Chimney Canyon Hike

A day spent hiking in the Sandia Mountains is almost always a good day, and today was no exception. I hiked up the difficult Chimney Canyon "route," and then back down the La Luz Trail, with my friend John Brewer, John's son Jeff, and Jeff's friends Andrew and Bo. Chimney Canyon is one of the wildest places in the entire Sandia range, as evidenced by this photo, which shows the "Chimney" formation from about half-way up the loose, steep (and spooky) couloir that one must scramble up to reach the top of the "route." I was a little anxious about how I'd do on the hike with my 49-year-old body, but I did fine: well-fitting boots, plenty of ibuprofen (the true "fountain of youth"), my trusty trekking poles, lots of good conversation, and all the miles I put in on the treadmill saw me through. John and I also have plans to hike up the North Crest Trail (probably in July) and up to South Sandia Peak (via the Whitewash and the upper portion of the Embudito Trail, probably in September). John loves the Sandias as much as I do -- and we're pretty close in age and have similar interests -- so we make good hiking companions.

Family News Update

A few things have happened recently that deserve mention. First, Easton H_____, Devery's husband, was able to secure a summer job at Bradbury Stamm, a large local commercial construction contractor. He probably couldn't have found a better job, as it pays well and gives him some good project management experience for his resume. Devery regained her "L" clearance at the end of her first week at Sandia, so she no longer has to be escorted everywhere inside the limited area. Kristy and Chris are now settled in their new home, and we're hoping Chris will have time to do some repairs to some of our cars, especially the 1990 Geo Prizm and the 1994 Dodge Shadow that we've kept for Dorine and Kiley, respectively, to drive. Kristy's twins, Hailee and Maddy, are both doing well, although they still look hardly anything alike. Heidi and Dion drove down to El Paso to pick up a new Nissan truck after Dion's old truck was stolen out of their driveway several weeks ago. Dorine and Kiley, out of school for the summer, will be going to stake girls' camp at Tres Ritos (a boy scout camp in northern New Mexico) in a few weeks. Our stake decided to cancel the youth handcart trek it had previously scheduled for late July and has rescheduled it for next June -- which is a relief to us, since Dorine and I were called to be a "ma and pa" and we weren't sure how the whole thing was going to come off this year. We will be going to the cabin in Colorado in a couple of weeks; I'm hoping Easton and Devery can both get that Friday off, so that we can drive up on Thursday night and spend three nights there. (With gas being as expensive as it is, I consider any trip of less than three nights to be not worth the travel expense.) Kiley is still very excited about having made AYS for next school year, and she almost can't wait for the AYS camp in August (at the Hummingbird Music Camp in the Jemez Mountains), although she has both girls' camp and EFY in SLC to do first. Darren still doesn't say much in the e-mails he sends us on Mondays from Honduras, but I think he'd like to get out of the city and off in the sticks somewhere. I hope he still enjoys the missionary work and is acquiring greater love for the Honduran people. I'm still not sleeping well at night without medication, but I do have an appointment to see the sleep specialist this week -- we'll see if he has any ideas. I'm also not thrilled about certain developments that are taking place on the admin side of the house at Sandia Labs, but since it's all beyond my ability to control, I have no choice but to roll with the punches.

Congratulations, Kiley!

The results of the 2008-2009 Albuquerque Youth Symphony auditions have been published (http://www.aysmusic.org/), and, to our intense delight and relief, Kiley was selected for the Youth Symphony cello section! The larger Albuquerque Youth Symphony program, which arguably is one of the best youth orchestra programs in the country, has two high school-age groups -- the Youth Symphony (AYS) is the "A" group, and the Youth Orchestra (AYO) is the "B" group -- and Kiley, having been in AYO the last two years, was going to be extremely disappointed if she didn't make AYS this year as a junior.

I have a few observations to make:
1. We knew the competition for cellos would be stiff this year, but the results demonstrate it was positively brutal; the fact that Kiley came out of it with the desired result is something for which she and her parents can feel richly blessed. (The competition should ease considerably next year, as eight of the twelve '08-'09 AYS cellists are seniors.)
2. At least one cellist who was in AYS last year was relegated to AYO this year, which is strong evidence to us that the audition process truly is blind and impartial, and that, as the standard investment disclaimer goes, past performance is not a guarantee of future returns.
3. My enthusiasm for Kiley's placement in AYS is tempered a little by the fact that one of her friends and fellow cellists from her high school, who'd already played three years in AYO, still didn't make AYS as a senior. That fact, combined with the fact that an incoming freshman cellist (from another high school) did make AYS, served to dispel the idea I had that a senior would have an inherent advantage over underclassmen in the selection process. (A perfect result from my perspective would have put both Kiley and her friend in AYS; it wouldn't have killed the ninth-grader to serve a one-year apprenticeship in AYO, no matter how good a cellist he is.)
4. Several capable cellists apparently (and surprisingly) didn't even audition this year, probably not wanting to play another year in AYO yet sensing how tough the competition to get into AYS would be.
5. Kiley's friend from church, Bethany Roper, a harpist who also played in AYO the last two years, likewise made AYS this year (although Bethany's "promotion" was nearly a foregone conclusion after both of last year's AYS harpists graduated).
6. Kiley is excited about playing in AYS -- for one year, anyway -- with her good friends from the school orchestra Aaron Feeney (cello), Alex Doerfler (violin), and Kristin Cordwell (violin), seniors all.
7. Kiley is happy for her younger friends Jessica Robertson (cello), Dylan Reames (cello), and Samantha Parker (bass), all of whom made AYO (although Samantha's family very probably will move from Albuquerque this summer when her father takes an out-of-state job).
8. There is a rumor that AYS will take a foreign tour next year, perhaps to Australia, and Kiley is excited about the prospect of traveling overseas for the first time in her life.

None of this will come cheap, of course, especially for a family of relatively modest means, but of course we think Kiley's worth the sacrifice.

The 6th Ward Junior Basketball Team, 1977

This washed-out photo shows the Albuquerque 6th Ward junior (young men's) basketball team in 1977, my senior year in high school. It was taken right after the stake tournament championship game, which we lost to the Los Alamos Ward due to two factors. One, we decided to play by the "rules" (at least as we understood them at the time) and play only one non-member at a time. (At that precise moment, we had three non-members -- Brian Bennett, Tracy Carroll, and Chris Carroll -- although Tracy and Chris were only days from joining the church.) And two, the refereeing was so one-sided, in Los Alamos' favor, as to be completely laughable. (I won't name the culprit, as he still lives in our stake, but suffice it to say that he always had it in for our ward and, especially, the Kartchner family. He made so many bad, obviously biased calls against us that day that he finally started making up rules by the end of the game.) If we had played Brian, Tracy, and Chris at the same time that day, we'd have wiped up the floor with Los Alamos regardless of the pathetic refereeing, but c'est la vie. We looked forward to doing well in the regional tournament after Tracy and Chris were baptized, but then Tracy, our best outside shooter, came down with the flu and couldn't play; consequently, we ended up losing to 1st Ward, a team we had beaten easily earlier in the year in a holiday tournament. My junior basketball "career" then ended with a win in the regional consolation bracket against a team from the San Luis Valley in Colorado, in which I remember sustaining a bloody nose from an elbow that a kid on the other team threw during a jump ball. (It seems weird to write of jump balls now after a generation of the "alternating possession" rule.)

That year, we probably had the best starting five (me, Brian, Tracy, Chris, and Carl Prestwich) of any junior team I played on, and I think we would have won regionals if we'd had all our guns. I was at the apex of my basketball abilities; Brian, though he didn't play on his high school team, was good enough to go on to play college ball at McMurry College; and Tracy and Carl both eventually became better basketball players than I ever was. I always loved basketball when I was a teenager and was very grateful for the church sports program, which was, at least in those days, a good missionary tool -- during the three years I was in high school, at least five kids who played on our basketball teams converted, and I believe three of them are active church members to this day. However, I have to say that I don't miss the strife and contention that naturally resulted from competitions among various church members with overinflated opinions of their own athletic prowess (among whom I count myself).

My interest in playing basketball tailed off dramatically as the result of serving a church mission (during which two years I played hoops maybe 5-6 times). I played on church, city, and/or base league teams for a number of years after that, but I lost a lot of ground during my mission and never really got it back, and my RK surgery in 1994 pretty much ruined whatever hand-eye coordination I had left at that point. Nowadays, a basketball might just as well be a large rock for how foreign it feels in my hands!

The people in the picture are: (Top Row, L-R): Kevin Kartchner, Tracy Carroll, Brian Bennett; (Middle Row, L-R): Ken Foley [head coach and my best friend in high school and beyond], Chris Carroll, Carl Prestwich, Rick Baca [assistant coach and my first cousin]; (Bottom Row, L-R): David Williamson, Bryan Porter, Rick Foley.

"I'm an Elder"

Recently I was reminded of a tongue-in-cheek song I wrote in 1979-80 while I was a missionary in Chile, titled "I'm an Elder." It's sung to the tune of the Spencer Davis Group's "I'm a Man," a great live version of which (from Finnish TV in 1967) can be viewed in the following Youtube embed. (The photo at left shows the Spencer Davis Group, featuring Steve Winwood, as it existed in the era of "I'm a Man" and "Gimme Some Lovin'," before Winwood left to form Traffic.)

The words reveal a measure of irreverence on my part -- I've never been one to bow down before sacred cows. In contrast, it seems like LDS church members with any kind of sense of humor are becoming a scarce commodity (especially in our ward), so it's doubtful that many of them would appreciate the irony in my lyrics. Nonetheless, I think most people who have served LDS missions can identify with my attempt at making wry observations about mission life, even if they cluck their tongues at me personally.

I'm an Elder

Well, I'm out here on my mission--
No better place to be,
If I could get my mind off
All the snakey chicks we see.
My comp is pretty silent--
Doesn't say too much to me--
But I will say one thing for the dude:
He loves to watch TV.

(Refrain)
I'm an elder, I am, and I got to put up with it.
I'm an elder, I am, and I got to put up with it.

Well, I got to keep on knockin',
'Cause we ain't got no families.
Diarrhea's got me trottin',
And I got a million fleas.
The water heater's busted,
And I'm just about to freeze.
I'll eat those fresh strawberries,
Just don't feed me no beans, please.

(Refrain.)

Well, the prez and the assistants
Are gettin' down on my case;
They think my attitude is rotten,
And my character is base.
I don't know what I did
To become such a big disgrace.
All my dreams aren't what they seemed--
It's all a big rat race.

(Refrain.)

Well, I've finally seen the light,
As you can probably tell.
I didn't think I heard right
When they told me I'm ZL.
I wasn't quite so blind
Not to see eternity,
But I blew my mind just trying to find
The spiritual side of me.

(Refrain.)

Caving Again

On Saturday, May 10, I guided another church youth group -- this time, the priests and Laurels from my home ward, the Indian School Ward -- through Alabaster Cave, which, as I mentioned in my original post on caving in January, is located near San Ysidro, New Mexico. It was another successful (if bruising) outing, despite the fact that I still couldn't find the "normal" route through the cave; somehow I keep ending up at the second-to-last "exit" and having to squeeze past it, although at least "my" way still leads to the "bottom" of the cave. There one faces a choice between wading out through the "lake" or taking the upper passage through the infamous "Birth Canal" (and having to do the little climbing problem at the end to traverse over the last part of the "lake"). I talked most of the group into going through the "Birth Canal" (Bishop Morrison still demurred, but at least the "lake" wasn't as deep this time); a couple of people had a few problems getting through, which made me think twice (more like twenty times) about doing it myself, especially since I'd had such a hard time the last time through (see the photo in my January post). However, I finally sucked it up and did the squeeze, and, since I did it in the "correct" orientation this time (left arm up), I basically went right through. That made my day, at least until I got back to town late and barely missed Kiley's performance in a cello recital.

Our party consisted of Steve Morrison, Joshua Merrill, Anthony Lucia, Rachelle Thompson, Jessie Raney, Aaron P_____, Tyler Kiernan, Forrest Mike, Nohemi Aldaco, Samantha Phelps, and me.

(The photo above shows Rod Williamson going through the "Birth Canal" on an earlier trip; it gives a good idea of what the squeeze looks like going in. It's only about four or five feet long, but it's pretty claustrophobic just the same.)

Another Update on Darren's Mission

Darren has now been in the mission field for eight months, including six months in Honduras. When his last companion, Elder Herrera, went home, we thought Darren might be made senior companion in his existing area; alas, he was assigned a new senior companion, Elder Shumway (second from left in photo), who's from somewhere in southern Utah. They share a small house with Elder Hall (far right), who's from northern Utah (and reportedly was Elder Shumway's companion in the MTC), and his companion Elder Aguilar (far left), who's from El Salvador. Darren probably has relatives in common with Elder Shumway, as I have Shumway first cousins -- the offspring of my father's sister Merle Kartchner Shumway and her husband Carroll Shumway -- one of whom is Eric Shumway, formerly the president of BYU-Hawaii and currently the president of the Tonga temple. We got to talk to Darren on the phone for Mother's Day, and he sounded good. He may have to wait until his birthday in July for his next package, but I'm sure we'll make it worth the wait.

The Knobs

This photo shows me (left) with my college buds from BYU -- Bob Maes, Galen Kekauoha, and Jeff Aldous. Collectively, we were known as (and continue to call ourselves to this day) the "Knobs." I'm certain the appellation has crude and antisocial origins, but it seemed to fit; it was even the name we gave our intramural basketball team. We all got to know each other during our freshman year, 1977-78, living in Penrose (T) Hall in BYU's Deseret Towers dorm complex (which, incidentally, is in the process of being torn down now). Bob and I were roommates in T-720 -- we were both from Albuquerque, although, being from opposite sides of town and different stakes, we hadn't known each other previously. Galen and Jeff were cousins who, though they didn't know each other particularly well, decided to room together, and they lived next-door to Bob and me in T-721.

We all had a lot of interesting experiences together as freshmen, but two of our favorite pastimes stand out in my mind. The first was a basketball-based game we invented in which all of the participants (generally 3-4 persons) worked together against gravity. The aim was to see how many consecutive baskets we could make without having the ball touch either the ground or a person who was touching the ground. The ball was put in play by someone's shooting a free throw, and if the shot missed, someone either had to tip the ball in the basket or at least keep it in play by jumping off the ground and tipping it to someone else who could make the shot. I don't remember all the specific rules we made up, but the game always ended when the ball hit the ground or someone couldn't quite get off the ground when handling it. Due to all the funny bounces a basketball tends to take off a rim, it was a lot harder than it sounds; however, I remember we set a record one night at the Smith Fieldhouse (during a dance that we'd skipped out on) of something like 130.

The other pastime I remember was the late-night bull sessions we used to have: we'd pack about 8-12 guys together in someone's dorm room, turn out the light, and shoot the breeze in the dark about anything and everything for a couple of hours. You'd think that would get boring after a while, but we never seemed to get tired of it.

The above photo was taken during a Knobs reunion we had in 1999 at Zion National Park in southwest Utah, which was memorable to me for (a) our hiking up to the airy summit of Angels' Landing, and (b) our sloshing our way up the "Narrows" and Orderville Canyon. Bob and I have since gone backpacking together in the Grand Canyon twice, in 2001 and 2006, but the four of us haven't really gotten together in a while now. Bob and Jeff live in Utah Valley (Bob in Cedar Hills and Jeff in Provo), and Galen lives in Van Nuys, California.

May 5, 2008

I turned 49 years old today, the same age my father was when he baptized me in 1967. (My father, were he still alive, would turn 90 in another week and a half.) Last year, some journalist whose name I don't remember now put some rather withering perspective on the passage of time by noting that the same number of years -- forty -- had passed since the so-called "Summer of Love" in 1967 as had gone by in 1967 since the height of the Roarin' Twenties. I often go back in my mind to earlier times in my life that perhaps I'd like to re-live; however, as I've often said, there hasn't been any part of my life that I'd care to revisit if it meant that I'd also have to live out all the intervening years again. It's been a long journey to get where I am in life, and if I'm not always happy with the road I've taken, at least I'm smart enough to realize that there's no turning back now. I just wish I felt assured that the rest of my life -- whether it be five years or forty -- will be worth living, because from my perspective I see only more and more of the same. Such is the pall that a long-term sleep disorder casts over someone's existence.