Seven Decades and Counting

Blank the Idiot

2011-10-20T12:48:00.000-07:00

By way of introduction, here is the Family Idiot. I want to write about the family idiot. You may already know him. Instances of his idiocy are legion, embarrassing and remarkable. While needing no introduction, he must be nevertheless, necessarily be further introduced. My intent is make him so familiar to you, you may even find space in your life, not much space, just some, for him. Read carefully, but empathetically. On occasion, he deserves it.So, his day started off well. Thousands of Utahns have visited the Romney Mine at the Utah Museum of Natural History, planted uncomfortably in the old George Thomas building, once a library, first building on the right on the President' Circle at the University of Utah. Beautiful new digs have been raised near Red Butte Gardens to reflect Utah's natural history and remarkable geology, reflected so movingly in the structure itself. The move is on. In discussions with the protagonist of this saga, it became apparent the Romney Mine would be neither moved nor replicated in the massive new edifice. It was time to put the mine to bed. Miles and Janice were both gone. None of their progeny were of the miner’s bent. So a day was designated to receive at the hands of Janaki the remaining collection of mining pieces, gathered by Miles, displayed by the museum and enjoyed by the public. Miles had collected them over his fifty plus years as a noted figure in western mining lore and activity.The items, with some difficulty, were packed in the back of the family idiot's car. Some wooden handles were well decayed. Most of the steel was encased in rust sarcophagi. The heaviest piece, a massive pneumatic drill and attached 25 foot hose, took six people to put in the car. Unfortunately, there were only two, Janaki and the idiot. Listen carefully. Here is a sample of his idiocy. He believed the two of them, one bowed by years and the other blessed with the figure and musculature of a late-twenties young lady, could heft the steel beast into the truck. Indeed they managed. The young lady strained. The age challenged idiot grunted. After 15 minutes of strain and groan, the drill and hosing lay uncomfortably in the truck. The idiot is still counting hernia nodules.The other items, rusted drill bits, lengtheners and miscellaneous mining tools, were later splayed across the floor of the idiot's garage, awaiting distribution to the surviving children of Miles and Janice who wanted a mining memento of their parent's professional lives. Turns out none of the other surviving progeny of Miles and Janice wanted any of this rusty old stuff. Rosanne decided to take a couple of pieces back to Las Vegas. Mike and Hannah wanted nothing. So, the idiot used the stuff to build some interesting yard art. Then Mike decided he would like the pneumatic drill. The Idiot told him it was the core of the yard art. Mike demurred sourly.The idiot then negotiated his way to the Chase N. Peterson Building on Campus to attend the monthly lunch of the Find Old University Men, men invited by President Peterson who were his vice presidents when he led the campus. These people like and respect one another and enjoy talking about current issues (What's up with the shenanigans of former President Young, now at Washington?), politics, religion, the fine arts, life as aging citizens, and so on. The idiot was able to participate, even hold his own, without exposing his shortcomings and deficiencies.Later in the day, the idiot, his wife and his sister decided it was time to let their hair down, a figure of speech lacking efficacy in this case. They enjoyed a wonderful repast at the Sampan, having ordered fresh and deep-fried spring rolls, Asian and Thai salads and a concoction of tofu, prepared in such a way as to remind the uninitiated of either essence of unborn whale, or perhaps, dolphin boogers. The one who ordered that, whose name cannot be spoken, did not finish it, not even close. The rest of the food was wonderful.Being sated, the trio, generously counting the idiot as a full time equivalent person, headed for the big movie screens on 33rd South and State Street to enjoy a highly recommended movie, The Big Year. They got there a little early so as to get a good seat selection. They needn't have hurried. Just 10 minutes before the feature, Movie Studio Number 2 was empty. But the seat selection was good. They chose three seats part way up the inclined seating terrace. Eventually, 3 other couples joined the idiot and his lady companions and seated themselves so as to not be in front of anyone nor behind anyone. MacArthur Genius recognition was not required to make these arrangements. It took but seconds.The noisy, silly previews began. Who in their right minds would ever watch this stuff? Even the idiot was easily dissuaded from attending any of the offerings. Ah, then the main event. It started slowly, telling the story of The Big Year, a competition in the birding community to spot the most individual birds of different species in a given year. After a slow start, it got really bad and never recovered. The idiot of course tried unsuccessfully to defend his choice. No dice. It was a terrible movie. They drove home, criticizing every aspect of the thing. When they got home, wife expressed a desire for a snack, maybe some cereal. The skim milk was so old, was lumpy, a greenish off-white, and exuded an odor redolent of aged, water-soaked drywall. The idiot volunteered to go to the local Fresh Market to redeem himself, only to discover he didn't have a wallet in his pocket. He searched in idiotic frenzy around the house and in the car without success and drove in fright back to the theater. Although no one was in the theater and a show was not screening, there was no sign of said wallet, which contained identifications, credit cards, $350, and miscellaneous health and reward cards. The idiot left in a profound depression. It became obvious after much review of the events of the evening, the only answer to the loss was that the wallet had slipped out of his vest side pocket as he squirmed and hid his face, not wanting to see the embarrassingly bad movie. What a loss! What an idiot! An usher obviously came in to clean, discovered the gold mine and pocketed the find, telling the manager that all was clean and the next movie could begin, poor pity the unsuspecting customers.Arriving home in a deep funk, the Idiot proceeded to contact those credit card companies still open for business to put a stop on expenditures. Why would they have used the credit cards by then? There was enough money to feed and fuel the thief for days. The idiot also listed automatic charges which would need changing when the new credit cards arrived. He stayed up most of the night, alternately berating his Idiocy and sorting through other actions, such as obtaining a driver's license and talking with financial advisors about protections from identity thieves. After 3 hours of restless sleep, he headed for the Motor Vehicle Department on 3rd west. There was already a line when he arrived, but the Idiot's Idiocy was just beginning to kick into the proverbial high gear. After a 15 minute wait for the doors to open, the Idiot marched obediently to the person responsible for parsing the supplicants to the proper clerk. Turns out the Idiot's clerk didn't work at this site. They don't do driver's licenses there. He had to go to 28th West and 47th South. Off went the idiot.His wait there was about 15 minutes, not bad, but it was already 9 AM. The return of Idiocy in the Idiots life! The rules had changed. He needed a passport and proof of his citizenship, such as a social security card. Off to home for idiot to retrieve said items. He retrieved them and rushed back to the proper office. Idiocy accelerated! When he got to the clerk, she looked at the documents and discovered the Idiot had brought his wife's passport, not his own. Fortunately, he and the clerk could still laugh. But, back home the idiot drove, and retrieved his own passport. Back to the proper office.When the IDIOT arrived, the line was now 1/2 hour long. He successfully negotiated that hurdle, found a seat and waited for his number to be called. It was No 150. The register beckoned No 134, not bad the Idiot thought. The next number called was 742. The next 10. The next 437 and the next 328. Each one took about 10 minutes. Two hours and 30 minutes later, 150 was called, randomly. The IDIOT approached the clerk hesitantly, knowing full well there would be a problem and he would have to head home again. The clerk examined the materials, asked for an eye test, declared all was in order, asked for $23, and sent the IDIOT on his way. The clerk even sympathized with the IDIOT's financial loss. The ordeal was over, except the pain of loss. But no. The pain was not over. The Idiot took a moment to look at his new driver's license photo. Who in the hell is that, said he, not recognizing the grotesque mask in the picture. He glanced at a mirror. There was some resemblance, but the Idiot hoped he would never have to use his driver's license as ID. It could be just about anybody. So you have met the idiot. There is an old saying from Pogo who said, We have met the enemy and he is us. You have met the IDIOT and the above is the rest of the story. Tis I, said I. Now why don’t I tell you something you didn’t already know?

A Thousand Thoughts, Metaphorically

2011-09-08T14:13:00.000-07:00

Kathryn is at this moment dining with 4 cousins. They call themselves "The Jacobs Ladies." They are descendants of Emma Jacobs, or perhaps even one generation back from her, or maybe it was Sheraton Jacobs, the wonder grandfather born on the banks of the Sheraton River in Iowa in 1846. However these five women may be related, they are indeed and they convene once a month, approximately. One recently lost her husband to frontal temporal lobe dementia. Another lost hers to a plane crash. A third husband decided to open the closet door. A fourth still has a husband. And Kathryn is beset with Alzheimer's disease. When they convene, it is industrial strength convening. No sip of water, a genteel salad and a peck goodbye after a friendly hour of fluff. Not at all! This is the real thing. They have been known to listen and remember and giggle and remind for 5 hours, much to the consternation of the locale chosen for the monthly gathering. And that's where they are now.So perhaps it's a good time, a convenient time to update and remember. The changes in Kathryn seem now to occur almost daily. Short term memory selectively fails. That is, she remembers things of major impact such as the three hour discussion we had yesterday with a kind, competent, compassionate professor from BYU who had come to help us talk with a young man deeply troubled by his own sexual preferences. That discussion, Kathryn remembers well. On the other extreme, if we discuss two things for her to do, she often forgets the first, and sometimes in proceeding to do the second, she will be distracted and wander off to do something else and thereby also forget the 2nd item on the list. Each day when we rise is a guessing game for her as to what the day is and what we are going to do. It is difficult because she can't remember the first two events if I mention three. I am not yet skilled in handling this in the best way. I don't get angry or even perturbed. I just am not satisfied that my communications are as effective as they could be and should be.Kathryn has become increasingly obsessive about things. She left a shoe in the car of one of her friends who took her for an overnight stay to Bear Lake. She mentioned the missing shoe several times a day. She wanted to call Dearie, her friend, but would forget about it almost immediately. She has obsessed about the death of emory boards (we have hundreds now), the right kind of eyeliner (they are multiplying in the drawers), skirts (DI knows us by name and takes us immediately to the skirt department), watching special news shows on Friday (Fareed Zakaria or 60 minutes (neither of which have we ever wateched), how to meet the imagined expectations of our social worker at the Alzheimer's office, and so forth. Kathryn has a noticeable loss in her ability to think clearly and logically, For example, she cannot remember where she leaves things. But then she will look for them in the oddest places. She looked in her purse for the lost shoe. She has looked in a glasses case for a notebook. She has looked for her glasses in little boxes not big enough to hold them. We used to joke that Kathryn had her own organizational mantra, "A place for everything and everything in a place." She used to remember where those special places were. She no longer can, yet she thinks she can, and so puts things down "in a place" and it becomes a mad scramble to find them because there is no logical reason from them to be where we eventually find them. And the constancy of the loss hurts her. I wish I could take away that hurt and pain. I can't always do that.What is happening with our children is becoming a jumble. The most difficult for her has been her trying to keep track of where Adam and Whitley and their kids are in their journey. She just could not remember if they were still interviewing for the job in Seattle, or if they had accepted, or if they had bought a house, or if they had moved there yet. It still goes on to some extent. She talks to friends about our family and I amaze at how convoluted the communication is. Yet, what difference does it make? Most people don't pay that much attention to the status and lives of other folks' children, so there is really no point in trying to remove the twists and curls from Kathryn's communicated time line. It just doesn't make any difference. I think everyone in the family will remember the months devoted to trying to teach Kathryn the intricacies of the MP3 player. That was before we went to Belgium. I remember when Mom first went to Rowland Hall to teach. They gave her a Mac computer to use at home. She was the master of it quite quickly, at least for the kinds of things she needed to do. Less than 10 years later, the MP3 player became a major hurdle. It simply did not compute as far as she was concerned. It was impossible to connect the dots for her. Yet she kept asking and we all kept trying. Now, the situation is much more difficult. She can word process on the iPad if I set it up for her. Same with the iMac (desktop.) I set it up. She types. I file. I send. I store. I retrieve. I proofread (as best I can without hurting her feelings.) She can't do any of those things. She has great trouble with telephones, even though she has her own. She doesn't know when to talk, how to answer, and so on. It just plain hurts, folks. Yet she is still driven by the urge, the drive to learn and fend for herself. Truly remarkable.I can still see much of your Mom in there. Some things are gone as far as this life is concerned. Her love for us is not. Her drive to work hard is not. Her long term memories are not (whereas most of mine are!!) Her love of people is not. Her warmth and compassion are not. The ability to make sense of today is the problem and will continue to dissipate. I will say that I have spent most of my life trying to prove to her that I am almost good enough to have her. (If you don't know what I am talking about, go to the blog entitled "I Think I Have Made A Terrible Mistake." You'll know why.) This is my real chance and best opportunity

Shall We Dance, The Good Lady Said

2011-07-05T16:16:00.000-07:00

Dance As Obsession

Kathryn made it clear to me very early in our relationship; she was, is and always will be a dancer. As a child, she relished her weekly ballet lessons. She danced in junior and high school, mostly on the stage as budding ballerina. She danced in high school, mostly ballroom cadences to the big band sounds of the time. While we were in Russia, she must have gone to see Swan Lake 5 times, each with a new visitor or friend. She has followed the current reality shows, “Dancing With the Stars” and “So You Think You Can Dance,” as much as time and prudence will allow.

Dance As Metaphor

Ours was a whirlwind courtship. We first met on a blind date, arranged by our already married friends, Lorin and Judy Pugh, who could not have suspected the immediacy of our attraction for one another. I think my feelings began shortly after her mother answered the door on the first date and Kathryn skipped happily into the room, total elapsed time from recognition to love measured in fractions of a second. She was a bit slower, yet both of us knew we had perhaps met our soul mate by the end of that first, marvelous date, spent snowshoeing with the Pughs. That was mid February 1965.

On April 1st of that year, she challenged me, saying, “If you kiss me again like that, I’m going to have to marry you.” I gladly accepted the challenge. Seconds afterwards, she asked if I were familiar with the movie, “The King and I” starring Yul Bryner and Deborah Kerr. I was, suspecting she was intending to say something about the tendency of my hair cut to evolve into a Yulian doo. Rather, she asked if I remembered the line Yul used when it was clear that they shared feelings and were attending a royal ball of some sort. I did not. Kathryn reminded me that he asked, profoundly, “Shall We Dance?”

To Kathryn, the question symbolized the covenant, eternal in nature, two people must be willing to make before proceeding to the alter. It must govern all their actions fthereafter. We talked long and late that night and over the coming few weeks, not because there was doubt. We were exploring and trying to understand the nature of the commitment. Neither of us could possibly know what awaited us as we surged ahead with life. We did know, however, we both were committed to the big Dance. It is now some decades later. Looking back, I realize the complexities and elegance of the dance we have performed so far, and am deeply pleased by it. Though not done perfectly, it has been rendered with deep love, commitment, openness, and joy. We will continue to dance our metaphor.

Dance as Entertainment

The Dance, Waltz, Foxtrot, Tango, Cha Cha, East Coast Swing, Triple Step, Nightclub Two Step, etc are ours, not that we do them particularly well. It’s just that we do them together. They are romantic. They are fun. They are good exercise. They are tools of sociability. We’ve danced together at a small club in Brighton when we were first courting. We’ve gone to Lagoon when there was a dance floor there. If Saltair and the Rainbow Rendezvous had survived, we would have danced there. We’ve danced at church parties, high school reunions, private parties, etc. Lately, we spend most of our dance time either at the Murray Arts Center on South State Street or at a Senior Center on 10th East between 2nd and 3rd South. There are live bands in both places. There is some overlap in the clientele so there are always familiar faces. We’ve become very well acquainted with many folks at the MAC, but especially Dave and Becky Farnsworth, with whom we trade stories about our and their travails. Olga and Ed, both professional dancers, have each tried to teach us steps. The memory bank at this age just is no longer capable of holding the instructions to muscles required to do new moves. We’ll just be satisfied with what we can do now.

Dance as Approach to Life

When the third year of our stay in Russia was coming to a close, I began to note some difficulties Kathryn was having in doing things she had previously done well. I thought it due to the fact we were both getting older. Between the time of our return in mid 2003 and our departure for Belgium in early Spring of 2009, there were other signs of cognitive disability, which I again took as signs of aging rather than illness.

The pressure of our situation in Belgium however greatly exacerbated the problems and we sought church and medical counsel. We were instructed to come home as quickly as possible. One week after returning, we had a diagnosis of early stage Alzheimer’s Disease. Though we were both totally ignorant of it, Kathryn had probably experienced the first signs of Alzheimer’s savage toll during our last year of service in Russia. The pressure in Belgium inflated the symptoms. As we got our arms around the diagnosis, we began sharing the news, first with family of course and then with close friends. In response, one couple sent us the following couplet:

Life is not about
Waiting for the storm to pass.
Rather, life is about
Learning to Dance in the Rain.

Once again, dance entered our life’s equation. The commitment made, “Shall we Dance,” had long been sealed. The last line of the storm refrain has become our mantra, our hallmark, our motto, our refuge. We shall dance by learning to dance in the rain. The theme has expressed itself in many ways, from volunteering at the Huntsman Cancer Institute and the Road Home, to becoming deeply involved in the local, state and national fight for recognition of the immensity of the Alzheimer’s Disease epidemic, now just breaking over us. On the other side of the coin, we are living life now to the fullest, dancing in whatever way we can, as often as we can, however, wherever and whenever we can.

Learning to Dance in the Rain involved us in one of the most beautiful and emotional experiences of our lives. We were in the midst of a 15 day odyssey down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Tour West was our guide, supplying 10 persons to address every aspect of our trip. Joe and Lee Bennion had arranged the charter and found 18 folks willing and able to make the trip. One day, we hiked up a small, narrow canyon, whose stream fed the Colorado. We agreed to hike that sacred canyon in silence. We came to a wide spot in the draw, perhaps 12 feet wide by 60 or 70 feet long, at the bottom of towering canyon walls, perhaps 100's of feet above us. We were signaled to sit and take in the beauty and serenity of this place, holy and sacred to the Indians who had lived here. After being lost in our thoughts for perhaps 20 or 25 minutes, Katrina, one of the guides, a beautiful young woman with a powerful singing voice, began serenading us and the canyon. Our reverie deepened intensely as she sang. Soon, she announced a number she had written herself. It was about the thoughts of a lover, recalling the beautiful memories of a relationship now ended, I supposed through death, and how much she wished she or he could be with the cherished lover again. I was overcome as she sang, knowing that if Kathryn’s disease took the course of all Alzheimer’s cases, my lot would be the same as the absent lover Katrina was singing about. I began to weep, almost uncontrollably. Everyone knew it, but I could not stop. The song came to an end, and Katrina then invited Kathryn and me to dance a waltz, there in that canyon on a dance floor of pebbles and rocks weathered and eroded for 2 billion years into round, smooth stones. I thought I would collapse. How could she have known how much we love to dance? How could she have known that “Shall We Dance” was the theme of our lives? How could she have known that we were intent on learning how to dance in the rain? She played a slow waltz. We danced the best we could on that uneven floor, now holy to us, scraping one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three over and over again, awkwardly turning and swaying, stepping and pausing.

We both wept and smiled, knowing that there could be no better place to dance then than there, in that canyon, on that day, with those people, to that music. At the end, many of if not the entire company, wept together and shared a moment as one and in our individual odysseys that will never be forgotten, nor perhaps repeated. It may however just be repeated over and over and over in the minds of those who were there. One dear friend, Lee Ann Taylor even named the experience, "Our Three Hanky Hike." Bert Bunnell later offered that the event, which included all of us, may have constituted a signal to the troubled souls many believe inhabit that place at night that there is beauty, love and even healing for them in that place because of our last dance in Blacktail Canyon.. It is one of the most cherished moments of my life and gave perfect voice to our leitmotif, “Shall We Dance.”

All We Have Is Today

2011-01-08T13:32:00.000-08:00

A huge part of the individual Alzheimer's experience, as least from the vantage point of a couple dealing with early onset of the disease, is the uncertainty of what lies ahead. Someone once said, "When you have seen one case of Alzheimer's Disease, you have seen one case of Alzheimer's Disease." Clearly the meaning is that all cases are different. A reading of individual stories and hearing experiences of friends, fellow recipients and care partners gives one the full panorama of possibilities. On the one hand, there is the well known member of our community who has been bedridden, incoherent. and totally dependent on others for years. He recognizes no one and says little that makes any sense. There is the story of a mother of a friend of ours who until her last moment was friendly, kind, talkative and interested in life although she had no idea of her family and children. They were all blank slates to her. There is the story of our neighbor who was diagnosed on one day and passed away of the disease a year later. There are too many stories of spouses who have of a sudden morphed from the kind and gentle mate to an uncontrollable, angry, and dangerous person, needing to be shut away from others for fear of harm or injury to himself or others. And there are those who find themselves in rest homes and care facilities, no longer able to care for themselves or recognize family or spouse, becoming romantically entangled with someone else. And last of all is the story of someone whose spouse is in a rest home. He visits her regularly but spends a lot of time at dances and other social events basically hustling companionship.

We see and hear about these stories all the time. As Kathryn is recognized on the streets, at the gym, at the grocery store or wherever, people feel free to come over to congratulate her for her strength, courage and openness and to share their stories with her or us. None have happy endings, but some are simply devastating. Here he stand on this side at the gate, enjoying life to the fullest, but also waiting for the train to pick us up for some unfamiliar, unknown destination. We talk often about the future. Kathryn sometimes obsesses about the it and, depending on my lifespan, whether or not I will marry. I keep reminding her that such a discussion is irrelevant. Then I buttress that irrelevancy by proclaiming in the most loving terms I can muster that I find that thought repugnant and outside the bounds of possibility. It is unthinkable.

Well, why do I write about this particular theme now. Alzheimer's is ever present in our lives. But this morning, after a difficult, strenuous exercise stint at the nearby Lions Recreation Center, skirting the bedlam below where children in four different games attempted to play basketball accompanied by the screams of family, friends, coaches and team mates, we went to the local Fresh Market to pick up a few items. After a long pause in our conversation and as we left the building, Kathryn glanced over to me and said, smilingly, "All we have is today." "No," I said. "All we have is today, our memories, and hope." And, I will add to that, Each Other!

What Santa Does After The Christmas Rush

2011-01-05T12:33:00.000-08:00

We're in California, Pasadena to be specific. (Actually, that is no longer true. We were there. We've come home. But, try to imagine us there. The following was written while there. Got it?) We're participating in the annual Tournament of Roses Parade. Adam and Kathryn are two of the featured few, designated to ride on the float. The float is a joint project/product of the cooperative efforts of Pfizer Corporation and the National Alzheimer's Association. The float is called the boomer express, named to signal the nation concerning an oncoming tidal wave of the disease, powered largely by the baby boomers who are beginning to turn 65 this year. Given that Alzheimer's is an age related disease (the older you get, the more likely you are to become a recipient of the disease), we will see a huge increase in onset of the disease, projected to be around 15 million in the next couple of decades, requiring an accumulated expenditure by then of some $20 trillion dollars, should no cure or attenuating medication be found or developed. We don't have that kind of money.

So all of us involved in the ALZ cause (individuals, associations, corporations, etc.) are doing everything we can to the raise awareness, remove the stigma, pressure governments and corporations to act together, quickly and seriously, to address the topic in mass. The Boomer Express float is part of that effort. Kathryn and Adam will ride and wave, along with about 23 other folks. It has thus far been a very fun experience.

Last night, Thursday, we went to the location where 12 of the floats are in the final stages of construction and decoration. Everything except the frame on every float must be organic. They have developed special glues, tools, and rules to assure and regulate the process. It's hugely intricate. The Boomer Express is about 50 or 60 feet long, with structures rising to about 30 or 35 feet on top of it. It's an old railroad steam engine and passenger car. Because of the weather and age of the participants, most will ride inside the car. Each float is the beloved recipients of more than 20,000 volunteer hours to complete it. A year is required to design and produce the finished product. Themes for next year's parade are already being discussed and finalized.

This morning, Kathryn and I walked the parade route. By 8:30 am, spaces on the edge of Colorado Avenue were being claimed by intrepid parade watchers. They will sleep out tonight in what promises to be rather cold, cold weather. The street is a place on this day for car enthusiasts to show off their work, from racing vehicles to street rods to chopped body muscle cars to ancient, rare vehicles. We saw one, a white Humber, that I have never seen before, truly a classic.
The parade will be fun to watch. Adam and Kathryn will ride. Smith and I will watch from the grandstand. Whitley, Laine, and Rosie will be somewhere out on the parade route. A not to be missed experience.

So where does Santa Claus fit in all of this? Last night, as we walked around the construction area, looking at the various floats, we discovered what Santa Claus does after he's finished with distributing gifts to deserving boys and girls. We met him. He's a large man, not only rotund but tall, about 6 foot 3 inches. He wears the red cap rimmed with white fur and topped with a little bell. He indeed has a flowing white beard, white eyebrows and lashes, and snowy white hair. Last night, the hair was a little in disarray. However, no traditional Santa Suit. He wore work boots, besmirched Levi's and white t-shirt, spattered with paint, glitter, and all sorts of flower seeds, pieces of stems and leaves and other organics not familiar to us. We stopped him as tried to rush by us on some urgent errand. Who was he really? Santa, of course, was his reply. We asked if this is what he always did after the rush of toy deliveries. Yes. He said it was his way of relaxing and he's done it for countless years. He laughed in a familiar, jolly sort of way, excused himself, and sauntered off down the street, happily whistling "Jingle Bells." Adam and Whitley and Kathryn and I and our guard traded looks of astonishment. So that is what he does. We had no idea. Later, I found out one of the hazards of his work. I headed for one of the portapotties, dispersed by the thousands around the grounds. I found one apparently unoccupied and swung open the door. There was santa again, standing straignt and tall, about to leave the little plastic cabin. I excused myself, but before I could depart, he exclaimed as he disappeared out of sight, that he was just removing glue from his beard, a common malady in this kind of work. So, that's what he does after Christmas. I have picture proof of same. I just hadn't remembered he wore glasses. Maybe it's only for close up work. Happy New Year!!!

Ruminations on a Quiet Tuesday

2010-12-07T10:35:00.000-08:00

Contrary to a Tuesday morning 69 years ago today, which I certainly do not remember, but which has nevertheless influenced my life greatly, this morning for us is a gentle and warm day of thought, pursuit of individual interests, and time spent together at home and perhaps on a neighborhood jaunt. While Kathryn sews, I write.

The changes imposed on the world by Pearl Harbor

Sixty nine years ago!! The beginning of World War II, in a formal way, for the United States. We had been involved before this, promoting ourselves as democracy's arsenal and underwriting the valiant efforts of the British. The attacks on Pearl Harbor sucked us into the conflict in ways unimagined by the Japanese and by the German's who declared war on us as soon as they heard the news of the Japanese infamy. While thought to be a nation of indulged, selfish, cowardly materialists, we proved to be a formidable foe from the outset. Our young women and men surged to military recruiting offices to respond to the call and to retaliate. Our business might united, partially under the leadership of my Uncle George, to become a design and construction colossus, turning out massive stockpiles of war materiel for every ally, even the Russians. Even though the viciousness of the conflict over the next four years, led to revenge atrocities performed by our military, especially in the Pacific, we largely came through this gargantuan conflict with our values intact. We had raised a standard of service, help, compassion, and freedom envied and sought after by almost all of the modern cultures of the world. The Marshall Plan basically resurrected Germany from the potential of decades-long struggles with poverty, famine, and desolation. We governed Japan back to a competitive, humane, free society. Russia, on the other hand, under the "leadership" of Stalin, influenced the communist leaning world to isolate themselves in the long, bitter cold war, which though thought to be officially over, still resonates to some degree in a few countries, such as China, North Korea, Russia itself, Cuba, and Venezuela.

The evolution of the role of America and the Military

When Eisenhower left office after an interesting, productive presidency, he, whose background was military, warned us to avoid the tentacles of the coming military/industrial complex. He coined the term to name that growing relationship where arms manufacturers enticed military and political leaders to purchase the latest, greatest military technology to once and for all put the power to end all wars in the hands of US leadership. Since the late fifties, there has always been the touting and acquisition of the latest new weapon. A book titled "Grunts" exposes the deceit and costs associated with this path, and the expense to the country of following it, not just in dollars, but in the destruction of the bodies and souls or our front line military. Today, we live in a country where our military budget exceeds that of, as some claim, all other nations combined. Our congress and senate demand the latest military hardware, offered by the arms manufacturers as that weapon which will finally replace the front line soldier and put an end to conflict and slaughter. The threat of nuclear annihilation has not stopped the front line slaughter. The newest aircraft technology, including Stealth aircraft, has not. Drones have not, nor has satellite imagery, nor any other created weapon of the past 60 years. Yet, we keep spending. Our current financial crisis and resulting political warfare, in which comity and compromise have been ground into the dust of politics at its worst, seem unable to do anything but agree on the need for an outrageous, unjustified, and continuously unsuccessful purchase of the wares of military hardware suppliers. And what happens to the front line soldier? These men and women, called on to invade foreign countries, called on to route the "enemy" in street to street, house to house, battles, are undersupplied, under protected, under treated if wounded, and often ridiculed if the real wounds are not physical but psychological. I cite as examples in the Iraq war the lack of body armor for the troops, the lack of armor and protection for the humvee's, the Walter Reed Hospital debacle, and the sluggishness of the Dept. of Veterans Affairs to meet the needs of those who coming home, wholly or partially intact. And yet our politicians continue to buy the latest gadgets and have no intention of reducing the military budget. Frankly, our foes are winning. They entice us to fight in their homelands. We have no idea where the enemy are or who they are. They kill us at will. And we spend our nations financial and human resources at a rate leading directly to moral and economic disaster. The future is indeed bleak!

And Now?

Now that I have that off my chest, let me return to the topic of the blog, Ruminations on a Quiet Thursday. It seems that we have been running constantly for the last several months to play the Alzheimer's symphony. We speak at meetings for the Elderly. We speak at meetings of those who provide services to the elderly. We appear on TV. We have radio interviews. We review films. We meet in Support Groups, We help Kathryn's National Committee meet their objectives. We have our own support group of Early Stage Recipients and Care Partners. We talk with friends. We read about ALZ. We exercise and eat the way we do because those regimens are thought to slow the advance or maybe even encourage the building of new neural pathways. We listen to pitches about supplements thought to be helpful. We examine our personal papers and investments in preparation for what may be coming, as best as we can predict it.

But, of a sudden, there is a lull. We looked at today's calendar. We looked at the calendar for the rest of the week and month. We see exercise. We see Utah Watercolor Society. We see dancing. We see a few social gatherings. But, for the rest of the month, there is literally nothing on the calendar, other that 2 support groups, until the end of the month when we go to California for support of the Alzheimer's float in the Tournament of Roses Parade. We see time to paint, to write, to dance, to walk, to relate, to think. And we welcome the new visitor, one we shall call "calm and pleasant pursuits." Hence this Blog.

What Has Been Done?

For the record, I would just like to record what we have been doing. Ted Capener worked with us to prepare us to be interviewed on his program, Utah Conversations. That will air this coming Sunday, on Channel 7, PBS, at 5:30 pm. We participated in and talked at a Utah County gathering of seniors, encouraging them to become more aware of the coming Alzheimer's tsunami, and about how we have responded to our own reception of the disease primarily with openness. Kathryn participated in the Washington DC announcement of the Maria Shriver study on Women's and Alzheimer;s, by giving the opening remarks at the conference organized to discuss the book on the day of its announcement. We have been interviewed by Jennifer Napier-Pearce for a story on KUER about Alzheimer's. This was aired four times on Sunday, 12/5 and Monday, 12/6. Wonderful comments. Last night, we spoke on a panel reviewing a film we had just seen called "I Remember Better When I Paint." And we, primarily Kathryn, of course, was the subject of a wonderful article and terrible picture in the Desert News, called "Life After Diagnosis," authored by our dear friend, Elaine Jarvik.

What's Next?

Not much. Ted Capener's program shows Sunday. We go to support group tomorrow. We go to California on the 26th. Kathryn's YUPO paintings may be featured on the cover of the catalog for next year's Gala. There may be an art show of the work of Alzheimer's Artists at the Peter Moore Gallery. We will have once a month phone calls from and with the Early Stage Advisory Group. We will go to Washington DC next May, seeing the Lloyd's either on the way or in DC. Nothing else specific on the agenda. So, what's next, for the most part? Living, loving, reading, writing, painting, walking, enjoying and learning to dance in the rain. There is much of life after diagnosis.

Twas a Different Thanksgiving

2010-11-26T09:02:00.000-08:00

Here's a Thanksgiving Day to Remember. At least for us. It started early and cold. The promised blizzard had turned out to be much ado about virtually nothing. The sky was frigid blue. We had dismantled our sleeping arrangements, a single bed with a trundle underneath for the one who abandoned the coziness of the single bed first. We had also acquired a new mattress with a Stickley headboard, the latter to be delivered in December. This purchase freed up the trundle arrangement and Rachel decided she wanted the whole thing for their use. Fine! Grand! Happy to be of assistance! So early on Thanksgiving morn, we packed the whole disassembled trundle package into the back of the Explorer. Amazingly enough, it all fit. The only problem was we had to skunch the driver and passenger seats so far forward, transferring foot from accelerator to brake pedal proved problematical, perhaps even dangerous. However, we've always loved risk and adventure. Also, there was virtually no traffic so the arrangement was deemed moderately safe.

We arrived at Rachel's at about 10:00am, unloaded the beds, transferred them inside their newly rearranged home, and set them up. Troy had the proper tools and I had sufficient memory to recall how to reassemble. The left over parts could be numbered on one hand, an accomplishment in its own right. Rachel and Troy did a great job of rethinking furniture and kid placements so every one had a good bed and there was more room for play and alone time. We finished up about 12:00 and headed back home. The mere thought of triptophan, the chemical sleeping agent in turkey, put both of us out for about an hour. We got up in time to make our 2:00 pm dinner appointment.

Since we had already had the traditional Thanksgiving meal about two weeks ago, we decided to do something a little different. Go to a restaurant. Rachel called several places, Mimi's, Marie Callender's, ChuckupOrama, etc., but all were fully booked. Realizing that there may have been some Italians who came to the new world early and even participated in the first Thanksgiving meal with Squanto and his fellow, soon to be displaced or obliterated owners of the American continent, we decided to honor them by going to an Italian place. Good Choice!! They had a traditional thanksgiving feast of turkey and all the fixings. Or one could choose from their standard Italian menu. Rachel and her family chose the former. Kathryn and I chose the latter. Did I mention they serve family style. You tell them how many want what and they bring bowls of the selected items, sufficient for all. Kathryn and I chose Italian. We also ordered appetizers, a wonderful biscuit drenched in garlic and also deep fried calamari. We knew the latter was immune from attack by the youngsters. Turns out Romney and Chase are fish folks, and apparently adopted, given Troy's aversion to anything that spent a significant part of its life in water, specially salt water. Romney and Chase devoured the calamari. I may have grabbed one piece or at least tried to grab one. No matter, they enjoyed it. We all shared a wonderful salad of romaine, granny smith apples, toasted walnuts, craisens, gorgonzola cheese and a light italian vinaigrette. It was wonderful. Then while the traditionalists enjoyed the turkey, Kathryn and I had our veggie Pizza for two, very tasty, just like at that honored first Thanksgiving on Plymouth Rock, which is reported to be quite small, so maybe they took turns. Margaret joined us for dessert of pumpkin filled cannoli which they claimed was delicious. Given a much trumpeted lack of smell and thus taste, I decided to skip the calorie laced confection. End of a wonderful meal and all behaved well, even Troy.

The concluding event in our celebration was a movie. Rachel had purchased tickets for Tangled, the new Disney movie about the complete and newly fabricated story of Rapunzel and her long golden locks. This was consistent with our Italian theme, since I recall hearing someplace that Rapunzel was first told in Italy and may have even been shared from the rock in Plymouth on the first day, though I'm really not sure about that. Nonetheless, I had earlier seen a podcast from Science Friday on NPR about how the movie computer technicians had developed mathematical equations to properly duplicate the motion of hair. So we all went to the movie. We had to walk around a bit first before we were allowed into the theatre. It was bitter, bitter cold outside so K&L bore what we could, then went inside the Gateway and used the warm bathrooms for quite a while.

The movie was outstanding, fun, warm, playful, just a great time. Emma managed quite well. Didn't hear a peep from Chase and Romney. I got leg pain because of the odd seating arrangement so I spent most of the time standing in the aisle, which was fine. It was really an enjoyable movie. There were no mentions of Italian roots, but the massive villains with heavy black beards surely were or southern European descent.

So, how did the day stack up? At dinner, we remembered Thanksgivings of our varied pasts. This one was memorable and holds up well when contrasted with those of many years ago. We will probably do it again.

Oh The Tangled Web We Weave

2010-11-22T18:13:00.000-08:00

You will need to give this your complete attention. Think back to last Wednesday. A nice day. Kathryn and I came home from some errands and noticed an old, yellow Cadillac parked by the side of the road about 50 yards east of the entrance into Millcreek Court, our condominium complex. I thought nothing of it. Kathryn went inside and I went out to retrieve the mail, hoping as always to find an unexpected check for several hundred thousand dollars. As I was sorting the mail and going back to the garage, I heard a rather frail, harried voice calling out to me, "Sir! Sir!" I don't like to be called sir. It seems to date me. Anyway, I turned to see a 85ish woman coming toward me so I walked toward her. When we were close enough, I could she she was frazzled and distraught. She had a silk red and black and white and green bandana tied over her head. She sported a winter coat and snow boots, gloves and long warm stockings. Her lips were heavily painted and her cheeks deeply rouged. She explained that the Cadillac was her husbands. She had just had it completely serviced 8 months ago and as she came up the hill on 39th, it just stopped running. She wondered if I had a cell phone. I said no, not with me, but I have one inside. And I ran in to get it. She had an insurance policy that allowed her to get roadside assistance. She called, had great difficulty explaining to them what had happened, was cut off once, went through the whole thing again, and finally was told a tow truck would be coming in about 40 minutes. I invited her to wait in our home but she said her sister was in the car and she wanted to wait there with her. She thanked me profusely and called me a true Samaritan. I thought that was a bit of an exaggeration.

After about an hour, she knocked on the door. We invited her in and she asked to use the phone again since the tow truck had not yet arrived. Just as she made connection with the company, there was another knock on the door. It was our neighbor and cousin, Arthur Wood, asking if this woman's (pointing to another frail old woman standing in the court driveway) sister was in our home. Yes, she was. Arthur said the tow truck had arrived. The woman in our house started thanking us while the woman outside was screaming, "Irma, the tow truck is here, now!!!) Finally, she left, met her sister, talked with the tow truck guys and left. Situation normal? Not by a long shot!!

Saturday afternoon, prior to our going to the Murray Arts Center for our videotaped dancing, I once again went to the mail box, hoping for the mother of all unexpected gifts. Instead of the big bucks, there was the following letter, written on very flowery, lightly scented five by eight notepaper:

November 18, 2010

Dear Arthur and Virginia:
This early AM I opened the Stake Directory and found your name, Arthur, listed in the 3rd Ward.

How Can I ever thank you enough for being the good SAMARITAN and your neighbor whose last name I recall is Romney to help out two sisters in deep trouble.

I know the Lord did bless us with your kindness and help when we did not know where to turn to get the help necessary for safety. (This was the first time I have ever had to cope with my husbands automobile having problems while I was driving.)

I was mighty confused when the tow truck was so long in arriving to take the car to be fixed where I have been taking it for checkups for eight years. (I know it is old, but I have not been able to give it up.) It so reminds me of my husband and how he saved to purchase this car. He was born in DEtroit, Michigan and I met him when I was a Secretary at Kearns during World War II. He had just returned from England and was stationed at the "Overseas Replacement DEpot "1945.

Again my deepest appreciation and could you please share this note with my neighbor and good Samaritan friends who let me use his phone and was SO KIND AS YOU BOTH WERE TO ME AND MY PRECIOUS SISTER DAWN DELVIE. THANK YOU AND GOD BLESS.

We were strangers and you helped us and how thankful I am for good and kind folks as I know you are.

Sincerely and with love,
Erma M. Todt

Kathryn recognized the name and wondered if this were the same person her mother, Oa, often talked about so much. Kathryn said she would like to contact her some day. End of story? By no means. It has just begun

Fast forward to Monday afternoon. We went to the gym, Lions Club on Murray Holladay Road, for some exercise. AFter about 45 minutes on the track, around 5:15 pm, we decided to go down to the workout room where I could continue walking on a treadmill and Kathryn could do some tummy and arms work. After 15 minutes we decided to go. As I was wiping down my machine, I heard someone go up to Kathryn and ask if she had taught at Olympus many years ago and if she were Mrs. Romney. After finishing the wipe down, I joined the conversation. Kathryn introduced me to Mark Thomas who it turned out was one of her students at Olympus. He spent the next 15 or 20 minutes talking about what a wonderful teacher she was, how many lives she had affected, how she was the reason he became interested in biblical literature and philosophy, and how the way she conducted her life, not really the details of the things she said, had an almost measureless effect on his life. It was not that he wanted to be like her. It was more that he wanted to be the best he possibly could, because he sensed that was what her life was about. He is closely allied with Sunstone, Farms, and church biblical scholars. He is a banker with a degree in philosophy.

For some reason, he brought up the Lloyd name and Kathryn explained her relationship to the Lloyds, namely through her mother's first marriage to Charles Lloyd. He asked what was her mother's name. She said, Oa Cannon. Yes he had often heard his mother in law talk about Oa Cannon. Well, who is your mother in law? we both asked. Her name is Irma Todt!!

Recognize the name, Irma Todt? She is the older woman who had the Cadillac problem in front of our home. Incredible. There are no coincidences. Mark spent a lot of time in our conversation piling praise on Kathryn. He had seen the articles in the Tribune on her. He even had some advice for treatment, which he will be sending us. We've decided to pursue this chance meeting and spend some time together talking and getting better acquainted. Oh the Tangled Web We Weave.

Kathryn's Thanksgiving Dance

2010-11-21T09:55:00.000-08:00

While attending an Alzheimer's support group a couple of months ago, we met Kathleen Haynes. She had been invited by the Association's social worker, Sylvia Brunisholz, to talk with the group's members about the importance of exercise and relaxation techniques in preserving the health of care partners. At the end of her presentation, she announced she had received money from a grant to Art Access to help Alzheimer's Disease recipients express their emotions and tell their life stories through dance. She asked for volunteers to participate in the program. Kathryn's arm shot up before the last reverberations from Kathleen's lip's had ceased and the offer had been made. I wondered what we were getting ourselves into. Now I know. The initial phases of the program concluded last night. But I get ahead of myself.

Kathleen contacted us a week or so after the meeting. She came to our home and described what the program was trying to do. She would be the producer and director of videotaping sessions largely designed by the recipient to tell some things about their lives. Kathleen thought our stories of our children, at least some of them, cavorting to wild music and some of Kathryn's early dance experiences would be great to depict. She also was greatly interested in our love of ballroom dancing and thought that should be part of the DVD to be produced as well.

The good fortunes of fate brought the whole family together on the night of November 12. Adam and his brood, Peter and his, as well as the Lewis's and the Preslars, minus Troy, were there. Kathleen and her video man showed up early to plan the events. There was to be a scene about our children dancing to some of Kathryn's favorite dance music, Carmina Burana. There was to be another scene with the grandchildren dancing with Kathryn to the wild and playful "Saber Dance." So we gathered props such as hula hoop rings, scarves, ribbons and the like. There was a little discussion of how each scene would be conducted. Kathryn was to lead each one.

And so the family began showing up at 5:00 pm. Did I mention that we had decided to also celebrate our family Thanksgiving on this evening since we were all going to be together? So, to the enticing, wafting odors of pressure cooking turkey (it's delicious), baking turkey stuffing, baking squash from freshly harvested squash globes, salads and unbelievable desserts, we began the dance.

The first portrayal was Saber Dance, which two of our kids, at least, performed almost daily for five or six years, or so it seemed. There was a definite reluctance on the part of Smith to get involved. But as soon as his buddy, Chase, donned his head ribbon, and started brandishing his plastic light saber, the engagement was joined with enthusiasm and all jumped in. Even though hardly any effort had been devoted to practice, okay none, the music and Kathryn's leadership prodded all the grandchildren to get deeply involved, even the toddlers. All lunged and swayed, jumped and knelt, smiled and laughed as the troupe circled our dining room, first to the right and then the left. It was entrancing.

Phase 2 of the recording session conscripted everyone in the family. Once again, all donned head scarves or some other unique form of apparel. Kathleen added hula hoops to the portrayal and suggested a few moves to Kathryn. Let the recording begin, mouthed Kathryn. And so we did. Kathryn's invented lunges in time and with the fervor of the tempo got us all following her in Carmina Burana, K's favorite dance music, I think. We used the hula hoops according to Kathryn's leadership to signify family unity and hope. When it was over, we were smiling, exercised and ready to finish the preparations for the Thanksgiving feast.

The dinner was a delightful bedlam. Good food, good company. Good love and togetherness, since Troy was able to join us as well. Everyone departed with loads of leftover and Kathryn and I did the final cleanup, probably in a stupor. We were tired and fell limply into bed.

But the dance was not over. The final segment was planned for Saturday evening, Nov 20th at our dancing haunt, the Murray Arts Center. Kathryn and I showed up there to participate in the lesson being taught that night, the Tango. Kathleen, Maiken, and their partners showed up at about 8:30 pm to videotape us.. We set up the equipment in the ancillary ball room where the lessons are usually taught but where we could hear the music of Kevin Auernig, one of our favorites. When Kevin started, the videotaping began and we danced for maybe 30 or 40 minutes. Swing, Cha-Cha, Waltz, Bolero and fox trot. Sometime the lights were dim, other times they were bright, but we took no notice. It was mesmerizing, to say the least. Of course, people who had come to the MAC to dance and saw us being videoed must have felt they were witnessing the self indulgent machinations of Utah's two biggest egos.

We still owe Kathleen some information to finish the DVD and then she will get the final version to us. It will be a great thing to look back on and be reminded of Kathryn's Thanksgiving Dance.

Of Jiggling Wattles and Potty Breaks

2010-11-14T10:30:00.000-08:00

These past few days have been busy to say the least. I participated in a 5 hour retreat of the Board of the Utah Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association. It was a little emotional at first when they ran first a DVD called "The Faces of Alzheimer's" with Mom and me being the last faces in what was a very, very poignant display of many Utahn's who have or are care partners for the disease. Then, a DVD of Mom's presentation at the Maria Shriver conference was played. It reminded me once again of what a stalwart, intrepid pillar she has always been and continues to be. Unfortunately, and you know what is coming, I was then asked to review the conference we keynoted in St George on thursday night, the 4th. I struggled emotionally to get through a description of our role there. It was a meeting of Bishops, RS presidents and Stake Presidents from 24 southern Utah stakes, maybe 150 of the invitees attended. Our emphasis was on building faith-based coalitions with other religious organizations to make common cause to elevate awareness and accept the challenge to best this disease. You may be surprised to know that I was a little weepy in front of these board members, some of whom have not cried since they had a tetanus shot as a two-year old. I suspect their tear ducts are clogged with gold dust. It turned out to be a very useful meeting, however.

Once a month, I meet with Chase Peterson, former President at the University of Utah, and his vice president's, all of whom have long since retired. I, as an Assistant Vice President, am invited, either to bus the dishes after the lunch, or because Chase and I and the other's always got along really well. At the last meeting of this group, Ted Capener, former VP for Public Relations invited Kathryn and me to be interviewed on his weekly show, "Utah Conversations." The interview was on Wednesday, November 10. The show will air at 5:30 pm on December 12th, a Sunday. Today, we watched the DVD of the interview. I think we did really well, Kathryn especially. She was a thoughtful, honest, articulate and beautiful Alzheimer's recipient. She even admitted that she did well. I was a hand-waving, facially expressive, wattle jiggling care partner who was supportive and able to get across I think the urgency of the need to find a cure for this disease. Ted was a wonderful, fun, inquisitive host who asked insightful questions. We had a great time and enjoyed watching the re-run today.

So what do Potty Breaks have to do with all this, you ask? Yesterday, we received a note from the National Association that Kathryn has been selected as a participant in the building of the Association's float (funded by Pfizer) to be part of the Annual Tournament of Roses Parade on 1 January. My role is to help build the float and gently place each delicate little blossom in the proper place in the specialized chicken wire which entombs the float structure. We expect there be to lots of purple, the insignia color of the disease (Breast Cancer has selected pink.) When we have completed that task, Kathryn jumps on the float with the 4 other recipients of ALZ and down the avenue of starts and stops, bumps and twists, needs and no opportunities she'll go. They wave and smile the whole time, as if they are having the most amazing experience of their lives. They may well be. Only problem. No potty breaks. Many hours of no potty breaks. How is that going to work? Mom is the youngest of the bunch, with some approaching 80. I am trying to think of a solution. It guess it depends!!! There doesn't seem to be a tidy answer.

Photographical Phluries

2010-11-10T07:23:00.000-08:00

We have been feeling harried lately while trying to respond to the weight of our involvement in the cause to advance knowledge of the coming Alzheimer's tsunami into the public eye. In addition to that, we are committed to helping those newly diagnosed to deal with the shock. Finally, we are trying to keep our own lives alive and well. Sometimes, it feels overwhelming. For example, we both derive a great deal of enjoyment from dancing, from writing, from our artistic pursuits, and from just experiencing these Autumn years together and with family and friends as much as possible. These past few weeks laid waste those dreams pretty convincingly, at least for the time being.

It all started with events previously recorded, the first of which was Kathryn's stellar command performance at the Announcement Conference for the Maria study of women and alzheimer's in America. It was followed up by the preparations and performance at the meeting of leaders of 24 stakes and their encompassed wards in Southern Utah. Of course, I wrote about that in my accounting of Leonard's most excellent "hubritical" adventure. Then came a surprise article on Monday of this week in the Deseret News about Kathryn. The article, written by our dear friend, Elaine Jarvik, was masterful. The picture was devastating for Kathryn. Friends commented, trying to buoy her up, by saying she looked wise, or what a beautiful smile, or what beautiful eyes, or it's not the face that matters but what's in your heart. Well intended but subtle admissions that the picture was not that hot and was more a study of pores and wrinkles that an accurate account of her beauty.

Now we get really intense. We today are preparing for an interview with Ted Capener for his Civic Dialogue program on Channel 7. That is followed closely by the Early Stage Advisory Group Care Partners' conference call and shopping for Thanksgiving Dinner and mabye some dancing. Thursday starts with a conference call on Faith Based Alzheimer's Initiatives and then a Utah Alzheimer's Board retreat. Then there is our beloved art class from the good lady Marian. Friday morning we begin preparing for Thanksgiving dinner that evening to be participated in by the entire family. Those preparations will be interrupted by the making of a dance DVD to record Kathryn's life, as interpreted by her children and grandchildren (that's from 3 to 5) and then there is the actual act of eating. Saturday slows down a little with Chase's baptism, but then we have to prepare for a major talk on Monday in Orem that we need to rush to after our Huntsman Cancer Institute volunteering that morning. Do you get the picture? Folks should be getting pretty sick of us by then and we can scale back the intensity and frequency of our involvement a little.

Why do I call this post "Photographical Phluries." Think about it. These past events have all be digitally recorded, more or less successfully, in great detail. Kathryn's Washington triumph to my Sand Lake Reservoir debacle to Kathryn's St George perfomance to our "Civic Dialogue" interview to the dance and dinner on Thanksgiving to the Orem presentation. We're wondering if bright lights cause cancer or hopefully cure Alzheimer's for Kathryn and general overall ugliness for me.

Just to close this off, I include the best of Kathryn's Washington DC photos. That makes us both feel good.

A Thursday to Remember - For Several Reasons

2010-11-07T08:52:00.000-08:00

Our real purpose for being in St George this last week was not the water skiing opportunity, described in the previous post. It was to participate as Keynote Speakers in a meeting of LDS Stake Presidents, Stake Relief Society Presidents, Ward Bishops and Ward RS presidents from 24 stakes in the SG area. The event was scheduled Thursday evening, as it happened, at the Stake Center where Peter's in-laws belong. So, we got up Thursday morning and planned a nice day. Both Sheri and Peter were deeply involved in gainful employment and their kids were with the nanny, so we were pretty much free to do whatever we wanted.

In spite of the bad back and aches from what we will call "Leonard's Most Excellent Hubritical Day," we decided to go for a walk. It turned out to be an almost 9 mile walk. We went from Peter and Sheri's home to the Red Cliffs Mall and wandered and looked and played the old L and K Romney family game of "I buy!" We actually bought a map of St George. Then we wandered around to the Outlet Mall on the other side of the mesa, shopped, looked, walked, snacked there. We eventually wound up at the Apple Store and acquired speakers and car chargers for our iThings. Then it was up over the mesa on Foremaster Road. All in all, we were gone about about 3 1/2 hours, in spite of the nagging back issue.

Did I mention that I was continuing to have back problems? Maybe I don't have to mention them anymore. We showered, shaved, shampooed and generally got ready for the presentation. Our talks were on our iThing so we decided to try to use that instead of paper notes to guide our words. Before going to the Stake Center, we had a nice little dinner at the Pizza Factory, mostly salad and one small piece of Pizza, the rest saved for the road home later that night.

What happened at the presentation? There were about 150 folks there. We were the key noters. We stood together at the pulpit, glancing frequently at our personal iThing teleprompter for about 20 minutes or so. The outline followed these topics: Our Story, Our Response, and Our Problems (Individual, Church and Nation). This was followed by a quasi-panel discussion where the moderator asked 6 or 7 of us questions related to the needs of Alzheimer's patients and help/advice for local church leaders. Although neither of us can remember what she said, Kathryn's closing comments about her gratitude for the gospel and it's strengthening influence in all of our lives were the perfect final remarks for the plenary session.

Clearly, the whole evening hit the spot. Everyone made truly wonderful, insightful, interesting comments. We're hoping that this can become the initial meeting in a growing movement, within the LDS Church and between the Church and all others faiths to attack the problem. I have included a couple of notes we received from participants in the meeting. They were nice to us, but more importantly, these comments strongly hint at the enthusiasm and commitment for doing something.

The formal meeting was followed by a question and answer period in the cultural hall where"refreshments", Mormon style, were offered. The corn lobby would have been happy. The amount of High Fructose Corn Syrup displayed and contained in that vast array of comestibles spread over 3 or 4 tables was amazing. Diabetes onset got a shot in the arm that night. We left at about 9:15pm for the drive home and raised the garage door in Holladay at 1:30 am. Only 1 stop. Not bad. The aspartame and caffeine lobby would have been thrilled at what we accomplished without a hitch and without noticeable shakes!!

We're so glad we went. The whole trip was a great adventure, in spite of continuing pain. Hubris has been banished for the time being, fortified by the pain in my backside and the warm glow of a wonderful, spiritually invigorating event. (I'll not mention the achies again, at least those associated with this trip.) Below is a picture of LuAnn Lundquist who put this together. a great lady in our opinion.

Dear Kathryn and Leonard,

I regret not being able to give you both a hug at the So. Utah meeting last Thursday. It got really busy there at the end with people having many questions. It was an incredibly inspirational meeting and your involvement open up eyes and hearts and hopefully empowered leaders to gain the knowledge they so desperately need. LuAnn said you had to drive North that night. I also planned to leave after that meeting and drive North. I pooped out and got up at 6 and left the next morning. I'll bet that was a long trip for you both. Thank you for your support, for sharing your story and for me personally showing how important the love between a couple should be. You touched many people in many ways that night. So next time I see you both, you will get two and a half hugs from me.

P/S My computer has made my job and life much easier! The world now turns with ease!

I wish you both Happy Holidays.

Kindly,
Mitzi

Dear Leonard and Kathryn,
I had no idea you were traveling home after the event - and you were willing to stay to help the attendees. I am glad that you arrived safely.
Thank you for those kind words, not just to me, but to my boss as well. When I consider the source of those words it means ever so much. I also believe the meeting was historic and just the beginning of great things to come. We have felt the Lord's inspiration every step of the way and it has been a very humbling experience for me. Katherine Parry has provided the energy and organization to really make this cooperation between the church and the chapter successful.
Interesting that you mention taking what we learn here and making it a plan that will work in other areas in Utah and then other congregational groups. I felt that strongly just the day before the conference and mentioned it to Katherine. Maybe we can start a tsunami of trained volunteers to meet the tsunami this disease is bringing.
Your remarks were insightful, inspired and powerful. Thank you so much for really "making" this Training Meeting what it was. We are all very grateful.
LuAnn

Hubris - A Pretty Painful Passion

2010-11-06T13:01:00.000-07:00

The week started off well. We fulfilled our volunteering assignment at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. While we were there, we were shown a video our primary care physician will be using sometime this month. He is speaking at a medical conference and included in his address a description of the program he has started. It is the use of volunteers in out-patient waiting areas to address problems the patients may be having, provide comfort, assist the staff in their duties, whatever is required. We were videoed a few months ago and segments of that interview appear in cobbled together tape he is using in his presentation. It is --- all sorts of emotions come to mind - humbling, an honor, fun, sobering, a little embarrassing. But the video is effective, we think. Judge for yourself.

Tuesday, we saw Dr Johnston for Kathryn's monthly infusion of placebo or miracle Alzheimer's drug and then participated in the once-every-three-months testing they do. The net/net/net of the session was that Kathryn continues to do very, very well. She asked Dr. Johnston what her disease path would be. He replied simply he had no way of knowing, but if she continued doing as well as she has been, he predicted many years of an enjoyable life lay before her. After thinking about it for a few moments, I explained I thought in that case the best possible outcome for Kathryn of the clinical trial would be for the trial to have been successful and Kathryn to have been taking the placebo. He agreed. We went home, packed our bags for a trip the next day and went dancing.

Wednesday we had a meeting with Peter Morse on financial matters and providing protection for what assets we have. After the meeting, we left for St. George. Our first stop was at Sand Hollow Reservoir near Hurricane, Utah. There, Sheri, Siena, Cara, Gordon and Debbie awaited our arrival. They had skied most of the day and we had arranged to get there in time to try our hands and legs at the sport once again. We both changed into garish swimming suits, mine red and Kathryn's purple. I donned a purple, Alzheimer's Memory Walk shirt to cover my aged upper torso. When she saw me, Sheri thanked me for coming, because now she had had a chance to see what her husband would look like in another 40 years. I think she was a little shocked by the sight and repulsed by the peculiar whiteness of old, old legs. Kathryn decided she didn't want to ski.

My time to ski had come. It was preceded by the long gestation and unannounced arrival of personal hubris, the defeater of most inappropriate dreams. My dreams were not of financial excess, political power, sexual athleticism, or social popularity. I imagined only that, waterskiing, like bicycle riding, once learned was never forgotten. In my day, I was good on a slalom ski. On the first day I ever went skiing, I stepped off the dock on only my second run and skied well on the then long, banana shaped slalom ski. I could jump. I could drench onlookers in nearby boats with spray generated by the wake of the ski. I could land on the shore after a long ski by stepping out of the ski onto dry beach at just the right moment. I loved it. I was admired. Of course in the world wide ranks of slalom skiers, I was nothing. But that didn't matter.

So, here I was, wrapped and strapped in a "shortie" wet suit (no leg coverings, so my intensely white chicken legs were exposed to the harsh glares of appalled onlookers), in a cool reservoir in southern Utah (water temp about 65 degrees), strapped into a couple of ski's and waiting behind the beautiful, powerful boat of my son's in-laws. We call each other co-laws. In my puffing hubris, I imagined being pulled up immediately, quickly dropping one ski and easing quickly back into the skills and performances of my youth. I was ready and signaled "Hit it!" In a moment, I was underwater, jerked over by the unfamiliar power of the boat and surprising strangeness of a sport I had loved 50 years earlier. Dream exposed. Reality re-engaged, followed quickly by shame and humility. Would I, could I get up at all?

I re-connected with the ropes and skis, not getting too tangled in the process, yelled hit it and this time popped shakily up out of the water. I skied for maybe 10 minutes, back and forth, back and forth across the wake, timidly at first and then with more confidence. But, I never could get to the point of lifting up one ski just to see if I could balance on one, let alone ski adroitly on one. When I got out of the water and climbed onto the little submerged deck on the back of the boat, they all were indulgently congratulatory of the old man with blanched chicken legs who had skied on two skis. I thanked them.

Others in the party skied on "boogie boards" and even a surf board. I tried the boogie board but couldn't get my feet in the "boots" fastened" to the ski. It was too painful on my gimpy left knee. So we gave up on that. After watching Gordon and Debbie and Angie on the surf board, I was seduced by their words. They convinced me that surfing was the easiest of all of the rides behind a boat, except perhaps riding on a raft. So, I decided to try it. I got dressed in the wet suit again, got in the water, positioned my legs on the board as instructed, crouched behind the board and signaled go. It did not come naturally to me at all. The resistance of the water and the power of the boat pulled me painfully over and I felt the dreaded pain/twang/shock in my lower back, a feeling I've not had for years.

Hubris, my personal hubris, had resulted in a destroyed dream and a pretty painful injury. The Larson's and Kathryn's saw me as a game adventurer, but I saw myself as a bit of a fool. What was I thinking? I had skied two times in the last 50 years. The skill did not come back like bicycle riding. It came back like a car wreck. Today is Saturday and the lower back is still painful. It is easier to walk, but difficult to sit down or stand up. One small part of me, guided by the little guy in the red suit standing on my left shoulder, urges me to try again next year. The little guy in white on the right shoulder smiles and gives me a reminder poke in the butt, just below the pain and the apparent, exact location of my brain.

Maria Schriver and Halloween, no relation

2010-10-31T08:47:00.000-07:00

It's important to record the events that we, particularly mom, are participating in. In a previous post, I talked about the "rough" ride to DC, roughened by the read of the Maria Schriver study on Alzheimer's and women, which was released and discussed at the conference. One part of the conference tied the whole thing together, Mom's remarks. Ms. Schriver was supposed to initiate the conference with remarks, made over Skype. She was in NYC doing the rounds of early morning news and public interest shows to push the envelope on the nation's understanding of the disease and the coming tidal wave. However, the sound system didn't work and she could not tell her story. So, in Wash. DC, the location of the panel discussions of the book, they turned immediately to Mom, Kathryn and Oma. Her remarks, as many know, were short, direct, open and positive. More than that, they were unusual, the tack she and we have taken from the outset. Her words were so open and direct that every panelist referred to them in a meaningful way. So, as she often does, she provided the glue in one sense that held the discussions together. Sure, their comments and observations were more studied, insightful and informational. However, they used Kathryn's sentiments to underscore the nature of the disease, the need to get on with the research, and the need to make a national stand. It was wonderful. Many hugged her after the meetings concluded.

In contrast to Washington DC was our experience in Davis County this last week. Thursday night was the annual Davis County Gala. Each year, they focus on a different social issue. This year, they wanted to do Alzheimer's. The Gala was held in the very nice, very large convention center in Layton. It was decorated beyond sanity, walls all draped in black plastic, white ghost images floating up the walls (camera projections), chandeliers draped in cobwebs and swaying back and forth, nice dinner, dessert of white chocolate skulls filled with something red and oozy and dark chocolate coffins filled with a white chocolate skeleton, zombie babes wandering around the 70 or so 10-person tables, staring blankly at everyone. There was a silent auction and a later bidding. Everyone was dressed formally or in costume. We went as Leonard in a dark suit and Kathryn dressed in a dark full length dress. All the politicos and richest of the rich were there. Bottom line, fun, but Alzheimer's was an afterthought. Mom was asked to speak for no more than 3 minutes. She spoke for 4.5 and good for her. There was polite, unemotional applause. They got really excited when the winners of the silent auctions were announced and the big ticket items started going. That's when we exited stage left - we rarely go to the right anymore. No one said thank you or good luck or have a nice life. Our response. Thanks for the monetary support. We'll find comfort and understanding elsewhere, like with beloved family and dear friends.

Then there was the Halloween party at the Murray Arts Center. We went as "Sick and Tired." Few got the joke, but who cares. The impact on us was interesting. We did a really good job on each other's makeup. Mom looked horribly sick, water bottle tied to the top of her head, thermometer stuck in her mouth, a comfort doll, wearing PJ's and slippers, reddened (deeply) eyes, and dour affect. I had darkened eyes, PJ's, a pillow and a comfort doll, a cloth skeleton the California Romney's had sent us. Mom actually got to feeling poorly and I was quite worried that she really was sick. We couldn't get home soon enough to get the make-up off and get normal again. It was a perfect example of psychosomatic, suggestive illness. Don't go as Sick and Tired. Pictures of the seven dwarfs and our friends, the Farnsworth's and her mother are above.

I Think I've Made A Terrible Mistake

2010-10-26T10:17:00.000-07:00

DadApaLen here. I've decided to sometimes add to this Blog some stories about our lives together. It helps with my writing and more importantly it helps to let readers of this Blog know about our most wonderful life together. Some stories are funny. Some are poignant. All are about MomOmaKathryn and our relationship and adventures. So enjoy this one from a day in the second month of our marriage.

I think I’ve Made a Terrible Mistake

Early in our marriage, things were going incredibly, blissfully, blithely well for me. Each day was a mirror of the last one. I got up, ate the breakfast lovingly, carefully prepared for me, walked to work at AT&T Long Lines, went to lunch midday, walked home in the evening, ate the dinner lovingly, carefully prepared for me, read the paper laid just so by the side of the armchair for me and went to bed. Saturdays involved playing basketball with my friends or watching something on TV. Evenings were usually spent at a movie or other entertainment. On Sundays, we sometimes went to church. I always had a nap.

I thought things were going well for Kathryn too. Her life apparently was a little different than mine. Each day, she got up early, made our bed when I got up, fixed breakfast for both of us, washed our breakfast dishes, made lunches for both of us, cleaned up the kitchen, dashed off to Olympus High in our single car to teach school, went grocery shopping after school, came home, cleaned the apartment, made dinner, ate, washed the dishes, cleaned up our apartment, paid whatever bills needed to be paid, corrected papers to be handed back to students the next day in class, prepared her lesson for the next day, joined me in bed and went to sleep. Weekends for her included doing the deep cleaning, taking out the garbage, and doing whatever she had not done or completed during the week.

We were married in August, 1965. By early October of that year, almost exactly 2 months after we exchanged wedding vows, I noticed Kathryn seemed to be crying a lot. Many evenings she went to bed in tears. I could not leave it unmentioned any longer. This was not right. I could not fathom the cause of her pain, but I would find out what troubled her. Finally, one evening at dinner, when she had been crying ever since coming home from school, asked, “Kathryn, what’s the matter.” She looked at me, looked at her plate, looked at me, paused, and then said, “Well, Leonard, I think I’ve made a terrible mistake!”
I was quick enough to realize she was talking about me and our marriage. Like her mother had said, Leonard was really getting the best part of this deal. I was not living in accordance with any pattern I had seen in my home. My father was exceptionally helpful and participative on his own initiative. I had simply fallen into the pattern on my own.

I was shocked, embarrassed and ashamed. I apologized sincerely and asked if she would be willing to talk through the situation then and there and resolve it. The ensuing conversation set the pattern for our lives. It resulted in a mutually agreed upon approach to all of our responsibilities. We would chose the one’s we liked, divide fairly the ones, we hated and simply share and do the one’s we were indifferent to. We resolved then and there that our primary allegiance was to each other and our future family. Relationships with friends, past, present and future, would take second seat to our obligations to each other. There would be no vacations from the marriage for either of us, unless we each felt it would be the best thing to do (It never has been.) That painful, beautiful night clearly changed our lives. We have lived faithfully by those understandings ever since. We are comfortable in reminding each other of and discussing breaks in the pattern. It was perhaps the single most important night of our entire marriage. I vowed then and there that Kathryn was going to get the best part of this deal from then on. No matter what I do however, her Mother was indeed correct. I still “got the best part of this deal.”

So It's Saturday - Sort of a Typical Day

2010-10-23T15:49:00.000-07:00

Today is an energetic day, or rather it has been. It's cold and rainy with snow and frost on the way. There were still hundreds of green tomatoes hanging on the tangled vines. So, we decided to harvest everything, all of those lucious heirlooms of a certain size or larger. We worked for about 45 minutes, the result being boxes and baskets of green, even almost white in some cases, of our heirlooms. We had started the day agreeing on tasks for the day, cleaning out and organizing our office space, cooking some, shopping, and dancing. With such a load of green, hard tomatoes spread all over the kitchen counter, the need to cook moved up the priority list. So. heaven bless Google, I began a search for recipes. Three in particular appealed to us; roasted green tomatoes, green tomato and apple chutney, and green tomato salsa.

First to feel the chef's ardor was the roasted green tomato recipes. We prepared two cookie sheets with tin foil, with a layer of a quarter to half inch sliced green tomatoes. Each was sprinkled with salt, pepper, olive oil and cilantro. It took about 25 tomatoes, 45 minutes, 460 degrees, and faith. We had used two varieties of heirlooms, one that ripened green and another that was small fluted, with a thin shell and lots of acidic meat, my favorite of the 9 varieties we grew. After the roasting was finished, all to the tomato disks were soft with roasted crusts on some. I had one on a gardneburger sandwich. It was wonderful. Best of all was simply tossing the smaller, fluted, thin skinned ones into my mouth for a snack. Got any green tomatoes? Try the routine we just described. It produces great things with few calories.

We decided then to hold the rest of the harvest for another day when we could devote time to chutney and salsa, but will probably get to it this week. I then continued with a clean-out-the-refrigerator roast of veggies including carrots, squash cubes from Costco, cauliflower, red onions, potatoes, yams, yellow peppers. Sprayed with olive oil, tinged with sea salt and pepper, the melange was roasted for about 60 minutes. It too was delectable. I managed to run a serrated vegetable peeler down one side of my pointer finger, left hand, and am proving still that the Coumadin is working. The flow has been staunched with a tightly wrapped bandaid. It's not serious, just annoying.

Mom had been saddened today by reading the article in Time this week, which had a huge section devoted to Alzheimer's. The Maria Schriver conference and study came up. More sobering for her and for us were the statistics, the national neglect and obliviousness of the disease and the tsunami of cases and costs on the horizon. The baby boomer generation is now turning retirement age, the age at which onset of the disease begins to double every 5 years after 65. If we don't find solutions to lack of diagnostic tools, medications to attenuate or stop the disease and the effects on caregivers, the cost to the nation will be 20 Trillion dollars over the next few decades. So our generation is not only leaving a nation straggled by debt and animosity, it is leaving the nation a crushing health burden. Add to that the projections about diabetes because of our MacDiets (1 in 3 of us will suffer from it), and you have, need I say it, a sobering situation.

We went dancing last night with the Farnsworths and Spencers. Delightful evening. Learned some new steps. Thursday morning, Rachel, Margaret and I had a daddy daughter breakfast at the park cafe. In laws and sons would have been welcome were any in town. It was hard and funny, all at the same time. I got a view of the advance of the disease from the point of view of Margaret and Rachel. They got a view of the sweet and hard parts of the life of the care partner. We all learned, laughed, and mapped out strategies. Can I just say that it is very hard for DadApaLen to see Mom losing skills and short term memories, particularly when I compare her abilities now with what she used to be able to do. At one point, many years ago, sitting across the picnic table from her at a Lloyd family reunion, I simply marveled at her attractiveness, her zeal, her determination, her goodness, her skills. She still has four of those five attributes. She needs to be mentored through each session on the computer.

Mom so

Discovery's Plane Ride

2010-10-21T17:18:00.001-07:00

Discovery's Plane Ride

Today, October 17, 2010, Kathryn and I took a journey into the future, a journey marked with life changing consequences for me, indeed for all of us. I should call it a water shed moment, because that is indeed what it is, a changed outlook, a modified demeanor, a shocking bringing up short.

I shall explain. About ten days ago, Kathryn received an email from Erin Heintz copied to Toni Williams in the Washington DC office of the Alzheimer's association. The note asked her if she would be willing to fly with me to DC to participate in a conference. The conference is focused on Maria Schriver's about to be released book about the impact of Alzheimer’s Disease on women, as recipients, as care partners, as service providers and as researchers.

K would give the opening remarks at the conference, based on our own story, edited by the staff at the Alzheimer’s Association, and reread by us to put it into Kathryn's own voice. Yes, of course she would do that. Anything for the cause.

The days since then have a been filled with nameless, countless preparations and arrangements. We are humbled and thrilled with the opportunity, yet there is a definite downside, shortly to be explained.

The conference is to be held in Washington DC on the eighteenth of the month. That would be tomorrow. They are flying us there for this 10 or 15 minute speech. Maria will Skype her opening remarks. Kathryn will be next to talk about the disease from the perspective of the recipient and then the discussion of the book, produced by Maria, will proceed. We received a copy of the book, beautifully printed, yesterday.

Now we are on the plane, flying to DC. I have my noise reducing earphones firmly snuggled into my ears. I am listening to a selection of Rachmaninof’s best, of his most romantic work. Kathryn sits in front of me, reading, studying, trying to learn and absorb more. I sit here in seat 18 b, trying to capture my thoughts and control my emotions.

I have spent the last hour reading the first few essays of Maria's book. It tells me what Kathryn's life, what my life, what our life will be like if I survive her.

These are the wrenching stories of people, of care partners, who have companioned their loved ones into the mental and physical oblivion named, for now, Alzheimer’s Disease.

These dear folks, like Maria Schriver, like Ronald Reagan's daughter, like the 16 year old girl taking her daddy through the last stages of his journey into obliviousness, of the lonely, stressed out wife slowly dying under the weight of her care partner/breadwinner/house maker/mother role, trying her best to survive and keep her exhausted life a secret from her family.

As I read, I saw us. I saw Kathryn. I saw me helping her with the inevitable confusion of life, which even now is apparent to a very modest extent. I felt the prescient pressures of pain of that monstrous day when she no longer knows her family, when she asks this man who is changing her diapers or bathing her who he is. I winced and wept inwardly, maybe for the first time, at this inevitability. I think of who she was and what she is inevitably becoming, which of course is but a demon's mask hiding what she once was and, most beautifully, what she will be again. Fortunately, I know she will be that great woman one day again. It’s the time between now and then, thoughts of which plague me as we fly toward destiny’s tests.

Today, I have for the first time really seen the short term future and I wonder and I am troubled about my ability to survive it. No one thrives in the role of care partner. But, can I survive to provide her with the caring, continuous care she has earned and deserves? Will 45 years together, our being joined at the heart, be sufficient to give my all, to withhold nothing, to leave nothing unused on this most desperate of playing fields so as to care for her as she has so long cared for and loved me and our children and our grandchildren, without question or condition or reticence. I am impressed now to say that with God, all things are possible.

Reality Check

2010-10-21T14:47:00.000-07:00

Today, I had the decidedly pleasant experience of taking my two most beloved daughters (they also happen to be my only ones) to brunch at a favorite restaurant, the Park Cafe. It's just south of Liberty Park, has a nice selection of things, I guess what you would call and "edgy" clientele, and staff willing to cater to codgers wanting to talk with and hear from his daughters. While we each snatched morsels from Margaret's Park Cafe potatoes, we talked about GPS systems, attempting to raise a much higher percentage of our own food (by using the land available at all three of our homes), Civic Dialogue (Kathryn and I have a chance to be one the program), and yes, how are Mom and I doing regarding the elephant in the room, her disease recipiency and my care partner-ancy.

So how are we doing? Both Margaret and Rachel revealed some disturbing behaviors they had witnessed. These are not disturbing in the sense of dangerous or disgusting. Not at all. They are disturbing because they reveal a more advanced stage in the disease than I had noticed. That's probably because Mom get's around on long term memory around home. Long term memory seems to compensate for short term losses. For example, long term allows her to remember where the utensils are kept and how the plates are stacked. Tuesday, while Kathryn was co-tending Rachel's kids with Mary Grace, she decided to help out by putting away the just washed contents of the dishwasher. Rachel said she was shocked at how things were placed randomly, strangely throughout the Kitchen. I don't see much of that at home at all We cited a number of other advances such as simply not understanding sentences or seeming not to listen at all to what was being said. There is a notable decline in her ability to make rational decisions, or to understand reasoned replies. Sequences of tasks, calendaring, and doing anything but the simplest of word-processing are greatly diminished. Interestingly, when in a public situation, none of these losses seem to show up at all. She is such a beloved people person and can carry on conversations about past relationships, people have no idea about the losses we are seeing.

What I conclude is that she is probably not on the placebo in the clinical trial, the supplements are having little effect and that the slope of the decline has started to increase. These is no describing the impact on us, on me. Here is a great woman who has added so much to the lives of so many people, losing her memory or it and her ability to cope with life, a little each day. It is wrenching me to the core and that is an inadequate description. It's not like the sudden loss of a companion. It is a daily, irreversible, relentless losing. One is reminded every day, every moment every day, of the disappearances. A moment ago, for example, while writing to her sister, she asked for our home phone number.

Enough of that. We have decided to do some things differently. Margaret and Rachel are becoming part-time care partners. Margaret will come once a week to spend time with Mom. That has two advantages. It builds their ever strengthening relationship. It relieves me. Do I need relief, you ask? The recently released Maria Schriver report says care partners need it desperately. They have a much higher incidence of fatal diseases after having survived the constant pressures of their service. I want to serve all I can and survive well, if that is in the cards. Thus Margaret will join the core of friends coming to be with Kathryn for walks, talks, and projects (such as Judy Pugh, Susan Cottrell, and Marjorie Spencer.) Now to Rachel. She also will spell me, like Margaret. Mom loves all of her grandkids. Rachel can use the constant stress emanating from youngsters and K. can play with them either here or at Rachel's place. Rachel will also come here to help clean the house and will use Mom to help clean the Preslar home. That will help greatly.

So that is the record for now. I really will begin to write as often as possible, and more meaningfully too. It has been a solemn day for me, but I feel strengthened as well. DadApaLen

Media Darlings, you say?

2010-05-02T08:09:00.000-07:00

What is it about the Utah Chapter of the Utah Alzheimer's Association? We have become their media darlings, their poster foggies, their quip and quote front folks. We're not sure we want to be so deeply involved in an organization that would choose us to play such a role. But choose us they have and so we march forgetfully forward, trying to meet the expectations. How do they use us, you may ask (if indeed you are still reading)? Let us count the ways, in no particular order.
1. We have already reported on our being sent to Washington DC to the National Alzheimer's Advocacy conference, where we represented the Utah ALZ chapter and spent time chatting with and providing information to Utah's 5 members of its congressional delegation.
2. Leonard has been nominated to serve on the Board of the Utah Alzheimer's Association, which will involve bi-monthly meetings and monthly participation in one specific committee, yet to be named. The appointment will be ratified (or rejected) at the May meeting of the Board
3. Kathryn has been nominated to serve on the National Early Stage Alzheimer's Committee and, with whatever support Leonard can provide, will be looking at materials and programs being developed by the Nat'l Assoc. The task of the committee is to give feedback from the point of view of the recipient of the disease.
4. We appeared on a local morning TV show called Good News Utah and talked about our story, upcoming events on the agenda of the ALZ association.
5. We, along with about 20 other folks, met with Gov. Herbert as he signed the resolution passed by the Legislature regarding the need to increase efforts to address the problem. The good guv was nice to spend time with us after the meeting, talking about our story and telling us his own of parents and relatives who have had the disease.
6. Before and after the meeting with the Governor, we were interviewed by folks on the local Fox TV channel, again about our story, our attitudes and feelings, and what our life is like now. Parts of the interview were played on a Sunday evening news hour a week or so ago.
7. We were asked to go to the Utah Symphony Pops Concert featuring the latest incarnation of the Temptations, 5 guys with rhythm and volume. The SL Tribune wanted, as part of their feature article on Alzheimer's Month, to capture someone experiencing the disease, going on with live as normally as possible. It was sort of like "Here is a picture of someone with Alzheimer's watching a concert. It appears that they too can enjoy it!" We had a great time with the photographer as he took lots of shots. The story should be appearing in the Trib on this next Tuesday (May 4).
8. The Executive Direction and his wife took us to a 2 1/2 hour lunch yesterday (Saturday)at one of our favorite haunts, Sweet Tomatoes. It was wonderful, particularly since we focused much more on their story than on hours. They are wonderful people, but are another example of there being no uncluttered lives. All are difficult in one way or another.
9. The ALZ association asked us to meet with a family from Samoa, now living in Hawaii and here in SLC visiting family. The mother of the brood exhibits the symptoms of someone in pretty advanced stages in that she often doesn't know her kids or her husband, who is having a really hard time with this. We spent about an hour talking with them. Great and wonderful people. Hope we helped.

Who knows what will come next but we will go and do.

We have still to find anyone we would trade lives with. For example, one of the great teachers in the church, who will remain nameless in this note, has discovered that his lifelong companion has inoperable brain cancer - nothing can be done. Kathryn asked me last night, whose shoes I would rather be in, theirs or ours. We both emphatically agreed, ours.

We Are Being Assimilated

2010-04-14T16:21:00.000-07:00

Kathryn and I think it is about time to document the down burst currently directing our lives. It started with her being diagnosed as a recipient of Alzheimer's Disease, early stage. Since then, we have become deeply enmeshed with the Utah and National Alzheimer's Associations. All of this we will document in future postings. Today, however, was particularly significant and needs recording, which occurs below.

The day started inauspiciously enough. I showed up a week early at a monthly session I have with old friends from the University. Even now, I look forward to the well deserved harassment I will be getting next week.

Kathryn and I then went to a support group meeting at the Utah Alzheimer's Association. This group consists primarily of caregivers like myself. In fact, Kathryn is the only recipient of the disease who attends, and, by the way, makes great and startling additions to the discussions. We could only stay for 30 minutes because we had been scheduled to meet with Utah's Governor Gary Herbert, along with several other representatives of the Association, as he signed the recently passed resolution passed by the Legislature in support for increased statewide acknowledgement and activity related to the disease.

As implied by the title of this blog, like those overrun by the Borg in the Star Trek: The Next Generation series, we are being assimilated into the Alzheimer's world. Because of Kathryn's beauty and engaging demeanor, the Assoc. is using us to sort of front many of the public relations efforts. We appear at meetings, have gone on TV, are written about in newspaper stories and so on. Today, we spent the first 30 minutes of our time on Capitol Hill being photographed with -numeraries, both super and regular varieties. Then we were interviewed by the weekend Anchor on Channel 13 news for about 15 minutes about our experiences, story, feelings, hopes and current efforts. He said he would be doing a full story this coming weekend on us and what we are trying to do. It was exhilarating to say the least. Kathryn's charm and directness simply overwhelmed him.

When we went in to meet with Governor with some 20 other folk, Executive Director Jenks of the Association made a special effort to introduce us to him, and pointed out that Kathryn was the only recipient of the disease in the room at the time. The Governor warmed to that and, after signing the bill, talked with us for another five or ten minutes about our experience. His mother and grandmother both experienced the disease so he has seen the impact up close and personal. Many photogs where snapping as we spoke with the Governor and then more after we left the room.

When we returned to the Alzheimer's Office, Jack Jenks confirmed that Kathryn would be nominated for membership on the National Alzheimer's Association's Committee for Early Stage Alzheimer's Recipients. Then he asked if I would be willing to serve on the Board of Directors for the Utah Alzheimer's Association. This is all coming at us pretty quickly, pretty hot and heavy.

I think the pull comes from our attitude, namely that we will do and want to do whatever we can to further the cause. Our personal goal is to remove the stigma as much as we can, to participate in clinical trials, to be spokes persons, to donate what's left of our brains and bodies upon our demise for research and analysis. Finally, we want to be as open as possible to empower and liberate others to admit, recognize, speak about, and attack the disease.

Future blogs will discuss our experiences and record our path to this point and then into the future.

Food Memories

2009-07-25T12:22:00.000-07:00

FOOD MEMORIES

Although we didn’t have much money, we found a way to buy what was important to us. Food was important. My family always relished eating from near the top of the food chain, at least our definition of that gustatory summit. Everywhere we lived or traveled, food purchase, preparation and consumption were vital, interesting and even instructional. Dad brought to the table his Mexican preferences and heritage, come by honestly in the Mormon colonies in Mexico. Mother brought a certain elegance and taste for quality and variety. We children brought little but hunger, a pinch of obedience, and a naive willingness to try things. Some fare memories pucker my lips like too much garlic or lemon juice. Other recollections like Mom’s creamy hollandaise or Dad’s piquant vinaigrette continue to have a pavlovian effect on my salivary glands.

Favorites

None of us can forget Mother’s potato sausage casserole. There were two variations on this cholesterol laden succulence. One called for small, peeled potatoes, onions, sausage patties broken into smaller pieces, salt, pepper, and an hour. After baking, the fusion consisted of wonderfully flavored potato and sausage chunks swimming in a saucy sea of an onion/sausage-flavored broth ridden by glimmering, translucent pork globules. Variation 2 of this favorite required more work with the same effect on the taste buds, was made with link sausages and cored potatoes. Mom cored the potato and inserted the link sausage. It was simply a matter of presentation. All the other ingredients were the same as was the result. Short term – delicious! Long term – coronary disease! We were not visionaries.

We often were served corn nibblets resurrected from their dried and stored state of previous harvests. The corn was reconstituted by simmering it in whole milk. Another favorite was Hubbard squash, drawn and quartered in the time honored and proven way - with an axe. Each serving resembled a small, squarish section of the Hubbard globe. Pieces were baked after being laden with ample butter, brown sugar and just a touch of salt. Half the joy was breaking through the sugar and butter crisped crust to scoop out steaming, orange squash meat.

I loved leftovers. Two- or three-day old salads were favorites. Everybody loved Mom’s spaghetti. But I was the only one who loved it more on the second day than on the first. All the flavors seemed to have integrated and intermingled. For me, one plus one really did make three in terms of day old food. Mother’s original effort made the offering tasty. Properly aged, it became delicious.

I remember vacationing as a boy with the family in San Francisco. We had driven there in our 1948 grey Ford 2-Door Coupe, so I suspect there were only five of us, Mom and Dad, Mikey, Wendy and me. Of course, while there we rode the cable cars and walked past the hundreds of bobbing fishing boats docked at the wharf. We drove over the famed bridges. We saw the seals. We went to Golden Gate Park. Nothing compared however with the only meal I remember eating there. Mother and Dad bought as much fresh cracked crab, cocktail sauce and sourdough bread as their wallets would allow and heaven would condone. We selected the specific live crab to be quickly steamed and cracked for us. It was my first experience with crab and certainly not my last. We simply parked by the fisheries near the bay and splintered, sucked, smacked and savored away the afternoon. We didn’t even leave the car. I think the real purpose of our going to the Coast was to get the crab.

And then there were artichoke hearts. We bought, boiled and consumed, all on the same day. My youngest sister had a particularly interesting habit. Stripping off a single leaf, she would dip it first into the melted butter and then into the mayonnaise. She would then lick off both condiments, leaving the artichoke meat untouched. She viewed the leaf as a spoon for butter and mayonnaise. One doesn’t eat spoons. Properly refrigerated and cared for, a single artichoke would last her for years.

Kathryn and I had an artichoke-related experience in Boulder Colorado. We went to dinner at a new place called “The Cork and Cleaver.” Their specialty was steak and artichokes. We had ordered our meal and watched with interest as a young couple, obviously on a first date, were seated next to us. He was properly observant of her needs and she fluttered at the appropriate times. We overheard their order and knew that it was much like ours.

Artichokes were the appetizer, so ours was tabled at about the same time as theirs. They each looked with suspicion at the olive drab appetizer, which looked more like a huge green pine cone that something to eat. They each stripped off a leaf, dunked it in mayonnaise and put the entire leaf in their mouths. They chewed and chewed and grimaced. They looked for a way to get rid of the masticated pulp. Nothing seemed available so they both swallowed with difficulty. You could see their Adam’s Apples plunging up and down to send the unseemly mass to the next stage of the digestion process. She then looked at him and said, “These are kind of tough tonight, don’t you think?” To which he replied, “Oh, that’s the way they’re supposed to be!” Ah, the innocence of youth!

Other family food favorites were home made chili sauce, home made mustard pickles, home made jams and jellies, home made pickled beets, homemade pickled cherries, homemade pickled cucumber chips, canned peaches, canned pears, tossed salads lightly graced with Dad’s vinaigrette, hamburger steaks slathered in grilled onions, T-bone slabs subtly sprinkled with garlic, and finally milk toast on a Sunday evening. This last item was immensely popular in winter. Preparation was simple. Toast your favorite bread (white in those days and homemade whole wheat now.) Spread on ample butter and a bit of honey or favorite jam. Flavor whole milk with a drop of Mexican vanilla and/or ginger and heat until there was a skin on the surface. Cube the toast. Place the cubes in your favorite bowl (we each had one.) Add hot milk and enjoy.

Every gustatory experience was not perfect. Stewed tomatoes were a trial for me, even though they were prepared from home grown fruit, onions, salt and pepper. Mom and Dad loved them so they (the tomatoes) appeared often at the dinner table. Their appearance made me giggle. They looked like terribly sunburned butts in a punch bowl! Their texture made me gag. The tomatoes were often stringy and the onion/pepper chunks distinct but malleable. It was like trying to swallow the internal waste of a pumpkin. Mom also loved to fix diced toast, and then ladle a tuna-and-canned-green-peas cream sauce over it. I could down it, but I never asked for seconds.

Spam was invented to help the country through World War II. I guess it was meat, but where it really came from, I can only guess. Were a squeegee and the butcher room floor involved? It was an organic emulsion created to resemble animal flesh. Anyway, Hormel gave us Spam. We diced it, fried it, sliced it, ground it, baked it, boiled it, broiled it, and sometimes ate it. It was a bit rubbery, always packed in a square can. The top had to be taken off with a key. The sealed lid had a little metal flap on it, which fit through a hole in the key. To open the can, one simply rolled the key across the top of the can. The top simply twisted up around the key. The spam was invariably packed in a clear gelatinous slurry, not intended to invite. When a slab of Spam was fried, it curled up like an old dried out piece of shoe leather, seared on the edges.

My worst experience with this ersatz stuff consisted of fried spam, fried eggs flavored with sugar, and pieces of soggy toast. Once in a while, we got sandwiches made of wonder bread, mayonnaise, spam and velveeta cheese. Velveeta was another of those WWII emulsions given us by the miracle of modern science to win the war. I suppose thoughts of velveeta and spam caused guys to stay on the front lines and fight rather than go back to the chow line to eat that stuff. I want to try it again to see what it really was like. On the other hand….

Ejection Reflection

One meal could induce the gag reflex in me like yanking the release trigger on a catapult. Periodically, Mother bought a ham from Savage’s Market three doors down the street. Eventually, the porcine roast was reduced to a bone stump, scraps of fatty meat, and gristle. She cut the meat and gristle from the stump, mixing these harvested remains with Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup. Warning odors arose from this gray, lumpy paste like dank, swirling mists from an ancient swamp. The glistening mushroom cubes shimmied and wiggled like bits of brindle colored jello. When stirred, the mire reminded me of those nauseating gas bubbles rising and bursting around you, displaced with each labored step when you’re slogging through a salt slough.

Dad’s two-fingered whistle, piercing from two blocks away and hated by every dog in our neighborhood, signaled dinner time. In ham season, I resisted his summons to this recurrent last supper with every ruse I could create. But, ignoring his siren was as unthinkable as the impending meal was inedible.
We usually ate dinner together around a large, rectangular table in the dining room. My back was to the window. Dad, stern on my left, presided. My brother and oldest sister sat across the table from me, programming their avoidance systems for incoming ordinance, and practicing their ducking motions. Mother was on the west end of the table, sinfully proud of her creation. Her pride “wenteth” before my fall. My next younger sister burped and drooled in a high chair to my right. I longed to trade my expected pasty entrée’ for her pabulum. A third sister avoided the meal altogether by refusing to be born yet.

We often used mealtime as an occasion to give thanks for and bless the food. Dad would ask one of us to offer a simple prayer. Although I am a believer in the power of prayer, I considered these utterances particularly hypocritical and thus ineffective. I was never thankful for what lay before me, nor did I ever see or sense any improvement in the taste, smell, or look of the concoction as a result of the blessing. This tested my childlike faith.

The menu and my reaction never varied. There, marshaled before us, was the triggering, shimmering, grey sludge, white rice on which it was to be ladled, milk to choke down every bite, and a green salad. Dad served us. I sought to avoid the inevitable. I pleaded with him for a tiny portion. “I’m still full from lunch!” “I’m too tired to eat!” “Let’s save mine for Grammie!” It would not have been wise to suggest that the dog hadn’t eaten yet. Besides, I really liked our dog. No response to my petition. Dad was either deaf or cruel. Perhaps he had whistled shrilly too often. However, I knew his credo; “Real men ate big portions and never gagged!”

All too soon, the stuff was placed before me. I squirmed. I sulked. I slumped. I succumbed. Finally, I maneuvered as long as possible before reluctantly, cautiously, grimly edging two or three gigantic, slime-covered rice grains onto my fork. Slowly, I winched the noxious freight upwards. Up to the lips, over the tongue, watch out stomach, here she comes. “Fire in the hole!” Gag! Wretch!! Rejection!!! I never hit anyone, but my ejection always fouled table cloths and disrupted family meals. I shed tears and endured contempt. “You ungrateful baby! Think of the starving children in China!” I thought of them. I saw them in their millions trying to eat that gelatinous ham gruel. It made me gag, again.

After others had consumed their meal, they left the table. I slumped, alone, sullen and tearful, sentenced to the dark, dining room table as if manacled by ham, rice and mushroom soup. “You will stay here until it is finished, or I’ll know the reason why!” I dared not tell them the reason why. Each bite convulsed me.

Years later, Mother described her best recipes, touting her mushroom, ham and rice muck as one of her children’s favorites. Excuse me?!! She had no memory of my revulsion and rewarded us one day with the cherished recipe. Kathryn even made it once. I had not come home from work soon enough to prevent it. There was that old, familiar odor. I warned her about the likely response. I reminded myself where to find the mops and sponges. But, she and the kids loved the stuff! Frankly, I now kind of like it myself. Truly! Well, sort of.

Just Ducky

My cousins, the Rideouts, were duck hunters. They were not duck consumers. Most weekends during duck season, Uncle Joe and his three boys, Dave, Steve, and Danny, hunkered down in duck blinds at the Harrison Duck Club west of the Salt Lake airport. They sported waders, shotguns and camouflaged vests, coats and hats. Each shooter was wrapped in various duck calls, decoys and ammunition belts, with sufficient 12-guage shotgun shells to keep the invading duck flights in firm control. My cousins should have been at Pearl Harbor! Always in their party was the faithful Rowdie, a finely trained, smart German short hair bird dog. Rowdie was willing without hesitation to leap on command into that stinking, frigid marsh water to retrieve the latest duck casualty.

The Rideouts usually returned from the marshes with legal limits of limp widgeons, teals, and mallards. These carcasses were taken to a local butcher to be skinned, gutted, cleaned and wrapped in waxed paper, body bags. They were archived after each hunt in a freezer in my cousins’ garage. When there was not room enough in one freezer to bury another duck corpse, they bought a new chest or upright appliance. When my cousins moved to Holladay from their home across the street from us on 5th South in Salt Lake City, they bought a huge garage with an attached house. To their new storage barn, they hauled seven freezers stuffed with dead ducks, the mounting yield of who knows how many years of harvesting the fowl users of the Western Migratory Bird Flyway. Core drilling those freezers could have revealed the history of duck hunting in Northern Utah for the past quarter century. Shooting, wrapping and freezing continued unabated until Uncle Joe died. Dave, the oldest son, continues the tradition to this day.

Annually, Aunt Virginia prepared a duck feast to relieve the burden warehoused by those overworked, overflowing freezers. The recipe called for much wine and spice. For some, the roasted fowl were as unwelcome as meringue and sugar Easter chicks in April, zucchini in August, venison in October or fruit cake in December. But I relished roasted duck breast. I loved those little, hockey puck sized slabs of dark gaminess, marinating in a rich, red wine sauce. Consequently, I often found them in my school lunch sack, packed between two slices of homemade wheat bread, or slipped as finger food into a small plastic bag. I was the envy of some friends who labored on less exotic fare. Others were repelled.

During lunch at Roosevelt Junior High one spring day, I was thrilled to find two fillets of duck breast in my lunch fare. I bit hugely into the first and was rewarded with chewy, succulent duck. However, another bite hit something hard, like half of a piece of Chiclets gum. I shuddered as if someone had just grated their fingernails across the blackboard. I spit out the contents. The cap of a front tooth, broken and repaired years before, had broken off during the vigorous first bite. I crunched it on the second. Replacing the cap was expensive and painful.

A few weeks later at another school lunch, I was sitting near the football field with friends. California gulls, habituated to noontime strafing runs of the lunch area, flew by, screeching for a scrap of something. They had long since been weaned of Mormon crickets and were now partial to hostess cupcakes, wonder bread and peanut butter, probably crunchy style. Once again, I had breast of late duck. The experience with the broken tooth cap had made me a little more timid now. Just as I was about to bite, one of seagulls released a fecal bomb exactly on the slab of his roasted bird relative I was about to devour. I convulsed and threw the smeared carcass to the birds. Several unknowingly became cannibals. That was it! No more duck! No more help for the cousins! They must solve the duck corpse population explosion on their own. In the end, the eater could not keep up with the shooters.

I Smell Trouble

I suffered from a lack of coordination between my spoken words, my thoughts, and my physical senses, such as hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling. These skills may be finely honed in me, but often they seem to operate independently. They don’t work together. They don’t help one another. They don’t learn from each other. For example, just because something tastes odd or unpleasant, that doesn’t seem to be sufficient to guide or construct properly crafted, sensitive sentences about the thing being tasted. In other words, objectionable odors sensed by nose and interpreted by brain did not prevent mouth from uttering something stupid. I often suffered for these lapses.

Mother loved to try new recipes. Dad loved to taste them. I loved to watch her prepare them. Dad and Mother loved each other deeply and he would brook no disrespect for her. One night, Mother decided to make Chinese food, which was entirely unfamiliar to me. I could only imagine the Chinese unwillingly eating my rejected ham, mushroom soup and rice gruel. On this particular evening, I entered the kitchen in the middle of the meal’s preparation. Strange, not altogether pleasant odors slowed my entry. I must have frowned or wrinkled my nose. Dad’s protective instincts for mother surged. I edged toward the large pot on the stove and watched the bubbling mixture. I took a giant whiff. “Does that stuff taste like it smells?” I frowned. I guess that was disrespectful. The next thing I remember is getting up off the floor and stumbling, weeping to my room. No Chinese food for me. I really don’t remember being disrespectful. My father’s open handed blow, however, seemed to reconnect my senses, at least with regard to Mother’s experiments.

Chef Dad

Dad’s had his own recipes. One morning, we asked for French toast. What appeared before us was army SOS, “s--- on a shingle;” creamed, chipped-beef gravy on toast. Our fear of him helped us down it without comment. He was quite volatile, and took rejections personally. To frown at food was to reject him. Part of his parenting style had to do with strength and volume. One of his favorite jokes had to do with the kids who had developed terrible language habits. According to the story, a baby sitter one morning asked the first child what he wanted for breakfast. “I’ll have some of those @#$% Cheerios,” was the response. The babysitter cuffed the youngster into silence. She then asked the next what he wanted. “Well, I’m sure not going to have any of those @#$% Cheerios!!!” Well, we sure weren’t ordering that @#$% French toast again.

Breakfasts from Dad rarely turned out well. There was a small, green linoleum-covered bar or counter at one end of our kitchen. We sat there, awaiting what was to be served. We were unfamiliar with the Charles Dickens character, Oliver. “Please sir, may I have some more?” was never uttered. The room was dark and warm, even though it was early morning. A few sunbeams had penetrated the hedge outside our back door and highlighted the speckled, linoleum floor. Dad whistled as he sweated over the stove at our backs. We could hear the spatter of bacon grease as it curled and browned the edges of fried eggs, sunny side up. I pictured each dip of toast into the broken, golden yolk. Usually, our anticipation for a tasty breakfast had already disappeared, fleeing like hot grease escaping water.

However, on this day, Hope’s smiling face peeked from behind the clouds of experience. The eggs were served us, two each. Flecks of black and white speckled each egg. One of us blessed the food and we attacked. Yyuuuckk!! Hope squeezed tight her eyes and fled. The salt had lost its savor! In fact, Dad had sprinkled the fried eggs with sugar. We finished them anyway. That was smarter. I’ll admit the sugar was probably a mistake. At least, I hope it was.

The nadir of Dad’s noontime menus was one school lunch he prepared for me. At Roosevelt Junior High one spring day, I opened the lunch sack. I had been anticipating something like peanut butter or bologna or tuna fish on soft, white bread, maybe a few Cloverleaf potato chips, an apple, and perhaps a little brownie. Nope! Inside the bag, I found an old, Wonder Bread hamburger bun, stuffed into a waxed paper sandwich bag, like plentitude crammed into a girdle designed for someone of more normal proportions. As I extracted the partially crushed bun, I noticed that small parts of the crust had crumbled away, liked the spalled concrete on a sidewalk. Creases lined its brown surface. I wondered if these cracks signaled to a skilled interpreter of such things, the bun’s tragic, short life line I guess we were breadless and Dad had found a lonesome old bun at the bottom back of the bread bin. Morbid curiosity, driven by hunger, forced me to carefully pry apart the two sides of the bun. Smashed on one half was a blotch of cold spaghetti and congealed meat sauce, garnished with dill pickle chips. Smeared thickly on the other was mayonnaise, partially covered by a limp leaf of lettuce, a little dark around the edges. I was just hungry enough to try it. It wasn’t at all bad.

Le Boeuf has its Bourguignon

2009-07-09T03:39:00.000-07:00

Buenos Aires has its bozos (read Mark Sanford). Boston has its beans. Basel has banks and Berlin has brews. The Bronx has bombers and bagels. Bangkok has its brothels while Brighton brags beaches. Brooklyn has a bridge, unless it’s been sold, but Basin Street has the blues. Bombay, Bern, and Buffalo have their buildings, books, and the Bills. Battle Mountain bets while Barcelona baits bulls. Bastogne braved its battles. The Bolshoi boasts its ballerinas. There are banquets, bigots, basketballs, bagpipes, bars, beans, babes, baklavas and, in the end, countless bozos in their diversity. The list of things to distract and deter and derail and beckon is endless. Our Lonely Planet, the travel guide, recommends visits to over 70 major B locations in Europe. However, for me Belgium and Brussels proffer the incomparable enticement.

If I wanted to practice my passion incognito, if I wanted to mislead my staff (I don’t have a staff, by the way), if I wanted to deceive my beloved spouse, I would head for neither the Appalachian Trail nor Argentina. I would lose myself in the gustatory brothels of Brussels. Belgium chocolate is not the draw. It may be for others, but not for me. Belgian chocolate in the vastness of its selections is wonderful, but in this lust I am easily sated. I can’t taste it. I don’t have a sense of smell and thus am devoid of taste. (As soon as you finish with the obvious, timeworn, snide side comments, I’ll go on.) Sugar highs and lows quickly put limits on my desire to overdo. To the extent that I enjoy Belgian chocolate, it is because I feel it, not savor it. Hence, chocolate’s delights would not entice me away from the straight and narrow, from the iron rod. For me, the lady of the siren list is baked. Brussels has its bread. Brussels has its boulangeries. Again, I can’t taste their wares; but I can feel them in their infinite diversity.

The varieties available in Brussels’ boulangeries threaten to stretch the imagination’s elasticity beyond its limits of recoverability. Like many places in Europe, at least in the parts of Europe I’ve visited, such as Germany, France, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands, Belgium neighborhoods are laced together with “boulangeries,” offering breads and pastries to passersby and the loyal, daily shopper as well. They seem to be as ubiquitous here as are McDonalds and Pizza Hut beyond the western reaches of the Atlantic.

Some of these bread purveyors are but mere closets open to the sidewalk. Somehow, they are able to stock the favorite selections of folks in the immediate neighborhood and usually sell out their supply by the end of each day. And they have stunning selections of white, whole wheat, multi-grain rolls and loaves and pies and tarts. Other stores are of the walk-in variety, offering an array of ready to eat or take home pastries, and virtually countless combinations of all sorts of flour and additives for breads, rolls, buns, and in some cases, baked scraps from the dough leftover from a particular batch of bread. At the top of the bread store continuum are the shops offering all of the above but also a place, either inside or skirting the store on the sidewalk outside, to savor the pastry or bread of choice with a cup of coffee, cocoa, tea or maybe some wine. We eat ours on the way to meetings. Resistance goes only so far. You might even order a ready made or deftly prepared sandwich created from the many choices of sandwich-suitable samples.

The bakers delight in adding delectables such as cracked wheat, sun flower seeds, millet, walnuts, spelt, flax, rye, oats, barley, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, pine-nuts, almonds, yellow raisins, dark raisins, chocolate bits (dark and/or milk and/or white), dates, dried figs, chunks of other dried fruits or even corn. Some master bakers pride themselves in offering the finest, freshest, airiest, lightest batons. Others specialize in achieving bread density and weight rivaling lead or maybe uranium. To say that their breads are chewy is to say that lemon juice is sour, honey is sugary or the universe is large. Inadequate adjectives!! Chewy? What these breads are is intense, compressed, and challenging. A favorite saying is, “Every virtue at the testing point, takes the form of courage.” Patience, which takes the form of courage, is required for some of these breads. Like galactic black holes, these goods are small but extremely weighty. Eating them is a physical workout, complete with sweat, exhaustion and a sense of accomplishment. Buy two of the heaviest loaves and you will need help to carry them home. Remember Garrison Keillor’s cereal on Prairie Home Companion? It consisted of Oat Hulls and Wheat Chaff. It had such an immediate purgative effect, the consumer was advised to be near a relief facility when he was eating the stuff. The buyer needed recommendations from 3 trusted, experienced compatriots to vouch for her suitability before she could buy it. That is what some of these breads are like. I love to feel them starting through the system.

Most Brussels bakers express their creativity though new, untried flour combinations. They play with batches of dough. Dough is an art form. In addition to the diversity of flour types and additives, they create loaf designs, spanning the amorphous lump-to-artistic loaf continuum. There is the long thin baton, like a thick, stiff, straight, 3 foot snake. One of my favorite forms is from Paul, an upscale boulangerie situated conveniently on our route to Monday evening meetings. This entry is simply a kilogram plop of impenetrable dough, baked to deep brown, dense perfection. No two blobs are alike, except in weight, texture and pleasure. Then, there is the huge loaf resembling two end-to-end toasters. It is usually sliced so thin that individual pieces, held up to the sun, appear to be mere figments of imagined lace unable to filter out more than a few solar rays. Some offer square, puffy biscuits covered with pumpkin seeds or oats. Others sell baked objects shaped like eggs, but laced with millet and wheat kernels. Some wares are croissant-like, chocolate nibs bubbling from the surface. Others are like a large table napkin, rolled up and placed in a baked, bowed napkin holder. There are loaves resembling bricks of gold and weighing almost as much. There are huge oblong loaves posing as small, inland waterway, beached dolphins. (That may be an exaggeration. I’ll find out and get back to you.). One store we visited, a huge Smiths Marketplace sort of place, itself offered 12 different styles of batons, each unique it its length, color, consistency, additives, and cost. And that was just the batons.

In the end, I have the same problem. I can’t taste them. I can’t smell them. I can only feel them. But, they feel oh so good. These will keep me occupied for many months to come. I just hope to have some interstitial time sufficient for my ostensible purpose in being in Brussels. But enough of this. I drool. Et le boulangerie appele.

2009-06-30T06:35:00.000-07:00

This has been a fascinating month, characterized by events we’ll call “Baptizing the Dog” and “The Naughty Wenches of Oxford.” The month started with a trip to Frankfurt to settle reporting relationships, responsibilities, assignments and expectations. These have not always been clear, since this assignment is still a fledgling, We and the couple in Geneva are but second generation in this task. Issues arise almost daily about who, what, where, how, when and why. The meetings in Frankfurt a few weeks ago settled most of those issues.. . During the meetings, we got much better acquainted with him who shall be our next “boss” or area legal counsel in Frankfurt, David Colton, a wonderful and able man, about 15 years our junior.

If we had to pinpoint two, observations of these meetings, it would have to be Cole Durham’s unforgettable hands and the amount of food offered and consumed. Cole leads the International Center for Law and Religion Studies (ICLRS) at BYU. We tout their business card. He is world famous, a much loved ambassador for the church, the gospel, human rights, and religious freedom. He’s a kind, gentle, warm man who uses his hands to enclose others into his heart. He is always moving hands are never clenched. The fingers never point. They include, beckon, invite. They are constantly, gently, revolving, up, out, down and in, like the wheel of a slow moving paddle boat. All this is accompanied by his deep chocolaty, irresistible voice.

The other unimportant observation about Frankfurt was the food, arranged by folks accustomed to feeding people huge quantities. Lunch was a choice of too much salmon, too much steak or too much asparagus, called spargle. Germans are passionate about white, in-season spargle. We went for spargle, hold the hollandaise. The afternoon session was more like the darkened, wainscoated sitting room of an ancient men’s club frequently populated by those who are well past their productive years, which gently echoed with snorts, wheezes and snaps. No necks were broken. No tears were shed. No visitors were awakened.

We drove to Rotterdam for a-thirty-and-under (and over, too) fireside. We met with about 40 of these good folks. They had been lectured by many several times about getting married. So Leonard made up a story about how we met. He said we were in a meeting similar to this. A GA came in and said we needed to get married. He had pink numbers in one pocket for the sisters, blue numbers in another for the brethren. He told us to pick a number, find the matching number and go get married. He said and we did. That was L’s story. Then, he said we had been sent here by a GA. We have numbers in our pockets. After our talk, we will have a drawing. And you find the matches and will all go get married. They loved it. It relaxed a tense situation. Sure they should get married. But pressure doesn’t help. It was a great evening about Russia and about life-guiding Aphorisms (Every virtue, at the testing point, takes the form of courage!)

We went to a Philippine reception, the 111th anniversary of their country’s founding. We talked WWII with a Philippine minister. At her request, we talked Mormonism with the wife of the Indian Ambassador to the EU and about the red spot on her forehead (it means she is married and her husband is alive). Cuts down on unnecessary conversation. She asked us about the LDS church and the chief difference from other churches (living prophet and revelation)

We went on a temple trip to The Hague and didn’t discover until we got there that we had both left our recommends at home. So, we spent a wonderful morning wandering the magnificent streets of gorgeous little town on the outskirts of The Hague named Sweet Lake City. We strolled the cobblestone walkways, glancing in stores on both sides of this pedestrian boulevard. The “Bakkerie’s”, two of them, were crowded. We tried but couldn’t buy every wonderfully enticing thing. The cheese store held a wall cabinet displaying 2 and 3 foot rounds of every kind of cheese you can imagine and some you can’t, pepper laced gouda, and runny camembert’s. Did we buy some? Maybe you haven’t been paying attention. Soon we were headed back to Brussels. (Did I say Brussels? That can’t be right!)

One evening, four missionaries came over. Kathryn gave them a tour of the house while I told the mission fixer what needed fixing. How did he fix us? Let me count the ways: Now 1) all computers interface with the printer, 2) HP hard drive works, 3) scans store properly, 4) media player sound works, 5) strange computer messages were interpreted 6) instructions for the laser printer available, 7) language program password problems solved, 8) dryer problems fixed, and 9) washing machine works; this in 1 hour.

We attended a baptismal service. Everything went wrong. Messy place because of construction. Disorganized, late starting meeting. Silent microphone. Long winded speakers. We crowded around the small, windowed baptismal font. The candidate was stunning in her white baptismal suit, which contrasted beautifully with her brown skin. Icy water. She almost ejected herself out of the font. When she got acclimated, she asked for FIDO. He was a little, fuzzy terrier, leashed and shaking at the back of the basement room. He was dragged up to the window. We thought, no, please don’t. Please don’t ask for the dog to be baptized with you. Just, please no. Wasn’t! She just wanted to make sure that Woofie had a front row seat. Wonder what he thought?

One day, we went for a long walk to shake off the monitoring stupor and happened upon a little puzzle shop tucked into one side of a dilapidated building. A whole new world opened up to us, a room to the brim with 100’s of puzzles, simple to excruciating. The worst, by far, was 2500-piece puzzle of black and white Dalmatians. The starting place had to be the dangling, pink tongue of one pup slobbering happily in the center of the puzzle. Sound hard? Wait, there’s more. It’s a two sided puzzle. Sound hard? Wait again, our preciouses. The puzzle on the back is the same picture, black and white Dalmatians, with tongue of pink. Difficile, non? Wait. It’s rotated 90 degrees from the same picture printed on the front. Vicious! Cunning! Hazardous! Dangerous! Keep hands above table edge at all times. Must be visible? Clear?

A high point was the FHE for the younger set, held in our home. It exceeded expectations. We want them to feel free to gather in our beautiful Belgian apartment for special occasions. Almost 40 attended. Christian taught and Denis translated. Denis served in Bordeaux about ten years ago, is from the Congo, the color of priceless ebony, slim, soft-spoken, well educated, successful and a wonderful translator. After the lesson, we drifted up to the dining room like hot-air balloons, where the soups were hot and the table was festooned with breads, soups, salads and cookies. KCR’s brownies were heavenly. We had to move folks out at 10:00 because of noise laws.

The highlight of the month was a just completed trip to an Oxford conference, “New Legal Approaches to Religious Rights.” We took one of those incredibly fast trains from Brussels, through the chunnel and on to London. Getting through customs was fun. The agent asked why we were going. To attend conference. Where? Oxford. What’s it about? New legal approaches to religious rights. He rolled his eyes, and invited us to join him for a pint. Later, we said, after the conference. He smiled.
A
fter a fast, smooth and comfortable 2 hour trip, we arrived in London and took the Tube to Paddington Station, where Kathryn found a nice display of Paddington Bears at Paddington Station. We didn’t BUY one. In Oxford, we walked and ogled the grand, historic city center, the sites of about 37 colleges which operate independently under the Oxford University umbrella. We found Balliol College in preparation for the meetings.

The ride to our hotel on the southern rim of the city reminded us of CS Lewis’ “The Great Divorce,” a fanciful tale of the bus ride from the depths of hell to heaven, visitors welcome. Oxford’s center is beautiful, active, interesting, historic, captivating. Its expanding, Dickensian suburbs around Oxford, are places of rot and degradation.

Prior to the conference, we were allowed to walk about the manicured, shaped and loved grounds, One imagines young and old brilliance strolling by, begarbed in tilting mortar boards and flowing robes, discussing by two’s weighty matters of the mind. The grounds are surrounded by the Elizabethan-style, sand colored buildings rock with arched, iron clad windows. Everyone droll in their British correctness, don’t you know.

The conference was outstanding, divided into 4 1 ½ sessions with two or three speakers. Topics all related to human rights and new legal approaches but came at the subject from such diverse perspectives as transitional justice, terrorism, the workplace and Sacred Places. We were the only truly non-academic folks there, but our acceptance by all was warm and welcoming. We met many friends of Cole Durham and David Kirkham, both held in high esteem by these wonderful people. We have invites to come see them, to be taken on tours of important LDS sites (Copenhagen and the “Block” paintings, The Isle of Man). We even were sought out by a Religion Professor from Italy who had been teaching in Hertford College, Conn. He wanted to know about LDS church, Book of Mormon, genealogy, so we have arranged for him to pick up info and the book in Milan. Most importantly, we gained friends, real friends.

At 1 minute after midnight on 27 June, LCR awoke, realizing he had just turned 70. It occurred to him his mother passed away at age 73 and father at 77. He was now beginning his eighth decade, the same decade which neither of them finished. Did they feel the same at this age, fit and healthy (in spite of Dr. Dunson’s list of 25 health concerns), energetic, wanting to learn and experience and contribute?

Returning from the conference was as unbearable as it was unimaginable. Our full car on the train to London included 6 or 8 girls, age16 to 25, and their 8 to 10 year old children, squawking loudly, rudely in an almost unintelligible cockney dialect about their experiences with their partner beating partners, arguing with each other about to beat their kids, talking about the things they were going to do in London (carousing, drinking, etc.) In relief, we got off in London to join a double-decked bus tour prior to the train to Brussels. Problem was that the tour guide sounded like one of the arrogant, partner and child beating partners of one of these 25 year old sl-----. He was incredibly full of himself (“I am the best tour guide in the world”), crude, loud, and obsessed with murder and slaughter in London town. We had no way to get off because of luggage.

We finally back, ending a great month with monitoring, meeting, and masticating.

Oxford in Early Summer 2009

2009-06-30T06:31:00.000-07:00

This has been a fascinating month, characterized by events we’ll call “Baptizing the Dog” and “The Naughty Wenches of Oxford.”

The month started with a trip to Frankfurt to settle reporting relationships, responsibilities, assignments and expectations. These have not always been clear, since this assignment is still a fledgling, We and the couple in Geneva are but second generation in this task. Issues arise almost daily about who, what, where, how, when and why. The meetings in Frankfurt a few weeks ago settled most of those issues.. . During the meetings, we got much better acquainted with him who shall be our next “boss” or area legal counsel in Frankfurt, David Colton, a wonderful and able man, about 15 years our junior.

If we had to pinpoint two observations of these meetings, they would have to be Cole Durham’s unforgettable hands and the amount of food offered and consumed. Cole leads the International Center for Law and Religion Studies (ICLRS) at BYU. We tout their business card. He is world famous, a much loved ambassador for the LDS church, the gospel, human rights, and religious freedom. He’s a kind, gentle, warm man who uses his hands to enclose others into his heart. His always moving hands are never clenched. The fingers never point. They include, beckon, invite. They are constantly, gently, revolving, up, out, down and in, like the wheel of a slow moving paddle boat. All this is accompanied by his deep, chocolaty, irresistible voice.

The other unimportant observation about Frankfurt was the food, arranged by folks accustomed to feeding people huge quantities. Lunch was a choice of too much salmon, too much steak or too much asparagus, called spargle. Germans are passionate about white, in-season spargle. We went for spargle, hold the hollandaise. The afternoon session was more like the darkened, wainscoated sitting room of an ancient men’s club frequently populated by those who are well past their productive years, which gently echoed with snorts, wheezes and snaps. No necks were broken. No tears were shed. No visitors were awakened.

We drove to Rotterdam for a-thirty-and-under (and over, too) fireside. We met with about 40 of these good folks. They had been lectured by many several times about getting married. So Leonard made up a story about how we met. He said we were in a meeting similar to this. A GA came in and said we needed to get married. He had pink numbers in one pocket for the sisters, blue numbers in another for the brethren. He told us to pick a number, find the matching number and go get married. He said and we did. That was L’s story. Then, he said we had been sent here by a GA. We have numbers in our pockets. After our talk, we will have a drawing. And you will find the matches and will all go get married. They loved it. It relaxed a tense situation. Sure they should get married. But pressure doesn’t help. It was a great evening about Russia and about life-guiding Aphorisms (Every virtue, at the testing point, takes the form of courage!)

We went to a Philippine reception, the 111th anniversary of their country’s founding. We talked WWII with a Philippine minister. At her request, we talked Mormonism with the wife of the Indian Ambassador to the EU and about the red spot on her forehead (it means she is married and her husband is alive). Cuts down on unnecessary conversation. She asked us about the LDS church and the chief difference from other churches (living prophet and revelation)

We went on a temple trip to The Hague and didn’t discover until we got there that we had both left our recommends at home. So, we spent a wonderful morning wandering the magnificent streets of a gorgeous little town on the outskirts of The Hague named Sweet Lake City. We strolled the cobblestone walkways, glancing in stores on both sides of this pedestrian boulevard. The “Bakkerie’s”, two of them, were crowded. We tried but couldn’t buy every wonderfully enticing thing. The cheese store held a wall cabinet displaying 2 and 3 foot rounds of every kind of cheese you can imagine and some you can’t, pepper laced gouda, and runny camembert’s. Did we buy some? Maybe you haven’t been paying attention. Soon we were headed back to Brussels. (Did I say Brussels? That can’t be right!)

One evening, four missionaries came over. Kathryn gave them a tour of the house while I told the mission fixer what needed fixing. How did he fix us? Let me count the ways: Now 1) all computers interface with the printer, 2) HP hard drive works, 3) scans store properly, 4) media player sound works, 5) strange computer messages interpreted 6) instructions for the laser printer available, 7) language program password problems solved, 8) dryer problems fixed, and 9) washing machine works; all this in 1 hour.

We attended a baptismal service. Everything went wrong. Messy place because of construction. Disorganized, late starting meeting, silent microphone, long winded speakers. We crowded around the small, windowed baptismal font. The candidate was stunning in her bright white baptismal suit, which contrasted beautifully with her brown skin. Icy water. She almost ejected herself out of the font. When she got acclimated, she asked for FIDO. He was a little, fuzzy terrier, leashed and shaking at the back of the basement room. He was dragged up to the window. We thought, no, please don’t. Please don’t ask for the dog to be baptized with you. Just, please no. Wasn’t! She just wanted to make sure that Woofie had a front row seat. Wonder what he thought?

One day, we went for a long walk to shake off the monitoring stupor and happened upon a little puzzle shop tucked into one side of a dilapidated building. A whole new world opened up to us, a room to the brim with 100’s of puzzles, simple to excruciating. The worst, by far, was 2500-piece puzzle of black and white Dalmatians. The starting place had to be the dangling, pink tongue of one pup slobbering happily in the center of the puzzle. Sound hard? Wait, there’s more. It’s a two sided puzzle. Sound hard? Wait again, our preciousnesses. The puzzle on the back is the same picture, black and white Dalmatians, with tongue of pink. Difficile, non? Wait. It’s rotated 90 degrees from the same picture printed on the front. Vicious! Cunning! Hazardous! Dangerous! Keep hands above table edge at all times. Must be visible? Clear?

A high point was the FHE for the younger set, held in our home. It exceeded expectations. We want them to feel free to gather in our beautiful Belgian apartment for special occasions. Almost 40 attended. Christian taught and Denis translated. Denis served in Bordeaux about ten years ago, is from the Congo, the color of priceless ebony, slim, soft-spoken, well educated, successful and a wonderful translator. After the lesson, we drifted up to the dining room like hot-air balloons, where the soups were hot and the table was festooned with breads, soups, salads and cookies. KCR’s brownies were heavenly. We had to move folks out at 10:00 because of noise laws.

The highlight of the month was a just completed trip to an Oxford England conference, “New Legal Approaches to Religious Rights.” We took one of those incredibly fast trains from Brussels, through the chunnel and on to London. Getting through customs was fun. The agent asked why we were going. To attend conference. Where? Oxford. What’s it about? New legal approaches to religious rights. He rolled his eyes, and invited us to join him for a pint. Later, we said, after the conference. He smiled.

After a fast, smooth and comfortable 2 hour trip, we arrived in London and took the Tube to Paddington Station, where Kathryn found a nice display of Paddington Bears at Paddington Station. We didn’t BUY one. In Oxford, we walked and ogled the grand, historic city center, the sites of about 37 colleges which operate independently under the Oxford University umbrella. We found Balliol College in preparation for the meetings.

The ride to our hotel on the southern rim of the city reminded us of CS Lewis’ “The Great Divorce,” a fanciful tale of the bus ride from the depths of hell to heaven, visitors welcome. Oxford’s center is beautiful, active, interesting, historic, captivating. Its expanding, Dickensian suburbs around Oxford, are places of rot and degradation.

Prior to the conference, we were allowed to walk about the manicured, shaped and loved grounds, One imagines young and old brilliance strolling by, begarbed in tilting mortar boards and flowing robes, discussing by two’s weighty matters of the mind. The grounds are surrounded by the Elizabethan-style, sand colored buildings rock with arched, iron clad windows. Everyone droll in their British correctness, don’t you know.

The conference was outstanding, divided into 4 1 ½ hour sessions with two or three speakers. Topics all related to human rights and new legal approaches but came at the subject from such diverse perspectives as transitional justice, terrorism, the workplace and Sacred Places. We were the only truly non-academic folks there, but our acceptance by all was warm and welcoming. We met many friends of Cole Durham and David Kirkham, both held in high esteem by these wonderful people. We have invites to come see them, to be taken on tours of important LDS sites (Copenhagen and the “Block” paintings, The Isle of Man). We even were sought out by a Religion Professor from Italy who had been teaching in Hertford College, Conn. He wanted to know about LDS church, Book of Mormon, genealogy, so we have arranged for him to pick up info and the book in Milan. Most importantly, we gained friends, real friends.

At 1 minute after midnight on 27 June, LCR awoke, realizing he had just turned 70. It occurred to him his mother passed away at age 73 and father at 77. He was now beginning his eighth decade, the same decade which neither of them finished. Did they feel the same at this age, fit and healthy (in spite of Dr. Dunson’s list of 25 health concerns), energetic, wanting to learn and experience and contribute?

Returning from the conference was as unbearable as it was unimaginable. Our full car on the train to London included 6 or 8 girls, age 16 to 25, and their 8 to 10 year old children, squawking loudly, rudely in an almost unintelligible cockney dialect about their experiences with their partner, beating partners, arguing with each other about how to beat their kids, talking about the things they were going to do in London (carousing, drinking, etc.) In relief, we got off in London to join a double-decked bus tour prior to the train to Brussels. Problem was that the tour guide sounded like one of the arrogant, partner and child beating partners of one of these 25 year old sl-----. He was incredibly full of himself (“I am the best tour guide in the world”), crude, loud, and obsessed with murder and slaughter in olde London town. We had no way to get off because of luggage.

We are finally back, ending a great month of monitoring, meeting, and masticating.

Love to all et toute est bien,
Leonard and Kathryn.

Where We Find Love

2009-03-08T18:13:00.000-07:00

March 7, 2009

Driving down State Street, passing the used car lots on a dark night, you may see (what seems like) thousands of new and used cars waiting for the economic “downturn” to come to an end. It feels like the depression. If you’re going where we’re going, you will drive past Jenkins Soffe Mortuary, a second-hand bookstore and, across the street, The–Desert Star, a B-rated comedy show house. You’ll see a few on-street businesses boarded up, but the sight of these shabby establishments isn’t too bad, yet. The gas station is open, but patrons are few and far between. One of the commercial buildings has been turned into a recruiting center for people desperate enough to hand themselves over to the military.

As we approach Murray Arts Center, my dancing husband and I are hearing the hum of cars lazily dragging State Street. It is still a little dark here, and we see people in the crosswalks with small children bundled up like little hot dogs waiting supper in a coldish room. But our spirits are up because it is our night to dance! Or I should say, it’s one of the three or four nights a week for us to dance.

As we round the corner in our vintage Volvo, taking two sharp turns to the right, I find myself stuffing my purse under the mat. We make our way to the tawdry door of the Murray Arts Center – the largest public dance hall in the state of Utah. As we excitedly approach the dark door, we see a sign that reads, “Don’t leave your valuables in your car.” When we go in, we go in, we see the strings of blinking lights, almost like Christmas, cheerfully dancing around the room in a happy manner. We are warmed by other blinking lights marching around a sign announcing the name of which band will be serenading us tonight. On some nights there are eight to ten musicians all dressed in white jackets playing Glenn Miller favorites. We like to listen to Preston Lloyd and Tony Summerhays, but find rapture when a cowboy named “Kevin,” puts out his soaring, twangy tenor.
During the evening, we find ourselves falling in love even more as we dance close, listening to such favorites as: “String of Pearls,” “ Dancing in the Dark,” “Getting’ Sentimental,” “Lover Come Back to Me,” and “Moon River” Of course, when Glen Miller songs are played, we all have a chance to sing out, “Pennsylvania 6-500. Between dances people perch themselves on the long bench on the south side of the dance hall, waiting hopefully for someone to ask them to dance.

On the walls are hung large black metal motifs of the skyline of New York City, and San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge. Other motifs depict a 50’s Band stand with strings of notes streaming out of the horn of trumpet, and other funky reminiscences of times gone by. Other metal sculptures include silhouettes of sleek men dancing in black tuxedos, whisking buxom girls with slim waists around the dance floor. These images look like they were just peeled from mud flaps of passing trailer trucks. But then you notice the flesh and blood women around the floor in their twirling, swinging skirts. The décor also includes floor-to-ceiling pilasters reminding us of Greek and Roman architecture. Other decorations include a bevy of VERY large satin roses above an overhang, which have never been touched with a feather duster.

But what a deal you get! It costs only seven dollars per person for admission to Murray Arts, and you can get dance lessons for free if you pay your seven dollars up front. To make things really special, there is a little glass candy dish where you can pick out a few baby-sized tootsie rolls to push around in your mouth while you wait to pay.

When you first go in, if it’s winter, Bill Wright turns on the huge heaters which blast hot air so we don’t freeze our hands or feet. After while, as people begin to relinquish their hard-earned bucks to Bill or Susan Wright, (the people who own the dancehall), the heat of all the bodies makes the need for blasted, gas-heated warm air unnecessary. Of course, there is a large revolving ball in the center of the room with little squares of mirrors for a sparkling effect.

When the band is tuning-up to play the first struggling notes of the trumpets and trombones, people have begun to saunter in. Some give a look around and leave. Others float over to the long bench where folks young and old sit between dances or perch themselves hopefully, awaiting someone to invite them to dance. The attire is varied – everything from jeans to formal ball gowns. The older set grabs tables so they can sit comfortably between dance numbers. These seasoned dancers have known each other for years, if not decades, and attend frequently. You may think that people are there to meet others, listen to the music, or to find the love of their lives. But in truth, most people there come simply to dance. The reality is that the big draw is the joy of dancing. The same people come over and over, night in and night out, never tiring of the same setting, the same kind of music, and meeting up with the same friends. Who are these people?

There is Marva – 85 years old. She is short, has rounded shoulders, a stout body with “permed” grey hair. She can jitterbug with gusto. She is such a “regular” that nobody nice would think of not twirling her around the floor a time or two. Irving is in his 70s or 80s and is so short and thin that that dancing with him is like dancing with a rickety, cowboy-boot-wearing stick. I often dance with him, but fear he will break. He does his own unique style, rocking back on his heels at the end of every cadence. Victor is a tall, dark man in his 50’s, 60’s or 70’s. (Who knows?) He is undoubtedly much younger than he appears because he dances by throwing his legs as high as his waist, as he makes his way around the room.

Craig’s story is sad. He is extremely tall and thin. He dodged the Vietnam War by being too thin to fight. His life now is made up of helping the dance teacher (Ed) with all the new dances. But his girlfriend left him because she wanted to be with her daughter in Denver. Craig looks so sad. At Christmas I asked him if he had any plans. He just said, “no.” He spent his working life at Kennecott Copper.

Most amazing is the very, very old, man and his lovely wife. I have it from a good authority that this very small wobbling man has over a hundred years to his credit. He is so bent that he can only see the floor. He is less than five feet by a long shot. His wife is somewhere in her late eighties, but is very proud of her legs. They dance. Well, not quite. He stands there with his fine clothes and coiffed white hair nodding while she holds his arm above his head and dances around him, smiling.

The people we are happiest to see each night are the Farnsworths. This couple creates both envy and admiration with their dancing talents. They Mambo, Rumba, Tango, Waltz, Swing, Jitterbug, and dance the Balboa! We try to copy them, be smooth like them, and make new dances like them. However, we are “poor cousins” indeed. However, they have become excellent friends, so we aren’t able to be jealous or covetous of their extravagant talents.

Refreshments at Murray Arts are nothing more than a little shelf with a small selection of non-alcoholic drinks from fruit juice to Coke. But Bill does put out about twelve butter mints at a time for people to take if they get an appetite for something sweet. On a good night he puts out a small handful of salted pretzels from a nearby grocery store.

To keep things exciting, there is always a drawing on Tuesdays and Wednesdays where dancers can win small (or sometimes large) amounts of cash. As legend has it, the jack pot once got up past $500.00! Friday nights there is a drawing for a small amount of cash – usually 20 dollars and sometimes some tawdry cut flowers from the flower shop across the parking lot. Every night, Bill draws to give away a couple of free passes He also gives some cash if you are lucky enough to be standing near a number painted on the dance floor.

Occasionally, Bill has the sad job of announcing the passing of one of the “regulars. This would be a person who filled his or her life with the joy of moving, shaking, twirling, and gliding across that gorgeous wooden floor in the state..

As time has gone on, we have grown accustomed to this strange and wonderful place. We love to watch the BYU dancers when they show up. They dance like dervishes as the pony tails whip around and slap some saucy girl in the face. We are in awe of Will and Janine - “The beautiful couple,” and have traded little gifts with other couples when they have traveled and wanted to leave us a souvenir. We love rumba, mambo, tango, swing, meringue, disco, fox trot and Cha-Cha. But….the greatest moments are when we waltz. We will interrupt whatever we are doing if the next piece is a waltz.

We usually get tired legs about 10:30 because we are always the first ones to be there when the doors open: Three hours is about enough dancing for us. We don’t actually know how long these other old people dance into the night. I heard that Bill closes it down at 11:30, but we are usually home much earlier. We like to drive home in our old Volvo on the empty streets and end up in front of our fireplace for a while, then sleepily descend to our cold basement bedroom and pile ourselves into the same single bed to get thoroughly warm.

May I Have This Dance for the rest of my Life…..

The Sunday of the Three Ruminations

2009-02-22T11:44:00.000-08:00

So, it's been awhile since either of us has written or posted. I think we'll both try to make Sunday a day of contemplation and blogging. There is certainly much to record this day, including Facebook, the experiences and feelings of waiting for our travel plans to gel, and reactions to recent political discussions and their relations to today's toxic political climate.

Facebook

About a week ago, National Public Radio (NPR) aired a story on Facebook. They talked about its origins and destiny, its assets and liabilities, its uses both planned and unexpected. Those on the program concluded their discussion with a unanimous recommendation to sign-up, get-involved, use it, but avoid being captured by it. So, four days ago, we made the plunge. We started out with a mistake, unfortunately. I created separate accounts for each of us. As the volume of responses and friends began to increase almost exponentially on both pages, and from essentially the same folks, we quickly concluded that one account was the best use of Facebook for us.

Our intent has come to be communication with our family, our friends and also our missionaries whom we knew and loved while serving in Russia from 2000 to 2003. The lion's share of our Facebook friends are missionaries, many of whom we have not heard from since 2000 when we first arrived in Moscow. It has been a wonderful experience so far to just connect, regain contact, read their profiles and see where they have been, where they are now and indeed where they plan to go.

This week's edition of Newsweek online had a somewhat humorous article about 7 myths of Facebook. The author sought to debunk the excuses Facebook users proffer for spending inordinate amounts of time on the website. We can see how one could be swallowed by this technology, even by the urges of prurient interests to probe and pry into others lives. Nonetheless, we've discovered a wonderful tool for reconnecting and befriending. In spite of the fact that we are becoming "ancients of days," we are grasping and effectively (sort of) using this amazing technology.

Awaiting Travel Plans

May of 2008, call comes from dear friend and LDS Church leader Douglas Callister about an open assignment and would we be interested. Of course we would. June, informal call is extended. We go to meetings, begin to prepare ourselves by learning French and accessing European Union websites to become familiar with that organization. We are concerned that a scheduled trip to China may need to be canceled. No worry, we are told. We leave all of our church callings in order to prepare. It's now late February. We still don't have a departure date. We don't have visas and nothing of plans or permission has raising its head above the distant horizon. Last December, we agreed with Church Travel on a departure date in February. That got moved to mid-March. They are so far not forthcoming about whether we will make that date. In the meantime, folks in our neighborhood and at church keep asking when we will be going. Others, whom we haven't seen for some time, explain upon sighting us, "Wow! You're back already." It is painful and frustrating to wait and wonder. But, in lieu (note the use of a French word here) of anything else to do, we will continue to painfully and frustratingly wait and wonder (and maybe ballroom dance a "few" times each week until we embark.)

The Toxicity of Political Dialogue

I recently had another political discussion with someone who holds views quiet antithetical to my own. Our interactions were not too dissimilar from the heated, toxic interactions seeming to pervade our airways and hallways of late. These interactions and blatherings fowling the frequencies are too painful, much too painful, to listen to. Some folks spend hours and hours each week being propagandized and driven to rage and hate by these discussions. I find people who have taken such toxic stances on either side simply no longer listen to one another. They lie in wait, like cobras ready to strike, and wait their chance to spew their beloved venom. Arguments are typically laced with many time-worn, outdated canards, etched in stone about the views and groups on the opposite side. Steven Covey's rule, seek first to understand before you seek to be understood, is honored only in the breach. There are many, many political talk show hosts, on distant, far distant, sides of the political aisle who broadcast these "principles" with toxic rancor and bombast. Their views have intoxicated many and I fear our nation may well be past the point of no return where working together to solve problems, as did Lincoln, is no longer a possibility. We are floundering. Heaven help us.

Pat

2009-01-18T13:07:00.000-08:00

Pat died.

I feel awful that I didn't take the chance to to see her, squeeze her bony hand and give her a kiss on the cheek before she slipped away. I had visited her about three months ago and we had had a quiet conversation then. Susan Creager had called me the week before and conveyed the message that Pat was only going to last a week, which was about right. But got so wrapped up in my own sense of importance and business that I forgot all about her until we saw her obituary in the paper today (Jan. 18).

"Patricia Faith Headlund 1929 ~ 2009 Our dear cousin, Patricia Faith Headlund, born 30th October 1929 to Wallace and Lydia Almstedt Headlund, passed away 13th January 2009. We grew up as a close knit group of cousins. Pat attended East High, SLC High, the U of U and LDS Business College. She worked at Manpower. Pat was a member and teacher in the LDS church. Patricia is survived by cousins, Phyllis McGrath, Edwin (Shirley) Almstedt, Virginia (Marshall) Dignam, and many other cousins. A memorial service will be held in the spring. The family would like to thank the staffs at the U of U Hospital and The Residence CareSource Hospice for their care of Patricia."

What a ride we had with Pat as our neighbor. I remember seeing her the first time when we had just purchased our home, on our in the lovely Yale-Harvard neighborhood in Salt Lake. when we were buying our home on Yale Avenue. She was standing in her blue, ragged and torn down jacket in the middle of summer, looking at us with secret curiosity, all the while trying to hide behind an untrimmed tree. She had "Kitty" by her side, as always. She was holding the garden hose in her hand, with water leaking out of the nozzle and dripping onto her bedroom slippers. The real estate agent said, "Dont' worry about Pat. She isn't going to last long. Little did we know that we would be Pat's across-the-street neighbors for twenty three years. During that yawn of time, she was part of our lives and we were part of hers.

The kids from blocks around knew about Pat. To themhe was that "creepy" witch with her tangled grey hair matted into something like a beaver's tail, tied with a shoelace. But the smelly clothes and grassless"yard" were only the beginning. Everybody from the neighborhood knew about her, but few dared to approach her. The neighborhood children often played "double dare" as they ran up to her front door to slap it quickly and run. Pat was our own neighbornood Boo Radley, mysterious and shy, but also able to hold her own when something displeased her. Late at night when it was summer-hot and all windows were open, you could hear Pat calling, "Here Kitty, kitty, kitty. The cat was black, and had long unkempt fur. They were a pair.

To look at Pat was hard. She had had not eaten well over the years and her skin was drawn and yellow. The few teeth she had were all brown and chipped. The worst sign of true neglect and lack of care was her legs. Ulcers on them had broken open and she had to wrap them when she took her trek to Emigration Market to buy food and supplies. But what people on our street noticed most was the black gargabe bags she wore like a dress. Of course, she was nick-named, "the bag lady."

The story goes that she had been a good student and a fine "temp" employe" for several businesses over the years. But after her father and her mother both passed away she let everything go. At this moment the house is in the "let it go" stage. For years people have knocked on our Yale Ave house door to inquire about the house - looks like a good deal for someone. However, I did go in the house once, and belive me, it's not a fixer-upper. Some wheeler-dealer builder is going to get it pretty soon and pull it over.

The first audible encounter with her was when she asked Leonard or one of the boys to straighten out her hose or to get an old plastic chair for her to sit on while she watered and watered. This was her recreation - watching people on the street while she watered and watered. After a few weeks in our house, she did make conversation with us. We offered to help her with some new clothes, but she refused. At first she wouldn't let us scrape her walks, but after about five years, she relented and let us and our kids keep ice off the sidewalk. after her parents both died and her health started to wind down, she was at a loss for upkeep. So entropy took over and the house and yard continued to deteriorate. In the summer, she would prop her door open for ventilation. Her favorite and only cleaning product was Lysol, which you could smell from around the corner. It seemed to be her only effort to be clean. Once, I knocked on her door so I could bring her a light bulb, sometimes she had only one, but she refused to let me anywhere near the door.

Sometimes we wandered over to visit Pat, who seemed nice enough, and I tried many times to buy her some new clothes. Of course, she refused. She was a proud lady. She was too stubborn and independent. But there was good blood between Pat's place and ours. We chatted with her in the summer time and helped her when she asked - which was almost never. She adored our children grandchildren - three little girls. She would relinquish candy canes at Christmas and gave wedding gifts to our kids when they married. But Pat was stubborn, but could be a little mean. She yelled at the neighborhood kids and chased them away.

She thought she owned the parking place in front of her house. Once, when some of our children parked there and carelessly tossed some paper cups into the gutter in front of her house after a night party. We all had heck to pay. Pat really blew up because she thought the place in front of her curb was "her" property. But she didn't stay mad very long.

The days came and went, and our children grew from elementary to high school, to missions, marriage, and beyond. Pat was still there in the summers watering from that leaky hose, her hair still tied up in a shoe lace with her beaver tail hanging down her back. Lots of water was wasted while we watched over Pat, still in the same blue down jacket, with more rips and tears.

There were many memorable moments. Our grandchildren loved to talk to her and they made friends. Once, when some of our grandchildren were living in our basement apartment, some naughty kids started tormenting Pat by kicking the door. Little Mary Grace - about four years old - marched endignently across the street and chewed out Pat's unwanted tormentors. Good for Mary Grace!

Then one disaster after another began to play out. The first awful thing was when Pat's garage burned. You might think that was good, but Pat refused to let anybody touch anything on her property, which made everybody on the street mad. There were stray cats and other unwanted creatures. This went on for a few years, until people on the street complained to the city.

Pat finally fell down in her house and broke her leg. This made it necessary for her to move. She lived in a room in some old hotel for a year. Then she had to be moved to one nursing home and then another, and another. She was there for several years. She was pretty happy, but she still liked to scold people who walked down her hallway. She actually sat in her wheel chair and gave pepople a bad time about one thing and another. But she had several friends who would still come to visit. Several of us visited her on a quarterly basis. One highlight of her life was when Daryl Hoole (a luminary figure in our neighborhood) came to visit Pat. Pat wanted to meet Daryl and they had a nice long visit, just as though they had been best friends their whole lives.

Our three years in Russia made it hard for us to stay abreast of Pat and her situation, and my visits to her became less frequent. Margaret's girls and myself got one of those skinny little fake little Christmas tree for her the last two or three years. The girls and I decorated it with primitive dolls out of handkerchiefs. She loved it and after the last Christmas she wanted me to leave it up for a few more months.

Pat's house is still there and looks about the same as the first day we moved in. Yesterday I drove past her crumbling property. All the windows are boarded up. Nobody has taken care of it but it is still standing. I did get a chance to see the inside of Pat's house once when a friend of Pat's had a key. Don't ever ask me what it was like.

But Pat was a lady in her own right. She always kept her dignity and wouldn't let anybody push her around. She never got confused or demented as far as I could tell . She always knew where she stood and held firm to her position.

Once, when I had her on the phone (she got so she felt free to call me, and I felt free to call her), she found out that I was going to the Shakespeare festival in Cedar City. Right there on the phone she quoted me an excerpt from Romeo and Juliet. "What light through yonder window breaks, it is the East and Juliet is the sun - arise fair sun and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief that thou, her maid art is far more fair than she....."

I can still feel her tiny bones, her paper-thin skin, and her calling, "Here kitty, kitty, kitty." Here kitty.

Blog Content and an Obama Experience in China

2009-01-18T06:42:00.000-08:00

As Kathryn and I have discussed our blog, trying to get our arms around its purposes as well as the capabilities of this technology, realizing that we both love to write and reminisce, we have come to a some conclusions. First, this is not a diary for either of us. It is a repository of ruminations, remembrances, recollections and the like. We each have assembled a small library of thoughts, memories and topics we want to record and capture, for ourselves, for our extending family, and for any interested in the lives of two happy, fortunate, blessed people. So we'll write and the reader, over time, will perhaps gain some familiarity with our lives and who we were, are, and are striving to become.

China

In late October through mid November 2008, we toured China with a local agency, Fun for Less Tours. If life does not afford us the opportunity to take another major trip, this one will surely suffice as the penultimate experience, life itself, from birth to death and to that which lies before and beyond, being the ultimate journey. There were many highlights and perhaps we can describe them in other posts. One stands out, however.

Our journey took our group to Chongqing, perhaps a 1000 miles inland from Shanghai and the China Sea. Chongqing is a village of 13 million people, located in the Yangtze river valley. It is a major river port, the location of historical sites, and a city less westernized than some of the large eastern Chinese cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. We spent 2 days there before boarding a small liner to cruise down the immense Yangtze for five days. Part of one day was devoted to wandering a Buddhist shrine, devoted to honoring Buddha, his teachings and resulting culture. The site is punctuated with statues and obelisk, carved intricately in marble and set in beautifully tended gardens. As we were concluding our meanderings, we stood near a large, cast iron sculpture, a place suitable for photographers to document their visitation.

As we were preparing to snap and thus prove our own presence, 8 black women gleefully captured the space in front of the sculpture. They needed a photographer. I volunteered. I love doing that. It is such a delightful way to meet new people. Often they will do the same for you. Usually they want to talk and share their insights about themselves, their experiences, their lives. This was one of those occasions. These 8 women were dressed, as the pictures below attest, in their finest, most expressive travel duds. They were loud as Americans usually are, but were obviously happy and enjoying their journey. After the first picture, I asked them from whence they hailed. "Chicago," they said all together. Had they voted before they came, I asked. It was at that time two days before the election in the US. They exuberantly shouted certainly, of course, yes, you bet. I asked had they voted for the right guy. The Buddhist park felt the power of their joint affirmation that they had indeed voted for the right guy. Then they turned the tables on whitey. Had I voted for the right guy? They focused their question on this pale, old lad, suspecting perhaps that I did not support their guy. I shouted indeed I had. I then felt compelled to share some family information with them. I asked them if they had ever heard of Mitt Romney. Of course they had. I told them of our first cousin relationship, our fathers having been brothers. I told them I would have voted for Mitt had he been the nominee but I had been an Obama fan from the beginning. His book, The Audacity of Hope, has greatly moved and impressed Kathryn and me. Then I told them that when it had become apparent that Mitt was not going to succeed in his aspirations, I decided to come out of the political closet, as it were, and declare my strong support for Barack. They were thrilled and tickled when I told them I had had a special pin made which said, "Romney for Obama." These beautiful ladies loved it. We talked for awhile about the reasons for our individual support for him, our hope for his impact on this country, and the potential he has for leading us forward to what we can be and back to the good parts of what we once were. When we all agreed that Colin Powell got it just right when he, in announcing his support for Obama, said he saw this new man on the political landscape as a truly transformative character, the ten of us became one in ways I have seldom felt in my life. At that moment, we were bonded in tears and knowing embraces. I will never forget it and perhaps neither will they. One of the pictures below captures us all at one point in our bonding.

There is an ugly postscript to this experience. Evidently, several of our tour group had been watching us. One fellow in particular said to me on the bus as we prepared to leave that site, "What were you doing with 'those women' "evidently feeling that talking with and embracing them as we did was somehow wrong and apparently offensive to him. Racism has deep roots in some folks. My biggest regret is that I failed to get a contact address from any of these eight great women so we could exchange feelings and experiences as Obama has been successful and now is deep in preparing to assume the presidency. We all hope, I am sure, that our hope has not been in vain.

2008-12-31T15:56:00.000-08:00

The last day of a tumultuous year for the world, but a relatively wonderful one for us. We have traveled some. We received another life changing call from our Church to serve away from home. There have been changes in our family, including a divorce finalization, three pregnancies, significant improvements in our health and well being, and time with friends and family. The nation has elected a possibly, hopefully transitional president, but has experienced a parallel shattering of faith in our capitalist system, attributable largely to greed and deception.

Travel

Although we have been to St. George a few times during the year, the most significant ventures were to down the Subway in Zion's National Park, throughGlacier National Park and Northern Idaho in August and September and to China in October and November. All of the trips were delightful.

The Subway is a narrows canyon on the westside of the Virgin River drainage in Zions National Park. We were five, the Preece's, Steve Austin, and the two of us. We are all in pretty good shape and still got into some trouble in this spectacular canyon punctuated with choke boulders the size of houses and requiring rappelling, deep cold pools requiring intrepid swimming, boulder fields demanding agility, and steep ascents at the end of the journey requiring grit and endurance. We got into trouble fairly quickly by losing the rappelling rope at the bottom of one of the deep, frigid pools. We were thus required to rely on following groups to lend us their ropes to complete the rappells. Lacking these samaratins, we would have had few options. Steve Austin, lethaly thin, suffered a touch of hypothermia after one of the swims. Finally, Merrillee, who had forgotten to eat breakfast that morning, ran on an empty tank to the bottom of the hike. Unfortunately, she still faced a two mile ascent up a sun bleached slope before reaching the parking lot. The best she could do was execute an almost endless series of 10 step efforts followed by lengthy, emotional stops on rough sandstone boulders while Kathryn, Steve and Mike encouraged her. I had gone on ahead unknowingly and feeling that my own exhaustion would be exacerbated if I had stopped. We made it and exulted in our achievments.

The trip to Idaho and Montana was with 16 other folks who have all been friends for years, including the Preeces, Jacobsens, Pugsleys, Ellsworths, Petersens, Hammonds, Larsons, Garffs and us. Most of these folks are related either through fraternity or sorority, which I suppose is our ticket for inclusion as well. Kathryn is a sorority sister of many of the women in this group. This was to be our first trip, which was slated to be a bicycle tour of Glacier National Park and Northern Idaho. The trip was expertly planned and executed by Gary Larsen who found all the bike routes of interest, the lodgings and arranged the transportation. He volunteered his Ford 350 long bed and we volunteered to drive the beast, loaded with the partially disassembled bikes, to the meeting place near Glacier National Park. Honestly, we worried some about the well being of the group. One suffers from Parkinsons disease, another recently had had surgery related to colon cancer, others were affected by weight and other disabilities. Nonetheless, all were anxious and invested.

Highlights of the trip included two long rides (for us) or 30 and 42 miles. Also, there is a bike trail that follows the trail of the Hiawatha Rail Line, used in the past two centuries to traverse the mountains marking the boundary between northern sections of Montana and Idaho. One portion of the trail is threaded through the 2-mile tunnel at the peak of the route. Our trip was entirely downhill so Kathryn and I and Jack Hammond decided we could get better views and more exercise by hiking the 13 miles. The gentle descent revealed grand vistas of ancient trestles spanning deep gorges and provided ample evidence of the huge effort required to build the route.

On our longest ride, four of us broke, with good wishes, from the pack and set a "blistering" pace. Mike P. and Steve E. soon outdistanced us and Kathryn and I pushed as hard as I could. After a while, Kathryn pulled up along side of me and said, "We can go faster, if you want!" Please!! I was doing the best I could and she was gently loping along.

We soon discovered this to be a pretty high octane group, fearing no price. Our last hotel cost us slightly over $360 a night. I told Gary Larson that I didn't like to pay that much for a car, much less a room. Others in the group felt not the slightest disturbance in their wrinkle-free wallets. The highlight of the trip for us was easily the time Kathryn and I spent together in the truck, traversing the Bitteroots and Rockies, gasping at the scenery and beilg moved by the music we were playing. Kathryn had found some guitar renditions by Michael Dowdle of LDS church hymns. He was captured and expressed the beauty of these lyrical messages in an instrumental voice not often heard in our church circles. We were moved to tears and smiles as we absorbed the sounds and sights of that beautiful place.

Should we never travel again, our 17-day venture to China in October and November will easily suffice as one of the supreme travel adventures of our lives. The sights and sounds of our visit to Beijing, Xi'an, Chongqing, the Yangtse, Wuhan, Guilin, the Li River, Zhenzen, and Hong Kong are catalogued elsewhere (our My Pictures - Travel file) What we shall always port with us is an impression of a friendly, striving, competent, happy and outgoing people, eager to converse with us, and apparently unafraid of retribution or repression. We have made what we hope to be long-lasting relationships with these people and we will try to help in whatever ways we can.

Kathryn here.

Have you ever thrown yourself off a bridge, not knowing where you would fall? This happened to us in 2000 when we received a phone call from the secretary of Neal A. Maxwell. It informed us of an opportunity to have our names tossed into a pool to be considered for a call to be a mission president. That turned out to be a three year adventure in Moscow, Russia presiding as mission president and mission mom. It was great and TERRIFYING. We studied our guts out, learned enough Russian to survive and felt relieved when we finished. We were home free for four years. We remodeled our beloved home on Yale Avenue, and enjoyed our book group, our dinner group, hiking, exercising at Steiner, mingling with our beloved children and grandchildren, and living the good life. Our responsibilities were under control and lives were delicious. we had moved to our cozy, bucolic condo and nothing stood in the way of endless days where we could choose for ourselves each day what we wanted to do.

Then...we received ANOTHER PHONE CALL. In June of 2008. We were asked to meet with President Douglas Callister at the Joseph Smith Building on a sunny pleasant day. Pleasant? HA. We were sweating bullets. Bill Atkin, an upper, upper level in Church hierarchy presented us with an opportunity to be part of an assignment, which entailed our moving to Brussels, Belgium for 18 months to two years. I could feel the millstone dropping, dropping crashing to my feet. We haven't been active in speaking or learning Russian for four years. But, as Rachel said, "even though it will be hard to tackle another language, this is NOT an opportunity you would ever pass up. That is true.

So - We have been pursuing the learning materials, but we are not attorneys. The books we read are ponderous, heavy, and the material is obscure. We seem to be able to think about a hundred other things to do when it's time for us to go to our reading and studying. We've had one semester of Community College French (another story to write about later) and now we don't go anywhere without a stack of cards in our pockets, which are very helpful. We know we won't have anything but "tarzan french," but it is really a small part of our assignment. We are now pushing the panic button in terms of preparing ourselves. However, we have heard a rumor that the Lord qualifies those whom He calls. We are banking on that, but we know that we have many things to learn.

It's January 1st and we have had a great Christmas Holiday. We love our children and grandchildren, and anticipate that our family will continue to grow.

As for throwing ourselves off the bridge, here we go...WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

Christmas Musings

2008-12-25T17:43:00.000-08:00

Today Leonard and I realized that we are losing our minds. I couldn't remember if my cousin Arthur Wood and his lovely wife Virginia came to live in the townhouse next to ours 18 months ago or 30 months ago. I just remember that they moved in during a summer. Now it is winter and it is Christmas Day of 2008. The time seems to be galloping by. Actually, that is the reason we are starting this blog. If WE don't keep track of our lives, who, for goodness sake, will.

So, today is Christmas and we have had the best Christmas ever. Everybody in the family seems to be doing well. Margaret and her girls are advancing in many ways, especially as they grow taller every time we see them. They have their squabbles, but so do we all. Margaret just reported that her girls have just given each other the most thoughtful and lovely gifts for each other. She is on a walk in the snow and seems happy every time I talk to her.

Rachel is awaiting her Dr. appointment on Monday to see if they can determine the gender of the baby she is carrying. I can help out by caring for Chase and Romney. We are all eager to follow the progress of this pregnancy. Rachel keeps all of us up on what needs to be done. She plans ahead - a skill with which I struggle. But between Dad and Rachel, we all get by.

Adam is now in Woodland hoping he can get back to LA. safely. Weather is awful here now but will get worse. Adam and Whitley gave us two MOST lovely presents, a book revolving around the photos of our children when they were young, what they looked like, and what foods we all liked at the time. The book includes the recipes for these much relished items. Kathleen Lewis from Boulder was even in on this thoughtful gift. I will add pictures and text to this book as we move along in life. Their second present to us was the marvelous announcement Whitley's pregnancy, bringing the number of future additions to the extended family to 2.

Peter and Sheri are in St. George, but will be coming here to our place on Saturday. We anticipate their visit. Their little Siena has the cutest little down-turned mouth ever. What a kill she is - all energy and determination.

Dad and I are happier than we deserve. This has been a GREAT Christmas. I gave dad (but really for us both) some DVDs and CDs to help us with our ballroom dancing obsession. Life is good. Kathryn

My turn, my first turn. We both are intermittent writers. Kathryn pens stories of her ancestors, her teaching days, pieces of fiction drawn from her life, and experiences she and we have had. I write, also intermittently unfortunately, about memories of family, relatives and friends. Perhaps someday, I'll post a few samples. However, the point is, as was made by Kathryn, that we're losing our minds, slowly but noticeably. This is not a certified medical diagnosis. It's just the recognition of what happens when one ages. This has been an incredibly busy year or even decade. Yet, recalling names, places, dates, and sequences of things is becoming increasingly difficult and embarassing. I can tell you that we have lived in Russia for three years, have visited China, Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the southern band of states in the US, traveled in reverse the trail taken by the Mormon pioneers beginning in 1846 as they left Nauvoo, visited the northeastern states in the USA and the maritime provences in Canada, hiked narrow canyons in the red and orange canyons of southern Utah, biked in Idaho, Montana and Glacier National park, etc. BUT, recalling the year or month or sometimes even specific experiences tests the synapses. Hence, we join ranks with the millions of our human compatriots who have already done so, we begin to blog.