RIP Mr. O'Neal

Former Elgin High principal, community leader dies at 68
By Larissa Chinwah Daily Herald Staff
Published: 12/31/2009 12:00 AM
Ron O'Neal, a veteran educator who worked his way up the ranks from a teacher in a small Illinois town to become the first black principal in the state's second largest school district passed away Tuesday in his Elgin home. He was 68.

Funeral services will be held at noon Saturday at the Second Baptist Church, 1280 Summit St., Elgin. Visitation will be from 10 a.m. until noon.
O'Neal will be buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Centralia, Ill.
Friends said O'Neal was known for his dedication to students, as well as the Elgin community, paving the way for other African-American educators and administrators.

"One thing I always remarked about was that no matter the event - whether it was before school, after school, or in the evening - he was there," said Elgin Mayor Ed Schock, who worked alongside O'Neal in Elgin Area School District U-46. "You wondered if he was ever not at school."

O'Neal taught school at Lincoln Elementary School in Centralia, Ill., before taking the position of principal at Sheridan Elementary School in 1970, becoming the first black administrator in U-46. He later became principal at Larsen Middle School and ended his career as principal at Elgin High School in 2001.

His wife of 38 years, Carolyn O'Neal, described her husband as a very dignified man with lots of pride.

"He was a hard worker at anything he did," she said. "Any job he was undertaking that he thought was worthy was worth him doing the best he could."

O'Neal held others to those high standards, too, including his three children. "Our kids didn't have a choice," Carolyn O'Neal said.

Robert Gilliam, who worked with O'Neal in U-46, said O'Neal stressed the importance of education through his contributions to scholarship funds and devotion to students.

When asked to contribute to the St. James Church scholarship fund, O'Neal would cry poor in jest, but always come through with a very generous donation, Gilliam said.

"Ron was a very generous man who gave a lot of time and money to help students go to college," said Gilliam, an Elgin City Council member. "He was top notch and will be hard to replace in the community."

O'Neal is survived by his wife, three children, five grandchildren and a number of nieces, nephews, family and friends. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to Provena St. Joseph Cancer Care Center in Elgin.

Planning your day

There are some good reasons for NOT planning.
Like...
...planning limits my freedom.
...putting out today's fires takes precedence.
...I don't have time to plan.

I think those are good reasons, but we all know that living like that tends to allow us to drift along rather than live on purpose.

Planning takes about 10 minutes of solitude each day. You can do it before bed or in the morning. Some folks arrive at work a few minutes early to do it.

Daily planning means,
1- Reviewing your long-range goals.
2- Evaluating the time available vs. the tasks.
3- Setting specific goals for the day.
4- Anticipating obstacles.
5- Prioritizing your tasks.

Most people prioritize by looking at the list of tasks for the day and placing an A, B or C next to each one. Then numbering the A's from most important to least important.

Check them off as you complete them (boy, that feels good). At the end of the day you need to do something with those that weren't completed. Most will be moved forward to the next day. Some will simply be deleted as "not that important after all."

Completing your most important tasks means that your behavior is in line with your values. You are finally living the life you intend to.

I can't stress enough the daily solitude and planning. Just reading your long-range goals each day reminds you of your purpose in life. And actually accomplishing part of one or two of those goals each day is real progress.

That's how you LOP.

Making plans

So, you have your values to guide you, and you have a pretty good idea of the long-range goals.

Now, you need to set mid-range goals that put the "flesh and bones" on each of those goals.

*On a piece of paper write your value statement that relates to the goal.
*Below that write your long-range goal.
*Then write the details of the plan to get there. One line per event. The more detail the better because that will make your daily tasks write themselves.

The keys to effective planning are:
1. Supported by your governing values.
2. Time dimensioned.
3. Clearly and specifically defined.
4. "Owned."
5. Realistic.

There is a certain amount of self-talk involved in living life "on purpose." You need to envision yourself as successful. It's important to see yourself as a person who has control of your life through goals, planning and discipline.

Self-esteem is built through controlling the events in your life, being productive as a result, and thus having even more self-esteem. It's a cycle that spirals upward as you see your goals turn into accomplishments.

Nathaniel Brandon, author of The Psychology of Self-Esteem said: "One of the most important aspects to consider is the relationship of self-esteem to productive work."

To review:
1- Event control (daily tasks)
2- Productivity
3- Self-esteem
4- Back to step 1

The truth is, all of us have many accomplishments behind us. We may not have been great planners, but we accomplished them just the same. Planning and goal setting highlight our progress and encourage even more productive lives.

Just a thought about planning. We sometimes set goals and plan events over which we do not have control. Keep in mind that you control your own behavior. Be sure to check your events and make sure they are something you can control.

Have fun making a detailed list of events. If you can imagine it in enough detail, you can achieve it.

Setting the course

Let’s return to the other end of the planning process; the beginning.

Here we plan the journey. It’s fine to make a to-do list and get things done, but real planning means completing tasks that contribute to a greater goal. So how do you figure out what those greater goals are?

It begins with your values. Ask yourself the question, “Who am I? What are the most important elements of my existence?"

There are some exercises that may help you with your values. One such trick is to write your own eulogy. What do you want people to say about you at your funeral? Here are some examples:
He was such a devoted husband and father.
She was a fine musician.
He could fix anything.
She was so good with people.
He has a way with words.
She was a renowned engineer in seven states.
He loved his country and was a war hero.
She unselfishly cared for her parents for years.

Most of your values will be works in progress. In other words, they express the person you want to become. But they need to be your own, not written down just because someone else expects it of you.

Just the same, don’t sell yourself short. These are values you must work at to accomplish. But believe in yourself. Dr. M. Scott Peck said, “Until you value yourself, you will not value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.”

Once you know who you want to become, work on the how and when. These are your long-range goals. Pick four or five. If you want to be a “renowned engineer in seven states” you will need an engineering degree.

Your long-range goal would be something like, “Electrical Engineering Degree, University of Utah, June 2012.”

This is quite a statement. It alone requires you to do some research about schools, pick one, get a general idea of the additional coursework you will need, and set a deadline.

Choose carefully, for you will get it.

Events - Major and mundane

For lack of a better term, we use the word “event” to indicate the actions we take each day. These are tasks we perform that, taken together, amount to real progress in life.

Nothing gets done by simply dreaming of grandiose goals. Somewhere along the way that vision gets translated into tiny steps each day.

I watched Apollo 13 the other night. It called to mind the millions of small tasks that combined to put a man on the moon. If you’ve ever mapped out a project you know there are several step involved in even the smallest project. Just imagine all the steps and timelines involved in a space shot.

Our lives are made up of small events that add up to a finished goal. Take something as insignificant as making a batch of cookies. There are perhaps twenty steps involved in making cookies. When the recipe calls for a teaspoon of salt you simply reach in the cupboard for the container.

If you are out of salt, the project comes to a halt. Perhaps when you bought that container of salt two years ago you weren’t thinking about that particular batch of cookies at the time. That doesn’t matter; you had the salt when you needed it. But the important thing is that in a past event you did something that enabled you to complete the project today.

You need to start thinking in terms of tasks or events that make up your day. When YOU control the events of the day, and when those events are selected as part of a plan to move your life forward toward your goals, you are living your life “on purpose.”

And great things are accomplished when you control the events in your life.

Of course, when you spend the day putting out fires and doing the tasks dictated to you by inertia, you will reach your goals only by chance.

Planners are much more than to-do lists, for they strive to help you remember and achieve your goals. They do this by making the vision real through accomplishing the tasks that lead to meaningful goals.

More LOP

So, why all this purpose of life stuff right now? Well, so we can make improvements in 2010. This is a great time to reflect...and set some goals.

Maxwell Maltz was a successful plastic surgeon who was puzzled by some of his patients. They would come to him for a nose job and he would give them exactly what they asked for. Six months later the patient would come back depressed and looking for more body work.

He learned that the plastic surgery wasn't what they needed at all; they needed help on the inside. Their self-image was of failure. They were looking for a quick fix. What they really needed was to know that they could improve their lives by recognizing their potential and using it to their advantage.

Dr. Maltz wrote a great book about it all decades ago. It's called Psycho-Cybernetics.

One of the principles in his book is that man is goal-oriented. He compares us to a guided missile. It is programmed for a specific target. Without the guidance it would be guided by the wind and gravity, landing who-knows-where.

We need goals and direction as well. We need vision and purpose. And re-thinking 2010 is a great exercise right now.

Some classic Maltz
Remember you will not always win. Some days, the most resourceful individual will taste defeat. But there is, in this case, always tomorrow - after you have done your best to achieve success today.

Self-image sets the boundaries of individual accomplishment.

Self-improvement is the name of the game, and your primary objective is to strengthen yourself, not to destroy an opponent.

Take the trouble to stop and think of the other person's feelings, his viewpoints, his desires and needs. Think more of what the other fellow wants, and how he must feel.

The "self-image" is the key to human personality and human behavior. Change the self image and you change the personality and the behavior.

To change a habit, make a conscious decision, then act out the new behavior.

To think, when one is no longer young, when one is not yet old, that one is no longer young, that one is not yet old, that is perhaps something.

We are built to conquer environment, solve problems, achieve goals, and we find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles to conquer and goals to achieve.

We must have courage to bet on our ideas, to take the calculated risk, and to act. Everyday living requires courage if life is to be effective and bring happiness.

You can always find the sun within yourself if you will only search.

You make mistakes. Mistakes don't make you.

Accept yourself as you are. Otherwise you will never see opportunity. You will not feel free to move toward it; you will feel you are not deserving.

Close scrutiny will show that most "crisis situations" are opportunities to either advance, or stay where you are.

For imagination sets the goal picture which our automatic mechanism works on. We act, or fail to act, not because of will, as is so commonly believed, but because of imagination.

If you make friends with yourself you will never be alone.

Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your hand-break on.

Man maintains his balance, poise, and sense of security only as he is moving forward.

Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one's better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk, and to act.

Our self image, strongly held, essentially determines what we become.

Your most important sale in life is to sell yourself to yourself.

LOP

In the world of texting sometimes a mnemonic device can be both a memory aid and a time saver. So, here goes.

L.O.P. stand for Life On Purpose. Got it?

I took the old Franklin Planner course 15 years ago and it helped me survive a busy work schedule, the activities of the kids, the school board and being bishop. It's more than just a calendar if you use it right.

That's where LOP comes in. When you know what you want to do with your life, planning makes it possible to get there.

It seems obvious that anything worthwhile takes planning and step-by-step execution for it to actually happen.

For example, if you want to be an engineer, you have to get a degree. "Get a degree" is a fine goal, but it lacks the details you need to turn the goal into daily action steps. This isn't complicated to understand but it is very difficult to carry out with all the distractions in life.

Breaking it down a little, you'll need to enroll in some engineering classes...classes that require prerequisites.

Then you need to get decent grades in those classes, which means that you have to invest time and energy in books, studying and attending class. If the grades don't come easy to you, you'll need to invest extra effort to compensate.

If attending class is a problem due to illness or lack of energy, you'll also need to make plans for exercise, sleep, and meals.

And one thing I learned from LOP is that when you say "Yes" to something you almost always are saying "No" to something else. In other words, you can't have it all, at least not at the same time.

Saying "Yes" to earning an engineering degree means saying "No" to a fair amount of hanging out, gaming, snowboarding...

You're on your own when it comes to discipline, but a planner helps to remind you of your goals and the progress you've made.

Tech note: I tried the PDA versions of planners but found them less rewarding. First you have to turn it on, then find the program, then the menu. With paper you open your book and check it out.

Another point with paper is that it is a visual reminder of the tabs that contain your goals and the steps involved. I found with a PDA that I didn't refer to the big picture nearly as much as I did with paper.

You're going to have four or five major goals going at once. Some you'll work on daily and others once a week or so, but all of them are important to you. You "make time" for all of them with a planner. You can decide which ones are most important.

To a lesser degree, you can decide that you'd like to put one thing off because you aren't in the mood, then go back to it until you can check it off. (This notion doesn't work well for procrastinators, but if you are diligent in checking things off and carrying them forward to the next day if not completed, eventually guilt will kick in and apply some pressure to get back to the important stuff.)

More on LOP later.

Good-bye, Grandpa Havlik

We just got word that one of our favorite (former) neighbors passed away recently. Frank Havlik, Grandpa Havlik to some of our children, was 98 years old when he died November 20th. I'll bet his wonderful wife Lil was happy to see him! Here is a link to the obituary: http://www.legacy.com/dailyherald/Obituaries.asp?Page=SEARCHRESULTS.

He was born in Czechoslovakia and worked his way up to factory foreman at Illinois Toolworks in Elgin and retired more than 30 years ago! We used to love hearing his great storytelling about things that happened in his life. After Lil passed away, he hung in there and did volunteer work at the ECC Bookstore and never missed the fish fry at the American Legion Hall.

When he was in his early 90s the doctor suggested he work on muscle toning. So he joined a local fitness center and loved being the center of attention as the oldest one there. They even asked him to be the social chairman there to welcome people so they would want to come back. We were happy when a newspaper article was published heralding his efforts.

Rachel and Clarissa used to make it a point to stop by the Havlik house on the way home hoping for a little candy and to my knowledge were never disappointed. Frank was sad when Clarissa grew up and didn't have occasion to walk past his house any more. We still enjoyed caroling there at Christmastime and dropping off jars of homemade soup and other food whenever we could and brought him over for meals once in a while.

A couple of years ago, he moved to Arizona to be closer to his daughter, so we've been missing him for a while. But he was a fine man and we are grateful to have known him.
SH

A Browning girl

Jonathan Browning had a daughter named Asenath Elizabeth, Sena for short. She was the first of the 12 Browning children to be born in Quincy, Illinois.

When the saints moved out of Nauvoo in February of 1846, Brigham Young asked the Browning family to stay behind. Their purpose was to remain and build wagons for the people who would later gather to Zion. Surely, a well-armed gunsmith could fend for himself.

John Carling was also asked to stay behind to help build wagons. The Carlings were woodworkers, John having sketched out the template and carved the oxen for the Nauvoo temple.

With most of Nauvoo gone and their fathers working together to build wagons, Isaac and Sena became well aquainted.

The families would remain in Nauvoo for five years, leaving in 1851 with the Henry Miller Company. They would winter in Council Bluffs and head west on June 30, 1852..

They arrived in Salt Lake on September 30th and the two families parted ways two days later, the Brownings north to Ogden and the Carlings south to Provo.

But they wrote to each other and on November 17, 1854 were married.

Isaac was a musician and an artisan. He made cabinets, tables, chairs, rockers, toys, wagons, doll heads, jewelry.

I find it interesting that Sena would be attracted to a man who worked with his hands, just like her father.

Life boils down to two qestions

Should I get a dog?
or should I have children?

(from an e-mail sent by a friend.)

About Browning

I thought you might enjoy a little family history. Yesterday's birthday boy (RDC) sure did.

Jonathan Browning was a contemporary of Joseph Smith, being born in October of 1805 in Tennessee. While living in Quicy Illinois Browning developed a reputation as a locksmith and gunsmith. (Sort of like barbers becoming surgeons, manufacturing locks required the same skill set as gunsmithing.)

He became known for his "Harmonica" guns, sort of like this Remington.

Browning also was elected justice of the peace which put him in contact with Abraham Lincoln.

It also allowed Browning's path to cross with the Mormons as they were driven out of Missouri. Browning visited Nauvoo, met the Prophet, and joined the church. He moved to Nauvoo in 1842 and set up shop.

His guns were engraved with this inscription: "Holiness to the Lord - Our Preservation"

The family settled in Ogden, and his son, John Moses Browning, continued in the weapons business.

They made side arms.
And machine guns.
You know those green metal army surplus boxes? Well, here's where they fit in.
And the Browning logo. (Gone is the "Holiness to the Lord" inscription.)

So, where do we fit it? Jonathan had a daughter named Asenath, who married Isaac Carling. They had a daughter named Emaline, who married Howard O. Spencer. They had a daughter named Malinda, who married Edgar C. Esplin. They had a daughter Garda, who is my mother.

Garth's Tractor

Here's Grampa's tractor when it was "new."

Hi Rach

The steamroller's gone!

They finished pouring the asphalt on Summit Street today and will presumably add a few stripes on Monday that will be that. Yesterday I had to drive through the grass and out of the neighbor's driveway in back to get to work since there so much tar and ruckus going on in front.

But the steamroller did leave behind Flatman and Ribbon and Cheetah. And if you get those bad jokes, you've been in the family a little too long...

As an explanation of the Pinocchio/Gepetto photo in one of the posts below, I was asked to walk around and entertain a little during the Fall for the Arts event at Elgin Community College on October 25th. I practiced the ventriloquist thing for a few days before, but abandoned it when it was time to talk to the children. They only looked at the puppet anyway.

After about an hour my hand was pretty much cemented into a cramped position in the puppet so I carried it around in my arms for a while. One little boy asked if Pinocchio was ok. I told him he was just resting. The boy suggested I get Pinocchio something to eat! We decided that a little cotton candy might be just the thing. I also took Pinocchio through the haunted house and he screamed his head off the whole time...

MOM

Happy Birthday, Superhero

She cooks, she cleans, she sews, she plays the trombone, she teaches piano lessons, she's a mom, a wife, a daughter, a school teacher, a visiting teacher, a taxi driver, a tutor, a PTAer, a Boggle champ...

...and today...a birthday girl.

We love you!

Kindly Old Geppetto...

...never looked so good!

The birthday road

Twenty years ago we brought Rissa home from the hospital. We couldn't use the driveway because the road in front of our house was completely torn up.

That was the year the van caught on fire. And the road crew helped open the hood to disconnect the battery.

So, here we are getting a replacement. The above machine grinds off a couple of inches of the surface.

Then they do a little deep patching and roll on two new layers of asphalt.

And we do feel stimulated by Washington.

Still, we wonder why we're paying 52 cents taxes on every gallon of gas. What did they do with that money?

The good old days

This is a photo of Temple Square during General Conference in 1911. I love the warning about pickpockets!

No doubt there wasn't a problem inside the Tabernacle. After all, pine is a "soft" wood but it took real devotion to sit on those hard benches for two hours at a stretch.

There are some other vintage photos here, courtesy of Deseret News. Go to the link and click on the photo gallery on the right:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705334612/Conference-has-grown-from-humble-beginnings-in-1830.html

Just a reminder that even in 1911 life was not a bed of roses.

My busticated leg

As you know, about 10 days ago I was raking leaves and fell out of a tree. My right femur is black and blue from hip to knee and almost all the way around.

It has been aching more than usual the past couple of days and at 4 am this morning it dawned on me what was happening; I was having a chronic Charlie Horse.

So... "Toes to the Nose!" as they say. I began stretching exercises and immediately felt better.

I have been walking on my tip-toes since it happened and there comes a time when you have to begin the old PT.

I still have some aches but they are from the healing, not the muscle spasms. My range of motion still needs a little work but it feels good to put the muscles back where they belong.

The moral of the story is that at some point you have to get back on your horse.

By the way, Reid will tell you that doctors used to put joints in a cast when hemophiliacs had a joint bleed. As it turns out, that was the worst thing to do. What you want to do is clot the injury and get the joint moving again as soon as possible.

Thanks for your prayers, folks.

Happy Birthday, Jon

We love you.

This just in...

Emily has another one

Some faves from the photo album for your special day (not in any particular order):
Big sister Em with Jon:
Em with cousins. Let's get the party started!:

Always plotting her next move. Check out her eyes:

Off to school in Hawaii:

Hope she gets another PINK birthday cake this year:

Happy birthday, Emmers.

Fashion Flash!

How's about a little broken foot update? Well, I've been able to wear gym shoes for the last couple of weeks. What a relief it was to take off the ortho shoe, especially at night! You should see the lovely outfits I've worn to church. Fine then, YOU try to find a dress that looks like it goes with big white gym shoes! My new fashion statement is a new pair of BROWN gym shoes to go with my fall ensembles. (No, not trip-and-fall) I walk with a just little limp now, so yay for that.

Oh, and the best part is my temporary handicap tag for the car. If you want to park in the best spots, just ride with ME!

This is my super-busiest time at work even in an average year, but this time I have a couple of extra grant reports to put together in the next few weeks in addition to two shows going at once. Amazing how long it takes to compile your data and information and then put together something that makes sense (The words don't just flow from my computer like they do for Doug and Robert...)

Here is a link to the revised version of our new CTE website if you're interested. She just put the slide slow on this weekend, so that's cool. She only put photos from Pinocchio but hopefully we can get some other shows up there somewhere soon. http://cteelgin.com/NEWSITE/index.htm I still can't make any changes on it, so am itching to be able to launch it and go forward.

So there you go. (Oh, too bad this pushed the TP-measuring contest down a notch...) SH

The MBAs...

...strike again.
I bought Northern toilet paper the other day. They make a big deal about how their 12 rolls are the same as 24 rolls of other brands. (If you say so.)

But I noticed that they are 1/2 inch narrower than the roll I'm replacing. People are going to notice when they shave 10% off the width of the paper.

Now, I didn't buy generic. None of this 25 cents a roll stuff. I feel cheated.

Besides, I'm not getting any narrower.

Somebody at Northern thought it was a good idea.

Eleven Rules

Rule 1. Life is not fair; get used to it.

Rule 2. The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you
to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

Rule 3. You will NOT make $40,000 a year right out of high school. You won't
be a vice president with a car phone, until you earn both. (Remember, he wrote these things in the 90s)

Rule 4. If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn't have
tenure.

Rule 5. Flipping burgers in not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a
different word for burger flipping; they called it opportunity.

Rule 6. If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your
mistakes, learn from them.

Rule 7. Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now.
They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and
listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain
forest from the parasites of your parents' generation, try "delousing" the
closet in your own room.

Rule 8. Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not.
In some schools they have abolished failing grades; they'll give you as many
times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest
resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

Rule 9. Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few
employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own
time.

Rule 10. Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the
coffee shop and go to jobs.

Rule 11. Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.

-- Charles Sykes

Good to the last drop

I was finishing off the last of the ketchup in the bottle and rinsing it out when a sweet memory was activated...a memory of Mom and her barbecued beef sandwiches.

You see, coaxing the dregs of the ketchup is properly done by adding a little warm water and shaking the bottle vigorously for a few seconds. What remains is then used to make the sauce for barbecued beef sandwiches.

The recipe is one of Granny's best, used often for family reunions and picnics to Lagoon. The beef is shredded and mixed with the sauce. The only thing else you need is a package of hamburger buns.

You're gonna want the recipe. I don't know it. I know there was ketchup, some mustard, and vinegar. It was prepared in a saucepan. The beef was sacrificed from the Sunday pot roast and cooked separately. It all came together at the end in the saucepan. That's all I remember.

As for other bottles, Granny would often have a bottle of Baby Magic turned upside down for weeks, sitting on the shelf in the bathroom. She could coax every drop out of the bottle if given enough time. An orphan who spent her teen years in the Depression, she knew how to conserve. Al Gore's got nothing on her.

How to eat a hot dog

Kraft Foods has finally given us specific instructions on how to eat a hot dog.

But wait, there’s more.
http://www.kraftfoods.com/kf/HealthyLiving/Articles/FoodSafety/FeedingYourChildren.htm

How did we ever survive childhood before the lawyers?

Around here were still working on the instructions given by Dirty Harry:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5JIpT4GkyM

And remember, be sure to buckle up your First Grader before eating.

Working to earn the elbow patches

Here's to Robert, working hard to earn the tweed jacket with elbow patches, uniform of the college professor.

And they start them out early. His first semester finds him teaching freshmen.

May the force be with you, son.

Nate earns...

...the coveted green eyeshade.
Congratulations on passing the CPA exams!

Another sample of church advertising

The agrarian saints of 1955 could read the conference talks and ponder the need for a new combine.

Playing on "the parking"

Salt Lake is known for its wide streets. The story is that Brigham Young specified that the layout of the city include the provisions that a wagon and team could make a U-turn. Hence, wide streets.

In a few places in the city they planted grass in the middle of the road to fill the void. And that's where I grew up. We called the area "the parking." (The trees were added later.)

In the spring and summer we'd play baseball. At the curbs were 1st and 3rd bases, which meant that the foul line jotted straight back, making the outfield a narrow target. Occasionally someone would hit a car, but the houses were safe.

In the fall we'd play football and the shape of the field was just right.

When frisbee came along we'd toss it around on "the parking."

And brave teen girls would "lay out" on the grass to get a tan.

After Christmas we'd haul all the discarded trees up to "the parking" and form them into a big circle two or three trees high. It made a great fort. And the city workers didn't care. We'd saved them the labor of going from house-to-house picking them up.

At the corner of 12th East and 2nd South "the parking" made a bend. It also made a natural retaining wall with a rather steep vertical drop. It was a perfect, but short, ride on a sled. And they installed steps so you could repeat the ride as many times as you had energy for.

The steps included a railing made out of 3" plumbers pipe. The pipe had a wonderful texture made up of corroded layers of pipe, painted over with aluminum paint countless times over the years. Still, wearing the right fabric, you could straddle it and make a quick trip down the banister. But you'd feel every coupling on the way down.

The parking is still there, but I can tell the kids don't play there any more. The mud hole that used to be home plate is grown over with grass.

You can never go home again.

You decide

Joey in December of 1982...

And Joey with PR in August of 2009
Well, are they related or what?

An earthquake at the Salt Lake Cemetery

For as long as I can remember, my childhood home was white. It had yellow trim most of the time, and after about 35 years it was trimmed in tan. But it was always a white house. (photo from November of 1973) I snapped a photo of it while visiting Salt Lake last week, and it isn't white any longer.
It is army green and baby blue with yellow shapes (sunrise, perhaps?) and white trim.

And to think we were worried that the city would come after us for installing aluminum siding on the porch!

Mom lived in that white house for 53 years; Dad for 28. That rumbling coming from the Avenues is Dad and Mom spinning in their graves!

Salt Lake mansion

From 1953- mansion located at 12th East and South Temple


The same mansion in August 2009.

My grade school pal Gary Mertlich lived there for a few years. It was only two houses away from Wasatch Elementary School. In fact, he could hear the first bell from his kitchen and still walk to school before the second bell rang.

It was a cool house with a dumbwaiter and an "intercom" of tubes leading to various rooms, with the kitchen having the most horns of all.

There was a huge play room covering most of the basement area.

When Gary's family lived there it was painted white. They then moved up into a more modest home in the lower avenues.

Gary now teaches social work in Colorado.

As you can see, it is still a beautiful home.

Viola!

And now, it is a pen. The base is a bit gaudy, but not inappropriate.

Vacuum tubes brought us closer together

Down on 9th South is Chris Boyer's TV repair shop. (It is now an architectural salvage store but the owner has preserved the signage from the original.)

Chris Boyer was like a member of the family. Since the tuner on the TV needed cleaning and the tubes burned out often you could count on needing the TV repaired about every six months. And when you found someone you liked, you kept their card.

So....he'd been in the home a couple of times a year and watched the family grow up. Chris would show up with his tools in one hand and a big box with a handle on it (a tube caddy) full of the common tubes in the other.

And he knew his stuff. It was easier back then because bad parts would usually burn up so you'd look for the charred components first. If things looked OK you'd fire up the chassis and look for tubes that weren't glowing.

But to us it was amazing that he could fix the TV set.

Anyway, I snapped a photo of his shop in memory of a technician who made house calls and knew us by name. Those were simpler times.

From the Adamson Reunion

Enjoying life. PR and Bobo.

Having a broken foot is really lame.

Here's the update on the foot: Went back to the doctor on Tuesday; he was impressed that I had actually stayed off of it as asked; he poked around at the sore spot but it wasn't so bad; took an x-ray and it was still similar to before but since it didn't hurt he said it was healing; he said to start putting weight on it and within the week should be done with crutches; keep the gorgeous shoe on 24/7 for another couple of weeks; then come back. Great, huh?

Actually, I did just fine at girls camp by spending 90% of the time in a wheelchair spinning around the dining hall. (The wheelchair is an old one that usually sits in the coat closet in the Elgin building.) I had an assignment in which that was a good spot to be so it worked out for me. I got pretty good with the crutches after going back and forth from the cabin a couple of hundred feet away.

At camp we had mice, lice, and froggies. Dad's comment about that: If we had stayed there any long we would have had all 10 plagues! Funny.

Actually it was a wonderful camp. I think our young women had quite a few opportunities to exercise faith and feel the Spirit, because it was there. Our main purpose was to help them go home with a better understanding and appreciation of what it means to be a precious daughter of Heavenly Father. And to look at others and realize that they are His children, too.

When it was pouring rain on Tuesday night we asked them to pray that it might clear up so they could accomplish what they needed to. So we woke up to beautiful weather from then on.

We had an awesome first aid drill in which the certification leader put the girls into groups with a mix from every level. That way there should have been someone in each group who had studied the needed first aid during the week. Then, by following compass points, they went to where 3 victims were. Unfortunately two of the unconscious victims (including my 1st counselor) perished before the girls figured out how to help them. The young camp leaders were totally amazing actresses, screaming, moaning. One girl with just a poison ivy problem (and red make-up all along her legs) was hollering her head off, distracting the others from taking care of the victim that really needed it. It was great.

On Monday afternoon after our arrival I had each girl make a little clay oil lamp. Then on Thursday night for the program the YCLs were dressed as the 10 Virgins from the parable. They were stationed in 10 spots around the camp and the girls went around to hear their stories. Five had made good choices and projected a strong, righteous countenance. The other five told of their choices and how that affected the way they felt about themselves and about their future. Then they came back to the main campfire and stood in a line in front of it holding their lit (with a battery candle) lamps held in front of them. I tell you, it was an absolutely stunning, amazing sight. Then while they sang a beautiful song, the other lit lamps were distributed to the other girls and they went with their bishops to have a little discussion with them at various locations.

Then the next morning, our testimony meeting started at 6:45am. It was in an outside amphiteater across from a beautiful half-circle shaped grove with a grassy area in front of it. It was incredibly beautiful as the mist cleared and the sun moved. One of the girls commented that it must have looked like that in the Sacred Grove. Several told of how powerfully they felt the Spirit as they spoke. It was all the more sacred of an occasion because one of our YCLs was diagnosed with thyroid cancer in June. But it didn't turn into a sobfest for her but rather a wonderful, spiritual feast.

After the testimony meeting they divided out for a solo time for about 45 minutes. I had prepared a solo booklet for them (especially for those who didn't bring scriptures or didn't know what to do with them if they did), but we had asked the parents to write a letter to their daughter to read during the solo time. We suggested they tell their daughter how much she means to them, how grateful they are that she was born into their family, and some of the hopes and dreams they have for her. We had 4 non-member girls there whose parents also wrote a letter to their daughters. I had a wonderful experience being near the Level 1 girls, many away from home for the first time, weeping over the sweet words of their parents speaking to them from home.

It was an exceptional year in which we knew from our first meeting that we were on the right track. We've had many setbacks, quite challenging in spots, that only told me that Satan didn't want us to carry out what we had in mind and it made me all the more determined to go forward. There were many miracles, large and small, throughout and I know that the Lord's hand carried us through right to the end. It was a great privilege to be a part of such special experience.

Can't wait until next year! SH

Allow me to gloat a bit

Average July temperature in Chicago: 69.4°
That's the average temperature in Chicago this July

July 31, 2009 Chicago Tribune

The average temperature in July this year was 69.4 degrees, according to the National Weather Service. That number is computed by adding the daily average high and average low and dividing by two. The average July temperature is 73.8 degrees.

That makes it:

• The coldest July since the recording station was moved from the lakefront in 1942.
• Part of a three-way tie -- with 1996 and 2000 -- for second place in logging the most July days with less-than-80-degree highs. Each had 14. July 1992 was tops with 18 days.

(Note: The polar ice caps are melting. I can feel it in the pools here in Illinois.)

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Woman accused of stabbing woman, deputy with pen
Associated Press
Published: 7/28/2009 9:46 AM
BELLEVILLE -- An East St. Louis woman is accused of using a pen to stab a woman she blamed for losing a child-custody case, along with the sheriff's deputy who intervened.

St. Clair County prosecutors have charged 37-year-old Farina Larkin with two felony counts of aggravated battery and one count of resisting a peace officer.

The attack happened a week ago, while a reportedly crying and screaming Larkin was being escorted out of a Belleville courtroom after the judge ruled against granting her custody of a child.

In the hallway, Larkin apparently stabbed the female victim repeatedly and punched her, then stabbed the intervening deputy on an arm.

None of the injuries required hospitalization. Larkin is jailed on $50,000 bond.

Broken, my foot!

OK, students. See if you can find the fracture.

It is not a compound fracture but it compounds our YW camp situation. After walking on it for 24 hours, I had it looked at. That's what good pioneer genes will do for you.

The remedy is crutches and a special shoe/brace.

Love,
Mom