When I was a kid in the early 1990s, my aunt had a maroon van. I saw and rode in that van many times, so it has a moderate presence in my childhood memories. I always knew when my cousins had arrived at our house because I could hear it moaning up the driveway.
I always thought it was really cool because it had lots of little pockets and things where you could store things. It also had a means to control the radio from the first row of backseats. I remember my cousin Joey annoying his mom by switching the radio to rock 'n' roll instead of whatever she was listening to.
I remember going to a Saver's store when I was four or five (I always thought of Lifesavers when I heard of Saver's), and on that same day I got a watch that came with a stick full of candy. It was very rainy that day.
On another occasion, I remember singing along with Billy Joel on the radio (of course, I had no idea who was singing): "In the middle of the night, I go walking in my street." My cousin Jesse corrected me: "Sleep!" In fact, when I hear early 90s music, I often think of this van.
One time (I was probably about six) my aunt drove me to the zoo, and when we got there, my cousin Peter threw up on the sidewalk in front of the van, so my aunt had to tell the person when we got our tickets that he had thrown up in front of the "maroon van." That was the first time I heard it called that. (It may have been the first time I ever heard the word "maroon.") When we got done for the day, we saw a wet spot in front of the van where Peter had thrown up.
Then I think I was probably seven or so when my mom got a call that they had been in a wreck. I was jealous that my cousins got to be in a car wreck, since I had never been in one.
Showing posts with label 1993. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1993. Show all posts
Saturday, June 13, 2015
Friday, February 27, 2015
Melville family pets
In this post, I'm not going to try to remember everything, but I will try to remember all the pets my family has had while I've been alive.
We had some guinea pigs, but family lore tells me one died because I dropped it. It seems that one was white and brown. I remember my dad burying some brown ones and him insinuating my cousin Jesse had contributed to their deaths. But I can't have been older than four, so who knows if that really happened.
We had a fishtank and we had plecostomuses, sucker fish. Because they are ugly, my family named them Homer, after Homer Simpson, and I think we had several Homers: Homer 1, Homer 2, etc. But then one day that fishtank cracked, so we had to transport the fish to bowls and my aunt came and took them.
One Christmas, probably in 1993 but maybe 1992, my brother got an iguana for Christmas and named it Lizzie. But a few days later it died. That was one of the rare times I saw my brother cry.
Soon after that, however, my parents got him a snake. It was an albino corn snake, so David named it Al. He used to play with Al all the time, and he even measured its length on the closet door where my family measured our growth. (My family got rid of that door. :( ) After a while, though, he quit playing with it as much, and it became less tame. That made it a problem when it would sometimes escape and he had to catch it. We used to go to the pet store to buy pinkie mice to feed it. We eventually gave it to my uncle's wife.
Around this same time, circa 1993, my aunt got a blue budgie bird that she intended to give to my cousins for Christmas, and we kept it at our house, but my family became attached to it and kept it. We named it Tweeters, Tweets for short.
In 1994 (I think), David got another bird, I think for his birthday. This bird was a cockatiel, named Spike for the stick-up feathers on its head. David often called her Spoy or Shpoy. David really wanted a dog, so Spike became his pseudo-dog. At one time we got bird food that looked like dog food. David taught it to bark, wolf whistle, and say "Pretty bird." It would often look in its mirror and go, "Pretty bird. Pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty bird." We tried to teach it to whistle the Andy Griffith Show theme--it got the first notes right, but then it did its own thing. One peculiar trait it had was to put its head in its toy bell, grab the dinger with its beak, and shriek as loud as it could. This was loud to us, so we can only imagine what it was like for her! (Sorry I keep switching pronouns for the bird.) If she would see someone nodding, she would nod too. I used to run around the living room and spin my arms in circles, and that would make her nod too. Sometimes Spike would have night terrors and would thrash around in the cage, leaving bird blood splattered on the cage and walls.
When we would get the two birds out, Tweeters was a little more defensive and aggressive, even though she was the smaller bird. David cut out pieces of cloth to put on his shoulders to keep his clothes clean. Sometimes he would take the birds (at least Spike) into the shower with him, although I don't think they sat on his shoulder but on his finger. David left on his mission and later moved away again, and since birds are messy, we didn't get them out often, and they got less tame. Tweets died just before Thanksgiving in 2003. In 2007, my sister was diagnosed with some disease that was aggravated by birds, so we had to give Spike away.
In 1995 or so, our neighbors across the street, the Reeds, gave us a hamster. I think one morning David found it in a plant holder. Shortly after that, we found it had escaped again and died, probably from eating mouse poison.
For my birthday in 1994, we got a new fishtank, and over the years, we had lots and lots of fish. I was particularly fond of the see-through glass fish, and I liked the crabs we had that used to escape. (I once wrote a post all about the crabs.)
We had a few notable fish. When I was in first grade, we had orange fish in which the males had sword tails, and on one occasion we bought both a male and a female, and soon the female was pregnant, and shortly thereafter there were lots of tiny orange dots in the fishtank. The other fish, including the parents, tried to eat the babies, but one hid in our decorative rocks. We captured it and took it to my aunt's house so it could be safe until it was fully grown. I named it Pumpkin and it lived to adulthood.
In college, David became a biologist and worked with zebrafish. In one lab in 2000 (I think), he injected chemicals into sets of 100 zebrafish, and in one of those sets, two fish survived while all others died. I don't know if they survived because they were superfish, or if they were superfish because of the chemicals, but these were super hardy fish. David named them Ishmael and Queequeg, characters in Moby Dick. They lived for more than four years, maybe even as long as six years. Not only did they live a long time, they lived in harsh environments. My mom took the aquarium to school, and the kids accidentally turned up the heat, killing all the fish except for the zebrafish. We weren't the most responsible at cleaning the tank, and sometimes it became super gross and all the fish died except the zebrafish.
And then there are our cats. In 2001, my sister and her roommates got a cat, Cleo, and we watched it for a few weeks. After that, I really wanted a cat. My mom's friend's cat had kittens on July 16, 2001, so we got one, a black and white cat with a black "mustache." I named it Dinah, after Alice (in Wonderland)'s cat. Dinah was hilarious but mean. She would sometimes bite me and even drew blood. She liked to attack my feet. As she got older, she got tamer.
Unfortunately, after we had had her for just over a year, in September or October 2002, she disappeared. We don't know what happened to her, although my dad saw a raccoon in our yard the night she disappeared. We went to the pound, but she wasn't there.
But I wanted to get a replacement cat. We were going to Taiwan in November 2002, so I asked my maternal grandparents if they would watch a new cat while we were gone. They agreed, so in October we went to the pound and got a grey kitten, which we named Jenny. More than twelve years later, Jenny is still alive and well. And what a strange cat she is. Soon after we got her, my paternal grandparents came for a visit, and Jenny loved rubbing against Grandma Judy's white leather shoes. To this day, she likes to rub against feet, more than she likes to be petted by hands. My dad won't let her be fed inside the house because she tends to throw up. She's picky about her litter box. She isn't particularly loving, hisses at kids, and likes to spill her water bowl. But she's a good mouser, and I like having her.
We had some guinea pigs, but family lore tells me one died because I dropped it. It seems that one was white and brown. I remember my dad burying some brown ones and him insinuating my cousin Jesse had contributed to their deaths. But I can't have been older than four, so who knows if that really happened.
We had a fishtank and we had plecostomuses, sucker fish. Because they are ugly, my family named them Homer, after Homer Simpson, and I think we had several Homers: Homer 1, Homer 2, etc. But then one day that fishtank cracked, so we had to transport the fish to bowls and my aunt came and took them.
One Christmas, probably in 1993 but maybe 1992, my brother got an iguana for Christmas and named it Lizzie. But a few days later it died. That was one of the rare times I saw my brother cry.
Soon after that, however, my parents got him a snake. It was an albino corn snake, so David named it Al. He used to play with Al all the time, and he even measured its length on the closet door where my family measured our growth. (My family got rid of that door. :( ) After a while, though, he quit playing with it as much, and it became less tame. That made it a problem when it would sometimes escape and he had to catch it. We used to go to the pet store to buy pinkie mice to feed it. We eventually gave it to my uncle's wife.
Around this same time, circa 1993, my aunt got a blue budgie bird that she intended to give to my cousins for Christmas, and we kept it at our house, but my family became attached to it and kept it. We named it Tweeters, Tweets for short.
In 1994 (I think), David got another bird, I think for his birthday. This bird was a cockatiel, named Spike for the stick-up feathers on its head. David often called her Spoy or Shpoy. David really wanted a dog, so Spike became his pseudo-dog. At one time we got bird food that looked like dog food. David taught it to bark, wolf whistle, and say "Pretty bird." It would often look in its mirror and go, "Pretty bird. Pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty bird." We tried to teach it to whistle the Andy Griffith Show theme--it got the first notes right, but then it did its own thing. One peculiar trait it had was to put its head in its toy bell, grab the dinger with its beak, and shriek as loud as it could. This was loud to us, so we can only imagine what it was like for her! (Sorry I keep switching pronouns for the bird.) If she would see someone nodding, she would nod too. I used to run around the living room and spin my arms in circles, and that would make her nod too. Sometimes Spike would have night terrors and would thrash around in the cage, leaving bird blood splattered on the cage and walls.
When we would get the two birds out, Tweeters was a little more defensive and aggressive, even though she was the smaller bird. David cut out pieces of cloth to put on his shoulders to keep his clothes clean. Sometimes he would take the birds (at least Spike) into the shower with him, although I don't think they sat on his shoulder but on his finger. David left on his mission and later moved away again, and since birds are messy, we didn't get them out often, and they got less tame. Tweets died just before Thanksgiving in 2003. In 2007, my sister was diagnosed with some disease that was aggravated by birds, so we had to give Spike away.
In 1995 or so, our neighbors across the street, the Reeds, gave us a hamster. I think one morning David found it in a plant holder. Shortly after that, we found it had escaped again and died, probably from eating mouse poison.
For my birthday in 1994, we got a new fishtank, and over the years, we had lots and lots of fish. I was particularly fond of the see-through glass fish, and I liked the crabs we had that used to escape. (I once wrote a post all about the crabs.)
We had a few notable fish. When I was in first grade, we had orange fish in which the males had sword tails, and on one occasion we bought both a male and a female, and soon the female was pregnant, and shortly thereafter there were lots of tiny orange dots in the fishtank. The other fish, including the parents, tried to eat the babies, but one hid in our decorative rocks. We captured it and took it to my aunt's house so it could be safe until it was fully grown. I named it Pumpkin and it lived to adulthood.
In college, David became a biologist and worked with zebrafish. In one lab in 2000 (I think), he injected chemicals into sets of 100 zebrafish, and in one of those sets, two fish survived while all others died. I don't know if they survived because they were superfish, or if they were superfish because of the chemicals, but these were super hardy fish. David named them Ishmael and Queequeg, characters in Moby Dick. They lived for more than four years, maybe even as long as six years. Not only did they live a long time, they lived in harsh environments. My mom took the aquarium to school, and the kids accidentally turned up the heat, killing all the fish except for the zebrafish. We weren't the most responsible at cleaning the tank, and sometimes it became super gross and all the fish died except the zebrafish.
And then there are our cats. In 2001, my sister and her roommates got a cat, Cleo, and we watched it for a few weeks. After that, I really wanted a cat. My mom's friend's cat had kittens on July 16, 2001, so we got one, a black and white cat with a black "mustache." I named it Dinah, after Alice (in Wonderland)'s cat. Dinah was hilarious but mean. She would sometimes bite me and even drew blood. She liked to attack my feet. As she got older, she got tamer.
Unfortunately, after we had had her for just over a year, in September or October 2002, she disappeared. We don't know what happened to her, although my dad saw a raccoon in our yard the night she disappeared. We went to the pound, but she wasn't there.
But I wanted to get a replacement cat. We were going to Taiwan in November 2002, so I asked my maternal grandparents if they would watch a new cat while we were gone. They agreed, so in October we went to the pound and got a grey kitten, which we named Jenny. More than twelve years later, Jenny is still alive and well. And what a strange cat she is. Soon after we got her, my paternal grandparents came for a visit, and Jenny loved rubbing against Grandma Judy's white leather shoes. To this day, she likes to rub against feet, more than she likes to be petted by hands. My dad won't let her be fed inside the house because she tends to throw up. She's picky about her litter box. She isn't particularly loving, hisses at kids, and likes to spill her water bowl. But she's a good mouser, and I like having her.
Friday, January 30, 2015
Childhood imaginings
When I was a kid, like most kids, I liked to imagine things. So I'm going to remember the things I imagined when I was five and younger.
When I was a very small kid, my dad would put me in a backpack and go jogging with me. (I know, right?!) I remember hearing birds (I don't know what kind) and I imagined they were saying, "Big Bird!" (I was a Sesame Street watcher.)
I also remember sitting in my bedroom, hearing the train at the bottom of the hill, looking at my toys. I had a package of Pull-Ups in my room, and I imagined going in the picture on the package and playing with the kids. (I think I liked the idea of not wearing any pants.)
One of my bath toys was a little man who could sit in a little boat. I think this was it:
For some reason, I got this image of the man with a string through him, and I imagined him going back and forth along the string. I have no idea where I got that image, but I liked to run back and forth down the hall, imagining I was the man on a string.
Our side and backyard have some interesting structures made with rocks. Our patio has seats made of rocks, and our backyard has four rock steps that lead to a higher level of the yard. I liked to pretend that the yard was my house, and my house was upside down, because you went up the steps to go to my downstairs.
We have a rowing machine that had a black rectangular pad on it. It was covered with specks of white, so I imagined the specks were stars and it was a TV screen showing The Jetsons. And then since I imagined it was showing that show, I then imagined it showing other shows too, and I imagined I had lots of tapes of different shows I could watch, including the Vicki talk show I used to watch with my sister.
I remember being in the living room and seeing the sun shine on the specks of dust in the air. I imagined they were snowflakes and I was out in the snow.
We had a large black umbrella, and I liked to get it out of the closet, open it up, place it in the sun in the window, and pretend I was at the beach.
There is one incident of imagining that I don't really remember. I do remember sitting in the living room and seeing the pillows on our couch. But I don't remember doing what I did after that. Apparently, I was pretending I was baking cakes, and I imagined the pillows were cakes. So what do you do with cakes? You put them in the oven. So that's what I did. And then later my mom came and started the oven, not knowing that I had been "baking."
When I was a very small kid, my dad would put me in a backpack and go jogging with me. (I know, right?!) I remember hearing birds (I don't know what kind) and I imagined they were saying, "Big Bird!" (I was a Sesame Street watcher.)
I also remember sitting in my bedroom, hearing the train at the bottom of the hill, looking at my toys. I had a package of Pull-Ups in my room, and I imagined going in the picture on the package and playing with the kids. (I think I liked the idea of not wearing any pants.)
One of my bath toys was a little man who could sit in a little boat. I think this was it:
For some reason, I got this image of the man with a string through him, and I imagined him going back and forth along the string. I have no idea where I got that image, but I liked to run back and forth down the hall, imagining I was the man on a string.Our side and backyard have some interesting structures made with rocks. Our patio has seats made of rocks, and our backyard has four rock steps that lead to a higher level of the yard. I liked to pretend that the yard was my house, and my house was upside down, because you went up the steps to go to my downstairs.
We have a rowing machine that had a black rectangular pad on it. It was covered with specks of white, so I imagined the specks were stars and it was a TV screen showing The Jetsons. And then since I imagined it was showing that show, I then imagined it showing other shows too, and I imagined I had lots of tapes of different shows I could watch, including the Vicki talk show I used to watch with my sister.
I remember being in the living room and seeing the sun shine on the specks of dust in the air. I imagined they were snowflakes and I was out in the snow.
We had a large black umbrella, and I liked to get it out of the closet, open it up, place it in the sun in the window, and pretend I was at the beach.
There is one incident of imagining that I don't really remember. I do remember sitting in the living room and seeing the pillows on our couch. But I don't remember doing what I did after that. Apparently, I was pretending I was baking cakes, and I imagined the pillows were cakes. So what do you do with cakes? You put them in the oven. So that's what I did. And then later my mom came and started the oven, not knowing that I had been "baking."
Saturday, December 20, 2014
Early Christmastime memories
In this blog, I will try to remember some of my earliest Christmas-associated memories. I'm going to try to stick to memories that happened before I entered elementary school--meaning I was five or younger.
(I was going to post this last week, but I forgot. It was the first week I missed posting on this blog. But that's OK, because this isn't my priority blog.)
I remember a visit to Temple Square with my cousins and grandparents. Some of the lights had little flowery coverings surrounding the lights--I think that was a 90s thing. I remember walking up the ramp to see the Christus statue and being fascinated with the planets on the mural. I think it was this same trip when I remember driving home in my grandparents' van, and there was a plate of Christmas sugar cookies.
I can remember looking out the window in our living room overlooking our driveway and watching my family bring in our Christmas tree.
I can remember making a homemade garland with cranberries, and I think my cousin Tammy was there; the next year I wondered where it was when we got out our decorations.
Once in preschool, we went to an old folks home and danced, I think the Mexican Hat Dance. Afterwards, they gave us those red suckers with white powder on them. Then I went to the Festival of Trees (I can't remember whether it was with them or with my family) and they had giant plastic suckers like the ones we had gotten. (I'm not sure whether the decorations were meant to look like those suckers, but I thought they did.)
Perhaps that same year, I also went to the Festival of Trees with my family and got an anthropomorphic Christmas tree filled with candy. My brother got a snake with 24 pieces of candy so you could eat one a day until Christmas. We came home and caught the tail end of a cartoon about the Twelve Days of Christmas, and then my cousins had to go home. I think that the adults said, "It's over" when it was at a commercial break, but we kids didn't believe them. But when the commercial break was over, it was only the credits, so they had been right.
I liked to watch my Christmas Sing-Along, and I remember asking my dad when Christmas was, in part because I wanted to watch it.
One time I went to my friend David Christensen's house, and his dad had drawn a picture of a stick of holly, a present, and a candle. We were impressed with how he had drawn the holly leaves. So I decided that I wanted to draw one myself. So I lay down on the kitchen floor with my crayons and drew the picture. I couldn't draw the points on the holly leaves, so they were just regular leaves. I figured it didn't matter what color the present was, so it had pink ribbon. My mom was very impressed.
One time I was playing with our neighbor, Taryn Pay, on the day we were bringing out our Christmas decorations. She found two wreaths, one made out of cloth and one made out of twigs. She suggested we put the wreaths around our faces and walk around like that. I was annoyed that she kept the cloth wreath and made me use the scratchy one.
I remember getting in our car one December and driving down the hill. The stars were literally twinkling in the sky in a flashy cartoony manner. I'm pretty sure this was a dream.
My sister was tutored by Coach Wangsguard from South Davis Junior High when I was just a little kid. One time during tutoring, my mom and I went outside and played in the snow. One of us threw a snowball at the window. When we went inside, Wangs said she had said, "Who threw that snowball?" We had a puzzle-piece reindeer on our fireplace, and Wangs asked me what its name was. I said it was Rudolph, and she said, "It can't be Rudolph if it doesn't have a red nose!"
I remember hearing "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" on the radio a few days after Christmas, and I wondered why they were playing a Christmas song after Christmas, but I think I deduced it was because Christmas was over and the song was only relevant after Christmas (because it was past tense).
I loved playing with our plastic nativity, and one angel for a long time was separated from the rest of the nativity.
My mom made little Christmas mice that held candy canes in them as the tail. I remember being at my grandparents' office in their old house with my cousin April and there were leftover candy cane mice.
My grandparents had a garland with musical bells in it. I loved hearing it, and I fell in love with "The Little Drummer Boy." I thought the "rum pum pum pum" was hilarious.
We had a little paper with flaps that described Santa Claus traditions in other countries. That paper made me think of Santa Claus differently than most people. When I heard people say that Santa Claus went around the world in one night, I thought they were wrong. Our Santa Claus only had to travel across America. Other countries had their own Santa (Father Christmas, Père Noël, etc.). If you ask me, that makes a little more sense than there being only one Santa for the whole world.
(I was going to post this last week, but I forgot. It was the first week I missed posting on this blog. But that's OK, because this isn't my priority blog.)
I remember a visit to Temple Square with my cousins and grandparents. Some of the lights had little flowery coverings surrounding the lights--I think that was a 90s thing. I remember walking up the ramp to see the Christus statue and being fascinated with the planets on the mural. I think it was this same trip when I remember driving home in my grandparents' van, and there was a plate of Christmas sugar cookies.
I can remember looking out the window in our living room overlooking our driveway and watching my family bring in our Christmas tree.
I can remember making a homemade garland with cranberries, and I think my cousin Tammy was there; the next year I wondered where it was when we got out our decorations.
Once in preschool, we went to an old folks home and danced, I think the Mexican Hat Dance. Afterwards, they gave us those red suckers with white powder on them. Then I went to the Festival of Trees (I can't remember whether it was with them or with my family) and they had giant plastic suckers like the ones we had gotten. (I'm not sure whether the decorations were meant to look like those suckers, but I thought they did.)
Perhaps that same year, I also went to the Festival of Trees with my family and got an anthropomorphic Christmas tree filled with candy. My brother got a snake with 24 pieces of candy so you could eat one a day until Christmas. We came home and caught the tail end of a cartoon about the Twelve Days of Christmas, and then my cousins had to go home. I think that the adults said, "It's over" when it was at a commercial break, but we kids didn't believe them. But when the commercial break was over, it was only the credits, so they had been right.
I liked to watch my Christmas Sing-Along, and I remember asking my dad when Christmas was, in part because I wanted to watch it.
One time I went to my friend David Christensen's house, and his dad had drawn a picture of a stick of holly, a present, and a candle. We were impressed with how he had drawn the holly leaves. So I decided that I wanted to draw one myself. So I lay down on the kitchen floor with my crayons and drew the picture. I couldn't draw the points on the holly leaves, so they were just regular leaves. I figured it didn't matter what color the present was, so it had pink ribbon. My mom was very impressed.
One time I was playing with our neighbor, Taryn Pay, on the day we were bringing out our Christmas decorations. She found two wreaths, one made out of cloth and one made out of twigs. She suggested we put the wreaths around our faces and walk around like that. I was annoyed that she kept the cloth wreath and made me use the scratchy one.
I remember getting in our car one December and driving down the hill. The stars were literally twinkling in the sky in a flashy cartoony manner. I'm pretty sure this was a dream.
My sister was tutored by Coach Wangsguard from South Davis Junior High when I was just a little kid. One time during tutoring, my mom and I went outside and played in the snow. One of us threw a snowball at the window. When we went inside, Wangs said she had said, "Who threw that snowball?" We had a puzzle-piece reindeer on our fireplace, and Wangs asked me what its name was. I said it was Rudolph, and she said, "It can't be Rudolph if it doesn't have a red nose!"
I remember hearing "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" on the radio a few days after Christmas, and I wondered why they were playing a Christmas song after Christmas, but I think I deduced it was because Christmas was over and the song was only relevant after Christmas (because it was past tense).
I loved playing with our plastic nativity, and one angel for a long time was separated from the rest of the nativity.
My mom made little Christmas mice that held candy canes in them as the tail. I remember being at my grandparents' office in their old house with my cousin April and there were leftover candy cane mice.
My grandparents had a garland with musical bells in it. I loved hearing it, and I fell in love with "The Little Drummer Boy." I thought the "rum pum pum pum" was hilarious.
We had a little paper with flaps that described Santa Claus traditions in other countries. That paper made me think of Santa Claus differently than most people. When I heard people say that Santa Claus went around the world in one night, I thought they were wrong. Our Santa Claus only had to travel across America. Other countries had their own Santa (Father Christmas, Père Noël, etc.). If you ask me, that makes a little more sense than there being only one Santa for the whole world.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Halloween costumes
I'm going to remember all the Halloween costumes I've worn through the years. Usually I start from most recent and work back to the oldest, but this time I will do the opposite.
1989. Family pictures indicate that I was a panda bear. But obviously I don't remember that, since I was only one.
1990. Again, family pictures indicate that I was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, but I don't remember what one. Just today, I was thinking how TMNT was a sizeable part of my childhood, even though I remember hardly anything about it now.
1991. My mom insists that I was a green butterfly, but I don't remember it.
1992 or 1993. One of these years, I was a ladybug. I remember one kid saying, "A little ladybug!" and I was offended because I thought he was making fun of me. My mom told me he wasn't.
1994. I was Santa Claus, but my beard didn't look good. I had pillows to make me fat. I had a purple arm cast, so some kids told me I should say that I fell out of my sleigh and broke my arm. I loved to wear that costume again at Christmas.
1995. I was a mummy, so when we went to Boo at the Zoo, I wanted my face painted with a mummy on it. During my school's costume parade, I held my arms out in front of me the whole time, so when we went outside and no one was watching us, I was relieved to put my arms down.
1996. I was a grim reaper in a felt costume my mom had made. I think my face was painted white; my robe was black with red trim. I carried around a little plastic scythe. I don't know how I managed that in elementary school; they probably wouldn't allow that today.
1997. I was a jack-o-lantern, with leaves on my shoulders and orange and black curly vine things. I put pillows in the orange shirt to round it out. I remember my cousin Peter walking around in it, and the pillows dragged the shirt down and stretched it out.
1998. I was obsessed with the Wallace and Gromit shows, so I was Wallace, with a bald cap, a green sweater vest and red tie, and a stuffed dog that I carried around with me. Seeing the bald and the dog, someone thought I was Charlie Brown, but Ann Palmer, who was standing next to her, recognized me as Wallace. A few people knew who I was.
1999. Oh boy. I've always been a nerd, and in fifth grade I was especially nerdy, having a fascination with chess, even though I was horrible at it. I decided I wanted to be a chess piece, so I decided on a white king--a white robe, white face paint, and a white cross on my head. I doubt anyone knew I was a chess piece. They either thought I was a religious nut or a member of the KKK. I'm glad I didn't get arrested.
2000. Taking the idea from someone mistaking my costume two years earlier, and with my fairly new-found interest in Peanuts, it was only natural that I be Charlie Brown. I wore a baseball cap (because I didn't want a bald cap) and his shirt (which my mom had made), and carried around Snoopy, who had been Gromit two years earlier. (He really looked more like Snoopy than like Gromit.)
2001. Since I no longer went trick-or-treating, and my school had uniforms, there was no point in dressing up.
2002. Since my family was going to be out of the country on Halloween night, I decided not to celebrate Halloween that year, which was probably a bit silly.
2003. I didn't have much opportunity to wear it, but I wore a Charlie Brown ghost costume. You know, with all the holes in it.
2004. During the spring, during South Davis Junior High's spirit week, my mom had constructed a Fred Flintstone costume for decade day, so I wore that for Halloween.
2005. I think I wore the Flintstone costume to the mutual party, but when I took Allie trick-or-treating, I was a traditional ghost (with only two eyeholes).
2006. I was a vampire, with a suit, a medallion, and a beautiful cape.
2007. I was a vampire again, but I think I had some enhancements. I painted my nails black, and I had a red and black bowtie.
2008. Elder Love and I wore identical ties, and I switched our name tags, so we were each other for Halloween. Only at district meeting, though.
2009. Nothing.
2010. I was a vampire yet again--but this time, I had teeth to go with the costume.
2011. A vampire again, but this time I was younger. I first wore my costume to a Halloween 5k, with red athletic shorts and a scary red-and-black skull shirt, with a cheaper red and black cape. I wore red shoes on Halloween.
2012. I only dressed up one day, and I wore the same simple vampire costume, but with red regular shorts instead of athletic shorts.
2013. You guessed it. A vampire, but with no cape. At a Halloween party, I got my face painted rather scarily.
I like my vampire costume, but it's time to move on.
1989. Family pictures indicate that I was a panda bear. But obviously I don't remember that, since I was only one.
1990. Again, family pictures indicate that I was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, but I don't remember what one. Just today, I was thinking how TMNT was a sizeable part of my childhood, even though I remember hardly anything about it now.
1991. My mom insists that I was a green butterfly, but I don't remember it.
1992 or 1993. One of these years, I was a ladybug. I remember one kid saying, "A little ladybug!" and I was offended because I thought he was making fun of me. My mom told me he wasn't.
1994. I was Santa Claus, but my beard didn't look good. I had pillows to make me fat. I had a purple arm cast, so some kids told me I should say that I fell out of my sleigh and broke my arm. I loved to wear that costume again at Christmas.
1995. I was a mummy, so when we went to Boo at the Zoo, I wanted my face painted with a mummy on it. During my school's costume parade, I held my arms out in front of me the whole time, so when we went outside and no one was watching us, I was relieved to put my arms down.
1996. I was a grim reaper in a felt costume my mom had made. I think my face was painted white; my robe was black with red trim. I carried around a little plastic scythe. I don't know how I managed that in elementary school; they probably wouldn't allow that today.
1997. I was a jack-o-lantern, with leaves on my shoulders and orange and black curly vine things. I put pillows in the orange shirt to round it out. I remember my cousin Peter walking around in it, and the pillows dragged the shirt down and stretched it out.
1998. I was obsessed with the Wallace and Gromit shows, so I was Wallace, with a bald cap, a green sweater vest and red tie, and a stuffed dog that I carried around with me. Seeing the bald and the dog, someone thought I was Charlie Brown, but Ann Palmer, who was standing next to her, recognized me as Wallace. A few people knew who I was.
1999. Oh boy. I've always been a nerd, and in fifth grade I was especially nerdy, having a fascination with chess, even though I was horrible at it. I decided I wanted to be a chess piece, so I decided on a white king--a white robe, white face paint, and a white cross on my head. I doubt anyone knew I was a chess piece. They either thought I was a religious nut or a member of the KKK. I'm glad I didn't get arrested.
2000. Taking the idea from someone mistaking my costume two years earlier, and with my fairly new-found interest in Peanuts, it was only natural that I be Charlie Brown. I wore a baseball cap (because I didn't want a bald cap) and his shirt (which my mom had made), and carried around Snoopy, who had been Gromit two years earlier. (He really looked more like Snoopy than like Gromit.)
2001. Since I no longer went trick-or-treating, and my school had uniforms, there was no point in dressing up.
2002. Since my family was going to be out of the country on Halloween night, I decided not to celebrate Halloween that year, which was probably a bit silly.
2003. I didn't have much opportunity to wear it, but I wore a Charlie Brown ghost costume. You know, with all the holes in it.
2004. During the spring, during South Davis Junior High's spirit week, my mom had constructed a Fred Flintstone costume for decade day, so I wore that for Halloween.
2005. I think I wore the Flintstone costume to the mutual party, but when I took Allie trick-or-treating, I was a traditional ghost (with only two eyeholes).
2006. I was a vampire, with a suit, a medallion, and a beautiful cape.
2007. I was a vampire again, but I think I had some enhancements. I painted my nails black, and I had a red and black bowtie.
2008. Elder Love and I wore identical ties, and I switched our name tags, so we were each other for Halloween. Only at district meeting, though.
2009. Nothing.
2010. I was a vampire yet again--but this time, I had teeth to go with the costume.
2011. A vampire again, but this time I was younger. I first wore my costume to a Halloween 5k, with red athletic shorts and a scary red-and-black skull shirt, with a cheaper red and black cape. I wore red shoes on Halloween.
2012. I only dressed up one day, and I wore the same simple vampire costume, but with red regular shorts instead of athletic shorts.
2013. You guessed it. A vampire, but with no cape. At a Halloween party, I got my face painted rather scarily.
I like my vampire costume, but it's time to move on.
Sunday, October 12, 2014
October 26
I have now remembered the last five days of October--so now it's time for October 26.
2013. My roommate Jordan had a girl over to watch a movie. He asked if I was going to watch a Halloween movie, and indeed I was watching the original Frankenweenie. After Sparky got run over, the girl said, "That's terrible!"
2012. This might have been the time I went running and ended up getting caught in post-game pedestrian traffic, but it might have been a different day. I was in my apartment that night when my friends Alex, Kristen, and someone else (maybe Carissa) stopped by. They wanted to see if I wanted to go get ice cream with them (someplace was giving it for free). I didn't. I asked them if they wanted to watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, but they didn't. I showed them my new copy of Mapping Mormonism, which had my name in it.
2010. I'm sure I would have been working, and at the end of our shift we would have swept the floor.
2008. I don't really remember the day, except that I liked the Zellers' Halloween decorations, but here is my journal entry:
"Think of me, thou ransomed one,
Think what I for thee havedone.
"I like sacrament songs.
"At branch council they gave us the home teaching list, and want us to see a lot of them, so that may increase our work in this branch. At church Bailey Christensen talked to me, glad that I didn't tease her, saying other missionaries tease her because she's cute.
"After church we met with Donna Tysz, a less-active who wants to do right. Before her we met Jeanne Saunders, who is married to a Baptist, and has a very anti daughter. We're doing service for her this week.
"We had dinner with the Zellers, an active PMF, and talked to the Divineys."
2007. This was my last day working at Walmart. At one point in the day, I prepared rotisserie chickens (by smearing spices all over the raw chickens), and when I wrote the date on the plastic covering over the chicken cart, I think I wrote something like "goodbye," since I wouldn't be there anymore. My coworkers bought me a cake and wrote on it with frosting. I found some plastic silverware and cut the cake with a plastic knife, making a very messy cut. They also got me a very nice farewell card. After I was done with work, I was doing shopping. I got a pumpkin and some mint Oreos. I walked near the bakery to get the rest of my cake, and my coworker Alice saw my cart and said, "Are you having a party?" While I was out shopping, my coworker Ursula came up to me because she hadn't gotten any cake. I wanted to tell that Sea Witch she couldn't have any because she was mean, but I let her have some. When I was checking out, I told the cashier that the cake was already paid for (it had the receipt on it), and she asked if it was my birthday. I told her it was my last day working there. When I got home, my family had rented The Blob and High School Musical by Top Hat Video.
2005. This might have been the day I went to our school's Trunk-or-Treat, but I didn't dress up. I sat with my French classmates. Nate Dopp had his old VW beetle, and we gave the candy out of the "trunk," and one girl was kind of freaked out: "What happened to the car's engine?!"
2004. I know this was a Trunk-or-Treat day. I was wearing my Fred Flintstone costume with a flesh-colored shirt underneath. I was wearing shorts underneath as well, and Susanne said David wouldn't have worn shorts underneath.
1996. I would have been at Boo at the Zoo in my Grim Reaper costume. I think we saw a woman with a barn owl--I recognized it as such before she told us. We kids got most of the candy, but David got a chocolate licorice rope that he started eating immediately. Then I realized that I didn't have to wait to eat my candy, since he wasn't waiting. This was probably the day where we went to my grandparents' house afterwards. It was a little cold--there had been snow at the zoo--so they had a fire going, and we talked about how the balloon couldn't get near the fire, or it would pop.
1993. I think this was the time David was getting his birthday presents, and he got one of those hanging ghosts that wails and shakes when it is touched or hears noise.
2013. My roommate Jordan had a girl over to watch a movie. He asked if I was going to watch a Halloween movie, and indeed I was watching the original Frankenweenie. After Sparky got run over, the girl said, "That's terrible!"
2012. This might have been the time I went running and ended up getting caught in post-game pedestrian traffic, but it might have been a different day. I was in my apartment that night when my friends Alex, Kristen, and someone else (maybe Carissa) stopped by. They wanted to see if I wanted to go get ice cream with them (someplace was giving it for free). I didn't. I asked them if they wanted to watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, but they didn't. I showed them my new copy of Mapping Mormonism, which had my name in it.
2010. I'm sure I would have been working, and at the end of our shift we would have swept the floor.
2008. I don't really remember the day, except that I liked the Zellers' Halloween decorations, but here is my journal entry:
"Think of me, thou ransomed one,
Think what I for thee havedone.
"I like sacrament songs.
"At branch council they gave us the home teaching list, and want us to see a lot of them, so that may increase our work in this branch. At church Bailey Christensen talked to me, glad that I didn't tease her, saying other missionaries tease her because she's cute.
"After church we met with Donna Tysz, a less-active who wants to do right. Before her we met Jeanne Saunders, who is married to a Baptist, and has a very anti daughter. We're doing service for her this week.
"We had dinner with the Zellers, an active PMF, and talked to the Divineys."
2007. This was my last day working at Walmart. At one point in the day, I prepared rotisserie chickens (by smearing spices all over the raw chickens), and when I wrote the date on the plastic covering over the chicken cart, I think I wrote something like "goodbye," since I wouldn't be there anymore. My coworkers bought me a cake and wrote on it with frosting. I found some plastic silverware and cut the cake with a plastic knife, making a very messy cut. They also got me a very nice farewell card. After I was done with work, I was doing shopping. I got a pumpkin and some mint Oreos. I walked near the bakery to get the rest of my cake, and my coworker Alice saw my cart and said, "Are you having a party?" While I was out shopping, my coworker Ursula came up to me because she hadn't gotten any cake. I wanted to tell that Sea Witch she couldn't have any because she was mean, but I let her have some. When I was checking out, I told the cashier that the cake was already paid for (it had the receipt on it), and she asked if it was my birthday. I told her it was my last day working there. When I got home, my family had rented The Blob and High School Musical by Top Hat Video.
2005. This might have been the day I went to our school's Trunk-or-Treat, but I didn't dress up. I sat with my French classmates. Nate Dopp had his old VW beetle, and we gave the candy out of the "trunk," and one girl was kind of freaked out: "What happened to the car's engine?!"
2004. I know this was a Trunk-or-Treat day. I was wearing my Fred Flintstone costume with a flesh-colored shirt underneath. I was wearing shorts underneath as well, and Susanne said David wouldn't have worn shorts underneath.
1996. I would have been at Boo at the Zoo in my Grim Reaper costume. I think we saw a woman with a barn owl--I recognized it as such before she told us. We kids got most of the candy, but David got a chocolate licorice rope that he started eating immediately. Then I realized that I didn't have to wait to eat my candy, since he wasn't waiting. This was probably the day where we went to my grandparents' house afterwards. It was a little cold--there had been snow at the zoo--so they had a fire going, and we talked about how the balloon couldn't get near the fire, or it would pop.
1993. I think this was the time David was getting his birthday presents, and he got one of those hanging ghosts that wails and shakes when it is touched or hears noise.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Nights at my grandparents' old house
Many years ago, my grandparents used to have nights when they would have a grandchild over at their house and have dinner with them and then get them a present. Being one of the younger grandkids, I didn't get much of that. But I do remember two such occasions.
On one of them, I was four or five. I remember going to the store with my grandma and she got me a Pinocchio book. At the checkout, I saw some Tic-Tacs, and I wanted them, so she got them for me. Then we went back to their house and I watched The Jungle Book. I fell asleep on their futon-esque chair. Then my mom came back to pick me up, and my grandma told her about getting me Tic-Tacs. She probably thought it was a strange thing for a little kid like me.
I think I spent the night at their house one night when my mom had her gallbladder taken out, but that doesn't really count.
The other special night was I think when I was eight. I think they were trying to spend time with all the grandkids before leaving on a mission. I wanted to get pizza, so they got a pepperoni for me and a more mature one for them. Since I was the only one eating the one pizza, I ate five slices. While my cousins went to places like the Nickelcade, I just wanted to stay at their house. I had become interested in watching figure skating, and I noticed that they had a lot of old tapes of it, so I wanted to watch those. But soon that bored me, so we watched family videos instead. I wanted to watch Christmas 1988, when I was a baby, but since I wasn't even three months old, I had only a very brief cameo in a yellow outfit when David picked me up. The 1989 and 1990 Christmas videos were much more interesting. In the 1989 video, Susanne was eating a candy cane, and Grandpa was telling her to take it out of her mouth when she was on our brand new trampoline. I thought Grandpa was saying that in real life to her on the video, so I looked over at him. When we watched the 1990 video, Grandma was saying that my cousin Tammy was 14 at that time. The next morning, they took me to a video game store. The salesman recommended two video games for me, either Super Mario Land or Jeep Jamboree, but since I already had the Mario game, I got the Jeep game. As they were driving me home in their van, I remember saying that we (my family) were poor. Grandma started saying, "Well, you have..." and I said that I meant we were poor moneywise. (I'm not sure why I thought that--we weren't rich by any means, but I don't think we were poor.)
I even remember the day David came home from his night. We were at a T-ball game for one of my cousins, and my grandparents met us there. David had gotten the game Red Alert for Virtual Boy. During the T-ball game, Grandma kept yelling "Run run run run!" to the kids, and a toddler named Kahlil was copying her, and she said, "I have an echo!"
On one of them, I was four or five. I remember going to the store with my grandma and she got me a Pinocchio book. At the checkout, I saw some Tic-Tacs, and I wanted them, so she got them for me. Then we went back to their house and I watched The Jungle Book. I fell asleep on their futon-esque chair. Then my mom came back to pick me up, and my grandma told her about getting me Tic-Tacs. She probably thought it was a strange thing for a little kid like me.
I think I spent the night at their house one night when my mom had her gallbladder taken out, but that doesn't really count.
The other special night was I think when I was eight. I think they were trying to spend time with all the grandkids before leaving on a mission. I wanted to get pizza, so they got a pepperoni for me and a more mature one for them. Since I was the only one eating the one pizza, I ate five slices. While my cousins went to places like the Nickelcade, I just wanted to stay at their house. I had become interested in watching figure skating, and I noticed that they had a lot of old tapes of it, so I wanted to watch those. But soon that bored me, so we watched family videos instead. I wanted to watch Christmas 1988, when I was a baby, but since I wasn't even three months old, I had only a very brief cameo in a yellow outfit when David picked me up. The 1989 and 1990 Christmas videos were much more interesting. In the 1989 video, Susanne was eating a candy cane, and Grandpa was telling her to take it out of her mouth when she was on our brand new trampoline. I thought Grandpa was saying that in real life to her on the video, so I looked over at him. When we watched the 1990 video, Grandma was saying that my cousin Tammy was 14 at that time. The next morning, they took me to a video game store. The salesman recommended two video games for me, either Super Mario Land or Jeep Jamboree, but since I already had the Mario game, I got the Jeep game. As they were driving me home in their van, I remember saying that we (my family) were poor. Grandma started saying, "Well, you have..." and I said that I meant we were poor moneywise. (I'm not sure why I thought that--we weren't rich by any means, but I don't think we were poor.)
I even remember the day David came home from his night. We were at a T-ball game for one of my cousins, and my grandparents met us there. David had gotten the game Red Alert for Virtual Boy. During the T-ball game, Grandma kept yelling "Run run run run!" to the kids, and a toddler named Kahlil was copying her, and she said, "I have an echo!"
Sunday, January 12, 2014
Drunkards
D.A.R.E. and the Word of Wisdom have made me not want to drink--but my run-ins with drunk people (as well as watching YouTube videos of drunk people doing idiotic things) really made me realize what a bad idea drinking is. And I know that if I drank, I would be a total wine-o and get addicted fast. So no alcyhol for me. Here's why.
My first run-in with a drunk woman happened when I was four or five. There was a woman who was friends with my grandparents, and she had just flown in. My mom says that the flight attendant wouldn't let her leave until she knew someone was taking her, she was so tipsy. She had come in to visit my grandparents, but my grandpa was a bishop, and they were having a meeting at their house. My mom didn't find it fitting to let this woman interrupt a bishop's meeting, so she watched over this woman for a few hours. I remember her asking my mom if she could smoke in the car; she used the cigarette lighter for that very purpose. We went to Burger King for dinner, and we went to a park (my mom says it was for my sake, since it was rather odd for me to be around this drunk lady). When we got out of the car, I remember the woman saying "I'm free!!" (I think in the context of her no longer being in jail). At one point, I came up the hill where the adults were sitting, and I was huffing. The souse mimicked me, and I said, "You're mean!" I don't think it was just that one incident; I think I had felt that way the whole night, and that time was the last straw. Eventually we drove to my grandparents' house, but the meeting was still going on, and my mom wasn't going to let the woman go in.
I can't recall other incidents with drunks until my mission--and then I had a lot of them. One day I was on an exchange, and a guy answered the door. My temporary companion told me he was drunk, but I wasn't able to recognize drunks at that point.
A little later, we began teaching a man named Mark who had no control over his addictions. He smoked and drank excessively, and because of him, I can no longer smell the difference between cigarettes and beer--they're just the same in my mind. He was always drunk when we saw him. Once he wanted us to go over to Borders to buy a book for him. It was Sunday (but we wouldn't have bought it for him anyway), so we told him no, and he said we couldn't come back if we didn't buy it for him. When we met him, he had very long hair and a beard, so Elder Chun offered to clean him up. We took clippers over, and Elder Chun cut his hair. I shaved his beard. We did this while he was drunk. He seemed appreciative of us, but the next time he wasn't happy. His member friend came over, and he complained, "He ****ed up my hair!" (We quit seeing him, but I think he did quit drinking.)
Later I went to East Wenatchee. On the Fourth of July, we passed a woman puking in the bushes.
Soon thereafter, my companion's two years were up, so I was spending time with the adjacent elders until I got my new companion. On P-day we got out of our car to go shopping at Fred Meyer. I don't remember what we were talking about, but there was this lady wearing tight pants and really poofy hair who said to us, "I heard that! Now which one of you is an Indian?" We were all kind of perplexed, because we were not saying anything related to Indians. Then she began to do this weird trot in the opposite direction, and then she stopped, looked up to the sky, and said, "I'm not drunk!" My thought was, "We never said you were, but now that you mention it..." That became a running joke from then on.
Later that summer, my companion and I were walking down the street when we met this guy standing in his yard. He had no shirt on, his smiley-face boxers peeking out at the waist of his loose jeans. He had a younger friend with him wearing a Mighty Mouse shirt (I think the only shirt he owned). I think the smell of alcohol was what gave him away as drunk. We began a gospel conversation with us, and he brought up the passage in the Bible that said "Sun" instead of "Son"; I knew he was talking about Malachi. He became very adamant that we should observe the sabbath on Saturday, not Sunday. He began talking to us loudly and forcefully, and told us "Go, and sin no more!" So we began to leave. But then he invited us back. I began talking with him, while my companion was talking to the friend. Suddenly, he quit talking and looked away, concerned. I looked over, and two policemen were approaching us. Apparently a neighbor had heard him yelling at us. I was appreciative that strangers were concerned about our well-being. This man (Terry was his name) apologized for not having a belt for his pants, and he explained that he was talking loudly because he had a sore throat. I found that an incredibly lame excuse. I didn't feel threatened, but I would have gladly left. Elder Duncan, however, set it up for us to stay. (Terry turned out to be just as crazy when he was sober.)
The following summer, I was serving in Lewiston, ID. One night I was on exchanges, and we talked to this guy who was in his yard. He told us that he didn't need to go to church because his garden was his church. We learned that week in ward council that he was drunk every night (he was married to a less-active member).
We also covered Lapwai, an Indian reservation. Unfortunately, the Indian stereotypes are often true, and one day we were biking down the road when we saw a middle-aged Indian staggering down the sidewalk. Elder Warren (who was half-Indian himself) found it hilarious.
One September day, we were tracting in Lewiston. We began talking to a man who was sitting on his back porch. He was very friendly, but there was a huge pile of empty beer cans next to him. We were talking to him, and he had to keep asking who we were. He told us that the first Christian church was Joseph and Mary and Baby Jesus in the stable. He began "summarizing" the beliefs of different Christian denominations. Lewiston is situated in the Lewis-Clark Valley, so he told us that Lewis and Clark were actually Adolf Hitler and Franklin Roosevelt out exploring together when they were younger. He even remembered who was who. I had the hardest time keeping myself from laughing.
One October Saturday found us in Lapwai again. This guy came up to us, and Elder Tamblyn was wearing sunglasses. He told us that he hated God because God took his son away. He had put his son before God, so God took him away. He told Elder Tamblyn that "a Christian man" shouldn't wear "black eyes" (sunglasses). He kept telling us he wasn't drunk. We told him we would talk to him when he was sober, but he kept insisting he wasn't drunk.
On another occasion, Elder Tamblyn and I went back to the house where I had met the guy who said his garden was his church. The wife was very friendly and invited us in, but her drunk husband was in the other room, and he kept yelling out unfriendly comments, and they had to shush him. They had an elementary-school-aged son, as well as some other kids. I felt so bad for the wife and kids that they had this loser addict of a husband/father. They were obviously embarrassed by his actions. This family was a prime example of how drinking can ruin lives and families.
I can't recall running into drunks since I've been home--but it might have happened.
My first run-in with a drunk woman happened when I was four or five. There was a woman who was friends with my grandparents, and she had just flown in. My mom says that the flight attendant wouldn't let her leave until she knew someone was taking her, she was so tipsy. She had come in to visit my grandparents, but my grandpa was a bishop, and they were having a meeting at their house. My mom didn't find it fitting to let this woman interrupt a bishop's meeting, so she watched over this woman for a few hours. I remember her asking my mom if she could smoke in the car; she used the cigarette lighter for that very purpose. We went to Burger King for dinner, and we went to a park (my mom says it was for my sake, since it was rather odd for me to be around this drunk lady). When we got out of the car, I remember the woman saying "I'm free!!" (I think in the context of her no longer being in jail). At one point, I came up the hill where the adults were sitting, and I was huffing. The souse mimicked me, and I said, "You're mean!" I don't think it was just that one incident; I think I had felt that way the whole night, and that time was the last straw. Eventually we drove to my grandparents' house, but the meeting was still going on, and my mom wasn't going to let the woman go in.
I can't recall other incidents with drunks until my mission--and then I had a lot of them. One day I was on an exchange, and a guy answered the door. My temporary companion told me he was drunk, but I wasn't able to recognize drunks at that point.
A little later, we began teaching a man named Mark who had no control over his addictions. He smoked and drank excessively, and because of him, I can no longer smell the difference between cigarettes and beer--they're just the same in my mind. He was always drunk when we saw him. Once he wanted us to go over to Borders to buy a book for him. It was Sunday (but we wouldn't have bought it for him anyway), so we told him no, and he said we couldn't come back if we didn't buy it for him. When we met him, he had very long hair and a beard, so Elder Chun offered to clean him up. We took clippers over, and Elder Chun cut his hair. I shaved his beard. We did this while he was drunk. He seemed appreciative of us, but the next time he wasn't happy. His member friend came over, and he complained, "He ****ed up my hair!" (We quit seeing him, but I think he did quit drinking.)
Later I went to East Wenatchee. On the Fourth of July, we passed a woman puking in the bushes.
Soon thereafter, my companion's two years were up, so I was spending time with the adjacent elders until I got my new companion. On P-day we got out of our car to go shopping at Fred Meyer. I don't remember what we were talking about, but there was this lady wearing tight pants and really poofy hair who said to us, "I heard that! Now which one of you is an Indian?" We were all kind of perplexed, because we were not saying anything related to Indians. Then she began to do this weird trot in the opposite direction, and then she stopped, looked up to the sky, and said, "I'm not drunk!" My thought was, "We never said you were, but now that you mention it..." That became a running joke from then on.
Later that summer, my companion and I were walking down the street when we met this guy standing in his yard. He had no shirt on, his smiley-face boxers peeking out at the waist of his loose jeans. He had a younger friend with him wearing a Mighty Mouse shirt (I think the only shirt he owned). I think the smell of alcohol was what gave him away as drunk. We began a gospel conversation with us, and he brought up the passage in the Bible that said "Sun" instead of "Son"; I knew he was talking about Malachi. He became very adamant that we should observe the sabbath on Saturday, not Sunday. He began talking to us loudly and forcefully, and told us "Go, and sin no more!" So we began to leave. But then he invited us back. I began talking with him, while my companion was talking to the friend. Suddenly, he quit talking and looked away, concerned. I looked over, and two policemen were approaching us. Apparently a neighbor had heard him yelling at us. I was appreciative that strangers were concerned about our well-being. This man (Terry was his name) apologized for not having a belt for his pants, and he explained that he was talking loudly because he had a sore throat. I found that an incredibly lame excuse. I didn't feel threatened, but I would have gladly left. Elder Duncan, however, set it up for us to stay. (Terry turned out to be just as crazy when he was sober.)
The following summer, I was serving in Lewiston, ID. One night I was on exchanges, and we talked to this guy who was in his yard. He told us that he didn't need to go to church because his garden was his church. We learned that week in ward council that he was drunk every night (he was married to a less-active member).
We also covered Lapwai, an Indian reservation. Unfortunately, the Indian stereotypes are often true, and one day we were biking down the road when we saw a middle-aged Indian staggering down the sidewalk. Elder Warren (who was half-Indian himself) found it hilarious.
One September day, we were tracting in Lewiston. We began talking to a man who was sitting on his back porch. He was very friendly, but there was a huge pile of empty beer cans next to him. We were talking to him, and he had to keep asking who we were. He told us that the first Christian church was Joseph and Mary and Baby Jesus in the stable. He began "summarizing" the beliefs of different Christian denominations. Lewiston is situated in the Lewis-Clark Valley, so he told us that Lewis and Clark were actually Adolf Hitler and Franklin Roosevelt out exploring together when they were younger. He even remembered who was who. I had the hardest time keeping myself from laughing.
One October Saturday found us in Lapwai again. This guy came up to us, and Elder Tamblyn was wearing sunglasses. He told us that he hated God because God took his son away. He had put his son before God, so God took him away. He told Elder Tamblyn that "a Christian man" shouldn't wear "black eyes" (sunglasses). He kept telling us he wasn't drunk. We told him we would talk to him when he was sober, but he kept insisting he wasn't drunk.
On another occasion, Elder Tamblyn and I went back to the house where I had met the guy who said his garden was his church. The wife was very friendly and invited us in, but her drunk husband was in the other room, and he kept yelling out unfriendly comments, and they had to shush him. They had an elementary-school-aged son, as well as some other kids. I felt so bad for the wife and kids that they had this loser addict of a husband/father. They were obviously embarrassed by his actions. This family was a prime example of how drinking can ruin lives and families.
I can't recall running into drunks since I've been home--but it might have happened.
Monday, December 23, 2013
December 27
Well, Christmas will be over this week, so I'm going to remember what happened two days after Christmas.
2012. This day we were going to Six Flags. My dad was feeling sick, so he didn't go with us, but the rest of us--my brother's whole family, my mom, my grandparents, and I--all loaded up in our Suburban. We had to drop David off at their church so he could ride with some ward members who were going with us. The three boys were in the back, and Franklin was playing with my mom's iPod, using a voice recording app. He was saying some rather R-rated things. I was hoping no one else would notice, but my mom did and told him not to say those things. I told him if he kept saying them I would take the iPod away, and he said, "But it's funny!" Shortly after he and Preston were fighting. Preston had been saying things into the iPod just to annoy Franklin, so Franklin bit Preston, and then they began fighting. I leaned back to break up the fight, and I might have taken away the iPod. Ever-happy Baby was content, and he had given me the water bottle he had been drinking from, which didn't have a lid on it. We went over a bump, and water shot out of the water bottle and hit Franklin right in the face. If I had tried to splash him, I couldn't have done a better job. Franklin thinks that people do mean things to him on purpose, and he became furious. I told him I was sorry, but he didn't accept it and kept kicking the back of my seat. He was crying up a tempest. When we got to Six Flags, he didn't even want to be near me, and was mad that he had to change his shirt. We met up with David and the family he was with. I went on a ride with the six-year-old and worried he might have hurt his teeth on the ride, but he didn't. He became quite comfortable with me the rest of the day.
We went to a dolphin show, and I remember remarking that it had been exactly nineteen years since I had been to another dolphin show. The kids enjoyed playing in artificial snow, and I had to keep telling Preston he couldn't throw it. Franklin wasn't as mad at me later in the day. That night, we were in a gift shop while they lit up the Christmas tree outside. Then we left Six Flags and went to Jack in the Box for dinner. I got a pumpkin milkshake, and the kids got their own shakes after dinner. While we were waiting for dinner, Baby was sitting on our table and my grandpa kept giving him sips of different drinks. Baby pointed to my shake, and Grandpa grabbed it to give to Baby, but my mom stopped him because he couldn't have any until after dinner. (It was mine, anyway.) Then we took my grandparents to their hotel. That night, Franklin once again said that I was mean. I told him that I didn't do it on purpose, that I would never do that to him, and my mom said, "Uncle Mark is actually very nice."
2011. I got off work early, so I went with my parents to go see Arthur Christmas in theaters. We met Susanne there, and after the movie, I gave her my new Black Eyed Peas CD, since I had already copied the clean songs. She asked if I wanted money, but I declined. My dad started driving but had his door open. Susanne saw it and when she drove by she was laughing. I think this was the evening my parents invited me to watch a movie with them, but I didn't like the language, so I grabbed headphones and started my first New Year memory post. When their movie was over, I asked my mom if she wanted to hear the song about hair that I owned, since it was playing on my shuffle playlist.
2010. In the morning we went to a used media store. On our way there, David was playing "I'm thinking of an animal" with Preston and Franklin. Preston's animals included a chigger and a lungfish. When it was Franklin's turn, he said, "I'm thinking of a animal," and Preston said, "Is it an alligator?" Franklin said, "Uh huh." We laughed, and David said that was how Franklin played it. When we got to the store, Franklin wanted to stay with me, more than he wanted to stay with my mom. We looked in the used books section, and Franklin liked all the Spiderman books. I was amused by a book I found called something like "I Can Shine My Light for Jesus on Halloween." My mom wanted to get movies for the kids--for Franklin she got a DVD of various cartoons because it had Batman on it. Preston wanted to get a movie called The Tangerine Bear, but David thought he should get something else. Later, when he found out he had gotten The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars, he wished he hadn't said anything.
2009. Various family members started coming to our house to go to my homecoming talk. We were listening to Cherie Call's Beneath These Stars album. Eventually we went to church, and I of course sat on the stand. Our opening hymn was "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," and even though Christmas was over, I was actually pleased because I was able to use a line in one of my talks. I saw my old companion Elder Love sitting in the congregation, and when I began talking about Ritzville, I saw him squirm with delight. After sacrament meeting I went to Sunday School, since it seemed weird to me to celebrate a church accomplishment by skipping church. David came back to church and got me out of Sunday School and said, "Let's go." I asked him why, and he got this condescending smile on his face and said, "Because if you don't, it means you didn't learn one thing on your mission." He told me I was being incredibly rude. I was so taken aback by his gruffness and his meanness that there was no way I was going to let him win the argument. If he had been nicer, I might have considered going home, but with the way he was acting, there was no way I was going to. I went back into Sunday School, and it made me a little uncomfortable when people would call me Mark, since my former companion was sitting right next to me, and on my mission I didn't like saying my name. For priesthood opening exercises, we sang "Ring Out, Wild Bells," and at the end Elder Love said, "That's an interesting song," and I said, "I love that song," and Christian Ulmer also said, "I love that song." I came home and talked a little with Elder Love, but I felt I needed to talk to my visiting family members. He left and I talked with some family members, who didn't stay long. That might have been the night that after everyone left, I picked up Franklin and spun him around. Shortly after, he threw up, and I felt really bad that I contributed to him throwing up. Susanne cleaned it up, and David thanked her for cleaning up after his kid.
2008. It was transfer call day, and we were always jumpy on those days. Other missionaries kept calling Elder Love, and whenever we heard the phone ring, we wondered if it would be transfer calls. We had dinner with a family whose last name started with K, and I think they showed us a Wall-E toy they got for Christmas. Elder Love got a phone call while we were there, and he told us that he had talked to someone who said he was being transferred, but he didn't know where. This is my journal entry for the day:
"Today was somewhat uneventful. Our highlights were the contacts with the Clarks, who want us to return, and a visit with the Andruses. All day we anticipated our transfer calls, and didn't get them until about 9:20. Elder Love will stay in the zone, but not in the district. I will have Elder Wilson, whom I met in Northland Zone. It will be the first time my companion is younger than I."
2007. We had interviews with the mission president that day. The sisters gave us a ride, and we brought our boxes of cherry cordials. One of them fell on the concrete outside the church door, but Elder Chun picked it up and put it back in the box. Then we had to tell President Clark not to eat from that box. Interviews were really long. We watched a pioneer video, but I couldn't stay awake for most of it. President Clark asked me to come in with Elder Chun. That was the only time I ever went in with my companion. Elder Chun talked about how the members kept signing up for dinner appointments on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, when we were only supposed to eat with members if they had an investigator present on those days. President Clark was very forceful with Elder Chun that we weren't supposed to eat with members on those days. Then it was time for my individual interview. I told him how I felt bad for Elder Chun because I was always doing lots of stupid things. At the end of the interview, President said to me, "Elder Melville, will you check that your zipper is up? Will you just check?" It wasn't up, and I told him that showed how I was always doing stupid things. That afternoon we visited Sister Stubbs and she asked about evolution, and she asked if we were created in the image of God, does that mean God is in the image of a fish or a monkey? I explained that the Church had no position on evolution. When we left, there was this creepy guy walking around, and Elder Chun said hi to him, and he said, "I'm going to Salt Lake City to pick up some girls." He said, "Do you know what I do for a living? I'm a male prostitute." He said some pretty foul things. I think he had some broken teeth. After he left, Elder Chun thought it was so funny that he called Elder Johnson and told him about it. That night we went tracting, and I think it was the first time I did the door approach. Elder Chun always liked to shake people's hands, and one guy wouldn't shake because he said he didn't want to get the flu. The last people were named Marsh. They were very nice and said they would like to talk to us. The wife said she had read the Book of Mormon and the Pearl of Great Price and she had a Doctrine and Covenants, to which the husband said, "How did you get a D&C?" We worried they would be wolves in sheep's clothing just wanting to bash with us (which turned out to be mostly correct). This is my journal entry for the day:
"We had interviews today. It was extremely embarrassing when President Clark pointed out that my zipper was down.
"We met with Sister Stubbs who had some irrelevant questions that came from viewing the History Channel. I was able to explain the Church's stance on evolution.
"On our way home we met a self-proclaimed male prostitute. Elder Chun's comment (to me) was that the work must be going pretty slowly for him, since he did not try to keep himself attractive. He had the language of his profession and the coherency of a souse.
"We went tracting tonight. The people were more "We appreciate what you're doing but we're not interested" and quicker to close the door. Our last house was very nice and wanted us to return. They had talked with the missionaries before and seemed eager to talk again. I worry they might be wolves in sheep's clothing, but we shall see.
"We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a less-active teenage girl named Erica"
2005. This might have been the day that I asked Allie if she wanted to watch a show, and I brought down my new DVD with Rudolph's Shiny New Year. She wanted to watch it, but she wanted to make sure we weren't watching my Munsters DVD, and I was impressed she new it was a DVD, since it wasn't packaged like a regular DVD.
2000. This might have been the day that my mom and I went to a Target near my aunt's house and bought this Christmas decoration that had a globe, and when you touched little metal points on the globe with a metal stylus, the globe would give a Christmas greeting from that country. Then we went to my aunt's house, and they gave me a Christmas gift that was Snoopy's doghouse with bone-shaped candy inside.
1999. This might have been the day that we went to the Thompsons' house, and I asked my mom to get Happy New Year, Charlie Brown from Media Play. She did, and I watched it at their house. I think they also bought M&Ms that had MM written on them, since it was almost 2000. This also might have been the time that they had chips and salsa, and Sue bit a chip, then put it in the dip. Jesse said, "You double dipped," and she said, "No, I didn't double dip, because I only dipped once." I think Jesse told me the synopsis of Rudolph's Shiny New Year, since I had never seen it.
1993. I think this was the day we went to Sea World. It also might have been the day that we stopped at a rest stop for a breakfast of little cereal boxes, and Chancey was singing "Must Be Santa," but that might have been the day before. When we showed up at Sea World, I was surprised they still had Christmas decorations up, since the holiday was over. One of the first things we did was go to a dolphin show. They told me I would get wet if I sat up front, so I sat with my grandparents further back, where we wouldn't get wet. I was wearing a blue Sea World visor. Afterwards, everyone laughed about how wet they had gotten, and I was a little sad I didn't sit up close. At another point, we walked through a tunnel with fish all around, and I saw a hammerhead shark. Later that day we saw a walrus show, although I don't remember much about it, except that I liked the fire. We saw Shamu that night, and we sat further away and still got a little wet. I think David sat close and got soaked. Then we went into a gift shop and I wanted to get a turtle stamp.
2012. This day we were going to Six Flags. My dad was feeling sick, so he didn't go with us, but the rest of us--my brother's whole family, my mom, my grandparents, and I--all loaded up in our Suburban. We had to drop David off at their church so he could ride with some ward members who were going with us. The three boys were in the back, and Franklin was playing with my mom's iPod, using a voice recording app. He was saying some rather R-rated things. I was hoping no one else would notice, but my mom did and told him not to say those things. I told him if he kept saying them I would take the iPod away, and he said, "But it's funny!" Shortly after he and Preston were fighting. Preston had been saying things into the iPod just to annoy Franklin, so Franklin bit Preston, and then they began fighting. I leaned back to break up the fight, and I might have taken away the iPod. Ever-happy Baby was content, and he had given me the water bottle he had been drinking from, which didn't have a lid on it. We went over a bump, and water shot out of the water bottle and hit Franklin right in the face. If I had tried to splash him, I couldn't have done a better job. Franklin thinks that people do mean things to him on purpose, and he became furious. I told him I was sorry, but he didn't accept it and kept kicking the back of my seat. He was crying up a tempest. When we got to Six Flags, he didn't even want to be near me, and was mad that he had to change his shirt. We met up with David and the family he was with. I went on a ride with the six-year-old and worried he might have hurt his teeth on the ride, but he didn't. He became quite comfortable with me the rest of the day.
2011. I got off work early, so I went with my parents to go see Arthur Christmas in theaters. We met Susanne there, and after the movie, I gave her my new Black Eyed Peas CD, since I had already copied the clean songs. She asked if I wanted money, but I declined. My dad started driving but had his door open. Susanne saw it and when she drove by she was laughing. I think this was the evening my parents invited me to watch a movie with them, but I didn't like the language, so I grabbed headphones and started my first New Year memory post. When their movie was over, I asked my mom if she wanted to hear the song about hair that I owned, since it was playing on my shuffle playlist.
2010. In the morning we went to a used media store. On our way there, David was playing "I'm thinking of an animal" with Preston and Franklin. Preston's animals included a chigger and a lungfish. When it was Franklin's turn, he said, "I'm thinking of a animal," and Preston said, "Is it an alligator?" Franklin said, "Uh huh." We laughed, and David said that was how Franklin played it. When we got to the store, Franklin wanted to stay with me, more than he wanted to stay with my mom. We looked in the used books section, and Franklin liked all the Spiderman books. I was amused by a book I found called something like "I Can Shine My Light for Jesus on Halloween." My mom wanted to get movies for the kids--for Franklin she got a DVD of various cartoons because it had Batman on it. Preston wanted to get a movie called The Tangerine Bear, but David thought he should get something else. Later, when he found out he had gotten The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars, he wished he hadn't said anything.
2009. Various family members started coming to our house to go to my homecoming talk. We were listening to Cherie Call's Beneath These Stars album. Eventually we went to church, and I of course sat on the stand. Our opening hymn was "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," and even though Christmas was over, I was actually pleased because I was able to use a line in one of my talks. I saw my old companion Elder Love sitting in the congregation, and when I began talking about Ritzville, I saw him squirm with delight. After sacrament meeting I went to Sunday School, since it seemed weird to me to celebrate a church accomplishment by skipping church. David came back to church and got me out of Sunday School and said, "Let's go." I asked him why, and he got this condescending smile on his face and said, "Because if you don't, it means you didn't learn one thing on your mission." He told me I was being incredibly rude. I was so taken aback by his gruffness and his meanness that there was no way I was going to let him win the argument. If he had been nicer, I might have considered going home, but with the way he was acting, there was no way I was going to. I went back into Sunday School, and it made me a little uncomfortable when people would call me Mark, since my former companion was sitting right next to me, and on my mission I didn't like saying my name. For priesthood opening exercises, we sang "Ring Out, Wild Bells," and at the end Elder Love said, "That's an interesting song," and I said, "I love that song," and Christian Ulmer also said, "I love that song." I came home and talked a little with Elder Love, but I felt I needed to talk to my visiting family members. He left and I talked with some family members, who didn't stay long. That might have been the night that after everyone left, I picked up Franklin and spun him around. Shortly after, he threw up, and I felt really bad that I contributed to him throwing up. Susanne cleaned it up, and David thanked her for cleaning up after his kid.
2008. It was transfer call day, and we were always jumpy on those days. Other missionaries kept calling Elder Love, and whenever we heard the phone ring, we wondered if it would be transfer calls. We had dinner with a family whose last name started with K, and I think they showed us a Wall-E toy they got for Christmas. Elder Love got a phone call while we were there, and he told us that he had talked to someone who said he was being transferred, but he didn't know where. This is my journal entry for the day:
"Today was somewhat uneventful. Our highlights were the contacts with the Clarks, who want us to return, and a visit with the Andruses. All day we anticipated our transfer calls, and didn't get them until about 9:20. Elder Love will stay in the zone, but not in the district. I will have Elder Wilson, whom I met in Northland Zone. It will be the first time my companion is younger than I."
2007. We had interviews with the mission president that day. The sisters gave us a ride, and we brought our boxes of cherry cordials. One of them fell on the concrete outside the church door, but Elder Chun picked it up and put it back in the box. Then we had to tell President Clark not to eat from that box. Interviews were really long. We watched a pioneer video, but I couldn't stay awake for most of it. President Clark asked me to come in with Elder Chun. That was the only time I ever went in with my companion. Elder Chun talked about how the members kept signing up for dinner appointments on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, when we were only supposed to eat with members if they had an investigator present on those days. President Clark was very forceful with Elder Chun that we weren't supposed to eat with members on those days. Then it was time for my individual interview. I told him how I felt bad for Elder Chun because I was always doing lots of stupid things. At the end of the interview, President said to me, "Elder Melville, will you check that your zipper is up? Will you just check?" It wasn't up, and I told him that showed how I was always doing stupid things. That afternoon we visited Sister Stubbs and she asked about evolution, and she asked if we were created in the image of God, does that mean God is in the image of a fish or a monkey? I explained that the Church had no position on evolution. When we left, there was this creepy guy walking around, and Elder Chun said hi to him, and he said, "I'm going to Salt Lake City to pick up some girls." He said, "Do you know what I do for a living? I'm a male prostitute." He said some pretty foul things. I think he had some broken teeth. After he left, Elder Chun thought it was so funny that he called Elder Johnson and told him about it. That night we went tracting, and I think it was the first time I did the door approach. Elder Chun always liked to shake people's hands, and one guy wouldn't shake because he said he didn't want to get the flu. The last people were named Marsh. They were very nice and said they would like to talk to us. The wife said she had read the Book of Mormon and the Pearl of Great Price and she had a Doctrine and Covenants, to which the husband said, "How did you get a D&C?" We worried they would be wolves in sheep's clothing just wanting to bash with us (which turned out to be mostly correct). This is my journal entry for the day:
"We had interviews today. It was extremely embarrassing when President Clark pointed out that my zipper was down.
"We met with Sister Stubbs who had some irrelevant questions that came from viewing the History Channel. I was able to explain the Church's stance on evolution.
"On our way home we met a self-proclaimed male prostitute. Elder Chun's comment (to me) was that the work must be going pretty slowly for him, since he did not try to keep himself attractive. He had the language of his profession and the coherency of a souse.
"We went tracting tonight. The people were more "We appreciate what you're doing but we're not interested" and quicker to close the door. Our last house was very nice and wanted us to return. They had talked with the missionaries before and seemed eager to talk again. I worry they might be wolves in sheep's clothing, but we shall see.
"We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a less-active teenage girl named Erica"
2005. This might have been the day that I asked Allie if she wanted to watch a show, and I brought down my new DVD with Rudolph's Shiny New Year. She wanted to watch it, but she wanted to make sure we weren't watching my Munsters DVD, and I was impressed she new it was a DVD, since it wasn't packaged like a regular DVD.
2000. This might have been the day that my mom and I went to a Target near my aunt's house and bought this Christmas decoration that had a globe, and when you touched little metal points on the globe with a metal stylus, the globe would give a Christmas greeting from that country. Then we went to my aunt's house, and they gave me a Christmas gift that was Snoopy's doghouse with bone-shaped candy inside.
1999. This might have been the day that we went to the Thompsons' house, and I asked my mom to get Happy New Year, Charlie Brown from Media Play. She did, and I watched it at their house. I think they also bought M&Ms that had MM written on them, since it was almost 2000. This also might have been the time that they had chips and salsa, and Sue bit a chip, then put it in the dip. Jesse said, "You double dipped," and she said, "No, I didn't double dip, because I only dipped once." I think Jesse told me the synopsis of Rudolph's Shiny New Year, since I had never seen it.
1993. I think this was the day we went to Sea World. It also might have been the day that we stopped at a rest stop for a breakfast of little cereal boxes, and Chancey was singing "Must Be Santa," but that might have been the day before. When we showed up at Sea World, I was surprised they still had Christmas decorations up, since the holiday was over. One of the first things we did was go to a dolphin show. They told me I would get wet if I sat up front, so I sat with my grandparents further back, where we wouldn't get wet. I was wearing a blue Sea World visor. Afterwards, everyone laughed about how wet they had gotten, and I was a little sad I didn't sit up close. At another point, we walked through a tunnel with fish all around, and I saw a hammerhead shark. Later that day we saw a walrus show, although I don't remember much about it, except that I liked the fire. We saw Shamu that night, and we sat further away and still got a little wet. I think David sat close and got soaked. Then we went into a gift shop and I wanted to get a turtle stamp.
Sunday, August 11, 2013
Wishing Well Preschool
When I was five, I attended a preschool. It was called Wishing Well, although I only knew that was the name because my friend David Christensen, who also attended, would call it that.
Since both of my siblings went to school, I would often ask my parents when I would get to go to school. Eventually they enrolled me in this preschool, and I was really excited.
Until the day came for me to go. I was so scared to go that I went in my parents' room and locked my mom out in an attempt not to go. But I forgot to lock the back door, so I was scared when I saw my fuming mother coming around the back.
I actually enjoyed going to school after that. David and I would carpool, so when the kids would see us getting out of the same car every morning, they assumed we were brothers. I remember once when I was looking for my backpack. I asked a girl if she had seen my backpack. She said, "Your brother has it"--and indeed, David Christensen (not David Melville, of course) was walking around with my backpack, calling my name.
One of my classmates was Colby Johnson, who broke his arm twice during the school year.
Every morning we would have opening activities with everyone. Then we would separate into smaller groups and do different things.
One of our activities was show and tell. This was one of those incidents where when one kid shows something, everyone shows it. One common activity for show and tell was folding a blanket. One day I decided I was going to fold a blanket for show and tell, so I took a little blanket that had a bear holding balloons on it. I practiced folding before I went and invented my own way of folding it. It was not an even fold. When it was my turn to fold it, I seem to recall the teacher laughing or exclaiming when I folded it with just a little bit leftover. That day, half the kids folded blankets for show and tell, and I felt dumb for doing the same thing as everyone else.
We had various playing stations. One was a table that was full of dry rice and had toys in it--kind of like a sandbox. One day toward the end of the year, we had a special water day and they changed the rice in the table to water.
Sometimes we would get refreshments. Once I remember we had Jello, and David discovered that if you swished it around fast in your mouth, it would turn into juice. Sometimes we would have graham crackers and milk, and I discovered that graham crackers would get soggy a lot faster if you waved them around in the milk instead of just letting them sit there.
Once we made our own popsicles by putting juice into little paper cups and putting sticks in them. The cups had pictures from Aladdin on them. When we got our frozen popsicles back, one girl was laughing at the picture on the cup that had the Sultan's pants down. She said something about "his panties," and I remember thinking that that wasn't true, because panties are for girls.
At five, I still sucked my thumb, so I remember one day when some boys pointed to me and said, "Baby, baby!" At home, my brother David would always tell me I needed to quit sucking my thumb. One day he told me that kids would make fun of me. I told him of this incident and said that it didn't bother me. He told me that older kids were meaner when they made fun.
I remember some field trips. On one occasion we were on a bus and noted that we didn't have any seatbelts. There were some footrests at the bottom of the seats in front of us. We didn't know what they were and wondered if they were some special kind of bus seatbelt.
One day we went to a farm and the farmer showed us cottonseed, which really did look like a seed covered in cotton. They showed us a lamb, which I thought was positively adorable. I think it was on the way home from this trip that David and I were riding in the back of a van or a bus. I was singing a song I had heard from the Sister Act soundtrack, "Nothing you can say can take me away from my God," although I didn't know many lyrics. David, on the other hand, was singing "I Lived in Heaven."
On another occasion we went to a dairy factory and they told us that Little Miss Muffett's curds and whey was cottage cheese. They gave us little paper hats, and I remember one day when we were eating lunch at David's house, he went and got his to wear during lunch.
I think one day we went to the Festival of Trees.
On another occasion at Christmastime, we performed the Mexican Hat Dance for a bunch of old people. Afterward we got those little cheap, red suckers with white powder on them in the form of a Santa face. Then we went back to school and colored and glittered our Christmas countdown papers.
Once we rode ponies in the schoolyard. Often we would walk over to a nearby park. On one of these park visits, I was surprised to see a mailman driving with the door open, and one of my classmates told me they always did that.
Upstairs in the preschool building was a big dance floor, and we would go up and play. We used to do a dance/game to "Three Blind Mice." One day near Valentine's Day, they gave us conversation hearts that had faces on them. Sometimes they would let us dress up. I remember being silly with another girl and dressing up in a red dress. It was big and I kept slipping on it, and we thought that was really funny. (It seems like our teacher may have forbidden me from wearing it because I kept tripping on it--but that was what made it so fun!) On another occasion, a kindergartener who had been in the preschool the previous year came and visited, and I always wanted to visit when I got bigger. (I never did.)
Once we had a whole unit about other cultures. I remember getting Russia and Asia confused, and we had a girl named Asia in our class.
During one of the early days of this unit, the teachers asked if we could bring a doll from another country. One day I went to the dentist, and for a prize I got a little ugly troll. I noticed a word on the troll, so I asked my mom what it said. She said, "China," meaning it was made it China. I told her that we were supposed to bring dolls from different countries, and she told me that it wasn't really from China. But I took it in anyway and said, "This was made in China!"
Different parents gave presentations about different countries. The mom who did British culture told us that they called their moms "Mum," which we thought was really funny. One mom brought Haribo frogs because that culture ate frog legs (and no, I'm not sure if it was France).
One day near Easter, we did a craft project that used two pieces of wallpaper as two pieces of an eggshell that you would move and see the chick inside. (It's hard to describe.)
Then came the last day. Here is a paragraph I wrote about the last day from another blog post:
"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."
I'm sure I will remember more preschool memories later!
Since both of my siblings went to school, I would often ask my parents when I would get to go to school. Eventually they enrolled me in this preschool, and I was really excited.
Until the day came for me to go. I was so scared to go that I went in my parents' room and locked my mom out in an attempt not to go. But I forgot to lock the back door, so I was scared when I saw my fuming mother coming around the back.
I actually enjoyed going to school after that. David and I would carpool, so when the kids would see us getting out of the same car every morning, they assumed we were brothers. I remember once when I was looking for my backpack. I asked a girl if she had seen my backpack. She said, "Your brother has it"--and indeed, David Christensen (not David Melville, of course) was walking around with my backpack, calling my name.
One of my classmates was Colby Johnson, who broke his arm twice during the school year.
Every morning we would have opening activities with everyone. Then we would separate into smaller groups and do different things.
One of our activities was show and tell. This was one of those incidents where when one kid shows something, everyone shows it. One common activity for show and tell was folding a blanket. One day I decided I was going to fold a blanket for show and tell, so I took a little blanket that had a bear holding balloons on it. I practiced folding before I went and invented my own way of folding it. It was not an even fold. When it was my turn to fold it, I seem to recall the teacher laughing or exclaiming when I folded it with just a little bit leftover. That day, half the kids folded blankets for show and tell, and I felt dumb for doing the same thing as everyone else.
We had various playing stations. One was a table that was full of dry rice and had toys in it--kind of like a sandbox. One day toward the end of the year, we had a special water day and they changed the rice in the table to water.
Sometimes we would get refreshments. Once I remember we had Jello, and David discovered that if you swished it around fast in your mouth, it would turn into juice. Sometimes we would have graham crackers and milk, and I discovered that graham crackers would get soggy a lot faster if you waved them around in the milk instead of just letting them sit there.
Once we made our own popsicles by putting juice into little paper cups and putting sticks in them. The cups had pictures from Aladdin on them. When we got our frozen popsicles back, one girl was laughing at the picture on the cup that had the Sultan's pants down. She said something about "his panties," and I remember thinking that that wasn't true, because panties are for girls.
At five, I still sucked my thumb, so I remember one day when some boys pointed to me and said, "Baby, baby!" At home, my brother David would always tell me I needed to quit sucking my thumb. One day he told me that kids would make fun of me. I told him of this incident and said that it didn't bother me. He told me that older kids were meaner when they made fun.
I remember some field trips. On one occasion we were on a bus and noted that we didn't have any seatbelts. There were some footrests at the bottom of the seats in front of us. We didn't know what they were and wondered if they were some special kind of bus seatbelt.
One day we went to a farm and the farmer showed us cottonseed, which really did look like a seed covered in cotton. They showed us a lamb, which I thought was positively adorable. I think it was on the way home from this trip that David and I were riding in the back of a van or a bus. I was singing a song I had heard from the Sister Act soundtrack, "Nothing you can say can take me away from my God," although I didn't know many lyrics. David, on the other hand, was singing "I Lived in Heaven."
On another occasion we went to a dairy factory and they told us that Little Miss Muffett's curds and whey was cottage cheese. They gave us little paper hats, and I remember one day when we were eating lunch at David's house, he went and got his to wear during lunch.
I think one day we went to the Festival of Trees.
On another occasion at Christmastime, we performed the Mexican Hat Dance for a bunch of old people. Afterward we got those little cheap, red suckers with white powder on them in the form of a Santa face. Then we went back to school and colored and glittered our Christmas countdown papers.
Once we rode ponies in the schoolyard. Often we would walk over to a nearby park. On one of these park visits, I was surprised to see a mailman driving with the door open, and one of my classmates told me they always did that.
Upstairs in the preschool building was a big dance floor, and we would go up and play. We used to do a dance/game to "Three Blind Mice." One day near Valentine's Day, they gave us conversation hearts that had faces on them. Sometimes they would let us dress up. I remember being silly with another girl and dressing up in a red dress. It was big and I kept slipping on it, and we thought that was really funny. (It seems like our teacher may have forbidden me from wearing it because I kept tripping on it--but that was what made it so fun!) On another occasion, a kindergartener who had been in the preschool the previous year came and visited, and I always wanted to visit when I got bigger. (I never did.)
Once we had a whole unit about other cultures. I remember getting Russia and Asia confused, and we had a girl named Asia in our class.
During one of the early days of this unit, the teachers asked if we could bring a doll from another country. One day I went to the dentist, and for a prize I got a little ugly troll. I noticed a word on the troll, so I asked my mom what it said. She said, "China," meaning it was made it China. I told her that we were supposed to bring dolls from different countries, and she told me that it wasn't really from China. But I took it in anyway and said, "This was made in China!"
Different parents gave presentations about different countries. The mom who did British culture told us that they called their moms "Mum," which we thought was really funny. One mom brought Haribo frogs because that culture ate frog legs (and no, I'm not sure if it was France).
One day near Easter, we did a craft project that used two pieces of wallpaper as two pieces of an eggshell that you would move and see the chick inside. (It's hard to describe.)
Then came the last day. Here is a paragraph I wrote about the last day from another blog post:
"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."
I'm sure I will remember more preschool memories later!
Monday, August 5, 2013
The "Crazy Years"
When my sister Susanne was a teenager, she went through a time that we call the "crazy years." I was only a little kid, about five. I now know some of the things that were going on, but I don't know all of it. However, I'm going to write about what I remember as a little kid. (My brother would have a rather different recollection of the goings-on of this time period.)
I have one memory that would have occurred early on in the crazy years or maybe even before them. We had some other kids over, the Downings, and I saw a ripe tomato in our backyard garden. I thought it was really cool--even though I didn't like tomatoes--so I picked it and carried it around with me that day. That night I slept in my sister's bed; I liked to do that. (I don't remember where she slept--maybe on the other mattress, since it was a trundle bed.) I even took the tomato to bed with me. I woke up in the morning--but the tomato didn't. I smashed it in the middle of the night. It stained the sheet, and for a long time after that I would ask to see the stained sheet.
I would have been in preschool, although I actually don't remember my preschool life overlapping with my crazy-year life. I think my preschool was only a few days a week.
I would spend the days at home with Susanne. She would faint often. I would hear her sigh and she would fall to the floor. Sometimes I would like to go over and open her eyes. I remember her using vinegar to clean the carpet after she would pee on it. Eventually she got a monitor to carry around, and I was supposed to press a little button whenever she fainted. Sometimes I would do it; however, it made an eerie beeping noise, so I was often too creeped out to press it. Once my mom and sister asked me why I didn't press it, and I told them it was scary.
Although her fainting was a regular occurrence, one day I decided to call 911 when she fainted. I remember the dispatcher asking me where she fainted. I told her, "In the living room," because that's where it happened--although I don't think that's what the dispatcher wanted to know. The police showed up and I let them in. One officer asked what her name was. When I told him, he kept saying "Susanne" to try to revive her. (Apparently some news channel called us later and talked to my dad, asking if they could do a story about me. He said, "I'll have to talk to my wife about it"--thus blowing my chance at fame. Rats!)
Susanne and my mom also had to go to counseling appointments. Sometimes I would go with. I remember one visit when the counselor told Susanne to make sure she ate veggies--I had never heard "vegetables" abbreviated that way before. There was another visit shortly after Christmas, when my mom bought me a Christmas stamp kit (probably on clearance). I think she got it to go with the turtle stamp I got at Sea World. I can remember sitting outside the office, stamping away on a piece of paper. I can't remember whether the stamp had music notes on it, or if only the ink pad was decorated with music notes. I remember getting home and stamping with my turtle stamp as well.
Susanne didn't go to school and was tutored by "Wangs," the women's coach at South Davis Junior High (I didn't know that was her name until I went to SDJH). I remember one wintery day when my mom was playing outside in the snow with me while Wangs was inside tutoring. We threw a snowball at the window. Then when we went back inside, I told them that we threw a snowball at the window, and Wangs said, "I said, 'Who threw that snowball?'" We had a wooden puzzle-piece reindeer, and Wangs asked me what its name was. I told her Rudolph, and she said it couldn't be Rudolph because its nose wasn't red.
During the day I would watch TV with Susanne. She liked watching the Vicki talk show. She used to watch reruns of I Love Lucy and Bewitched and occasionally The Andy Griffith Show. I remember watching the Bewitched episode in which Tabitha goes into the story of Hansel and Gretel. I remember the Lucy episode when they were in Europe and had to have multiple language interpreters. This was the first seed in my interest in old TV shows.
My dad had a rowing machine that had a large black rectangle with little white specks on it. I decided that it looked like a TV with a starry sky on it, so I would pretend it was showing The Jetsons. Later I decided that if it was showing The Jetsons, it could show other shows as well, so I remember one day pretending that I had a whole collection of shows to watch on this imaginary TV. I told Susanne that I even had Vicki.
We also used to watch The Sound of Music almost every day.
I remember one day there was a cat stuck in our window well. Susanne and I went out with my little blue blanket and put it down the window well so that the cat could climb out.
I'm sure I will remember more after I post this--but that's all for now!
I have one memory that would have occurred early on in the crazy years or maybe even before them. We had some other kids over, the Downings, and I saw a ripe tomato in our backyard garden. I thought it was really cool--even though I didn't like tomatoes--so I picked it and carried it around with me that day. That night I slept in my sister's bed; I liked to do that. (I don't remember where she slept--maybe on the other mattress, since it was a trundle bed.) I even took the tomato to bed with me. I woke up in the morning--but the tomato didn't. I smashed it in the middle of the night. It stained the sheet, and for a long time after that I would ask to see the stained sheet.
I would have been in preschool, although I actually don't remember my preschool life overlapping with my crazy-year life. I think my preschool was only a few days a week.
I would spend the days at home with Susanne. She would faint often. I would hear her sigh and she would fall to the floor. Sometimes I would like to go over and open her eyes. I remember her using vinegar to clean the carpet after she would pee on it. Eventually she got a monitor to carry around, and I was supposed to press a little button whenever she fainted. Sometimes I would do it; however, it made an eerie beeping noise, so I was often too creeped out to press it. Once my mom and sister asked me why I didn't press it, and I told them it was scary.
Although her fainting was a regular occurrence, one day I decided to call 911 when she fainted. I remember the dispatcher asking me where she fainted. I told her, "In the living room," because that's where it happened--although I don't think that's what the dispatcher wanted to know. The police showed up and I let them in. One officer asked what her name was. When I told him, he kept saying "Susanne" to try to revive her. (Apparently some news channel called us later and talked to my dad, asking if they could do a story about me. He said, "I'll have to talk to my wife about it"--thus blowing my chance at fame. Rats!)
Susanne and my mom also had to go to counseling appointments. Sometimes I would go with. I remember one visit when the counselor told Susanne to make sure she ate veggies--I had never heard "vegetables" abbreviated that way before. There was another visit shortly after Christmas, when my mom bought me a Christmas stamp kit (probably on clearance). I think she got it to go with the turtle stamp I got at Sea World. I can remember sitting outside the office, stamping away on a piece of paper. I can't remember whether the stamp had music notes on it, or if only the ink pad was decorated with music notes. I remember getting home and stamping with my turtle stamp as well.
Susanne didn't go to school and was tutored by "Wangs," the women's coach at South Davis Junior High (I didn't know that was her name until I went to SDJH). I remember one wintery day when my mom was playing outside in the snow with me while Wangs was inside tutoring. We threw a snowball at the window. Then when we went back inside, I told them that we threw a snowball at the window, and Wangs said, "I said, 'Who threw that snowball?'" We had a wooden puzzle-piece reindeer, and Wangs asked me what its name was. I told her Rudolph, and she said it couldn't be Rudolph because its nose wasn't red.
During the day I would watch TV with Susanne. She liked watching the Vicki talk show. She used to watch reruns of I Love Lucy and Bewitched and occasionally The Andy Griffith Show. I remember watching the Bewitched episode in which Tabitha goes into the story of Hansel and Gretel. I remember the Lucy episode when they were in Europe and had to have multiple language interpreters. This was the first seed in my interest in old TV shows.
My dad had a rowing machine that had a large black rectangle with little white specks on it. I decided that it looked like a TV with a starry sky on it, so I would pretend it was showing The Jetsons. Later I decided that if it was showing The Jetsons, it could show other shows as well, so I remember one day pretending that I had a whole collection of shows to watch on this imaginary TV. I told Susanne that I even had Vicki.
We also used to watch The Sound of Music almost every day.
I remember one day there was a cat stuck in our window well. Susanne and I went out with my little blue blanket and put it down the window well so that the cat could climb out.
I'm sure I will remember more after I post this--but that's all for now!
Saturday, March 30, 2013
The Day Before Easter
Easter is coming up, so I'm going to remember what I can about the day before the holiday. In my family, most of the secular celebrating occurs on Saturday rather than Easter Sunday itself.
2012. I went out to my car to head home. My mom called and let me know that they were getting home from southern Utah, and I hadn't even left yet. On my windshield was a wrinkled note from Morgan Crockett that said he had backed into my car. I looked and there was indeed a scratch on the back bumper. But my brother and I both put scratches on both sides of the front bumper, so the back scratch just matched the rest of it. I listened to the MoTab Praise to the Man album on my way home. When I got home, my niece Allie came up to me and said, completely shocked, "The Easter Bunny already came!" We searched for Easter eggs; there were lots. There were plastic candy-filled eggs and real confetti-filled eggs. I of course was interested in the candy eggs, but I was surprised that Allie liked the confetti eggs. We broke the confetti eggs on each other, and we were finding confetti for months after (and filled eggs as well). I think we colored eggs. At some point that day my dad lost a tooth. We ate tacos for dinner and made sugar cookies with blue frosting. That night, after everyone went to bed, I went downstairs and watched Here Comes Peter Cottontail, eating a bunch of candy. I finished my Easter Baby Bottle Pop. After the show was over, I decided to watch some of the DVD's special features that I hadn't seen. They were these cheesy kid stories set to partly animated pictures. I think I did situps as I watched them.
2011. I actually don't remember much about this day. We got our Easter baskets and Allie got some Disney Princess Squinkies. I suspect this was the time that my aunt and cousins came to our house. My mom gave my cousin Quin the toy sword he had asked her to buy at Disneyland; he began playing with it. We showed them all the Nightmare Before Christmas paraphernalia I got; Quin said, "Best deck of cards ever." This might be the year that when I was watching Here Comes Peter Cottontail, Susanne said that Grandma Judy always let them watch it on TV and she hated it.
2010. It was general conference. In the morning I saw my Easter basket that had my new shirts and blue plaid shorts in it. I was kind of disappointed that those were my only gifts, since I had got those the day before--there were no surprises. I think we did some grocery shopping and I got a haircut in the morning before the first session. And I think after the first session we had our Easter festivities. Allie didn't want to stay with us because of general conference; Matt said that she had been telling them all about it. We watched Here Comes Peter Cottontail. I think my dad and I went to the Eagleridge building for the Priesthood session.
2009. Elder Kitchen and I had dinner with a member--none of his family was home, so it was just three of us at dinner. We had a barbecue and strawberry shortcake. Elder Kitchen asked him if he could drive us over to our ward's Easter activity--for some reason they held it at another building in our stake than the one our ward attended. They had an egg gathering activity; we gathered some eggs, and Elder Kitchen got one of the "special" eggs, so he gave it to me. These "special" eggs were for a presentation. Each egg had a little prop and a scripture; collectively it told the Easter story. Mine was a nail to represent the Crucifixion. Someone got a dice to represent them casting lots for Jesus's garment; I thought the dice was a bit of a stretch. (I know that die is the singular form, but that just sounds weird.) Sister Tanner's scripture talked about Pilate, and she pronounced it "pih-LAH-tee," like the exercise program Pilates without the s, but she should have pronounced it "pilot." The Tanners drove us home; we crammed into their van with their three kids. I remember at some point that night Elder Kitchen commented about Sister Tanner's pronunciation of Pilate. I remember walking along Ramsey Road. I kind of wanted to go to the Hico gas station, since it would be my last chance to get some Easter treat, like maybe jelly beans or lavender-colored Sno-Balls, but we didn't end up going there. I can't remember what we did the rest of the night.
2008. In the morning Elder Condie and I helped out at the Greenbluff Ward Primary activity. They put us in charge of one game, and a a little girl who was 4 or 5 came up to me and said, "You're a handsome nice man." I later told Elder Condie about it; he said he noticed that I had been laughing after she talked to me. I asked Brother Mears if we could visit his family to teach his family the next installment of the Member Missionary Training Center. He said they were OK (he didn't like me). There was a nonmember there whose husband was an inactive member, and I think the husband was the brother of Brother Mears. The wife was Jewish, but she didn't mind her kids participating in our Easter party. In one of the places we talked about the Resurrection and one kid talked about how Jesus ate fish and honeycomb. After the activity we went to Subway; a member owned that store and gave us free Subway once a week. One of the girls working there said cheerfully to us, "Do Mormons celebrate Easter?" She said she was going to ask the owner but didn't. We told her we did. She said, "I was talking to some people and they said that Mormons don't celebrate Easter; I told them they do, they just don't celebrate with eggs and stuff." Elder Condie told her that we had in fact just come from an activity at our church involving eggs. That day we were supposed to be helping an inactive sister move stuff from her storage unit into her apartment. We had asked the Northpointe Ward to help us, but no one had said anything about helping us, so I threw a bit of a hissy fit in our bedroom. Then I called Brother Cummins, who was the ward clerk, and asked him if he knew of anyone who would be able to help us. He said he would. So we drove down to Spokane to the woman's storage unit. After we had finished up, we were backing up and I was thinking about how nice it was not to have to back him up (since missionaries always have to stand outside and guide people when they back up). Then he backed into a pickup truck. There was a big dent in it. Then he went back into the storage unit to find the owners of the truck. We were going with him, but he said forcefully, "Stay with the car." I told Elder Condie about what I had been thinking about backing. Brother Cummins came back with the truck owner, who was very nice and understanding. Brother Cummins said, "I'm really embarrassed about this," and the owner said it was OK. When Brother Cummins got back in the car, Elder Condie told him that we all had been thinking that if we had done something different, that wouldn't have happened. We got back home, and I think there was a little snowstorm. I shoveled the snow, but that was unnecessary, because it was warm enough that all the snow melted quickly. The Welshes (whom we lived with) made us an Easter dinner, including strawberry shortcake. That night we had a lesson with our investigators Duane and Vickie. Vickie had made us pink rabbit-shaped sugar cookies and sent them home with us in a large Ziploc bag. I think this was the night we brought our Hispanic ward missionary with us, and we talked about the degrees of glory. The ward missionary said that he thought there were infinite sublevels in the three kingdoms.
2007. My sister and niece and I got on a plane back to Salt Lake from Nashville. Since my ticket had been bought at a different time and it was a full flight, I had to sit near the back of the plane and Susanne and Allie sat toward the front. I was reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for my AP English class and eating Easter candy. Afterward Susanne told me that Allie didn't like the airplane and kept asking about me. We came home and were preparing to watch Here Comes Peter Cottontail. Susanne was on the phone with her boyfriend of the time, Darrin, and asking him if he knew that special. Then she started describing it in detail, and Darrin stopped caring when she got to the part about Irontail feeding gum to Peter's clock.
2006. It was our last day in Moab. I remember playing with Allie at the KOA's playground. She put her hands around a hanging bar. I was surprised that I could take my arms away and she was hanging by herself. Then she'd let go and I would catch her. Then we got in the car and drove. I think we took a side trip to Fillmore. Allie got a little restless in the car. When we got home, I got ready to take a shower. I weighed myself and wondered if I had lost any weight on the trip (due to the hiking), but instead I discovered that I had in fact gained weight. It was then that I vowed that I would only eat candies and desserts when they were in season (prior to that, I had allowed myself to eat nonseasonal things in limited quantities.) My new goal was put to the test that day because our home teacher Christian Ulmer brought us a chocolate pie from Marie Callendar's. I can't remember if I ended up succumbing to the temptation or not. We got our Easter presents; I got Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and a deck of Easter-egg-shaped playing cards. I think we watched my new movie and I complained about how it was inferior to Corpse Bride. Then I remember my mom talking to David on MSN chat and she told him that I was disappointed (I think because it wasn't a traditional Easter). He said "Poor Frankfurt." Then she told him they got me the Wallace and Gromit movie and he said "POOR Frankfurt" (because he knew my opinions on the Wallace and Gromit/Corpse Bride thing).
2005. We were in Fillmore. We went to Fillmore's Easter egg event. I remember seeing some kids with jack-o-lantern buckets to collect eggs. I thought that was a good idea to include in the Easter episode of my fictitious TV show. We were talking with my aunt Sarena and my cousin-in-law Kalia (and maybe some other cousins). My mom told Sarena about an awkward incident with Allie that I didn't think was funny. Kalia asked Susanne something about Allie, and Susanne told her, "I found out yesterday that she knows what sound a dog makes" (I had first heard her say "woof" the day before). Kalia talked about her son Damen (who was almost Allie's age) also knowing what dogs said. My aunt Sarena was talking about how they weren't going to go to the sand dunes. Suddenly there was a big wind that blew some snow from the trees onto us. My mom said it was Grandpa Boyd getting mad at us for not going to the sand dunes. Then we went back to Grandma Judy's house; my mom told her about the wind incident and I told her about the kids with the Halloween buckets. We went on a little drive in the Suburban while listening to a Carpenters CD; at the song "Solitaire" I said that Clay Aiken had sung that song on American Idol a few years earlier. We drove past a big sand dune where some people were playing but we didn't stop.
2004. We were at the sand dunes. I got my dragon kite to fly and I buried the base in the sand so that it could fly itself (it was quite windy). I remember driving my grandpa's four-wheeler really slow with Ya-ping on the back. I also had my first driving lesson. I drove for quite a while at probably less than five miles an hour and my grandpa kept telling me which way to steer. Eventually he told me to stop. Then he drove back and I felt dumb that it only took a few minutes to drive back when it had taken me so long because I was going so slow. I remember my aunt Terri liking my nickname for Allie, "Cute-iful." Grandpa hugged or danced or something with my cousin Krishelle and alluded to the fact that he wouldn't be around much longer (it was in fact his last Easter).
2003. This might have actually been on Friday, but it might have been Saturday. I remember coloring eggs in the kitchen and watching Gilligan's Island; it was one of the episodes with Wrongway Feldman.
2001. We took my cousin Joey, from my mom's side, down to Fillmore with us to be with my dad's family. We had donuts in our red Jeep for the ride down. When we got to Fillmore my grandma asked if he was Sue's son. I can't remember what else happened.
2000. I took a shower in the morning before we headed out in our red Jeep to pick up my cousins Peter and Jesse to go down to Fillmore. Before we picked them up, we stopped at a Ream's store near their house and bought some kite string. I also noticed a ball made out of a crystally, squishy plastic material. It didn't bounce well, so I didn't understand why they would make a ball out of it. We picked up Jesse and Peter. Then we drove down. I remember making some comment about smelling my deodorant. Jesse and Peter both seemed disgusted, but I said it wasn't smelly because it was meant to prevent me from smelling. We passed a "G" on a mountainside. I asked what it stood for; my mom said maybe it stood for Pleasant Grove. I said, "Then why doesn't it say PG?" She said that that could stand for pregnant, which I found quite funny. Then I said it could also stand for parental guidance, and Peter said that it could be PG like in movies, and I told him that's what parental guidance was. I had brought the "Official Snoopy Tosserino" (Frisbee) I had inherited from my maternal grandparents and played it with Peter. I kept snapping pictures. David buried Peter in the sand, and then I wanted to be buried. At one point my cousin Terrill talked about how he wanted to go over to the other sand dune. I told him it was cool. Then I asked him if he meant another sand dune or just the other side of that sand dune. I hadn't been to the other sand dune, just the other side of the one we were at. I thought I was so adventurous going to the other side of this tiny barchan sand dune. At one point there was a little rainstorm and the sand got wet and dark. Then Peter was jumping in the sand, and the dry light sand was intermixing with the dark wet sand. He said, "Yay! White skin is winning over black skin!" I told him that was an inappropriate thing to say, and he said that of course he would want white skin to win, since he was white. Then we left and made a stop at my paternal grandparents' house before the long trip back to Salt Lake. We probably listened to tapes of Abbey Road and that tape that had "One Tin Soldier" on it--I was obsessed with that song. I remember being cold, but my mom wouldn't let me turn the heat up because she needed it cold to stay awake.
1999. My cousin April was with us that morning for our Easter festivities. My mom had bought her a travel reading lamp. I got a VHS of It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown. I went down and watched it. As the Easter morning scene started, April said that that was one of her favorite Beethoven pieces. She laughed when Woodstock laid on the egg he got. My brother said something about the line "Never trust a man with a blanket." I remember saying, "I didn't know that girl [Marcie] was dumb," and he told me she was actually smart. Then we drove down to Fillmore; we probably listened to conference in the car. I was wearing a pink Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirt, but I covered up the picture with a green sweater vest. I cared about the pink (for Easter), not the picture. While everyone must have been watching conference, I went in one of the side rooms and saw that Here Comes Peter Cottontail was on the Fox Family Channel. I remember getting annoyed with all the commercial breaks and thinking that they couldn't keep doing that, because they couldn't take much out. (Which was false; they actually could take a lot out.) The promos for the special had the scene where Peter skates the shape of a heart into the ice and makes it light up. That night I was playing the Game Boy and my grandparents' friends came over and my grandma said to her friend, "They sure love those games, don't they."
1998. Intuition tells me that this event occurred in 1998, but I'm actually not sure if it happened at this time. My cousin Rayce and I were hanging out at my family's trailer, which was parked in the backyard of my grandparents' house. He asked me if I believed in the Easter Bunny, because he didn't. I told him I didn't. I said, "I remember thinking, 'How can one man [Santa] deliver presents all over the world in one night?'" Rayce said, "He stops time. I believe in him."
1997. I had wanted my Easter basket hidden this year, instead of just the eggs. My basket was the only hidden one (it was hidden behind some plants). I got a St. Patrick's Day flag since the wind had torn mine. Our Easter grass was this green cottony stuff that was less messy than the typical plastic kind. Then we went to Fillmore; maybe this was the year when I saw my cousins' eggs that had plastic decorative bands around them. I think one egg cracked at the hard interdune (the ground behind a sand dune--I'm glad I know all these geological terms now).
1996. This might be the time I got my springy (as in, it was made of springs) bouncy ball.
1994. I was excited to get a crocodile-shaped bottle of bubbles. I also got a Sesame Street kite and my brother got a more mature kite. We went to Fillmore and I think we participated in the community egg hunt. I got a big marshmallow stick and it was said that I couldn't get it on the seat of my uncle Ken's car. I remember being at the sand dunes and holding my kite (I doubt I was the one who got it in the air) and my aunt Kim talking to me. I think I was a little embarrassed to have such a "babyish" kite.
1993. We got our baskets downstairs. All three of us kids got trolls--I got a worker troll, my brother got a doctor troll, and my sister got a BYU cheerleader troll. We had our egg hunt down there; we had these weird marshmallow-esque eggs to find. There was a blue one in the windowsill of my dad's workroom.
1991. I don't remember anything about this day--I was only two years old--but I do remember seeing a family video that depicted this day. We were at my maternal grandparents' house coloring eggs. We had these rabbit-shaped things that you would put in water and they would dissolve and make the dye. My mom says this was right when we moved into our new house.
I am quite certain that after posting this I will remember more details.
Related posts:
Those Easter Morns
A year of holiday memories
2012. I went out to my car to head home. My mom called and let me know that they were getting home from southern Utah, and I hadn't even left yet. On my windshield was a wrinkled note from Morgan Crockett that said he had backed into my car. I looked and there was indeed a scratch on the back bumper. But my brother and I both put scratches on both sides of the front bumper, so the back scratch just matched the rest of it. I listened to the MoTab Praise to the Man album on my way home. When I got home, my niece Allie came up to me and said, completely shocked, "The Easter Bunny already came!" We searched for Easter eggs; there were lots. There were plastic candy-filled eggs and real confetti-filled eggs. I of course was interested in the candy eggs, but I was surprised that Allie liked the confetti eggs. We broke the confetti eggs on each other, and we were finding confetti for months after (and filled eggs as well). I think we colored eggs. At some point that day my dad lost a tooth. We ate tacos for dinner and made sugar cookies with blue frosting. That night, after everyone went to bed, I went downstairs and watched Here Comes Peter Cottontail, eating a bunch of candy. I finished my Easter Baby Bottle Pop. After the show was over, I decided to watch some of the DVD's special features that I hadn't seen. They were these cheesy kid stories set to partly animated pictures. I think I did situps as I watched them.
2011. I actually don't remember much about this day. We got our Easter baskets and Allie got some Disney Princess Squinkies. I suspect this was the time that my aunt and cousins came to our house. My mom gave my cousin Quin the toy sword he had asked her to buy at Disneyland; he began playing with it. We showed them all the Nightmare Before Christmas paraphernalia I got; Quin said, "Best deck of cards ever." This might be the year that when I was watching Here Comes Peter Cottontail, Susanne said that Grandma Judy always let them watch it on TV and she hated it.
2010. It was general conference. In the morning I saw my Easter basket that had my new shirts and blue plaid shorts in it. I was kind of disappointed that those were my only gifts, since I had got those the day before--there were no surprises. I think we did some grocery shopping and I got a haircut in the morning before the first session. And I think after the first session we had our Easter festivities. Allie didn't want to stay with us because of general conference; Matt said that she had been telling them all about it. We watched Here Comes Peter Cottontail. I think my dad and I went to the Eagleridge building for the Priesthood session.
2009. Elder Kitchen and I had dinner with a member--none of his family was home, so it was just three of us at dinner. We had a barbecue and strawberry shortcake. Elder Kitchen asked him if he could drive us over to our ward's Easter activity--for some reason they held it at another building in our stake than the one our ward attended. They had an egg gathering activity; we gathered some eggs, and Elder Kitchen got one of the "special" eggs, so he gave it to me. These "special" eggs were for a presentation. Each egg had a little prop and a scripture; collectively it told the Easter story. Mine was a nail to represent the Crucifixion. Someone got a dice to represent them casting lots for Jesus's garment; I thought the dice was a bit of a stretch. (I know that die is the singular form, but that just sounds weird.) Sister Tanner's scripture talked about Pilate, and she pronounced it "pih-LAH-tee," like the exercise program Pilates without the s, but she should have pronounced it "pilot." The Tanners drove us home; we crammed into their van with their three kids. I remember at some point that night Elder Kitchen commented about Sister Tanner's pronunciation of Pilate. I remember walking along Ramsey Road. I kind of wanted to go to the Hico gas station, since it would be my last chance to get some Easter treat, like maybe jelly beans or lavender-colored Sno-Balls, but we didn't end up going there. I can't remember what we did the rest of the night.
2008. In the morning Elder Condie and I helped out at the Greenbluff Ward Primary activity. They put us in charge of one game, and a a little girl who was 4 or 5 came up to me and said, "You're a handsome nice man." I later told Elder Condie about it; he said he noticed that I had been laughing after she talked to me. I asked Brother Mears if we could visit his family to teach his family the next installment of the Member Missionary Training Center. He said they were OK (he didn't like me). There was a nonmember there whose husband was an inactive member, and I think the husband was the brother of Brother Mears. The wife was Jewish, but she didn't mind her kids participating in our Easter party. In one of the places we talked about the Resurrection and one kid talked about how Jesus ate fish and honeycomb. After the activity we went to Subway; a member owned that store and gave us free Subway once a week. One of the girls working there said cheerfully to us, "Do Mormons celebrate Easter?" She said she was going to ask the owner but didn't. We told her we did. She said, "I was talking to some people and they said that Mormons don't celebrate Easter; I told them they do, they just don't celebrate with eggs and stuff." Elder Condie told her that we had in fact just come from an activity at our church involving eggs. That day we were supposed to be helping an inactive sister move stuff from her storage unit into her apartment. We had asked the Northpointe Ward to help us, but no one had said anything about helping us, so I threw a bit of a hissy fit in our bedroom. Then I called Brother Cummins, who was the ward clerk, and asked him if he knew of anyone who would be able to help us. He said he would. So we drove down to Spokane to the woman's storage unit. After we had finished up, we were backing up and I was thinking about how nice it was not to have to back him up (since missionaries always have to stand outside and guide people when they back up). Then he backed into a pickup truck. There was a big dent in it. Then he went back into the storage unit to find the owners of the truck. We were going with him, but he said forcefully, "Stay with the car." I told Elder Condie about what I had been thinking about backing. Brother Cummins came back with the truck owner, who was very nice and understanding. Brother Cummins said, "I'm really embarrassed about this," and the owner said it was OK. When Brother Cummins got back in the car, Elder Condie told him that we all had been thinking that if we had done something different, that wouldn't have happened. We got back home, and I think there was a little snowstorm. I shoveled the snow, but that was unnecessary, because it was warm enough that all the snow melted quickly. The Welshes (whom we lived with) made us an Easter dinner, including strawberry shortcake. That night we had a lesson with our investigators Duane and Vickie. Vickie had made us pink rabbit-shaped sugar cookies and sent them home with us in a large Ziploc bag. I think this was the night we brought our Hispanic ward missionary with us, and we talked about the degrees of glory. The ward missionary said that he thought there were infinite sublevels in the three kingdoms.
2007. My sister and niece and I got on a plane back to Salt Lake from Nashville. Since my ticket had been bought at a different time and it was a full flight, I had to sit near the back of the plane and Susanne and Allie sat toward the front. I was reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for my AP English class and eating Easter candy. Afterward Susanne told me that Allie didn't like the airplane and kept asking about me. We came home and were preparing to watch Here Comes Peter Cottontail. Susanne was on the phone with her boyfriend of the time, Darrin, and asking him if he knew that special. Then she started describing it in detail, and Darrin stopped caring when she got to the part about Irontail feeding gum to Peter's clock.
2006. It was our last day in Moab. I remember playing with Allie at the KOA's playground. She put her hands around a hanging bar. I was surprised that I could take my arms away and she was hanging by herself. Then she'd let go and I would catch her. Then we got in the car and drove. I think we took a side trip to Fillmore. Allie got a little restless in the car. When we got home, I got ready to take a shower. I weighed myself and wondered if I had lost any weight on the trip (due to the hiking), but instead I discovered that I had in fact gained weight. It was then that I vowed that I would only eat candies and desserts when they were in season (prior to that, I had allowed myself to eat nonseasonal things in limited quantities.) My new goal was put to the test that day because our home teacher Christian Ulmer brought us a chocolate pie from Marie Callendar's. I can't remember if I ended up succumbing to the temptation or not. We got our Easter presents; I got Wallace and Gromit in The Curse of the Were-Rabbit and a deck of Easter-egg-shaped playing cards. I think we watched my new movie and I complained about how it was inferior to Corpse Bride. Then I remember my mom talking to David on MSN chat and she told him that I was disappointed (I think because it wasn't a traditional Easter). He said "Poor Frankfurt." Then she told him they got me the Wallace and Gromit movie and he said "POOR Frankfurt" (because he knew my opinions on the Wallace and Gromit/Corpse Bride thing).
2005. We were in Fillmore. We went to Fillmore's Easter egg event. I remember seeing some kids with jack-o-lantern buckets to collect eggs. I thought that was a good idea to include in the Easter episode of my fictitious TV show. We were talking with my aunt Sarena and my cousin-in-law Kalia (and maybe some other cousins). My mom told Sarena about an awkward incident with Allie that I didn't think was funny. Kalia asked Susanne something about Allie, and Susanne told her, "I found out yesterday that she knows what sound a dog makes" (I had first heard her say "woof" the day before). Kalia talked about her son Damen (who was almost Allie's age) also knowing what dogs said. My aunt Sarena was talking about how they weren't going to go to the sand dunes. Suddenly there was a big wind that blew some snow from the trees onto us. My mom said it was Grandpa Boyd getting mad at us for not going to the sand dunes. Then we went back to Grandma Judy's house; my mom told her about the wind incident and I told her about the kids with the Halloween buckets. We went on a little drive in the Suburban while listening to a Carpenters CD; at the song "Solitaire" I said that Clay Aiken had sung that song on American Idol a few years earlier. We drove past a big sand dune where some people were playing but we didn't stop.
2004. We were at the sand dunes. I got my dragon kite to fly and I buried the base in the sand so that it could fly itself (it was quite windy). I remember driving my grandpa's four-wheeler really slow with Ya-ping on the back. I also had my first driving lesson. I drove for quite a while at probably less than five miles an hour and my grandpa kept telling me which way to steer. Eventually he told me to stop. Then he drove back and I felt dumb that it only took a few minutes to drive back when it had taken me so long because I was going so slow. I remember my aunt Terri liking my nickname for Allie, "Cute-iful." Grandpa hugged or danced or something with my cousin Krishelle and alluded to the fact that he wouldn't be around much longer (it was in fact his last Easter).
2003. This might have actually been on Friday, but it might have been Saturday. I remember coloring eggs in the kitchen and watching Gilligan's Island; it was one of the episodes with Wrongway Feldman.
2001. We took my cousin Joey, from my mom's side, down to Fillmore with us to be with my dad's family. We had donuts in our red Jeep for the ride down. When we got to Fillmore my grandma asked if he was Sue's son. I can't remember what else happened.
2000. I took a shower in the morning before we headed out in our red Jeep to pick up my cousins Peter and Jesse to go down to Fillmore. Before we picked them up, we stopped at a Ream's store near their house and bought some kite string. I also noticed a ball made out of a crystally, squishy plastic material. It didn't bounce well, so I didn't understand why they would make a ball out of it. We picked up Jesse and Peter. Then we drove down. I remember making some comment about smelling my deodorant. Jesse and Peter both seemed disgusted, but I said it wasn't smelly because it was meant to prevent me from smelling. We passed a "G" on a mountainside. I asked what it stood for; my mom said maybe it stood for Pleasant Grove. I said, "Then why doesn't it say PG?" She said that that could stand for pregnant, which I found quite funny. Then I said it could also stand for parental guidance, and Peter said that it could be PG like in movies, and I told him that's what parental guidance was. I had brought the "Official Snoopy Tosserino" (Frisbee) I had inherited from my maternal grandparents and played it with Peter. I kept snapping pictures. David buried Peter in the sand, and then I wanted to be buried. At one point my cousin Terrill talked about how he wanted to go over to the other sand dune. I told him it was cool. Then I asked him if he meant another sand dune or just the other side of that sand dune. I hadn't been to the other sand dune, just the other side of the one we were at. I thought I was so adventurous going to the other side of this tiny barchan sand dune. At one point there was a little rainstorm and the sand got wet and dark. Then Peter was jumping in the sand, and the dry light sand was intermixing with the dark wet sand. He said, "Yay! White skin is winning over black skin!" I told him that was an inappropriate thing to say, and he said that of course he would want white skin to win, since he was white. Then we left and made a stop at my paternal grandparents' house before the long trip back to Salt Lake. We probably listened to tapes of Abbey Road and that tape that had "One Tin Soldier" on it--I was obsessed with that song. I remember being cold, but my mom wouldn't let me turn the heat up because she needed it cold to stay awake.
1999. My cousin April was with us that morning for our Easter festivities. My mom had bought her a travel reading lamp. I got a VHS of It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown. I went down and watched it. As the Easter morning scene started, April said that that was one of her favorite Beethoven pieces. She laughed when Woodstock laid on the egg he got. My brother said something about the line "Never trust a man with a blanket." I remember saying, "I didn't know that girl [Marcie] was dumb," and he told me she was actually smart. Then we drove down to Fillmore; we probably listened to conference in the car. I was wearing a pink Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles t-shirt, but I covered up the picture with a green sweater vest. I cared about the pink (for Easter), not the picture. While everyone must have been watching conference, I went in one of the side rooms and saw that Here Comes Peter Cottontail was on the Fox Family Channel. I remember getting annoyed with all the commercial breaks and thinking that they couldn't keep doing that, because they couldn't take much out. (Which was false; they actually could take a lot out.) The promos for the special had the scene where Peter skates the shape of a heart into the ice and makes it light up. That night I was playing the Game Boy and my grandparents' friends came over and my grandma said to her friend, "They sure love those games, don't they."
1998. Intuition tells me that this event occurred in 1998, but I'm actually not sure if it happened at this time. My cousin Rayce and I were hanging out at my family's trailer, which was parked in the backyard of my grandparents' house. He asked me if I believed in the Easter Bunny, because he didn't. I told him I didn't. I said, "I remember thinking, 'How can one man [Santa] deliver presents all over the world in one night?'" Rayce said, "He stops time. I believe in him."
1997. I had wanted my Easter basket hidden this year, instead of just the eggs. My basket was the only hidden one (it was hidden behind some plants). I got a St. Patrick's Day flag since the wind had torn mine. Our Easter grass was this green cottony stuff that was less messy than the typical plastic kind. Then we went to Fillmore; maybe this was the year when I saw my cousins' eggs that had plastic decorative bands around them. I think one egg cracked at the hard interdune (the ground behind a sand dune--I'm glad I know all these geological terms now).
1996. This might be the time I got my springy (as in, it was made of springs) bouncy ball.
1994. I was excited to get a crocodile-shaped bottle of bubbles. I also got a Sesame Street kite and my brother got a more mature kite. We went to Fillmore and I think we participated in the community egg hunt. I got a big marshmallow stick and it was said that I couldn't get it on the seat of my uncle Ken's car. I remember being at the sand dunes and holding my kite (I doubt I was the one who got it in the air) and my aunt Kim talking to me. I think I was a little embarrassed to have such a "babyish" kite.
1993. We got our baskets downstairs. All three of us kids got trolls--I got a worker troll, my brother got a doctor troll, and my sister got a BYU cheerleader troll. We had our egg hunt down there; we had these weird marshmallow-esque eggs to find. There was a blue one in the windowsill of my dad's workroom.
1991. I don't remember anything about this day--I was only two years old--but I do remember seeing a family video that depicted this day. We were at my maternal grandparents' house coloring eggs. We had these rabbit-shaped things that you would put in water and they would dissolve and make the dye. My mom says this was right when we moved into our new house.
I am quite certain that after posting this I will remember more details.
Related posts:
Those Easter Morns
A year of holiday memories
Tuesday, December 25, 2012
Boxing Day
This time, I'm going to remember as many details about the day after Christmas as I can.
2011. I think I had Taylor Swift's Speak Now album on in the living room while we were taking down Christmas decorations. My dad said he wanted to keep the ornament lights that change color up, but I planned to take them down. My mom reproved me for wanting to take down the one thing my dad said he liked. Ya-ping called, so my mom turned the music off.
2010. I woke up to my mom telling Franklin to wake me up. He came and got on me and warmed up to me super fast. David said it was because I looked enough like my cousins. Church was cancelled that day in Tennessee because it snowed the day before. It was time for the boys to open the presents that we brought for them. Preston opened the toy that had the plastic pins that you can push in and make imprints, and he said, "I always wanted one of these!" My mom told me that I made a good choice in getting it for him. Franklin correctly identified my gift to him as a stingray. David asked the boys if they wanted to keep their Christmas tree up or take it down, and Preston said to keep it up. A little later, Franklin was playing with Preston's pin toy. One of the plastic pins was bent, so I pulled it out because it was interfering with some of the other pins. Franklin took the pin and was trying to put it back in. Preston came over and saw what he was doing. He said, completely distressed, "Franklin, no!" I told him that I had taken it out because it was bent. He started crying. I told him that he couldn't even notice that it was out, but he pointed to the hole and kept crying. David saved the day when he put the pin back in. A little later, David needed to go to his work (to feed fish?). He asked if I wanted to come with. I asked if the boys were going, but since they weren't, I didn't go.
2009. All ten of us in the family went to Chuck-A-Rama for lunch. After that, my mom took me to Deseret Book so I could pick a Cherie Call CD. I couldn't find her new album, Grace, so I picked Beneath These Stars instead. Then we drove home and I put in the CD. My mom told me that the CD was more upbeat than she expected of Cherie Call, but I thought it was less upbeat than some of her other stuff. I think I played a velcro ball game with Preston. Then I had to work on my homecoming talk and I stopped and put a status on Facebook: "I'm currently writing my homecoming talk for tomorrow but I get bored and distracted easily even if it's something interesting. (The curses of being a monotonous individual!)" It was my subtle way of letting everyone know I was giving my talk, but I don't think anyone came who didn't already know about it.
2008. We drove back to Ritzville that morning, and when we got there, one of the neighbors came out and gave us the Christmas packages that had been left on our doorstep. If I had my journal, I could look and better see what happened, but I don't right now.
2007. I think we had interviews with the mission president that day. The sisters gave us a ride, and we brought our boxes of cherry cordials. One of them fell on the concrete outside the church door, but Elder Chun picked it up and put it back in the box. Then we had to tell President Clark not to eat from that box. Interviews were really long. We watched a pioneer video, but I couldn't stay awake for most of it. President Clark asked me to come in with Elder Chun. That was the only time I ever went in with my companion. Elder Chun talked about how the members kept signing up for dinner appointments on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, when we were only supposed to eat with members if they had an investigator present on those days. President Clark was very forceful with Elder Chun that we weren't supposed to eat with members on those days. Then it was time for my individual interview. I told him how I felt bad for Elder Chun because I was always doing lots of stupid things. At the end of the interview, President said to me, "Elder Melville, will you check that your zipper is up? Will you just check?" It wasn't up, and I told him that showed how I was always doing stupid things.
2006. I think I drove to my counseling appointment while listening to the Beatles LOVE album that I got for Christmas. I liked "I Am the Walrus."
2005. I remember cleaning the church. It was the day for the young men to clean the church, but I was the only young man who showed up. I remembering vacuuming a classroom while thinking about the "Have a Happy" song from Rudolph's Shiny New Year.
2004. We drove to church and the radio was playing a Christmas song. I was a little annoyed, because Christmas was over. In Sunday School, Sister Olsen had a bunch of candy for us. One was a chocolate bar with almonds in it. Sister Lance said, "Oh, like a Mr. Goodbar?" When she was eating some, she said, "I love Mr. Goodbars," and I thought silently about how Mr. Goodbars have peanuts, not almonds. After Sunday School, Sister Olsen asked me about what I got for Christmas. I told her about all the Wario Game Boy games I got. Then for priesthood opening exercises, we sang "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," and I was surprised Christian Ulmer picked that instead of "Ring Out Wild Bells."
2003. It had snowed a lot overnight, and our power was out. We might have tried to go sledding, but I can't remember. My mom had heated some water on a portable propane stove so we could have hot chocolate. As it got dark, my mom got into bed. I remember sitting in her bed and making an impromptu New-Year-themed story with shadows in a flashlight. David said something about a New Year tree from The Nightmare Before Christmas. I told him that there were only seven holiday trees in the movie, and there wasn't a New Year tree. He started making up that there was another grove of trees with other holidays, like Veterans Day--he said there was scary stuff in that tree. Then I remember being in the living room, doing weird exercises to try to keep warm. Ya-ping's friend Hui-Ru said "Frankfurt" in Chinese because she wanted me to hold baby Allie. Eventually the power came back on and I was really excited. David told me I shouldn't turn everything on until we were sure the power was going to stay on. When we were sure, I went downstairs and watched Happy New Year, Charlie Brown.
2000. That morning we went and saw the Jim Carrey Grinch movie in the theater near Kmart (that isn't there anymore). We were just a little late, so we missed the trailers and some of the opening credits. Then I went home but my parents were out doing errands. I watched the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas! special while following along in the book. I was surprised at all the differences, such as "red thread" in the book and "black thread" in the special.
1996. I wonder if this was the time we were in Fillmore and How the Grinch Stole Christmas! was on TV. At the part where Max's tail gets in the sewing machine, Sarena said, "Doesn't that just make you hurt?"
1993. I remember waking up in my grandparents' motor home as we drove into California, seeing all the palm trees. I think we picked a campsite and a nearby RV had Christmas decorations up. That night we went to a beach and there were little slugs all over the sand. At some point in the trip we went to a nearby gift shop and they had a decoration that was a melted snowman--a container of water with a little hat and other snowman accessories floating in it--but I don't remember if we went there the day after Christmas or if it was only on a different day.
Merry Christmas!
Related post:
Yuletide by the Fireside, and Joyful Memories There
2011. I think I had Taylor Swift's Speak Now album on in the living room while we were taking down Christmas decorations. My dad said he wanted to keep the ornament lights that change color up, but I planned to take them down. My mom reproved me for wanting to take down the one thing my dad said he liked. Ya-ping called, so my mom turned the music off.
2010. I woke up to my mom telling Franklin to wake me up. He came and got on me and warmed up to me super fast. David said it was because I looked enough like my cousins. Church was cancelled that day in Tennessee because it snowed the day before. It was time for the boys to open the presents that we brought for them. Preston opened the toy that had the plastic pins that you can push in and make imprints, and he said, "I always wanted one of these!" My mom told me that I made a good choice in getting it for him. Franklin correctly identified my gift to him as a stingray. David asked the boys if they wanted to keep their Christmas tree up or take it down, and Preston said to keep it up. A little later, Franklin was playing with Preston's pin toy. One of the plastic pins was bent, so I pulled it out because it was interfering with some of the other pins. Franklin took the pin and was trying to put it back in. Preston came over and saw what he was doing. He said, completely distressed, "Franklin, no!" I told him that I had taken it out because it was bent. He started crying. I told him that he couldn't even notice that it was out, but he pointed to the hole and kept crying. David saved the day when he put the pin back in. A little later, David needed to go to his work (to feed fish?). He asked if I wanted to come with. I asked if the boys were going, but since they weren't, I didn't go.
2009. All ten of us in the family went to Chuck-A-Rama for lunch. After that, my mom took me to Deseret Book so I could pick a Cherie Call CD. I couldn't find her new album, Grace, so I picked Beneath These Stars instead. Then we drove home and I put in the CD. My mom told me that the CD was more upbeat than she expected of Cherie Call, but I thought it was less upbeat than some of her other stuff. I think I played a velcro ball game with Preston. Then I had to work on my homecoming talk and I stopped and put a status on Facebook: "I'm currently writing my homecoming talk for tomorrow but I get bored and distracted easily even if it's something interesting. (The curses of being a monotonous individual!)" It was my subtle way of letting everyone know I was giving my talk, but I don't think anyone came who didn't already know about it.
2008. We drove back to Ritzville that morning, and when we got there, one of the neighbors came out and gave us the Christmas packages that had been left on our doorstep. If I had my journal, I could look and better see what happened, but I don't right now.
2007. I think we had interviews with the mission president that day. The sisters gave us a ride, and we brought our boxes of cherry cordials. One of them fell on the concrete outside the church door, but Elder Chun picked it up and put it back in the box. Then we had to tell President Clark not to eat from that box. Interviews were really long. We watched a pioneer video, but I couldn't stay awake for most of it. President Clark asked me to come in with Elder Chun. That was the only time I ever went in with my companion. Elder Chun talked about how the members kept signing up for dinner appointments on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, when we were only supposed to eat with members if they had an investigator present on those days. President Clark was very forceful with Elder Chun that we weren't supposed to eat with members on those days. Then it was time for my individual interview. I told him how I felt bad for Elder Chun because I was always doing lots of stupid things. At the end of the interview, President said to me, "Elder Melville, will you check that your zipper is up? Will you just check?" It wasn't up, and I told him that showed how I was always doing stupid things.
2006. I think I drove to my counseling appointment while listening to the Beatles LOVE album that I got for Christmas. I liked "I Am the Walrus."
2005. I remember cleaning the church. It was the day for the young men to clean the church, but I was the only young man who showed up. I remembering vacuuming a classroom while thinking about the "Have a Happy" song from Rudolph's Shiny New Year.
2004. We drove to church and the radio was playing a Christmas song. I was a little annoyed, because Christmas was over. In Sunday School, Sister Olsen had a bunch of candy for us. One was a chocolate bar with almonds in it. Sister Lance said, "Oh, like a Mr. Goodbar?" When she was eating some, she said, "I love Mr. Goodbars," and I thought silently about how Mr. Goodbars have peanuts, not almonds. After Sunday School, Sister Olsen asked me about what I got for Christmas. I told her about all the Wario Game Boy games I got. Then for priesthood opening exercises, we sang "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," and I was surprised Christian Ulmer picked that instead of "Ring Out Wild Bells."
2003. It had snowed a lot overnight, and our power was out. We might have tried to go sledding, but I can't remember. My mom had heated some water on a portable propane stove so we could have hot chocolate. As it got dark, my mom got into bed. I remember sitting in her bed and making an impromptu New-Year-themed story with shadows in a flashlight. David said something about a New Year tree from The Nightmare Before Christmas. I told him that there were only seven holiday trees in the movie, and there wasn't a New Year tree. He started making up that there was another grove of trees with other holidays, like Veterans Day--he said there was scary stuff in that tree. Then I remember being in the living room, doing weird exercises to try to keep warm. Ya-ping's friend Hui-Ru said "Frankfurt" in Chinese because she wanted me to hold baby Allie. Eventually the power came back on and I was really excited. David told me I shouldn't turn everything on until we were sure the power was going to stay on. When we were sure, I went downstairs and watched Happy New Year, Charlie Brown.
2000. That morning we went and saw the Jim Carrey Grinch movie in the theater near Kmart (that isn't there anymore). We were just a little late, so we missed the trailers and some of the opening credits. Then I went home but my parents were out doing errands. I watched the original How the Grinch Stole Christmas! special while following along in the book. I was surprised at all the differences, such as "red thread" in the book and "black thread" in the special.
1996. I wonder if this was the time we were in Fillmore and How the Grinch Stole Christmas! was on TV. At the part where Max's tail gets in the sewing machine, Sarena said, "Doesn't that just make you hurt?"
1993. I remember waking up in my grandparents' motor home as we drove into California, seeing all the palm trees. I think we picked a campsite and a nearby RV had Christmas decorations up. That night we went to a beach and there were little slugs all over the sand. At some point in the trip we went to a nearby gift shop and they had a decoration that was a melted snowman--a container of water with a little hat and other snowman accessories floating in it--but I don't remember if we went there the day after Christmas or if it was only on a different day.
Merry Christmas!
Related post:
Yuletide by the Fireside, and Joyful Memories There
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