The Friday before Memorial Day

In recent years, the Friday before Memorial Day has been kind of an exciting day because it's one of my arbitrary days when I start a holiday season. On the Friday before Memorial Day I start the patriotic season that includes Memorial Day and Flag Day but is really all about the Fourth of July. However, this hasn't always been the case. This is my attempt at remembering what I can about the Friday before Memorial Day in the past.

2012. I went to my stupid history class in the morning and doodled patriotic things in the margins of my notes. Then that afternoon my parents came to town and picked me up. They wanted to try J-Dawgs, so they pulled into the parking lot. But I didn't warn them that the parking lot was really small, so my dad had to do some difficult maneuvering to back the Suburban into a parking spot. My dad ate his before we headed out. Allie was annoyed about turning the car off because it would make her start her movie over on her portable DVD player. Allie eventually said she didn't want to finish hers, so she gave it to my mom, but all that was left was the bun. My family had gone to Cabela's before picking me up and bought some Tootsie Rolls. I said that if they had bought patriotic-wrapped candies, I could have had them. I asked them if they remembered to bring the patriotic marshmallows. Allie was watching Matilda, and I didn't care for the language contained therein. I wanted to listen to Adele, and we eventually did. We drove out to see the lava tubes near Flowell; I think we saw a dust devil in a Flowell field. There was a cinder cone volcano that was half destroyed by some business. We drove on a road surrounded by basalt. There were lots of rocks in the road and I worried we would get a flat tire, which got Allie worrying as well. Then we got to the lava tubes. I went down into one. It was really cool! There were lots of grasshoppers and even some lizards. My dad told me about how he and some friends once set a fire in the open area of the lava tube, so he may have been responsible for the relative lack of vegetation down there. Then my dad took me and Allie into another lava tube, one that went far into the earth and out of the daylight. We had to use flashlights. My dad told me how he would go camping in the dark tube. I would be a little creeped out to sleep there. Then I hiked up nearby Tabernacle Hill while my mom and Allie waited in the car. I started on one side, but the path led to a steeper path on the other side. It was extraordinarily windy and I worried my glasses would blow off. My dad also climbed up. I tried to take pictures from the top, but my camera was out of battery. I wanted to walk over to a nearby alcove down in the lava tube, but it was so windy I decided not to. When we were driving back, my parents took a wrong turn (even though I told them it was wrong). We saw a sand dune with some cows on it; I said, "Look at that barchan sand dune!" My mom asked what barchan meant; she thought it was some slang expression. Then we drove up to Fillmore Canyon. I noticed all the arkose rocks. Then we met all of the Christensens, my dad's sister's family. We set up our tent, and then that night we roasted marshmallows for s'mores. I used red, white, and blue marshmallows so that I could have them. We talked about how good a man my Grandpa Boyd was. Sarena said that Judy was a good grandma, considering her circumstances.

2011. Before my 12:00 class, I downloaded "America the Beautiful," "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," and "The Star Spangled Banner" from lds.org. When I came home from classes, I was talking to my roommate Chase, and I think we were looking at pictures of eight-legged creatures. I was people watching out the window and saw a barefoot guy with short shorts and a funny gait. (I can't remember if his shorts were salmon-colored or if his legs were.) Then our roommate Zach came home and we put our stuff in the car to carpool up to North Salt Lake. We had to stop at the Wilk to pick up Shannon Kelly. Zach made an illegal left turn to get out of the Wilk. As we were driving down University Parkway, there was a car in front of us with a peculiar accessory on the back--it looked like a TV screen. We wanted to figure out what it was, but the car got away from us. As we got on the freeway, Zach and Shannon talked about a time when they almost crashed getting on the freeway because of a crazy lady driver. Zach was a fairly aggressive driver and said why he wondered why some of the people were going slow. I said, "Maybe they believe in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law." Zach was listening to his music on his iPod and Chase started dancing to "Viva la Vida." When Zach pulled up to my house, he was surprised to see the green Taurus in the driveway--he had ridden in that car before, but he didn't know I had switched cars. My dad wasn't too happy about turning 60. My mom made him a cake with blue frosting and red, white, and blue sprinkles. The sprinkles were for my sake, so I could eat the cake. She sent me to the store for something. I went with Allie, and we looked to see if there was such a thing as Fourth of July ice cream, since my mom said she had seen some. There wasn't. As we left the store, we saw Devan Gubler. Zach texted me to see if I wanted to play card games with him and some friends, but I declined. (Taken from the post about my dad's birthday.)

2010. My roommate Alex Vincent sent a mass text to all of his friends about his friend Nik Day who was performing at Sammy's restaurant in honor of his EP release. I asked Alex what an EP was, and he said it was a short CD. Since I didn't have anything better to do, I went to the EP release and met a girl from our ward, Joyce Porter. The first performer that night was one Amy Whitcomb. Next up was Jarrett Burns, who was quite enthusiastic, and I found his music fun. He didn't have live music; he just played the minus tracks from his laptop. Sammy's passed around a menu of their food, and Jarrett Burns's parents were in attendance.  Then there was a girl who sang, accompanied by Aaron Edson. She was singing a song and she kept amending the lyrics. One of lyrics was "We could make out," and she added, "in a totally appropriate way." She mentioned something about talking to a bishop. In the middle of the song she apologized and said she was being too silly. My thought was, if you're going to have to clean up the lyrics, why don't you just choose another song? She also sang, "Or we could make love...after going to the temple!" Then Nik Day got on. Alex was his mandolin player. He said he was going to sing "People Will Be People," and there were some cheers. He pointed out that obviously his family members were there. Some people were watching from the parking balcony of the adjacent hotel; the MC thanked them for not complaining about the noise. That night I bought Jarrett Burns's CD, and then I bought Nik Day's EP out of sympathy. (Well, sympathy's not the right word; I bought it because I felt bad not buying it, since it was his concert.) Joyce Porter bought the deal that included some extra songs and a Sammy's pie shake, but she tried to give the shake away. I drove Joyce home while listening to my Michelle Tumes CD. When I got to the Stratford Court parking lot, I told her she could get out because I was embarrassed to back into a parking spot with someone in the car, since I'm not a very good backer.

2009. At combined district meeting, our zone leaders told us they weren't going to give us a training on how to contact people but instead would have us go out and contact people. We all paired up with other missionaries and drove someplace to contact people. Elder Cluff drove us to the Walmart parking lot; he and his "companion" claimed the people who were standing underneath a tree outside of the parking lot. I thought the parking lot was a terrible idea. But before I could tell my temporary companion that it was a bad idea to talk to people in the parking lot, he went up and started talking to people. I changed the approach and just offered to take people's carts back for them, since that seemed more legal. That afternoon we went to Lapwai, and then we came back for the Lewiston 2nd Ward party. I commented on the springlike colors of the table cloths. Here is my journal entry for the day:
"Today the zone leaders had us leave in district meeting to go talk to people, and the other missionaries foolishly had us go to the Wal-Mart parking lot. That was bad and I didn't think it was an appropriate place to contact people.

"Jeffrey's was really slow. Then we went out to Lapwai. A bunch of the Indians are unhappy because a policeman shot an Indian who wouldn't pull over.

"Then we went to the ward party. It was kind of boring and had a poor turnout.

"I'm feeling like the days here are unfulfilling. On Wednesday I'll take over the area on exchanges, and I'm excited. I want to do some good work that will help me learn the area. I am pretty annoyed that Elder Lamb didn't update anything of former investigators." 

2008.  This is what my journal entry says:
"Today Elder Condie decided to sleep in [which was nothing new for him]. Then Teddie cancelled but still wanted a map to church. We stopped by a few people around her, then we came home. We had to usher for the stake play--they started it early for some reason. There was no organization. Then Kristy wasn't home when we showed up. We tried to call her but she got a new cell phone."
I seem to remember thinking it was dumb to start the play early, since lots of people were still showing up. I think this was the time we were standing outside the room of the performance, and we heard silence on stage (it was written as part of the play). Sister Shaw said that it was bad to have silence on stage for so long, whether it was intentional or not.

2005. I remember that my dad picked me up from school and we had to stop at a gas station to buy special ice to go camping. I guess our freezer ice wasn't good enough. (Taken from the post about my dad's birthday.)

2002. I was home sick from school. I was taking some medicine for the sickness. I told my mom I couldn't breathe, so she took me to Instacare. They examined me and told me that my throat was closed up; I had anaphylaxis from the medicine. They did what they could for me, but then it was time for them to close, so I was transported by ambulance to Primary Children's Hospital. I think I could see my mom's car following the ambulance. I had to stay the night. They gave me an IV and I had to go to the bathroom all night, which annoyed my mom.

2001. We went up to Fillmore Canyon, where we were surprised to see a new outhouse near the gate of the parking area. It was nice and clean, but we didn't know how long it would stay that way. My mom had bought some twirly helicopter toys--you know, the ones that you spin with your hands and let go into the air. I thought about how the red and blue one could be a Fourth of July one, and the orange and purple one could be a Halloween one.

1994. If I am not mistaken, this was the last day of my preschool. They gave us pictures of our class and pencils that had pictures of the earth. They also gave us bags of clothes. These were clothes that our parents had given to the teachers in case we ever peed our pants, but a lot of us thought they were just giving us clothes. I can't remember whether or not I recognized the clothes as my own, but I do remember that I didn't recognize the Mario underwear as my own. (In fact, I think that underwear might have originally belonged to a friend named Keith, or else he had some that was the same. Underwear has a way of changing houses among children who are scared to use strangers' bathrooms.) One boy in my class was tearing off pieces from his plastic bag and eating them, saying, "I love plastic." I thought how I liked it too, but my mom and brother had told me it wasn't good to eat. (It's possible this last part was a dream; sometimes it's hard to distinguish old memories from dreams--but I always thought it really happened.) Then I think I played with my friend David Christensen while my parents were getting ready for camping. It was an overcast day. (Taken from the post about my dad's birthday.)

Memorial Days

With Memorial Day coming up this weekend, I am going to remember as many details as possible about Memorial Days of my life. However, since I don't fully consider Memorial Day a true holiday--it's more of a gateway into the Fourth of July season--I don't remember as much about it as I do about other holidays.


 2011. I woke up to my niece Allie coming into my room and saying "Snow!" because I had asked my family to wake me up if it snowed. I was delighted to come out of my bedroom and see snow on the roofs and the grass.  That morning we--my parents, Allie, and I--went to the zoo. They had all their dinosaur models all over the zoo. My niece wanted to see some animal show, so we went to it. We had to find strategic places to sit because rain and melting snow was dripping through holes in the tarp above the benches. They were playing hokey '60s music before the show. I was surprised when they played Beatles songs because the rest of it was so hokey. They had two college-age females conduct the animal show. One of them was a much better actress than the other. At one point they had a little girl come up as a volunteer. The zoo girl was holding a tortoise, and the little girl tried to touch it, but the zoo girl forbade her, telling her she could touch it later. After the show they let the kids touch the animals as long as they only used two fingers, but I don't think Allie wanted to touch them. We went around to the various animal exhibits. I had never seen the new bat exhibit and I was thoroughly impressed. We assumed these bunnies were hiding from the rain; the goats were hiding as well. (When I went to the zoo on a sunny June day, the bunnies were still hiding under that little shelter.)

 We went to the "Living Links" exhibit in the greenhouse. I was sad I had missed the previous exhibit, "Nature's Nightmares," but there were a lot of animals that were the same, so much that Allie kept saying, "This really is Nature's Nightmares!" I was sad that they no longer had free-flying bats, and the Goliath spider was smaller and less impressive than I had hoped. I tried to take some pictures of the hibiscus flowers. Outside the exit of the greenhouse they had gifts for sale, and my mom debated buying the animals that were on exhibit that are dried up and you can bring them back to life (not brine shrimp--way cooler than that, with red on the bottom). When we were at one of the playgrounds, I asked my mom to take a picture of me on the giant spider so I could use it for a Facebook profile picture.

Allie wasn't dressed very warmly, so she wanted to go to the car with my mom. My dad and I stayed and tried to find all the dinosaurs. The T-rex was the only big one that was life-sized.

 

I was sad that the sauropods weren't life-sized. Shrinking the dinosaurs kind of made me think, "What's the point?"

 We went to the car and left. There was a man in short shorts and no shirt who was running across the road as we were leaving the zoo. My mom said, "He's crazy," probably because it was cold, but maybe because he was in the road. Later I texted my roommate Zach Zimmerman to see when he was going to pick me up. I also asked him if he wanted me to bring the Coldplay Viva la Vida album because I knew he hadn't heard it but liked Coldplay. He was quite late when he finally showed up. I was surprised to see Sarah Edwards in the car, because she hadn't ridden up with us. I put my stuff in the trunk and Zach put my CD in. Then we picked up Chase Elwood; it was tough getting everyone's stuff in the trunk. Shannon Kelly talked about the editing minor. Sarah said she had had to take an ELang class. At one point, Zach asked if I could hear the music, and I said I could. One of the girls asked if I liked Coldplay--I said yes but wasn't wildly enthusiastic. One of them said she liked the song "Lovers in Japan." At one point I mentioned disc two, but when disc one was over, Zach turned his own music on. I zoned out--as I often do--when they were talking about speeding tickets. They said, "Mark's never had a ticket," but since I hadn't been paying attention, I thought they were talking about concert or theater tickets. We dropped Sarah off at her apartment when a Beatles song was playing. Then we dropped off Shannon and came home and parked in our parking lot. Zach ejected the CD and then realized that he'd forgotten about disc two and apologized. I didn't mind--I brought the CD because I thought he might like it but it seemed he didn't really care. He read the title, Viva la Vida, or, Death and All His Friends, and commented on the irony of the title. I put my stuff away and put my Peanuts Fourth of July pillowcase on my pillow.

2010. All I remember is going to dinner group. It was a combined dinner group that night. I was wearing a T-shirt that had all the names of the 50 states arranged as an American flag. One guy there told me he liked my shirt because it was "fashionable" and because it had New Mexico on the top. There was some mild ridicule about that, because a few other states, including Utah, were also at the top.

2009. All I remember is sending emails from the Family History Center in the Lewiston Idaho stake center. But thanks to the miracle of the internet (and knowing my mom's email password), I was able to find the very email that I sent that day:

"Wednesday is Pops's birthday, and Thursday I hit the dreaded eighteen-month mark. I've been having all sorts of depressing dreams about going home lately.

"Next week we will be having a baptism in the singles branch. Her mom's not too keen on it, so yesterday Kim (that's the investigator) asked us to go talk with her mom, so we're going to go over tonight. Hopefully that will go well.

"Another investigator who was supposed to be baptized in June dropped us. We don't know if she talked to her parents and they strongly opposed, or if she was just too scared to talk with them. Her dad is against the Church because when he was in Boy Scouts he blew up some flower holders on the church grounds and they kicked him out of Scouts. We visit his bedridden mother often and their whole family is very nice, just not active and some of them against the Church.

"Also, we cover Lapwai, an Indian reservation. The Indians are on the war path (as everyone says) because of a recent event. A couple of the natives were being chased by a state patrolman and would not pull over. Eventually they stopped and he shot them. Here's where some details become conflicting. One version said they were running away; another said they were approaching him to fight. Supposedly he heard a gun shot and thought they had guns, but it was another, unrelated shot nearby. This all happened on tribal lands so the injuns are all up in arms. I guess the FBI has to investigate because state policeman don't have authority over the Indians. I guess if a policeman not of the tribe pulls over a Lamanite (I couldn't resist) he can't arrest them or give them a ticket; he can only tell them to wait until an Indian officer comes, and if they drive off, there's nothing he can do. But it does go the other way; if an Indian pulls someone over, he has to call someone who is a regular officer.

"It got decently warm this week. I'm starting to acquire a "bring it on" attitude for heat, because I know it's only going to get warmer and there's nothing I can do about it. They say it gets about 110 degrees in the summer here.

"This week we had an interesting service experience. It probably wasn't the most kosher and if it hadn't been established earlier I probably would have not done it. A member took us to several cemeteries out of our area to put flowers on the stones of his relatives. They weren't members, but they recently had their temple work done, so we dedicated the graves. It was fun being in the cemeteries. I wouldn't mind working in one.

"I don't know why he didn't dedicate them; he's an elder, but he is kind of a questionable member, so maybe he's not worthy. He's engaged and his fiancée lives with him. We don't know if anything's going on but they still shouldn't live in the same house. They have both been married several times. He is weird, but she is weirder. Her nickname is Elf (she's short), but I only think of another one-syllable name ending in f--waif. The reason for this comes because we were talking with another member who was saying she thinks he's marrying her because she's a waif--no one else wants her. It will be funny when they're married and she's his wife the waif. It could be funny if I accidentally let slip something like, 'How's your waif--I mean, wife?' In one of the cemeteries he has a plot and his waif was talking about being buried there, but Elder LaPratt and I both agree she won't be buried there. We've heard he's already been married eight times.

"Yes, north Idaho is an interesting place. Lots of members talk about guns and sometimes show them to us. I feel sick when I handle a gun.

"Our landlord has a stupid blue heeler who barks at us all the time. He's on a big line in the backyard, and he runs around until he wraps himself around a pole. If you leave him alone he barks and whines. If you release him he gets excited and pees on you. Our neighbor is a member and he wants to shoot him. I wouldn't mind that.

"I can't think of anything else I want to add. I could add more but I don't know how much time I have.

"Love,

"Elder Melville"

(An update on some of the things in the letter--Kim never got baptized, but Katelyn [the one who dropped us on this week] ended up getting baptized about two months later.  Brother Jones never married Elf.)

 2008. That morning Elder Condie and I went to help a member move in. Brother Longhurst had ridden his bike there. There were a lot of members there helping. This was a workday, despite it being a Monday (which were generally P-days), but due to an abominable companionship, we didn't really work. Elder Condie did about a triple no-no by writing up a story about a past transgression and typing it up on the Welshes' computer (the Welshes were the old couple we lived with). I don't know what I did when he was doing that; I probably did some paperwork. I had to call one Sister Kearl in the Greenbluff Ward to tell her that we couldn't come to her family barbecue. We cancelled that appointment so we could go to the Northpointe Ward barbecue, but we didn't tell Sister Kearl that was the reason. Sister Kearl said, "I thought you could do whatever you wanted on Mondays." When I told Elder Condie she had said that, he said that even if we didn't have the other barbecue, why would we want to give up our P-day to have dinner with members? Then we went to the Northpointe ward party, which was at the park next to Brentwood Elementary and across the street from the "Regina Building," the Spokane North stake center. We were pleased with the turnout; Cindy Neely, an eternal investigator, and her friends came. We and Brother Palmer, our ward mission leader, counted ten nonmembers there, thanks to our efforts and some of the youths' friends. The ward played Capture the Flag; we elders did as well. Elder Condie changed into his shorts and Superhero t-shirt, but I stayed in "pross," although I might have taken my tie off. Elder Condie was pretty good. Some young girls (11 or 12 years old), a Sant and a Johnson, cheered for us, but they gave us silly nicknames: I think mine was Elder Melon and Elder Condie was Elder Condog. After Capture the Flag, the ward played football, but since I don't play football, I got my ladybug kite out and flew it in the school's field. A member who was visiting from Idaho came and talked to me. There was an annoying dog that kept chasing my kite. I got green pollen all over my black shoes; I thought it looked cool. After the party, I insisted on going to the Peone Cemetery. There, I reasoned, if anyone wanted to talk about life after death, we could talk to them. But when we got there I said it would probably be in poor taste to go up to talk to people, so we would be there if they wanted to approach us. There were many tombstones that said things like "Families Are Forever." We even saw one Turnidge stone with the Provo Temple on it; we were well-acquainted with the Turnidges; most (or all) of them were less active. We saw lots of Bible verses on the stones; Elder Condie speculated they weren't allowed to put Book of Mormon scriptures on the stones, but I found that unlikely. We saw the tombstone of the Welshes' son, whose death nearly five months earlier was announced to Sister Welsh while I was holding her hand. I wanted to take a picture, but Elder Condie forbade me.

2007. All I remember is that we had spent the weekend in Fillmore, in my late grandparents' backyard. I think this might have been the time we looked at Christmas lights in one of the sheds and I wanted to take some home. I was wearing my red t-shirt with Snoopy and Woodstock in Uncle Sam costumes; it was my first time wearing it. On the drive home, I sat in the front seat and my mom sat in the middle seat with Allie, who watched The Little Mermaid on a portable DVD player.

2006-2000. So it has always been a family tradition that we go camping on Memorial Day and Labor Day weekends. Since there are so many years that are the same, and since we camped over the course of a few days, and since it happened twice a year, I don't know exactly what happened on Memorial Days. But then, out of the blue, I remember something from

1999. After we came home, I remember going to get dinner at Gringo's Mexican restaurant. I also got some Tic-Tacs from a gas station. And I remember something about the movie Antz; either we rented it or it was on TV. I don't think I watched it.

1998-before. Same story as 2000-2006 :(

That's it! Like always, I'll probably remember something after I post...