BACK PACKING TRIP TO THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

I would like to issue a heart-felt (literal) thank you to my sons and grandsons who invited me to accompany them on a leisurely hike in the Sawtooth range of mountains in Idaho. “Oh dad you should come. It is a really easy hike and there is supposed to be very good fishing in the lake where we’ll be camping”. “Have any of you actually been on this hike or been to this lake?,” I asked. “No but right here on my I-Phone I have an app. Shows exactly the route to take. Come on it will be a good test for your recent heart surgery.” Of course the easy hike in beautiful scenery and the ease of effort and the promise of good fishing hooked me. So I accepted the offer. The first harbinger of bad luck came when I forgot my hiking poles in the back of the truck. But it was supposed to be an easy hike, right! We motored by boat to the head of Red Fish Lake. The water was mirror perfect and the temperature in the low 40’s, an ideal day for hiking. We started out by missing the main trail and having to bush whack through about a mile of dense brush and trees. We had to cross a raging stream which sort of put me off to start with. Why was I trusting these guides when we were lost within ten minutes of leaving the boat. We had to hang our socks and shoes around our necks and wade this ice cold stream and then put our shoes and socks back on. Have you ever tried to put a tight wool sock on over a wet foot? Then once again up through the tangles and briers until we finally happened upon the main trail. By comparison the trail proved easy hiking and all seemed well. Shortly thereafter we encountered two hapless ruffed grouse. Josh proceeded to stone one until it was momentarily stunned. He ran over to pick it up but was so afraid that it was going to bite him that he held back until the grouse recovered it’s balance and flew away. Imagine? He was afraid it was going to bite him. Josh you need to lay off the basketball a little more and get out in the mountains. Then Brek amazed us all by pulling out his 9mm pistol and shooting the head off the remaining bird. I mean the head just blew right off. The grouse was immediately handed to me to finish. I quickly skinned it, gutted it and put it in a plastic bag. It was cooked later that evening and each person got a small piece. It was considered the high light of the trip which of course makes one immediately wonder about the rest of the trip if a taste of ruffed grouse was the highlight. You are right to wonder as subsequent events will confirm.

We continue hiking until the I-Phone App. told us to turn left and pointed toward an almost vertical face of mountain. We shortly came upon a giant granite slide that had wonderful water slide potential. Brandon with full pack and full clothes went to inspect it closer. His feet immediately slipped out from under him and he went kicking and screaming down the water chute and into a large pool at it’s base

He headed for shore yelling at the top of his lungs. He crawled out on the rock and discovered that he had lost his i-phone in the pool of water where he had landed. Josh agreed to strip off his clothes and see if he could retrieve that lost phone. However, each time Josh got in the water and put his head under he would panic and leap back out of the water. Remember this was the kid who was afraid to touch a grouse for fear it would bite him. After intensified persuasion he attempted it a couple more times but was too frightened. He spotted a couple of small fish when he put his head under the water and it put the fear in him. Again Brek I think you should get him off the basketball court and out into the wilds.

Now the thing that occurred next should have been a turning point for me. I should have retraced my steps back to the boat and camped out there for the next two days. After consulting the I-Phone map app, it was discovered that the boys had made a slight mistake reading the information. They had confused distance with elevation. After correcting their mistake they realized that over the next mile and a half there was an elevation gain going from 4680 feet up to 8499 feet. That was like climbing a ladder for 4000 feet. Oh that wisdom had prevailed and I had turned my back on the boys. But no, instead I have to thank them for talking me into continuing. “Oh come on dad, it can’t be that bad, other people do it.”“We’ll help you, you can make it….” “You haven’t had a heart attack so far so you are probably good to go.” So under duress and against my better judgment I continued. I admit that I do have the correct vocabulary ( I learned it as a child herding sheep) to describe the next mile and a half but if I were to employ such language I would have shocked my grandsons. So I swallowed my words and journeyed on. It was horrible. With each step I realized my old knees were screaming and protesting because they knew they were going to have to hold me back coming back down. And to be honest and give credit where credit is due, there was some help from the promised assistance. The last two hundred yards my grandsons offered to shoulder my back pack. Thank you Josh and Brandon. I finally staggered into camp and flopped on the ground to catch my breath. However, my breath was very elusive and difficult to catch. Brandon, true to his promise rewarded me with a small piece of black liquorish. Brandon, I am sorry that I didn’t act more appreciative. My attention at the time was more focused on the excruciating pain in my legs, lungs and heart. Remember I had just had heart surgery a month earlier. I realized that I must have failed as a father because there is not very much sympathy in the Pilling boys for physical or emotional pain. Mostly they just kick the tires and keep rolling.

There were darn few level camping spots so we searched around until I found a spot on a fairly level piece of granite that bordered the lake. So I set up my tent, blew up my air mattress, shook out my sleeping bag, took off my shoes, rolled up my pants and draped my feet and legs into the cold mountain lake. Ahhhhh Cory told me that if I did that it would help restore strength and relaxation back into my muscles. He lied. But thank you Cory for the thought. I know that it is the thought that counts, but in this case not so. Finally, some of my strength returned and my attention turned to the promise that was made to me before the hike began regarding the excellent fishing. I rigged my fly pole and my new fleugger automatic reel and set out to at least enjoy the fishing to help compensate for the ###**** hike. About an hour later I returned to camp with a eastern brook trout that was at least 8 inches long. My only bite, my only catch. About that time I realized that I had been well and truly had. Deceived, tricked, mislead, you name it. Once again I need to thank my boys for teaching me a valuable lesson about trust and business. Never before had I realized the importance of the cautionary statement for “buyer beware.” Thank you boys for reminding me again of that important principle. Wade, Jordan, Max and two friends joined us that evening. They had been hiking two days earlier over mountains and valley’s. That evening we had a wonderful time reliving memories, telling stories, exaggerating, laughing, making fun, teasing, imagining and smiling. I have noticed something interesting. When we are out in the mountains together we never gossip. We don’t talk about people, we don’t judge others we don’t even talk about other people. We just share adventures, experiences and fun. I like that about my kids. Hopefully my grandchildren are realizing the difference.

Now comes, if you can imagine, the absolutely the worse part of the trip. I retired to my tent and little air mattress and tried to sleep. Not so. No matter which direction I turned, left side, right side, flat on my back everything hurt. If I tried to bend my knees I immediately got a Charlie horse in my thigh or calf muscle. So I had to lay rigidly straight all night. Sleep wouldn’t come. At 5:00 a.m. I was still awake and cold. The boys kept telling me to “drink more water dad because you have to replenish all the water you lost climbing up the mountain”. Of course that meant that in the middle of the night I had to go to the bathroom. I staggered out of my tent to do so. I had a non-traditional sleep bag. It is called a ‘selk bag’. It is like the Michelin Tire Guy. It is an insulated suit that covers your whole body and conforms to your body shape. In order to enter and exit the suit you have to zip in down the front with two zippers. So the entire front of the bag hangs down like a big flap that allows you to get in and out. Now I hesitate to describe what happened next but there are mitigating circumstances. I am old, it was dark, I was standing on a huge rock surface that sloped into the water, I hadn’t slept all night and was groggy. Anyway there is no easy way to say this. I ended up peeing on the flap that was hanging down on my sleeping bag. I should have thought to tuck it between my legs but I didn’t. So off came the ‘selk bag’ and I got back in my tent with only my pajamas. However, about that time I did fall asleep even though I was freezing cold. About 5:30 a.m. I awoke to this horrible rushing noise that sounded like a jet plane coming up the canyon. It was loud enough that it woke everyone up. I figured it to be some kind of wind from hell and immediately I feared that I would be blown into the lake inside my tent. Because I was camped on a rock there had been no place to anchor my tent. Suddenly the wind hit. My tent was squashed down until the tent poles were against my face. I just knew I was headed for the lake. I undid my tent door because I wanted to be able escape if I hit the water. Didn’t want to be trapped inside. As soon as I opened my door the wind rushed in, ballooned my tent and threated to lift me sky ward. I crawled part way out of my tent and dug my fingers into solid rock and held on for dear life. After about 10 minutes the wind swept on up the canyon and stillness returned. Everyone was awake so we all got up and prepared to eat breakfast. I was done with my “selk bag” and determined to leave it hanging in a tree and not carry it out. Cory, however, said he would take it because one of his kids would like it. Sorry Cory, I forgot to tell you about the pee. You might want to wash the bag before you give it to any of the kids.

We packed up and started down the mountain. Jordan loaned me his hiking poles or I would have perished in the descent. Cory and Jase (one of Wade’s friends) stayed behind and helped me down the mountain. It was long and hard. Lost the trail three times and had to back track. My knees held up but my thighs burned so badly that they scorched my hiking pants. When we finally reached level ground we were greeted to the sight of half naked men and boys sliding down a waterslide over a huge granite rock and into the pool of water. Additional attempts were made to find Brandon’s lost phone but it was not to be. Maybe that is the Lord’s way of weaning him off social media before he goes on his mission. Maybe it even was a miracle. Thank you boys for allowing me to be there for the miracle. I’m glad I didn’t miss it. While they were cavorting I thought that I would start on down the trail so I didn’t cause them delays. Max determined to go with me just to make sure I didn’t collapse. In short order everyone else packed up and passed me on the trail. Even Max deserted me and joined the fleeing throng. However, Jordan (my favorite son, the one who loaned me his hiking poles and thereby saved my life) consented to remain behind with me. Every step had to be deliberate. My mind had to command my legs to keep stepping. I felt like an alcoholic that had to take one step at a time. It was so much longer than I remembered coming up. Finally, even Jordan despaired and left me behind. Only sheer determination and anger kept me going. Finally, when all energy and determination was depleted I sighted the dock and the boat. Fortunately, they had not left without me. I climbed into the boat and collapsed. When we got to the landing dock, Brek told me to get the truck and trailer and back it down into the lake to load the boat. It was 2-3 hundred yards away. When I began walking toward the boat I staggered like I was drunk. I weaved and stumbled, became disoriented, barely avoided slamming into tree and only barely made it to the truck. Able to back the truck in the water, loaded the boat and headed for home.

That night the sweetest moment of the whole trip was when I laid in my own bed. Ohhhhhh it was wonderful. Janice ran me a hot bath and added all her witch-doctor potions. Turned the jets in the tube on and AHHHHHH. I said to Janice. “if those boys of mine ever suggest that I go on a hike over night with them, I want you to shoot me in the foot and spare me some pain.”

A VERY FINE ADVENTURE TO CANADA

It was supposed to begin at 4:30 Saturday morning at Grandpa’s house. However, Brek arrived twenty minutes early. (Surprise) Brandon was sleeping at Grandpa’s so we woke him up and he and a blanket and a pillow tumbled into the back of Brek’s van with Scott and Joshua and they promptly fell back asleep. Brek crawled in the driver’s seat and Grandpa began driving. It was still dark and we decided to drive until the kids woke up. Brek said he needed to sleep but every time Grandpa swerved a little or hit a bump he would say, “are you o.k.? are you still awake?” Finally, he drifted off to sleep and Grandpa drove through Pocatello, Idaho Falls and clear to a little town called Dubois which they prounced as ‘doo boys’.

The boys all woke up and demanded a bathroom stop. We pulled into a service station and the boys emptied their tanks and Brek took over the driving. It had got light by and it was a beautiful looking day. We drove up over Monida Pass and into Montana. We saw antelope along the road and big herds a black angus cattle out in the green fields. We saw a big hawk sitting on a fence post that said Hi! when we drove by. We passed Clark Canyon Dam where we imagined huge trout swimming around and then drove down the Beaver Head River which is famous for it’s fly fishing. We considered stopping to fish but the boys stomach’s were beginning to growl for breakfast so we continued on. The boys kept asking “when are we going to be in Montana?” I’m not sure what they expected to see when we got to Montana but is must have been something different because even when we told them we were in Montana, twenty minutes later they would ask, “when are we going to be in Montana?” Finally, we explained to them that Montana was a State like Idaho and that where we were going was a place inside the State. I think Josh finally figured it out and explained to Scott and Brandon in a way they understood because that was the last time we heard the question.

We finally arrived at Butte and pulled into a little place called ‘Rocker’ for breakfast. Now you might thing that having traveled that far we would find a nice restaurant and sit down and have a pleasant breakfast. Not so! Brek herded us into a Macdonalds. At the front door was a big puddle of vomit that someone had puked all over the entrance. That should have told us something right there. But no, Brek had us jump the puddle and go in for breakfast. Grandpa was already feeling sick so instead of heading for the counter to order breakfast he bee lined for the bathroom. He filled the van with gas and met the boys coming out of Macdonald’s and we headed west toward Massoula. Before we got there we discovered a short-cut so detoured and turned north toward Big Fork. We saw beautiful fields with large stacks of hay that had been cut and piled to feed the cattle in the winter. We passed a reservoir of water that was almost full even after a summer of irrigation. Then the boys decided they needed another bathroom break and so did grandpa because he was still feeling sick. Brek pulled off the highway and down a dirt road. We all got out and grandpa went off into the trees and the boys stood on the road and had a contest to see how far they could pee. Brek continued down the dirt road to turn around and met an old rancher that told him he better get those boys picked up right away because all the little thickets were full of bears that had come down from the hills to feed on the crop of berries that were there. Brek turned around and came speeding back down the road causing a huge dust cloud. He slammed to stop right in front of us and the cloud of dust covered us all. He opened the window and shouted at us to get in the car on the double. Since we didn’t know what the big hurry was, the boys continued to throw some rocks into a little puddle of water. They were estimating how deep it was and I had just told them that alligators lived in the water and Brandon was in the midst of explaining to his grandpa why he was sure there weren’t any alligators there. However, I noticed that he had moved farther back from the water while he was explaining it, just in case. Brek shouted something more about bears so we finally loaded up and continued on our journey north.

We finally got to Seeley Lake where we left the foothills and got into the forest. We drove on a curving road that started Josh to feel car sick. He threatened to throw up so Brek slowed his speed and Josh sat up and looked straight ahead and finally felt o.k. We drove past beautiful mountain lakes surrounded by tall green pine trees. We rolled the windows down and smelled the beautiful, clean air. On some of the lakes there were waterskiers and we saw an island in one lake with a big beautiful home. They could only get to it by boat. One time we crossed bridge and Brek needed to see if there were any fish in it so we pulled over. Grandpa stayed with the van because he was still feeling sick. Brek and the boys crawled over the guard rail and bush whacked down to the river. But no fish just mosquitos. Pretty soon they came fogging back up the bank, got into the van and away we went. As we got closer to Echo Lake Brek saw a huge wild turkey gobbler that Brek said was bigger than any he had ever seen in South Dakota.

We finally arrived at Echo Lake and drove first of all to Uncle Noel’s cabin. No one was there but Jon Pilling had passed us coming in and turned around and followed us to the cabin. We all got out and the boys tore around through the trees and grass. I guess boys have a lot of energy that they have to burn-off periodically or trouble begins. We stopped often to let them rip around and it made it easier for them to tolerate the traveling. We visited with Jon for awhile and then his wife Jenny and little boy Cole showed up. Jon when into a trailer that was parked there and showed us a huge black bear head that was mounted and told us the following story. It held the boys attention completely. We were sitting on the back deck of Noel’s house right where it all happened. Jon & Jenny were living in Noel’s cabin for the winter while they worked on his new house. One night while Jon was away working, Jenny heard a lot of noise on the back deck. Jon had caught over a hundred Kokanee salmon and had them in an upright freezer on the back deck. Jenny though she heard the freezer tip over and got really scaird. She called Jon on the telephone and he told her to jus stay in the house and that we would be home the next day. In the morning Jenny went out the back door after the sun came up and saw the freezer knocked over, the door was opened on the freezer and all the fish were eaten and there was a mess everywhere. She called Jon and he came right home. That night the same thing happened all over again. They heard this banging and stomping on the back deck after it got dark. Jon didn’t have his rifles with him but had Grandpa Pilling’s old twenty-two. He turned the back porch light on and there was this big black bear routing around in the freezer again. He kept the lights inside the house off and carefully opened the door a little bit and aimed at the bears head and shot. The bear immediately dropped dead.

In the morning Jon went out to inspect the dead bear. He found out that one side of the bear was damaged from a car hitting it and so the bear pelt was not one that he could keep and have tanned. But he skinned the head and had it mounted with it’s mouth open showing it’s very large teeth. We got to see it while he told the story. The one good thing is the bear got a wonderful last meal when he ate all hundred of the Kokanee salmon.

Cole is about four years old and doesn’t have any other siblings so he was having a wonderful time playing with the boys. After visiting for awhile we drove over to the Lake and visited with Bill Tanner and old friend of grandpa’s from Canada. He had a beautiful house on the lake with a dock and a big yard. Some of his kids and grandkids were all there vacationing. He wanted us to stay closer to him because we had a motel rented in Kalispel for two nights. He immediately got on the telephone and called Aunt Darlene and she gave us permission to stay in the bunk house and to use the bathroom in her cabin if we didn’t use too much toilet paper. (saved $120) Grandpa was still feeling very sick so he went into the bunk house and fell asleep. Brek and the boys changed into there swimming suits and went to the lake. Brek waterskied behind Bill’s new ski boat and promptly made the decision to sell his boat and upgrade at some later date. The boys harassed all of Bill’s granddaughters and called them pansies. I’m not sure they knew what a pansy was because Josh later said to me, “grandpa isn’t there an animal called a pansy?” I said, “maybe you are thinking of a panda.” “No” he said, “I think what I’m thinking of is a chimpansy.” So I think Josh thought that a pansy had something to do with a monkey. Anyway, they gave all Bill’s girl grandkids a lesson in rough housing, jostling, pushing, shoving, name calling, shouting and yelling. Bill doesn’t have any grandchildren that are boys and so was a bit disappointed when his girl grandchildren got so easily intimated and bowled over. The boys showed them ‘no mercy’. The motto for the trip became: “NO GIRLS, NO CHORES” for a whole week. I’m afraid Bill’s grand-daughters were later rejoicing that there were NO BOYS.

In the afternoon we drove into Kalispel where we ate lunch at Taco John’s. Grandpa came but didn’t eat anything. Still sick. We met Bryce and Becky Hall from Calgary and caught up on all the latest happenings from Calgary. We went to the Sporthaus and bought Brandon a new sweatshirt following instructions from his mother.

When they arrived back at the bunk house it was just starting to get dark. Bill had a big screen set up in his back yard to watch an outdoor movie. But just before dark Bill and his brother-in-law, Norm Sellers took Brek and Bill for one more waterski. While they were out on the water it had got quite dark and a boat warden pulled them over and gave them a ticket for $85.00 for skiing after dark. That ended the waterskiing so they came back to the dock and started the ‘Shaggy Dog’ movie. Josh’s hair was so long we noticed that he and the Shaggy Dog looked a lot alike.

The boys watched the movie and ate popcorn until 11:00 p.m. and then came to bed. Grandpa was still asleep. But not for long. It took about another 15 minutes for the boys to decide which bunk bed they were going to sleep on. Scott didn’t want to sleep under- neath Josh for fear he would throw up in the night. Brandon didn’t want to sleep in a bunk that was close to the ceiling for fear he would wake up in the night and bump his head. Josh wasn’t sure where he wanted to sleep. Scott wanted to sleep near his dad and grandpa just wanted to get back to sleep. Finally, after fifteen minutes of high-level negotiations, Brek made the decision for them and things quieted down.

Half way through the night Grandpa got up to walk to Aunt Darlene’s cabin to go to the bathroom. When he came back he left the door to the bunk house open to let some fresh air in. A few hours later he woke up and there was a terrible smell of skunk. He thought maybe the skunk was just passing by with his family for a little night vacation. However, he heard a little rustling over by Brandon’s bed and feared that the’ beast was among us.’ He reached up and switched on the light and there was a big skunk sniffing around in Brandon’s backpack. He immediately turned off the light and put his head under the covers and waited and waited and waited. He was afraid that if any of the kids woke up of made a noise that the skunk would spray and then it would ruin the inside of Aunt Darlene’s bunkhouse, wreck all our clothes and we would smell like skunks for the rest of our vacation and weeks beyond. Finally, after about fifteen minutes grandpa heard the tap, tap of little toe nails going out the door. He turned on the light, leaped out of bed and quickly closed and locked the door. All of the kids and Brek slept blissfully on without knowing that Grandpa had saved them from a very smelly disaster. But, what are grandpa’s for except to save the day. Even though it was his fault that he left the door open, he was still the unsung and unappreciated hero.

The next morning was fast-Sunday so we didn’t have to have breakfast. (Saved a little more money there) We got dressed for church and went to the Big Fork Ward. There were so many tourists there that they only held sacrament Meeting. There were over 1000 people that attended testimony meeting. It was a wonderful ward with welcoming, gracious people that were very friendly. There were special testimonies. Two people who were mentally challenged bore their testimonies and we couldn’t understand even one word. Josh leaned over to me and asked if they were speaking a foreign language. Brandon laid his head on my lap and had me rub his back and head for half the meeting. Then Josh scooted a little closer and pretty soon they were both getting back rubs, neck rubs and ear rubs. I know how good that feels because sometimes in sacrament meeting grandma will do the same for me. It helps a lot because I promptly go to sleep and the meeting goes a lot faster.

After sacrament meeting we went back to the bunk house, changed our clothes and headed for Canada. We drove into Columbia Falls for some lunch but Brek decided that it might be cheaper if we went into a grocery store and ate at the deli. After we had eaten chicken, soup, donuts and cherries we got back in the van and started for Glacier Park. They had closed Logan’s Pass because of bad forest fires on the St. Maries side but opened it for us just especially. We drove past Macdonald’s Lake where Grandpa’s family used to vacation every summer. Then we needed another pit stop. Of course that doesn’t necessarily mean that we stop at a restroom. Instead we stopped along upper McDonald where there were lots of trees and deep holes of crystal clear water that was barely above freezing. After watering the trees the boys began exploring up and down the creek. Brek spotted a trout in one of the pools and took some pictures of it. Next thing we know there is a big splash and there is Josh swimming across one of the deep freezing pools of river water. Before you could say ‘Jack Robinson’ there were two other splashes and there were Brandon and Scott in the same pool. Well for the next 10 minutes they were leaping off rocks and shouting at Brek to take their pictures. There were tourists gathered along the rocks watching and laughing and the boys put on quite a show. Finally the cold water slowed them down and they climbed out looking like drowned rats. We dried them off, threw them in the van and we continued on up over Logan’s Pass. At the top we stopped and got some water to drink. There were motorcycles everywhere and lots of people. After getting a drink and harassing some ground squirrels we drove down the east side of the pass. There were forest fires burning across St. Mary’s Lake and the smoke was everywhere. At St. Mary’s we turned north and drove the last 23 miles to the border and into Canada. Prior to arriving at the border we instructed the kids on proper border etiquette. Basically we told them to sit down, shut up and to not speak unless spoken to and not to volunteer anything. It turned out to be an impossible request so we just made do. We confused the border guard so much he forgot to ask for any identification and seemed happy to have us on our way.

We drove to Cardston and tried to get some money out of the Toronto Dominion Bank but were unsuccessful because the pin number was wrong but as it turned out we were using the wrong card. We showed the boys the Cardston Temple and then drove out to Mountain View to stay with Uncle Noel and Aunt Sandy. They weren’t home and the house was locked up so we drove over to the Mountain View Inn that Grandpa and Grandma build and where Brek & Emily lived for one whole summer. The people let us take the boys inside and showed them through the house. They were pretty impressed. Finally we went back to Noel’s and they fed us some food and we went to bed. Grandpa arranged to pick up two horses to take into Lineham Lake the next day. Uncle Noel loaned his truck and horse trailer for us to use. Next morning we woke up at 5:30 and packed all our stuff to go hiking. Grandpa went and picked up the two horses name Hero and Peanuts. We met him up the canyon at the trail head. We put the bridles on the horses, tightened the cinches and mounted up. Brek, Scott and Josh wanted to hike so grandpa got on Peanuts and Brandon got on Hero. It wasn’t long before Scott was behind Grandpa and Josh was behind Brandon. Pretty soon they wanted to walk again so it was on again off again until we reached Rowe Meadows. When we rode out into the meadow there were deer everywhere. They went bounding off into the trees. The meadow was covered with a carpet of pink flowers that were beautiful. We stopped at the stream and had a cold drink of water before starting up the steepest part of our climb. We left the meadow and the adults, boys and horses were huffing and puffing. We had to make frequent stops to catch our breath. The horses were sweating and so were all of us.

After a little while the trail leveled out and then we came upon a wonderful surprise. We ran into five big horn sheep that were just barely off the trail. They let us get really close and we took some great pictures. Each of the rams were almost a full curl of horn which make them trophy rams. We had just started up the shale slope and Josh wanted to ride Hero so Brandon got off and started hiking up the shale. He hiked so fast that he left us behind so he missed some of the rodeo that happened next. One of the things that we had instructed the boys was that when they were riding no matter what happened not to yell or shout. Josh’s horse slipped off the shale trail and started jumping down the mountain. To Josh’s credit he didn’t yell or shout but man did he scream. We finally got the horse stopped and slowly worked him back up to the trail. It seemed to dampened the boys enthusiasm for riding for the next mile or so. Josh later said to his dad that he kind of enjoyed riding the horse because it moved so fast even though he was also scaird.

From there to the top of the Lineham Ridge we led the horses instead of riding them. Brandon beat us all to the top of the ridge and we had to holler at him to wait. Finally, we tied the horses to the last trees on the ridge and took their saddles and bridles off. We put on our packs, got our fishing poles and headed up to the top of the ridge. When we reached the top and looked over the edge we were just a little frightened. It was very steep and rocky. We slowly worked our way down the side of the mountain and finally reached the Lake. We broke out our fishing gear and started fishing. But the fishing wasn’t very good. Grandpa was so exhausted he only fished for about 10 minutes and then laid down in the grass to rest. He was afraid he couldn’t get back up the ridge to the horses. He had been sick and was feeling really weak. Brek, Scott and Josh went fishing around the lake so Grandpa and Brandon decided that they would start back. We took a different trail getting to the shale through some tamarack trees. When they got in the trees they saw a lot of bear sign. Trees and grass had been chewed on, some rocks had been turned over and their were drag marks in the grass. Grandpa told Brandon to get his bear spray out. We decided to test the bear spray to see if it worked. Grandpa pushed the button and a big spray came out but the wind blew some of it back into our faces. We sneezed and gasped and choked and our noses hurt. Finally, the air cleared and we felt better and continued hiking. I think our snorting and gasping scaird the bear away. We got to the hard cliff face and the climbing became steeper and harder and harder. Grandpa would pick a rock and we would climb until we reached it. Then Brandon would choose a rock and we would climb until we made it to that rock. Brandon was like spider man. His long arms and legs would reach out and grasp the rocks and ledges and then he would slowly creep up and he just kept going and going. Grandpa was getting more and more tired and at one stop Brandon said, “Grandpa maybe we better have a prayer so you can keep going.” So we had a prayer and finally a step at a time we made it to the top. Brek, Scott & Josh caught us just as we neared the top. They sat down to have something to eat while Grandpa staggered down to where the horses were tied. He threw the saddles on the horses, tightened their cinches and we started down the shale trail. It was too steep for anyone to ride so we led the horses down to Roe Meadows where we dropped on our bellies and drank and drank water. The horses did their share of drinking as well. Brek’s toes were sore, Brandon’s heel was blistered, Scott was tuckered out, Grandpa was near death and Josh seemed just fine. So given the situation, Scott got on the black horse ‘Hero’, grandpa got on the white horse ‘Peanuts’ and we started down the trail.

That way back is always longer than the way up but we finally made it to the truck and horse trailer. Even the horses were happy to get a ride from there. They almost ran over grandpa getting into the trailer. The boys were pretty grossed out because the horses pooped in the trailer. (city boys) We got home and were so tired. Aunt Glenda has something for us to eat (refried beans) afterwhich we quickly showered and crashed into bed. We were all so tired we could hardly move.

The next morning we planned to go to Kootenai Lake which is a much easier hike than the day to Lineham. Uncle Richard had a boat that would take all of us up Waterton Lake to the trail head but Brek would have to ride the International Boat with lots of other people. We borrowed some of Uncle Noel’s life jackets so we each had one. After breakfast we drove to the docks in Waterton and loaded into the boat. Uncle Richard’s son Allen and his son Trae all came with us. The lake was perfectly calm and we could see the reflections of all the mountains in the water. Dad sent his very heavy backpack for poor old grandpa to carry up to the lake because he wasn’t leaving until about an hour after we left. If he didn’t have to carry his pack then he could run into the lake and catch about the same time that we arrived. We got in to boat and had a wonderful ride up the lake. It was so beautiful that we could hardly believe our eyes. It was also a little cold.

Just as we were pulling into the dock when we looked down and saw a huge school of white fish. The boys were barely constrained from getting their fishing poles out and hiking no further. We visited with the immigration officer and were finally cleared to hike into the U.S. Richard and Allen went ahead and grandpa decided that we would hike at the pace set by the boys. Well for sure the pace slowed down. Every thimble berry was located and eaten, all the blue berries were eaten, foliage was ripped from it’s roots and every rabbit, squirrel and chipmunk were terrorized. Uncle Richard and Allen hid in the trees and when we were walking along they jumped out and growled at us. Grandpa said later that he wished he had the bear spray out because he would have sprayed them with it. Just as we arrived at the Lake, Brek showed up. He had run all the way from the trail head and got there as fast as we did. We sat on a log and changed our hiking shoes to aqua socks, (except Brandon, he kept his hiking shoes on). We rigged our fishing poles and started walking around the Lake where the good fishing was. Along the way we saw a huge bull moose out in the water. He would put his whole head under the water and eat water cress that was on the bottom of the lake. After he got a mouth full he would lift his head out of the water to chew it. Water would run off his head and horns and he would shake his head and ears. He seemed not to even notice us. We had to wade through sticky mud and grass before we got to the fishing spot. Uncle Richard beat us there and had already hooked a fish. He was quickly surrounded by four little fishermen who were casting and making lots of noise. Uncle Richard decided he better quit fishing until the noisy little bunch moved on.

Well that was the beginning of the greatest day of fishing that any kid or adult could imagine. We waded out in the water and caught fish after fish. They were beautiful Eastern Brook Trout. The kids caught more fish than the adults. There was laughter and excitement and fun. We fished until our arms got tired. When the water got so cold that our legs would get numb we would walk out on the shore, warm up alittle and then wade back in. The boys would wade in clear to their tummy buttons. Finally, when we had sixteen big trout we decided that was enough and we turned all the rest that we caught loose. The boys helped gut the fish and get them ready for transport. Just as we finished gutting the fish a big cow moose and a new calf came walking out of the trees right behind us. We quickly got the kids to hold up the fish and we took pictures of the boys with the fish and the moose behind as background. Where would you ever see another picture like that?

Finally, it was time to quit and leave. Brek had to meet the International Boat at a certain time so we packed up and left. We changed to our hiking boots (except Brandon who had to hike in wet, muddy socks and shoes). We loaded all sixteen fish in a bag that we filled with grass and leaves and put them in Brek’s backpack. We started down the trail hiking faster than when we came in. Brek and Josh set a faster pace so we soon lost sight of them. When we arrived at the lake we noticed that the wind had changed and was blowing quite hard down the lake toward us. Uncle Richards boat had the back end facing out into the lake and the waves had splashed over the back of the boat and the boat was almost filled with water. We bailed and bailed until we could get the boat off the rocks and in deep enough water to start the motor. Then we turned the bilge pump on and it started to pump water out the side of the boat. Then we all got in the boat and started down the lake. The boat was so low in the water that the water kept spraying over the front and getting us wet. Gradually the pump got more and more of the water out and we went faster and faster. Finally, about half-way down the lake the bilge pump finished empting the boat. We had a fish finder and their were lots of fish showing on the screen. Some places the lake was 560 feet deep twenty feet from shore. No matter how deep the lake was the fish were all at about 100 feet deep.

We finally made it all the way down the lake and the boys got out. We got their about 10 minutes before Brek arrived. He had been entertaining everyone on the boat with his stories so that the announcer person was frustrated. They didn’t want to listen to her they wanted to listen to Brek. He stole the whole show away from her and she gave him a dirty look. After we docked the boat we noticed that there were two mule deer bucks eating on the grass lawn. Tourists were gathered around taking their pictures. But not for long. The minute the boys spotted the deer the chase was on. In about 10 seconds the deer were on the run with the boys in hot pursuit. Brandon even forgot about his blisters. Of course the photo opportunity for the tourists was gone and I don’t think they were too happy about it.

We arrived back at Aunt Glenda’s cabin full of stories to tell her and the evidence to prove it. Brek cleaned the fish better and put them in the fridge. Aunt Glenda had tacos prepared for us so we ate, played with their dog named Smokey. Finally, we all went to bed. The next morning we selected about eight fish and started preparing them for breakfast. We heated up the barbeque and a big frying pan. We seared the fish on both sides and pulled the skin off. Then we laid them on tin foil in the barbeque and spiced them with a secret blend of herbs and seasonings. Then we closed the lid and let them cook. Finally, they were done and we ate fish until it was coming out our ears. It was so delicious. Never had fish tasted so good. We ate and ate until there wasn’t a single piece of fish left for Smokey. He only got a few crumbs that fell on the floor.

We then all got in the van and headed for Red Rock Canyon. On the way up something happened that is probably best not recorded. I heard Brandon on the phone telling his dad that he must never tell anyone else about this. We were driving up the canyon and grandpa saw a family of Ruffed Grouse on a side road that led to a camp site. Well, Brek slammed on the brakes and quickly backed up. We slowly drove onto the side road and there was an adult grouse with about six younger ones. It started out as a picture-taking moment but quickly deteriorated into an attack frenzy. The boys got out to have a closer look and a couple of them flew up into a tree. The boys had the tree surrounded. I don’t know who it was who said that they were good eating (Brek) but that was all it took. Instantly there were rocks, missiles, sticks and stones flying through the air in the general direction of the treed grouse. Since the tree was surrounded, that meant that those same rocks, missiles, sticks and stones were landing on the kids on both sides of the trees. They finally figured that out and all moved to one side. Brandon, clipped one on the side of it’s body and it flew out of the tree. Brandon shouted, “we got dinner tonight”. They all rushed over to where the grouse landed and scooped it up. As it turned out the grouse was not dead or even seriously wounded, just scaird half to death. The boys picked it up and each had their picture taken with it. Brek was careful not to have the van license plate in the background. Well we turned the grouse loose so we didn’t have it for breakfast but I’ll bet it took the mother grouse the rest of the day to assemble the family and talk about what the heck happened.

We finally got the little stick demons back in the van and continued on up to Red Rock. We got out of the van and started hiking up the trail. Where we needed to cut off from the trail the park had put in a chain link fence. However, not to be deterred we hiked to the end of the fence and got around it. We came to the secret place that only we knew of and climbed down into the canyon. It was pretty tricky but every one made it without falling. Once in the bottom of the canyon we hike up through water falls, log jams and tight slippery rocks. We kept trying to get Brandon to smile for the pictures that we were taking and finally it happened. Josh had to go to the bathroom but instead of standing in the water and peeing down stream, he was peeing upstream so it all washed down against his leg. Brandon started laughing and we finally got a picture with a smile. The boys did balancing acts on logs, they used their hiking sticks to balance them walking on steep walls, they slid down slippery rocks into deep holes of clear cold water and climbed like little mountain goats. We finally made it out to the bottom of the canyon and they were cold and wet. However, that didn’t take the smiles off their faces.

We took off their wet shirts, loaded up in the fan and started back down the road. There was a place in the road with a steep drop and Brek went over it so fast that our stomachs went anti-gravity. We found some Service Berry bushes so we pulled over and picked and ate berries. Brek took some home and made berry syrup with butter, sugar and who knows what else. It was very good and we poured some of it on our fish.

Then we drove into Waterton Townsite and went to the Big Scoop and got nummy ice cream cones. Then we went down to the lake shore and threw rocks at every single seagull that flew by. We came pretty close to some of them. Then we had a rock throwing contest and Scott won. Then we got in the van and drove to Cameron Falls. Josh tried to fish for chipmunks but couldn’t get them to bite. Brek paid Scott two dollars if he would dive in the water and swim under the falls. It is hard for Scott to turn down money so he did it. By this time we were very tired so went back to the cabin. We had hot showers, got warm and went to bed. The next morning we drove the long way back to Idaho and our very fine adventure was over. Brek finally stopped for us to have lunch at the Hungry Bear Restaurent but it was beef jerky from there on home.

DOG JOURNAL

DAY ONE (The Abandonment)
I had no idea they were thinking of leaving me behind although I suspected something was amiss. They woke me up at an unearthly hour and packed me up in the truck. I heard some kind of argument going on between my master and his co-master. My master wanted to leave me somewhere and the co-master was objecting. I tried to interject my opinion but nobody wanted to listen to me so I just let out a little fart in protest. As the argument progressed I could see both sides. One the on hand I could stay with another human that may or may not take good care of me or I could go to Montana and potentially get in trouble with a Park Ranger and get shot or I could be eaten by a bear. To me it was a no brainer. But my co-master is pretty persuasive and it looked like I was headed for a bear dinner. I began to let out a lot of farts so they would decide not to take me because I would stink up the joint. Finally, my master prevailed and I realized I was going to stay with another human. Then another worry surfaced. I didn’t know who this other human was. Maybe he would forget to feed me, or take my pill or maybe I could starve to death or maybe he wouldn’t pat me and rub my head and say nice soft things to me. I wondered if maybe that had made the wrong decision by leaving me behind. By this point I had run out of farts and so I didn’t have much to say.

We left so early in the morning that I just decided what the Heck! and went back to sleep. How much control does a dog have in his life anyway. Humans make most of the decisions for us. The truck finally stopped and I opened my eyes and we were at a service station. Still dark. My master got me and my favorite sleeping cage and transferred me over to a car that looked a lot like the one my co-master drives. However, it didn’t smell the same. It was sterile and uninteresting, not like my co-masters van which smells of treats, and crumbs and sticky candy and surgary stuff. Any way much to my relief I recognized the new human which I will refer to later as human one. I think you call him your grandpa. I think my grandpa was a fierce cocker spaniel who ran with a pack of wolves. I inherited a lot of his courage and fierceness. I’m not afraid of anything.

Anyway, I felt better about my abandonment and jumped up on the seat and watched you pull away. Whoa! Maybe I wasn’t ok. Before I knew it I heard a whine coming out of my mouth. You were leaving me. Who would pull my ears and let me lick there face. Who would clean up my pee? Who would love me and tell me nice things. Oh I felt so lonely that I cried all the way to my next destination. I looked and looked out the windows hoping you were following me. You humans can be so cruel and uncaring at times. Don’t you think dogs have feelings? I felt so bad I peed on the seat. But thankfully dogs have really quite short memories and adjust quickly to new surroundings. What did you say your names were again? I can’t remember. Ha Ha

We arrived shortly thereafter at human one’s house. I remembered being there before and they were good memories. Cats ! Cats! and more cats. I remembered. He opened the door and the action began. I saw four or five cats and the fun began. I immediately charged them uttering loud growls. You should have seen the look on those cats faces. It was like Holy Crap where did he come from. They scattered in all directions. That would be north, south, east and west. However, they also have another direction and that is called UP. Two cats climbed a tree faster than a monkey with his tail on fire. I don’t understand this retractable claw thing. They just unsheathe those babies of theirs and up the tree they go. I tried it but all I could do was scratch the tree trunk. I don’t think that was very fair or I would be up that tree in a heart beat and we’ll see if those cats could fly. They would be leaping out of the tops of the trees like popcorn on a hot stove. Oh well. I’m not really sure what I would do if I caught one anyway. I bet they don’t taste good and it might be that those retractable claws would be ripping on me. Maybe it’s like dating. That chase is better than the catch. What? You don’t think dogs know how to date. What do you think that entire butt sniffing is about?

Anyway once I got the cat situation under control it was time for breakfast. I thought human one was a little sparse on the grub. I scarfed it up and was still hungry. I looked at him and gave him my best “give me more” look but he didn’t get it. You humans have such a hard time understanding us dogs. You make sounds but you don’t bark and you don’t get acquainted by sniffing butts. I don’t know how you think you are so civilized. If dogs ruled the world, I can tell you things would be different.

I was left alone in the garage so I just went into my wire bedroom and took a snooze. Later he came out and got in his truck to leave. Naturally, I assumed I was going with him and tried to jump in the truck. He was quite rude to me and told me I had to stay, slammed the door and drove off. I followed him down the drive way but he stopped and yelled mean things at me so I turned around gave him a look at my butt, stuck my tail and nose in the air and went back to cat patrol. It is pretty hard to intimate me. I notice you humans sometimes stick your middle finger in the air when you are mad at someone. I use my tail for the same thing. When you see me walking away with my tail stuck straight up, you can assume you are getting the bird.

Anyway, I spent some time locating and isolating the cats, then went on a sniffing tour of the place. There are a lot of very interesting smells around here. I smelled cat and other dog turds, I smelled a skunk smell, I smelled some mice, and I smelled a stick bug. Yeck! I guess I pushed him too hard with my nose and he let me have it. Guess why they are called stick bugs? They stink. I smelled some birds and put the run on some robins that were on the ground. I like to chase birds. I don’t know what it is about birds, but when I see one before I know or even think about it, I am in hot pursuit. I just can’t help it. Maybe that is why they call me a bird dog. I thought it had to do with my tail but maybe not. There are some dark urges in me that sometimes when I’m in the situation I just can’t control.

Anyway the temperature started to rise and I stayed in the garage where it was much cooler most of the day. It was just another one of those “dog days of summer”.

p.s. I got up in the night and made a few trips around the house. I never get to roam at nights but there are some interesting things that happen at night that aren’t happening in the day. I quite enjoyed it but then got sleepy so spent the rest of the night dreaming. I think maybe tomorrow I will sleep more in the day and do so more night time prowling. I can see in the dark you know and you can’t. Ha ha ha.

2nd DAY
Started out pretty good. Just before daylight human one and I went for a walk. Met some new dogs. One was a yappy little Schnauzer. All he did was talk talk talk. He wouldn’t even come over for a butt sniffing. So I started to go over to visit with him and he took off and ran back in his garage. I guess I must be scarier than I realize. I’ll have to try and keep a lower profile and not come on so strong. Maybe tomorrow morning I’ll make another attempt to sniff him. And the end of the road a big husky looking dog came out. We sniffed each other and decided we didn’t have much in common so I trotted off with my tour guide. We came by some horses. I immediately walked over and growled at them to let them know who was boss. All of a sudden there was this little horse that came smoking across the yard straight at me. Scared the crap out of me. I thought he was coming right through the fence. I turned to retreat so fast that I fell down which was a little embarrassing. Especially since the horse couldn’t get through the fence so my retreat looked a little silly and an over reaction. Pretty soon my tongue was hanging out. You humans don’t walk very fast but you keep it up. I did the math and very every step this human took, I took 47. No wonder my tongue was hanging out. We dogs can’t sweat you know so we have to cool off by panting and hanging our tongues out. I know it isn’t very attractive but hey! you covered with sweat isn’t so attractive either.

Finally, got back to the house and I went to see if I could scare up a cat. There is the one mother cat that doesn’t seem to afraid of me. Instead of running, she pulls this nasty face, shows her teeth, makes a funny hissing sound, lays her ears back and then lets out this horribly meowing sound. Actually it is quite annoying. However, I have been a little reluctant to attack her because it looks to me like I might get my butt and nose scratched pretty badly. So for now I think I will just concentrate on putting the fear in the other cats. As you humans say: “discretion is sometimes the better part of valor.”

Four Hours Later
Well the old cat and I finally got into it. I was sick and tired of her hissing at me so we went at it. I don’t mind telling you she wasn’t easy. There was fur flying, hissing, spitting and I did my share of aggressive growling. The upshot of it was she finally had enough and took off. I ran her right to the edge of the deck and watched her fly off into the air. She landed on the lawn so I whipped off the deck and put her up a tree. Hopefully she’ll know whose boss now and quit hissing at me. I am the king of the castle. Last night I kept up a constant patrol of the outside of the house and protected it from two deer and one critter I couldn’t even recognize. Oh by the way a little kid named Will has showed up and now I don’t feel so homesick. He pats me and hugs me just like Kate does. He was packing some food the other day and I just couldn’t help myself. I stole it from him and scarfed it down. He started to cry but he can’t talk yet so he couldn’t blame it on me.

This evening the kid and I got to go for a ride in the rhino. I sat on the front seat and the wind blew my ears up in the air and for a minute or two I thought I was going to get lift-off. We drove past some other dogs and I gave them a growl or two to let them know not to mess with me.

Human one went off today and came back smelling like a goat. It was very unpleasant and I didn’t want to be around him until he aired out. He must have been around some other dogs because I smell them to. Kind of tired today because I was patrolling much of the night. It is really cool being able to see at night. It’s a whole different world.

Day Three

It was Sunday today so not much happened. Went for a walk with the human in the morning. Getting lots of exercise. Doesn’t give me enough to eat. What does he think I’m on? A diet!

Got into another scrap with the cats. The kid was out on the deck and I got the little kitten cornered. He kept trying to get around me and escape back under the barbeque, but I cut him off at every attempt.

The little kid came over and got between us and the cat tried to use him for a distraction, but I was having none of it. That cat was a goner. But after a few tense moments for the cat the human came and took me by the collar and held me while the cat escaped. I didn’t think that was very fair. I gave him a dirty look and determined to pee on his motorcycle tire when he wasn’t looking. In fact I peed on both tires.

I was just another hot dog day in Declo. Not much happens on Sunday around here. I was quite bored so spent most of the day laying on my back in the shade. I’m starting to get a little bit of a tan.

Day Four

Woke up early to go for a walk with the human. I went past the neighbors house and that yappy little schnauzer kept yelling at me. I growled at him but it didn’t shut him up so I went over and left a big poop pile in the middle of his lawn and gave him my tail in the air, as though to say “sniff this you little brat.”

Oh when we went past the horses this morning I got really brave and crawled under the fence and barked right in their faces. Of all the rude things they ignored me. I made a couple of fierce rushes at them thinking they would flee in terror. But nothing. So I walked up and sniffed their back legs. Their butts are to high to sniff, or else I’m too short. Anyway, I let them know who was boss and trotted off.

This morning no other dogs came out to greet me. I think they know heir’s a new dog in town and they are quite intimidated by me. I never realized what a wide swath I cut. Things are going to be different when I get back to Twin Falls. I’m going out every morning and subdue the neighborhood.

I looked at myself in the back picture window this morning and checked myself out at every profile. I think maybe I am loosing a little weight. The girl dogs in Twin are going to be coming over to visit. Damn, I hate that they neutered me. There could be little cocker spaniels all over the neighbor hood if I hadn’t been snipped. I thought they were taking me to be tutored.

I think I’ll take a nap now and finish later. They don’t lock me in my cage (prison) at night and they leave the garage door open so I put on a few miles every night. This morning on our way back I heard some coyotes up on the side of the hill just as it was getting light, singing some sad lament. I had a hard time picking up all the words but it sounded something like…”I’m so lonely, I’m so lonely, I could just cry and howl all night. I only get mice for breakfast, lunch and dinner and I’m sick of eating only them. I howl for a steak, I howl for some fresh meat but whining and howling don’t get me any thing. I hate vegetables, I hate salads but I love meat. Where or where is some meat.”

I’m not sure that is exactly what he was howling about but it is pretty close.

I know why they named me Cruise. It is because I am a really smooth cruiser. When I am trotting at full speed I am just as smooth as can be. My ears help stabilize me until I just cruise here and there and there and here, quiet and smooth. I am the Cruiser!!!!

AN ODE TO THE DOG NEXT DOOR

This is a dead chicken, the last one of four.
That was murdered and ravaged by the dog next door.
He raced through the flock like a demon from hell
He may have killed all of them you never can tell
I raced for my gun and was ready to shoot’m
But Ryan contained him and managed to collar’m
He returned the beast to the four walls of his pen
But each time he gets loose it will happen again
So what am to do so my neighbor’s not mad
The dogs got to go, what he did was real bad
But, if I shoot the dog she will think I am mean
I don’t want to ruin the good neighorly thing
But if I do nothing you’l l get no more eggs
You’ll have to settle for store bought dregs
So somebody tell me just what I should do
I’m out of solutions I don’t have a clue
If I solve the problem then I’m a poo
But if I do nothing then my chickens will die
No eggs for an omelet and no eggs to fry
So come on family I need some advice
The dogs got to got but I’ve got to be nice
The solution to work needs to be sneaky and nefarious
Bold and determined to get that damn dog and bury him
And done in a way that does not implicate me
You Pillings should be able a soluton to see.
So hurry and husle and get me a solution
So my chickens are safe from the next door pollution
That comes over here when ever he’s missed
This behavor of his must cease and desist
The solution must include the death of the beast
So no short-term ideas like someone else tried
I want the dog dead and if necessary buried alive.
So come on family I need your help post-haste
We don’t have even a moment to waste
Because that rotten beast from across the way
Is already plotting how to kill my chickens and get away
So get me some ideas and don’t delay
A dead, dead dog is the way she can pay.

I TOOK THE WHOLE FAMILY ON A TRIP TO SOUTHERN UTAH AND THIS IS AN ACCOUNT OF THAT TRIP (my siblings and their spouses)

As with most stories, the sequence of events does not begin at the apparent beginning. This trip began Wednesday morning at 7:30 a.m. but the impetus for the trip began a year earlier when Donald and Kent conspired together to ride their motorcycles on the same route over which the current trip was to occur. However, said trip was cut short because of an accident. Donald invited his friend Perry to come with us. On the second day of a three day trip, we were coming up through a section of Utah known as “The Grand Stair Case”. Donald was in the lead, Perry next, then myself and my son Brad riding last. We came around a corner and Donald braked to turn into a scenic look out. Perry was following too close and failed to see Donald braking in time to stop. He made the mistake of locking his back brake which caused the bike to turn 180 degrees sideways. In that position he slammed into a steel marker post and went airborne. His bike flipped and threw Perry to the ground with such force that it broke his wrist, some ribs and a few more bones. An ambulance came and took him to Richfield. The next morning we loaded him on the back of Don’s Goldwing and carted him back to Provo to Don’s truck. We had to cut our trip short and vowed that we would someday repeat the trip but this time without the accident. Even though the trip resulted in a premature evacuation, Donald when home raving about the scenery we had seen in the day and a half of riding.

Jack & Darlene overheard his expositions and decided that they would like to make the same trip without the motorcycles. Darlene called asking us if we would take her and Jack on the same route. So the trip was on. Noel & Sandy heard about it and immediately invited themselves which made for even more fun. Glenda & Richard found out about it only after they had planned their own trip to Oregon. Glenda wasn’t happy because by the time she got invited the trip to Oregon was already planned. Donna & Bruce also declined. That left the six of us for the big trip. Brek loaned us a beautiful large black mafia suburban for the trip that had so many gadgets on it that we finally just gave up trying to figure them out for fear we would push the wrong button and be stranded somewhere in the desert.

We met Jack & Darlene at Rob’s house early Wednesday morning thanks to the GPS which directed us right to their door step. We visited with Kerry and their kids for awhile before leaving. Rob was away on a trip so we missed seeing him. I told Connor that while his dad was away that he was the man of the house and could rule over everyone else. He said that even though he was the man of the house his mom was the woman of the house. I told him that the correct order of things was that the man of the house trumped the woman of the house and that he could order everyone around and have his mother wait on him and bring him anything he wanted. His eyes lit up and he asked me if I would tell his mom that. I said no, “that part of being the man of the house was being able to tell that to your mom.” As we left the house we overheard him rehearsing my words to his mother and “then the fight began.”

Kerry gave us instructions on how to reach Lisa’s houses where we were to pick up Noel and Sandi. However, we also programmed the address into the GPS. Somewhere in Orem we disobeyed the lady on the GPS, to our detriment. She finally got us there through some circuitous route because she kept having to correct us from our failure to follow her command. We should have known that she was always right because it was a woman’s voice.

After hugging and visiting with Lisa we began our journey. I was supposed to turn-off the freeway at the Price exit but there was construction and instead it said ‘Spanish-Fork’ turn off. So I missed the exit and had to instead exit at the Benjamin turnoff and retrace our steps. I heard some disparaging remarks from the back seat about the trouble we were in because if I got lost at the very beginning of the trip, what could they expect further down the road. However, we were soon back on the right highway and headed up Spanish Fork Canyon. We passed Dennis Remington’s house and started up the grade through Thistle Canyon. Suddenly, out of the ditch to the right, darted this little two point buck. He was sprinting as fast as he could to get across the road in front of us. We were doing about 65 mph and there was no stopping. We hit him dead center and in my rear view mirror I saw him fly through the air and impact a trailer coming the other way and saw a large chunk of fairing spinning down the road. It was a hard impact and I was sure that the fairing was from the right side of our front bumper. We kept going and I watched the gauges to see if the deer had punctured the radiator. When we got to the top of Soldiers Summit we pulled over to assess the damage. Much to our surprise there was no damage except the molding around the top corner of the bumper was sticking out. I hit it a couple of times with my fist and it went right back in place. We all breathed a sigh of relief. If we had been driving our van instead of the big Surburban with the high bumper that deer would have either smashed through our grill or been sitting in our laps. We silently thanked Brek for the loan of the big vehicle. So in better spirits we continued on into Helper and Price. We saw the coal extraction mine and rail cars filled with coal climbing the grade up and over Soldiers Summit. The reason the town is called Helper is because they have to attach several ‘helper locomotives’ to any train going over the summit to ‘help’ them up the grade. We could even see a seam of coal exposed where they cut the grade for the road.

We passed Price and just before venturing out in the desert, stopped at the last service station for a short break and loaded up on some snacks. For the next 80 miles we saw no living thing and few if any living plants. It seemed as though the entire landscape was hard, baked mud. After that barren stretch we passed Green River, down the freeway and turned off for Moab. Just before Moab we turned right and went toward Canyon Lands National Park. Fortunately, I had a Golden Age Pass that got us into all the Parks free. That is a big deal for the Pilings’. Anything free is a bonus. We saw beautiful slick rock and deep canyons with beautiful vistas and terrain gorgeous and unfamiliar. It was like being landed on Mars. Every time we stopped and went close to the edge to look over for a better view Darlene would panic. There was no way she was venturing close to the edge. Worries about slipping, sliding, earthquakes, sudden winds and who knows what else would fill her head with fear and trepidation.

We kept worrying that the gas gauge wasn’t working because it was going down so slowly. Old people worry about everything. In the evening we had a great meal, sat in the hot tub, swam and went to bed. We got in a little scrap at the restaurant because they wanted to charge us an 18% gratuity because we were a party of six. We pointed out to them that if a gratuity of specified amount was demanded then it wasn’t a gratuity anymore but instead it was a tax and they had no legal authority to levy a tax on us. The waiter went and got the manager who said that was the restaurant policy. We argued our case but she wasn’t budging until we told her that we absolutely were not going to pay it. When we drew the boundary and she could see we weren’t budging she finally relented and said “o.k. you don’t have to pay it”. You shouldn’t mess with old people. Then we paid it anyway because it wasn’t about the money it was the principle of the thing.

7:30 a.m. the next morning we went to a continental breakfast that wasn’t very great. In fact it was quite unsatisfactory but it was enough to jump start us for another day. We left Moab headed for Monticello. We passed a tourist trap called “Hold in the Wall” but fortunately for us it didn’t open until 9:00 a.m. and that meant we would have to wait for fifteen minutes. Pillings’ don’t wait. We arrived in Monticello where we stopped and saw their temple. It was quite small but beautiful. Our next stop was in Blanding. We stopped at a visitor’s center and viewed a lot of the same equipment that we used on the ranch where we grew up. We got some brochures and three miles south of Blanding turned right and headed for Hanksville. Oh the panoramic vistas we saw. It was like we had been dropped onto another planet, the landscape of likes we had never seen nor imagined before.

Around every corner was a brand new variation of sand, rock and vegetation. It was a visual extravaganza. Also, there was non-stop conversation. I don’t believe there was more than 10 seconds of silence the entire trip. There seemed to be no end of comment, gossip, commentary, exposition, description or elaboration. We solved most of the problems in the world, in the church and in our neighborhoods. We identified trouble makers, ne’re do wells, pillars of the community, faults and virtues of everyone we knew and even speculated on gospel principles heretofore known as “the mysteries”. There were at least eleven mysteries that we solved to our satisfaction. We also learned a new gospel term from Jack. It was called “drive by home teaching.” I will leave it to the reader’s imagination to know the definition. All the time we were witness to the most amazing scenery beyond imagination. No matter how many pictures we had previously seen, or heard other descriptions, it in no way prepared us for the immensity and splendor we were seeing. WOW!! We stopped at the north end of Lake Powell at a boat launching site called ‘Hite’. There was a short argument about how to pronounce the word but it never developed into anything serious. We drove right down to the water and Sandy stripped off and went into the water. She was naked from the knees down. The air was so still and warm and nurturing that after each of our stops it was almost hard to get back into the car. There was never a breath of wind and the silence was deafening.

We continued on toward Hanksville and Janice remembered that somewhere in the town she had got a peach milkshake that was delicious, when she and I had been there before on a motorcycle trip. Jack and Noel began to speculate on that milkshake and developed an anticipation that Noel described as similar to Pavlov’s dogs that salivated at the sound of a bell. However, when we got to Hanksville we passed the milkshake place before we realized it and if they thought we were going to turn around and go back they were on the wrong bus. On this trip there was an established rule. “There will be no turning back.” Earlier in the day when we were forty miles from Moab, Jack began to worry if he had packed his “reader” that his kids had given him. It was an expensive item and for a brief moment there was some talk of going back. No way! However, out of considerations for Jack’s fretting we at least pulled over and stopped. We tried to call back to the motel but we were out of range for cellular reception. Just to confirm or deny if the item in question had in fact been left, we opened up the back of the bus and checked the luggage. Fortunately, it was located. If not it would have been written off as a loss because there was “no turning back”. There was some grumbling about the milkshake loss but not for long.

Our journey next took us through Capital Reef National Park which was one more step up in scenery. Every turn in the road revealed another amazing view. It was like there was not end to the variations. No two views were the same. What creativity on the part of the creator. We viewed the site where Donald’s friend from Calgary crashed his motorcycle. Remember that story is where our trip began. The iron stake that had propelled him into the air was gone. But the blood on the ground and the rips in the dirt were still there, at least in my mind.

We continued on our journey through what is called “the Grand Stair Case” to a little town called ‘Torre’. Sandi claimed she knew someone who either lived there or used to live there. Actually, Sandi had some acquaintance or relative that lived almost everywhere we stopped. That woman really gets around. Or else she was lying. There were a number of incidences on the trip when we suspected each other of lying. There were even some accusations made but it never came to blows. Also, in the Pilling Genealogy there is a certain allowance made for that sort of thing that can occur without any questions being asked. Speaking of genealogy we made the mistake of asking our resident, in house genealogist, (that would be Janice) a question about some ancestor. Thirty five minutes later we had listened to twenty-one ancestral lines along with named second cousins, third cousins half removed, great uncles, aunts once removed, grandparents, step children, marriages, divorces, common law relationships and possible illegitimate children. I turned and looked at the others in the bus and there was a glazed look in their eyes. I, of course, was able to follow every twist and turn of the ancestral trek right up until the 1st left turn, having been exposed to Janice’s explanations before. But it was a new experience for the rest of the troops and everyone took a silent oath not to ask a similar question ever again.

We arrived in a little village named “Torre” with a need for food. We were about to stop at the first fast food joint we saw but Sandi told us there was a better place further down the street. Sure enough she was right, which added a little more credibility to her story about having been there before. When we arrived at the better eating place we even felt a little bad about accusing her earlier of lying. But we never acknowledge that to her. We ordered our food and sat out in an outdoor patio and enjoyed a wonderful meal. A certain number (3) of our party ordered water with their meal but when they took their cups to the fountain they couldn’t find the water spigot. Old people! They called the waitress over and she showed them what lever to pull to get water. She no sooner left than they promptly pushed the wrong lever and filled their cups with blue colored water. (Gatorade) Once at the table they commented on how blue the water was and how it had a funny taste. I looked at it and took a sip and recognized it was Gatorade. I promptly called the waitress to our table and told them that they had filled their cups with Gatorade instead of water and hadn’t paid for it. She just shook her head and said it was o.k. So we escaped another scrape. There was one concession we made next. We had to back track two blocks to get back on the road to Escalante. It was difficult to do but sometimes a man’s got to do what a man’s got to do. It was accomplished without incident of complaint from the back of the bus. During the next hour the terrain changed from desert to alpine as we climbed up over Boulder Mountain to an elevation of over 9200 feet. We stopped at several ‘look-outs’ and again and again marveled at what was before our eyes. The aspens were all turning yellow and were spectacular.

And now we come to a rather embarrassing incident. At one of our stops there was an outdoor restroom. Men on the right, women on the left both clearly marked with men & women symbols. Darlene went and used them and then returned to where we were all standing. Their were two motorcyclists that we had met at earlier stops and joked with them. One of them went over to use the bathroom and Darlene said, “that guy just went into the ladies bathroom”. At the same time Sandi started over to the bathroom and Darlene was about to shout to her that there was already a man in the ladies bathroom. Too late! Sandi opened the ladies door and entered. No man was there. Darlene realized that it was her that had gone into the men’s bathroom. We had a great laugh. Old people!

We stopped numerous times before we got to Escalante to just drink-in the experience. We had to travel along a narrow ridge for about a mile and Darlene experienced anxiety that had no relief. Usually if one side of the road drops off she hugs the opposite of the vehicle to insure her safety. However, in this situation both sides of the road dropped off. What was she to do? By the time she figured out her ambivalence we were off the ridge and headed down a 14% grade and she heaved a sigh of relief. Finally we reached Escalante and continued on, turned right and headed north to Bryce Canyon. When we arrived we drove around the edge to a southern view point and got out of the bus. We walked over to the edge and looked down into Bryce Canyon. Nothing could have prepared us for the vista below. I won’t even try to describe it. There are no words; you just had to be here. Wow WOw WOW !!! We took lots of pictures but even they will never tell the story. After absorbing all we could of the beautiful hoo doos and pillars and colors and shapes and majesty of the Canyon we finally got back in the van and drove a couple of miles to Ruby’s Inn to spend the night. We had a great meal, wandered around and looked in a few shops that had items for sale that we couldn’t afford. Polished petrified wood for $2500 plus. There were all kinds of different polished rocks, geodes and gem stones. There were carved pieces of sandstone in the shape of arches and desert rock formations. Very interesting!

Just before entering Zions Park we pasted a corner restaurant but the consensus was that we weren’t hungry enough for breakfast. However, after traveled a short distance past the restaurant, it was determined by the driver that this might be the last chance for food before we entered the Park and maybe there wouldn’t be another opportunity again until St. George. Then the decision was made to break the long standing rule of not retracing any of our steps. We did a U-turn and returned to the restaurant. What a pleasant surprise. The restaurant was bright, colorful with a joke book on the table. Our waitress was delightful and we all ordered a healthy amount of vittles. We read and laughed at many of the jokes. It was good advertising because Sandi got sucked into paying $15:00 for three joke books that were sold in the attached gift shop. However, she packed them away and we never heard any more jokes from the books.

We took our time eating because there was a small rain coming down. However, the sky quickly cleared and we walked out. The smell of a just finished rain was wonderful. We loaded the bus and headed for Zion. We were little prepared for what we saw next. Huge towering, mountain-like shapes of golden sandstone reached skyward. Scattered trees grew out of cracks in the rocks. Darkened canyons beckoned to be explored. We determined that the next time we came we would park the car and venture up some of the canyons that invited us to enter. We came to a tunnel that extended almost a mile through the mountain. Every turn took away our breath. Finally, we began to descend more precipitiously than “Going to the Sun Highway.” It was enough to pop our ears. After miles of marvelous scenery we finally arrived at the west entrance of the park and stopped at the visitors center. We went to an I-Max theater and saw a film on the park.

It was a huge screen with a fine sound system. After leaving the visitors center we headed on toward St. George. Before our trip we had planned to soak in some magic hot-tubs in the town of Hurricane. There was supposed be healing powers in the hot water that came straight out of the ground. As we were going through the town we called ahead to the hot springs to inquire as to availability and cost. We were informed by a lady with a French accent that it was available for two hours and the cost for the six of us was $164.00. We immediately disconnect and decided that we didn’t need that much healing. We also told some disparaging French jokes just to retaliate.

As we neared St. George, Darlene expressed a wish, although it sounded like a demand, that she wanted to stop at Deseret Industries because some people in affluent communities like St. George often turned in some really good stuff. We were speeding down the freeway when we spotted the Deseret Industries on the opposite side of the road. Darlene was insistent that we turn around but any off ramp looked far down the road. I saw ahead an emergency turn-around between the freeways that had a sign “authorized vehicles only”. I slammed on the brakes and turned on to the connecting road way. I note just down the road a Ford Mustang with someone standing beside it but never imagined it to be a policemen. We careened onto the opposite freeway and floored the throttle so we didn’t get run over. Just before we got to the Deseret Industries exit ramp the Ford Mustang had sprouted blue and red lights and was on my tail. We pulled over and the policeman approached my window. I told him the truth about how afraid I was about my sister’s disapproval and that fear constituted an ‘emergency situation’ for me and that is why I took the emergency exit. He was unresponsive to my story and asked for my drive’s license. He went back to his hot car and we waited and waited. Finally, he came back with a ticket and apologized for taking so long. He said that he hadn’t ever had to issue such a ticket before especially when the offense occurred right in front of a policemen. After receiving a scolding from Janice because “she told me so” we turned off and went into Deseret Industries. Jack, Noel & I all followed Darlene into the store to ensure that she wouldn’t disappear. To our absolute surprise she scoured the store in record time and was ready to go in a matter of fifteen minutes.

We had a home scheduled in St. George where we were to spend the night. A neighbor of mine had given us a key to his parents winter home that we could stay in free gratis. Using the trust GPS voice, we finally arrived at the residence. We pulled into the garage and entered the beautiful home. All the old people were tired so they laid down on the floor and had a nap. We found out all the tickets were sold for the Tuacan Theater so someone suggested that we board the bus and head for Provo. We had a vote and the majority agreed with the decision. We boarded the bus and headed for Provo. When we drew near to Cedar City it was determined that we should stop for something to eat before continuing our journey. After some criticism and accusations about missing the first Cedar City exit, I finally took them to a restaurant that I had visited on a motorcycle trip. As it turned out, the food was good, everyone was satisfied and we returned again to the bus to continue our trip.

We made it to Provo in record time, dropped Noel and Sandy off at Lisa’s, said our goodbyes and Rob met us in American Fork and we transferred Darlene & Jack in to his care and keeping. And thus our trip ended, but our nurtured association and our spectacular visual experiences will never end.

SPRING RUN

MAY 2009
Disclaimer
Any resemblance to individuals you may know is clearly coincidental and this document may not be used to incriminate anyone resembling individuals shown above. They are simply individuals chosen at random!! A certain amount of poetic license is claimed.

Spring time triggers a genetic response in certain types of Salmon that for no explainable reason causes them to leave the security of the ocean and to ven­ture up stream. They leap up rapids, accelerate through the smooth water and risk predation from countless dangers and threats. If the metaphor applies a similar response can be noted in certain of the human species. The difference being that only the male gender seems effected by this spring-time irresistible impulse.

It is uncertain how much anticipatory planning goes into the Salmon migration but it would be a gross understatement to suggest that little planning goes into the preparation of the human endeavor. It began as a nighttime vision by one member of the group who then shared the special experience with another. Soon everyone was conceptually on board. It was universally agreed that it was a good idea. All that needed to happen was to define the details.

Now the fun began. While it seems apparent that Salmon do not have to struggle with this 'detail' problem because the river only goes one way, not so with the human genome. First of all there was conflict about the dates. Then it was unilaterally cancelled. Then a date was finally settled. Then it conflicted with another important event so it was moved back a day. Then we planned a route that took us through high mountain passes. Next it was discovered that those roads were still plugged with snow. So a re-route was determined that took us through Moab. Upon further consideration it was determined that we didn't have enough time to go there. Then we discovered that Wolf Creek pass had just been opened so we finally determined a definite route.

Finally the detail that needed to be settled was starting time. 10:30 a.m. was decided as a good starting time. The assumption was that by 10:30 a.m. the weather would have warmed from freezing to barely-freezing and we could proceed without turning to statues of ice. But was that a final decision? Oh No! not hardly. One of the members of the group checked the forecast ( some­thing we are forbidden to do because it might mean that we have to consider reality as a consideration) and discovered that the projected temperature of 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees celsius) would not change for the whole morn­ing. He notified everyone that we would be leaving at 8:00 a.m. because he guaranteed us that unless we did we would not get to our first nights destination. We found out later that he had heated grips and a heated vest. For the rest of us it was frozen fingers and faces for the 1st half a day.

I will now list the names of the participants. I will however, only give the first names. That will avoid any needless litgation that may be considered by some at a later date. Without the last legal names there can be no positive identifica­tion and therefore no liability. The author of this frivolous document will also remain anonymous. Any complaining or moaning about the contents thereof cannot be traced to any human either living or dead.

You may not agree with the faces matching the order I described. That was deliberate, again to avoid any possibility of singling anyone out for positive identification. It is just best that we maintain as much anonimity as possible, the reason for such will become apparent to the discriminate reader at a later date.

Now the agreed upon meeting had been established. Thayne insisted that we meet at his store in Malta so that he could make money when we all had to fill up with gas. Without identifying anyone by name this is the bike that arrived exactly on time.

This is the bike that arrived 15 minutes late.
These two bike arrived next:

These bikes finally arrived 35 minutes late

You will note below a picture of some importance. I include it only to point out the total lack of good judgement exhibited by certain harley owners. You will also note that I did not capitalize the word 'harley'. That is because it is not a proper noun. In fact, it is a very improper noun and should really be uttered only when no other word can be found to describe such an ungainly beast. This little limerick will suffice.

A barley Limerick
As a beauty it is not a great star
A Honda is more handsome by far
But my bike I don't mind it
I just get on and ride it
It's the folks out front get the jar.

Any way we now proceed to a short quiz: One of the group members decided that he wanted a different color on his Harley. He sent his bike to an out of town (Boise) charlatan to do the new re-paint.

LIf you are like me, I guessed about three to five hundred dollars. However, as it turns out I was not even in the 'ball park.' Take a deep breath and try to say six thousand dollars. His wife is going to kill him if she ever reads this. The paint job is worth more than the bike. He actually tried to justify the cost to us but we were having none of it.

We made Harvey in charge of all warranties. He made so many guarantee's that we made him the honor­ary warranty manager. He guaranteed us that it would be as cold at 8:00 a.m. as it would be at 10:00 a.m. He guaranteed us that Wolf Creek pass would be open but very cold. He guaranteed us that he was less likely to be unfaithful to wife than any of the rest of us. (That is a compliment to you Joan) However, we worried after he made that guarantee that maybe he knew something about us that we didn't know. He made a number of other guarantees that I will mention later.

We finally got on the road and shivered our way to the first gas stop in Utah. I drank 2 gallons of hot chocolate and started to thaw. I just about said 'unthaw' but caught myself since unthaw really means to re-freeze. Everyone was upset with me because I chose a Maverick Station. Apparently, in this group there are some gasoline connoisseurs and they think that Maverick Gas isn't as good as other brands. Really!! I mean it all comes out of the same refinery and storage tanks. But maybe they do know what they are talking about because they sell gas. But personally, I think they have been brainwashed by some slick gasoline salesman. I asked my Honda if it could tell any difference. I really don't know what it replied because it said it in Japanese. But I think it sounded something like: "no a difference"

After gassing and thawing we swept up Logan Canyon. Harvey was leading and just after we turned off to Kamas, he slammed on the brakes and turned into a "Chicken Restaurant".

I see that I have made a mistake. It was not a restaurant at all but instead a cafe. The difference between a restaurant and a cafe is that cafe only employs really mean grumpy waitresses. She was unhappy that we wanted separate checks. She was grumpy because Harvey and Kurt tried to joke with her. She got really annoyed with Thayne when he tried to flirt with her. I was very careful to remain silent because I just know she spit on the chicken that they ordered. She also took so long to serve us that I looked out the window and sure enough, she was chasing a rooster with an axe in her hand. Eventually, the rooster was beheaded and lunch was served. We stayed long enough to warm up and then hit the road again. We sped through Kamas and headed for Duchesne via Wolf Creek Pass.

Paul was new to our group and at lunch we asked him to tell us who he was. We anticipated some kind of answer than included his marriage status, the number of children he had and maybe grandchildren, why he had purchased a Harley. You know that kind of stuff. Instead this was his reply, “I am a dirt farmer from Rupert." Period! That was it. No elaboration, no explanation, no further information was forthcoming.

"Just a dirt farmer from Rupert." I didn't want to show my ignorance by asking him "What is a dirt farmer?" I thought maybe a dirt farmer was different from an ordinary farmer so decided to wait until I got home and "Google Dirt Farmer." I expected at least to get some further clarification and this is what it said:

"A Dirt Farmer is an individual who farms dirt." Duh! That is all the information we got out of Paul the first day. However, later on he talked lots more and it was certainly apparent that he loved riding motorcycles.

Just before reaching our first nights destination we came down the canyon from Duchesne to a place called 'Helper'. It was called Helper because in order to pull the coal trains up over Soldier's Summit and down to Geneva Steel in Provo, they had to attach 'helper' engines in order to make it over the summit. Some answers are so simple. Anyway for reasons completely not understood the leader decided that we should stop here at 'Helper' .and discuss the affairs of the world. We no more than got the middle-east problem solved than a plume of steam shot out of the plant behind us and made such a noise that we couldn't hear each other. So for the next 20 minutes or so we attempted to read lips to understand what was being said. Finally, I think it was Jack, mouthed the words "Let’s get the heck out of here". The rest of us communi­cated that we understood by leaping on our bikes and leaving the horrible noise behind.

Shortly, there after we arrived in 'Price' Utah. We were going to stay at the Ramada Inn for $99.00 a night, but Curt thought we should check out the 'Super 8". It was run by an East Indian Family which caused some initial concern. But as it turned out the motel was just fine except they cheaped on the mat­tresses and formed them out of concrete. Jack and Thayne shared the same room and between the rock hard beds and the mutual snoring that went on, there was not much sleep the happened in their room. Each blamed the other for their snoring and each denied that they snored at all. Only cost us $59 .00. They didn't charge more for the very firm mattresses.

When we finally arrived in Price, Utah we had ridden over three hundred miles and were a bit tired and sore. By the end of the day all we wanted to do was eat, hot tub and go to sleep.

Now I admit that this is not the most flattering picture. But ohhhhh it felt so good to soak away the aches and pains of the ride. I suppose that those aches and pains occur because we are getting older. Our wives have suggested that maybe we are too old and mature to continue doing this. However, we have argued vehemently that we are still very immature and since they observe our day to day activities they have had to agree with us on the immaturity issue.

Thayne is noticeably absent in all hot tub activities. He would not tell us why which led to a fair bit of speculation on our part. We figured that maybe he had an embarrassing tattoo from earlier in his life that he was embarrassed about. He said he didn't have a swim suit but neither did Jack, but he went to Wally Mart and got one so that excuse was without merit. We speculated on some other possibilities that are not appropriate to mention here. Finally, he had enough and in no uncertain terms told us that what was be­tween his underwear and his body was none of our damn business and for us to shut up about it.

Harvey guaranteed us that we better do it or Thayne would do something to get revenge.

Given that we are such a sensitive and understanding group we granted Thayne his hot tube fetish and didn't bring it up again until the next night when we were again hot tubing and where was Thayne? We finally concluded the reason for his refusal to hot tub with us, but we were far too reluctant to share it with Thayne deciding digression was the better part of valor.

Following our hot tubing, we leaped on our bikes. Maybe that expression was a bit too exuberant. Actually, we were barely able to swing a leg over the seat and it hurt when we sat down. However, we only had to ride a few blocks to our restaurant that we had visited years before with good gastrointestinal results. When we arrived we were almost the only ones there so anticipated fast service with an attentive waitress. However, if that was our expectation we were quickly disappointed. After being shown to our table the waitress vanished into thin air. After a significant period of time, Curt went looking for her and found her in the bar next door having a drink. He finally got her back to wait on us and sure enough we waited and waited and waited. We now know why they are called waitresses. It is because we have to wait and wait on them.

While we were waiting I thought I would share some nutritional information with them so that it might influence what they ordered, since we were still waiting. Big Mistake! I shared with them the studies indicating the positive correlation between eating animal protein (especially red meat) and the incidence of heart disease, diabetes and strokes. I thought I made a pretty compelling argument that that would influence their choice of dinner entrees. I quickly learned that I was not preaching to the choir but instead was talking to a bunch of hostile students. They appeared to be listening attentively, glad to learn this new information and wisdom, I thought. Not so! After I had finished my argument these are the responses forthcoming.

"Hell, you read too much." "You can't believe everything you read." "That is the most stupid stuff I have ever heard."

It went downhill from there and I finally gave up and joined them and ordered a steak.

I forgot one last insult that happened at the restaurant. Even though we insisted on individual tickets the witch charged us an automatic 20% gratuity. We were so insulted each of us spit on our plates when we were done. I guess we showed her.

The next day was a long one, but at least the weather warmed up a bit. We went from Price down south to Boulder, Escalante, Grand Stair Case, Bryce Canyon and on up to Richfield. Everywhere we stopped Thayne informed us that he had hauled stuff from there. After a while I began to suspect that maybe Thayne was hauling something else with us. But of course I didn't bring it up and question the authenticity of his hauling stories. But silently we all suspected that maybe his was hauling some B.S. with us.

Jack was riding a bike mores suited to the Indianapolis 500 race track than a touring route. It was fast, it was uncomfortable to ride but it cornered and accelerated like a thoroughbred. Before the trip, I had agreed to trade off with him when his butt got sore. He wouldn't let me ride it the entire first day. I do not know why because when we stopped once for gas I noted that he was walking like an 80 year old cowboy who had ridden fat cow ponies his whole life. I asked him why he walked like that and he said something about a #@%*bike. I was quite surprised to hear such a descriptive expletive but it pretty much described the answer to my question. Harvey guaranteed that if he rode it much longer he was going to have to submit to a rather painful operation involving certain parts of his body.

At that point Jack agreed to switch bikes. We were having lunch at a little Mexican restaurant in the middle of nowhere. It so happened that there were also in the restaurant a number of French people who had rented Harleys and were tripping around southern Utah. This quickly led to a disparaging discussion about the French and their refusal to support the U.S. in their military endeavors. One person asked if we had seen the advertisement on EBay for a French rifle. The ad read: "For Sale, a French Rifle. Never fired and only dropped once." Then the discussion took a decided tum in my direction. Just because I was Cana­dian they somehow associated me with French Canadians and they laid a beating on me for that. Harvey guaranteed that if it weren't for the U.S. the French would all be speaking German.

Anyway, it was clear that this group had no love for the Frenchies. I carefully stayed out of the conversation so I wouldn't get another beating. I failed to point out to them that the French were involved in both World Wars two years before the Americans. Or that they had been brutally occupied by the Germans both times until liberation occurred and that maybe they were a little gun-shy about getting involved in another military conflict where they might get another beating. However, I kept those sentiments to myself, remem­bering there response to the nutritional information that I had supplied earlier. Already I was laboring under the perception that I was stupid. I didn't want to give them any further information to add to that.

We finally ran into a good deal on our lunch. There was a house special; two tacos for 99cents. We ordered, got fast service, some hot sauce and filled up on the special. We discussed the merits or lack there-of regarding the poor Frenchmen. They finally had enough and got up and left. We followed later and about three miles up the road discovered that one of the Frenchman had run his rented Harley off the road and into the ditch. It appeared the driver and passenger were not hurt and they were dragging the Harley out of the ditch and scraping mud off it. Harvey guaranteed that they were no better with motorcycles than they were with guns. They just keep dropping them.

Now I would like to tell you that this picture is just two group members taking time to enjoy the view. However, that is not true. The truth is a bit more sinister. But before the reader makes a negative judge­ment about this Kodak Moment, please first of all hear the justification.

When they manufacture motorbikes no one in the whole design process ever said nor seriously considered the following: "Maybe when we design these bikes we should correlate the amount of fuel in the tank with the amount of water in a guy’s bladder." That was never a consideration, hence the problem. Our fuel tanks hold enough gas to take us from fuel station to fuel station. However, our bladders will not extend that far so what is a guy supposed to do? In Utah they have fortunately considered this problem and have provided a very timely solution. Utah has established what they call "Road side Relief Stations". They exist wherever there is a road side. If Todd is in the lead he chooses a roadside with either trees or sage brush to provide a modicum of privacy. But this consideration is not always true for others who will remain nameless. For example the 'Roadside Privy' illustrated in the above photo has no privacy at all; not from each other or from passing motorists. It must not offend the motorists because they regularly honk their support. I guess it's whatever titillates you. Personally, I think that a few of our members have latent exhibitionist tendencies but I certainly didn't have the courage to bring that one up at dinner after being told how stupid my other concerns were.

After finishing lunch Jack finally let me ride his bike. It was my chance on the 'rocket'. However, before we left Harvey warned us about 'road snakes' which were cracks in the highway that had been filled with tar. As the temperature warmed the tar became soft so that if you were laid over going around a comer and happened across a' snow snake' it could cause you to slip and wreck. Harvey absolutely guaranteed us that unless we were careful there would be serious road rash. Another guarantee. His prophecy was soon to come true but not for us but for the Frenchman. Harvey's early warning spared us, although there were some close calls.

Once I straddled Jack's crotch rocket old racing memories returned. I was off like a shot and all good judgment and care went out the window. It was such a great feeling of power, control and speed that I very nearly went off the deep-end. By the time I reached the summit of Boulder Mountain my ductless adrenal glands were mainlining straight high octane epinephrine into my blood stream at an alarming rate. I had to stop and get calmed down.

Jack came over and changed the setting on the carburetor to try to calm down his bike. Even the bike had caught the spirit and had moved the red line on the tachometer up 2000 rpms. Jack had a good talk with his bike and it finally settled down. From there down to Escalante we both behaved ourselves. We stopped for a few pictures as we motored through the slick rock.

From Escalante we motored up through the Grand Stair Case to Bryce Canyon. Some of the group members had never been there before. When Thayne walked to the edge and looked down he said: "What a heck of a place to lose a cow!" Harvey got in a fight with the lady at the Park check-in. He accused her of charging to much and darn got us all thrown out of the Park. Harvey has a thing about women in Park Hats. He calls them Smokin' Bears.

After a continental breakfast at the hotel, we headed north to Manti. Jack informed us that he had been married there 3 8 years ago. We debated whether it was irreverent to ride a Harley close to the temple. Some argument ensued and finally we decided that we would leave it up to the spirit to indicate to us when we drove up what was appropriate. However, when the Harleys drove up they were making so much noise that they couldn't hear the 'still small voice'. However, I did and it said that Japanese bikes were o.k. but the Harleys were definitely inappropriate. I tried to tell them but they wouldn't listen to me and thought I was just making it up. A temple security person came out to cast the Harley devils out of the parking area but instead Todd, Curt and Paul talked him into giving them a tour of the visitors center. They completely distracted him from the task of exorcising the Harley’s. I was quite disappointed. I was hoping that their bikes would get a cursing. But I think when he saw my Honda, he probably said to himself, "Well if those Harleys are traveling with a Honda they can't be all bad." I knew they would catch up to me eventually so I just motored along at 40 mph till they caught up. I also noticed that none of the Harley riders volunteered to trade Jack and take a turn. I think that to ride a Japanese bike is somehow against their religion. While driving through SLC they wanted to stop off at a large Harley store. For Jack and me, it was like visiting a house of 'ill-repute'. They kept trying to influence us to sell our Japanese bikes and join them on a Harley. We weren't trying to get them to sell their Harleys and buy Japanese and then I figured it out why they kept wanting us to buy a Harley. Suddenly it was so clear. Misery loves company!! No trip would be complete without a miracle to report. I am sorry that I have no picture to show. In hind sight I should have turned around and taken a photo of the miracle site. I could have sold it to the Catholics for a fortune. The reader will just have to use their imagination. I have titled the miracle.

The Woolley Miracle

There was another story that I shared about some woolly lost sheep but I won't repeat it here. The members of the group will make the connection and hence the choice of the miracle's name.

We had just left Bryce Canyon and were headed for Richfield. We had ridden long and hard and were anxious to have the second day over and done. We were ready for a hot tub moment except for Thayne who once again never showed in the hot tub... Jack was on my Goldwing and riding in the middle of the pack.

As I was speeding down the road I noticed a flock of sheep right to the side of the road. They had been peacefully grazing until two Harleys went past them. The sound of their bikes struck fear into the sheep and they looked like they were about to bolt. As I went past them I had a very bad feeling because I used to herd sheep when I was young and I knew the look that a sheep gets right before they scatter.

Of course Jack and I were the only ones without a CB Radio and so no warning was relayed back to Jack. I am ashamed to admit that my great concern was not for the sheep and actually not even for Jack. But I can tell you this, I was pretty anxious about what was about to happen to my Goldwing. I slowed down and watched in my rear view mirror as the drama unfolded. Sure enough, just as Jack got to the woolly buggers, they broke and raced across the road.

I watched to see the wool fly and my Gold wing fairings to shatter on the pavement. Instead, all I saw was a plume of smoke coming from the rear tire of my bike. For a few moments I thought Jack was in the middle of a sheep stampede. There were sheep in front of him, sheep behind him and sheep heading to broadside him. My whole life passed before me. The last time I loaned someone my bike they hit a dog and totaled it. Talk about deja' vu. Here it was happening all over again except the sheep replaced the dog.

However, much to my amazement the Goldwing stayed upright. The sheep made it to the other side of the road and only strands of sheep wool stuck to the bike.

And there folks is your miracle. Even though Jack was a bi t traumatized he seemed pretty intact and rode on to Richfield. Later that night however, Thayne said he heard Jack cussing sheep in his sleep.

THE END

LETTER I WROTE PUBLISHED IN THE LOCAL NEWSPAPER

Let’s apply the recent argument for gun elimination or control to a much more lethal weapon; alcohol. ‘According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (HNTSA) 32,885 people died in the United States from driving accidents including 10,228 people who died in drunk driving crashes, accounting for 31% of all traffic deaths.’

To use the same argument regarding gun contol: I propose that anyone who buys alcohol be required to have a back ground check to determine if they have ever been drunk. If the background check reveals that drunkenness has occurred then the person be denied the purchase of any alcohol. I further propose that if the back ground check reveals drunkedness, that person forfeits his driving license and that he be required to divest himself of any vehicles registered in his name. I further propose that hard liquor with higher alcohol content be banned all together because it gets people drunker faster.

I propose that people who store alcohol in their homes come under careful scrutiny because they have an increased potential to get more people drunk. I propose that every purchase of alcohol be documented so that any abuse of alcohol can be tracked. Only those who have permits will be allowed to purchase alcohol. Each container of alcohol must have a serial numbers so if alcohol is involved in a fatality the source of the alcohol can be traced to the establishment that sold it. My eventual intent would be to eliminate alcohol all together because even though most people drink responsibly and never drive while intoxicated, there is always that danger. Somebody might steal another person’s alcohol and get drunk, drive and kill somebody. In order to have drivers on the highway that never- ever get drunk we ultimately must get rid of all alcohol and not allow it in the hands of people.

I know that sounds pretty unrealistic but that is the same argument for gun elimination or control. If the government were really worried about the deaths of people it would make much more sense and result in far less fatalities to control or eliminate alcohol. Compare the number of fatalities. I think maybe the issue isn’t about guns or alcohol it is about control and that is what we need to be resisting with all our energy. Let’s not get side tracked into debating guns or alcohol. It really isn’t about them It’s all about skillfully using them as excuses to exercise more governmental control and to take away freedoms from the citizens. Whenever, a politician speaks, always suspect and look for the hidden agenda. It is rarely what it initially seems and is more likely to be about control and restriction of our freedoms to choose.

Kent Pilling Ph.D.

LETTER TO THE NEWSPAPER

I am puzzled by the marked response differences between the affected citizens from Katrina and from the wild fires of Southern California. In California 750,000 people were evacuated. Seven Hundred and Nineteen square miles were burned. There were no refusals from the citizens to leave their homes thus putting ‘First Responders’ at greater risk to rescue them. ‘First Responders’ were the first ones to be cared for by volunteer churches and others thus empowering them to continue with their heroic efforts. They weren’t shot at by looters or interfered with by stubborn citizens. None of the ‘First Responders’ robbed the houses they were trying to save. An estimated 2000 homes have burned. I have not read any demands, by the citizens that the government make-up those losses and provide interim housing. Qualcomm Stadium sheltered more than 30,000 people. Del Mar Fairgrounds served as a refuge for North County Residents. Thousands of others were sheltered in volunteer homes and churches. The Stadium wasn’t trashed. The Fairgrounds weren’t littered. The churches weren’t disrespected. Private homes weren’t injured. There were no assaults, no murders, no rapes, no stealing, no whining, no complaining. I read only expressions of gratitude for the help. Mail service was suspended, schools closed, malls and shopping centers closed and serious disruption to people’s life styles occurred. The newspapers are full of expressions from people full of gratitude for what was spared and hope and optimism for rebuilding. Neighbors helped and supported each other and instead of the tragedy being divisive it seems that the communities have grown even closer together. I suspect that the citizens of California, devastated by the loss of homes and property will be spending little if any time in government provided Fema Trailers.

The San Diego Mayor’s office has responded with gratitude and thanksgiving for the support from church and volunteer organizations. Nobody is pointing fingers and blaming government or community leaders for mistakes that may have occurred. I am at a loss to understand the very different responses from the citizens of California and the citizens of New Orleans, but I can’t help but think the people from California got it right.

Kent Pilling Ph.D.

THIS WAS A LETTER I WROTE TO ONE OF MY PSYCHOLOGY PROFESSORS Dr. Bert Cundick

Dear Bert,

I received in the mail today a Fall Mckay Today Magazine from the B.Y.U school of education. I was reading some short responses that people had contributed about what teacher had a life changing impact on them. As I was reading them, you came so forcibly to my mind that my whole self felt very warm and loving toward you. I put the magazine down and went immediately to my computer to write to you. You may not remember the events that I remember but they quite clearly reside in my memory and in my heart.

I think I first met you when I was in a Master’s Program in School Psychology and took a Child Psychology class from you. Perhaps you didn’t know but I had barely graduated with a degree in Economics. I had been placed on academic probation because I skipped so many classes that I had very low grades. I never felt like I was smart enough to compete with other students and struggled so hard to discipline myself to study. But I hated the material in Economics and had so much trouble with price theory and math. Darwin Gale suggested to me that I should go into School Psychology but my grades were so low I didn’t think for a moment that I would be accepted. They had me take a bunch of tests and afterwards called me into the counseling department and asked why my tests scores were high but my grades were so low. I don’t remember what I said but they decided to let me into the School Psychology Program. Those classes were so much easier and interesting to me and I did better academically and some of the teachers seemed to like me. However, I don’t think that much of that went more than skin deep and I continued to feel very inadequate. You invited Janice & I to your house once for some kind of seminar or social. I remember being very surprised and uncomfortable because I couldn’t really believe that I belonged. You asked Janice if she had ever had a class from you and if she liked it. Much to my horror she said that she had a class from you and that you were such a hard teacher that she didn’t like it. I could have died. I thought there goes any chance I have. But you made a joke out of it and seemed alright.

For some reason you seemed to stay aware of me and how I was doing. I never dreamed for a moment that I would ever pursue a doctorate. I felt really lucky to even be in a Master’s program. However, you encouraged me to apply for the doctorate program and I did so but never held out any hope of being admitted. I believe that you were instrumental in my admission to the program and without your voice I never would have been admitted. For the next years you kept an interest in me. It was clearly more than academic. You took me fishing, went skiing with me, hunted with me and invited me to your home. You introduced me to your wife who treated Janice and I with interest and warmth and acceptance. I didn’t see you doing that with other students and I wondered often why me. You helped me get an assistantship and let me work in the clinic with you that really helped me to feel some more confidence. I knew that there were other students in the program that were more intelligent than I and that was really discouraging. I did not realize that there were differences in gifts and abilities and that not everyone was super smart.

However, I worked hard and somehow continued in the program. On every test occasion I was sure I was going to be kicked out. You kept treating me like you liked me and believed in me and often when I was most self doubting your acceptance and encouragement would keep me going.

I remember when I was defending my dissertation one of the professors asked me a trick question about statistics. He asked me about some statistical character that didn’t exist. I hated statistics because of the math problem and honestly didn’t know hardly anything about it. I didn’t know that I was being set up and was all set to answer the question and make a complete fool of myself, but just before I did so, you interjected with a joke and said to the effect, “Kent you know there is no such character.” I could have given you the farm. I felt like you had rescued me from myself. I don’t remember anything else about those orals except the incredible gratitude I felt toward you for saving me. I don’t think I ever looked at you the same again. That was a turning point for me. I trusted you completely after that.

You helped me so much with my dissertation. I could never have completed it without your help and assurance. I felt in over my head so much of the time. When I flew in that small plane down to Provo to take my Orals, you insisted that I come and stay with you and that was the safest place in all of Provo. I felt tons of anxiety about the orals and was so sure that I was going to fail and have to move back down to Provo with my little family and have to take some more classes before they would every let me graduate. I had so many frightening scenarios in my head.

The orals were a terrible experience. Instead of asking me questions about the therapy and assessment tapes that I had left them and which I was led to believe would be the material for the discussion (interrogation) they instead asked me all the questions that I had missed on the written exam. I had passed that and thought I was done with it so had not gone back and even looked at it again. Consequently, I has even less prepared than when I took the exam. At one point my anxiety was so high that my vision tunneled on Dr. Hardy’s chin and I began to count his whiskers. It was such a terrifying experience.

Afterwards, I fled the building and hiked up Rock Canyon and ran and ran. It was the only escape I could think of. My worst fear had come true. I had finally failed the ultimate test and was defeated. I cannot tell you the feelings of depression and hopelessness that came over me. I didn’t want to face my wife with my failure, I didn’t want you to know of my failure after all you had done for me. Finally, I ran out of energy and went back to face the shame. When I walked in your door you ran to me and put your arms around me and hugged me. Then you started giving me heck about where I had gone. You had gone down to where my plane was parked to see if I had left. I could clearly see that your upset with me came from your concern because there were tears in your eyes. I felt so loved and nurtured by your response. Then you told me I had passed and commenced to lecture me about my insecurities and told me that I was one of the best students that had ever gone through the program.

I love you so much for your interest, love and support toward me. Later in my life when I made some very foolish choices and ended up in a world of trouble, you came to Canada to visit. I didn’t even know that you were aware of my sad situation. You came you visited and treated me like you always did. I wanted to talk to you and tell you what had happened but I was so filled with shame and guilt that I couldn’t. Later on I heard from some source (I can’t remember who) that you had said after visiting us, “Kent will be alright. He’ll get past this.” I can’t tell you what effect that had on me when I heard that you has expressed continued confidence in me. It was such a boost for me to know that you knew what had happened and still believed I would make it.

When I last visited you and Sylvia and saw you getting older, I felt so much tender gratitude for you and the huge difference that you have made in my life. I thought of all the kids you must have helped and supported and what a wonderful career you have had. Bless your heart. Thank you, thank you so much. I have wondered at times if you were perceptive enough so see into my frightened and insecure heart when we first met. I conclude that you were and then took my hand and led me through a very difficult time.

Thank you so much for that Bert. You are my hero.

Kent

THIS IS A LETTER I WROTE TO OUR NEIGHORS WHO WERE JUST BEEING RELEASED FROM THEIR MISSION

July 17/06

Dear Brother and Sister Turner,

I understand that your mission is soon to be over and you will be returning home. I feel a responsibility to help prepare you for the possible shock and awe that might be awaiting you upon your return. I will try to soften the extent of the changes that have occurred since you left but occasionally will be unable to ‘pull any punches’ and will just have to tell you the way it is. You both might wish to be sitting down when you read this letter.

Since I have not been invited inside your house since you left I can only imagine the possible changes that have occurred since Mark & Verla have moved in. They have had frequent and noisey, wild parties almost continually. There have been cans of Bud Light thrown along the ditches from your house to the main highway. I have personally picked up three and put them in your dumpster myself. You know how many Darrington’s there are in the valley and they have just made themselves at home in your house and yard. It is so bad that your horses won’t even eat the grass near your house because of the commotion. Camilo has tried his best to control the flood of Darrington’s but to no avail.

And it’s too darn bad about your fruit trees. Last fall when the fruit was ripe the Irish kids (they’ve gained weight since your left) crawled up in the trees to get the fruit and broke off most of the branches. This summer the trees have looked like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree. But I’m sure the branches will grow back some day and they’ll start producing fruit again.

It’s too bad about that little fire that broke out while they were hardsurfacing the road up through the canyon. It was really interesting what happened to the plastic fences with that much heat. They never really caught on fire but they sagged and melted and dipped and swelled until… well all I can say is that your fence now looks really unique. It still keeps the horses in because they are scaird to death to even go near it. It looks like a concertina barrier that surrounded Japanese Prison Camps except that it is white. The fact that it shrunk to only about three feet high still keeps the horses in because they won’t approach it.

I hope Camilo has time to fix the corner of your garage where the tractor clipped it before you get home. Who would have thought that Camilo would have got drunk and gone on a tractor bashing spry? The hay shed now just rests on the hay because he knocked down all the supports. I think what finally stopped him was when the tractor smashed through your white picket fence and hit the rock wall and just spun until the wheels dug so deep in your lawn that the tractor stalled. After it quit Camilo crawled out of the cab with a beer in each hand, sang the Mexican Anthem, peed on what was left of the lawn and staggered home. Nobody saw him for 6 days.

Those new little colts are quite pretty. It is a shame those mangy dogs got in the other night and did what they did. However, I know that with time, a lot of stitches and probably a little counseling they will be fine again. We shot the dogs but not before they had done the damage. The colts are getting around a little better now. Two of them are still using crutches and the third is in a wheel chair. The vet says it may be a month or two before they will be up and around. I think it is too much to hope for that they will ever race but we hope they will just be able to walk again.

Marsha has been in your back yard stealing dirt. She says that you stole it from her and that she is just getting it back. I can’t image what that big wheel loader costs her a week. But she has kept it busy. I hope you won’t mind seeing that big cave she has dug into the hillside. I tried to warn her that she might create an avalanche situation if she continued to rob the dirt and steepen the hill slope. But you know Marsha, once she gets her mind made up it is like trying to change the direction of gravity. She has also been getting in a fair bit of riding on your mares. Twice a week she saddles them up and races them up and down the canyon. To my surprise that old girl can ride. She rides them so hard that they have really decreased their milk production and the colts actually are getting kind of skinny.

That damn wind that blows 100 mph once or twice a year happened again last week. Your sprinklers jumped the fence (remember it is only three feet high) and went bouncing and rolling down through stokers alfalfa field like a bunch of tumble weeds. Where they ended up nobody knows so consequently your fields are looking a little brown without any water.

Who would have thought that the Oregon Pine Beetle would have got into your pine trees. I thought those little buggers were confined to Oregon. I could hardly believe they could kill all those trees in one summer. As soon as they finished they caught a ride back to Oregon and didn’t hit any of our trees. I wondered if maybe you had pissed somebody off in Oregon in years past and they finally sent them over as revenge. Can you think of who it could be?

Your water pump must have got really hot one night because by morning there was nothing left of the pump house except some nails. I have been worried since about where you are going to put the reindeer and sleigh this Christmas. Those needleless pine trees might actually look good with snow all over them. Of course the squirrels have also packed up and left. I think they caught a ride to Oregon with the Pine Beetles. I heard that a car load of squirrels and pine beetles got stopped by the police west of Boise for drunken driving. Maybe it was the same bunch.

Camilo keeps leaving the door to your steel garage open and there are huge numbers of starlings that have taken up residence there. Even when Camilo closes the door they know how to peck the garage door opener and open the big door. They keep one sentinel bird on the top of the garage at all times and when it sees Camilo’s white truck coming it screams a noise and one of the great big starlings walks over and pecks the garage door opener and the door closes. Then the birds crawl into inconspicuous places and hold really still. Camilo opens the door and walks in and there is white bird crap all over everything. He scratches his head, checks the lock on the small door and leaves. I am sure he is puzzled by what is happening but doesn’t know how it occurs. It will take you at least the equivalent amount of time you spent on your mission to wash the bird crap off everything.

One morning I was walking past your garage in the early morning and suddenly the garage door opens and out flies a black cloud of starlings. I thought it was a repeat of Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “The Birds” and darted into Marsha house for protection. It was only later that I learned they were just headed out for breakfast. That wasn’t the end of the story. When I entered Marsha’s house it was without knocking because I thought I was running for my life. Marsha upon hearing the ruckus and the forced entry at her back door, leaped out of bed, grabbed one of those wicked killing tools that she has on display at her house and waving it above her head came screaming down the hallway. I turned to escape but forgot that the screen door had closed. I ran right threw the door and barely missed getting my head bitten off by her Alaskan, killer dog as I streaked across the yard in the direction of Hartwell’s house. I never stopped running until I reached home. I don’t think that she recognized me because she never brought it up the next time she saw me. (Maybe she thought it was Doug sneaking back to get alittle…) I can’t tell you how terrifying it was. It wasn’t her screaming or the weapon she was brandishing, but I’m here to tell you that seeing Marsha without her make-up on is about as terrifying as it gets. I had night tremors for weeks.

When they were building the new road, they brought a load of rocks for you. You would think that they would just dump them on the level part of your back road. But no, the dickhead who drove the truck dumped them up hill and the avalanche began. Most of the rocks stayed stationary but two of them started rolling. The one got up enough speed that it almost cleared the house. I hope that chimney was for decoration and not function. It then came to earth in the center of your courtyard leaving a crater deep enough to fish in. It went through the plastic fence like it wasn’t even there and headed for the horses. There was wild neighing and fierce commotion until the boulder divided the horses and jumped the road into Brent’s alfalfa field. Who would have thought that one rolling stone could have caused that much damage to a sprinkler system. There might be a little bill against you for damages to his pivot. By the time the rock got stopped that pivot looked like a piece of spaghetti that a two-year old tried to push across his plate with a toothpick. I told Brent that it must have just been a random rock that had become dislodged from the hill back of the house, but when we followed the trail of destruction, it ended at the rock pile, so I think you’re screwed in terms of a good defense or mitigating circumstances. The road crew has disappeared into the sunset, so I fear the buck will end up squatting on your shoulders. I personally think you should plead insanity or blame it completely on Lila. They are reluctant to put women in prison.

Oh and Marsha might have a word or two for you when you get home. One of your sprinklers on the east of your pasture got out of control and began spraying her house. She wasn’t home at the time so nobody noticed until the blast of water broke open her front window and began to fill the house with water. When it got high enough in the basement in rejuvenated most of her full animal mounts and they swam to the stairs and escaped out the back door. So now we have all kinds of strange animals running around that are not indigenous to our area. She keeps trying to coax them back home around dark each night but they are having none of it. Once they have tasted freedom they aren’t coming back. I think the same situation is true of Doug. She tries to get him to come back but he won’t have none of it either. Although, I see his truck over there some mornings when I leave for work early. That means he spent the night. I suspect that some nocturnal nuzzling is going on, but what the heck, they are still married. They can’t get along well enough to live together but I guess that doesn’t mean they can’t still sleep together. Maybe old Doug is smarter than we thought.

There are a few little changes that have happened in the Declo Church since you left so I don’t want you to be taken by surprise when you come home. The High Priest Yearly Social is coming up the first part of August. This year they have approved liquor sales at the banquet. However, don’t get too alarmed, the church isn’t buying it, they have to buy it themselves but there is no limit to how much they can drink. The bishop has asked the young men to be designated drivers for those who over-do. Some of the old sisters are having trouble with this new rule but the old farmers are quite in favor.

There are a lot fewer complaints about the meat, salad and rolls since they have started the new program. Looking forward to seeing you

Your Neighbor Kent

A NOTE I WROTE TO MY DEAR FRIEND NEIL HARPER

Dear Neil:

Last Sunday night an unfortunate, sad and very costly accident happened at our house. After the Young Men’s Meeting, you apparently backed your car up with reckless abandoned and ran over my prize cat. When I arrived home from late Choir Practice, there was the corpse of the recently departed kitten, squashed flatter than a black licorice plug all over my drive way. Blood had spurted clear across the drive way and onto the side of my truck. My wife immediately broke into tears and was unconsollable for the remainder of the evening. Even my assurances of a cat heaven where there is an unlimited supply of ‘Kibbles and Bits’ did little to assuage her grief and sorrow.

When I entered the house there was a prayer vigil in progress with my grandchildren and their parents. The sobbing and whining was most depressing. My poor grandkids were beside themselves with tears and pain. “Why won’t the kitty move?” wails Sidney. “Because Brother Harper ran over it and crushed all the bones in it’s body,” said Scott.

“Why would Brother Harper do such a thing grandpa ?” enquires Joshua. What could I say? I thought of all the possible explanations that would satisfy the first enquiry of a grandchild regarding death. I struggled to find the right answer that would assure them of a continuation of life hereafter and some statement that would lessen their sorrow. Finally, after a few seconds of deep consideration I replied: “Because Brother Harper is a mean and wicked person who hates cats and tries to run over everyone he sees.” That seemed to help them somewhat but got a few raised eyebrows from their parents and from Janice. There are just sometimes when Grandpa’s know exactly what to say to help.

Now we come to the issue of compensation. That kitty was just approaching adulthood. It came from thoroughbred breeding lines that date clear back to the Mayflower. This cat’s mother was reknown for her mousing abilities. She also had a reputation for being unusually unselfish. She would catch mice and instead of immediately devouring them, she would bring them onto the lawn for her kittens to pay with. How cool is that?

That kitten, whose life you robbed in adolescence also had a grandmother that showed unusual giftedness. The record has it that she toilet trained at five weeks. There are actual accounts of her grandmother wandering around before her eyes were open, trying to find a kitty-litter box.

An earlier ancestor had the name of Roxnor and was even allowed to live inside her owners house. However, after she stained a number of expensive Persian rugs she was shot. Her last words however pretty memorable. She stood on her hind legs and said, “shoot me if you will but remember I have nine lives and will return and pee on your carpets, bed spreads and expensive couchs.” You don’t hear of an act of defiance like that very often.

There was one ancestor in the direct bloodline that was not a cat to actually be very proud of but he is still spoken of during family cat reunions. His name was General and he was a tomcat. He had quite a reputation as a ladies man and was single handedly responsible for 43 litters of kittens. However, he had this annoying habit of returning afterwards and killing all his offspring. Hence, the actual number of living posterity was not as high as you might originally have thought.

The family genealogy isn’t known past the cat that accompanied the pilgrims on the Mayflower. She was originally brought along to kill any rats that slipped aboard the ship. Since the boat didn’t dock but once there weren’t that many rats. After she had killed and eaten all the rats, she took to killing and eating some of the pilgrims children. This was frowned upon by the Pilgrims because they were pretty conservative and had no sense of humor. As soon as the ship ran into Plymouth Rock the cat leaped ashore and the rest is history.

As I’m sure you will appreciate, a cat with historic lines like that is not very common. Therefore I’m sure you will not be reluctant to make full restitution. I figure the cost of the squashed kitten is $430.00 However, I am also aware that you have eliminated the bother of continuing to take care of him. Therefore, if you will not charge me for solving my problem, I won’t charge you.

DEAREST MAX, NIKKI, WHITNEY, DEVAN, GWEN & EL

Please look at the list and find your name. This Christmas gift is for you and you and you and you. It is hard for us to consider each of your needs and choose a gift espcially for you, so we hope that you will accept these few dollars and choose something to do something with that is special for you. If we could afford it you would all receive a million dollars.

The other gift that we wish to give to you is our love and admiration. We know each of you individually and love you with all our hearts forever and ever. You are the family that God has given to us for eternity. You are the ones we intend to spent all of the eternity with. We love it when you come to visit us. A happy feeling comes through the door when you come and we see your faces. We love it when you hug us and say you love us. For a few moments all of eternity lines up

.We admire the good choices and decisions that you are making. We are greatful for your good parents. When Nephi first introduces himself in the Book of Mormon he declares: “ I Nephi, being born of goodly parents…” What a wonderful recommendation. We are grateful for your decisions to attend church, to study the scriptures and to learn the gospel. We love to see you following Christ’s commandments and learning to serve others. That is where happiness lies. There is nothing in the whole world that we wish more for you than to see you grow up in gospel and center your lives around the teachings of Jesus.

When you are hurting or sad and we know about it we are sad too. When we know that you are struggling, we pray for you and put your names on the prayer role in the temple. When you are happy and successful we rejoice with you. You are an important part of our lives and we want to be an important part of your lives as well. Each of you is uniquely special to us.

Grandma & Grandpa are getting older and we sadly recognize that we will not be around you for very many more years. There is going to be large part of your lives that wil be lived without us being involved. That is a sad thought for us. We have struggled through lots of challenges and we have learned some very important lessons. What has given us the courage, faith and strength to make better choices and to be happy has been the testimonies that we have.

We know that there is a Father in Heaven. We know that each of you were His children before you became ours. We know that God so loved the World that He sacrificed his Son to be our Savior at terrible expense. We know that His special sacrifice opens a way for us to repent of all our sins and return to live with them in Exaltation and happiness. We love Joseph Smith and all the subsquent prophets that have restored and reaffirmed the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Book of Mormon and all the other scriptures are worthy of reading and studying every single day and that by so doing it will help us to understand the mind and will of God in our behalf. We hope and pray that each of you will make righteous choices and experience happiness and success during your turn on earth.

CHRISTMAS: 2011

Dear: Scott, Brandon, Josh, Emily, Abbie, Sidney, Carter, Max, Madelyn, Brooke, Patrick, Nikki, Sarah Grace, Kate, Luke, Whitney, Jackson, Jayden, Devan, Benjamin, Mason, Will, Ryker, Gwen, Sophie, and Alta.

Please look at the long list and find your name. This Christmas gift is for you and you and you. It is hard for us to consider each of your needs and choose a gift especially for you, so we hope that you will accept these few dollars and choose to do something with it that is special for you.

The other gift that we wish to give to you is our love. We know each of you individually and love you with all our hearts. You are all our beloved grandchildren. You are the ones that we intend to spend the rest of eternity with. We love it when you come to visit us. We love it when you hug us and say you love us. We love seeing you grow and make good choices and decisions. We love it that you love your parents and try to follow their counsel. We love it that you go to church and are developing your own testimonies. We love it that you strive to follow Heavenly Fathers commandments. We love to see you learning to love our Savior Jesus Christ. There is nothing in the whole world that we wish more for you than to see you grow up in the gospel and center your lives around the teachings of Jesus.

When you are sad or hurting and we know about it, we are sad too. When we know that you are struggling, we pray for you and put your names on the prayer role in the temple. When you are happy and successful we rejoice with you. You are an important part of our lives. Each of you is so so special.

As we get older, our focus and concerns center mostly on our family. Thank you for being our grandchildren. Thank you for all the attention and affection that you give us. We love you with all our hearts and hope and pray for your happiness.

Grandma & Grandpa are in the autumn of our lives. We have struggled through lots of challenges and we have learned some very important lessons. What has given us the courage and strength to make better choices and to be happy, are the testimonies that we have.

We know that there is a Father in Heaven. We know that He so loved the world (us) that He sent His only begotten Son (Jesus Christ) to be our Savior and friend. We know that because of His special mission to atone for all the mistakes that we make, that we can repent and go forward and progress. We know that Joseph Smith was called to be the prophet who restored His precious church back to the earth. We know that he translated the Book of Mormon and that the truths in that book will teach us how to return to live with Heavenly Father. We know that we have a beloved prophet here on the earth today and that his name is Thomas Monson. We know that he is the president of the church that Heavenly Father restored through Joseph Smith. We know for sure all these things and we know that we can be happier following God’s commandments than anything the world can offer us. We hope and pray that each of you will make righteous choices and experience happiness and success during your turn on earth.

LETTER PUBLISHED IN THE LOCAL NEWSPAPER

I recently gained my American citizenship after a lengthy process of applying, being checked, tested and finally approved over a period of more than two years. I now hold legal citizenship in both Canada and the United States. When I travel to Canada I am asked at the ‘Port of Entry’ to declare my citizenship. I tell them I am a Canadian and show them my Canadian Passport. When I return to the U.S. they ask me for my citizenship and I tell them I am an American and show them my American Passport. I never tell the Canadian Customs officials I am an American/Canadian and I never tell the American Customs Officials that I am a Canadian/American. Neither country would allow me entrance if I used those designations. I must declare if I am a Canadian or an American.

I don’t understand the designation of African/American or Mexican/American or Italian/American or Canadian/American etc. If one holds legal citizenship in both countries then they are citizens of Africa and citizens of America, or citizens of Mexico and citizens of America or in my case a citizen of Canada and a citizen of America.

It seems to me that citizens of America that call themselves African/Americans, or Mexican/Americans or any other mixed designation likely do not even hold legal citizenship in Africa or in Mexico or another country. Even if they did, why try to combine the two into a third designation called African/American or Mexican/American or Italian/American etc. First of all we don’t have a right to claim citizenship in another country if we don’t actually hold legal citizenship. Secondly, why would you want to try to attach that citizenship to your American Citizenship. Isn’t American citizenship as ‘good as it gets?’ After we work hard to become Americans, what is the purpose of creating a different and distinct designation?

It seems apparent that people who insist on being referred to with a separate designation are seeking some entitlement not available to just ordinary Americans. They consider themselves as not just Americans but very special Americans who are deserving of more consideration, more recognition and more compensation than just regular Americans. It sets them apart from the rest of non-designated Americans. That seems anti-American to me. In Canada, we allowed the designation of Canadian and French Canadian. Those separate designations resulted in huge political and economic divisions within the country and has gone so far as to threaten the Confederacy because the French Canadians now want to secede from the Dominion and form their own country.

I value my Canadian citzenship and I treasure my American citizenship. When I am in Canada I am a Canadian. When I am in the United States I am an American. But I will never think of myself nor refer to myself as a Canadian/American or an American/Canadian. That seems unpatriotic and unfair to both countries.

Kent Pilling Ph.D.

DEAR BISHOP ANTHON

Dear Bishop Anthon

Thankyou for serving as my bishop. I appreciated your leadership both administratively and ministerial. It was satisfying and faith promoting to see you grow into that calling and to serve so effectively. Truly you committed yourself to being bishop to the extent that the Lord magnified your efforts. I appreciated your comments at the end of sacrament meeting. I appreciated the insights and inspirations that you shared with us. I know that when you were serving in the High Council and that a new bishop was to be called to our ward, I had a personal inspiration that you were to be our new bishop. I knew that you were called of God because the spirit confirmed for me that you were to be our new bishop before you were called.

Your own developed ability to speak and to communicate added so much to your calling. I appreciate how articulate you are and how competently you think and speak on ‘your feet’. When you speak you command the attention of us as listeners. Often your insights were instructive to me and added to my already understanding. Thankyou for your kindness and consideration to Janice and me. I always enjoyed the personal attention we received at tithing settlement. You always took some extra time to visit personally with us.

I know that those personal qualities and gifts that you exhibited as our bishop will serve you well in your new assignment. I know that you stand for what is right and that you are intellectually equipped to defend it. I know that you are wise beyond your years and will not be intimidated by senior colleagues. I know that you are your own person and that your testimony defines much of who you are. I know that you have prepared yourself to be a leader and to be able to strongly influence decisions that are made. I know that your voice will be heard wherever and whenever it is expressed. You command listening. You are authentic and real and that is so refreshing. Politicians often slip into a rhetoric that is intended to placate and misdirect attention. I know that is not you and that your voice will always be a standard for truth, not just what is politically correct.

I am grateful to you for your contribution as a bishop and for your potential to effect and influence the leadership of our government. I wish and your family the very best and offer my support.

Brother Pilling

DEAR 1ST BORN OF MY 1ST BORN AND HEIR TO MY NEW .22 WHEN IM GONE

I was going to buy you a Lamborgini for your graduation but it was too spensive. It seems just a short time ago that I was shopping with a little boy and his younger sister in Michigan while your dad and mother were sacrificing for schooling. Time has gone so fast and here you are graduating from High School getting ready to “fly the coop” (that is a chicken idiom that I can use because I am a chicken farmer”) The other disturbing fact is that as you have grown older so have I. Thank heavens that I have stayed young enough to have enjoyed my grandson. You may never know how much your concern, affection and love for me has meant. I remember climbing out of Lineham and having a hard time of it. Your concern for me led you to suggest that “we have a prayer grandpa, because if not I don’t think you are going to make it out of here.” You were so young and yet already knew that we needed some help from the Lord. You are so wonderful. I don’t think there is mean bone in your body. You are without guile. You remind me a lot of Jordan who has a similar kindness and gentleness. I love your energy and passion for life. You have all the makings of a great leader. I’m certain that your example has already influenced for good the lives of many people. It doesn’t get much better than to have the love and friendship of your younger sisters. You are a light and influence for good in their lives already. We often say that we were born of goodly parents, which is true in your case but it also might well be said that your parents have born a goodly son. Surely you are that grandson to me.

I appreciate that of all the people that have a copy of the book I wrote, you are the one who most appreciated it. It would have been worth the effort and cost of producing that book even if you were the only one who got a copy. Thank you for that. You alone made the book worth it. You made me feel like you appreciated my life that was reflected there in.

I have had some wonderful times with you that have added much to my life. The trip I took with you on the bike trip in Moab was very revealing to me. You were the youngest but kept right up there with the leaders. When it was time for camping I noticed that all the older guys were gathered around you while you regaled them with stories. Even then you were drawing a crowd.

I love you Brandon. You are all that I would hope for in a grandson. I’m proud of you. I rejoice with you in your completion of High School. I know that the future holds wonderful things for you. You have a firm foundation laid and a pattern set already.

I will love you forever and forever. Thank Heavens for Eternal Families

DEAR BREK

Dear Brek:
I told Emily to just go to Walmart and get a present for you and stop bugging all the rest of us to help her with her present to you. She will end up getting all the credit and we will have to do all the work. Besides, I know how uncomfortable you are with any kind of acknowledgement, so maybe if I make this sufficiently uncomfortable you will tell Emily to just go to Walmart next year. She was even rather vague on what she wanted me to write. But knowing Emily she will probably expect that it will be warm and fuzzy. So here goes. Fasten your seat belt because this may make you feel really, really uncomfortable.

When Cory was born I thought that he was the only child that I could love as much as I loved him. I didn’t understand how I could love another child with out taking love away from the first child. I remember asking Dr. Bennion how that worked. He said, “don’t worry about it. It happens naturally and you don’t have to figure it out.” Well I was quite surprised to find out that you could love more without division of affection for the first child. You were an interesting child. With Cory going first, you had the benefit of watching him and avoiding anything that got him into trouble. I also think that somehow that left you with a freedom to be more yourself and not worry so much what other people thought of you. Val Harper made an observation about you once that I thought was fitting. “Brek Pilling is such a participant.” You were up for anything and not afraid to try anything that looked fun. You were really coordinated and athletic. I enjoyed many joyful and painful times sitting on hard spectator bleachers watching you play basketball. I think that time was incredibly enjoyable for me. I got lots of vicarious enjoyment watching you act out my wishes and hopes.

I somehow just took for granted your unusual maturity and responsibility at such a young age. I remember that mom & I were riding our scooter home from Lake McDonald after our vacation. We had the Jeep and a trailer behind it. I remarked to Janice part way over the pass, “do you realize we have all the rest of our kids in the Jeep and Brek is driving them up over Logan’s Pass.” You were 14 years old at the time. Janice said, “so what’s your point.” We just always assumed that you were able to handle what ever you said you could do.

I remember the anguish I felt when you were on your mission and struggling with your health problems. You were so far away and there was so little I could do. I don’t know if I have ever prayed harder. I was so proud of you when you returned. I fear that my pride became a little vain because I was always wanting to ‘show you off.’ I couldn’t believe that you had learned to play the piano while on your mission. That was almost as strange as hearing you speak Japanese.

When you went away to University, I missed you a lot. You have always contributed so much whenever you are in relationship. When you aren’t there the loss is apparent. I looked forward so much when you would come home because the action always picked up. I never felt that any of the girls that you brought home were right for you. However, on that one day that we were in Provo and met Emily in the parking lot I had a very different feeling and told your mother that was the right girl for Brek. I am so grateful to you for marrying Emily. She is a joy to me. As a mother, a wife and as daughter-in-law, there are none better. Thank you for marrying Emily. Thank you for the wonderful grandchildren that you have brought into our lives. I love them more than I can express.

You were away from home during school and graduate school and then in the military. During that time I had less personal contact with you but was aware and amazed at the stories that I heard about you. Building a home while attending graduate school. Going to class with a carpenters belt, sawdust and shorts on when all the other students were dressing and behaving to impress their professors. Driving all the way to Wyoming for your internship. Living with the Burtenshaws and having them grow to love you so much. Peggy told me on repeated occasions how much she loved you and how amazed she was by you. It was not easy to amaze Peggy. I heard regular reports about you from Bennion and Cundick and I could tell they were enjoying you.

Then in Officer Training you won the award for the best drill (whatever). We laughed so hard because that is so much you. Put a challenge in front of you and it was always like waving a red flag in front of a bull. You were so amazingly competitive, but in a different way. You never seemed to want to win because you wanted to defeat anyone or the other team. You wanted to win because winning was programmed into you genes. Losing was hard for you because I think it was out of character. You created some very wonderful moments playing sports.

Since returning from the military and school and coming back to Idaho I have been able to get to know you as an adult. I will tell you this. You are one incredible person. I had no idea you were going to be this wonderful as an adult. I am impressed and in awe of your brilliance, your intelligence and your leadership abilities. You are the hit of every gathering and people love to be around you. I hear some wonderful things about you from other people. I am amazed at times that I am your father because you seem so far ahead of me. You accomplish things that for me seem impossible.

I am humbled by your spirituality. You probably have more spiritual common sense than anyone I know. You have such a good grounding in the gospel and you use it as the paradigm for your whole life.

I appreciate the respect that you have for Emily and your children. They couldn’t have a better father. You are great example, you participate with them whenever you can and they love you dearly. I have great appreciation for your input, support and regard for your siblings. You do much to strengthen and help them. You do much for our family that I can’t do myself. Thank you so much for that. You are a real stalwart in everything you do.

I could go on and on and make you even more uncomfortable. However, I fear that next year Emily will be wanting an update and I don’t want to unload everything this year. At the risk of borrowing something already said: “You are my son, in whom I am well pleased.” Brek, I love you with all my heart. Having you around as I grow older is a personal joy.

Love Dad

DEAR BURLEY BASKETBALL

I regret that this letter may injure some feelings. However, I have learned that in the Burley School District there is no listening unless there is discomfort. The other thing I have learned is that it is easier to complain and moan amongst ourselves that to risk any confrontation with the culprits.
I represent a group of those who are afraid to confront; parents and community members that wish a spokesperson to articulate their frustrations.
There is something broken in the Burley School Athletic Organization and everyone knows it except apparently the school. The Senor Basketball program is dysfunctional and needs fixing. The Varsity Basketball Coach is not competent enough to coach basketball at the level the boys are capable of playing. I am not minimizing the hard work and sacrifice that goes into coaching. However, it is unfair to the coach, to the players, the parents, the school and the community for a coach to be required to function above his competency level.
There are a number of incredibly competent coaches in the community. They spend huge amounts of time and money coaching and mentoring young boys in the fundamentals of basketball. The boys participate in many off season leagues that rival the school programs. By the time the boys are ready to enter High School that have been schooled in the game and received excellent training. They are anxious and prepared to move forward to a more challenging level of basketball. But what happens is a steady decline in attitude, performance and enthusiasm. The senior coach doesn’t know the game, doesn’t know how to maximize talent, doesn’t know how to help the boys adjust to other teams and simply is not up to the job.

We have watched time and again games where the Burley team had better players than the other team but the other coaches from the other schools simply defeat us because they know how to coach and we don’t. In a very short time the team members lose respect and confidence in their coach and more tragically lose interest in the game. We have watched for years, boys with exceptional talent and preparation be destroyed by the senior coach. Many boys want to quit basketball when earlier they loved the game. Some want to transfer to other schools. As spectators and parents we lose all enjoyment of the game when we see such incompetent coaching. So often the coach loses the game for the boys. If any parents complain, the coach benches their child. The boys start into High School with such confidence but on the senior team they have been reduced to playing with fear. If they make a mistake they are taken out of the game. Some of the players have such short shifts that they have lost all confidence to play. When a player exhibits some individual initiative, he is criticized for not doing what he was told. All individual creativity is suppressed. A system has developed that neither the parents or the players dare complain because then their son sits the bench.

A fundamental minimum requirement of all professions is this, “do no harm.” The senior coach harms the boys. We want him removed. He is not competent to coach at that level and is causing harm to the individuals on the team. That is unacceptable to us as parents. We send our children to school to be helped not harmed. The “old boys” system needs to be changed in the Burley High School. Schools are supposed to be a support to children and parents, not a self-serving entity with their own agendas.
Come on Athletic Director, come on School Board Members, Come on Superintendent Smyer. Listen and make the difficult decision. We want a new senior coach and we want some input into the selection.

(Name withheld so the kids won’t get any repercussions)

DEAR ERIC

12/14/2017

Dear Eric,

A great big thanks for lunch yesterday. After working here so many years you know exactly what the guys love to eat. For them it doesn’t get any better than pizza, chicken, soda and cheese appetizers. It was great. Sometimes I wonder if many of them know the feeling of gratitude. It seems more like they just take it for granted that it is owned them or they just seldom receive the gifts and caring from other people so that they never learn or have the occasion to be grateful. I know that when I provide them a lunch only two or three even say “thank you.” But I guess we don’t give gifts in order to receive gratitude but instead do it because of who “we” are. But receiving with gratitude may be just as great as giving. I wondered if they even made the connection between Badger Bearing and Kodiak. But regardless thank you so much for doing that for the men. I want you to know that I really appreciated it. It is a fine thing that we can be a blessing to each other. We really appreciate that your counsel and advice on your products is paired with the experience and knowledge of how we build these things. Your experience as an engineer and draftsman here at Kodiak has been a great help to us. Thank you again!

And by the way, I am really proud of you for the life you are living. You are a successful father and husband. I enjoy seeing your little family. They are growing so fast. I’m sure that your mother and dad love and appreciate the kind of son that you are. You have been a good support to them as they grow older. And congratulations on starting and running your own business. Taking that kind of risk is uncommon. There is a lot of extra stress and responsibility that accompanies that. The buck ends with you.

I appreciate our relationship Eric. I am always happy to see you.

Best regards,

Kent

LETTER JORDAN, CRAIG AND DERICK WHILE THEY WERE AWAY ON THEIR MISSIONS

Dear Jordan, Craig and Dericcccccccccccccccck (whoops, my finger stuck on the C key)

Well you missed it. Declo Day!!! I don’t know if you read about it the international news or not, but what an experience. First of all there was an early morning breakfast hosted by the rejected chefs of Declo High School. These are a collection of old Declo High Graduates who not only failed home economics and elementary water boiling, but were actually forbidden from touching uncooked foot or turning on a stove. They were all winners of the diarhea awards in their respective categories. When they had located all of these cooking rejects they invited them to host the surprise, early bird breakfast. On the menu were hash browns. Only they weren’t brown suggesting that they had been cooked. They grated the potatoes but forgot that they were supposed to cook them. So the hash browns were served raw and white. I ordered mine to be at least medium rare and they looked at me like I was trying to be funny. So raw it was. The ketchup helped a little but not a lot. Next we were treated to some sausage that had been through the forest fires at Yellowstone Park and Colorado. They had been cooked until only charred remains remained. (how was that for a play on words) I tried my best to get even just a hint of flavor but the only flavor I got was that of ashes and soot.

Right next to the sausage cuisine section was the egg fandango. The grill was only partially hot. Maybe luke warm is a better description. They cracked the eggs and then broke the yokes so it looked like an egg glob. Then they moved it around on the grill with a road kill spatula until the yellowish, whitish concoction achieved an almost equal temperature to the partially warm grill. Then to our surprise, before we could pull our plates back out of the way, the cuisine crook (not cook) scooped the glutinous mess off the grill and on to our plates. Your mother would have fainted dead away if I hadn’t pressed the cold, expired date, container of orange juice to her forehead. She slowly recovered and we moved along to the flapjack section. They had a very interesting way of doing the pancakes. They had an old, out of service manure spreader in which they pored the rancid milk, the weevil-ridden flour and water. Then they used an old Oliver Tractor that they churned it around with a power-take-off. The concoction took on a slightly bile green color after mixing with the manure remnants. Then they scooped it out and slapped it on the pancake grill. Even though the egg grill and the potato grill were only luke warm this pancake grill was sizzling. Before you say Eddy Kolisnikov, those babies were burned black. Since, it was only the outside that was cooked they threw them on the ground and one of the reject chefs who had taken up farming, drove back and forth over the pancakes with a John Deere 3810 four-wheel drive tractor. This of course caused the uncooked inside to squish out the sides like peanut butter between to sheets of boiler plate. Then they lifted them off the ground and laid them out on the grill again for a good blistering. When it was all said and done the pancakes were about 2 mm thick and looked like a porcupine that had been run over by a road packer.



Then they stacked two of them on our plates and poured a watery combination of Aunt Jemima’s culled syrup and 10-40 motor oil over everything. They poured enough to cover the pancakes, the sacrificial sausage and the ice cold hash browns. We then picked up a plastic carton of chocolate milk. The label said, “use before April 1987.” The chocolate was caked to the bottom of the bottle in such concentration that the milky substance above was clear and opaque. I tried shaking mine up and it created such a fizz from the trapped carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide that it blew the top off the milk bottle and sprayed sulphurous, noxious goop on two of the prominent Declo citizens. I don’t mind telling you some of those Declo saints can give some dirty looks. After seeing my debacle, Janice decided to not shake up her chocolate milk. She no sooner got the top off than a Mexican sneaked up, stole it and ran away. A few minutes later he brought it back and said, ‘Senorita, this stuff is not worth steealing.” So Janice decided maybe she wouldn’t drink her chocolate milk.

After we finished eating and burying our breakfast, (the Declo Irrigation System provided shovels and picks. They wanted it buried very deep so no roving packs of wolves would come and dig it up and eat it and then die right in down town Declo. The town would then be accused of endangering an endangered species. We got on the motorcyle and drove into the emergency clinic and got our stomachs pumped. After pumping our stomachs they threw the refuse in the Snake River and even the carp were found days later puking on the shore.

Then right after breakfast they had a little portable stage they had robbed from Burley for a wee concert with the Mazur Family called the Basic. If that was music then call me ‘deaf’. Course, country is not my favorite music anyway but this country was third world country music.

Then wonder of wonders there was a parade. It seemed to go on forever, but actually it started at the church and went down to the High School. Their was a variety of folks parading. Actually, come to think of it, there wasn’t that much variety. There was a tractor and a four-wheeler, and there was a different tractor and a different four-wheeler and then there were some kids on bicycles with a streamer or two, and then there was this tractor and another tractor and some old people on a flat bed and by golly I think that was it. They weren’t allowed to throw any candy or anything out to the spectators because of possible liability. (thanks to all the lawyers). So the kids tired pretty quickly of the parade spectacle. Their disinterest turned rather quickly to anger and then to aggression. Kids were throwing rocks and bottles and Molotov Cocktails at the parade participants. Then parents got in it and started pushing and shoving. Pretty soon fists were flying and bad words were being said. Janice and I decided to leave because the parents were starting back to their pickups to get their guns. We heard later that the police busted a few heads and the folks settled down. The calming factor was when the Declo Parade committee agreed to provide free ice cream to everyone at the lunch. However, I think they were duped because the ice cream was included in the price of the lunch anyway.

At 1 p.m. there was a lunch served at the Kiwanis Park. It was advertised as “Barbecue Pork, Baked Beans, Salads, Beverage and desert.” You see the desert was included! After our breakfast experience we decided to forego the lunch. Later someone said to us that if there was any truth in advertising that the lunch menu should have read: “Dead pig, burned as an offering to people of Declo (our town our people), cooked from rare to medium rare, to medium, to well done, to extremely well done, to burned clear to the bone, to burned clear threw the bone, to ashes to ashes. Instead of cutting the pork they scooped it up with small garden shovels and plunked it on the plates. The beans were cooked and baked until there was no farts left in them. Later they had a farting contest and not one person could come up with even a little one. The farting contest was declared no contest and the case was dismissed without any winners.

Then we got to the patriotic part. There was a flag raising by the Declo American Legion. There was a band playing a march as the members of the legion marched out to the flag pole. The guys were so old they couldn’t keep up the marching cadence to the song that was being played. The band kept slowing down trying to match their very slow strides. Pretty soon they changed to a waltz, then a fox-trot and finally they just started playing some pastoral composition without any beat to it at all. Twice spectators had to point out to them where the flagpole was because they kept wandering off toward the legion. Finally, they arrived at the flagpole and an argument broke out because they couldn’t remember what they were there for. The mayor went out and in very unmistakable terms set them back on course and they finally started to hoist the flag. About half-way up they got tangled up in the rope and it wound around one of their necks and he started to choke. In attempting to free him, the others only caused the noose to tighten more. Finally some spectators rushed in to saved him before he hung himself. By that time the legionaires were so upset they just walked back to the bar in the armory and the flag flew at half-mast for the remainder of Declo day. Actually, it seemed rather fitting.

Immediately following the hoisting of the petard, they was an exciting entertainer named Jack Lythgoe. He was a self-proclaimed hypnotist. He got a group of volunteers from the audience that agreed to be hypnotized. After he hypnotized them he had them act like chickens, moo like cows, act like they were stupid and various other theatrical aberrations. Actually, I wasn’t that impressed because I had personally witnessed those people that had volunteered doing all of those same things when they weren’t hypnotized. It really isn’t that entertaining to call people up from the audience and have them do things that all the rest of us have seen them do everyday of their lives. What is so entertaining about that. It was about as exciting as watch a cow eat grass. What else is she going to do? The same was true of the hypnotists subjects.

Then as if that wasn’t enough excitement for one day we had games and a Gymkhana at the rodeo grounds. I didn’t really know what a gymkhana was. I still don’t, but judging from the behavior I saw it is some kind of very sick exchange between dumb people and dumber animals. They chased the poor animals around the area swinging ropes with loops on them. Then they would throw the loop at the cows head. I’m now sure why because none of them went over their heads, they only came near. Then the cowboy would pull in the robe and say bad words. What kind of game is this? Then there was a wild greased pig catching contest. They greased a pig and told all the kids that if they could catch it and hold it they could keep it. They turned the bacon loose and you’ve never seen such a circus. There were kids screaming, one pig squealing, parents yelling (although some of the mothers sounded exactly like the pig) and general chaos and pandemonium. Finally, the pig ran out of steam and one big fat kid pounced on him as the pig collapsed with exhaustion. I’ll tell you, it wasn’t a pretty thing to see. Humane groups have outlawed bull fighting in Spain because it is mean to the animal. They haven’t seen anything until they’ve seen a pig running, for his life and screaming bloody murder. Even a bull doesn’t scream.

So that was Declo Day! What a day!! I don’t know when I have spent a more exciting, culturally stimulating, emotionally nurturing day. Actually, when I come to think of it I do remember. Any other day is better. But the Declo folks dusted themselves off and vowed to return again next year. After all, “Our town, our people.” Next year it might be our town but this person won’t be there. So they’ll have to change the sign to read, “Our town, our people, except for Kent.”

Wade and Elizabeth and Max are here staying with us. There has been great pressure for me to find your wake board Jordan. However, I have held firm and they have not found it nor touched it. We have been to the river jet skiing and waterskiing. Elizabeth got up on two skis and pretty soon she was skiing on one. If she keeps this up pretty soon she’ll be skiing on none. Brek & Emily and family arrived Saturday as well. They are here for three weeks. This week he is taking his certification exams in Utah. We are tending their children. Pretty neat kids. By the time they leave my kitten problem will be taken care of. Sydney is the cutest little angel you have ever seen.

Next week we are all going to Stanley to jet skis and waterski at Redfish Lake and cavort around and try to stay out of the way of Mr. Ranger.

They announced this week that your dad is going to be released next week Derick. I’ll bet there will be celebrating in the streets for him and your mom. Although it is a mixed set of feelings. Some are good and some are sad. But the good ones win out. I’ll miss your dad as my bishop. He was my very favorite bishop.

Stan Gillette spoke in sacrament meeting on Sunday. He returned home recently from England. He went on abit to long and I fell fast asleep and missed most of it. Maybe it’s because I went to England on my mission and had heard I all before. That and the fact that it was 110 degrees F. It has been so hot here for the last two weeks that gazelles and wildebeests have been trampling the corn. I can’t hardly keep awake it is so not. It is so hot that riding my motorcyle is like rushing through a blast furnace.

This Saturday we are going to hike to Independence Lakes and catch lunker cutthroat trout and arctic grayling. At least I am going to present to them an exquisitely, hand-tied stegasorus sinking nymph that will drive them wild. I have to carry it in a little metal box or the fish sense it and start jumping out on the shore and begging to bite it.

Craig what is happening to you over there behind the iron, or copper curtain? Write me and let me know you are o.k. I hear that you get to do some singing as part of your missionary work. That is cool.

Take care you Declo missionary boys. Just keep this hope in mind. “Someday I will be able to come home and I too will be able to go to Declo Day.

Love you all

Dad, Kent

DEAR JOSH

Dear Josh:

After your second game on Saturday, I saw you sitting over on the floor feeling sorry for yourself and I was so disappointed for you. If you can’t handle a poor referee call or a lost game, I feel concerned for how you will handle setbacks in your real life. If you think that getting a bad call in a basketball game is reason for self pity, just wait until you get into the real world and have to face all the disappointment and set-backs that life dishes out. If you don’t get past this, the rest of your life will be spent in the dumpster of despair. Feeling sorry for yourself and pouting when things go wrong is a selfish, self-indulging behavior that is so unbecoming of you. It evidences a weakness that can cripple you in life. How are you going to deal with a situation where you might get fired or get mistreated by a fellow employee? How are you going to deal with an investigator that at the last minute decides she doesn’t want to get baptized when you are on your mission? What about when a girl that you love and want to marry turns you down? You’re setting a pattern that will disable you in later life.

Nelson Mandela said: “I hope my life is not measured by how successful I was but how many times I got up when I got knocked down.” He was once asked if he considered himself a saint. He replied, “yes if you define a saint as a sinner who keeps trying.” That is the secret of a successful life. What you are doing is laying the foundation for a life full of depression and despair. Where do you think depression comes from?

What kind of guy, rips on himself when something unfair happens to him? Why don’t you just shoot yourself in the foot. We don’t care whether you win or lose. What we care about is how you play the game. And as you well know, part of the game involves bad calls and losses. You are not doing such a good job of playing the game. Stop being so self centered and self indulgent. Stop conducting this huge pity-party that you create. Is doesn’t become you. You are better than that. You are more mature than that. Just stop it. Let the crap and unfairness of the game get behind you and stop stirring it around afterwards in your mind. My father told me, “If you keep stirring a bucket of crap it will continue to stink.” And that is what you are doing. I don’t come to your games to see you win. I came to see how you play the game.

When I come to the game and see you act like a spoiled kid who didn’t get his way I don’t like it. I don’t want my favorite grandson to embarrass me. Just stop it. I love you and would be irresponsible if I didn’t give you this feedback. I have a huge investment in you. In fact it involves my whole heart.

Sound advice from

Grandpa

DEAR LEIGHANNA

LEIGHANNA SENT ME A BILL FOR A SPEEDING TICKET THAT JORDAN GOT IMPLYING IT WAS BECAUSE OF HOW I RAISED HIM. SHE SAID THAT BECAUSE OF MY IMPROPER PARENTING I SHOULD PAY THE FINE. THIS IS MY RESPONSE

Dear Leighanna: Enclosed please find the exact amount of money that you claim is owing. However, this is a one time only payment for reasons I will now explain. You suggest that it is my fault that my son Jordan occasionally is caught exceeding the speed limit. I am grateful that you give me some credit for that. In my opinion I have at least done something right. Before you laugh in derision let me explain.

I will begin by asking if we are to take literally the following statement made by Joseph Smith: “We believe in honoring, obeying and sustaining the law.” Really? Does that mean that Islamics are justified in obeying Sharia Law which dehumanizes and abuses women? Does it mean that we are justified in committing abortions because of ‘Roe vs Wade’? Are we to tolerate transgenders using either bathroom just because the “law” says that they can? Wasn’t the Bostom Tea Party against the law for protesting taxation without representation. Didn’t the early colonists break the law by rebelling against England and France? And finally are we obligated because of Joseph’s statement to obey the traffic laws related to speeding?

Hear my case. First of all we need to investigate the orgin of speed laws. Why were they invented and then imposed. Shortly after automobiles were invented some accidents occurred because in someone’s mind they were going to fast. It has always been the inclination of politicians to distrust the citizens and impose restrictions and control. However, the hidden agenda that prompts most policitians is “how do we extract more money from the people”. “ If we can tax them more then we can control them more.” Remember the revelation in the 121st section of the Doctrine and Covenants. “We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, that as soon as they receive a little authority as they suppose, they immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion”. Surely we have seen that in government since it’s inception. While that is generally true of most governmental imposed rules, let’s look only at traffic laws and in particular speeding laws. Where did they originate? When politicians realized that along with automobiles came accidents they quickly perceived an opportunity to impose rules to control drivers and penalize them with a monetary consequence if they exceeded the speed limit. So they got together to devised a scheme. Ostensibly, they sold there nefarious plan as being needed to protect the citizenry from themselves. They purported that it was necessary to stop people from driving recklessly and causing death and accidents. I ask you, has that worked? Absolutely not. There are still people who drive recklessly and cause death and accidents in spite of the law. The plan hasn’t worked. If the politicians were really serious about reducing speed they would have a law that cars would not be capable of going faster than the speed limit. But no, they would never do that because allowing automobile manufacturers to build cars that go much faster than an imposed speed limit meant they could impose more fines and tax more people. So they sat down together and created artificial speed limits and printed them on signs and put all them over the road ways. Then they created a force of traffic cops to catch the speeders and fine them so that the government could squeeze more money out of the citizens. The imposed fines not only funded the traffic cops but the excess went into government coffers. In Canada the situation is even more blatant. They have multi-nova cameras that they set up at different and changing locations along the highways that automatically take pictures of the license plate, and calculate the speed of passing motorists then send the ticket in to mail to the owner of the vehicle. No cops needed. Money directly to government. The use of the cameras can result in total revenues of over a million dollars in one week. Even the radio stations report the location of the cameras to warn motorists to avoid them. Does this have the effect of reducing accidents. Absolutely not, nor is it really intended to do so. It is nothing more than a “Cash Cow” to extract money for the local governments. It has been disallowed in the U.S. because of supposed constitutional violations. Perhaps traffice cops should also be disallowed for the same reason.

So is it a sin to refuse to obey all of the traffic laws? Is it a moral question? Speed limits imposed unilaterally and arbitrarily presuppose that drivers are unable to judiciously and responsibly govern their own speed and require outside laws and punishments to control them. That is only true for a small percentage of drivers and imposing speed laws has not served to prevent them from driving irresponsibly. That is always going to be true, not only of drivers but the population in general. A small percentage of people are bad. Making laws against bad behavior doesn’t necessarily change ‘bad’in this case it just profits from it. I am not suggesting that their does need to be certain laws that prevent ‘bad’ from hurting the rest of us and if the laws act as a deterant then they are justified. However, that is not the case with speeding laws. The don’t protect us from reckless drivers. If local governments wanted to help us slow down in school zones, it would be much more effective to post a large sign saying, “Remember to slow down past this school so you don’t hit and kill a little kid.” That would so much more effective than posting a yellow blinking sign and hiding a cop hoping you won’t slow down so he can issue you a tax and meet his quota.

So clearly the imposition of speed laws is not effective in preventing accidents. It does not restrain the reckless and irresponsible, it does not prevent people from drinking and driving, it doesn’t eliminate the immaturity of young drivers, it doesn’t prevent texting while driving and it doesn’t eliminate the natural ignorance of certain driving dangers and it doesn’t eliminate the natural inattention of drivers. In short, imposed speed limits only serves to tax the public out of their hard earned money. It serves to waste money and resources without any appreciable benefit. So do we believe in “honoring and obeying all traffic laws” just because politicians made a rule to extract more cash from automobile drivers? Do we really believe in supporting a corrupt system? Most automobile operators drive responsibly. They don’t need arbitrary rules imposed by cash hungry politicians to control their driving. We who drive responsibly do not feel safer nor more protected from reckless drivers because of the speed limits. They continue to cause death and injury on our highways and speed limits don’t prevent it. So some accidents happen just because they accompany hurling a three ton behemoth down the highway. We accept human error as just part of the risk of venturing out on the highway.

So hopefully I have shown you that speed limits are ineffective and serve no public purpose except to line the pockets of government. Breaking the artificially imposed speed limit is not a moral infraction. Of course you might be tempted to view this position as a not so subtle rationalization. If so, you would be correct. My argument is absolutely rational and reasonable. Hopefully it is apparent that speed laws are irrational.

Now we come the the driver in question “Jordan”. I tried to teach Jordan to be responsible. I believe I was partially successful. Jordan is the personifcation of a “free spirit”. He is a rare soul that finds joy in freedom from arbitrary restraints and imposed restrictions. They serve to bind and frustrate him. He is this special person who has “no more disposition to do evil” therefor no one but God needs to restrict him. Occasionally, Jordan will find his own sense of responsibility and freedom at odds and in conflict with the “ attempts by others to exercise unrighteous dominion upon his person.” Speed laws fall into that category. Jordan’s sense of speed is more based on being able “Hie to Kolob in the twinkling of an eye” than to go 35 miles per hour in a speed zone. Speed restriction and slowing down is not natural for Jordan in the same sense that ‘time is not our natural element’. He comes from a sphere where there are no speed restrictions. Slowing down is not his natural inclincation. Speed restrictions are not eternal and Jordan’s eternal nature chafes at their artificial atttempts to slow him down. Contrast Jordan’s sense of freedom and personal responsbility with the fearful anal retentive person who “has to be commanded in all things” BORING!!! Jordans true nature is transcends speeding laws. So the occasional speeding ticket is wonderful proof that Jordan is still willing to ski or speed out of bounds even though there is a temporal consequence. A speeding ticket is proof that Jordan still values his own judgement and is prepared to live by his own sense of right and wrong instead of succumbing to the banal rules of a corrupt society that is only self serving. So the biggest concern here is if Jordan goes for long periods of time without a ticket. Then we will all have cause to worry. Periodic speeding tickets are money well spent.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

2017

DEAR SOPHIE AND QUINN

Dear Sophie and Quinn

Thank you for visiting grandma and me this week. It was so fun to see you and it was sad when you left.

I think even the chickens were sad. Here are the two horses, one for Sophie and one for Quinn. I also sent another horse that needs its hair (mane) to be brushed. I know that you wanted to get some little chicks but since that didn’t happen there are two chicks in here for you and two frogs for Quinn or you could have one frog and one chick and Quinn could have one frog and one chick. If you bounce them a little they light up. Also there are some balloons that you can blow up and then make them into animals. Didi will probably need to show you how the first time. It was fun to ride with you on the new four wheeler and also in the Rhino. You are good riders. I hope you enjoy the eggs that my chickens laid just for you. Have you gone for a ride in your new truck yet. I’ll bet that is really fun for you. It is a very pretty truck. We love you both and enjoy seeing and visiting with you. Sophie thank you for sharing all the things that you are learning in school and for singing me those lovely songs. You have a really pretty voice and you sing so well. I loved hearing about them. You are a very smart girl and have learned a lot of things. I like to learn too. It gives us lots of new things to think about. Thank you for loving me all that way to Pluto and back. That is a long ways and a lot of love. I love you and Quinn.

I have included some songs that my children really liked when they were younger. I think you will have fun with them also. Maybe you could learn to sing the “Back Pack Song” and sing it for me sometime when I come to visit. Love you forever

Grandpa & Grandma.

DEAREST SOPHIE

9/7/2017

Dearest Sophie,

Congratulations on entering 1st grade. You are growing up so fast. I wish I lived next door so I could enjoy and share all the new things you are learning. I understand that you are learning to ride horses. Grandpa spent most of his childhood riding horses. I would herd cattle and sheep and drive them to and from their pastures. I would round-up the cows and bring them into the barn for milking. I would rope calves that needed to be caught. I would drive cows up into the mountains in the springtime and drive them back out before winter. I would ride my horse to school. I would ride my horse in the mountains to go fishing and hunting and I rode my horse a lot just for fun. I have a special place in my heart for horses. Before we had tractors we had teams of big work-horses to pull our wagons and sleighs. Next time you come I will tell you some horse stories. I like seeing you sitting on a horse. It was so fun to spend our family reunion with you at Cascade Lake. I was so surprised and how brave you were in the water. You paddled your surf board all over the lake. You knew how to turn it around and back it up. You were an expert. I think you spent more time swimming in the lake than standing on dry land. At times I mistook you for a mermaid.

I missed you last weekend when you weren’t able to come to Idaho because your family was sick. I had all kinds of fun things planned and good food to eat, but no Sophie came. I was going to teach you how to ride the four-wheeler. I was going to take you for a ride in my new Razr and let you drive, but no Sophie. I miss you Sophie. Grandpa treasures the times I get to spend with you. You are just one of my most favorite people. I am so glad that you are my granddaughter. I am so proud of you. You make me feel happy feelings, even when I just think about you or see your picture on Instagram. I am looking forward to seeing you again soon. Have fun in first grade and learn a lot.

Love you forever,

Grandpa

DEAREST WHITNEY

Dearest Whitney

I just wanted to tell you how special it was for me to spend some time with you when we came to visit. You climbed that rope like you were part-monkey. It was fun to watch you play in the pool. But what was very special to me was when we went on the bike ride you decided that Grandpa needed someone to ride with him to make sure he was safe. Thank you so much for being concerned about me and always riding you bike close to mine to help me if I needed it. I thought that was very thoughtful of you and I really appreciated it.

I hope you are doing well in school and enjoying your new home. We very much enjoyed staying with you. Hopefully, you can come down to see me sometime and I can teach you to ride my four-wheeler all by yourself.

Last weekend I went hunting elk with Uncle Cory and even though we didn’t get an elk we had a really fun time together. I love all the children in my family. I especially love your mother. I’ll bet you interviewed all the mothers before you came to earth and decided your mom was the very best. You were right she is. She is especially gifted to know how to help you back to live with your Heavenly Father. So is your dad. Thankyou for being such a special grand daughter. Grandma & I love you so much and are very proud of you.

Love you forever

DEAREST SON JORDAN

Dearest Son Jordan:

Here you are 35 years old. I was just figuring that when you were born I was 41 years old and already had 7 kids. Six of them were just like Dexter. Just saying…

I am gifting you this incredibly expensive all leather briefcase. At first glance it may appear just a tiny bit used. Nay Nay For a leather brief case to becoming fully matured and valuable it has to be broken in. Otherwise it looks unused and then people seeing you with it will think that you just bought it to appear successful and prosperous. When the brief case appears broken in with some evidence of use in the leather then people seeing you carrying it will realize that you are successful and prosperous without being showey. You just send a quite, subtle message of confidence and competence. Even Leighanna, seeing you carrying this evidence of success may forget about the lumber fiasco. You have to be a little careful not to give in to the temptation to flaunt it when in church or in public. Don’t go out of your way to park it in visible places. Be humble and make it not so apparent. The message will get out on it’s own. People will talk and spread the word. The brief case speaks for itself.

Now to the most important item. Inside the brief case is the last known all cotton hoody. As you know they stopped making all cotton sweatshirts and hoodies over 15 years ago. Instead they introduced polyester into the cotton and although it made them more fuzzy and lighter in weight, they wrecked them. All cotton hoodies and sweatshirts were wearing to long and frequent replacements were not forthcoming. So the companies all got together and decided to down grade the quality so that the items would wear out sooner and be replaced more often.

I have searched and searched and no where are all cotton hoodys or sweatshirts available. So now that you are perhaps the owner of the very last one, I know that you will only wear it on special occassions and you will have to be prepared to be questioned by others as to wher e you acquired such a treasure.

Hopefully you will treasure these two items and continue to use the long after I am gone.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY VERY FAVORITE SON

Dear Missionaries: (Brother & Sister Gillett, Brother & Sister Gillette)

Dear Missionaries: (Brother & Sister Gillett, Brother & Sister Gillette)

It was so good to see you guys at the wedding. You looked so like….. so like….so like missionaries. I’m glad you got to come home for that occasion. Frank, we had the opening social for the young men and young women at your hill. Kerry fashioned a water slide out of plastic and straw. However, the weather took a turn for the cold and instead of a water slide we had almost an ice slide. So only the foolish and the brave headed down hill. On the leeside of your house we had a few lawn chairs and a barbecue, so we roasted some hamburgers, some beans (which caused so much gas that my wife would let me stay in the house for almost 2 days), some chips and some potato salad. Neil Harper burned the hamburgers so bad they broke when you bent them. I also noticed that there were a lot of dandelions in your yard so I went over with some spray and went to work on them. I don’t think I got them all so will return again and see if I can kill the rascals.

I’m sorry that you were unable to attend Declo days. I’ll bet it was a sad day for you. However, just so you don’t feel too bad I thought I would remind you of the reality of Declo days so your missing it won’t be quite so bad.

First of all there was the early morning breakfast hosted by all the Declo Alumni that failed all the home economics, elementary water boiling and cooking classes. They are the students that were actually forbidden by the teachers to touch food or to turn on a stove. I proposed that we proclaim each of them as winners of the diarrhea awards in their respective categories. Anyway these are the folks that hosted the early bird breakfast. You’ve heard the saying that “the early bird gets the worm”. Well the comparable slogan for Declo Days Breakfast is, “the early bird gets diarrhea”. First on the grubline were hash brown potatoes. However, that is a misnomer. They were not brown suggesting that they had been cooked. They grated the potatoes but somehow forgot to cook them. To their credit, they did attempt to warm them up. But the hash browns were served raw and white. I think the actual name would be…’raw hash-whites’. When I looked at them, I tried to order mine at least medium rare they just gave me a dirty look and slapped the raw hash-whites on my plate. So raw it was. The ketchup helped a little but not much. Next we were treated to some sausage that looked like it had been through the wild forest fires off Yellowstone and Colorado. Only charred remains remained. (sorry for that eliteration) I tried my best to get even a hint of flavor but when I bit into the sausage it just disintegrated into ashes and soot.

Right next to the sausage fiasco was the egg fandango. The grill was only luke warm. They cracked the eggs and then broke the yokes so it looked like an egg glob. Then they moved it around on the grill with a road kill spatula until the yellowish, whitish concoction achieved an almost equal temperature to the partially warm grill. Then to my surprise, before I could pull my plate back out of the way, the egg cuisine crook (not cook) scooped the glutinous mess off the grill and onto my plate. If the plate had not had any sides on it, the whole thing would have poured off and onto the ground. Janice would have fainted dead away if I hadn’t pressed the cold, expired date container of orange juice to her forehead. She slowly recovered and we moved along the chow line to the flapjack section. Here they had a very interesting new method that was supposed to be state-of-the-art. Someone had contributed an old discarded manure spreader. They hosed it out and then poured rancid milk, pancake flour (with weevils) and some sawdust (for filler) and then cranked it up using and old Oliver Tractor with a power-take-off. The mixture took on a slightly bile green color because they didn’t get all the manure hosed out. Next they scooped the batter out and slapped it on the pancake grill. Even though the egg grill and the potato grill were just luke warm, this pancake griddle was sizzling. Before you could say “Lowell Turners stories are boring” those pancakes were burned blacker than the ace of spades. Since, only the very outsides were burned they threw them on the ground and Dan Darrington drove back and forth over the pancakes with a John Deere 3810 four-wheel drive tractor. It was good that it was four-wheel drive because after a while the batter almost got him stuck. This procedure caused all the uncooked insides batter to squish out the sides like peanut butter between sheets of boiler plate. Then they scooped them off the ground along with pieces of the ground and smashed them back onto the grill again for a final blistering. When it was all said and done the pancakes were about 2 mm thick and looked like a porcupine that had been run over by a road packer.

Next they stacked them two of them to a plate and poured a watery combination of Aunt Jeminima’s syrup and 10-40 motor oil over everything, including the eggs, sausage and raw hash-whites. Then we picked up a plastic carton of chocolate milk with label that said, “Use before April 1995”. The chocolate was caked to the bottom of the bottle in such concentration that the milky substance above was clear was water. I tried shaking mine up and it created such a pressure from the trapped and fermented carbon dioxide that I blew the top off the milk bottle and sprayed sulphurous, noxious, rotten egg gas on Brother & Sister Jacops. Well, you can’t believe the bad words that Nona said. I’m sorry I can’t print them or it would send the spirit fleeing and you couldn’t do effective missionary work for a week.

After seeing my chocolate milk faux paux, Janice decided not to shake her chocolate milk. She no sooner got the top off than a Mexican kid sneaked up, stole it an ran away. A few minutes later he brought it back and said, “senorita, this stuff is not worth stealing.” So needless to say Janice didn’t drink her chocolate milk. I took out my hunting knife and tried the get the sediment in the bottom broken up so I could stir and maybe get some brown color. I wasn’t successful and later it took twenty minutes to sharpen my knife again. After we finished tasting and burying our breakfast, (The Declo Irrigation System provided the picks and shovels) we got on my motorbike and drove to the emergency clinic to get our stomach’s pumped. After pumping our stomachs they three the refuse in the Snake River and even the carp were found days later puking on the shore. A day later the City of Declo sent a backhoe over to bury the breakfast remains at a greater depth. They said they were concerned that a pack of wolves might dig up the remains and then die right there in down town Declo and that the city fathers would be accused of endangering the lives of an already endangered species.

After breakfast they had a little portable stage they had robbed from Burley for a wee concert and a very long monologue by Denton. When the band began to play some country music all the pigeons, meadowlark, sparrows and starlings immediately took flight and left. Actually, a lot of the people did as well.

Now we move to an exciting part of the day, the parade. It seemed to go on forever, but actually it started at the church and went down to the High School. The police stopped traffic on the road south so the parade could cross the street without being run over. The parade was moving slowly and took a little longer than expected. The traffic line got pretty long. I think there were at least 7 cars lined up. Some of the impatient drivers got out and started yelling at the parade participants to hurry up. Some of the parade participants started yelling back at them and a fight broke out. It took the cops about 15 minutes to get everything back under control and the parade moving again. There wasn’t really a lot of variety in the parade. There was a tractor and a four-wheeler, then there was a different tractor and a different four-wheeler and then some kids on bicycles with a streamer or two and then there was this other tractor and some old people on a flat bed and by golly, I think that was it. They weren’t allowed to throw candy or anything out to the spectators because of liability concerns. (thanks to our lawyers) So the kids tired pretty quickly of the parade. Their disinterest turned rather quickly to anger because of the ‘no-candy’ rule and from anger it jumped to aggression. Kids started with just throwing small pebbles at the parade participants, then bottles and sticks and finally Molotov cocktails. Then the parents got into it and started pushing and shoving and saying rude words. Janice and I decided to leave because the parents were headed back to their pickups to get their guns. We heard later that the police busted a few heads and the folks settled down. The real calming factor was when the Declo Parade committee agreed to provide free ice cream to everyone for lunch. However, I think they got fooled because the ice cream was already included in the price of the lunch.

At 1 PM lunch was served to all those who were still on their feet after breakfast. It was advertised as ‘Barbecue Pork, Baked Beans, Salads, Beverage and desert. There! You see desert was included. After our breakfast experience Janice & I decided to forego lunch. Later someone said to us that if there really was ‘truth in advertising’ that the lunch menu should have read: “Dead pig, burned as an offering to the people of Declo (our town, our people), cooked from rare to medium, to well done, to extremely well done, to burned clear to the bone, to burned clear threw the bone, to ashes to ashes. Instead of cutting the pork they scooped it up with small garden shovels and plunked in on the plates. The beans were cooked and baked until there were no farts left in them. Later they had a farting contest and not one person could come with even a little one. The farting contest was declared a ‘No Contest’ and it was dismissed without any winners.

Then we got to the patriotic part. There was a flag raising by the Declo American Legion. There was a band (same one that scared off the birds) playing a march as the members of the legion marched out to the flag pole. The guys were so old they couldn’t keep up the marching cadence to the march being played. The band kept slowing down trying to match their very slow strides. Pretty soon they changed to a waltz, then a fox-trot and finally they just started playing some pastoral composition without any beat or rhythm to it at all. Twice spectators had to point out to them where the flagpole was because they kept wandering off toward the legion. Finally, they arrived at the flagpole and an argument broke out because they couldn’t remember what they were there for. Mayor Jay went out and in very unmistakable terms set them back on course and they finally started to hoist the flag. About half-way up one got tangled up in the rope and it wound around one of their necks and he started to choke. In attempting to free him, the others only caused the noose to tighten more. Finally some spectators rushed in to save him before they hung him. By that time the legionaires were so upset they just walked back in the armory and the flag flew at half-mast for the remainder of Declo Days. Actually, it seemed rather fitting.

Immediately following the hoisting of the petard, there was an exciting entertainer named Jack Lythgoe. He was a self-proclaimed hypnotist. He got a group of volunteers from the audience that agreed to be hypnotized. After he had them under his spell he had them cluck like chickens, moo like cows, act really stupid and various other theatrical aberrations. Actually, I wasn’t all that impressed because I had personally witnessed those same people doing all of those same things even when they weren’t hypnotized.

During the afternoon, Denton stood on the stage and talked all afternoon about one thing or the other. Meloney Knowles asked Jim Hartwell and I if we would organize a fun activity for some of the younger children. We constructed blow guns out of small plastic pipe. Then we got many packages of small marshmallows. What they would do is put about 4-5 marshmallows in their mouths until they got slick with saliva and then push them one at a time into the tube with your tongue and then blow hard and the wet sticky stuff would attach itself to whatever it hit. Dave Irish was supervising the fish tank and a couple of kids blew marshmallows on the front of his pants without him realizing it and it was pretty embarrassing for a while. Finally, Vergene informed him of the situation after everyone had a good laugh at his expense. Jim & I finally got bored supervising the war and decided to conquer some new ground. So we told all the kids that they were free to go on search and destroy missions and attack anyone in the crowd that they wished. Whoa! Things got pretty exciting for awhile. There were marshmallows and swear words flying every where. Jim and I just went home and left the peace negotiations to Melonie. I don’t mind telling you she was pretty upset with the both of us. Duhh!

Then as if that wasn’t enough excitement for one day we had games and a Gymkhana at the rodeo grounds. I didn’t really know what a gymkhana was. I still don’t but judging from the behavior I saw it is some kind of exchange between animals and people. The people chased the animals around the arena swinging ropes with loops. They sometimes would get a loop over the cows head and drag the animal to a screeching halt with dust and manure flying everywhere. Then there was a greased pig catching contest. They greased a poor pig and told all the kids that if they could catch it and hold it they could keep it. They turned the bacon loose and you’ve never seen such pandemonium. There were kids screaming, one pig squealing, parents yelling (although some of the mothers sounded exactly like the pig) and general chaos confusion. Finally, the little pig ran out of steam and one big fat kid pounced on him as the pig collapsed with exhaustion. I’ll tell you, it wasn’t pretty to see. The poor pig just finally surrendered.

So that was Delco Day! I don’t know when I have spent a more exciting, culturally stimulating, emotionally nurturing, absolutely hilarious day. Actually, when I come to think of it I do remember a lot of better days. But the Declo folks dusted themselves off and vowed to return again next year. After all, “Our Town, Our People”. Next year it might be our town but this person won’t be there. So they’ll have to change the sign to read, “Our town, our people, except for Kent.”

Hope you are all doing well and hanging in there. We’ll miss you at home evening this winter.

Love

Kent

GOSSIPERS

A Letter I wrote that was published in the local paper

I was recently in conversation with a friend of mine who voluntarily told me a friend of his was dating a crazy woman and he wished he could break it up. He also volunteered the name of the "crazy woman". I asked what he meant when he said she was crazy. His reply, "oh she's just crazy, everyone knows she's crazy." I asked what crazy meant several times but he had no definition or description of crazy. I asked him if he personally knew the person and he acknowledged that he did not but that he had been told that she was crazy. I thought to myself, “Are you really ignorant enough to spread gossip about an individual you ‘heard’ was crazy but you have no first hand knowledge?” I actually know the "crazy person" that he referenced. I happen to know she is not crazy. In fact she has had her reputation slandered by gossips, liars and people who are irresponsible enough to pass on what they hear as fact rather than for what it really is, just gossip.

If this were just an isolated incident I might not have been so upset. But I am aware that unsubstantiated gossip is an epidemic in our area. Do we not think for ourselves or do we just believe everything we hear? Are we really that gullible? When President said Obamacare would be “affordable” and “we can keep our doctors, etc.” we believed him. Apparently, we did just because he said so. None of it proved to be true. This nonsense of believing what we hear without knowing absolute facts reflects poorly on our intelligence and our gullibility. To make matters worse, we not only tend to believe the gossip without finding out if it's true but we compound it by sharing it with others, as my friend did with me.

We often exaggerate the untruths in the retelling because we put our own spin on it. We become like the media that only reports what is titillating or entertaining. We are like the barnyard critters that panicked when Chicken Little shouted the "sky is falling, the sky is falling" when hit on the head with an acorn. Is our community so lacking in goodness, intelligence, and decency that we engage in the destruction of our neighbors reputations as a 'sort of sport?' Are reputations of members of our community held in such little esteem that we trash them without knowing the truth? Lies are paraded on our streets spread in the media and gossiped between friends. I am aware that it takes a certain morality and restraint to refuse to believe the ill-spoken of others without knowing the truth. I know the temptation to spread gossip is attractive because it somehow enhances the gossiper. But in reality, all it does is expose our stupidity and our lack of morality. I was so disappointed in what my friend did. I thought him a smarter man. Surely we should hold ourselves to a higher standard. Every person's reputation deserves the truth. Bearing false-witness is not just an error in judgment; it is a crime punishable by both the law and God. Defamation of character is hard to prove in a court of law but surely heaven is aware when we do it. Who of us hasn't made mistakes that could be exploited with gossip and partial truths? Surely our community deserves to be a safe place for people to reside without having their reputations trashed because others don't bother to find out the truth. If we are not willing to stand in front of the person we are gossiping about and speak it to their face, then we can know for certain that what we speak is gossip. We should be aware that the good people among us will never esteem gossipers as credible. Let’s stop it and create a community where we are safe from this awful practice that injures innocent people.

DEAR GRACE "TIBBETS"

Letter I wrote to Grace Tibbets a lovely daughter of one of my friends

Dear Grace “Tibbets

I was so sorry to hear about your tragic fall from off the horse. They should have given you the instruction manual before you mounted the spirited steed. On Page 4 of the manual it clearly states, “Do not attempt to dismount while the horse is galloping, unless the horse is headed directly for a cliff.” Another little trick I have learned is that if the horse runs away with you and you can’t stop him and he refuses to listen to Whoa! reach up and grab one of his ears and sink your teeth into it has hard as you can and the horse will immediately stop and shake and shiver until you release your bite. However, it is a little late to be reading the manual. It’s like closing the gate after the sheep are gone. In the future I would be happy to share with you all my experience as a cowboy and how to handle spirited horses. I am an expert.

I know your mother is always concocting potions to make us better. However, I have one of my own that has a very long history of curative powers. You may think that the apple juice contained in this jug that I am giving you is just plain apple juice. Au contraire mes amis! This nectar of the Gods is so much more. I will attempt to give you a short genealogy of this particular family of apple juices. It made it’s first appearance in the Garden of Eden and there played a major part in getting Adam & Eve kicked out of the garden but the upside was that it meant all the rest of us could be born and come to earth.

When Adam left the garden and the Lord wasn’t looking he slipped an apple into his pocket and sneaked it out. One of the first things he did, because he was quite partial to apples, was to extract a seed from the core of the magic apple and plant it in the ground. In a short time the seed grew into a beautiful apple tree and supplied apples for all of Adam’s posterity down to the time of Noah. The Lord was really displeased with his children at that time because they were taking the apples and making juice out of them but instead of drinking it right away they let it ferment and it turned into apple beer and wine. They perverted the apple.

They were getting drunk and driving while intoxicated and running their chariots off the road and getting in fights and causing all kinds of problems because of the fermented apple juice. The Lord was so upset he decided to flood the earth and drown them all except for one family. He got Noah aside and told him about his plan and asked him what he thought about it. Noah was tired of getting run off the road by all the drunk drivers so he told the Lord he thought it was a good idea. The Lord was going to drown and kill all the apple trees also so he could get rid of the problem once and for all. Noah, however pleaded with the Lord and told him that it wasn’t the apple’s fault. He said, ‘apples don’t kill, the drunk people do’. He convinced the Lord that the apples were not guilty and should not be destroyed. Finally, the Lord agreed and allowed Noah to keep one apple seed. Then it rained cats and dogs for 40 days and nights and drowned out all the drunk drivers and wine bibbers and all the apple trees.

The rains finally stopped and the water went down and Noah and the rest of the animals got off the ark and mosied off into parts unknown. Noah immediately planted the apple seed and it grew into a beautiful tree and supplied all the survivors with delicious apples. Making apple cider was forbidden. Apples continued on the earth down until the time of Moses. When Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt he ‘gypted’ the Pharoah out of the best apple tree in the Pharoah’s orchard. Because Pharoah was mean to the children of Israel, God punished him by killing all his apple trees, along with the first born kid of all the families. All the Eqyptians cried and complained about the loss of the apples.

But clever Moses got a little apple tree and hid it underneath his coat of many colors. Joseph gave it to him as a Christmas present before he died. When Moses got to the Red Sea, he looked over his shoulder or maybe he just turned around and saw a huge dust cloud headed his way. He climbed to the top of the tallest sand dune he could find, there were no trees, and saw an army of Egyptians tearing up the sand, racing to intercept them and take them back into captivity. Moses didn’t really like the children of Israel anyway because they were such a whining bunch so he didn’t mind that the army of Egyptians was going to catch them. But he was very concerned about the tiny apple tree that he had stolen from Pharoah. He looked up into the sky and told God his dilemma and asked what he should do. God told him that he would part the red sea so he could walk across on dry land and the apple tree would be safe. However, as soon as the sea opened up the Israelites rushed through and Moses was barely able to rescue the apple tree from being trampled by the insensitive Israelites.

God told poor old Moses that he was going to have to wander around the desert with the Israelites for 40 years until they shaped up but agreed to take the apple tree and go on ahead and plant it in the promised land. And now we come to a sad part of the story. Moses suffered all those years with that ungrateful bunch of Israelites and when they got to the promised land he was not allowed to enter and to eat one of the apples that had grown on the little apple tree. I don’t know why that happened. Certainly life is unfair at times. Moses complained quite abit about the apple thing, but God for reasons known only to him wouldn’t let Moses have an apple.

This document is getting rather lengthy so I will have to skip ahead. The Jews liked olive trees a lot more than apples but Simon Peter sneaked into the large grove of olive trees and planted a descendant of that very first apple tree. It grew undetected for many years but was finally discovered by Ceasar Augustus and he dug it up and took it to Rome. The Romans again began making apple cider and fermenting it into alcohol. Ceasar got so drunk one time that he stood on his roof and fiddled while Rome burned.

History doesn’t record all the genealogy of the apple tree after that until we hear of an apple tree being discovered in what is now know as France. A young lady by the name of Joan of Arc again took the apple juice and got drunk on it and committed a crime of heresy and they burned her at the stake. For a number of years in the dark ages the apple trees kept the poor people alive. Sometimes all they had to eat was apples and potatoes. The next we hear of an apple tree is when Columbus sneaked one aboard the Santa Marie and sailed to the new world. There he met up with a young man called Johnny Appleseed.

Columbus thought that was a pretty funny name and made fun of him. Mr. Appleseed was so offended by the teasing about his name that he grabbed the apple tree Columbus had brought from Queen Isabella and ran off into the trees. He ran all the way to Ohio and there planted the apple tree in fertile soil. The tree sprang up and in a few short years was bearing beautiful apples. He took the seeds and planted more and more until he had a large number of them. Then he took all the seeds from the apples cores and put them in a backpack and started walking toward Los Angeles. Everywhere he went he would take time and plant a few apple seeds. Then he would walk further, stop and plant more and more until he had planted apple trees all over the place.

Years later I moved to Idaho. I went searching for the exact strain of apples that Adam took from the Garden of Eden. Fortunately, I was able to find three such trees at a place called Costco. They wanted a terrible price for them because of their esteemed lineage and wanted me to purchase inferior strains of apple trees. However, I was firm in my resolve to only plant the best trees that were ever on the earth. I took the trees and planted them in the best soil I could find. For years I cultivated and dunged them. Finally, this year the trees brought forth fruit and I saw that the fruit was good. After the summer ended and fall came and the first frost released the sugar in the apples, I carefully picked each of them by hand. I was careful not to bruise or injure them in any way to interfere with their medicinal properties. Then I carefully squeezed all the juice out of them and put them into special vessels and quick froze them before any of the goodness could escape. I now present you with a gallon of the most wonderful elixir with the most healing medicinal properties of any substance yet produced naturally upon the face of the earth. Be careful not to swig the juice. There is a strong tendency to glut oneself on this special nectar. It’s maximum benefit is achieved by taking a small swallow, rolling it around until it has encountered all your taste buds and then just let it slowly dribble down your throat. If you follow this procedure you will experience an amazing acceleration of the injured part of your body. Before you know it you will be up and running around as though nothing had ever happened. You better believe it.

HELLO GRANDPA

Hello Grandpa.

I just wanted to write specifically to you. I do appreciate your letters and family updates. Sometimes I feel like the family gives me very centered information in their emails. When you write me, it{s always the unbiased, to the point, blunt truth. Those are the type of updates I like, not the Oh everyone is fine at home and we miss you nonsense. Gracias for your honesty.

How’s Kodiak_ I hope that it{s not getting too stressful on you. You retired a few year ago, technically, and then just couldn’t stay put at the house and went back to help Uncle Breck. I believe that my Father and Uncles rely on you a lot. The important thing to remember is that if you ever want to really take a break or feel like you’ve done enough at Kodiak that you can walk away or take a break and shouldn’t feel bad. You’ve worked hard you{re entire life and now deserve to enjoy the time you have as a Grandpa and Dad.

Thank you for being MY grandpa. I have wonderful grandparents on both side of my family. When I was six I remember visiting your house and saying to my mother I like grandpa Pilling more than grandpa Foote I then received a solid thump on my head and strong words from my mother. I love all my grandparents and family members deeply. I believe What I was trying to express to my mother in my six year old English is that though I love all of my family members I’ve always felt a close connection to you, the father of my father. I’m so grateful for the blessing I’ve had to be able to spend time with you all these years that I’ve been growing up in my youth )my younger youth haha. Heavenly Father made it possible for Dad to find work in Twin Falls and as a result we’ve had a close connection and frequent contact with our grandparents, what a special blessing. I treasure your stories, the ones in your book and from my memory, as my heritage. You lived in the last place on earth when the cowboy life really existed. I wasn’t raised that way. I never really learned to ride horses or drive cattle. However, the obsession for adventure and the outdoors has been passed down to my generation and it is because of the people who have come before me. Thank you for being an interesting person with an interesting life. You probably won’t believe This but there are people here that could literally do This every day: wake up drink coffee and sweet bread, go to work, eat beans and tortias, go home, watch soccer, and sleep. Thank you for rising above the boring, monotones, daily spam that the world is content with and LIVING your life. That{s a culture and live style that has thankful been passed down to me, and it{s one that I intend to preserve with my children.

Thank you for being a faithful member of the church, living the gospel, and raising a family in it. I cannot tell you the blessing that this has been in my life. I see people every day that lose their faith because of the decisions of their parents and are not able to enjoy the covenants that god has prepared for us in the church of his son. You are faithful, you made covenants and honor them, you keep the commandments, serve honorable in the Lord{s kingdom, and have loved our family with a true Christ like love. Thank you. I have no idea What I did in the premortal live to have the blessing of being sent to the Pilling family, but I{m glad that God permitted me to come to THIS family. To me there is no other. The Pillings are good people, honest people, faithful people, adventurous people, strong people, people that aren’t afraid the work, people that are close to the god. This is because the patriarch of our family has cultivated these attributed over a life time, and has passed them on to his children and grandchildren. I love you, and am so proud that you are my grandfather. I will tell your stories to my children and their children. I will try to always live worthy of being called your grandson. One of my greatest wishes is to do honorably by your name.

Gracias y te amo.

‘Elder Brandon Cluff Pilling

DEAR NOEL

Dear Noel:

Well you’ve gone and done it now. I read in the internet version of the Calgary Herald that you have gone and paid 75 million dollars to a group of Indians that live east of Calgary for wrongs done back in 1910 when the government allegedly screwed the Indians on a land deal. Well welcome to reality my fine lamanite friends. Part of life is getting screwed and learning how to live with it without getting unscrewed. That means $13,000 for every Indian man woman and child. I did some quick calculations and that comes to 9673.45 gallons of liquor for every one of them. I think it’s time for another attack on the red savages. What man in his right mind can think that $13,000 is going to somehow make a difference. It will all be gone, spent and in some white man’s bank account in less than 6 months.

But then again I got to thinking that if the Indians can do that why can’t we. I gave some thought to some earlier wrongs and have attached a value that I think is commensurate with our suffering.

1. Remember the time that Gene McCarthy chased us on his horse for hunting geese without a license. We ran and hid in an irrigation ditch and darn near froze to death before he rode away and we got home. I think an appropriate amount for the suffering cause by Mr. McCarthy and the Fish Game Department would be about $11,000.
2. Then there was the time that we were unjustly accused of hunting on Palmers just because we were carrying guns and firing them and were ordered off his land. How unfair, how insensitive, how damaging to our young personalities. Damage to our feelings: $4400
3. Maybe one of the worse damaging things of all was having to milk those wild range cows every morning and night. It taught us to work early in the day and to work hard. That has damaged us terribly. Even today we still get up early and work hard all day. How awful is that?! $23,000
4. And home teaching!! At an early age before we were old enough to know better they took us home teaching. They brain washed us into feeling responsible for other people. Imagine that. They told us we would get blessings from serving. And how long did the brain washing last? Well I don’t know about you but I’m still doing it. It is so hard to quit once you get hooked. I don’t even know of any addiction counseling you can take to get off it. Damage: $44,000
5. Now comes a real humdinger. Tithing. How bad a deal is that? For all these years we were told that if you paid your 10% tithing that good blessings would come our way. But are we rich? I ask you? Not likely. We are still slaving away, trying to earn a living and make ends meet and still pay our tithing. How much money do you think we have spent on tithing? Damage: $220,000.
6. Finally, but not finally. They told us if we would get married that we could make love anytime we wanted, night or day. What an awful deception that was. Instead we get to make love only: if we are nice, if we don’t hurt their feelings, if we buy them flowers, if we talk with them, if we support them, if we are nice to their kids, if we don’t cuss, if we don’t create dissention, if we don’t upset them, if we don’t cause them a headache, if the grandkids aren’t around, if there is nobody in the room below the bedroom, if it is dark or light, if she feel like it, if we don’t move too fast, if we don’t make too much noise, if we don’t howl at the moon while doing it, if we don’t growl, if we don’t move too slow, if we don’t rub their backs or hold them afterwards, if it hasn’t been a week yet, if mars is not in a juxta position with Jupiter, if Aunt Nellie is doing o.k. and on ad naseaum. Disappointment Damages: $3.500,000. (conservatively)

It may take me a little longer to think of some other damaging events of yesteryear but I know there are unfairnesses not even remembered. I really think that I would feel a whole lot better if I were compensated for those losses. Wouldn’t you? Actually I am getting pretty worked up just thinking about all those unfair things that happened. You think those damn Indians deserve compensation anymore that we do? I think not by golly. So let’s apply to the government for redress of the wrongs committed against us when we were kids. That’s only fair don’t you think? After all everyone knows that the only cure for unfairness is fairness right? Not hardly. The only cure for unfairness is acceptance of unfairness as a factor in the equation. What in the world makes people think that they are owed fairness on a planet ruled mostly by the devil. What the hell are they thinking? (no pun intended)I How fair is what has happened to you? You deserve at least $3,000,000 for that and Sandi deserves about the same or more. So who do you sue? How stupid are we to spend time suing when we could be screwing, oops ! sorry, I didn’t mean that, it’s just that it rhymed. Hopefully Donna isn’t reading this one. I meant how stupid are we to spend time suing when we should be spending time dealing with it. I think the appropriate reprimand is, “Oh just get a life and stop whining.” That is what we and the Indians need to do. However, if you took whining away from the Indians there wouldn’t be anything left. It is like the Paki that put some odor eaters in his shoes and disappeared. At least that is my assessment of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

How are you doing? I hear that you are getting better which is cause for great rejoicing. The Palestinians are celebrating by blowing up the Jews, the Jews are rejoicing by bombing the Palestinians, the North Koreans are celebrating by threatening to blow up the whole damn word, and the Iraq’s are so damn happy they are blowing each other up. Maybe you should slow down and get better a little slower so the world doesn’t get so excited. I’m going to see Ryan and Peggy with Janice the end of the month. I asked Ryan how he and Peggy were doing and he said they were doing much better. When I asked why things were going so much better he said, “because I have learned to ignore a lot more horseshit.” Good for him. Sounds like the secret to a happy marriage. When I get home I am going to Anchorage for a week to train a bunch of Eskimos on how to run a snow blower. Hopefully I will get to do a little sight seeing and fishing. Probably not. I like Alaska. There is an interesting feeling there that I haven’t felt anywhere else. In a couple more weeks Bruce & I are going to Santiago, Chile if the deal for the snowblower comes through. They are buying a snow blower to put on rail tracks at the largest copper mine in the world. I like seeing the world but hate spending so much time in airplanes. I usually end up getting seated by some fat old momma that spills over into my seat and scrunches me into a corner. Invariably she or he as the case may be, hasn’t bathed since her sprinkling baptism and fouls the whole plane. I makes me yearn for some second hand smoke just for the relief. Why can’t I get seated by some cute chick that finds me amusing and wants to hear my stories. How unfair is that? Well I better sign off. I read my letter and I’m afraid it sounds a little cynical today. Must have been a bad hair day for me.

Love you lots and pray for your good recovery. Hi Sandi. Thankyou again

Kent.