Flowers on Main Street and Troubled Families

My morning stroll took me along Main Street this morning. The flowers were so beautiful. Our little town in renown for it's summer petunias which grow in planters the full length of Main Street and then some. I love them! They put such a welcoming face on our community. They show us for who we are. Their presence and freshness every year represent dedication to our values and commitment to our standards. They welcome residents and visitors alike to our special part of the world.

Sweetie and I have traveled extensively across the US and Canada and have never seen anything to rival this. We've driven down a lot of main streets in cities much more affluent that ours and never seen Vernal's equal. Many have more natural beauty, more magnificent architecture, more appealing attractions than Vernal, Utah, but none of them put out the welcome mat like we do. I think everyone reads that message loud and clear as they witness the floral abundance that is our greeting card.

As I walked today I had to resolve an issue in my mind. I struggled with it. I prayed about it. And I feel I got my answer. You see, I've complained about the flowers on Main Street. While I love them, I've been concerned about another issue, whose priority exceeds the need for our floral show piece.

Last year, due to severe budget constrictions, The State of Utah discontinued funding for the local Shelter and Receiving Center. This facility had been located in, but not part of, the youth detention facility where I have been a volunteer for the past seven years. During the years the Shelter was open I volunteered there as well. There I found young people who were being lovingly cared for after their parents had been arrested. There were others who were struggling with a foster care situation and needed a breather from that new, stressful and unfamiliar environment. There were kids who'd had a blow up with their own folks and both child and parent needed a "time out" and some counselling. These kids weren't criminals. They and their parents just needed some help. The Shelter provided that help in a safe, loving and productive environment.

Now, we have no Shelter in our Uintah Basin Communities. The need remains acute, but the service is gone. Too many of these sweet children are now winding up in Detention where they don't belong. Officials and parents, foster parents and others, too often, have no other recourse. They can't be left to run, unsupervised, unparented, alone.

As I prayed this morning I was struggling with this issue. Every time I see the flowers on Main Street I am reminded of these precious children, who, through no fault of their own, have been neglected, left untended, or have even been uprooted. My prayer was answered in a note on Facebook. A good friend called my attention to a local Pepsi Refresh Project candidate. My friend Joslin Batty and some others from the local youth corrections facility have proposed the creation of a Shelter and are in the running for $250,000.00 gift from Pepsi to help establish that dream. Here is their video:

Watch the video.

I am so pleased to make this discovery and so thrilled to have the chance to lend them my encouragement. Their efforts and this timely discovery are truly an answer to my prayers. Please help with this worthy project by going to Pepsi Refresh and voting for this dream, so it can become a reality!

I have watched Joslin and Patrick and Teri and many others and know of their deep love and concern for these wonderful children. Won't you please get behind them and help them help those is such desperate need?

As I said, I love the flowers on Main Street. I hope we never neglect them. I love our children even more and hope we don't neglect them either. They are too precious to be ignored. I hope and pray they are given their Pepsi grant. But, make no mistake, while $250K will take them a long way toward their goal, it won't be an on going resource. I've never quite understood why Juvenile Justice and the Detention Center are State agencies, while the Jail is operated by the County. I'm sure it wont be easy for our cash strapped communities to allocate the much need resources that will be required to sustain the Shelter. I'm sure it will be a temptation for them to say, that's somebody else's responsibility. Well, nobody else is stepping up to the plate. So, I am calling upon our City, County, religious and civic leaders as well as philanthropists and corporations to stand up and take hold of this most pressing need. These are our children, they belong to our community. Let's help them to bloom where they are planted!


The Flowers On Main Street represent how we are.  The Children In Our Homes reflect how we are.  Let's not let the flowers be a mere facade concealing a lie.

The Aerospace Museum at Hill Field

Just out side Hill Air Force Base near Roy, Utah is Hill's Aerospace Museum.  During a lull in the Family Reunion, while many were attending the ground breaking ceremonies for the new Brigham City Temple.  John, Jeff and I visited the Museum.  Earlier in the morning Jeff's imagination was piqued as a couple of F-16's flew over the reunion park on their way to the west desert for practice maneuvers. 

The Museum is free of charge and has a wonderful collection of vintage planes.  Here's Jeff in his flight suit ready for take off.

This sweet, beautifully preserved B-17 Bomber was my favorite.  I've read stories about flying these in WWII and seeing one really captured my imagination.  How I admire the heroes who flew them and the gunners who defended them.

Here's Captain Jeff in the cockpit.  Ready for a dog fight!

Jeff's Aunt Aly repairs Avionics on the F-15, pictured here and also the F-16.

Jeff was excited to see what Aly's Test Stations look like.

Here Jeff flies an F-16 flight simulator.  We had a fantastic time observing the marvelous advances in flight from the Wright Brothers to todays amazing jet fighters.  What a great opportunity and all for free!

Little Heroes

Last evening we gathered in Layton, Utah for a wonderful Family Reunion, I found little Megs and her big brother Jeff standing at the fence to a neighboring pasture.  Joining them, I discovered that they were chumming llamas.  They were tossing carrots over the fence and wondering what llamas say.  I told them they spit, so we were making our best spitting sounds, "pouittt, spouitttt. spouitt" to no effect.  We couldn't toss the carrots far enough to capture their attention.  They were surprised and little bit skeptical when I told them that llamas are cousins to camels.  I'd like for them to have had a better look.

It was about then that Megan drew my attention to a calf she took to be stuck between a fence and a shed.  It took me quite some time to even make it out a hundred yards across the pasture.  Sure enough, a little black calf seemed sandwiched between corral poles and the shed wall.  Jeff suggested we go tell the farmer so the calf could be rescued.  Sounded like a good idea to me.

We informed their parents and headed over there.  Out on Gentile Road there was some question as to which house in the row, connected to the farm.  I chose, using some deductive reasoning, the third house.  The kids were a bit concerned and then relieved when a sign beneath the house number read, "The Farm."

I asked them what they were going to tell the farmer?  "We're not going to tell him anything, you are!" was their desperate reply.  We knocked on the door and heard a neighborly, "Come in!" shouted back to us.

"Grandpa!  We can't just go in!"

"Sure we can, didn't you hear the invitation?"

Over riding protests we went in.  We found a couple of old fellows chatting in the drawing room.  The elder of the two asked our business and I explained the situation.  He had a difficult time making out what I was trying to tell him.  Megan and Jeff pitched in their two bits and finally we made him understand that his calf was in trouble.  The farmer didn't look well and we found out later he was suffering from cancer.  His companion informed us that he would help the farmer rescue the calf.  They seemed a bit skeptical as they thanked us and saw us to the door.  I'd secretly hoped they'd invite us out back to assist in the rescue.

Megan ran all the way back to the park so she'd be sure to be back to the fence in time to witness the goings on.  The rest of us went to the fence too, in plenty of time.  Those two old fellows weren't in much of a rush and were just making it to the barnyard gate.  The fiddled with the wire tying the gate shut for a couple of minutes.  When the finally did get to the calf, it was plain that they were in agreement with us.  The calf was in trouble.  The tried in vain to get him free so the kid's Dad, John, who'd joined us and I went back over to offer our assistance.  In the end we weren't needed, the took a saw to the pole trapping the calf and had it out about the time we arrived.  The calf hobbled over to the trough and drank and drank and drank.

This time the farmer seemed much more appreciative.  He gratefully told us that he doubted the calf would have lived until morning had he not been released from his trap.  I could tell he was about give out, but he wanted to chat, perhaps to make up for nearly blowing us off before.

As he lived on Gentile Road I asked if he knew my Uncle Don who lives another couple of miles West.  "Sure do!" he replied.  "We used to be in the same Ward, years and years ago.  Then the Ward was divided and then the Stake.  Now we don't even live in the same Stake!"  He remembered Uncle Don well enough to remember that he was from Star Valley.

John who thinks I must know everybody.  Had his suspicions confirmed and razzed me a bit about it on the way back to the Reunion.  There, we made a big deal out of Megan and Jeff saving the calf from certain death.  Nice to be in the company of heroes.  Big or small.

Patron Aint

I've sort of been on a Saint bent latterly.  So today I thought I'd introduce you to an Aint.  That's right this guy aint no Saint.  He's the legendary Doc Holliday.

Doc was a Dentist.  Though he claimed to have only practiced Dentistry for five years.  He lived in Georgia principally, until he contracted tuberculosis.  To ease the symptoms and prolong his life he moved west.  In Texas he met Wyatt Earp.  Later in Dodge City, Kansas he came to Earp's aid against some gunslingers and Earp acknowledged that Doc had saved his life.  They became fast friends.

Constantly moving, avoiding the westward crawl of civilization and respectability the Earps and Doc Holliday wound up in Tombstone, Arizona where they fought in the famous gunfight at the OK Corral.  Some time after the gun fight, Morgan Earp was murdered.  Doc jointed the Earps on a vendetta ride seeking revenge on those responsible.

They were law men, gamblers, and now out laws.  They went to Colorado and finally Doc settled in Glenwood Springs, hoping for healing from the curative waters of the warm springs there.  He died there November 8, 1887.  He was 36.  They buried him in a cemetery on a hill overlooking the city.

On August 5, 2002, I climbed that hill.  It is a steep trail and I wondered how elderly mourners made it up there, let alone the hearse.  Aside from its poor accessibility, it is the second most breath taking cemetery setting I've ever seen.  They don't know exactly where John Henry Holliday is buried but a marker has been placed with a wrought iron fence around his possible plot.

This photo is from a Geocache I established in Doc's honor.  I created the Cache to help others locate this tidbit of old west history.  When I first went there I was taken by the fact that folks had left tokens at his monument.  A shot glass of whiskey and an ace of spades lay there on that day.  It amused me.  It was as if Doc had become the patron saint of sinners, gamblers, drunks and outlaws.  Pilgrims from far and wide come here, pay homage and leave a remembrance.

I set it up as a Virtual Cache.  Typical caches have a hidden container with a log and some trinkets.  Virtual Caches just lead to a place such as this and finders must email the owner with some detail to verify that they had actually been there.  My request for this one is that cachers report what mementos they find left at the monument.  In the eight years since then there have been 374 logged visits cataloging the persistent tributes of supplicants and revelers from who knows where.  They've posted 178 photos recording this amazing, heart warming, mysterious, anonymous practice.

In their anal retentive way Geocaching.com no longer allows Virtual Caches.  Interesting since so many logs thank me for placing and maintaining the Virtual Caches I have.  I'm grateful I did because I, with the help of all my caching friends, have chronicled the on going devotion we seem to hold for our heroes from the Wild Wild West.  You can visit Patron Aint and read the logs and view the pictures.  You'll notice that some time in 2004 a new monument was placed at the site.  I liked the old one better.  Seemed more authentic.

You know I don't go in for drinking, gambling and so many of Doc's vices, still there is something about this man who died 123 years ago that appeals to me.  None of us are perfect, but most of us are forgotten.  Hold on, I'm not advocating a crime spree either, so don't go out and try to be the next D. B. Cooper.  What I am advocating is that we remember.  If these guys can faithfully climb that strenuous hill to Linwood Cemetery in all kinds of weather, what can we do?  Can we drop a note to a lonely grandmother?  Can we make a visit to a shut in.  Can we record our memories of ones we've loved and lost?  Wyatt Earp did:

"There was something very peculiar about Doc. He was gentlemanly, a good dentist, a friendly man and yet, outside of us boys, I don't think he had a friend in the Territory. Tales were told that he had murdered men in different parts of the country; that he had robbed and committed all manner of crimes, and yet, when persons were asked how they knew it, they could only admit it was hearsay, and that nothing of the kind could really be traced to Doc's account. He was a slender, sickly fellow, but whenever a stage was robbed or a row started, and help was needed, Doc was one of the first to saddle his horse and report for duty." 

He also said

 "Doc was a dentist not a lawman or an assassin, whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a frontier vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long lean ash-blond fellow nearly dead with consumption, and at the same time the most skillful gambler and the nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun that I ever knew."   "I found him a loyal friend and good company."

If Wyatt Earp could so kindly remember Doc Holliday, what might we do?

What's In Your Wallet?

I was fumbling in my overstuffed wallet this morning and decided it was high time I cleaned it out.  I used to clean it quite regularly when I carried it in my hip pocket.  Of necessity I had to keep it thin.  Back then I had fairly chronic back pain and a constantly sore hip joint.  At a family reunion we went for a hike and a cousin who is a physical therapist noticed a limp in my gait.  He suggested I start taking two steps at a time, when climbing stairs, for the sake of my hip and to quit sitting on my wallet as a remedy for my back.  Miracle of miracles, I was cured!  I am so grateful he wasn't I quacktopractor or I might not have taken his suggestion seriously.  Of course a quacktopractor would have overlooked the cause and required ongoing appointments to adjust my spine and the thickness of my wallet.

I can adjust the thickness of my wallet just fine on my own.  Thank you very much.

This was going to be a treat so I grabbed tall glass of milk and a bag of cookies to sustain me through this trip down memory lane.   I really like my wallet.  I've carried it for years.  I bought it from Day-Timer.  Originally, it came with a spiral bound calendar/planner that fit snuggly between the folds. It has a nice loop that perfectly fits my favorite Zebra Gel pen.  There's a pouch for credit cards and a four or five others of various sizes.  You'd think I could keep things well organized, but haven't seen what's in most of the pouches for several years.  I don't carry the calendar any more.  What little I have to keep track of I put on Google Calendar who sends me email reminders.  I like that.  I used to put things on my calendar and then forget to look at it.

Here's what I've been carting around:

• A fishing license receipt from 1999.  I suppose I kept it as a back up in case I lost the license.  I wonder how many times I went fishing that year?  The receipt says I bought it in late June, right after Free Fishing Day.  My Dad was sick and I spent a lot of time in Wyoming for the balance of the summer.  He died in late September.  I wonder if I ever used it.  In those days fishing licenses expired on December 31st.  I probably didn't get my money's worth.  These days the license is good for a year from whenever it was purchased.  Much better deal!
• A Lowe's receipt for a bundle of shims from October 2008.  There's no way I'd consider returning shims to the store.   I wonder why I put it in my wallet?  There's a phone number on the back.  Maybe that's why I kept the receipt.  I looked up the number up in the reverse directory, wondering who I was supposed to call.  It wasn't listed.  I wonder if I ever called it.  Did I miss out on something, or forget an important assignment?
• My Temple Recommend.  I'm pleased to report that it is current and good for another 22 months.  Looking at the signatures I remember the evening and following morning that I met with the Brethren to have it renewed.  They don't keep the same schedules they used to and being gone to the Detention Center for so long, I'm pretty out of touch with regular church routines these days.
• A 1998 penny.  There's no explaining that one.  I've never kept coins in my wallet and that certainly wasn't a rare collectible or anything.
• A stack of family photos from a visit to a photographer from around Christmas 2001, maybe a little after the first of the year.  Our grandson Jeff looks to be around 4 to 6 months old and is as cute as a button.  There's one of him alone,  one of Sweetie and I, one of the four girls, one of Jeff's parents and one of the whole clan.  There's another from a year or two earlier of the entire family. My we all look young!  Megan thinks I need an update in the wallet photo department because at age 6, she ought to be in grandpa's wallet too.  So do I.
• Three quad-fold reminder cards of the larger For The Strength of Youth.  I suppose I thought I was going to have them to hand out to at risk young people at some point.  I don't think I ever had occasion to do that, or a least forgot I had them when they were needed
• A tri-fold reminder card of the Young Women Values.  Like the others, it is worn, faded and tearing at the hinges.  And since they fairly recently added Virtue, it is out of date.  It sounds rather funny to think that Virtue wasn't always a Young Women Value.  Of course it was, just a bit more implied than it is today.
• A 2007 Vernal Temple schedule.  Which makes me sad.  Until recently, it still would be accurate as to the day to day operation.  Only the closing dates would be different.  Now though, the Temple is closed on Mondays and the 6:00 AM sessions no longer exist.  That was my favorite time to visit the Temple.  I am sympathetic to the concerns they had for sweet older workers who had to drive all the way from Tabiona, Duchesne and Altamont needing to be dressed and ready for a 5:30 prayer meeting.  Folks were getting up at 2:00 AM to make it on time.
• A Teamster's Health Insurance Card.  What a blessing, to have the same benefits we had before retirement for the balance of our lives!  And to think I never joined the Union.  You might think me ungrateful.  I looked into it once and when I read the oath of allegiance and then considered the Teamsters' track record I thought I might as well join the Gadianton Robbers.
• Two books of First Class Forever Postage Stamps.  I think these have been in there for two rate changes.  Thanks to email, and online bill payments I don't use stamps all that often.  I think I have about ten more books in my desk too.  At the rate I'm using them I may never suffer a postal rate change again!  Don't tell Kristi.
• Two twenty dollar bills.  One from 2006 and one from 2008.  No they haven't been there that long; that's when they were printed.  I wonder if they have cocaine residue on them?  Filthy lucre!  I once read that it's a real confidence booster to keep a $100.00 bill in your wallet.  I tried it, but then I realized how frequently my wife and daughters asked for the exact amount that happened to be in my wallet at the time.  Fearing that they did this by Zen rather than more conventional methods of inventory, I didn't even dare hide it in an obscure pouch in the back.  It didn't boost my confidence at all.
• A debit card.  It's from Mt. America Credit Union who has lately had the customer service culture of a Bank.  What a disappointment.
• A credit card.
• My driver's license.  Holy Cow!  It doesn't expire until 2013!  It says I'm a donor, which I take to refer to my organs rather than taxes.  I guess I give taxes more freely than organs, which I'll only give up over my dead body.  No, that isn't right either.  My body can't be dead, only my brain.  Hey, they probably can start harvesting any time now.  It lies about my weight.  Hopefully, that will be more correct in 2013 so I don't have to lie again.
• A Smith's Rewards Card, so they can charge me more, then make me think they're so generous by giving some of my money back.
• A GNC discount card.  It expires in 5 months and I haven't even been back since the initial visit in which I paid for it.
• A Cafe Rio Diner's Card.  Two more meals and I get one free.  I have been back there.
• An American Red Cross First Aid Certification Card.
• An American Red Cross CPR Certification Card.  Hope I never need to use what I've learned.
• A Staples Rewards Card.  This one is free.
• A National Park Service Annual Pass.  I buy one almost every year.  I've never wasted the money.  On this pass I've been to Arches twice, Canyonlands three times, Zions, Dinosaur, Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef!  It expires in a week.
• A Library Card.  Mostly I piggy back on Sweeties, though since she hooked up with Book Mooch, we don't borrow from the library all that often.
• A Blockbuster Membership Card.  Don't use it much either since DVR and Netflix.
• An Ace Rewards Card.  This one gets used a lot.  Plus they often send a discount card with I gum* to the Rewards Card so I don't forget to use it.  It come's gummed* to the flier.  (*Gummy glue that resembles a booger and is equally hard to flip off your finger.)  Better prices, service and products than Lowe's.
• My DOT Medical Examiner's Certificate.  This is expired as is my need to carry it.
• An Address Book.  This one is very portable.  The size of a credit card it is accordion folded between two magnetic covers.  Really handy but way out of date.  When I put it in my wallet Kristi lived in Hall's Crossing, John and Jen in Glenwood Springs, Lee Ann and Gary in Anderson, Eric and Annie in Goose Creek, and Alyson in England.  We're about the only ones still in the same place.
• A Movie Gallery Card.  They're out of business.  Netflix?  Red Box?  Boom gone bust?  All of the above.
• USAA Auto Insurance Card.
• A Uniform Donor Card.  Is this redundant?  I think I'll keep it anyway.  I've tossed so much stuff that the card pouch is no longer snug and I'm likely to lose something if I don't have at least some filler.
• Steve Cowan's Business Card.  He's no longer with Gulf Stream and I'm no longer with Sundance.  My back is aching just thinking about all the energy I've wasted toting this around.
• Pastor Kirk's Business Card.  We each walked alone into the 711 Cafe one lunch time and wound up sitting together.  We had a great visit and enjoyed getting acquainted.  He's Pastor of the Kingsbury Community United Church of Christ.  He pointed out that his was a church of sinners as opposed to Saints.  I pointed out that he needed a less Catholic definition of the term Saint.  
• The Business Card of J. Gordon O'Brien of O'Brien's Music Store.  O'Brien's is the oldest store on the oldest street in the oldest city in North America, or so they claim.  When we were in St. John's, Newfoundland we stopped in there.  I was hoping to find a concertina or small accordion.  Gordon talked me out of it fearing it would be out of tune before I got it home.  The reeds are set in wax and the summer heat in the car could melt it.  So instead, I bought a Bodhran which I've yet to learn to play as the tipper is pretty tricky to operate.  Having spent the money I owed Sweetie, so she got a terrific tea set in Cape Breton that has so totally justified the dust on the Bodhran that neither of us feel bad.
• A Voter Registration Card from 2006.  It lists me as unaffiliated, a situation I still celebrate as I bolted from the Republican Party for abandoning me.  The intervening four years have only affirmed my decision.  Plus, I have a great answer when the call asking for money.

Well, if you're an archaeologist, scrounging through the strata of today's dig, you might have a better understanding of this old fossil.  As, for me, it was quite a trip down memory lane.  I'm a bit sad to have a much thinner wallet.  Not because I'm poorer but because it is no longer thick enough to stay put in the nice little slot in the dash of the Yukon, where I've parked it for the past 100,000 miles.