Harvest time

I was slicing a tomato for my hamburger tonight and it got me thinking about harvest time at home. Mom did some serious canning each fall.

We'd drive down to Provo to Uncle Austin Pugh's peach orchard. (Maurine was Dad's sister.) We'd pick three or four bushels of peaches and Mom would bottle them. Peeled and halved, children used for labor.

And we'd buy pears and do the same thing.

And apricots.

And cherries. She never bottled enough cherries for my liking.

We had concord grapes growing in the back yard and she'd bottle grape juice.

And tomatoes. Most of them were made into tomato juice. That's what triggered the memory. It is a wonderful thing to eat a whole tomato like you would an apple. Keep the salt shaker handy and don't worry about drooling all over your face. It'll wash off.

Dad had this winter ritual that remains in my memory. On a cold night he would heat up some tomato juice (not the canned stuff from the grocery store). Then he would add a little salt and a pat of butter melting on the top. It is heaven.

Dad would also take those marshmallow squares coated in coconut and lay them out on a cookie sheet. He'd melt them in the oven and eat them like s'mores (without the graham crackers and chocolate).

He would also put sugar on cottage cheese. Weird! My theory is that when you grow up on the farm you take pleasure in simple and sweet treats.

Max Kay Heaton

Today is the anniversary of the death of my oldest brother Max. He died in Salt Lake City on September 22, 1962 at the age of 19.

I was eight years old at the time and I remember Mom and Dad being called away by a phone call in the afternoon.

It was a Saturday and my aunt Velna (Nenna) came over to be with us. She made sure we got our baths. Mom and Dad came home after dark. Mom was crying. Larry also came home crying.

Church leaders called at the house. I stayed home from school all week. There were all sorts of relatives and adults I didn't know who came to the house. The funeral was at the new ward building.

I suppose Larry should be the one telling this but I'll give the account I've been told all my life.

North of Salt Lake City the foothills used to be mostly sage brush and a few clumps of scrub oak. Now it is all luxury homes. But in 1962 it was barren land.

I remember as a child hiking up above the cemetery now and then. On a boring summer day we would hike up to the foothills with our lunches and sit up there looking at the valley below.

Our elementary school classes would take a hike up to the foothills and look at the geological formations (fault lines, the water marks from Lake Bonneville, etc.).

I remember kite flying in the foothills as well. There was great lift from the air rising out of the valley. Later I would follow the trails in a car or a jeep. Like I said; it's all homes now.

Max, Larry, and Tom Randall went up to the foothills to do some target practice. They were shooting .22s. They'd shoot at tin cans and roll paint can lids down the hill for targets.

A shot ricocheted off a rock and came back at Max. It entered through the soft tissue under his chin and never exited. He died instantly.

Just like that, he was gone. One minute he was alive and the next he was suddenly gone.

When I was growing up Max was larger than life. He played baseball and trumpet. He was a Boy Scout. And had he lived he would have served a mission. At least that was the prediction.

His funeral was well-attended. He had lots of friends.

President Lamont Peterson spoke to the youth at the funeral about vanity. It was a great message about the things that are really important in life. And a warning that teens aren't indestructible.

Larry's life would never be the same, nor would Mom or Dad ever really recover from the loss. It was Dad's ritual to drive up to the cemetery every Sunday afternoon to tend the grave. Mom would always go along.

I think Dad's parenting skills improved after that, though he had plenty of disappointment to contend with.

Mom had to bury two children, Max at age 19 and Janet at 41. She remarked after Janet died that watching her waste away from cancer was harder than getting that phone call that Max died suddenly. No doubt she would have preferred a different outcome for both.

But when Mom told me that God never gives us anything we can't handle, I knew that she knew.

In God's love we became bound together. When Mom and Dad were sealed together on June 24, 1977 Milton G. Thackeray represented Max at the altar as the rest of their children, all adults, placed our hands on top of theirs. Death can't stop God.

I don't have many memories of Max but I know I am bound to him.

Stake Conference Notes

A few thoughts from our recent stake conference that I really liked:
THE TEMPLE: "Every time we attend the temple we come home and make our home just a little more like heaven than it was the day before." "Incorporate the temple into your lives in every way possible." --Chicago Temple President Robinson

PARENTING: "It's a lot easier to be goodly parents when we have goodly children." "Being highly favored of the Lord comes from being obedient and having faith." "Laman and Lemuel were professional murmurers--they complained about everything!" --Elder Craig C. Christensen

Schedule regular temple attendance into your life along with personal reflection time while you are there and you will enjoy blessings of peace and help with life's problems to a much greater extent than if you do not. True principles can bear testing. SH

Experimenting with Evil

Ah, the summer of 1964. I was ten. The soundtrack of my life was “I wanna hold your hand.”

Bruce Harris and I were swinging in the back yard. It was evening. Dad had cooked some burgers on the charcoal. And there wasn’t too much for a boy to worry about.

It was in that state of bliss that I came face-to-face with the devil himself.

Dad enjoyed a cheap cigar now and then. A Saturday evening was just such a time. You have your burgers, a potato salad, maybe some pork-and-beans…then you have a smoke. Dad liked Tiparillos, those cigars with a plastic tip for a mouthpiece.

Even today you could dig around in the back yard at 1164 Bueno and find a few of those little ivory-colored tips; and Dad’s been dead 30 years +.

So, he finished off about 2/3 of the cigar and put it down. But he didn’t throw it away.

Hence, the perfect storm. Me, Bruce, the glowing coals, and what was left of a cigar. And no adults around.

So, I relight the cigar in the coals and immediately inhale just like Dad did. Take in a nice, long drag…hold it…then blow it back out nice and slow. Any idiot can do that.

That was my first experience with smoking. My career ended about five seconds later as the irritation to my mouth, nose, and sinus cavities told me I did not have a career in tobacco.

And I have always been grateful for that experience.

Here’s Bob Newhart explaining early marketing of tobacco by Sir Walter Raleigh.

http://www.jibjab.com/view/195773

Before 7-Eleven

There was a time when we had neighborhood grocery stores. Ours were Lloyd’s Market, Aoki’s, and Vigo’s. And if you wanted to walk a few extra blocks, there was Wirthlin’s Meat Market. Yes, Elder Wirthlin’s family business for you trivia types. It was located at 8th East and 2nd South. In fact, I think there is a Connie connection somewhere. Anyone know the details?

Lloyd’s was my favorite. It was owned by Lloyd and Mary Warner who lived across the street from the store. As a kid I always thought Lloyd was a kindly gentleman and Mary was the stern one. (When I got to know Mary as an adult I discovered that there isn’t a kinder soul on earth. Maybe she had perfected the anti-shoplifting look to protect the business. Whatever it was, it worked!)

Lloyd’s was on the path to school so I passed it twice every day. Inside the screen door it had worn wooden floors. And two crowded aisles. Along the back wall was the butcher shop. Lloyd cut and ground the meat himself.

Next to the butcher case was the pop machine. The bottles of pop were held in place by their necks and suspended in chilled water. You’d slide open the glass top, grab the cap and maneuver the bottle up to the gate, put in your coins, and yank it up out of the water. The bottle opener was attached to the side and the cap fell into a small container below.

Next to the pop machine was the candy case. Pure profit but very labor intensive. Lloyd or Mary must have spent years of cumulative time waiting for kids to decide. Look, Big Hunk, wax lips, Nibs, candy cigarettes, Boston Baked Beans, little dots of sugar stuck to adding machine tape, and those coils of licorice wound around a little jaw breaker to look like a 45-rpm record.

None of this individually wrapped nonsense. If you wanted just one, Mary would reach in and give you one. Her hands were always cleaner than mine so sanitation was not an issue.

Then there was the cash register.

The other aisle was rather boring with soap and canned goods and the dairy case. But they did put in a Twirl-Town Toy rack on that side of the store. Now that was neat. It was a twirling display rack of cheap toys in individual packages. You could buy 10 Army men…or a whistle…or a ball & jacks…The prices would stretch your allowance but still be possible.

Now and then vendors would market to the elementary school crowd. On the way home from school the bread truck driver would stand at the curb outside the store and pass out a free mini-loaf of bread to the kids walking by. The dairy truck would have small bottles of chocolate milk for us. It happened maybe a couple of times a year but we loved it.

I can recall being sent to the store by Mom or Dad. Sometimes Dad would send me for a pack of cigarettes. He’d always send a note along with his “authorization” to buy them. It never dawned on me to change the quantity and buy a pack for myself. (I never acquired a taste for stupid.)

But I always got a nickel or a dime for my services as errand boy. And most of the time I spent it on the spot.

One day I was walking to school and noticed a black bicycle parked in front of Lloyds. It looked a lot like my bike. I looked closer and realized it WAS my bike. I had ridden it to the store the night before and absent-mindedly left it there all night.

I quickly hopped on and rode it home, then ran back to school so I wouldn’t be late.

Lloyd’s went out of business several years ago. They had kept the metal sign across the front of the building and the large display windows and turned it into a retro, loft-look office of some sort. I’m not sure how that concept worked out. I doesn’t really matter; the candy counter is gone.

The neighborhood store concept worked because most women stayed at home and the family only had one car. Many women didn’t even drive. So, you did all your shopping on Saturday at the supermarket and the neighborhood store took care of all the emergencies during the week. And they didn’t need a parking lot because their customers walked to the store.

The prices were much higher than Albertsons or Safeway or IGA, but they filled a need.

Lipstick Pen

Edgar Cox Esplin

My grandfather was Edgar Cox Esplin. Born March 8, 1887 in Orderville. Died December 7, 1925 in Charleston, West Virginia.

Here's the story of the wedding trip, as told by his sister, Mary E. Chamberlain, in 1957.

"Edd and Linda were married in the Salt Lake City, Utah Temple on October 1, 1913. At that time there were no automobiles in Southern Utah, so they went by team. Edd had a good team, and kept them in good shape. As they were entering Salina, Linda suggested they go through town on a side street instead of on Main Street.

"She was self-conscious and thought someone might surmise they were going up to be married. (Young people now woundn't care if everyone knew. Times have changed; it was different then.) Edd took her remark to mean that she was either ashamed of him or the outfit. He said if she was ashamed to be seen with him they would turn around right there and go back. In mentioning it long afterward, Linda admired his attitude."

And here's a photo of a "team" or an "outfit" so the kids will understand.

The Old Desoto

Here I am on the hood of our 1957 Desoto. I never drove it, except to steer while sitting in Dad's lap a couple of times. It was gone long before I turned 16.

It was pale yellow color with some pastel purple accents along the fins.

It had a hemi engine and was powerful, which meant that Max and Larry sometimes banged up the sheet metal. More than once. More than twice. More than three times... a favorite spot was the jog in the road at Second South and 12th East.

Larry came home one day and was VERY upset. He got a ticket (not his first) and was fuming. The ticket was for going TOO SLOW.

I believe the situation was that a police car was behind him and he slowed waaaaaaay down in the school zone in front of Wasatch Elementary. The cop thought he was acting smart so he issued a ticket. I never heard exactly how slow he was going.

The Desoto met its demise in an unlikely way. Granny was driving one day and got hit by some old gent who ran a stop sign. The accident was only about a block from the house. I guess Granny jumped the curb trying to get out of his way and totalled it. After all those accidents by our boys playing "Thunder Road" it was Granny who killed the Desoto.

Joe's Arsenal

Before I throw these out, here's a glimpse into the boyhood of a mechanical engineer.

My Earthquake Experience

I was in Lima when the earthquake hit on October 3, 1974. We were visiting the home of a member of the bishopric that morning. It was a newer home in a nice neighborhood.

I remember sitting on the couch and we felt the rumbling under our feet. At first we waited a few seconds for it to pass since vibrations were rather common. But the rumbling didn’t stop. It got stronger. We all stood up and moved to an archway separating the living room from the dining room.

As we stood in the archway we could see out the front window and into the street. The sidewalk was moving up and down in a wave-like motion. The park across the street was also rolling like an ocean wave, rising and falling noticeably.

The news reports say it lasted 2 minutes and 15 seconds and was a 7.7 magnitude. There was no major damage to the house.

We left the house soon after and immediately went to the church. There were a few cracks in the walls. We checked on our landlady and our house was fine as well. The rest of the day was spent checking on church members and friends. We really didn’t see any structural damage or injuries in our area.

The next day we went to downtown Lima and discovered some damage in the older sections of town. Some of the buildings had second-story wooden balconies that stuck out three or four feet from the side of the building. Many of those were collapsed or shifted.

Here are some photos from the papers.

This is a mausoleum that crumbled during the earthquake, leaving caskets exposed. Creepy!

~Dad H

How come?

I had a thought during church on Sunday.

You know how some folks claim the Book of Mormon is a fake because it quotes extensively from the Bible, that the quotes are almost, but not quite, the same as the King James Version?

How is that different from the excitement created when researchers find an ancient text that is almost, but not quite, the same as the Bible? Scholars are all agog when they discover some ancient writings that corroborate The Gospels or Old Testament texts.

Museums in major cities around the world hold exhibits comparing these doctrines with the Bible you and I have on our self at home. What a great find!

Somehow they can't accept the Book of Mormon for what it is. The spirit of Professor Anthon is alive and well today.

Another mystery photo

Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

And another hair do...

Don't tell me my hair has always looked the same!

Four Generations

This photo, taken in the spring of 1965 shows...
my grandfather, Junius Hoyt Heaton (1884-1966)
my dad, Max Lavell Heaton (1922-1977)
my brother, Larry J Heaton (1945- )
my nephew, Dewey...er Keith Lee Heaton (1964- )

Don't they all look so nice? I especially like Larry's flat top with fenders.

Home Improvement

Before... After...
(Disclaimer: Jon never really wore his hair like that. We just caught this candid of him fooling around. Honest.)

Speaking of hair...the boys tease me that my hairstyle hasn't changed since I was 10 years old. Not true. Here's proof.

Going away to school

My high school was about a mile and a half from home. I used to walk quite a bit but sometimes I got to drive the red flash. My senior year I drove most of the time, at least three days a week.

When I "went away to college" it was even closer. The campus was two blocks from home. And the way parking was (and still is) on college campuses, students were hunting parking spots on my street. So I rarely drove to class in college.

And we had what they called "flexible schedule" or "modular schedule" at my high school. It was an open campus and we had classes very much like a college schedule. I'd have some classes MWF and a lab one other day during the week. Some days I didn't have class until 11 am.

I guess it was some instructional theory. It lasted for at least 10 years before they discontinued it.

I did OK, getting low Bs. I tested out of 40 college hours (quarters, not semesters) right out of high school. It seemed like lots of people did.

So going away to school wasn't a big adjustment for me. I went the summer right after graduation and got in four quarters before my mission.

The red flash

Cute guy, brown suit, aforementioned rose garden, and the famous "red flash". A 1965 Dodge Polara owned by my parents. This was the car I used when I learned to drive (that and Dad's 1968 Dodge Truck).

The red flash was carved out of solid iron, then chromed over to add a little weight. Even the radio knobs were chrome. Although I never tested the theory, those dashboard parts were designed to puncture the flesh on impact.

All these rubberized surfaces, air bags, and shoulder belts are for sissies. Real men drove cars like the Dodge Polara.

I had one very interesting experience with the red flash. Before there was Susan, there was one date with Cindy. Cindy's dad was a stake president out in Murray. (What was I thinking?) She came in to the restaurant one night, I thought she was cute, and Susan knew her. So she introduced her and I asked her out on a date.

We went to the movies (Omega Man, I think.) I took her home and headed back north to Salt Lake. Well, in some towns they don't put the storm sewers under the road. Instead they make gutters in the intersections; deep dips in the road; the inverse of speed bumps if you will.

So I'm driving down this street in the dark, miss the stop sign, and head into the dip in the road at 35 mph. It sounded really crunchy under the car but the engine was still running so I decided to keep driving.

In about 30 seconds the engine started to tick and a red light came on. I pulled over and turned off the car. I looked back to see a ribbon of oil marking my trail.

It is really hard for a 16-year-old to call his dad at midnight. It's even harder to tell him the car no longer works because you are an idiot.

But Dad got out of bed and drove out to Murray to pick me up. I suppose from his point of view, this was not the worst phone call he'd ever received, but he acted plenty serious to me. The car would have to be towed.

And he made me pay for the tow and the welding they had to do on the oil pan. The whole thing was $50-60 (unless they subsidized it and didn't say anything). I was working, making $1.65 an hour (around 1970) but I was glad to pay it.

The red flash would see many more good times before it was replaced a couple of years later by a green Ford with a trunk so deep you could fill it with water and use it for a diving pool.

The girl I left behind

If you want to stay focused on your mission, the best thing is to carry around a photo of your girlfriend. Susan sent me this portrait of her so I would remember her while I was so far away in Peru.

Fortunately it was an 8 x 10 so I didn't have it in my wallet all the time. In fact I kept it in my suitcase so I wouldn't get trunky. On p days I would treat myself to a peek at it.

After a few months she joined me on a mission. Slowly our love letters turned into mini-zone conferences where we'd share our experiences and talk about what we were doing on our mission.

I came home a month before she did but wasn't interested in the other girls. We had dated each other for five years by then and I wasn't about to start over with someone else.

Still, we were afraid to commit to marriage until we discovered how much we had changed by being apart for two years. It didn't take long to realize that we had both changed but we still had a great deal to talk about.

The rest is history.

LaVell's Rose Garden

Dad grew roses. He must have had 40 bushes in the front tree bank (area between the sidewalk and the street).

And they had to be watered and pruned. You can't really see it in this picture but the street didn't have curb and gutter in those days. The center of the street was paved, and the shoulders were gravel. Then there was the ditch. It was lined with stones and dropped off about 8-10 inches.

Imagine the challenge for new drivers to parallel park without having the tires fall into the ditch. I recall a couple of times when I got out of the car and realized that 2/3 of the tire was hanging over the edge. I would jump back in and move the car!

Anyway, back to the roses. Dad and Mom were out in the front yard on a sunny afternoon when one of the McAnelly boys came around the corner way too fast and drove his car right over the top of Dad's rose garden.

Now, the McAnelly family lived through the back fence. They were a bit of a contrast in the neighborhood. I think they were from Kentucky or maybe West Virginia. They never had to cut the grass because there wasn't any.

One of the McAnelly boys wanted a convertible so he cut the top off of his sedan.

NASCAR material he wasn't but he managed to miss the telephone pole by a couple of inches on his way to taking out some rose bushes.

Dad ended up saving some of the plants and shortened his garden a bit after that episode. He also added a couple of boulders to the end of the garden just as a precaution.

I'm amazed at how gentle Dad was in some ways. He was pretty tough on his boys, particularly the older ones. But his gardening and his wood carving revealed a more delicate soul inside.

Mystery Face

This photo was taken in 1981. Any guesses?

Labor Day Labor and Reminiscing

What a great weekend with summer weather and a little relaxation. And a little work. Doug and I attended a temple session Friday for ward temple night, a great date for sure. On Saturday we went to a fun wedding reception in Bloomingdale and today we shampooed the carpets. The temperature was an unbelievable 90 degrees the last two days!

Today Doug wanted to burn some of the logs from old trees in our old charcoal barbeque grill, so we got perfect coals for cooking hot dogs and s'mores. Clarissa was a good sport and went with us for a walk in a forest preserve this afternoon and we topped it off with a movie in the living room. What an exciting life we live here!

Speaking of the temple, it was on June 23, 1977 that Max LaVell and Garda Heaton were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple, as you can see on the right. They were sealed to their children the next day, which was also the anniversary of their civil marriage. They were wonderful and amazing days, a surprise to everyone. When Max was ordained to the Melchizedec priesthood in January 1977, he said, "I was baptized in a muddy river in Kane County when I was eight, but was converted to the gospel when I was 54."

Soon after that ordination, he was called as an advisor in the Young Men program and threw himself into it with his whole soul. On Sunday, August 7th he spoke in church about the Plan of Salvation and his newly-found understanding of it with regard to family members who had passed on. He bore a strong testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel, that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that God lives. Three days later he died from a massive stroke. What a great legacy was left by this wonderful couple.

I'll soon be switching over to some Gregersen/Adamson family history, so stay tuned! SH