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