summers I was Scoutmaster. Fortunately, both years we had an outstanding group of boys and leaders. We traveled over 50 miles each of those years canoeing and portaging between lakes along the U.S./Canadian border. The boys all got their canoeing and swimming merit badges. Most of them also got Cooking and most of the requirements for Camping merit badges. The second year most of the boys earned their Mile Swim patch. I picked out an island about a half mile out in the lake where we camped, and we swam to the island and back. It was an easy swim for those boys who tried it (only one boy on the trip did not do it). I learned then that all of the boys were on age-group swimming teams. The first day on the lake each trip was always a learning experience. The boys would be doing loops and zigzag courses, trying to learn how to make the canoe go straight. One year there was a windstorm blowing the day we had to go home. I was in the lead canoe. The big lake we had to cross coming back had white capped waves, which made it quite treacherous. As we got to the middle of the lake I turned around to see how the boys were doing, and was very pleased to see an absolutely straight line of canoes following my canoe. They were having no trouble handling the rough water. A week of practice had made them all excellent canoeists. A couple of the boys also became excellent cooks. We did a lot of our cooking in dutch ovens. There were lots of blueberries in the woods around us, and we were treated to some excellent blueberry pies. On the next to last day of the trip we discovered hidden in the bottom of one of the packs a large bag of raisins that we were supposed to have eaten throughout the week. Oops. But the two boys, who were brothers made a couple of raisin pies, which we all enjoyed.

After the Air Force time, I had the opportunity to work with the Scouts again. This time I worked with Georgia as the 11-year old Scout leaders. It was a really good experience for Georgia in helping her understand what it takes for a Scout to make Eagle rank. So she was able to help all 3 of our sons to achieve that rank. It was also good for our sons Lyle and Eric. They were just a little younger than our Scouts at the time, and we allowed them to participate along with the Scouts in many of the activities. It got them started well on their road to Eagle.

Folk music

2010-02-24T07:39:00.002-05:00

In my post about music I left out a part. When I was in high school, folk music became very popular. It started with the Kingston Trio. Their first hit was Tom Dooley. Other groups built on their popularity and soon there were many folk songs among the top hits of the day. There were even a couple of prime time folk song based TV shows. One was Hootenanny. Country songs that were done in a folk song manner were among those hits. Folk, pop, and country all kind of blended together and competed with rock and roll on the radio. I enjoyed them all. I loved to sing along with the radio.

Several of my friends bought guitars and started to learn the cords to accompany the folk songs. Mom had an old guitar which had been in storage since she was a teenager. It had been a steel guitar which had all smooth strings and was played with it sitting on your lap with a steel bar to change the notes. Most of the strings were broken. I bought new strings for it and tried to learn some cords. But the strings sat too high to play fingered cords. So I cut down the string supports so I could play cords.

I bought a Pete Seegar Song Book and started learning some cords and some songs. It was a lot of fun. I even used some of those songs to serenade my future bride. I wasn't very good, but I think she did like being serenaded.

Music

2010-02-23T15:18:00.004-05:00

I love music! I think I always have. When I was a very small lad, living in Boise, Idaho, I listened to popular music all the time. I liked the popular songs; the hits. I also loved 'Western' or 'Cowboy' music.

We listened to "My Hit Parade" every week. It was fun to hear them countdown the top hits of the day. I think they performed the top 7 hits each week. They had a regular cast and orchestra to do the numbers. They didn't use the original performers. I remember some of the names, Snooky Lansom, Gizelle McKenzie, Dorothy Collins. There were others, too, and occasional guest stars. The show picked up on television sometime in the 1950's. They were very much geared to 'Big Band' type music which was popular in the '30's and '40's. But they could not do 'Rock' music worth a darn, so the show tanked after that became popular.

Some of my favorite stars from when I was a kid were Roy Rogers and Gene Autry, and the Sons of the Pioneers for Western music. I also liked Kay Kaiser's and Spike Lee's bands and others that did humorous songs, like "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth". I really enjoyed the 'Big Band' stuff myself. Doris Day, Rosemary Clooney, Bing Crosby, Perry Como were some of my favorites there. Mario Lanza was always good. Louis Prima and Keely Smith did some good stuff, too.

In 1956 I discovered rock and roll music. Fortunately Mom and Dad liked it a little, so it was not banned like it was for some kids. When American Bandstand came on the TV in the afternoons, I always tried to catch it. I still like many of the songs from back then.

When I was about 8 years old we got a piano, and I started taking lessons. That did not come easy for me. I had very poor finger dexterity and just had a hard time with it. I practiced every day, but never seemed to make much progress. I did learn to read music and that was the best thing that came out of it. I had 2 different teachers. Mrs. Catmull lived on Westminster Ave. which was on my way to and from school at Dilworth Elementary. After I had taken lessons from her for about a year she told me that she was retiring from teaching and that I'd have to find someone else. However, as I passed her house on the way home from school each day, other kids would be in there taking lessons, still.

A few weeks later a man who had just immigrated from Holland stopped by the house. He rode a little motor bike. He offered to come by the house to teach piano. That lasted for about 2 years, and then he gave up on me, too.

When I was about 9 years old I began my singing career in Primary. I've told about that in a previous post. Then, in 6th grade I began to learn to sing parts. When I was in high school, many of my friends were in the school orchestra, or one of the choruses. I didn't seem to have room in my schedule, so I decided to try singing in the ward choir. I sang bass. I really enjoyed that. Choir music is very uplifting and inspiring. I continued singing in ward choirs for many years. It's difficult where we now live because of travel.

When I was at the University of Utah, I took a music appreciation class. Ardean Watts was the professor, and he really brought the music to life. It was a fun class, one of my very favorites from my college days. I still love the numbers we studied, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Dvorak's New World Symphony, Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, Smetana's The Moldau, Rachmaninoff's 2nd piano concerto.

In 1971 we moved into the Butler llth Ward. The choir director was desperate for tenors, so she switched me and one other man who could also reach most of the higher notes. At first it was hard because I couldn't seem to hear the tenor part. I remember a solo I was supposed to sing during one choir presentation, where I couldn't find my note at all. I really butchered it. With practice I did learn to sing tenor in the choir. I still sing tenor to this day.

I really enjoy all types of music. Just scroll down through my playlist to see a very eclectic mix. There's rock and roll, opera, classical, country, a little bit of everything. If music is done well, with a strong melody, I enjoy almost every genre. Sometimes I just like a particular beat or rhythm. If it's done well, I'll probably like it.

2009-05-17T21:44:00.002-04:00

GROWING UP IN THE CHURCH

My earliest recollection of church was while we lived in Boise, Idaho. I think it must have been for Junior Sunday School, because it seems to have been on Sunday. That’s where I met the first friend I remember. His name was Roy. Since that was the same first name as one of my favorite heroes, Roy Rogers, I remember him. I had several nursery rhymes and stories that I had memorized by hearing them over and over. And I recited some of them in Sunday School.

After we moved to Salt Lake, and settled on Wyoming Street, we attended the Beacon 2nd Ward. The building was across the street from Dilworth Elementary School. I’d usually go across the street for Primary, but sometimes I’d skip Primary. Mom and I frequently went to Sunday School.

Once, while partaking of the Sacrament in Sunday School, I received a personal lesson from one of the church leaders (I think it was Bishop Garff) on how to take the Sacrament. It seems that I’d been taking it with my left hand. The gentleman came down from the stand and sat beside me and had me practice taking it with my right hand.

I also met the Prophet, David O. McKay at Sunday School once. My friend, David Ashton was in that ward, and President McKay was his grandfather. President McKay came to our ward for meetings because his daughter attended that ward.

About five months after I turned 8, I was called into the Bishop’s office to be interviewed for baptism. By this time Bishop Garff had been released, and Bishop McMullin was the one I interviewed with. I was asked if I kept the Word of Wisdom. I didn’t know what that was, as I had not been attending regularly. But I figured that it had something to do with being wise, and I was trying to do that, so I answered in the affirmative. Years later, after I had learned what the Word of Wisdom really is, I realized that I had not been keeping the Word of Wisdom. I had been sneaking sips of my dad’s beer on occasion. But I never did after I found out the truth.

I was baptized in the font at the Salt Lake Tabernacle on March 17, 1953. A young Priest named Richard Hardy baptized me. I was confirmed by my grandfather, Elmer W. Gale, in the LeGrand Ward on March 29, 1953.

I especially enjoyed singing the hymns and Primary songs. I know it helped me learn to read as well, since reading along with the hymns was easy. They went fairly slowly, a lot of the phrases ended in words that rhymed, and I could hear what other people were singing, so I got the words right from the start.

When I was about 9 years old, they built a new ward building on Foothill Boulevard. It must have been about the same time that Beacon Heights Elementary was being built. We had to walk further from the school to the church building than previously. I started to enjoy Primary so I attended more regularly.

I liked the activities that went along with the boys’ Primary curriculum. I went to a neighbor’s house a few times for boy type skill practice. I do not remember what we did, but I do remember enjoying it. The 9, 10, and 11 year old boys were the Blazers, Trekkers, and Guides. We had green bandaloes with plastic achievement awards that we attached to them as we learned the Articles of Faith and performed different services.

Not long before Christmas, the Primary chorister came along listening to each class sing. I liked to sing, so I sang as loud and as well as I could for her. Later, she pulled me and two other boys out to take parts in the Christmas Primary Program, a little play called The Littlest Christmas Tree. Since I was the smallest of the three boys, I got the lead part. In the story, a dove is looking for a place to roost to be out of a storm. Both of the other, bigger trees turned her away. But the littlest Christmas tree allowed her to rest in his branches. The dove was played by a cute little blond girl, and I held her in my arms to protect her from the storm.

I also wanted to be involved with Cub Scouts. At the time, the Church did not sponsor Cubs. The people in the neighborhood who were involved with Cubs were anti-Mormon. After I got started, they changed all the meetings to be at the same time as Primary. They wanted to preclude the Mormon boys from participating. So I had to make a choice. I chose Primary, because the Primary teachers were so much nicer than the Cub Scout leaders.

The year we were living at 1070 Lincoln Street, we were in the LeGrand Ward. I became more involved with church that year. I attended both Primary and Sunday School regularly, and even an occasional Sacrament Meeting. Sister Hales was our Sunday School teacher. She had 10 and 11 year old boys in the class. Her son Jimmy was a year younger than I, but he was bigger. He was also a little wilder. When he would get out of hand, she’d speak to him in German and he’d straighten right up. I found out that he was afraid of his German grandmother who lived with them. By this age he was bigger than she was, but was scared to death of her.

When we moved to East Mill Creek, Jeff Anderson and Charlie Nielson came by our home and invited me to go to church with them. I was happy to have new friends. Jeff was a little younger than I, so both of us were still in Primary for a month or so. Sister Barney was our Primary teacher. She loved her “Guide Patrol” boys. Jeff and I graduated from Primary together.

The first Sunday Mom took David and Tawny and me to church, the building was closed. We didn’t know it, but they were having Stake Conference, and were dividing the Canyon Rim Stake from the East Mill Creek Stake. Gordon B. Hinckley was called as the new Stake President.

I was ordained a Deacon on November 11, 1956 by LeRoy M. Strand. He was the Bishop of the East Mill Creek Ward. As a Deacon, I learned about the Individual Award Program. To receive an award, you needed to attend 75% of your Priesthood and Sacrament Meetings, 75% of Stake Conference meetings, complete a certain number of service assignments and pay a full tithe. I had few awards while growing up, and I decided I wanted to be awarded. So I started going to my meetings. It was hard at first, as I was not in the habit of going to Sacrament Meeting. I missed quite a few the first couple of months. But then I settled in and had made all my meetings by the end of the year. I had forgotten about tithing, however, so I didn’t get an award the first year.

I don’t remember much about my first talk in Sacrament Meeting. That was one of the requirements for the Individual Award. I do remember being called “Preacher Jim” by a couple of adults afterward. I must have delivered a sermon, rather than a talk.

I did enjoy gathering Fast Offerings each month, and I enjoyed passing the Sacrament. I especially liked the service projects at the Stake Farm. Hard work beside other boys and good men was very satisfying. We cleaned irrigation ditches, hauled hay, cleaned the milking barn, fed the cows, and cleaned wind breaks. I did get sick on one hay haul, as I worked too hard in the hot sun and got heat stroke. A good drink of cool water and a few minutes rest and I was fine.

Another activity that was new to me was attending Stake Conference. At first the East Mill Creek Stake did not have their own Stake Center. We met at the old Grant Stake Tabernacle in Sugar House. That was the first time I remember feeling the Spirit of the Holy Ghost. I was sitting in the balcony of the chapel and the Stake President was speaking. The feeling was wonderful, and I decided I liked coming to Stake Conference. Further experiences with that feeling as I was growing through my teen age years helped me to develop a testimony. I really enjoyed inspired speakers. Still do.

When I turned 14, I was ordained a Teacher by Bishop Strand. I then was assigned to be a Ward Teaching companion to Brother Larry Morgan. We were assigned to visit families who had recently moved into a some new houses in the ward, at the east end of 3400 South, where I lived at the west end. One of the first was the family of Robert Farr Smith, which included his wife Rae Ellen, daughter Georgia, and sons Stephen and Stuart. They also had 2 chihuahua dogs named Tia and Poky. Georgia was not happy to have moved, so she immediately did not like me.

I loved participating in Scouts. More about that later.

I continued in that ward. It was divided in about 1960 and we were now in the East Mill Creek 11th Ward. Ralph Pitts was called as the new Bishop. I began dating Cheryl Cutler, and as she was best friends with Georgia Smith, we often double dated, me with Cheryl, and Georgia with the Bishop’s son, Paul Pitts.

I had several callings in the Aaronic Priesthood, Deacons Quorum Secretary, Teachers Quorum Secretary, counselor in various presidencies. In 1961 Cheryl and I, and Paul and Georgia were called as dance directors for the ward. We participated in a couple of church dance programs. Later Paul and Cheryl dropped out of the program, and Georgia and I were the only ones involved.

I took Seminary classes in high school. Old Testament from Brother Max Moffett, New Testament from Brother Olsen, and Doctrine & Covenants from Brother Groberg. I graduated from Seminary at the same time as I graduated from high school. They only offered 3 years at the time.

Family Vacations

2009-03-30T08:03:00.002-04:00

Family Vacations

I’ve previously written about vacations my family took while we lived in Boise.

Our trip to Yellowstone National Park

In 1953 our family went to Yellowstone. Dave was only 2 years and Tawny was only 5 months old. We stayed in a cabin in the Park. We visited most of the famous geysers and hot pools. I wanted to do a lot more exploring on foot, but was restricted because others in the family couldn’t get around as well. Aunt June and Uncle Jake and Steve and Lloyd Hartman also went along. We saw lots of bears, and moose, and elk, and buffalo.

Dad wanted to go fishing on the Firehole River. He was fly fishing. On one of his casts the fly on his line came and caught him in the soft skin right next to his eye. The barb on the hook would not let the hook be taken out without more damage, so he pushed it through so the barb was on the outside, then cut off the hook with the barb, then pulled the rest of the hook back out. Mom assisted in the surgery. Awhile later there was a hatch of blackflies or buffalo gnats on the river. The flies were very hungry and started attacking and biting us. We fought them off as best we could. Then I noticed that Dad had several streams of blood running down his legs (he was in shorts). The gnats were so hungry they were burrowing right into the skin. But we could not feel them. We decided we’d had enough fishing then.

We did have a great time and Yellowstone has always been one of my favorite vacation places. The geology fascinates me.

Trip Back East

The summer I was 9, 1954, we went to Detroit to visit Oma and Opa, my German grandparents. We traveled from there to New York to visit Dad’s sister, Agnes and her family. There was Mom and Dad, David, 3, and Tawny, 17 months, and me.

Before we went I was given a little camera, a Brownie Holiday. I took pictures with it at the Detroit Zoo, and at the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty.

We rode a train out of Salt Lake, The Spirit of Los Angeles dome liner. We had a little compartment for our family, with a couch that pulled out into the main bed, and a let down upper bed. It also had its own little restroom. I don’t remember how we all fit in it for sleep since it really only had sleeping room for 3 adults. For entertainment we had coloring books and drawing materials. I also had a toy gun that shot suction cup darts. Those who cleaned the cabins after the trip probably had a fit trying to get the rubber suction cup marks off all the surfaces of the room.

The food in the dining car on that train was excellent. For one meal I had a lamb chop. It was very fancy with a paper rapped around one end to make it look a little like a drumstick. In those days the dining cars on trains were some of the best restaurants in the country, with the very best chefs.

The dome car was a two deck car with a Plexiglas dome over the upper deck. It was a great way to see the scenery all across this beautiful country. While traveling through Wyoming I went to the dome car to see the countryside. As we rode along I followed with my eyes a meandering stream that ran alongside the tracks. I watched it go away and then come back over and over. After awhile I noticed that my stomach felt very queasy. I went back to our cabin and Mom immediately noticed that I had turned green. Later that evening as we approached Illinois, I saw fireflies out over the meadows. I had never seen them before.

When we got to Chicago we changed to a regular train car to travel to Detroit. That was the first time I ever saw segregation. Some of the cars were “black only”, and some were “white only”. I had no idea before that there were so many black people.

In Detroit we went to Belle Isle, where the children’s zoo was. I took pictures of the giraffes and the rhinoceros with my new camera. Belle Isle is an island park in the middle of the Detroit River. It was Dad’s favorite place while he was growing up in Detroit. There was also a beach and an arboretum there. Dad lived close enough that he could ride his bike there. He played tennis there and swam in the river in the summer and played hockey on the ice there in the winter.

We traveled by car to New York from Detroit. Freeways had just started in California. None existed in the East. But limited access toll roads had been built in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and were under construction in Ohio and elsewhere. We traveled over the Pennsylvania and New Jersey turnpikes to get to New York. The Pennsylvania Turnpike was fairly new. It was built on a railroad bed, but highways were becoming more in demand so the planned railway was never built. One feature of the turnpike was the service areas, each dominated by a Howard Johnson’s Restaurant. Each of these was a different design from the others, and I enjoyed collecting post cards with pictures of each of the different ones. Those were also the days before air conditioning in cars, and it was very hot on that trip. Oma and Opa didn’t know about deodorants and it got very bad in that car with four adults and three children. Motion sickness wasn’t the only cause of nausea on that trip.

In New York I got reacquainted with Aunt Agnes and Uncle George Stein and my older cousin Katherine. I met my cousins Madeline and Elizabeth. They lived on an estate in Rockland County, just north of New York City. I loved the frog pond in their yard. It was a great place to catch tadpoles. They also had a full size black poodle named Pooh. It was a very smart dog.

We went into New York City and visited the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building. That was the first time I had ever ridden in a taxicab. It seemed that almost all the cars on the streets of Manhattan were yellow taxis. I was also impressed by all the bridges. We drove over the George Washington Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge. We also took a ferry ride along the Hudson River. I wanted to go to the amusement park, Palisades Park, across the river in New Jersey, but we didn’t have time for that.

Trip to Phoenix

The Thanksgiving weekend in 1958 we traveled to Phoenix. We stayed in a fancy motel (fancy to me, anyway), The Egyptian. They had flaming torches all around the place and lots of big palm trees. We had fun playing in the swimming pool. Even David, who was only seven, had learned to swim well enough by then to jump off the diving board. What a novelty to be swimming outside at Thanksgiving time.

Dad had gone to check on a place he had invested in that sold motor bikes. He was very disappointed in what he found. Seems the manager had used most of the investment for personal wants and the motor bikes were not selling well at all.

San Francisco

I think it was Christmas season of 1959. We’d had lobster tail for dinner on Christmas Eve. It was the first time I’d had lobster. I got a spoiled one and didn’t realize it. I got really sick. Really, really sick. Food poisoning.

Two days after Christmas we drove to San Francisco. It was my first trip to the Bay area. We stayed in a motel in Richmond, on the northeast side of San Francisco Bay. We spent the next day or two driving around, looking at tourist sites. There was an old museum on the bluffs over the Pacific Ocean that I really enjoyed. I think that was the last year it was open. It was really old. We also went to Fisherman’s Wharf for lunch. I couldn’t even look at a piece of fish because of my experience with the lobster.

The next evening we went to Chinatown. We had one of those great family style dinners where everyone orders something different and everyone shares. I really fell in love with Chinese food there. It was a lot better than La Choy canned chow main, which was all we’d had before that.

Southern California

Summer of 1960 I got my first drivers license. I was only 15, but Utah law let me get the license since I’d had Driver’s Education in high school. Two days later we headed for Los Angeles and Camarillo, California. Dad had to stay in Salt Lake and work for awhile, and flew down to join us later. Mom and David and Tawny and I headed out in our 1954 Buick.

Mom remembered a lot about the route but not all she wanted to. Near St. George, Utah were some roads that were winding and narrow. She wanted to drive that part, but somehow I ended up driving through there. I handled it ok, but she was very nervous because of my inexperience.

When we got to Las Vegas we stopped for gas and got swindled. The attendant told us our tires looked bad. He talked Mom into letting him put the car up on the rack where he sprayed the tires with something that made it look like the tires were leaking. Then he got Mom scared that she wouldn’t make it another block with the tires like that. So she bought a whole new set of tires from him. He promised to hold the tires for us to pick up when Dad was with us on the way back. But we didn’t stop on the way back. I’m surprised now that Dad wasn’t more upset.

Mom also wanted to drive on the freeways, again because of my inexperience. But I did get to drive on them anyway, and I did great. I was excited to drive there, because I had only seen those freeways in driver’s ed films. I wanted all the driving experience I could get. After all, I was a teen age boy.

We got to Camarillo just fine. Mom drove most of the way while I navigated. Opa met us near the freeway exit and had us follow him to their house at 189 West Loop Drive. They had lived there a short time after Opa had retired from General Motors. They had built the house in the middle of a lemon orchard. They also had several Valencia orange trees. Their next door neighbors, whose last name was Mountain had an avocado tree. It made me want to move to California, just for the fresh fruit. Opa had also planted a lot of onions between two of the rows of lemon trees. Oma was into recycling and would dig all of their organic garbage into the ground around the orange trees.

Each evening Opa would put on his old classical music records and lead the orchestra while they played. Just before bedtime he would wind the grandfather clock that he had built the case for.

They had more TV stations than Salt Lake had. We saw Jack Lalanne for the first time. Also saw a performance by James Brown. I enjoyed watching Opa work in his wood shop, and helping him work in the orchard. He told me he was impressed with my ideas and abilities.

We went to the beach in Ventura and to a great seafood restaurant named The Lobster Trap in Point Hueneme. I ended up taking Georgia there a few years later, and while attending a Fisher Scientific conference near there, I took several of my co-workers.

After Dad joined us we traveled south to Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, and Marine World.

Southern California, 2nd time

With Oma and Opa now living in Southern California, we had an excuse to go back again. This time it was 1963, and I was busy courting my future wife, Georgia. This time we went to get out of the cold, traveling there a couple of days after Christmas.

I was reluctant to leave Georgia behind. I was totally in love. Georgia was not convinced that I was worth her time. I knew that she would not stay at home while I was gone. She would go out to celebrate New Years Eve with somebody else. But I had given her a couple of Christmas gifts that I hoped would keep her thinking of me. One was a sweater. It was a classic, off-white cardigan, with a green cord border, and brass buttons. The moment I saw it in the store, I knew she’d love it. She did. The other gift was a popular record album by Bobby Vee titled, “The Night Has a Thousand Eyes.”

Two adventures stand out for me about this trip. One was my first and only effort at surfing. Oma and Opa had some teenage neighbors who were into surfing. They invited me to go along. It was New Years Eve, but the air temperatures were close to 90 degrees. We went to Ventura County Line Beach. The waves were really not very good and I never got up on the board even a little bit. But I did get very cold. The water temperature was very cool, and I started to get hypothermic while sitting on the surf board waiting for a good wave. It took me about an hour in a hot shower back at the house to start to recover.

The next adventure was a visit to the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena. Dad dropped David, Tawny, and me off near the parade route shortly after midnight New Years Day. We found a spot across from the television cameras on a corner. We were sitting on a blanket about four rows of people back from the curb. There was a rope barricade at the curb to keep people back from the street. As the time for the parade started, however, everyone in front of us moved to fill in the side street, so we moved up to the rope. But the police came by and forced all those who had crossed the rope to move back. I just stood there with my arms folded and nobody tried to take their place back. So we were right on the front row. It was great.

A Year at 1070 Lincoln Street

2008-11-04T00:18:00.000-05:00

About the time I started 6th grade, we sold our house on Wyoming Street and started building a new house in East Mill Creek. While the new house was being built, we moved in with my maternal grandparents at 1070 Lincoln Street. I had spent so much time there while growing up, that I felt at home immediately.

1070 was the home of Nana and Pa (Madge and Elmer Gale). It had been their home since sometime in the 1930's. When I came along as the first grandchild, I named them Nana and Pa since it was too hard to say grandma and grandpa when I was learning to talk. And the names stuck through all of their grandchildren.

This was the family gathering place for all holidays, and the feasts there were wonderful. Nana and Pa had 6 children: Mom (Shirley), Jay, June, Val, John, and Pauline. Pa was in the produce business and had purchased a grocery store in 1938, so there was always an abundance of good food around.

I think Jay was the only one of my aunts and uncles who still lived at home when we were there. He had been severely ill after World War II, and was still recovering when we moved in. He had a brand new Mercury convertible that I thought was the best car ever. Pa had a new Kaiser. It was by far the most stylish car for its time, but the company went out of business a year later because of management problems.

A boy named Clary Cardwell lived across the street. He was about a year older than me. Art Nunn, who was about my age, lived in the house behind, across the alley. They were the only boys I knew when we moved in.

I got to sleep in the front upstairs bedroom during that year. Jay had the bedroom across the hall. There was no heat in the upstairs, so it was really cold in the winter. But there were lots of warm quilts to snuggle under, so it was fine with me. It was just hard getting out of bed in the mornings because the floor was sooo cold.

The closet in that bedroom had a box of old books that I really enjoyed. Some of them had been printed before 1900. I was really into reading that year, and I often would read under the covers at night with a flashlight. I don't remember all of the titles, but The Odyssey was one, Gulliver's Travels was another, and I think Robinson Crusoe was also there. The oldest book I remember reading was called Soldiers of Fortune. The summer of 1955 I missed most of the activities I had signed up for at the local playground, because I had stayed up so late reading and couldn't get up in the mornings.

Pa had built a large garage in the back for his produce truck. There was also an attic storeroom and a fruit room in that garage. It was a fascinating place for a young boy. Nana did lots of canning in the fall, and the fruit room was always full of wonderful things. They also had an old chest freezer out there. They'd had to put locks on the doors, because some homeless men had discovered the great stash of food that was always there. The garage opened onto an alley that went between the backs of the houses on Lincoln Street and the houses on 9th East.

The house was heated with coal. A boiler fed large steam radiators in the main floor rooms. The furnace had an automatic coal feeder that kept the fire going. It was accessed through a large trap door and stairway on the back porch. One of my chores while we lived there was to make sure there was plenty of coal in the feeder. Once a week the furnace had to be opened to remove the clinkers. Clinkers are hard chunks of minerals that are left behind when the coal burns. Another job I had was to fish the clinkers out of the furnace with some long tongs and put them in a large metal bucket. After they had cooled I had to carry the bucket out to the alley for the garbage men to pick up.

I attended Emerson Elementary School for 6th Grade. That was probably my best year in school. Lynn Burningham was the main teacher. We went to Mrs. Meservy for music. Both of them were excellent teachers.

In Mrs. Meservy's class I found my ear for music. I found I could hear the various parts, and I sang alto in some of the songs the class sang. We got into Negro spirituals, such as "Swing Low Sweet Chariot", "Nobody Knows de Trouble I See", "Old Black Joe", and "When The Saints Go Marching In", and I loved them. That led me to a love of folk songs in later years.

One of the most exciting activities we were involved with was a series of field trips to one of the local television studios. The class made six total trips, but not all the class could go each time. Somehow I was chosen to go every time. We participated in a live broadcast of a typical classroom discussion each of the trips. We even got to write part of the script. On one of the trips Linda Booth slipped on the stage and landed on her tail bone. She seemed OK, but a couple of minutes later she fainted. We were just about to go on the air. She came to in time to participate, but it was scary there for a minute.

The boys and girls in that class were awesome. I usually hung around with Bruce Bradshaw, Mike Gannon and David Tame. But Sammy Fernley, Ricky Briggs, Bryant Schroeder, Ronny Hathaway, and Ralph Robbins were also good friends. As was Lane Rogers. Lane was the class bully. I noticed that boys who were willing to fight were not picked on. So one day Mike Gannon and I were messing around, and I challenged him to a fist fight after school. He accepted. He had apparently noticed the same thing. We passed the word around that there would be a fight after school. I got the second black eye of my life in that fight. I don’t know if I got in any good blows, but Mike and I went away from the fight as better friends than ever. And the school bullies left us both alone after that. Lane Rogers especially took a liking to me. I liked him and he knew it. Most of the boys did not like him. He confided in me about many of his troubles. His parents were divorced and he just had a difficult time coping. Basically, his attitude stunk. He did not do well in school, even though he seemed to be fairly smart.

I often went to Bruce Bradshaw’s house after school to study and to play board games. Sammy Fernley and I went to Liberty Park to play tennis on Saturdays. Neither one of us was any good. Older boys often chased us off the courts.

There were so many pretty girls in the class. I seemed to fall ‘in love’ with a new one every week. Patty and Nancy Denhalter were famous. They were very cute identical twins who had been in commercials for Campbell Soup. They had been known as the Campbell Soup Twins. I one time or another had crushes on Linda Booth, Kathleen Morris, Jeanne Thiessen, Vicky Rae Haycock, Virginia Viers, Patty Dobbs, and Marva Poelman. Marva was my favorite though. She is related to Elder Ronald E. Poelman, who is now an emeritus General Authority.

An interesting thing happened years later. I used to see Marva Poelman at the University of Utah. I was too shy to approach her then. She was always with another beautiful girl who often wore the uniform of the Army ROTC auxiliary. When Lyle and Marcia got married, they had their wedding reception in a large home in Connecticut. As I walked into the entry of that home, there above the circular staircase was a family portrait, and the wife was the same girl I used to see with Marva at the U.

We had weekly ballroom dancing lessons during P.E. I really enjoyed those classes because there were so many pretty girls to dance with. The girls were starting to blossom at that age, and I really enjoyed them. Too bad that a year later my teenage hormones started to kick in. After that being in the presence of a pretty girl really made me nervous.

Bryant Schroeder and I both moved after the school year and went to Evergreen Jr. High and Olympus High School together. David Tame and Bruce Bradshaw were in some of my classes at the University of Utah. Bruce and I had a diving class together. He ruptured an eardrum on one bad dive and had to drop out of the class. David was in some of my Institute classes.

All in all, this was probably my best year, both socially and academically through all my K-12 years.

Beacon Heights Elementary School

2008-10-13T16:29:00.000-04:00

While I was in 4th grade at Dilworth, building began on Beacon Heights. I went to 5th grade there. Then in 6th grade we lived with Nana & Pa, my grandparents, for a year while our new house in East Mill Creek was being built.
Years later, in about 2001, I helped remodel a house across the street from Beacon Heights. While I was working on that house, Beacon Heights was torn down so it could be rebuilt.
I had Mr. Kearns for 5th grade. He loved to tease the girls. More than once he had a girl in tears from going too far with his teasing. I started to do very well scholastically at that time. But Mr. Kearns tried to give at least one poor grade to almost everyone. One report card he gave me a 'D' in spelling. It was my worst subject. I think I had maybe missed 2 words during that report period. Anyway, Dad got all over me for getting a 'D', and wouldn't believe that I didn't deserve it. I didn't misspell any more words that year, and for most of the rest of my life.
Mr. Kearns was not well liked by the parents. In addition to the teasing, he was erratic in his discipline. Many kids were punished severely for minor infractions. One boy was dismissed from school for being late to class one time. Mrs. Cosgrove, the principal, was not much better and even backed him up on some of his extreme discipline. A year after I left, the parents became very angry at his actions and demanded his termination. He was fired. Mom told me about that.
I ran into many of my friends from Beacon Heights years later at the University of Utah. I had a crush on Kathy Erickson. She later became a professional model for ZCMI while she was in high school. Linda Brown and Suzanne Frisby were in the women's auxiliary, Angel Flight, while I was in Air Force ROTC. Linda was one of the girls that Mr. Kearns liked to tease. I didn't pay much attention to Suzanne in 5th grade. When Mom saw the class pictures, she told me Suzanne would be the prettiest girl in the class when she grew up. I thought Suzanne was kind of plain. But Mom was right.
Many of the boys in the neighborhood liked to gather on the lawn at Beacon Heights to play football after school. That was my first experience at being really good at a sport. At least I was good on defense. I could get to the quarterback very quickly and whoever was playing that position would yell at his teammates to block me, but I still got through most of the time. However, I did not remember these experiences, and had no confidence in my abilities when I got to high school, so I didn't even try out for the football team there.
I do remember getting a severe black eye during a snowball fight that year. Someone threw a chunk of ice that hit me in the eye. The eyelid was cut through. The teachers banned snowball fights after that.

A few more Wyoming St. memories

2008-09-22T00:06:00.001-04:00

When we moved to Wyoming Street I got a new puppy. A black labrador retriever again. I named her Jet 2. I didn't have her very long. About the time she was fully grown, she was stolen.

I learned to ride a bike there. The street had enough slope so that it was good for coasting downhill. There was very little traffic. Dad bought me a full sized bike. I couldn't reach the pedals. So Dad took off the seat, padded a board that he attached where the seat had been, and wired blocks to the pedals. Dad would put me on the bike, as it was too tall for me to climb onto, and start me down the hill. I'd ride for a short way, lose my balance and crash. That happened over and over. My knees and elbows were covered with scabs before I finally got the feel for it. Even then I often crashed because the bike was just too tall for me.

There was a very poor family a few houses south of us who lived in what was just a shack. The sewer came down the street a couple of years after we moved in. Before that all the houses were on septic tanks. The poor family didn't hook up to the sewer, while everyone else did. I guess they couldn't afford it. They also poured things into their drains that they shouldn't. One night their septic tank blew up. So they had an open sewer hole in their back yard. After a few weeks, the house was condemned. The health department came to condemn the house on Halloween, and I found the Health Department notice on their front door when I went trick-or-treating. The family was gone.

The second house to the south of ours was where the Buckholz's lived. They had two sons just a little older than me. Their house looked like a converted barn. It looked like fun to me. I went there to play once just before Christmas, and we made construction paper chains with homemade glue for their Christmas tree. Mom didn't like me to go there much, because Mrs. Buckholz was infamous on the street for making her own wine, and for drinking a lot of it. She was usually inebriated.

Mr. Buckholz and his sons built a swimming pool in their side yard. They just dug a hole, lined it with cement and filled it with the garden hose. I'm sure the water never got very warm, and it had no circulation, filtration or chlorination. After it sat there stagnant for a few days, the water got pretty bad. They made no easy way to drain it. I think they just used a garden hose to siphon the water out into the back yard. It was a real redneck swimming pool.

Most of the houses on the street had window wells. We boys would get together and go on Black Widow spider hunts. They often made their homes in the window wells, and every couple of weeks in the summer we could take long sticks and visit the window wells, destroying the nests and the spiders. We all thought ourselves very brave. We also tried to scare each other with stories of how far the spiders could leap, and what would happen if we ever got bit.

Another stupid boy game was to catch honey bees from some of the flowering bushes. We did it with our bare hands. We'd try to see who could hold them the longest without getting stung. Of course, to win, you had to hold them long enough so they'd start to sting and then quickly brush them off. Sometimes we waited just a second too long. We were lucky that no one of us was allergic to bee venom.

Summer evenings were often the time to play kick-the-can. Usually we'd play in one of the Olsen's front yards. On hot summer days we often gathered in a cool basement to read comic books. Scott, who lived three doors north of me, had a great collection of Marvel Comics. All mine were Looney Tunes; not cool for a bunch of boys. We also liked to gather in John Wicks bedroom right across the street from me and play Monopoly for hours on hot afternoons. Sometimes we'd even carry games over for days.

David & Tawny

2008-09-04T05:38:00.000-04:00

While we lived on Wyoming Street, I finally ceased being an only child. David came along in 1951, and Tawny was two years later.

The house only had two bedrooms when we moved in. David and I shared a bedroom. I was really glad I didn't have to sleep alone anymore. When he became old enough to get out of his crib, we got bunk beds. However, they were set up as twin beds at first.

David was kept in the bedroom much of the time by a gate with a little latch that you had to press with a thumb and finger to open. He didn't have the finger strength to open it by himself. One day I taught him to open it with his teeth. He did have enough jaw strength to do it. I really got in trouble about that one.

David used to get bloody noses a lot. One night he got one in the middle of the night. He climbed off his bed, and climbed onto me to awaken me to help him get it stopped. I was a very sound sleeper, and he couldn't wake me. Mom and Dad heard the springs squeaking on my bed and came in and helped him. When I awoke in the morning, I discovered that I had on different pajamas than when I went to bed. After taking care of David, she had cleaned me up and redressed me. I slept through the whole process, even though she used cold water to wash off the blood.

Another time I got in trouble was on a Christmas morning. I got up really early to see what Santa Claus had brought. I carried the toys that Santa brought for David to the bedroom and awakened him. That was before I taught him to open the gate. So Mom and Dad didn't get to see David discover his toys and stuff. They were quite upset with me.

While Mom was pregnant with Tawny, Jackie Gleason's orchestra released a recording entitled "Tawny". Dad then had a dream about a 'tawny' blond woman. That's where they got the idea for her name. She did turn out to be a blond, so the name fit.

About the time Tawny was born we got a piano and I started taking piano lessons. I had a hard time with learning to play. My teacher, Mrs. Catmull, lived in a house that I passed while walking to and from Dilworth Elementary. After I had been taking lessons for awhile, Mrs. Catmull told me she was retiring as a piano teacher and would no longer be able to teach me. That was a kind way of saying that she was giving up on me because I was making such poor progress. I did notice that other kids continued to go there for lessons and I heard them as I walked by. She just retired from teaching me.

After I stopped going to Mrs. Catmull, a recent Dutch immigrant stopped by the house looking for piano students and Mom signed me up. He was going door to door on a motorized bicycle. When he asked Mom about other kids in the neighborhood, she told him where every other child lived. He was amazed at the number of children and he exclaimed, "How fertile these women are!" A couple of years later, when we moved to East Mill Creek, he gave up on me, too. He said we were moving too far away for him to come all the way out to teach me. But after we had been there a few days, I saw him on his motor bike right in the same neighborhood. He was teaching someone else just two streets away. I was just a very slow learner and frustrated these two teachers. I think it was just poor finger dexterity. But I did learn to read music.

When Tawny came along, we needed an additional bedroom. So Dad built one in the basement for me. The walls of the bedroom were knotty pine tongue and groove boards. The ceiling was acoustic tiles, and the light for the room was a circular fluorescent fixture.

The bunk beds were moved to my new room and stacked. David and Tawny got new beds and shared the bedroom upstairs. I did not particularly like sleeping alone in that new room. I frequently let my imagination run away with me and scared myself silly. I often slept completely under the covers, so I could hide from the monsters and boogey men that I knew were out to get me. I especially avoided looking out the back window at night, because I was afraid that dinosaurs would be out there and would then break in and get me.

One night while I was trying to get to sleep, a dog was barking and snarling somewhere outside. I was under the covers, because I knew that dog was about to break through the window and come in and attack me. Then there was a loud crash. I knew that dog had come through the window and I started screaming. Dad and Mom came rushing downstairs to find out what I was screaming about. Turned out the crash was from one of the circular tubes on the fluorescent fixture which had fallen to the floor and shattered. I had nightmares about that dog for months after that.

Wyoming Street, Dilworth Elementary, Beacon 2nd Ward

2008-09-01T14:18:00.000-04:00

On February 25, 1951, we moved to our new home at 1900 Wyoming St. It was a yellow brick (actually more dirty ochre than yellow) 2-bedroom house with a single car garage. Wyoming Street was a dead end street, so the entire street became a playground. The front yard was a single story, and the yard sloped so that the back of the house was two stories. The house faced east. We lived there until September 1955.

Wyoming Street is located between Texas Street and 2500 E. It runs downhill from the dead end to Parleys Way, crossing Redondo Ave and 2100 S. When we moved there, there were still a few undeveloped lots on the street. By the time we moved away, all the lots were filled with houses.

The first two winters there were severe. Lots of snow. To a six or seven year old it was deep enough to be over my head when piled on the sides of the sidewalk. When it melted, the houses on the east side of the neighborhood streets got flooded basements. We were on the west.

The heavy snows brought deer down into the neighborhood. They ate the newly planted pfitzers, tams and euonymus that Mom planted. The neighborhood dogs chased the deer up and down the street. The poor deer ran with terror in their eyes.

I had lots of friends in that neighborhood. Across the street were the Doyle and Byron Olsen families with lots of kids, Joe and Betty Wicks and the Hudsons. David Olsen and Barbie Hudson were my age. The Olsen cousins included Julie, Janice, Dianne, and several others. Johnny and Judy Wicks were younger, Donny Hudson was Barbie’s younger brother. Down the street were several others around the same age. It was a great neighborhood to grow up in. My first grade school crush was on a little girl with golden hair named Sally who lived on the NE corner of Wyoming St and 2100 S. She was in my 1st grade class. The Loveless's lived next door to the north. Judy Loveless was a couple of years younger than me.

The big thrill of that first year was being invited to Sally’s birthday party. I also went to David Ashton’s birthday party near the end of second grade. He was President David O. McKay’s grandson. His younger brother later founded Word Perfect. David’s mother took us to see “War of the Worlds”. It was pretty scary for a bunch of 7-year olds. Another friend, Tommy Anderegg, invited me to his birthday party in third grade. That was where I got another big crush on a girl named Kitty, who had the longest eyelashes I had ever seen.

My first grade teacher at Dilworth was Mrs Peterson. When Mom took me to school the first day, she told Mrs. Peterson that I was to be called Jimmy. But after Mom left, the teacher said they would call me James, because there were already two Jimmies in the class, Jimmy Pizza, and Jimmy Reynolds. Mom and Dad were not happy with Mrs. Peterson. James Pizza and I ended up graduating from Olympus High School together.

Being the new kid in class, I was assigned to share a desk (they were 2-person desks) with Kathy Webster. Apparently no one else wanted to sit by her. She had a bad speech impediment. She was not bad looking, and had a nice personality, so I didn’t mind being there. Except for the time she got sick and threw up lunch all over both sides of the desk.

One friend I walked home with often, was Michael Ruud. Looking back, I think he was very rude. He eventually became a famous ballet dancer with the big ballet company in New York City.

Bruce Vanderwerf was another friend who became somewhat famous. He trained as a chef in France and was named the best chef in Utah at one time. He also founded Eat-a-Burger drive-ins.

I had lots of good friends at Dilworth. John Lund was one of the best. He was tall for his age, and I was short. He tried to teach me to play basketball.

We tried to learn ballroom dancing there. I liked to dance with Barbara Hughes because she was tall and could take big steps to stay out of my way.

The only boy in the neighborhood who had divorced parents lived behind us on Texas Street. His name was David Gartiez. His mother often brought treats to school for the whole class. I thought she was very nice. However, David always seemed to be in trouble. He never did anything really bad, but he liked to try things that didn't work out too well, like bringing snakes to school that he had caught on the way.

My second grade teacher was Miss Storey. She was young and pretty. But she got married the summer after school which spoiled it for a lot of little boys.

Mrs. Hampshire was our third grade teacher. She was very nice. In third grade I liked a girl named Kay. I don’t remember her last name. I chased her around the playground at school and finally caught her at the back door and kissed her. She didn’t like me in third grade. Then she decided in fourth grade that she did like me, but by then I liked somebody else.

Yo-yos were the big rage in those days. The cool boys were the ones with the fancy spinners. My folks wouldn’t buy me a fancy one. One day David Olsen and I decided to go to the corner drug store which was about a half block from the school. It was a popular place. K. Fisher Drug. We thought that in the crowd no one would see us pocketing some fancy yo-yos. But Mr. Fisher caught us and escorted us to the back room for a lecture. We decided that crime does not pay. Many years later, after he retired, Kimball Fisher moved into the Butler 11th Ward where we lived. I was able to thank him for saving me from a life of crime.

Another friend from Dilworth was Paul Gardner. He had red hair and was extremely competitive. He was the fastest in the class in 4th grade at multiplication tables. His father owned Dan’s Supermarket, which was then a single store on the NW corner of 21st S and 21st E.

The church we occasionally attended was across 21st East from Dilworth. The Beacon 2nd Ward. It was named for the air traffic warning beacon which sat atop the mountain to the east of our neighborhood. Bishop Garff was the bishop when we moved there. Robert McMullin became bishop soon after.

Six months after I turned eight years old, I was interviewed by Bishop McMullin to be baptized. I was badly scared about that interview, because I feared anyone in a position of authority. We were not very active in the church at that time. I was supposed to go across the street to Primary every week after school, but I frequently skipped it. We went to Sunday School sometimes. When I was interviewed for Baptism, Bishop McMullin asked if I obeyed the Word of Wisdom. I couldn’t remember ever hearing about that. But I figured that I was trying to be wise or smart, so I answered in the affirmative. The truth was that I frequently took sips of Dad’s beer when no one could see me. But I didn’t know that was against the Word of Wisdom.

I was baptized in the Salt Lake Tabernacle font on March 29, 1953 by a young Priest named Richard Hardy.

Bishop McMullin had a son named Bobby. We were pretty good friends. I kept running into him in later years and we had classes together at the University of Utah.

Since I was afraid of authority figures, the school principal scared me badly. I avoided him at all costs. One day Michael Ruud dared me to open a window in the boys restroom. When I tried to do it, the latch broke off the window. Michael said he was going to tell the principal. I ran to the far end of the playground to get away. Some older kids came and got me and dragged me to the principal’s office. I told the principal, Mr. Hales, that Michael told me to do it. That was the first time I heard the line, “If he told you to jump off a building, would you do it?”

While I was in 4th grade, they started to build Beacon Heights Elementary school at the upper end of Wyoming Street. That summer, the neighborhood kids set up a Kool-Aid stand in the Olsen’s driveway. Lots of the construction workers on the school would come down to buy our Kool-Aid. I never made any money at that stand, even though I helped sell. I didn’t understand anything about business; it was just fun to help.

Tag

2008-07-18T10:11:00.000-04:00

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.

Chapter 4 - return to SLC

2008-07-17T22:22:00.000-04:00

When we returned to Salt Lake it was fall/winter. I loved kicking through leaves up to my knees on my way to school in the morning.

We moved into a small apartment down an alley off of I Street on the Avenues in Salt Lake (64 I St, apt 5). Little did I know that there was a girl in kindergarten at that same school, Longfellow Elementary, whom I would marry about 15 years later.

The apartment was not very well maintained, and I hated using the bathroom there. To a 6-year-old it was really gross.

Valentines was the only event I clearly recall. I had developed some friendships in the neighborhood, so I was anxious to deliver Valentine Cards to all of them that night. I had not been out after dark before, and as I tried to find a couple of friends houses, I got disoriented. I dropped a valentine on a porch, which was actually across the street from where I thought I was. I rang the doorbell and ran, only to fall going down the steps and skinning my knee and both hands. That was the last card to deliver, so I headed for home. But I could not find it. I was lost. A kind neighbor lady out with her own kids making deliveries found me wandering down the street crying. I was only across the street from where I wanted to be, so it was easy for her to set me straight.

We were only there for 2 months, and then we moved to a house at 1900 Wyoming Street.

My Story - Chapter 3 - Boise

2008-07-06T13:12:00.000-04:00

In 1948 Dad was transferred by GE X-ray to Boise, Idaho. We moved there in April. Our home was at 2404 Kootenai Street (pronounced koo' ten ee). It was in the far south east corner of the city at that time. We had a view of much of the city out our back door. I remember being able to see the tower on the railroad station. Railroad tracks ran right across our back fence, and a train went by at least twice a day.

Across the railroad tracks was a field that neighborhood boys used for playing baseball. I was too small to play, but I was over there watching them play one day when I was hit in the face by a foul ball. Of course I went running home in tears. But what I remember most was that the boys all came running after me because they were so concerned that I got hurt. After I felt a little better, I came out on the back porch and they were all gathered around. I shyly acknowledged their concern, although I hid behind Mom while I did.

Next door to the east lived a man named Alex Ogden. He was a painter by trade, and he had a great garden in the back yard. His favorite crop was turnips. He willingly shared them with me. He invited me to come over and pick one any time I wanted one. I loved them.

Less than 2 years later we started building a new house at 1300 Arcadia Street. The lot had a beautiful cherry tree right where the house was going to be built. One evening after Dad got home from work, we went over and he chopped down the cherry tree so the house could be built there. Mom spent most of the evening picking the ripe cherries off the fallen tree.

I was a big fan of cowboys. I received a Hopalong Cassidy Hat and cap gun and holster, which enabled me to play cowboys all day long.

The house had a front bedroom in the NW corner. That was my bedroom.

I got a whooping cough immunization, which turned into whooping cough for me. I was told later that I got an overdose. I coughed and whooped and could not breath. It was very frightening for me and Mom.

I had a new friend across the back yard who liked to play with my toys. I liked to watch him play with my toys. He didn't always play nice with them, and he didn't always return them. He hit me on the head with a new toy hammer I had received. Dad got after me for not standing up to him.

I got a pet turtle. One day I tried to open its shell to see what was inside. I don't know if it was alive before I opened him up, but it sure wasn't afterward.

First time I saw blood was when the lady across the back fence came over with her arm lacerated and bloody for my mom to help her. They had just painted their house, and a window was painted shut. In trying to push it open, she pushed her arm through the glass. Mom did first aid and helped get her to the hospital.

There was an old work shed in the back yard that I liked to play in. One day I was playing there when I had the sudden need to relieve my bowels. I didn't think I could make it to the house, so I used an old piece of sewer pipe that was standing on end on the floor. After that I didn't like to play in there any more because it stunk too bad.

We had flood irrigation in that lot and the irrigation gates were right in the front corner of the lot under a couple of locust trees.

Just north of our house was the back yard of our ward bishop. His house faced the street to the east, so he had a nice deep back yard with lots of room to play. One warm summer night as I played there I was amazed to discover that it was getting dark and there was a full moon overhead. I couldn't believe Mom had let me stay out so late.

Across the street to the west were the last houses in the city. Beyond that was just open land all the way to the mountains, both south and west. There was a corral across the street where cows were kept. The caretaker of the corral lived there in a small Airstream trailer. He was a real grizzled old cowboy. I was fascinated by him. The corral was surrounded by an electric fence, which I soon learned by experience to not touch.

Soon after we moved in on Arcadia St. I got my first dog. She was a beautiful black labrador retriever. I named her Jet. It was fun to throw things for her to retrieve.

I also had an imaginary pet tiger that I kept in the garage.

I had some friends across the street to the north who went to their grandpa's farm every Sunday. One Sunday afternoon they invited me to go along. I wanted to go so much. I went home to ask Mom if I could, but she was taking a nap. I asked really quietly, but got no response. I went out and told them I had permission. We went to the farm and I had a blast. We played hide and seek, and I dug a hole in the side of a haystack and hid in there. About that time the cows came home and one of them stuck her nose in my hole while she was eating. It scared me badly. When I got home I was afraid I would be punished for sneaking away. I may have been, but I don't remember the punishment. What I do remember was that Mom was crying, and I knew I had caused it. That was worse than any spanking I ever got.

My friends from the farm incident had a little maltese dog. One time when I was there, that dog bit me. Scared me to pieces. I ran home crying and got Jet and went back to get Jet to punish that little dog. Jet just wanted to play with it.

I started school there. Summer kindergarten and first grade. Whitney Elementary School was at the south end of Arcadia St. and across Overland Rd. Overland Rd. was a dirt and gravel road at the time. Now it's 4 to 6 lanes and one of the major east west routes through Boise.

The only things I remember at Whitney were about recess. One morning we had some organized races at recess. One of the boys was a little hyperactive kid who had some learning difficulties. The first race was all boys. Then the girls raced. This little kid ran again with the girls, but got bumped and fell and hit his head and was lying on the playground unconscious. The teacher quickly picked him up and headed for the office with him.

She called out to us to just play on the playground until she called for us to come in. I was playing by myself on the bars, alone in my own world, when I realized that I was the only one on the playground. The teacher had called for us to come in, and I didn't hear her. I didn't know what to do. So I went home for lunch. I knew it was too early for lunch, so I hid in some bushes until I thought enough time had passed. My sense of time was really bad, and I still got home way too early. Mom wanted to know why I was home so early. I told her about the playground accident, but didn't tell her about missing the call to go in. I was really embarrassed when I had to explain to the teacher why I missed much of the morning class time.

I went home for lunch every day in first grade. I never got to eat school lunch because I lived so close. I always wanted to eat school lunch because I thought it smelled so good.

I misunderstood something the kids who were crossing guards said. Whenever I was late they told me the 'tardy bell' had already rung. I didn't know what 'tardy' meant, and I thought they said 'Party Bell'. I couldn't figure out why when they started school with a party I was always late and missed it.

We went on several fishing trips and other vacations while in Idaho. I remember a trip to Shore Lodge at Payette Lake. I got to ride in a motor boat. It was fun to watch the water skiers, especially the guy who could go over the jump ramp. The water was cold, but it was fun to paddle around in my little life vest. I also enjoyed sleeping in a bunk bed. My aunt Pauline went with us. She was a beautiful blond about 19 years old, and quickly had a couple of boyfriends following her around and taking her boating. We also visited Cascade Dam. I was in my cowboy outfit and started shooting my cap gun at the roaring water coming out of the dam. I embarrassed Mom by yelling, "I'm a good dam shooter, aren't I, Mom!"

I learned to love music and nursery rhymes while in Boise. My favorite popular song was "Bye, Bye, Blackbird". I had several 78 rpm records that I listened to over and over. One was Tubby the Tuba with Danny Kaye as the narrator. It was about a tuba that wanted to play the melody. The tune for the melody was Rhapsody in Blue. Another recording I remember was Little Black Sambo about a little jungle boy who turned a tiger into a big lump of butter which he then ate on a huge stack of pancakes. I listened to them so often I could recite them word for word with all the sound effects.

I also attended church, probably Junior Sunday School, I remember reciting some of my recordings there. Probably not church material now, but who knew? Mom had not been active and Dad was not a member.

Dad got transferred back to Salt Lake just a year after we got that house. And the worst part for me was leaving Jet behind. She stayed with the house.

My life - chapter 2

2008-07-02T21:49:00.000-04:00

After the war was over, Dad returned home and went to work for General Electric X-ray. Mom and Dad bought a little house at 2666 Hartford St. in Salt Lake. I have a couple of memories of that house. It had a swinging door between the living room and kitchen. And I remember my first Halloween there. I had a bugs bunny mask, cut out of the back of a cereal box. I looked forward to wearing it for Halloween, but that night, when I saw the other kids coming to the door in their costumes, I got scared and would only look out the living room window with my mask on. I was afraid to go to the door.

I had one adventure while living there that I do not remember. I was told about it later. There was a grocery store around the corner from the house where Mom would walk with me to buy groceries. Most groceries in those days were bought at small corner stores that were in walking distance from most homes. Few people had more than one car, and dads went to work in those. So moms had to have a place they could walk, or do the shopping on Saturday when the car was available. Anyway, one day I decided to go grocery shopping on my own. I walked to the store, got one of the carts and started filling it with groceries. Somehow the proprietor of the store got word to Mom what I was doing, and she came to get me. I don't know what happened to the groceries. I had to have been 3 years old at the time, since I was only 3 1/2 when we moved from there.

My life, the beginning.

2008-06-29T05:33:00.000-04:00

I've decided to do some writing on my blog. My story seems to be something I can share. So, I'll write about memories I have, as well as things I've been told about myself. This is one of the latter.

I was born October 6, 1944, at a hospital at Kearns Army Ordnance Depot. That makes me almost an Army brat. My parents were Lt. John A. Hippen and Shirley Gale. They had met at Camp Kearns. My dad's best friend in the army was John Hartman. Dad was from Detroit, and 'Jake' Hartman was from Long Island, New York. My mom and her sister June would go to the USO dances at Camp Kearns. Mom and June lived with their parents at 1070 Lincoln St. Salt Lake City, Utah. Dad and Jake started dating these two gorgeous sisters (I've seen pictures of Mom and June that were published in the Deseret News at the time of the wedding, and they were gorgeous.) and ended up marrying them in a double ceremony at the Garden Park Ward building on Yale Avenue in Salt Lake City, on August 4, 1943. (I may have to correct that date after further research.)

My earliest memory, and it may just have been a dream from a later date, is of lying on my back in a baby carriage and seeing Mom pushing that carriage. It was winter, the sky was gray, and I could see bare trees going past above us. Mom had on a dark winter coat and shoulder length dark hair.

Soon after I was born, Dad was sent to Germany in World War II. He and Mom drove from Salt Lake to Maryland where he was to report before being shipped over. It is amazing that she then drove by herself back across country. Her worst memory was of staying in a hotel in Medicine Bow, Wyoming. The hotel had only one bathroom per floor, and there were drunk cowboys staggering up and down the hallways all night. The trip was really hard on her body, too soon after giving birth to me, and she started hemorrhaging while in that hotel, with only the sink in the room to contain the blood. She always said that physical trauma was why I was an only child for 6 1/2 years. She was just unable to sustain a pregnancy for a long time.

I stayed with my grandparents and aunts and uncles at 1070 Lincoln Street while Mom and Dad were gone.

Dad was in Army Intelligence in Germany. His job was to interrogate German prisoners. He was born in Germany, and German was the principle language in his home as a child. His family immigrated to the US in 1926 and landed in New York just a couple of days before his 7th birthday. Dad was with the US Army group that liberated Dachau toward the end of the war. He never talked about it. The only thing I knew while growing up was that he had books showing the emaciated bodies of the people interred there. He finally told my niece Shaye Hawkins about it when she interviewed him for a school assignment years later.

I am a flower

2008-05-31T19:46:00.000-04:00

Just took the tests on Heidi's blog. I am a sunflower. As a Harry Potter character I am Ron Weasley.

I am a
Sunflower

What Flower
Are You?

Principles of the Gospel

2008-02-18T09:10:00.001-05:00

The first principles of the Gospel are Faith, then Repentance. I believe the next principles are Love and Gratitude.

A Lesson Learned Today

2008-02-17T17:59:00.001-05:00

It is vital to our spiritual health that we do two things every day. The first is study and ponder the scriptures. And the second is to pray.

We need the Holy Ghost with us each day to make proper decisions. Studying the scriptures and praying each day is how we stay in tune with the Spirit.

When we interact with people we need the Spirit, in order to bless them. We are commanded to feed each other spiritually. See John 21:15; D&C 88:76-77. In order to teach we must have within us something to teach. It must be a treasure within us, a fountain of living waters springing up to give life to the spiritually parched. D&C 11:21; D&C 84:85; D&C 42:14.

I heard today that when King David fell, he had likely quit praying. If we want to avoid sin, to have the strength to resist sin, we must be close to the Lord. We do that by praying.

I have been advised by my primary care doctor to spend some time meditating each day. It's supposed to help lower my blood pressure. It has been hard for me to meditate for any length of time. I feel that I'm not doing anything when I'm meditating. But perhaps, if I do it in connection with, as part of my prayer, I can relax and listen for the Spirit to guide me. And if I study a scripture or two during the same time, I can pray more effectively. I want to do this.

Mantra

2008-02-11T00:58:00.000-05:00

A mantra for meditation:

To be directed toward any person you want to help:

I love you.
I am sorry (for everything I may have done to put you in this situation, I accept complete responsibility for your problem)
Please forgive me.
Thank you.

My Music

2008-02-07T12:35:00.000-05:00

Waffles!

2008-02-07T10:55:00.000-05:00

We made waffles for dinner last night. Serenity and Cadence (my granddaughters) helped by adding and stirring the ingredients and pouring the batter into the hot iron. We put blueberry pie filling and whipped cream on the waffles. They were yummy!!!.

Getting in shape

2008-02-06T21:46:00.000-05:00

I've started a new exercise program, with walking as the main feature. I've walked for the last 2 days. I'm posting this on my blog so that you can all encourage me. I even ran some of the time yesterday. I hope to somehow add some type of pull-up exercise to build upper body strength. I have not figured out how to set up a pull up bar in the house.

Added on June 29: I injured my back the first week in May, and have had to put most of my exercising on hold until it gets better. I am doing some exercises assigned by the physical therapist my doctor sent me to. And I've done some walking.

7 Things you may not know about me

2008-01-27T17:27:00.000-05:00

This is in response to Hanna's post on her blog:

1. I once flew a jet plane. As an ROTC cadet I had the opportunity to fly in a T-39 jet trainer with a pilot, a co-pilot and 3 other cadets. Each cadet had the opportunity to handle the controls and try to make the other cadets lose their cookies. None of us was successful at that, but we all had a lot of fun, and we were all very queasy when we got back on the ground.

2. I have visited most of the United States. I've missed only Alaska, Hawaii, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

3. I have driven a car over 100 mph. On a wide country road in Nebraska I got my 1964 Chrysler up to about 110 mph. The car would have gone faster, but at that speed the front end started to lift off the ground. With little steering control I decided to back off.

4. I was once told by a doctor that I would probably never be able to father children. It was because of a really bad case of mumps when I was 14. He was wrong.

5. I witnessed an attempted murder/suicide. Last year I was behind a little blue car that suddenly accelerated and then veered off the road and smashed square on into a power pole, breaking it off at the base. I later learned that the driver and his grandmother were having a heated argument just before the car took off. He survived, but his grandma died in the hospital the next day. I had to give statements to the police, the insurance company, and somebody's attorney. I don't think he was ever charged, because it could not be proved that he did it on purpose, and he could not remember anything after the crash.

6. I once had a case of whooping cough. My mother said I got too large a dose of an immunization and came down with the disease. I was about 3 years old. I still remember coughing, whooping, and not being able to breath. Very scary.

7. I love romantic movies; chick flicks. I loved Sleepless in Seattle, Sabrina, Casablanca, 10 Things I Hate About You, Stardust, You've Got Mail and many others of that genre.