Today is my dad's birthday. Ricky Boyd Melville was born May 27, 1951. While today is not yet over and I am still making memories of it, I can remember things about his birthday on some previous years. I can remember less about his birthday than I can about mine, of course.
2011. Before my 12:00 class, I downloaded "America the Beautiful," "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," and "The Star Spangled Banner" from lds.org. When I came home from classes, I was talking to my roommate Chase and I think we were looking at pictures of eight-legged creatures. I was people watching out the window and saw a barefoot guy with short shorts and a funny gait. (I can't remember if his shorts were salmon-colored or if his legs were.) Then our roommate Zach came home and we put our stuff in the car to carpool up to North Salt Lake. We had to stop at the Wilk to pick up Shannon Kelly. Zach made an illegal left turn to get out of the Wilk. As we were driving down University Parkway, there was a car in front of us with a peculiar accessory on the back--it looked like a TV screen. We wanted to figure out what it was, but the car got away from us. As we got on the freeway, Zach and Shannon talked about a time when they almost crashed getting on the freeway because of a crazy lady driver. Zach was a fairly aggressive driver and said why he wondered why some of the people were going slow. I said, "Maybe they believe in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law." Zach was listening to his music on his iPod and Chase started dancing to "Viva la Vida." When Zach pulled up to my house, he was surprised to see the green Taurus in the driveway--he had ridden in that car before, but he didn't know I had switched cars. My dad wasn't too happy about turning 60. My mom made him a cake with blue frosting and red, white, and blue sprinkles. The sprinkles were for my sake, so I could eat the cake. She sent me to the store for something. I went with Allie, and we looked to see if there was such a thing as Fourth of July ice cream, since my mom said she had seen some. There wasn't. As we left the store, we saw Devan Gubler. Zach texted me to see if I wanted to play card games with him and some friends, but I declined.
2005. I remember that my dad picked me up from school and we had to stop at a gas station to buy special ice to go camping. I guess our freezer ice wasn't good enough.
2004. I'm not sure, but I think this was the night when I had a junior high choir concert. We all went to Woods Cross High's auditorium. Nicole Nutter sang a song from Annie and wore an old-fashioned hat and got on her knees to sing dramatically. After the concert, my family said that they were surprised at the quality of the concert. My dad said that when the eighth-grade boys sang, he thought it would be a long night, but then it got better. He asked about the girl with the hat.
2001. My dad wasn't happy to turn 50. We were at Shingle Mill campground in Fillmore Canyon. That day we went to my grandparents' house in Fillmore before and after
church; my dad said that it was fifty years ago to the day that he first
entered the doorway to the kitchen (when he was born, the kitchen door
was the front door of the house). Grandpa Boyd told my dad that he
remembered when he came into the world. We went back up to the canyon, and my aunt Sarena brought my dad a cake that had "Over the Hill" decorations and black frosting on the edges. My cousin Steven got some all over his face and we discovered that the black frosting was blue when it was diluted. Then my uncle Mike invited me to go adventuring in the red Jeep with him and my cousins Krishelle and Terrill. We went up the canyon, and I think we saw a place for cattle to drink. Then we looked out over Fillmore from the canyon; Mike pointed out the Maverik station. Krishelle pointed out tiny Flowell. We went to the "M" for "Millard" on the mountain; there were tin can lanterns all over the M for them to light up. I was immature and I thought it would be funny to make some weird noises by vibrating my cheeks. It really annoyed Krishelle, who kept saying "Stop that!" Then we went to a place known colloquially in Fillmore as Pink Elephant Lane; my uncle said that my dad had once crashed there. He told some silly jokes: Why do pink elephants paint their toenails red? So they can hide in cherry trees and Why do they paint their toenails green? So they can hide in lime trees. Then we went and filled up the Jeep at the Maverik station; I was surprised my uncle was buying gas on Sunday and I was especially surprised that he was also buying drinks. A snake had hitched a ride on the Jeep and fell off at the gas station. Mike asked a girl at another pump if she wanted a snake; she saw it and was a bit grossed out. Then we went back up to the canyon and our trailer's porch light was on. It was about 10:30 and everyone was going to bed; I was sad I missed a night of campfire business.
1994. If I am not mistaken, this was the last day of my preschool. They gave us pictures of our class and pencils that had pictures of the earth. They also gave us bags of clothes. These were clothes that our parents had given to the teachers in case we ever peed our pants, but a lot of us thought they were just giving us clothes. I can't remember whether or not I recognized the clothes as my own, but I do remember that I didn't recognize the Mario underwear as my own. (In fact, I think that underwear might have originally belonged to a friend named Keith, or else he had some that was the same. Underwear has a way of changing houses among children who are scared to use strangers' bathrooms.) One boy in my class was tearing off pieces from his plastic bag and eating them, saying, "I love plastic." I thought how I liked it too, but my mom and brother had told me it wasn't good to eat. (It's possible this last part was a dream; sometimes it's hard to distinguish old memories from dreams--but I always thought it really happened.) Then I think I played with my friend David Christensen while my parents were getting ready for camping. It was an overcast day.
Happy Birthday Pops!
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Memorial Days
With Memorial Day coming up this weekend, I am going to remember as many details as possible about Memorial Days of my life. However, since I don't fully consider Memorial Day a true holiday--it's more of a gateway into the Fourth of July season--I don't remember as much about it as I do about other holidays.
2011. I woke up to my niece Allie coming into my room and saying "Snow!" because I had asked my family to wake me up if it snowed. I was delighted to come out of my bedroom and see snow on the roofs and the grass. That morning we--my parents, Allie, and I--went to the zoo. They had all their dinosaur models all over the zoo. My niece wanted to see some animal show, so we went to it. We had to find strategic places to sit because rain and melting snow was dripping through holes in the tarp above the benches. They were playing hokey '60s music before the show. I was surprised when they played Beatles songs because the rest of it was so hokey. They had two college-age females conduct the animal show. One of them was a much better actress than the other. At one point they had a little girl come up as a volunteer. The zoo girl was holding a tortoise, and the little girl tried to touch it, but the zoo girl forbade her, telling her she could touch it later. After the show they let the kids touch the animals as long as they only used two fingers, but I don't think Allie wanted to touch them. We went around to the various animal exhibits. I had never seen the new bat exhibit and I was thoroughly impressed. We assumed these bunnies were hiding from the rain; the goats were hiding as well. (When I went to the zoo on a sunny June day, the bunnies were still hiding under that little shelter.)
We went to the "Living Links" exhibit in the greenhouse. I was sad I had missed the previous exhibit, "Nature's Nightmares," but there were a lot of animals that were the same, so much that Allie kept saying, "This really is Nature's Nightmares!" I was sad that they no longer had free-flying bats, and the Goliath spider was smaller and less impressive than I had hoped. I tried to take some pictures of the hibiscus flowers. Outside the exit of the greenhouse they had gifts for sale, and my mom debated buying the animals that were on exhibit that are dried up and you can bring them back to life (not brine shrimp--way cooler than that, with red on the bottom). When we were at one of the playgrounds, I asked my mom to take a picture of me on the giant spider so I could use it for a Facebook profile picture.
Allie wasn't dressed very warmly, so she wanted to go to the car with my mom. My dad and I stayed and tried to find all the dinosaurs. The T-rex was the only big one that was life-sized.
We went to the car and left. There was a man in short shorts and no shirt who was running across the road as we were leaving the zoo. My mom said, "He's crazy," probably because it was cold, but maybe because he was in the road. Later I texted my roommate Zach Zimmerman to see when he was going to pick me up. I also asked him if he wanted me to bring the Coldplay Viva la Vida album because I knew he hadn't heard it but liked Coldplay. He was quite late when he finally showed up. I was surprised to see Sarah Edwards in the car, because she hadn't ridden up with us. I put my stuff in the trunk and Zach put my CD in. Then we picked up Chase Elwood; it was tough getting everyone's stuff in the trunk. Shannon Kelly talked about the editing minor. Sarah said she had had to take an ELang class. At one point, Zach asked if I could hear the music, and I said I could. One of the girls asked if I liked Coldplay--I said yes but wasn't wildly enthusiastic. One of them said she liked the song "Lovers in Japan." At one point I mentioned disc two, but when disc one was over, Zach turned his own music on. I zoned out--as I often do--when they were talking about speeding tickets. They said, "Mark's never had a ticket," but since I hadn't been paying attention, I thought they were talking about concert or theater tickets. We dropped Sarah off at her apartment when a Beatles song was playing. Then we dropped off Shannon and came home and parked in our parking lot. Zach ejected the CD and then realized that he'd forgotten about disc two and apologized. I didn't mind--I brought the CD because I thought he might like it but it seemed he didn't really care. He read the title, Viva la Vida, or, Death and All His Friends, and commented on the irony of the title. I put my stuff away and put my Peanuts Fourth of July pillowcase on my pillow.
2010. All I remember is going to dinner group. It was a combined dinner group that night. I was wearing a T-shirt that had all the names of the 50 states arranged as an American flag. One guy there told me he liked my shirt because it was "fashionable" and because it had New Mexico on the top. There was some mild ridicule about that, because a few other states, including Utah, were also at the top.
2009. All I remember is sending emails from the Family History Center in the Lewiston Idaho stake center. But thanks to the miracle of the internet (and knowing my mom's email password), I was able to find the very email that I sent that day:
"Wednesday is Pops's birthday, and Thursday I hit the dreaded eighteen-month mark. I've been having all sorts of depressing dreams about going home lately.
"Next week we will be having a baptism in the singles branch. Her mom's not too keen on it, so yesterday Kim (that's the investigator) asked us to go talk with her mom, so we're going to go over tonight. Hopefully that will go well.
"Another investigator who was supposed to be baptized in June dropped us. We don't know if she talked to her parents and they strongly opposed, or if she was just too scared to talk with them. Her dad is against the Church because when he was in Boy Scouts he blew up some flower holders on the church grounds and they kicked him out of Scouts. We visit his bedridden mother often and their whole family is very nice, just not active and some of them against the Church.
"Also, we cover Lapwai, an Indian reservation. The Indians are on the war path (as everyone says) because of a recent event. A couple of the natives were being chased by a state patrolman and would not pull over. Eventually they stopped and he shot them. Here's where some details become conflicting. One version said they were running away; another said they were approaching him to fight. Supposedly he heard a gun shot and thought they had guns, but it was another, unrelated shot nearby. This all happened on tribal lands so the injuns are all up in arms. I guess the FBI has to investigate because state policeman don't have authority over the Indians. I guess if a policeman not of the tribe pulls over a Lamanite (I couldn't resist) he can't arrest them or give them a ticket; he can only tell them to wait until an Indian officer comes, and if they drive off, there's nothing he can do. But it does go the other way; if an Indian pulls someone over, he has to call someone who is a regular officer.
"It got decently warm this week. I'm starting to acquire a "bring it on" attitude for heat, because I know it's only going to get warmer and there's nothing I can do about it. They say it gets about 110 degrees in the summer here.
"This week we had an interesting service experience. It probably wasn't the most kosher and if it hadn't been established earlier I probably would have not done it. A member took us to several cemeteries out of our area to put flowers on the stones of his relatives. They weren't members, but they recently had their temple work done, so we dedicated the graves. It was fun being in the cemeteries. I wouldn't mind working in one.
"I don't know why he didn't dedicate them; he's an elder, but he is kind of a questionable member, so maybe he's not worthy. He's engaged and his fiancée lives with him. We don't know if anything's going on but they still shouldn't live in the same house. They have both been married several times. He is weird, but she is weirder. Her nickname is Elf (she's short), but I only think of another one-syllable name ending in f--waif. The reason for this comes because we were talking with another member who was saying she thinks he's marrying her because she's a waif--no one else wants her. It will be funny when they're married and she's his wife the waif. It could be funny if I accidentally let slip something like, 'How's your waif--I mean, wife?' In one of the cemeteries he has a plot and his waif was talking about being buried there, but Elder LaPratt and I both agree she won't be buried there. We've heard he's already been married eight times.
"Yes, north Idaho is an interesting place. Lots of members talk about guns and sometimes show them to us. I feel sick when I handle a gun.
"Our landlord has a stupid blue heeler who barks at us all the time. He's on a big line in the backyard, and he runs around until he wraps himself around a pole. If you leave him alone he barks and whines. If you release him he gets excited and pees on you. Our neighbor is a member and he wants to shoot him. I wouldn't mind that.
"I can't think of anything else I want to add. I could add more but I don't know how much time I have.
"Love,
"Elder Melville"
(An update on some of the things in the letter--Kim never got baptized, but Katelyn [the one who dropped us on this week] ended up getting baptized about two months later. Brother Jones never married Elf.)
2008. That morning Elder Condie and I went to help a member move in. Brother Longhurst had ridden his bike there. There were a lot of members there helping. This was a workday, despite it being a Monday (which were generally P-days), but due to an abominable companionship, we didn't really work. Elder Condie did about a triple no-no by writing up a story about a past transgression and typing it up on the Welshes' computer (the Welshes were the old couple we lived with). I don't know what I did when he was doing that; I probably did some paperwork. I had to call one Sister Kearl in the Greenbluff Ward to tell her that we couldn't come to her family barbecue. We cancelled that appointment so we could go to the Northpointe Ward barbecue, but we didn't tell Sister Kearl that was the reason. Sister Kearl said, "I thought you could do whatever you wanted on Mondays." When I told Elder Condie she had said that, he said that even if we didn't have the other barbecue, why would we want to give up our P-day to have dinner with members? Then we went to the Northpointe ward party, which was at the park next to Brentwood Elementary and across the street from the "Regina Building," the Spokane North stake center. We were pleased with the turnout; Cindy Neely, an eternal investigator, and her friends came. We and Brother Palmer, our ward mission leader, counted ten nonmembers there, thanks to our efforts and some of the youths' friends. The ward played Capture the Flag; we elders did as well. Elder Condie changed into his shorts and Superhero t-shirt, but I stayed in "pross," although I might have taken my tie off. Elder Condie was pretty good. Some young girls (11 or 12 years old), a Sant and a Johnson, cheered for us, but they gave us silly nicknames: I think mine was Elder Melon and Elder Condie was Elder Condog. After Capture the Flag, the ward played football, but since I don't play football, I got my ladybug kite out and flew it in the school's field. A member who was visiting from Idaho came and talked to me. There was an annoying dog that kept chasing my kite. I got green pollen all over my black shoes; I thought it looked cool. After the party, I insisted on going to the Peone Cemetery. There, I reasoned, if anyone wanted to talk about life after death, we could talk to them. But when we got there I said it would probably be in poor taste to go up to talk to people, so we would be there if they wanted to approach us. There were many tombstones that said things like "Families Are Forever." We even saw one Turnidge stone with the Provo Temple on it; we were well-acquainted with the Turnidges; most (or all) of them were less active. We saw lots of Bible verses on the stones; Elder Condie speculated they weren't allowed to put Book of Mormon scriptures on the stones, but I found that unlikely. We saw the tombstone of the Welshes' son, whose death nearly five months earlier was announced to Sister Welsh while I was holding her hand. I wanted to take a picture, but Elder Condie forbade me.
2007. All I remember is that we had spent the weekend in Fillmore, in my late grandparents' backyard. I think this might have been the time we looked at Christmas lights in one of the sheds and I wanted to take some home. I was wearing my red t-shirt with Snoopy and Woodstock in Uncle Sam costumes; it was my first time wearing it. On the drive home, I sat in the front seat and my mom sat in the middle seat with Allie, who watched The Little Mermaid on a portable DVD player.
2006-2000. So it has always been a family tradition that we go camping on Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends. Since there are so many years that are the same, and since we camped over the course of a few days, and since it happened twice a year, I don't know exactly what happened on Memorial Days. But then, out of the blue, I remember something from
1999. After we came home, I remember going to get dinner at Gringo's Mexican restaurant. I also got some Tic-Tacs from a gas station. And I remember something about the movie Antz; either we rented it or it was on TV. I don't think I watched it.
1998-before. Same story as 2000-2006 :(
That's it! Like always, I'll probably remember something after I post...
2011. I woke up to my niece Allie coming into my room and saying "Snow!" because I had asked my family to wake me up if it snowed. I was delighted to come out of my bedroom and see snow on the roofs and the grass. That morning we--my parents, Allie, and I--went to the zoo. They had all their dinosaur models all over the zoo. My niece wanted to see some animal show, so we went to it. We had to find strategic places to sit because rain and melting snow was dripping through holes in the tarp above the benches. They were playing hokey '60s music before the show. I was surprised when they played Beatles songs because the rest of it was so hokey. They had two college-age females conduct the animal show. One of them was a much better actress than the other. At one point they had a little girl come up as a volunteer. The zoo girl was holding a tortoise, and the little girl tried to touch it, but the zoo girl forbade her, telling her she could touch it later. After the show they let the kids touch the animals as long as they only used two fingers, but I don't think Allie wanted to touch them. We went around to the various animal exhibits. I had never seen the new bat exhibit and I was thoroughly impressed. We assumed these bunnies were hiding from the rain; the goats were hiding as well. (When I went to the zoo on a sunny June day, the bunnies were still hiding under that little shelter.)
I was sad that the sauropods weren't life-sized. Shrinking the dinosaurs kind of made me think, "What's the point?"
2010. All I remember is going to dinner group. It was a combined dinner group that night. I was wearing a T-shirt that had all the names of the 50 states arranged as an American flag. One guy there told me he liked my shirt because it was "fashionable" and because it had New Mexico on the top. There was some mild ridicule about that, because a few other states, including Utah, were also at the top.
2009. All I remember is sending emails from the Family History Center in the Lewiston Idaho stake center. But thanks to the miracle of the internet (and knowing my mom's email password), I was able to find the very email that I sent that day:
"Wednesday is Pops's birthday, and Thursday I hit the dreaded eighteen-month mark. I've been having all sorts of depressing dreams about going home lately.
"Next week we will be having a baptism in the singles branch. Her mom's not too keen on it, so yesterday Kim (that's the investigator) asked us to go talk with her mom, so we're going to go over tonight. Hopefully that will go well.
"Another investigator who was supposed to be baptized in June dropped us. We don't know if she talked to her parents and they strongly opposed, or if she was just too scared to talk with them. Her dad is against the Church because when he was in Boy Scouts he blew up some flower holders on the church grounds and they kicked him out of Scouts. We visit his bedridden mother often and their whole family is very nice, just not active and some of them against the Church.
"Also, we cover Lapwai, an Indian reservation. The Indians are on the war path (as everyone says) because of a recent event. A couple of the natives were being chased by a state patrolman and would not pull over. Eventually they stopped and he shot them. Here's where some details become conflicting. One version said they were running away; another said they were approaching him to fight. Supposedly he heard a gun shot and thought they had guns, but it was another, unrelated shot nearby. This all happened on tribal lands so the injuns are all up in arms. I guess the FBI has to investigate because state policeman don't have authority over the Indians. I guess if a policeman not of the tribe pulls over a Lamanite (I couldn't resist) he can't arrest them or give them a ticket; he can only tell them to wait until an Indian officer comes, and if they drive off, there's nothing he can do. But it does go the other way; if an Indian pulls someone over, he has to call someone who is a regular officer.
"It got decently warm this week. I'm starting to acquire a "bring it on" attitude for heat, because I know it's only going to get warmer and there's nothing I can do about it. They say it gets about 110 degrees in the summer here.
"This week we had an interesting service experience. It probably wasn't the most kosher and if it hadn't been established earlier I probably would have not done it. A member took us to several cemeteries out of our area to put flowers on the stones of his relatives. They weren't members, but they recently had their temple work done, so we dedicated the graves. It was fun being in the cemeteries. I wouldn't mind working in one.
"I don't know why he didn't dedicate them; he's an elder, but he is kind of a questionable member, so maybe he's not worthy. He's engaged and his fiancée lives with him. We don't know if anything's going on but they still shouldn't live in the same house. They have both been married several times. He is weird, but she is weirder. Her nickname is Elf (she's short), but I only think of another one-syllable name ending in f--waif. The reason for this comes because we were talking with another member who was saying she thinks he's marrying her because she's a waif--no one else wants her. It will be funny when they're married and she's his wife the waif. It could be funny if I accidentally let slip something like, 'How's your waif--I mean, wife?' In one of the cemeteries he has a plot and his waif was talking about being buried there, but Elder LaPratt and I both agree she won't be buried there. We've heard he's already been married eight times.
"Yes, north Idaho is an interesting place. Lots of members talk about guns and sometimes show them to us. I feel sick when I handle a gun.
"Our landlord has a stupid blue heeler who barks at us all the time. He's on a big line in the backyard, and he runs around until he wraps himself around a pole. If you leave him alone he barks and whines. If you release him he gets excited and pees on you. Our neighbor is a member and he wants to shoot him. I wouldn't mind that.
"I can't think of anything else I want to add. I could add more but I don't know how much time I have.
"Love,
"Elder Melville"
(An update on some of the things in the letter--Kim never got baptized, but Katelyn [the one who dropped us on this week] ended up getting baptized about two months later. Brother Jones never married Elf.)
2008. That morning Elder Condie and I went to help a member move in. Brother Longhurst had ridden his bike there. There were a lot of members there helping. This was a workday, despite it being a Monday (which were generally P-days), but due to an abominable companionship, we didn't really work. Elder Condie did about a triple no-no by writing up a story about a past transgression and typing it up on the Welshes' computer (the Welshes were the old couple we lived with). I don't know what I did when he was doing that; I probably did some paperwork. I had to call one Sister Kearl in the Greenbluff Ward to tell her that we couldn't come to her family barbecue. We cancelled that appointment so we could go to the Northpointe Ward barbecue, but we didn't tell Sister Kearl that was the reason. Sister Kearl said, "I thought you could do whatever you wanted on Mondays." When I told Elder Condie she had said that, he said that even if we didn't have the other barbecue, why would we want to give up our P-day to have dinner with members? Then we went to the Northpointe ward party, which was at the park next to Brentwood Elementary and across the street from the "Regina Building," the Spokane North stake center. We were pleased with the turnout; Cindy Neely, an eternal investigator, and her friends came. We and Brother Palmer, our ward mission leader, counted ten nonmembers there, thanks to our efforts and some of the youths' friends. The ward played Capture the Flag; we elders did as well. Elder Condie changed into his shorts and Superhero t-shirt, but I stayed in "pross," although I might have taken my tie off. Elder Condie was pretty good. Some young girls (11 or 12 years old), a Sant and a Johnson, cheered for us, but they gave us silly nicknames: I think mine was Elder Melon and Elder Condie was Elder Condog. After Capture the Flag, the ward played football, but since I don't play football, I got my ladybug kite out and flew it in the school's field. A member who was visiting from Idaho came and talked to me. There was an annoying dog that kept chasing my kite. I got green pollen all over my black shoes; I thought it looked cool. After the party, I insisted on going to the Peone Cemetery. There, I reasoned, if anyone wanted to talk about life after death, we could talk to them. But when we got there I said it would probably be in poor taste to go up to talk to people, so we would be there if they wanted to approach us. There were many tombstones that said things like "Families Are Forever." We even saw one Turnidge stone with the Provo Temple on it; we were well-acquainted with the Turnidges; most (or all) of them were less active. We saw lots of Bible verses on the stones; Elder Condie speculated they weren't allowed to put Book of Mormon scriptures on the stones, but I found that unlikely. We saw the tombstone of the Welshes' son, whose death nearly five months earlier was announced to Sister Welsh while I was holding her hand. I wanted to take a picture, but Elder Condie forbade me.
2007. All I remember is that we had spent the weekend in Fillmore, in my late grandparents' backyard. I think this might have been the time we looked at Christmas lights in one of the sheds and I wanted to take some home. I was wearing my red t-shirt with Snoopy and Woodstock in Uncle Sam costumes; it was my first time wearing it. On the drive home, I sat in the front seat and my mom sat in the middle seat with Allie, who watched The Little Mermaid on a portable DVD player.
2006-2000. So it has always been a family tradition that we go camping on Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends. Since there are so many years that are the same, and since we camped over the course of a few days, and since it happened twice a year, I don't know exactly what happened on Memorial Days. But then, out of the blue, I remember something from
1999. After we came home, I remember going to get dinner at Gringo's Mexican restaurant. I also got some Tic-Tacs from a gas station. And I remember something about the movie Antz; either we rented it or it was on TV. I don't think I watched it.
1998-before. Same story as 2000-2006 :(
That's it! Like always, I'll probably remember something after I post...
Friday, May 18, 2012
Remembering
If you've read my other blog, you know that I like to do posts in which I remember things.
Whether or not it's true, I have a perception that most people don't really like to read those, and therefore that those posts might jeopardize my readership. But I like to write them, and I know that some family members (and maybe some others) like to read them. My friend David Christensen sent me a link to an article about memory. He said he thought of my memory posts when he read it. The article says that once you start remembering things, it can help you remember more. So that's part of why I'm starting this blog.
My hope is to write on this blog at least once in a week. If I don't make a commitment, I'll never do it. So that's my commitment. Once in a week--a week consisting of Sunday through Saturday. So if I did Sunday of one week but Saturday of the next, it would be almost two weeks, but it would still be once in a week.
Some of them might resemble my memory posts on my main blog, but some may not. Some may just be short, random memories. Some of them may follow a particular theme. And I may use supplementary materials--journals, newspapers, calendars, etc.--to supplement my memories and to remind me of things.
To start off this blog, I'm going to remember times when people told me I had a good memory. This isn't all such incidents, but some noteworthy ones.
Above I mentioned David Christensen sending me a message about that article. He told me he thought I might be the thirteenth person with that kind of memory. I messaged him back saying I didn't think so, but I thanked him for the article. This week I saw him at church (we were both up for Mother's Day) and he brought it up again. He said he was amazed at all the details I remember, especially how far back they go. Then he started telling me about learning about an ancient Greek technique about memory. When I mentioned the possibility of starting this blog on my other blog, a mission companion, "Elder" Bramall, gave me a URL to a video about that very technique. I started watching it, but I don't have the attention span to watch the whole thing. I probably will eventually.
Later that day, my cousins were over for Mother's Day. Jesse asked me what my blog topic was going to be, and I said I didn't know. I mentioned the possibility of starting this blog, and Peter and Jesse both seemed to like the idea. Peter said he wanted to know how far back I remember and wondered if I remember my birth, saying I might say, "There was a cord attached to me..." Jesse referred to my post about the holidays of the past year. He said he was impressed that not only did I remember the Facebook status I posted on the Fourth of July, I remembered the ads that came up and the name of my Facebook friend who liked them. I tend not to think my memory is really that great, so I said, "It was less than a year ago." So Peter and Jesse tried to remember what they did on the Fourth of July. They said they remembered they were in Wisconsin--but then they realized that wasn't true. After some discussion, they determined they were in Utah on the Fourth of July, and they said they were glad they finally figured out what state they were in. My aunt Sue went outside where my parents and grandparents were sitting and relayed the funny conversation that had just occurred among us.
Another comment about my memory came in response to the same post mentioned above. It was April 29. I was at church and had just finished setting up chairs for sacrament meeting. I was standing by the hymn cart when someone in my ward, Krista Roy, told me she had read my blog and it blew her mind. I was kind of surprised she read my blog, since I'm not Facebook friends with her. I thought maybe she was referring to my writing style (because I'm conceited like that), but then she said she was surprised at all the details I remembered. She thanked me for remembering so much.
Some girls have told me I had a good memory when I remembered when one of them was entering the MTC and when I remembered that the other one had a British convert who was in love with her.
My roommate Bryton has told me on a few occasions that I have a good memory. He came home one day and I was wearing my blue plaid shorts. He told me he liked my shorts and said he needed to get some fashionable shorts. I told him that my shorts were the first shorts I got after being home from my mission. I did a quick calculation and told him I got them on April 2, 2010. That's when he told me I have a good memory. I told him I just remembered that it was the Friday before general conference.
Another instance occurred on February 6. That was the night that I went to Shopko and bought some heart LED lights and some red, pink, and white Jujyfruits (on my way to and from the store, the radio played Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain," Colbie Caillat's "Brighter than the Sun," and Christina Perri's "A Thousand Years"). It was also the same day we got a new used oven. At around 9:30 p.m., Bryton asked me if I wanted to go running with him. I hadn't gone that day (and wasn't planning on it), so I said yes. I checked the temperature. It was in the low 30s, so I decided to wear pants (instead of shorts) but not a jacket over my green shirt. Just before we were leaving, my roommate Ammon had to ask Bryton something. We left and Bryton told me I could set the pace, but shortly he told me I was too fast. We were running south on 900 East when I told him that I hadn't gone running with someone else since November 27, 2010. He said, "2010? Wow, you have a good memory." We ran past some guy who seemed scared by us, we talked about Josh Powell and another murder, and we dropped off something at Bryton's cousin's mailbox. On our run back Bryton saw suspicious activity in a car and he talked about how he had to exercise for cheaper insurance. We went by an apartment complex and I told Bryton that I had to park there once the previous year, and that on April 1 (2011) I had to carry a bottle of Gatorade from my apartment all the way to my car, and that I passed an apartment where they were playing Rebecca Black's "Friday." I was shocked when he said he didn't know what that was, but I did determine he did actually know what it was.
I think it was fall of 2010 when my parents decided to get a new mirror for my bathroom. We had two mirrors in there, and they were getting rid of the second one because it was in bad shape. I said that I remembered when they put up the second mirror. My mom said that we had both mirrors up in the bathroom when we moved in when I was two. I said that was not the case because I was in third grade when we put it up; it was the same night that there was a school event where they had a telescope to look at the comet. My mom seemed unconvinced but said she had learned not to doubt my memory. (I actually think that we didn't look at the comet in the telescope--we were supposed to but we looked at the moon instead.)
On my mission, after my nephew Franklin was born, I sent an email to my brother saying that I remembered that Allie first spun in circles on December 3, 2004, and that Preston first spun in circles on November 27, 2005, so I wanted to keep track of when Franklin would spin. David responded and said, "Ya-ping wants one third of your memory."
One summer day when I was six, my family went river rafting with my uncle Paul and left me with my aunt Sue. I think this was the time that my cousin Joey and I put water in the sandbox and convinced ourselves we were in quicksand. After we got cleaned up, we were in my aunt's van with a young girl, Whitney, from across the street. Whitney looked at the sky and said excitedly, "An airplane!" and my cousin Chancey said sarcastically, "Wow." There was also a box of Chicken in a Biskit crackers in the van, but at that time I thought they were called Chicken in a Basket. After all these adventures, it was quite late--it was after 9:00 and it was getting dark, and my family still wasn't there. I started saying things like they had forgotten me or that they had died. I knew that wasn't true, but Sue kind of acted like I thought they were. After my family finally arrived, they started talking all about their trip and their funny river guide named Hilary. Months (or years) later, my brother was recalling that trip and that river guide. He said, "I think her name was Tiffany." I said, "It was Hilary." My mom said, "He's right," and ever after that, David used that as evidence of my memory. Once he was telling his friend Heather that I had a good memory, that I remembered the name of the river guide and I wasn't even there. On another occasion he asked me the river guide's name as an illustration of my memory.
So, yeah. This is the kind of thing I'm going to be writing on this blog.
Whether or not it's true, I have a perception that most people don't really like to read those, and therefore that those posts might jeopardize my readership. But I like to write them, and I know that some family members (and maybe some others) like to read them. My friend David Christensen sent me a link to an article about memory. He said he thought of my memory posts when he read it. The article says that once you start remembering things, it can help you remember more. So that's part of why I'm starting this blog.
My hope is to write on this blog at least once in a week. If I don't make a commitment, I'll never do it. So that's my commitment. Once in a week--a week consisting of Sunday through Saturday. So if I did Sunday of one week but Saturday of the next, it would be almost two weeks, but it would still be once in a week.
Some of them might resemble my memory posts on my main blog, but some may not. Some may just be short, random memories. Some of them may follow a particular theme. And I may use supplementary materials--journals, newspapers, calendars, etc.--to supplement my memories and to remind me of things.
To start off this blog, I'm going to remember times when people told me I had a good memory. This isn't all such incidents, but some noteworthy ones.
Above I mentioned David Christensen sending me a message about that article. He told me he thought I might be the thirteenth person with that kind of memory. I messaged him back saying I didn't think so, but I thanked him for the article. This week I saw him at church (we were both up for Mother's Day) and he brought it up again. He said he was amazed at all the details I remember, especially how far back they go. Then he started telling me about learning about an ancient Greek technique about memory. When I mentioned the possibility of starting this blog on my other blog, a mission companion, "Elder" Bramall, gave me a URL to a video about that very technique. I started watching it, but I don't have the attention span to watch the whole thing. I probably will eventually.
Later that day, my cousins were over for Mother's Day. Jesse asked me what my blog topic was going to be, and I said I didn't know. I mentioned the possibility of starting this blog, and Peter and Jesse both seemed to like the idea. Peter said he wanted to know how far back I remember and wondered if I remember my birth, saying I might say, "There was a cord attached to me..." Jesse referred to my post about the holidays of the past year. He said he was impressed that not only did I remember the Facebook status I posted on the Fourth of July, I remembered the ads that came up and the name of my Facebook friend who liked them. I tend not to think my memory is really that great, so I said, "It was less than a year ago." So Peter and Jesse tried to remember what they did on the Fourth of July. They said they remembered they were in Wisconsin--but then they realized that wasn't true. After some discussion, they determined they were in Utah on the Fourth of July, and they said they were glad they finally figured out what state they were in. My aunt Sue went outside where my parents and grandparents were sitting and relayed the funny conversation that had just occurred among us.
Another comment about my memory came in response to the same post mentioned above. It was April 29. I was at church and had just finished setting up chairs for sacrament meeting. I was standing by the hymn cart when someone in my ward, Krista Roy, told me she had read my blog and it blew her mind. I was kind of surprised she read my blog, since I'm not Facebook friends with her. I thought maybe she was referring to my writing style (because I'm conceited like that), but then she said she was surprised at all the details I remembered. She thanked me for remembering so much.
Some girls have told me I had a good memory when I remembered when one of them was entering the MTC and when I remembered that the other one had a British convert who was in love with her.
My roommate Bryton has told me on a few occasions that I have a good memory. He came home one day and I was wearing my blue plaid shorts. He told me he liked my shorts and said he needed to get some fashionable shorts. I told him that my shorts were the first shorts I got after being home from my mission. I did a quick calculation and told him I got them on April 2, 2010. That's when he told me I have a good memory. I told him I just remembered that it was the Friday before general conference.
Another instance occurred on February 6. That was the night that I went to Shopko and bought some heart LED lights and some red, pink, and white Jujyfruits (on my way to and from the store, the radio played Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain," Colbie Caillat's "Brighter than the Sun," and Christina Perri's "A Thousand Years"). It was also the same day we got a new used oven. At around 9:30 p.m., Bryton asked me if I wanted to go running with him. I hadn't gone that day (and wasn't planning on it), so I said yes. I checked the temperature. It was in the low 30s, so I decided to wear pants (instead of shorts) but not a jacket over my green shirt. Just before we were leaving, my roommate Ammon had to ask Bryton something. We left and Bryton told me I could set the pace, but shortly he told me I was too fast. We were running south on 900 East when I told him that I hadn't gone running with someone else since November 27, 2010. He said, "2010? Wow, you have a good memory." We ran past some guy who seemed scared by us, we talked about Josh Powell and another murder, and we dropped off something at Bryton's cousin's mailbox. On our run back Bryton saw suspicious activity in a car and he talked about how he had to exercise for cheaper insurance. We went by an apartment complex and I told Bryton that I had to park there once the previous year, and that on April 1 (2011) I had to carry a bottle of Gatorade from my apartment all the way to my car, and that I passed an apartment where they were playing Rebecca Black's "Friday." I was shocked when he said he didn't know what that was, but I did determine he did actually know what it was.
I think it was fall of 2010 when my parents decided to get a new mirror for my bathroom. We had two mirrors in there, and they were getting rid of the second one because it was in bad shape. I said that I remembered when they put up the second mirror. My mom said that we had both mirrors up in the bathroom when we moved in when I was two. I said that was not the case because I was in third grade when we put it up; it was the same night that there was a school event where they had a telescope to look at the comet. My mom seemed unconvinced but said she had learned not to doubt my memory. (I actually think that we didn't look at the comet in the telescope--we were supposed to but we looked at the moon instead.)
On my mission, after my nephew Franklin was born, I sent an email to my brother saying that I remembered that Allie first spun in circles on December 3, 2004, and that Preston first spun in circles on November 27, 2005, so I wanted to keep track of when Franklin would spin. David responded and said, "Ya-ping wants one third of your memory."
One summer day when I was six, my family went river rafting with my uncle Paul and left me with my aunt Sue. I think this was the time that my cousin Joey and I put water in the sandbox and convinced ourselves we were in quicksand. After we got cleaned up, we were in my aunt's van with a young girl, Whitney, from across the street. Whitney looked at the sky and said excitedly, "An airplane!" and my cousin Chancey said sarcastically, "Wow." There was also a box of Chicken in a Biskit crackers in the van, but at that time I thought they were called Chicken in a Basket. After all these adventures, it was quite late--it was after 9:00 and it was getting dark, and my family still wasn't there. I started saying things like they had forgotten me or that they had died. I knew that wasn't true, but Sue kind of acted like I thought they were. After my family finally arrived, they started talking all about their trip and their funny river guide named Hilary. Months (or years) later, my brother was recalling that trip and that river guide. He said, "I think her name was Tiffany." I said, "It was Hilary." My mom said, "He's right," and ever after that, David used that as evidence of my memory. Once he was telling his friend Heather that I had a good memory, that I remembered the name of the river guide and I wasn't even there. On another occasion he asked me the river guide's name as an illustration of my memory.
So, yeah. This is the kind of thing I'm going to be writing on this blog.
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