I suppose that I was in shock. There can’t be anyway that you are supposed to react to that kind of statement. I didn’t collapse to the ground or start moaning and wailing like in the movies. To be honest, I didn’t even weep.
I had the wherewithal to offer my shoulder for my mother to cry on but other than that I was numb. I don’t think I got what was going on. I knew; but I didn’t get it. I can’t explain any better than that.
After a minute, Mom explained that he had been hooking up a trailer to his tractor and as he was connecting the cables, the brake either slipped or wasn’t set properly and the tractor rolled back into the trailer, pinning Ryan between the truck and the corner of the trailer. My neighbor, a mortician, and the man who took care of the burial arrangements, told me later that the level of injury Ryan sustained was such that he was gone instantly; he didn’t have time to suffer.
In the days to follow, we were able to work together a rough timeline of events. Mom talked to Ryan on the phone about fifteen minutes before the accident. They had a short conversation and as she has always done with her kids, she told him she loved him when they said good bye. He told her that he loved her too, then hung up.
Uncle B’s brother (who also worked at the company) saw him heading out to where his cab was, and then a few minutes after that he found Ryan pinned. He called for help and moved the truck to get him free. 911 was called immediately and CPR was started. The chaplain who worked with the EMT’s and police told us later that the company workers who were doing the CPR did it so well that the paramedics did not replace them. They were able to begin other life saving processes without interrupting the CPR. It was very comforting to know that EVERYTHING that could have been done; was. Nobody goofed up, no one made a critical error. It just was what it was. Time to go.
As I stood there on the porch of the emergency room attempting to comfort my mother, a news van pulled into the parking lot. It made me mad.
When Punk had her surgery earlier in the week, there was a high profile, media driven circus going on at Primary’s. Another experimental surgery was taking place at the same time as Punks, and the media was ALL over it. The headlines for the better part of a week was about this surgery. It irritated me (and my sister, though she’d never admit it), that this was getting so much attention while other equally miraculous doings were ignored.
Jealousy? Might have been a little, but what really set me off was that the family at the center of this attention was really rotten. On camera it was sweetness and humility. When the cameras weren’t rolling, it was selfish, egotistical, narcissism.
A celebrity came to sign autographs. Everyone lined up except for “mommy”, who loudly stated “I’m the mother of the twins, and I have to get back to them quickly, so I’m going to go right to the front.” And you know, it was ok. Because everyone else in line at the hospital that day was just there for the tours and free donuts.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!!
I could go on, but I won’t. We’ll just say that the sense of entitlement was astonishing, and it was powered by news feeds and refueled by “live reports”. It made me so mad I wrote a letter to the editor decrying the media intrusion into a place where families who did not get as happy an ending as this famous family did had to sit amidst the cheering circus and try to grieve or mourn.
The letter was published in the Tribune the day Ryan died.
And now, with the news of my brother’s death still ringing in my ears, a news truck pulls up to get the “dirt”. I told the Deputy that we had nothing to say to them and that if someone put a microphone or a camera in anyone's face, I was gonna perform an impromptu colonoscopy with it.
OK. It wasn’t quite that eloquent (I think what I actually said was that there’d be a fight), but I was in defense mode and wanting to get some answers, not give them. Especially to a bunch of clowns I was already mad at to begin with.
The Deputy, an imposing fellow with the kindest face you ever saw, assured me no news people would get anywhere near us. Feeling protected, I went inside and found a restroom. I walked over to the sink and looked into the mirror. It was still kind of an “out of body” thing. I looked at myself and said out loud, “Well. Life as you knew it is now officially over.”
I called the Boss.
I could fill another thirty pages with the rest of the day. One of the great oddities of shock is that you are numb in the moment and unable to act or think but for some reason the memory recorder is going full blast with double barrels.
The worst memories of my life took place over the next few hours and days. But one of the good things that I see in any of them is my brother in law.
His connection to my family was distant at best, being married to my wife’s sister. He was on vacation; his break from difficult and demanding school work, yet he stayed the whole day. He was three steps ahead of every need. He ran errands, made phone calls and made himself useful in a thousand ways. With everyone else in shock, we had the blessing of a calm and clear Brother who cared for us and made sure that nothing important got overlooked in those first few hours. When inspiration struck and I needed a camera, he had one (I took a photo of the sunset over the Great Salt Lake on the last day my brother’s mortal eyes would see. I wrote a poem that night that is posted below). When we needed someone to go to the trucking company and get Ryan’s car, he volunteered.
How do you pay THAT back?
After a very long day, I got home around ten and flipped the TV on without thinking. Since no one from our family or the trucking company was talking, the reporters had started guessing. First, they said he’d been trapped for as long as five hours, which thanks to that call Ryan made to my mother, we knew was B.S.
Some of my family got the call that Ryan was gone only to be told on TV by an ignorant “on the scene” reporter that he was still alive but in critical condition and being transported to the hospital via life flight. It was news to us.
They got stonewalled by everyone involved, so the media just made it up as they went. Worst of all, when I flipped on the TV that night, I was immediately greeted with the worst thing I’ve ever seen. I should have known better, but I still wasn’t thinking clearly.
The jerks had flown a news chopper over the yard and hovered there over the paramedics as they worked in vain to save my brother’s life. The last physical images I have of my brother were provided to me by a news chopper hovering over his body like a damn vulture.
I didn’t need to see that. My parents surely didn’t need to see that. And total strangers sure as hell didn’t need to see that.
I equate it to pornography. They took an image of something that was none of the public's business, but because it was shocking they offered it to the curious masses to improve ratings and make a buck. It’s evil.
Now, I‘m sure they can make a case for it being journalistically ethical. But ethics are one thing and morals are another. It was morally reprehensible.
The media took the pain and suffering of a family who was loud and clear in their desire for the events of the day to remain private and then publicized their half truths for financial gain. Three and a half years later, none of the people the media were trying to titillate with that footage remember it. Just those of us who have to live with the memories of their irresponsibility.
To this day, if I’m watching the news and footage of a fatal crash or accident comes on, I change the channel as quick as I can. I feel sorrow for the family and shame that I belong to a society that requires so much intrusion into private grief.
And that, faithful readers, is why I hate TV news reporters.
Up next, Part 6: How Was the Theater?
Showing posts with label Introduction to Destruction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Introduction to Destruction. Show all posts
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Ryan's Poem
Here's a copy of the text in case you have eyes as bad as mine.
Every day the sun will set
Though its light may bring no heat
A thousand pretty pictures
And all are bittersweet.
Hazy redness fogs the view
Is it beauty or a mess?
A thousand thoughtful touches
Seem to bring no tenderness.
If and Why are ugly words
That prevent our faith in Him.
Like the smog that blocks the sunset
And make His Light seem dim.
But there is beauty in our trials
Like a sunset through the haze
And naught of man will ever stop
His eternal loving rays
Darkness comes to every day,
That’s just as it should be
Yet on the ‘morrow comes His Light
For all of us to see.
Every day is counted
And shall not be numbered less
For a Family is Forever
We will share togetherness.
For Ryan
August 17, 2006
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
History of the Blog, Part 4: Worst Day of My Life
All right. A deep breath, a cracking of the knuckles and a big mug full of coke.
Check, check and check. Here goes.
When last we met, I had just finished an Associate of Arts in English degree at Salt Lake Community College. At SLCC, I had a very good family friend who worked in Financial Aid, and she was able to find all kinds of grants and aid to keep things afloat financially. I could thank her again for eternity and never do justice to the love and support she offered us. Like many other blessings, we noticed how powerful it was only after it was gone.
I was headed for UVU and looking forward to a schedule full of classes that I wanted to take as opposed to the oft lamented general ed courses. Since I had no job, I was planning on doing 12 to 15 hours a semester. I could graduate in a year and a half that way. I had all the books for my classes weeks in advance and I had already done a good chunk of reading. It was exciting.
The week before classes started, the Boss’s brother in law came out to Salt Lake from New York where he was in law school. On the 17th of August (the fact I remember the exact date portends disaster, does it not?), he called me and asked if I’d like to hang out and play some XBOX.
Now please allow me a bit of digression here, it’s needed for background. My sister L and her husband B have three children. A son who is about a year younger than the Eldest, a daughter that is just older than Moe, and another daughter a little older than Puzilla.
L’s middle child is known (at least to this Uncle), as “Punk”. Punk is a walking, breathing, parting of the Red Sea. She was born with a chromosomal disorder called DiGeorge Syndrome. It has a host of symptoms that range from minor annoyances to catastrophically fatal heart defects. Because of this, Punk would have to be born at the University of Utah med center so that emergency surgery could be performed if necessary.
It was not the kind of news that anyone ever wants to hear. The excitement that usually comes from the anticipation of a new member of the family was dimmed by a good deal of worry and fear. It was very hard for my sister and her husband and we did what we could to assure them of our love and support.
When Punk finally arrived, her initial examinations and prognosis were mixed. Her heart was functioning enough that the doctors felt comfortable in waiting for a while to do surgery and that would give her time to build some strength. The bad news was there was a lengthy list of things that would need to be taken care of.
All of her internal organs were reversed from where they should have been, a condition known as Situs Inversus. Stuff that is supposed to be on the left was on the right and vice versa. Her tiny heart had what is called Pulmonary Atresia, a condition that means she effectively had no pulmonary artery to carry blood from the heart to the lungs to be oxygenated. All the blood vessels in her lungs were tiny and underdeveloped which resulted in her lungs being tiny and underdeveloped. In addition to all this she had a VSD or Ventricular Septral Defect. In normal person terms, tiny little Punk had a hole between the chambers of her heart the size of a quarter.
She has had more surgeries than you want to know about; all of them life threatening. After one of them she had a stroke that doctors said should have killed her; but her brain re-wired itself and she kept going even though it caused some complications she could have done without.
A few days before my brother-in-law and I sat down to play Madden 06, the Punk (who was about 5 at the time) had undergone an experimental surgery that doctors had not thought was possible just months before. They created a pulmonary artery and stretched the blood vessels in Punks lungs to dramatically improve her ability to oxygenate her own blood. It had gone beyond the doctors expectations and was deemed a success in every way. Punk’s recovery had been rapid and for once, problem free.
So I was really surprised that afternoon to pick up a call from my Mom and hear her sound so worried. I figured something must have gone wrong with Punk and in less than a heartbeat I was as nervous as I had ever been.
“Your brother has been in an accident at work”, she said.
Three and a half years later that sentence still puts me into a bit of shock. I was sitting on the couch playing a video game and one instant later I had prepared myself to hear bad news about my niece. Then less than ten words are spoken and I had to slam into reverse and worry about someone else altogether.
I’m pretty sure that I blew my mental transmission right there and that’s why the rest of the day passed in kind of a blur. My youngest brother had been working for a trucking company in their freight yard, moving trailers around the docks and preparing them for shipment. Nobody knew better than me how dangerous that kind of work was and a flood of very bad thoughts crossed my mind.
“How bad is it?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.
“I don’t know yet”, Mom said. “But say a prayer and I’ll call you back when I know more.”
That sounded a little ominous to me, but this family had survived a trillion trips to the emergency room, and dealt with the complications of Punk’s condition, so I had little doubt that things were OK. They were always OK.
I said goodbye to Mom and hung up the phone. I told the Boss what Mom had told me, and we rounded up the kids and knelt for an impromptu family prayer. I remember asking the Lord to help us not worry, and that Uncle Ryan would be alright. I also remember feeling the Spirit wash over me the way it did when the Boss and I have made our toughest decisions. At that point there was little doubt in my mind that things were going to be OK. The Spirit had told me so, and the Boss and I hadn’t jumped off of those cliffs about school because we weren’t willing to listen to the voice of the Spirit.
Mom called back a few minutes later and said she had talked to Uncle B (Punk’s Dad) who worked at the truck yard with my brother. He had told her that the paramedics were working on him but that they were going to bring in life flight to get him to a hospital quicker.
That bit of info gave me chills, but Punk had been airlifted once, so I knew that it didn’t have to mean a matter of life and death. I told Mom about our prayer and the feelings we had and told her not to worry.
She had been up at Primary Children’s hospital sitting with Punk so Aunt L could get some rest and so she was a quick walk away from where the life flight would bring my little brother. Dad was out of town; in fact he was sitting on a plane flying home and we could not get a hold of him until he landed in Salt Lake. I didn’t want Mom to sit there by herself, so I told her I was coming.
My brother in law, in his first of many acts of unforgettable service that day, offered to go with me up to the hospital to be with Mom and the Boss could keep the kids out of the way at home. I was glad he was there; I was in shock and not in much shape to be driving. I spent the half hour talking his ear off and reassuring myself of the feelings I had during our family prayer. It was going to be alright.
We got to the hospital, found the emergency room and found my Mom standing on the porch outside the door talking to a Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Deputy. I walked out onto the porch and when the door opened, Mom turned around. Her face was twisted into a look of desperation and grief that I had never seen and never want to see again. She looked up at me and in a strong clear voice that belied her countenance said almost matter-of-factly,
“He’s gone. They couldn’t save him, and he’s gone.”
Next up: Part 5 Why I Hate TV News Reporters
Check, check and check. Here goes.
When last we met, I had just finished an Associate of Arts in English degree at Salt Lake Community College. At SLCC, I had a very good family friend who worked in Financial Aid, and she was able to find all kinds of grants and aid to keep things afloat financially. I could thank her again for eternity and never do justice to the love and support she offered us. Like many other blessings, we noticed how powerful it was only after it was gone.
I was headed for UVU and looking forward to a schedule full of classes that I wanted to take as opposed to the oft lamented general ed courses. Since I had no job, I was planning on doing 12 to 15 hours a semester. I could graduate in a year and a half that way. I had all the books for my classes weeks in advance and I had already done a good chunk of reading. It was exciting.
The week before classes started, the Boss’s brother in law came out to Salt Lake from New York where he was in law school. On the 17th of August (the fact I remember the exact date portends disaster, does it not?), he called me and asked if I’d like to hang out and play some XBOX.
Now please allow me a bit of digression here, it’s needed for background. My sister L and her husband B have three children. A son who is about a year younger than the Eldest, a daughter that is just older than Moe, and another daughter a little older than Puzilla.
L’s middle child is known (at least to this Uncle), as “Punk”. Punk is a walking, breathing, parting of the Red Sea. She was born with a chromosomal disorder called DiGeorge Syndrome. It has a host of symptoms that range from minor annoyances to catastrophically fatal heart defects. Because of this, Punk would have to be born at the University of Utah med center so that emergency surgery could be performed if necessary.
It was not the kind of news that anyone ever wants to hear. The excitement that usually comes from the anticipation of a new member of the family was dimmed by a good deal of worry and fear. It was very hard for my sister and her husband and we did what we could to assure them of our love and support.
When Punk finally arrived, her initial examinations and prognosis were mixed. Her heart was functioning enough that the doctors felt comfortable in waiting for a while to do surgery and that would give her time to build some strength. The bad news was there was a lengthy list of things that would need to be taken care of.
All of her internal organs were reversed from where they should have been, a condition known as Situs Inversus. Stuff that is supposed to be on the left was on the right and vice versa. Her tiny heart had what is called Pulmonary Atresia, a condition that means she effectively had no pulmonary artery to carry blood from the heart to the lungs to be oxygenated. All the blood vessels in her lungs were tiny and underdeveloped which resulted in her lungs being tiny and underdeveloped. In addition to all this she had a VSD or Ventricular Septral Defect. In normal person terms, tiny little Punk had a hole between the chambers of her heart the size of a quarter.
She has had more surgeries than you want to know about; all of them life threatening. After one of them she had a stroke that doctors said should have killed her; but her brain re-wired itself and she kept going even though it caused some complications she could have done without.
A few days before my brother-in-law and I sat down to play Madden 06, the Punk (who was about 5 at the time) had undergone an experimental surgery that doctors had not thought was possible just months before. They created a pulmonary artery and stretched the blood vessels in Punks lungs to dramatically improve her ability to oxygenate her own blood. It had gone beyond the doctors expectations and was deemed a success in every way. Punk’s recovery had been rapid and for once, problem free.
So I was really surprised that afternoon to pick up a call from my Mom and hear her sound so worried. I figured something must have gone wrong with Punk and in less than a heartbeat I was as nervous as I had ever been.
“Your brother has been in an accident at work”, she said.
Three and a half years later that sentence still puts me into a bit of shock. I was sitting on the couch playing a video game and one instant later I had prepared myself to hear bad news about my niece. Then less than ten words are spoken and I had to slam into reverse and worry about someone else altogether.
I’m pretty sure that I blew my mental transmission right there and that’s why the rest of the day passed in kind of a blur. My youngest brother had been working for a trucking company in their freight yard, moving trailers around the docks and preparing them for shipment. Nobody knew better than me how dangerous that kind of work was and a flood of very bad thoughts crossed my mind.
“How bad is it?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the answer.
“I don’t know yet”, Mom said. “But say a prayer and I’ll call you back when I know more.”
That sounded a little ominous to me, but this family had survived a trillion trips to the emergency room, and dealt with the complications of Punk’s condition, so I had little doubt that things were OK. They were always OK.
I said goodbye to Mom and hung up the phone. I told the Boss what Mom had told me, and we rounded up the kids and knelt for an impromptu family prayer. I remember asking the Lord to help us not worry, and that Uncle Ryan would be alright. I also remember feeling the Spirit wash over me the way it did when the Boss and I have made our toughest decisions. At that point there was little doubt in my mind that things were going to be OK. The Spirit had told me so, and the Boss and I hadn’t jumped off of those cliffs about school because we weren’t willing to listen to the voice of the Spirit.
Mom called back a few minutes later and said she had talked to Uncle B (Punk’s Dad) who worked at the truck yard with my brother. He had told her that the paramedics were working on him but that they were going to bring in life flight to get him to a hospital quicker.
That bit of info gave me chills, but Punk had been airlifted once, so I knew that it didn’t have to mean a matter of life and death. I told Mom about our prayer and the feelings we had and told her not to worry.
She had been up at Primary Children’s hospital sitting with Punk so Aunt L could get some rest and so she was a quick walk away from where the life flight would bring my little brother. Dad was out of town; in fact he was sitting on a plane flying home and we could not get a hold of him until he landed in Salt Lake. I didn’t want Mom to sit there by herself, so I told her I was coming.
My brother in law, in his first of many acts of unforgettable service that day, offered to go with me up to the hospital to be with Mom and the Boss could keep the kids out of the way at home. I was glad he was there; I was in shock and not in much shape to be driving. I spent the half hour talking his ear off and reassuring myself of the feelings I had during our family prayer. It was going to be alright.
We got to the hospital, found the emergency room and found my Mom standing on the porch outside the door talking to a Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Deputy. I walked out onto the porch and when the door opened, Mom turned around. Her face was twisted into a look of desperation and grief that I had never seen and never want to see again. She looked up at me and in a strong clear voice that belied her countenance said almost matter-of-factly,
“He’s gone. They couldn’t save him, and he’s gone.”
Next up: Part 5 Why I Hate TV News Reporters
Monday, December 21, 2009
History of the Blog, Part 3: Are You a Tank?
One of my all-time favorite movies is Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey. It’s another one of those cult classic films that not a lot of people remember exists, but that I can recite word for word.
Yeah, I know. I can’t remember my own birthday half the time but I can remember entire movies that I haven’t watched since high school. It’s called selective memory, and mine selects “Useless”. It’s really sad, but then so am I.
Both the Bill and Ted movies are awesome, but the second one is my favorite. The guys get themselves killed by evil robot Bill and Teds from the future. It’s very complicated and I don’t have the space to explain it all. But if you haven’t seen them they are required watching before you can continue reading any more of this blog.
Seriously. Go watch them. Right now. We’ll wait.
Naturally, the boys wind up headed straight to hell. They find themselves falling down a large pit. Both of them are screaming like little girls. They keep falling and screaming. They run out of breath. They inhale and start screaming again, falling all the while.
Finally, Bill turns to Ted and says, “Dude! This is a totally deep hole!”
Ted: “Yeah. You wanna play twenty questions?”
Bill: “Are you an animal, a vegetable or a mineral?”
Ted: “Mineral”
Bill: “Are you a tank?”
Ted: “Dude! You totally guessed it!”
They high five and cheer and then they look at each other, look down, and then start screaming again. After another 5 or 10 seconds, they hit the rock hard ground with a horrible thud.
I know the feeling.
More than once since we jumped into the bottomless pit called “go back to school”, have I turned to the Boss and commented, “Dude, this is a totally deep hole.” We just keep screaming and falling. Most days, it feels less like free fall and more like when Homer Simpson tried to jump the Grand Canyon on a skate board and bounced off every rock, outcropping and ledge on the way to the floor.
Seriously, if there is an obstacle in our path to wherever it is the Lord wants us, we have usually overcome it by smashing into it at terminal velocity. It gives “Going through trials” a whole new meaning. Of course going through trials is never as easy as going around them, but you definitely find out how tough you are when you try to imitate Wile E. Coyote.
Now when I stopped the last post, the Boss and I had just jumped. I quit my job, and somehow managed to keep from using Grandpa’s “tin beak” line when I did; but it wasn’t for lack of a desire. I was trying to follow the Spirit and burning bridges didn’t seem like it would help move the process along. I know it was the right way to handle it but I regret the necessity. I even agreed to hang around and helped train my replacement, though to this day I regret it. I felt used.
To top it off, I later learned that within six months the things that were irritating me so badly were all cleared up, my replacement had been hired at more than I would have made even with a raise, and the business moved from the other side of the valley to a shop that is less than five minutes from my house. It was enough
to make me go back and ask the Lord one more time to remind me I was doing what he wanted because the lines of communication suddenly appeared a little fuzzier than they had seemed when we made our decision.
I got confirmation again that yes, I had done right. So I guess learning that my old problems had cleared was a way to tell me that something really, really good is going to come of all this and the Lord just needed a reason to push me along toward it. Otherwise, he could have told me to stay and things might have been pretty sweet. But like I've said, there were reasons for this whole experiment and I had no way to comprehend them at the time.
So now what?
One of my real passions is wrestling. I love it. When I die and find myself with a little time to kill before the Boss gets Translated, I hope to find that the Celestial Kingdom is a big building with 150 mats and everyday is a Saturday afternoon. (Football will be shown on the massive jumbotron above the mats, and they hang the newest Cubbies world championship banner between rounds. And my eyes will be good enough I can sit in the back of the gym if I want and still see everything)
In my opinion, the best thing about wrestling is that it teaches you the values and ethics you need to get your Man Card. Hard work, dedication, perseverance, self control, team work, honesty and respect. The things that most guys learn in scouts, I learned in wrestling. I spent every day of every winter from the time I was 5 until I graduated high school practicing under the greatest wrestling coach that ever picked up a whistle in the state of Utah. I knew his practice schedule by heart and I learned all the moves a champion needed, even if I didn’t personally have the ability to always perform them.
My coach was always more concerned about what kind of person you were becoming than how good a wrestler you may be. When I thought about it, the off chance I might be able to help kids as much as he helped me was enough to convince me. I wanted to be like him.
I had made attempts to get into coaching over the years and loved every minute that I got, but to have a realistic shot at becoming a wrestling coach I needed to become a teacher. This was good news for me, because teaching is one of the other things that I love to do.
I guess I finally knew what I wanted to be if I ever grew up. Good for me! It only took three decades. I could coach wrestling and teach.
I put two and two together and came up with five and decided that I better not try to teach math. I love literature and I love poetry, and surprise! I love to write. So English seemed like a pretty solid choice. I told the Boss of my brilliant plan and we prayed about it. I told the Lord I wanted to become a teacher. I figure he has a little sympathy for me as He himself was a teacher by profession and so in what was one of the strongest spiritual experiences I have ever had, we got confirmation that I should do it.
I got enrolled at SLCC and found out that I had dropped out of school only about ten credits short of an AA degree. I know. It was a sin that just keeps paying off in pain, ain’t it? I took a couple of extra semesters to get back into the flow of things and get some lower level English classes taken care of at a school where the tuition was cheaper. And also something about the three bone-head math classes that were required to just get me eligible for Math 1010 (I told you two and two was five).
To try and shorten an already very long story, one of God’s greatest miracles occurred on the day in the spring of 2006 when I passed Math 1010. I had my AA degree in English. I did my very best “Tommy Boy” impersonation running across the quad at SLCC and turned several cartwheels in the living room when I got home, much to the delight of the girls.
I next had to decide where to transfer to finish my degree. In my infamous past, I had been at the U and one of the reasons I used for dropping out was that I found myself using most of my time defending my apparently irrational decision to be a Mormon. I could write another post on all the stupidity I dealt with from professors while I was there, but suffice it to say that I came by my Hatred (yeah Max, me too) of the U honestly.
I understand if you are a Ute (Two of my sisters inexplicably married some of them) and I agree that you have your agency. I love you anyway, but I’m not changing my mind. I really Hate that place.
It may make you feel better that while I'm a fan of the sports teams, I don’t care that much for BYU as a school. I know I wouldn’t last ten minutes there. No Cokes? Thanks but no. Not to mention, the Boss was keeping us afloat; not wealthy. No way could we afford tuition at that joint.
Then I discovered Utah Valley. I loved the place from the second I went to check it out. Geographically it’s closer to Provo than Salt Lake, and philosophically it’s the same way. I could be openly Mormon in a class and not get docked grades, but I could wear a beard and swear if I felt like it. It wasn’t quite BYU but it was far from Utah. For transport, I could catch a bus at the Sandy Trax that dropped my on the front porch, and a bus pass came with tuition. Best of all, even though my eligibility was long gone, they have the only collegiate wrestling team in the state. In short, it is the perfect university. Go wolverines!
We prayed about it again to make sure, and then I enrolled for the fall semester of 2006.
And that’s when the proverbial excrement went into the rapidly rotating oscillator.
Next Up: Part 4 Worst Day of My Life
Yeah, I know. I can’t remember my own birthday half the time but I can remember entire movies that I haven’t watched since high school. It’s called selective memory, and mine selects “Useless”. It’s really sad, but then so am I.
Both the Bill and Ted movies are awesome, but the second one is my favorite. The guys get themselves killed by evil robot Bill and Teds from the future. It’s very complicated and I don’t have the space to explain it all. But if you haven’t seen them they are required watching before you can continue reading any more of this blog.
Seriously. Go watch them. Right now. We’ll wait.
Naturally, the boys wind up headed straight to hell. They find themselves falling down a large pit. Both of them are screaming like little girls. They keep falling and screaming. They run out of breath. They inhale and start screaming again, falling all the while.
Finally, Bill turns to Ted and says, “Dude! This is a totally deep hole!”
Ted: “Yeah. You wanna play twenty questions?”
Bill: “Are you an animal, a vegetable or a mineral?”
Ted: “Mineral”
Bill: “Are you a tank?”
Ted: “Dude! You totally guessed it!”
They high five and cheer and then they look at each other, look down, and then start screaming again. After another 5 or 10 seconds, they hit the rock hard ground with a horrible thud.
I know the feeling.
More than once since we jumped into the bottomless pit called “go back to school”, have I turned to the Boss and commented, “Dude, this is a totally deep hole.” We just keep screaming and falling. Most days, it feels less like free fall and more like when Homer Simpson tried to jump the Grand Canyon on a skate board and bounced off every rock, outcropping and ledge on the way to the floor.
Seriously, if there is an obstacle in our path to wherever it is the Lord wants us, we have usually overcome it by smashing into it at terminal velocity. It gives “Going through trials” a whole new meaning. Of course going through trials is never as easy as going around them, but you definitely find out how tough you are when you try to imitate Wile E. Coyote.
Now when I stopped the last post, the Boss and I had just jumped. I quit my job, and somehow managed to keep from using Grandpa’s “tin beak” line when I did; but it wasn’t for lack of a desire. I was trying to follow the Spirit and burning bridges didn’t seem like it would help move the process along. I know it was the right way to handle it but I regret the necessity. I even agreed to hang around and helped train my replacement, though to this day I regret it. I felt used.
To top it off, I later learned that within six months the things that were irritating me so badly were all cleared up, my replacement had been hired at more than I would have made even with a raise, and the business moved from the other side of the valley to a shop that is less than five minutes from my house. It was enough
to make me go back and ask the Lord one more time to remind me I was doing what he wanted because the lines of communication suddenly appeared a little fuzzier than they had seemed when we made our decision.
I got confirmation again that yes, I had done right. So I guess learning that my old problems had cleared was a way to tell me that something really, really good is going to come of all this and the Lord just needed a reason to push me along toward it. Otherwise, he could have told me to stay and things might have been pretty sweet. But like I've said, there were reasons for this whole experiment and I had no way to comprehend them at the time.
So now what?
One of my real passions is wrestling. I love it. When I die and find myself with a little time to kill before the Boss gets Translated, I hope to find that the Celestial Kingdom is a big building with 150 mats and everyday is a Saturday afternoon. (Football will be shown on the massive jumbotron above the mats, and they hang the newest Cubbies world championship banner between rounds. And my eyes will be good enough I can sit in the back of the gym if I want and still see everything)
In my opinion, the best thing about wrestling is that it teaches you the values and ethics you need to get your Man Card. Hard work, dedication, perseverance, self control, team work, honesty and respect. The things that most guys learn in scouts, I learned in wrestling. I spent every day of every winter from the time I was 5 until I graduated high school practicing under the greatest wrestling coach that ever picked up a whistle in the state of Utah. I knew his practice schedule by heart and I learned all the moves a champion needed, even if I didn’t personally have the ability to always perform them.
My coach was always more concerned about what kind of person you were becoming than how good a wrestler you may be. When I thought about it, the off chance I might be able to help kids as much as he helped me was enough to convince me. I wanted to be like him.
I had made attempts to get into coaching over the years and loved every minute that I got, but to have a realistic shot at becoming a wrestling coach I needed to become a teacher. This was good news for me, because teaching is one of the other things that I love to do.
I guess I finally knew what I wanted to be if I ever grew up. Good for me! It only took three decades. I could coach wrestling and teach.
I put two and two together and came up with five and decided that I better not try to teach math. I love literature and I love poetry, and surprise! I love to write. So English seemed like a pretty solid choice. I told the Boss of my brilliant plan and we prayed about it. I told the Lord I wanted to become a teacher. I figure he has a little sympathy for me as He himself was a teacher by profession and so in what was one of the strongest spiritual experiences I have ever had, we got confirmation that I should do it.
I got enrolled at SLCC and found out that I had dropped out of school only about ten credits short of an AA degree. I know. It was a sin that just keeps paying off in pain, ain’t it? I took a couple of extra semesters to get back into the flow of things and get some lower level English classes taken care of at a school where the tuition was cheaper. And also something about the three bone-head math classes that were required to just get me eligible for Math 1010 (I told you two and two was five).
To try and shorten an already very long story, one of God’s greatest miracles occurred on the day in the spring of 2006 when I passed Math 1010. I had my AA degree in English. I did my very best “Tommy Boy” impersonation running across the quad at SLCC and turned several cartwheels in the living room when I got home, much to the delight of the girls.
I next had to decide where to transfer to finish my degree. In my infamous past, I had been at the U and one of the reasons I used for dropping out was that I found myself using most of my time defending my apparently irrational decision to be a Mormon. I could write another post on all the stupidity I dealt with from professors while I was there, but suffice it to say that I came by my Hatred (yeah Max, me too) of the U honestly.
I understand if you are a Ute (Two of my sisters inexplicably married some of them) and I agree that you have your agency. I love you anyway, but I’m not changing my mind. I really Hate that place.
It may make you feel better that while I'm a fan of the sports teams, I don’t care that much for BYU as a school. I know I wouldn’t last ten minutes there. No Cokes? Thanks but no. Not to mention, the Boss was keeping us afloat; not wealthy. No way could we afford tuition at that joint.
Then I discovered Utah Valley. I loved the place from the second I went to check it out. Geographically it’s closer to Provo than Salt Lake, and philosophically it’s the same way. I could be openly Mormon in a class and not get docked grades, but I could wear a beard and swear if I felt like it. It wasn’t quite BYU but it was far from Utah. For transport, I could catch a bus at the Sandy Trax that dropped my on the front porch, and a bus pass came with tuition. Best of all, even though my eligibility was long gone, they have the only collegiate wrestling team in the state. In short, it is the perfect university. Go wolverines!
We prayed about it again to make sure, and then I enrolled for the fall semester of 2006.
And that’s when the proverbial excrement went into the rapidly rotating oscillator.
Next Up: Part 4 Worst Day of My Life
Saturday, December 19, 2009
History of the Blog, Part 2: Jumping Off a Cliff
I try hard to be like Nephi, and I love to “liken the scriptures” unto myself (1 Nephi 19:23). There is a journey to discipleship and the “straight and narrow path” isn’t just a clever nickname. The narrowness of the way means that each of us are going to go past some common landmarks on our path to discipleship, and when we read the stories in the Bible and the Book of Mormon, we can see the prophets whom we love go through the same kinds of trials and tribulations that we do. It’s helpful to me to know that guys like Nephi had to fight some of the same battles I am fighting.
1 Nephi 2:16 is a current favorite scripture of mine because Nephi says that when he prayed, the Lord “did soften my heart…wherefore I did not rebel against him [Lehi] like unto my brothers.”
That word; soften. It tells me something about Nephi. He wasn’t all that pleased to be dropping everything he had to start slogging off into the wilderness. But once he got the confirmation from the Lord, he did what he was told. It was a small first step for him, and one that prepared him for a bigger leap of faith later. His testimony got stronger, and it’s not long after this that the Lord asks him to go back to Jerusalem.
I’ll bet he wasn’t all that keen on this idea, either, but that is when he issues his famous “I will go and do” declaration that every primary child knows by heart. He had to start with little steps and trust. Then he takes a bigger step, and trusts some more. Then just when he figures he’s got a grip on this whole “follow the Spirit” thing, he comes to a real doozey of a step.
Nephi has been obedient, and before the words of his promise to “go and do” are out of his mouth, he gets tested with a string of faith building, perseverance testing circumstances.
Go get the brass plates. Laban says no.
Go try to buy the brass plates. Laban says, I’m gonna kill you.
Go get the brass plates anyway. His brothers turn on him and say THEY are gonna kill him.
At what point do you figure Nephi wanted to look at the sky and say, “Come on! Where are we going with this? ” He had to be wondering why the Lord was putting him through so many trials.
Couldn’t the Lord have struck Laban dumb, like Korihor, and then let Nephi take the plates the first time they asked? For that matter, couldn’t the Lord have provided a way for Lehi to go get them BEFORE they even left Jerusalem?
Of course he could, but He knew that Nephi needed these little trials of faith to prepare him for the really big jumps that were coming up.
It must have been tough to go back to Laban’s house. But Nephi had learned to trust the voice of the Spirit when it came to him. “I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do” (1 Nephi 4:6). That is not a particularly comfortable position to be in, not knowing what the Lord has in mind for you to do, but running toward it anyway.
And the Spirit leads Nephi right up to the figurative edge of a big, deep, bottomless cliff that is filled with fog and says to the boy, “Jump”.
Kill Laban and take the plates.
And this is where Nephi goes from just having a testimony to being a Disciple. Instead of saying “I don’t kill anybody, no way, no how”, he trusts the Spirit that he recognizes from that day weeks or months before when his heart was softened and he got his testimony.
He’s not all that happy about it, though. “I shrunk and would that I might not slay him.”
In effect, Nephi says, “That ain’t what you taught me in Sunday School!”
The Spirit then explains to Nephi that there are circumstances that require him to do this difficult thing, one that he never thought he’d be asked to do. And the reason was the spiritual well-being of his family; their need for spiritual nourishment versus Laban’s repeated refusal to obey the commandments of God.
It had to be this way, even though Nephi didn’t like it, the Lord didn’t like it, and Laban sure as heck didn’t like it.
And it is my opinion that the reason Nephi was able to jump into the abyss and do the things that were asked of him was because he had learned to hear and trust the Lord when he was asked to do little things, like leave home. His trust grew to the point that when the Lord asked him to do one of the things that he really, really didn’t want to, his faith and trust saved him from damnation.
Now I tell this, not because I want to hold an online Sunday School class, or preach a sermon. I tell it because the Boss and I got a chance to relate to Nephi in the early part of 2005.
As I explained in Part 1, work had been going badly and I was coming to the realization that I needed a change. I had mixed feelings about it, because I was only about one small raise away from letting the Boss quit her job altogether and be a stay at home Mom, which is all she has ever wanted.
Part, but not all, of why I wanted to leave was that when I went in for my wage review that January I was told I was doing a great job, but there would be no raise for me anyway. It meant the Boss wasn't going to be able to quit, and it shook my faith in just how far ambition and want-to was going to be able to take me. It felt like a kick in the face, and combined with the other things that were going on, I started looking for a tin beak.
The more I looked at the situation, the more convinced I became that I needed a change. The more I thought about change, the more I realized that one warehouse job is pretty much like the next. The day I asked my shop buddy for a tin beak was the day it dawned on me that the only way I was ever going to get out of the mess I was in was to go back to school.
We fasted, prayed, went to the Temple, and waited for an answer. Almost immediately, the Boss had a chance at a promotion and a big time raise. We prayed about that, and the Spirit led us right up to the edge of a big, deep, bottomless cliff that was filled with fog and says to us, “Jump”.
Let the Boss take the promotion and support the family, while you go back to school.
And our response? “That ain’t what you taught us in Sunday School!”
Just like Nephi, though, we got an explanation. The reason was the spiritual well-being of our family; our need for the spiritual and temporal nourishment that can only be provided by a full time mom versus the impossibility of this blessing coming to pass as long as I was minus a college degree. It had to be this way for me to get one, even though I didn’t like it, the Lord didn’t like it, and the Boss sure as heck didn’t like it.
To my mind, it was a whole lot like getting asked to slay Laban. In fact, “Slaying Laban” was nearly the title of this blog, but I didn’t think anyone would get the joke. Here was the Lord asking us (and in particular, the Boss) to do the one thing we absolutely, positively did not want to do.
Who knew the consequences of 1997 would come back to bite me nearly a decade down the road? (I mean other than my Father, Father-in-law, and pretty much every other responsible adult who knew me then?)
Just like Nephi, we weren’t all that happy to drop all that we had to go slogging off into an unknown wilderness just because the Lord said so. But we did what we had learned to do when the leap of faith wasn’t quite so steep.
We jumped.
I quit.
Surely, underneath all this fog, the Lord had provided a parachute, a trampoline, a big splashdown pool…something. Maybe it was going to be like Indiana Jones, and we’d step down onto a camouflaged pathway a foot and a half below the edge.
Yeah.
Riiighhhtt!
Next up: Part 3 Are You a Tank?
1 Nephi 2:16 is a current favorite scripture of mine because Nephi says that when he prayed, the Lord “did soften my heart…wherefore I did not rebel against him [Lehi] like unto my brothers.”
That word; soften. It tells me something about Nephi. He wasn’t all that pleased to be dropping everything he had to start slogging off into the wilderness. But once he got the confirmation from the Lord, he did what he was told. It was a small first step for him, and one that prepared him for a bigger leap of faith later. His testimony got stronger, and it’s not long after this that the Lord asks him to go back to Jerusalem.
I’ll bet he wasn’t all that keen on this idea, either, but that is when he issues his famous “I will go and do” declaration that every primary child knows by heart. He had to start with little steps and trust. Then he takes a bigger step, and trusts some more. Then just when he figures he’s got a grip on this whole “follow the Spirit” thing, he comes to a real doozey of a step.
Nephi has been obedient, and before the words of his promise to “go and do” are out of his mouth, he gets tested with a string of faith building, perseverance testing circumstances.
Go get the brass plates. Laban says no.
Go try to buy the brass plates. Laban says, I’m gonna kill you.
Go get the brass plates anyway. His brothers turn on him and say THEY are gonna kill him.
At what point do you figure Nephi wanted to look at the sky and say, “Come on! Where are we going with this? ” He had to be wondering why the Lord was putting him through so many trials.
Couldn’t the Lord have struck Laban dumb, like Korihor, and then let Nephi take the plates the first time they asked? For that matter, couldn’t the Lord have provided a way for Lehi to go get them BEFORE they even left Jerusalem?
Of course he could, but He knew that Nephi needed these little trials of faith to prepare him for the really big jumps that were coming up.
It must have been tough to go back to Laban’s house. But Nephi had learned to trust the voice of the Spirit when it came to him. “I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do” (1 Nephi 4:6). That is not a particularly comfortable position to be in, not knowing what the Lord has in mind for you to do, but running toward it anyway.
And the Spirit leads Nephi right up to the figurative edge of a big, deep, bottomless cliff that is filled with fog and says to the boy, “Jump”.
Kill Laban and take the plates.
And this is where Nephi goes from just having a testimony to being a Disciple. Instead of saying “I don’t kill anybody, no way, no how”, he trusts the Spirit that he recognizes from that day weeks or months before when his heart was softened and he got his testimony.
He’s not all that happy about it, though. “I shrunk and would that I might not slay him.”
In effect, Nephi says, “That ain’t what you taught me in Sunday School!”
The Spirit then explains to Nephi that there are circumstances that require him to do this difficult thing, one that he never thought he’d be asked to do. And the reason was the spiritual well-being of his family; their need for spiritual nourishment versus Laban’s repeated refusal to obey the commandments of God.
It had to be this way, even though Nephi didn’t like it, the Lord didn’t like it, and Laban sure as heck didn’t like it.
And it is my opinion that the reason Nephi was able to jump into the abyss and do the things that were asked of him was because he had learned to hear and trust the Lord when he was asked to do little things, like leave home. His trust grew to the point that when the Lord asked him to do one of the things that he really, really didn’t want to, his faith and trust saved him from damnation.
Now I tell this, not because I want to hold an online Sunday School class, or preach a sermon. I tell it because the Boss and I got a chance to relate to Nephi in the early part of 2005.
As I explained in Part 1, work had been going badly and I was coming to the realization that I needed a change. I had mixed feelings about it, because I was only about one small raise away from letting the Boss quit her job altogether and be a stay at home Mom, which is all she has ever wanted.
Part, but not all, of why I wanted to leave was that when I went in for my wage review that January I was told I was doing a great job, but there would be no raise for me anyway. It meant the Boss wasn't going to be able to quit, and it shook my faith in just how far ambition and want-to was going to be able to take me. It felt like a kick in the face, and combined with the other things that were going on, I started looking for a tin beak.
The more I looked at the situation, the more convinced I became that I needed a change. The more I thought about change, the more I realized that one warehouse job is pretty much like the next. The day I asked my shop buddy for a tin beak was the day it dawned on me that the only way I was ever going to get out of the mess I was in was to go back to school.
We fasted, prayed, went to the Temple, and waited for an answer. Almost immediately, the Boss had a chance at a promotion and a big time raise. We prayed about that, and the Spirit led us right up to the edge of a big, deep, bottomless cliff that was filled with fog and says to us, “Jump”.
Let the Boss take the promotion and support the family, while you go back to school.
And our response? “That ain’t what you taught us in Sunday School!”
Just like Nephi, though, we got an explanation. The reason was the spiritual well-being of our family; our need for the spiritual and temporal nourishment that can only be provided by a full time mom versus the impossibility of this blessing coming to pass as long as I was minus a college degree. It had to be this way for me to get one, even though I didn’t like it, the Lord didn’t like it, and the Boss sure as heck didn’t like it.
To my mind, it was a whole lot like getting asked to slay Laban. In fact, “Slaying Laban” was nearly the title of this blog, but I didn’t think anyone would get the joke. Here was the Lord asking us (and in particular, the Boss) to do the one thing we absolutely, positively did not want to do.
Who knew the consequences of 1997 would come back to bite me nearly a decade down the road? (I mean other than my Father, Father-in-law, and pretty much every other responsible adult who knew me then?)
Just like Nephi, we weren’t all that happy to drop all that we had to go slogging off into an unknown wilderness just because the Lord said so. But we did what we had learned to do when the leap of faith wasn’t quite so steep.
We jumped.
I quit.
Surely, underneath all this fog, the Lord had provided a parachute, a trampoline, a big splashdown pool…something. Maybe it was going to be like Indiana Jones, and we’d step down onto a camouflaged pathway a foot and a half below the edge.
Yeah.
Riiighhhtt!
Next up: Part 3 Are You a Tank?
Friday, December 18, 2009
History of the Blog, Part 1: The Begining of the End
I have no runts requiring my attention today. Or tomorrow. And next week only on Monday. With the likelihood of mishap, disaster, hilarity, or destruction significantly reduced by the presence of the Boss and or Beak, I might have struggled for interesting post materials. Then this morning the thought occurred to me that I have not yet recorded the lengthy and boring history of how we came to be at the place we are. If something else comes up that is post worthy, I'll post it, otherwise, the next little while will deal with how I came to be Fatdaddy ("He ate and ate and ate" says the Boss. Not exactly what I meant).
I am not sure if you will find any of this interesting, entertaining or unworthy of your time. You may get offended and if so, I apologize. As I say in church all the time, "If you are offended by something I say, I am deeply sorry. I meant to offend someone else and you just happened to catch some of the shrapnel."
I had quit school around '97, either right before or right after the Eldest was born. I didn't decide to quit; class just became less and less of a priority until I told the Boss it didn't make sense to pay tuition for classes that I wasn't attending anyway. Not my most intelligent decision ever, and that is saying something for me.
I admit now that I got lazy (Me?!! Really?!!)and since I still had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up, I ignored my father, father-in-law, and pretty much everyone else I knew and quit. I was making big money stocking groceries on store shelves, man. I was cool. It was all under control.
This meant that I spent a lot of time in grocery warehouses and on forklifts. Most of them were really dangerous jobs. Not so much physically dangerous (I guess they kind of were), but dangerous in that I was afraid to leave them. Even when they sucked and I was getting hosed, I couldn't walk away because anywhere I went, I was not going to be starting over in the same salary ballpark. I knew it and they knew it.
When this understanding became mutual between us life would inevitably get worse for me, not them. I had no marketable skills and no education to speak of. What I did have was a wife and daughter who needed to be provided for. We started praying and I went to the Bishop to get a referral to LDS Employment.
Within a week, I found a job as a shipper/receiver/delivery person in a small family owned business. It was heaven. I liked the people I worked with, I was good at what I was doing and the hours and benefits were the best I'd ever had. Pay was better than what I had been getting from the grocery jerks and I got treated with respect. People were happy to teach me about the industry and I learned a lot. It was about this time that I started to see how ready and willing the Lord was to guide me into good things if I was willing to trust him.
It didn't take a genius to see that folks at that place were doing alright financially, and there was money to be made for someone with a little gumption and a foot in the door. In spite of my lack of education, I did have my foot in the door.
The Boss had been hanging around at her current employer working whatever hours she wanted to; basically for goof off money. We put a couple of bucks away for a rainy day and could pay for everything we needed and most of what we wanted. Moe joined the family, and we bought a house in June of 2002. In August we loaded the girls into a minivan and left on the vacation of a lifetime. We didn't tell them we were going to Disneyland until we drove past the front gate in Anaheim. They freaked.
Somewhere between West Jordan and Point of the Mountain, we told them that they were going to be getting a new brother or sister in April. So I guess Puzilla has been to Disneyland, but only in the most metaphorical sense. We went to Sea World and ate dinner with Shamu, got to go behind the scenes at the penguin exhibit and spent three solid days tearing through Disneyland like a hurricane. It was the one of the happiest times in my life.
Back at work, things had been moving forward and I was given a chance to work as a salesman for the repair department and had gotten a couple of very nice raises. I didn't see any reason that I wouldn't turn that good job into a great career, but it wasn't to be. Peff was born in October of 04 and shortly thereafter things started going south.
I won't detail the specifics, but over a very short period of time, my job satisfaction went downhill in a hurry and I suppose that the feeling must have been mutual. At the time I was a little bitter about it, but looking back, I know it had to be. There were reasons.
My Grandfather had been a very successful salesman in a similar industry, and I actually met many people who knew him and had done business with him. As I was named after him, I was frequently asked if I was any relation to him. I am still proud to say that I am.
I once heard Grandpa tell the story of how he came to have his own business. As I remember the story, he had spent a standout career as a salesman and manager of a good sized company. As he got a little closer to retirement, they brought in someone younger and less experienced to, in not so many words, become his boss. Adding insult to injury, they then asked him to train the man.
To quote Grandpa, "I told those fellows that I'd rather strap on a tin beak and go pick S#!@ with the chickens than do that. Then I walked out the door and started my own thing."
I know it wasn't as simple as that, but the story loses some of the humor if you know how hard he had to work and how much he put on the line and how gutsy he and grandma had to be to even try it.
And you really had to hear Grandpa tell it to get the the most out of the gallows humor. He had a real talent for taking bad turns and tough experiences and making them into something worth laughing about. He laughed at stuff that would have killed mere mortals. NOBODY tells stories like Grandpa did. I miss him.
And one day, when I had a particularly bad day at work, I found myself asking one of the shop guys to make a tin beak for me. It was time for a change.
Next up: Part 2 Jumping Off a Cliff
I am not sure if you will find any of this interesting, entertaining or unworthy of your time. You may get offended and if so, I apologize. As I say in church all the time, "If you are offended by something I say, I am deeply sorry. I meant to offend someone else and you just happened to catch some of the shrapnel."
I had quit school around '97, either right before or right after the Eldest was born. I didn't decide to quit; class just became less and less of a priority until I told the Boss it didn't make sense to pay tuition for classes that I wasn't attending anyway. Not my most intelligent decision ever, and that is saying something for me.
I admit now that I got lazy (Me?!! Really?!!)and since I still had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up, I ignored my father, father-in-law, and pretty much everyone else I knew and quit. I was making big money stocking groceries on store shelves, man. I was cool. It was all under control.
This meant that I spent a lot of time in grocery warehouses and on forklifts. Most of them were really dangerous jobs. Not so much physically dangerous (I guess they kind of were), but dangerous in that I was afraid to leave them. Even when they sucked and I was getting hosed, I couldn't walk away because anywhere I went, I was not going to be starting over in the same salary ballpark. I knew it and they knew it.
When this understanding became mutual between us life would inevitably get worse for me, not them. I had no marketable skills and no education to speak of. What I did have was a wife and daughter who needed to be provided for. We started praying and I went to the Bishop to get a referral to LDS Employment.
Within a week, I found a job as a shipper/receiver/delivery person in a small family owned business. It was heaven. I liked the people I worked with, I was good at what I was doing and the hours and benefits were the best I'd ever had. Pay was better than what I had been getting from the grocery jerks and I got treated with respect. People were happy to teach me about the industry and I learned a lot. It was about this time that I started to see how ready and willing the Lord was to guide me into good things if I was willing to trust him.
It didn't take a genius to see that folks at that place were doing alright financially, and there was money to be made for someone with a little gumption and a foot in the door. In spite of my lack of education, I did have my foot in the door.
The Boss had been hanging around at her current employer working whatever hours she wanted to; basically for goof off money. We put a couple of bucks away for a rainy day and could pay for everything we needed and most of what we wanted. Moe joined the family, and we bought a house in June of 2002. In August we loaded the girls into a minivan and left on the vacation of a lifetime. We didn't tell them we were going to Disneyland until we drove past the front gate in Anaheim. They freaked.
Somewhere between West Jordan and Point of the Mountain, we told them that they were going to be getting a new brother or sister in April. So I guess Puzilla has been to Disneyland, but only in the most metaphorical sense. We went to Sea World and ate dinner with Shamu, got to go behind the scenes at the penguin exhibit and spent three solid days tearing through Disneyland like a hurricane. It was the one of the happiest times in my life.
Back at work, things had been moving forward and I was given a chance to work as a salesman for the repair department and had gotten a couple of very nice raises. I didn't see any reason that I wouldn't turn that good job into a great career, but it wasn't to be. Peff was born in October of 04 and shortly thereafter things started going south.
I won't detail the specifics, but over a very short period of time, my job satisfaction went downhill in a hurry and I suppose that the feeling must have been mutual. At the time I was a little bitter about it, but looking back, I know it had to be. There were reasons.
My Grandfather had been a very successful salesman in a similar industry, and I actually met many people who knew him and had done business with him. As I was named after him, I was frequently asked if I was any relation to him. I am still proud to say that I am.
I once heard Grandpa tell the story of how he came to have his own business. As I remember the story, he had spent a standout career as a salesman and manager of a good sized company. As he got a little closer to retirement, they brought in someone younger and less experienced to, in not so many words, become his boss. Adding insult to injury, they then asked him to train the man.
To quote Grandpa, "I told those fellows that I'd rather strap on a tin beak and go pick S#!@ with the chickens than do that. Then I walked out the door and started my own thing."
I know it wasn't as simple as that, but the story loses some of the humor if you know how hard he had to work and how much he put on the line and how gutsy he and grandma had to be to even try it.
And you really had to hear Grandpa tell it to get the the most out of the gallows humor. He had a real talent for taking bad turns and tough experiences and making them into something worth laughing about. He laughed at stuff that would have killed mere mortals. NOBODY tells stories like Grandpa did. I miss him.
And one day, when I had a particularly bad day at work, I found myself asking one of the shop guys to make a tin beak for me. It was time for a change.
Next up: Part 2 Jumping Off a Cliff
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Why Destroying Angels?
I have a very firm belief that when God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, He sent five year olds. No doubt in my mind. There is no more destructive force in the universe than a five year old. And when you gather them in groups, the sum of their destruction is more than the parts. They are indestructible.
Noah's Flood? A couple of toddlers in a bathtub, splashing for all they have. You wouldn't think that two inches of water in the tub translates into a foot and a half of water on the bathroom floor (and down the heat vent), but it does. Get a couple tub loads together, and suddenly Noah is VERY happy he has a boat.
The Walls of Jericho? The Lord just sent 30 or so five year olds into the city after letting them eat all their Halloween candy in one sitting and letting them stay up all night so they are sleep deprived. I'm telling you, those walls didn't fall down, they were pulled down by the people inside who couldn't wait for a gate to get away from that racket.
The toughest part of being a stay at home dad/ shiftless layabout has been discovering just how much constant supervision is required to just keep the house from collapsing. I clean a room, move to the next and by the time I go back, the first room looks like I never went in to begin with. It's impossible to keep up with.
When I tell Mom my daily tales of woe, she laughs and usually has a story that is nearly identical to what I've just told her from when I was a kid. Every parent has Destroying Angel stories, so I figured that I'd write mine down. Feel free to add your own tales of destruction to the comment sections when you get time, because I can use the sympathy and the laughs. Not to mention, I'm curious as H#!! if anyone is actually reading this stuff.
Noah's Flood? A couple of toddlers in a bathtub, splashing for all they have. You wouldn't think that two inches of water in the tub translates into a foot and a half of water on the bathroom floor (and down the heat vent), but it does. Get a couple tub loads together, and suddenly Noah is VERY happy he has a boat.
The Walls of Jericho? The Lord just sent 30 or so five year olds into the city after letting them eat all their Halloween candy in one sitting and letting them stay up all night so they are sleep deprived. I'm telling you, those walls didn't fall down, they were pulled down by the people inside who couldn't wait for a gate to get away from that racket.
The toughest part of being a stay at home dad/ shiftless layabout has been discovering just how much constant supervision is required to just keep the house from collapsing. I clean a room, move to the next and by the time I go back, the first room looks like I never went in to begin with. It's impossible to keep up with.
When I tell Mom my daily tales of woe, she laughs and usually has a story that is nearly identical to what I've just told her from when I was a kid. Every parent has Destroying Angel stories, so I figured that I'd write mine down. Feel free to add your own tales of destruction to the comment sections when you get time, because I can use the sympathy and the laughs. Not to mention, I'm curious as H#!! if anyone is actually reading this stuff.
Monday, November 9, 2009
It Had to Happen
I am the first to admit this is probably a very bad idea. I hate techno-crap. If I ever Twitter, I pray it becomes the last noise I ever make. I'll go on Facebook about fifteen minutes after I cheer for the University of Utah, and that is flat NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.
So why a blog?
Simple. I was running up a massive cell phone bill laughing about the insane things my children and their cousins were doing to me. Sharing them this way is easier for everyone and I don't have to call mom every half hour to make her laugh. Besides, I have a perfectly good degree in English that is going completely to pot. I can sharpen my writing skills and if enough people think this stuff is any good, I'll start running ads and see if I can make a cheap buck.
And here it is. If you don't like it, don't read it. If nothing else, It'll serve as a poorly worded journal for any of my children that accidentaly survive my poor parenting.
So why a blog?
Simple. I was running up a massive cell phone bill laughing about the insane things my children and their cousins were doing to me. Sharing them this way is easier for everyone and I don't have to call mom every half hour to make her laugh. Besides, I have a perfectly good degree in English that is going completely to pot. I can sharpen my writing skills and if enough people think this stuff is any good, I'll start running ads and see if I can make a cheap buck.
And here it is. If you don't like it, don't read it. If nothing else, It'll serve as a poorly worded journal for any of my children that accidentaly survive my poor parenting.
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