The 11th Ward – The Original Singles Ward in Albuquerque

I attended the Albuquerque 11th Ward, a now-defunct singles ward in the Albuquerque Stake, during the summer of 1981 and, then, the two-year period between May 1982 and May 1984. The ward met at the old Indian School seminary building on the corner of Cutler Avenue and 9th Street NW (which building the church no longer owns). Since it was the only unit that met there, it kept the same “optimal” Sunday meeting schedule (10 am to 1 pm) the entire time I was there, and in addition maintained the “traditional” order of meetings (priesthood meeting [and Relief Society], followed by Sunday School, with sacrament meeting at the end).

Initially, 11th Ward was a fun and exciting place to be, and I enjoyed most of the activities and being around other young LDS single adults. My closest friends there were Tracy Carroll and Ken Mantlo, whose father Dick was bishop of the ward until he was called in 1982 to the stake presidency of the then-new Albuquerque South Stake (being succeeded as bishop by Tony Aguilar, who was later called to be president of the South Stake). I regret to say, however, that eventually the social aspects of membership in the ward almost completely overwhelmed the spiritual aspects, to the point where about all we did was have fun, often with pretty irreverent overtones.

Still, the ward served its purpose in marrying off lots of couples, even if I wasn’t able to find the right girl there. I can’t remember how many girls there were in the ward in whom I had a passing romantic interest, but three stand out in my mind now. The first was Barbara T______, who I think was from the old 3rd Ward and graduated from West Mesa HS. Barbara was the object of my attentions in the summer of 1981 (and beyond), although she paid only enough attention to me to "keep me hanging on"; I don’t know what became of her, although she moved to Denver and may still live there. The second was Sue A______, who was from the old 1st Ward (having graduated from Highland HS) and was on a mission to Argentina when I first attended the 11th Ward in 1981. Sue, who was a dental hygienist when she and I dated, later went to law school at BYU and became a successful medical-malpractice defense attorney, and I think she married a doctor. The third was Shawna M______, a pretty girl (originally from the old 8th Ward and, at that time, a recent graduate of Eldorado HS) who was (a) rebellious (and thus "dangerous"), and (b) six years my junior. I went fairly ga-ga for Shawna in the summer of 1983, even though she was headed to BYU and I knew things would never work out. She may live in the Pacific Northwest now, but I really don't know. I still have fond memories of all three of these girls -- I wouldn't guess whether they'd say the same about me -- even though my marrying any of them probably would have been a disaster (for both parties) in the end.

Some of my best memories of 11th Ward include the following. The many dances we had, including the memorable one at the Institute building that a number of us guys showed up for in drag. Going to movies at various theaters around town on dollar night (i.e., Tuesday). The “gong” show for which Ken, Tracy, and I put together a “punk” band called “Joe Regulator and the Little Factories” (which male church members will recognize as a reference to Boyd K. Packer's To Young Men Only). The New Year's Eve party in 1982/83 for which Jeff Jolley rented a suite at the Airport Marina Hotel. The Halloween party I went to dressed as a “blind cholo flasher.” (Of course, I did have clothes on under my overcoat, along with a sheet of paper pinned to my shorts that said "Sorry! You did not win this time! Keep trying!") The ward “movie night” for which five or six groups of people put together videos. (Bootleg copies of those videos have circulated for years -- man, I wish I had one!) The talent show in which some of us were Danielle Aleman’s backing group as she sang “Wedding Bell Blues” to her long-time boyfriend Jeff Jolley. (They later married and then divorced.) Hanging out with Dickerson Watkins, the coolest gay friend I’ve ever had (though none of us knew he was gay at the time). Ward campouts (a) up near Cuba (1981), (b) at Elephant Butte Lake (1982), and (c) in the Jemez Mountains (1983). (On the latter trip, Dickerson and Bob Lenberg came up with side-splitting alternative lyrics to the Bread tune “Diary,” which lampooned the ward [I found the bishop’s journal in a drawer / And started reading of our ward…] and various people in it, including me [...And Kevin Kartchner's got a new girl half his age -- a reference to Shawna M_______].) And numerous church basketball and softball games/tournaments, including the 1983 regional basketball tournament in Albuquerque (where I was voted to the all-tournament team), and the 1983 regional softball tournament in Sanford, CO (where, in a real travesty of justice, I most undeservedly won the MVP award).

The photos above are from the aforementioned overnight trip to Elephant Butte Lake in the summer of 1982; the girls "posing" with me in the first shot are Debbie Berger (L) and Yvonne Collyer (R). I'd ridden down to the lake earlier in the day with them and Danielle Aleman, and Danielle took the photo as we were joking around, waiting for everyone else to show up. Yvonne was going out with Ken Mantlo at the time, and Debbie was on what was then presumed to be a temporary hiatus from a long-term relationship with Mark Aguilar, so we were "just friends." (I honestly don't know what's become of Yvonne, despite the fact that I see her brother Tony quite frequently [and Dorine works every day with Tony's wife Tracy]. Debbie eventually married a fellow named Darrell Stephens, and I think they still live in the Albuquerque area.)

Things were never really the same in the ward for me after first Tracy, then Ken, got married, and I finally got tired of the dating scene -- or, in my case, the non-dating scene -- there. (The biggest factor, I remember, was feeling like I had lost face after making a fool of myself one too many times.)  Thus I finally went back to my home ward in May 1984 and started going out with Dorine; looking back, it's easy for me to see the hand of God in all this!

The 11th Ward limped on for several years in the mid-to-late 1980s, but finally it was disbanded, in part due to pressure from the Albuquerque East Stake leadership, who never seemed to like the fact that many of their young adults were attending a ward outside their jurisdiction. (I think we were having way too much fun from their perspective!) The East Stake later created its own singles ward (now known as the Eubank Ward), and I understand there is now also a west-side singles branch in the West Stake.

When the movie The Singles Ward came out in 2002, I tried not to like it, thinking it wouldn’t appeal to my sense of humor. However, the writers must actually have attended a singles ward at some point, because much of the satire was dead-on in my experience.

New Changes for Darren

Although Darren was expecting to spend at least one more six-week period in Comayagua training Elder Osorio, he received a surprise transfer to a small town further west called Jesús de Otoro. There he'll serve as both district leader (over two pairs of missionaries, including his own companionship) and branch president; needless to say, he's feeling a little overwhelmed by all the added responsibilities, but he must also feel good that his mission president has that kind of confidence in him. His new companion is Elder Capiona, a Bolivian. The attached photo shows Darren at a Primary activity in the small chapel there at Jesús de Otoro. Darren will hit his "hump day" this Friday, September 12 -- now he has a few added challenges as he starts the second year of his mission!

Life's a Rollercoaster - Family Update

Moving into September, here are some of the things that are happening in our family. Devery and Easton are now back at BYU and are living once again in south Provo. Devery will be finishing her degree this semester, taking 19 hours (!) of mostly business-related courses. Darren is about to hit the one-year mark on his mission and at present is still training a new missionary in Comayagua. We need to start looking into what it will take to get him back into school, anticipating that he'll be able to return a couple of weeks early next August so that he can return to BYU for the (entire) fall semester. Kiley is starting her junior year of high school and is busy with honors classes, early-morning seminary, and her cello-playing. Heidi and Kristy and their families are busy and have their trials. Dorine is back working as an EA at Chelwood Elementary School, and I hope to have a few recreational opportunities this fall -- a trip to Carlsbad over the APS fall break; a couple more hikes in the Sandias (South Peak, Piedra Lisa Spring); and a caving trip to the Guadalupe Mountains in November. So far I've resisted the idea of another trip to Las Vegas, where I haven't been now in almost two years.

I'm still not sleeping as well as I'd like, although last night I found it helped significantly to change out the air-filter element in my "VPAP" machine. But I still haven't had to resort to medications again, and that's the way I want to keep it. I still think I can overcome the minor "environmental" discomforts I'm facing, but it may take some time.

I have gone back to my "Rock 'N' Roll Favorites" posts from January-February and added links to video/audio files on Youtube for most of the songs (I couldn't find videos for a few of them). I think you'll enjoy following the links and seeing what my "favorite" songs by all those groups actually sound like.

The attached picture was taken in May 2007 on the "Ghost Rider" rollercoaster at Knott's Berry Farm, which of course is just up the road from Disneyland in Orange County, CA. As you can see, Devery, Darren, Kiley, and I all have interesting reactions to higher-than-normal g-forces!

McCain - Palin: A Home Run?

John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, as his running mate in the 2008 presidential election is, in my mind, an inspired choice, one that I've been hoping for ever since Jonah Goldberg first started touting her in National Review a few months ago. As many have already pointed out, it's a risky move, but one that can pay off richly in the end. She's young and relatively inexperienced, but it will be difficult for the media to make that point without highlighting the fact that Barack Obama is (a) almost as young and just as inexperienced, and (b) running for president, not vice president. It also remains to be seen how well-informed she is and how well she thinks on her feet in a debate on national television. (Regardless, the smarmy Joe Biden had better tread lightly around her; if he insults her or is condescending to her, he could easily throw the election to McCain.)

However, beyond the issues of experience and debating ability, I see nothing but upside to the Palin pick. One, she's an attractive and obviously intelligent woman, who not only presents a fresh, pretty face to the voting public but highlights the fact that there is no woman, pretty or otherwise, on the Dem ticket. (Her being a conservative woman will raise the hackles of certain feminists, and all other far-left elements, who regard a woman's being conservative as the very worst sort of blood betrayal, but this is a question of appealing to the moderate middle, not the loony Left.) Two, she's ardently pro-life (and even has a Down Syndrome child), which will excite the conservative base and draw a sharp contrast with the extreme-left policies of the opposition respecting abortion. Three, she's an anti-waste and anti-corruption crusader from a jurisdiction known for waste and malfeasance, which points up the fact that Obama, far from being a crusader, is actually a product of the even-more-corrupt Chicago political machine.

Four, being from Alaska, she's guaranteed to be more of an authority on energy policy and resources than the opposition, and she's on the right/realistic side of both expanded domestic oil and gas drilling (especially in ANWR) and the development of alternative energy sources. Five, she's an avid hunter and a lifetime NRA member, which is sure to appeal to the sort of working-class white voters who voted for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primaries. Six, her husband Todd is at least part Native American, plus he's a blue-collar fisherman and oilfield worker who races snowmobiles -- no Teresa Heinz Kerry, he! And seven, like McCain himself, she has a son serving in the Armed Forces who will be deployed shortly to Iraq; which at least gives her some personal stake in the U.S.'s Middle East policy.

Only time will tell if McCain's choosing Governor Palin as his running mate is a home run, but it certainly cements his reputation as a bold "maverick" -- Obama's choice of Joe Biden suddenly looks wussy by comparison. It's really shaping up to be an exciting election now!

Donnie Iris's "Ah! Leah!"

On the way home from hiking on Friday, I heard a song on the radio that I've long admired, but whose title (along with the artist who recorded it) I'd never been able to ascertain. I knew that it must have come out while I was a missionary in Chile, although I don't remember hearing it until after I came back to the U.S. After the song ended, the DJ came on and said the name of the artist: "Donnie Iris." I went home and immediately went on iTunes and searched on "donnie iris"; the first tune on the list was "Ah! Leah!" and, sure enough, it was the song I'd just heard on the radio. I quickly downloaded it to my iTunes, then went (a) to Wikipedia to read the bio on the artist, and (b) to Youtube to watch the music video for the tune. I found it strangely appropriate that Donnie, the singer, was a thin, curly-headed guy with horn-rimmed glasses and bad teeth, which also explains why his band didn't become a huge act in the coming Age of MTV, with its emphasis on pretty-boy looks and big hair. (Donnie, it turns out, had already played in The Jaggerz ["The Rapper"] and Wild Cherry [post-"Play that Funky Music"] at the time he recorded "Ah! Leah!")

In one sense, "Ah! Leah!" came out about five years too late -- I'm almost certain it would have been a #1 hit in the mid-70s (instead of topping out at #29 in 1980-81) -- but there's something timeless about a hard-rocking song about forbidden-but-irresistible love. I'm not sure where it would fall on my list of all-time favorite rock songs, but it would definitely be in the top five.

Hiking Again - North Crest Trail

John Brewer and I were finally able to go hiking again today in the Sandia Mountains. This time we went and hiked the North Crest Trail, which starts at Tunnel Spring, in the Placitas area at the northern end of the range, and ends at Sandia Crest. I knew from my experience in 2005, the last time I hiked North Crest, that it was both a long (12+ miles) and a deceptively difficult trail; nonetheless, John and I decided to start our hike by taking the more-difficult-still variant trail up Cañón del Horno, which cuts off at least two miles from the route. I had last gone up Cañón del Horno in 1990, when we took my mother-in-law Rhea Wilson (who was then dying of pancreatic cancer) up to Tunnel Spring to get some of the reputedly "healing" spring water. Being eighteen or nineteen years older now, I wasn't certain what to expect, and sure enough, the Cañón del Horno trail was steep and energy-sapping, making the rest of the hike seem quite a bit more difficult; it was also a sunny and hot day, and the heat didn't make things any easier. However, as I've said before, any day spent hiking in the Sandias is a good day, and I had a great time overall.

We had some difficulty working out the logistics, but ultimately we decided to take two cars, leave one at the bottom Tram terminus, then drive around to Tunnel Spring and leave the second car there. We'd hike beyond the Crest all the way to the upper Tram terminus, then take the Tram down to get the first car, and finally drive back out to Tunnel Spring to fetch the second car. Everything went more or less to plan, although we were gone a couple of hours longer than we'd originally anticipated.

I decided to wear my Vasque trail runners on the hike instead of hiking boots, and they worked even better than I expected. Not an ounce of foot pain at the end!

The top photo shows John and me shortly before we boarded the Tram at the upper terminus; the second shows me at one of the overlooks on the trail; and the third shows me on a typical stretch of the trail.

Farewell, Devery and Easton!

Devery and Easton are leaving tomorrow to go back to Provo and BYU, and we'll miss having them around our house. It was a great summer and we're glad both of them were able to work lots of hours, make good money, and save for school. We'll see them at Christmas, and I suspect we'll make one or two trips to Utah to see them before school ends in April, but it doesn't appear likely that we'll get them for another summer. I'm sure Devery will be glad not to have to get up at 5:30 am to ride into work with me, and I know she won't miss having to escort an uncleared individual around the limited area at Sandia Labs anymore (notwithstanding the fact that the individual in question was Sean Naegle, a nice LDS kid whose father, John, is a distant cousin of mine). However, Sandia has been very good to Devery and has done a lot to pay for her college, and she's understandably a little emotional and nostalgic about leaving after five summer internships. I hope they have a great year at BYU, and they're in excellent position to do just that.

At Sandia Crest, pre-Wedding

Following up on my last post, here is a photo showing what Dorine and I looked like at about the time we were married in 1984. It's scanned and cropped from what was one of a roll of photographs that Mike P______, my then-future brother-in-law, took of us at Sandia Crest for our wedding announcements (although we ended up sending out prints of a different pose with the actual announcements). I think back on what a leap of faith it was to get married at all, given (a) that I still had three-and-a-half years of school ahead of me (not to mention several unforeseen years of difficulty finding a long-term career), and (b) that I would be stepping into the role of stepfather to Dorine's daughters Kristy and Heidi (then six and three years old, respectively). It was a good thing that Mike was generous to Dorine, who kept books for his software company, and that the girls were getting social security benefits as the result of their father's death (which benefits, fortunately, didn't go away after I married their mother), all of which enabled us to get me through school with essentially no debt. As you can see, Dorine was still a babe when I married her, and I like to think I wasn't half bad-looking, either. (Man, I wish I could still wear contact lenses!)

Dorine - The "Lost" Years

Every now and then I come across an old photograph of Dorine, dating to the time of her first marriage (1978-83), that makes me eat my heart out not to have been her love in those days (notwithstanding the fact that I was on a mission or at BYU during much of that period). This photo, which probably dates to 1978, is the "worst" one I've seen in that regard: Dorine looks so young, fresh, and achingly sexy that it almost kills me to know she belonged to someone else!

Fortunately for me, she was still attractive, and fairly young, when we married in late 1984 (and she still looks hot compared to most women her age), but, well, a person is only twenty years old once. I call that entire era the "lost" years -- not "lost" in that they served no purpose (after all, Dorine had Kristy and Heidi by her first husband, and her first marriage instilled in her a certain maturity that fueled her interest in me later), but "lost" in the sense that I missed out on something fantastic. If being married to Dorine for the last 23+ years has placed any great mental burdens on me, that's number one on the list.

Our New Gate

One of the goals we had for the summer was to replace the trashed-out double gate on the east side of our house, and now we've finally accomplished it! Years ago, Dorine's brother Brian knocked out a cinder-block wall, and installed a double gate, to facilitate the storage of snowmobiles (on a trailer) in our back yard; however, Dorine's family no longer owns snowmobiles that run, and in any case the landscaping in our front yard prevents vehicular access to the side of our house. Nonetheless, we knew that putting up a new double gate would be much easier than replacing the original cinder blocks, so we stuck with it. Note that we used pre-fabricated squaring/hinge kits, which make it much easier to build gates from scratch. (Also note the old gate in the background of one of the photos -- you can see how awful it was.) Now if we could only get going on our budding jungle of a back yard!

My Every-day Lunch

I have been eating the same brown-bag lunch at work now for I don't know how many years. Some people seem thoroughly amazed when I advise them of that fact, but there are certain advantages: it's inexpensive; it's easy to prepare; I can eat it quickly; and it's almost always the most-nutricious meal I eat on any given day. (I constantly remind myself of Judd Nelson's line from the movie The Breakfast Club: "Well, Brian, this is a very nutricious lunch -- all of the food groups are represented. Did your mom marry Mr. Rogers?")

So, what do I eat every day? A plain bagel with two slices of turkey breast and a slice of some kind of white cheese (swiss, currently), a small baggie full of "baby" carrots, a banana, a Quaker "Chewy" granola bar, and a quart of Gatorade. Occasionally, I'll get a Gala apple instead of the banana and/or a blueberry bagel (with strawberry cream cheese) in lieu of the granola bar, but that's it. I know many people who wouldn't think of spending less than $8.00-$10.00 every day on lunch (and who take an hour-and-a-half to eat it). On the other hand, my lunch, depending on the fluctuating price of Gatorade, probably costs between $2.00 and $2.50 per day, and I can easily down it in fifteen minutes at my desk (although this summer I've been eating lunch most days with Devery at a picnic table outside the building both of us work in). Never let it be said that I don't do my part not to break the family budget!

The 2008 Elections - What, me worry?

I've been meaning to write about the fall elections but have put it off because I didn't feel like launching into some long treatise about why I think Barack Obama is a pretty freaking scary candidate, even as Democrats go. Suffice it to say that he's an inexperienced, two-dimensional politician with reflexively socialist, elitist, race-conscious, and -- dare I say it? -- anti-American ideas and philosophies, and I don't think he, unlike Bill Clinton (at least), can be counted on to govern pragmatically from the middle. Thus the damage Obama could do in four years in office staggers the imagination. I keep mentally screaming at the American people (and, especially, at the mainstream media that seem intent on getting him elected by any "journalistic" means necessary) to listen to what Obama is saying, at least to the extent he's saying anything at all. I don't care how tired you are of George W. Bush or hypocritical Republican senators or congressmen -- do you really want the hardest of hard-left Democrats to be president? (I was heartened this week by a column written by Thomas Sowell -- an African-American I would vote for in a heartbeat -- in which he recalled taking an economics class from John Kenneth Galbraith. Galbraith's soaring rhetoric won him a standing ovation from his students on the first day of class, but as the semester wore on, he persisted in speaking in airy generalities, which in turn caused most of the students to stop attending class or even to stand up and leave in the middle of lectures. The obvious similarity there to Obama's cotton-candy campaign speeches causes Sowell to suggest that the American public will eventually tire of him and stop paying attention. One can hope so, even if John McCain isn't exactly a scintillating alternative.)

I think the notion that the lower and middle classes, to the extent that they vote Republican, are voting against their own economic interests -- and that Democrats are the champion of the little guy -- is utterly risible. Who wants to keep gasoline at $4.00/gallon, or have it go even higher, in order to depress demand and consumption? (And just whom do they think high fuel and energy prices hurt the most?) Who believes Wal-Mart is the embodiment of corporate evil -- inasmuch as it refuses to allow its employees to unionize -- notwithstanding the fact that its stores are where the little guy shops and is able to make his hard-earned dollars stretch farther? (And what would happen to the little-guy consumer if Wal-Mart prices suddenly rose 30-40% to cover artificially high labor costs?) Who is willing to trash the American economy, destroying billions upon billions of dollars in wealth in the process and imposing tremendous hardship on the poor worldwide, in order to chase after the bogeyman of anthropogenic "climate change"? Finally, who seems bent on following Europe, with its dwindling native populations, unsustainable social-welfare programs, and ever-shrinking will to defend itself, down what Mark Steyn calls the "eurinal" of history?

Don't get me wrong: I don't have much more regard for most Republican politicians than I do for Democrats, but clearly there is a bad choice and a worse choice here. And Obama...is...the...latter.

Sleep Re-ordered, Part 1

Amazingly, I seem to have kicked my sleep meds, and it happened in a most unexpected way. I ran out of Ambien CR last weekend and couldn't immediately refill my prescription, so I first tried to take large doses of over-the-counter meds (which had little effect), and then I simply decided to stop taking all meds just to see what would happen. (My sleep doctor had scared me off the idea of quitting sleep meds cold-turkey, warning me that it would make me feel suicidal after a couple of sleepless nights; moreover, I believed him, because the one time last spring that I'd tried to go a night without taking meds resulted in my lying awake all night and feeling terrible the next day.) Anyway, I had a few bad nights last week, as I slept only two or three hours each of those nights; however, in the end I didn't have to take even one day off work, and by the weekend I was falling asleep fairly easily and sleeping six or six-and-a-half hours during the night. I haven't yet noticed a tremendous increase in energy during the day, but I don't have to tell anyone how much better I feel psychologically about sleeping without chemical assistance, and I think enhanced quantity/quality of sleep will come. I'm still using the "VPAP Adapt SV" breathing machine, and it helps that I've found a position in which I can sleep on my stomach with the mask on.

I've noticed two principal drawbacks to going off sleep meds cold-turkey. One, I do think I've suffered some actual, physical withdrawal symptoms, which have contributed heavily to my not feeling quite as well as I would otherwise feel at this stage. (The good news is that those symptoms, which I can't even describe in concrete terms, have already diminished noticeably.) And two, I've found that I have less ability to bear a number of aspects of my sleep routine when I go to bed in a non-medicated state: (a) the air that the VPAP machine causes me to swallow at night has made me feel slightly nauseated (which, needless to say, tends to impede sleep); (2) the mask, which I have to strap down tightly to get a seal against my face, has felt more uncomfortable; (3) I feel a little more frustrated by the limited movement allowed by the mask and the hose feeding from the VPAP machine; and (4) the earplugs I wear at night seem much more uncomfortable now. However, I view all of these things as short-term obstacles that I will overcome.

To what can I attribute this unexpected and dramatic success? I chalk it up to divine intervention and the answering of prayers -- somebody up there likes me, or at least doesn't dislike me! Stay tuned....

Dorine at Fifty

• Dorine turns fifty years old today, which seems surreal until I remember that she and I have been married nearly twenty-four years (and that she was twenty-six at the time of our wedding). I love her very deeply and can't imagine what life would be like without her, something I contemplate whenever I think of any of the two-dozen-or-so other young ladies I dated or with whom I was infatuated as a teenager or young adult. I credit her, and her alone, with raising our five very decent and loving children. She is the greatest blessing I have ever been given or am likely ever to receive. My only regret is that I haven't quite been the husband, father, priesthood holder, or breadwinner that she deserved, although I know she loves me every bit as much as I love her.

Darren's New Companion

Darren is still assigned to work in Comayagua, Honduras, but now he has a new companion and, for the first time, has been assigned to train a "verdecito." His new companion is Elder Osorio from Perú. This photo was taken last Tuesday in Comayagüela after the new arrivals were assigned to their senior companions; Darren is in the back, left of center, and Elder Osorio is on his right. (President and Sister Gómez are in the front, right of center.) If I didn't know better, I'd think they were in southern California somewhere, what with the Office Depot, Sears, and palm trees! Darren was pretty sick last week for a few days; however, he says he's feeling better now, so I'm thinking it was probably food poisoning of some sort. I hope this turns out to be a fruitful and rewarding experience for both Darren and Elder Osorio, but I think it will be.

Camping Trip to Villanueva State Park

Dorine and I took some of our family camping at Villanueva State Park (about an hour northeast of Albuquerque) on Friday and Saturday, July 18-19, 2008. I really like Villanueva, both for its physical features and its relatively off-the-beaten-path location, and thus we have stayed there three times now. This time we took Devery and Easton, Kiley, and our grandkids Zach and Alexis. I don't know why, but it requires a tremendous amount of inertia for us to go camping anywhere, which explains why we only do it once (or twice, if we're lucky) a year. The park sits on the Pecos River and has an interesting sandstone cliff on the eastern bank. We usually stay somewhere along the river, but this time we got there late and ended up in the upper camping area--which was actually nice because our site had a shelter structure. This photo shows everyone (except me) on the bridge crossing the river, on our way up the trail to the lookout.

Sleep Disordered, Part 5

It's now been six months since I started using the Resmed "VPAP Adapt SV" breathing machine as a remedy for my problems with complex sleep apnea. Unfortunately, notwithstanding how well the machine has worked for my sleep apnea, I'm every bit as dependent on sleep meds now as I was in January, as none of the attempts I've made to kick them has borne any fruit. (Right now, I'm taking Ambien CR, which I don't really like, in combination with an over-the-counter med -- either generic Unisom or generic "Simply Sleep" [which is really just benadryl, or Tylenol-PM without the Tylenol]. In my opinion, Lunesta is the best med -- most effective, fewest side effects -- on the market, but, not yet having a generic equivalent, it's frickin' expensive!) My sleep doctor wants me to go back soon for another sleep study with the VPAP machine, and he's told me that he'll get me on a longer, more-gradual med-weaning regimen, which he says is the only way to go about shedding my kind of dependency. I'm not terribly enthusiastic/optimistic about either doing another sleep study or my ability to get off the meds finally, but my biggest hope for longevity pretty clearly hinges on my prospects of re-learning to sleep naturally and restfully. I seem to be suffering from quite a bit of chemically induced depression or even bipolarity, not a positive development.

Nicole's Sealing to Kristy and Chris

Nicole was sealed in the Albuquerque Temple to Kristy and Chris on Saturday, July 12, 2008. Chris's adoption of Nicole was finalized in March (see earlier post), so this was the final step in "completing" their family. All of the other kids attended the sealing -- Zach and Alexis having been previously sealed to their parents in 2007, and Maddison and Hailee having been born in the covenant. Nicole is a sweet and beautiful girl, and as always we're happy she's part of our family.

More on Darren's Mission

Here's a recent photo of Darren taken on the pitch of the local stadium in Comayagua, Honduras, an old colonial city that lies about an hour by car west of the capital. (As is evident in the pic, it's now the rainy season in Central America.) Darren has now been gone just shy of ten months, eight "in-country," and he just turned twenty years old on Monday. I'm very proud of the service he's rendering, and I pray constantly for his health, safety, spiritual growth, and success. No one who hasn't served a mission really knows what a sacrifice it is to leave family and friends, and to put one's personal life and schooling on hold, for a two-year enlistment in "God's Army." Likewise, no one who hasn't sent a son on a mission really knows how long two years can seem -- only now do I realize what it took for my parents to send four sons to the mission field.

Law School

It's now been twenty years since I graduated from law school (receiving my MBA at the same time); it's amazing to me that so much time has gone by. Occasionally, such as when I found a cache of my old papers while we were remodeling our family room several years ago, I remember what a strain school was and how hard I had to work for my degrees; however, mostly it's a blur in my mind now. Given that I didn't make much of my legal career, I tend now to regard law school as having been a waste of time -- or worse, in view of the fact that I took the easiest liberal-arts path possible through college in order to get to law school as quickly as I could, thus not majoring in anything that might actually have been conducive to a rewarding, lucrative career. (Even my MBA essentially had a "law" concentration.).

The photo above was taken shortly before graduation in 1988 -- I'm the fourth from the bottom on the far left side, wearing a shirt, tie, and sweater, with my hair parted on the left. I graduated ranked 18th in a class of 92, receiving the award for top tax-law student in the class. (I was always good at anything that involved interpretation of statutes or other complicated legal language.) By the way, I'm not attending the reunion advertised in the flyer.

The summer of 1988 was also memorable to me inasmuch as Darren was born on July 7 and I took (and passed) the New Mexico bar exam at the end of July.

June-July Utah Trip

We spent six nights in Utah visiting family and friends, driving up on Friday, June 27, and returning on Thursday, July 3. We spent the night of the 27th in Pleasant Grove with my brother Robin and his wife Karolyn, and then we drove up to Salt Lake City early the next day to pick Kiley up at EFY at the University of Utah. In order to conserve gasoline, we spent that day in town visiting Dorine's Aunt Frances (who lives in Dorine's dad's old family home off 7th East one block south of Liberty Park), her Uncle Bob (who lives in Holladay, near 39th South and 23rd East, with his wife Marilu), and her Aunt Afton (who lives in a retirement complex at 1st South and 1st East). Afton took us to see a concert in the atrium at her complex by a male vocal trio named "Sun Shade 'n' Rain," whom I remember seeing perform at BYU when I was a freshman in 1977 -- it's amazing they're still performing after all these years, although they still sound good.

That evening we drove out to Grantsville, where we stayed the next four nights with Dorine's brother Brian and his wife Dona and their kids, and we attended church with them on Sunday. On Monday we stayed in the general vicinity, taking one trip into Tooele so that the older kids could see a movie. Dorine and I shopped for a couple of hours there, trying unsuccessfully to refill my prescription for Ambien CR at the Wal-Mart (which doomed me to a couple of bad nights until I could get back here to Albuquerque). We planned to drive up into one of the canyons southwest of Grantsville for what has become our traditional family home evening picnic, but first I hurried over to the Grantsville HS stadium, intending to run a couple of miles on the track there. (It was hot as the infernal regions, however, and all I could manage was one-and-a-half miles.) The picnic was enjoyable, as usual, and the kids had fun playing in the stream.

The next day, Tuesday, Dorine, Kiley, and I drove up to Bountiful to pick up Ali Limburg, whom Dorine used to baby-sit when her parents, Doug and Amy, lived in our ward in Albuquerque. The four of us then spent the day at Lagoon, the large amusement park in Farmington. I probably had as much fun at Lagoon as I've ever had in six or eight trips there, as it wasn't too hot and I managed to steer clear of the most nausea-producing rides. Kiley and I rode the "Rocket" (which shoots the riders up in the air on a system of rails and then drops them back down) five times in a row, and we stood in line twice to ride the newest attraction, "Wicked," which is somewhat reminiscent of the "Excellerator" at Knott's Berry Farm in that it accelerates quickly and goes straight up and down over an arch (see photo above), although the seating configuration is different. That night we drove back to the Limburgs' house in Bountiful and had dinner with them -- steak, with Neilsen's frozen custard for dessert! -- later playing a card game with them that Ali called "Mormon Bridge" (which essentially is the same game we know as "Diminishing Rook"). Doug and Amy are traveling up a storm, just having returned from Hawaii and planning to fly down to Peru to see Machu Picchu in September.

We spent Wednesday morning playing with Brian and Dona's kids -- Miles is the undisputed "Carrom" champion, and Kiley and the girls made a video for the old Allan Sherman comedy number "Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh" -- before we returned back to Pleasant Grove. (The second photo above shows Kiley, in back, with her cousins [L-R] Rhea, Miles, Ellen, Linsey, and Olivia.) We stopped off at Brian's place of employment in SLC, Dynapac, to see him for a while before heading south on I-15, and then we stopped off at my brothers' (Jeff, Roger, and Robin) place of employment, DME Health Services in Pleasant Grove, to see them before going shopping in Orem. We spent that evening visiting with Robin, Karolyn, and Roger, also playing with my niece Meredith's twin boys Zander and Aidan, and then we drove home the following day (yesterday).

My MTC District - Puente Alto (January-March 1979)

This photo shows my MTC district (Puente Alto) in early March 1979, shortly before we departed Provo for the mission field. Standing (L-R): Gene Whiting (Grand Junction, CO), Steve Arbuckle (Van Nuys, CA), Wayne Illes (Mississauga, Ont., Canada), Ronald Dunn (Tacoma, WA), Scott Kimball (Long Beach, CA), Joe Grigg (La Cañada, CA). Sitting (L-R): Steve Timm (West Valley City, UT), Mark Anderson (Sacramento, CA), and Kevin Kartchner (Albuquerque, NM).

I could probably write an entire book about the MTC and all of my compadres in Puente Alto, but for purposes of this blog, I think I'll pass. I will say the following, however:

1. The MTC often seemed to me to be calculated to impose the utmost in adversity on the missionaries passing through it, and time hasn't altered that perception. Thank goodness, however, that someone finally saw the light concerning the "Speak Your Language" program as it existed then: nowadays, according to my son Darren, the "requirement" to speak exclusively in one's mission language doesn't kick in until after four weeks, and there is no longer a daily self-rating system (an odious guilt-trip mechanism that instilled in most of us little more than a strong tendency to rationalize).

2. Puente Alto definitely was composed of a bright bunch of guys, which stoked a fairly stiff level of "competition" in the classroom. I remember that we were the guinea pigs for a pilot program called "Teaching Skills," which was an early, unsuccessful precursor to today's teach-it-in-your-own-words missionary lessons. We were supposed to go out and dazzle our trainer companions with what we'd learned, a misguided notion at best; the worst part was that after our mission president later formally instructed us to scrap the program, we had to go back and re-memorize the "canned" discussions, putting everything back in that "Teaching Skills" had cut out or rearranged.

3. Except for Gene Whiting, who served somewhere in California, all of Puente Alto went to the Chile Santiago South Mission (which, as other missions were created in the metropolitan area and the mission boundary gradually moved southward, later became known as the Chile Rancagua Mission).

4. My companion in the MTC was Wayne Illes (although Joe Grigg was our companion in a "threesome" for a couple of weeks after Joe's companion Elder Hubbard went home with health issues). I think Wayne and I got along pretty well, given that we didn't share too many interests; however, he almost certainly regarded me as overly serious and self-focused, whereas I thought he had a few too many distractions in light of the task at hand. I remember one occasion when Wayne wanted to go to the mall in Orem on p-day, whereas I wanted to stay at the MTC, write letters, and unwind a little. We tried to arrange for an unofficial "split" with two other missionaries so that each of us could do what he wanted; however, our branch president, Max Caldwell (who was later called as a general authority), found out about it and gave me a pretty good dressing-down, telling me that I'd have to go out into the world soon enough and that I might as well practice for it by accompanying my companion to the mall. (In that light, I find it extremely ironic that missionaries routinely aren't even allowed to leave the MTC these days except to attend the temple.)

5. Ron Dunn, our district leader, was thirty years old when he began his mission, and of course he seemed ancient to the rest of us. I think the church has since imposed a maximum "starting" age of 26 for (single) male missionaries, and thus Ron couldn't have served today.

6. Looking back, it seems odd that Steve Timm was the only one of us who was from Utah. I think it says a lot about how demographics in the church have changed in the last generation that a much-greater proportion of young men who serve missions now, at least from the U.S. and Canada, seem to be from Utah. (Not only are Utahns the most fertile of Mormons, but many church members who grew up elsewhere -- my four brothers being good examples -- later settled in Utah, all of which serves to explain why the Wasatch Front is a mass of humanity and a giant traffic jam.)

As I stated above, I could write a lot more -- and perhaps one day I will -- but this is a good place to stop.

Juan Carlos Duque's "Promesas"

I recently was able to identify and locate a song, by a Chilean artist, that has long haunted my memories of my early days as a missionary in Santiago, Chile in 1979. One reason I'd had such difficulty locating it was that at least a couple of Chileans I'd known had unwittingly given me inaccurate information about the artist and the title of the song; thus, for decades I thought the song was called "No tengo a quién amar" and was sung by someone named Juan Antonio Laura. It's no wonder I could never find references to it on the Internet, inasmuch as the true artist was named Juan Carlos Duque and the song was actually titled "Promesas." I only discovered this recently when it occurred to me to do a Google search on "'no tengo a quién amar' + chile"; mirabile dictu, I found a few links that enabled me to ascertain the artist and title. Moreover, I was able to find another blog, http://pamaco.blogspot.com/2007/10/juan-carlos-duque-promesas-y-otros.html, which has a link to download a .rar file of Duque's greatest-hits album. (I want to make clear that I'm not in the habit of downloading copyrighted works for "free"; I will only do it if the music is otherwise unavailable. I'll be happy to buy a CD of the album if someone tells me how I can get it for a reasonable price.)

It turns out that "Promesas" was Chile's entry in the international competition in the 1979 "Festival de la canción" in Viña del Mar, Chile, and that it took third prize. That particular Festival took place just before my MTC group arrived from the U.S. in March 1979, which explains why the song was popular at that moment and why I associate it strongly with my first area in the comuna of La Florida in metropolitan Santiago.

The original recording of "Promesas" is somewhat clunkier than I'd remembered, as it has that annoying sort of late-70s/early-80s synthesizer vibe that doesn't even attempt to sound like another instrument. (It reminds me of the Vangelis soundtrack for the film Chariots of Fire, which sounded cool in the 80s but which now sounds completely incongruous with the subject matter and period depicted in the movie.) However, I still like the tune and the lyrics, and I'll probably try to work out a guitar arrangement and learn to sing it. I especially like the image of the man who has lost his love and thus feels shipwrecked and cast-away:

Soy un náufrago, un desierto,
y no tengo a quién amar.
Amar no es cosa de uno;
es algo entre tú y yo.
Tú te fuiste y solo estoy;
ya no siento más tu voz.
Murmullo de tristeza
un canto de soledad.

This tune also points up something interesting about Spanish-language poetry, which I would not have learned had I not majored in Spanish in college. It is that whereas poetic meter in English depends heavily on where accents fall, it is acceptable to "misplace" accents in Spanish poetry. (It's notable that a sonnet in English must be written in iambic pentameter -- ta-DA-ta-DA-ta-DA-ta-DA-ta-DA -- whereas a sonnet in Spanish must only have a specified number of syllables per line.) This explains why the word "canto" in the last line of "Promesas" comes out as "cantó" when it's sung. When I was going through the MTC, I remember that I was often a little dismayed by the "misplaced" accents in the Spanish translations of LDS hymns; in fact, I remember one of our teachers, "Elder" Rob Smead, telling us he didn't like how many of the hymns were rendered in Spanish for that very reason. However, knowing what I know now, I realize that phenomenon was perfectly normal in the context of the Spanish language. What dismays me now is the fact that the church has gone back and re-translated many or most of the hymns from the old Spanish hymnal to give them a more-literal rendering from the English, which to my way of thinking destroyed most of the poetry inherent in them. (I wonder whose idea that was!)

(Update: I couldn't find Duque's original version of "Promesas" on Youtube; however, I did find a "modern" version done by María Jimena Pereyra. Note that she changes the last line of the chorus to "Murmullo de tristeza mi canción en soledad," which causes the accent to fall "naturally.")


[Update January 31, 2009: There is now a Youtube video of Duque's original recording.]

Mid-June Update

I'm really running out of things to write about these days! I thought about writing about the upcoming fall elections, especially now that the candidates (for president, for U.S. Senate [Pete Domenici's seat], and Congress [Heather Wilson's First District seat]) are known. However, I don't have any particularly original observations to make, although I will say that whereas I don't regard the Republicans' slate of candidates (John McCain, Steve Pearce, Darren White) as ideal, they're way preferable to their Democrat opponents.

Devery and Easton are headed to Puerto Peñasco, Mexico next week to spend time with Easton's family (his parents are part-owners of a large house there). Kiley will head off next Saturday with the Phelps family to Utah, where she'll be attending Especially for Youth (EFY) at the University of Utah with Samantha Phelps. We plan to drive up to pick Kiley up from EFY, although I have to say I'm less than enthused about yet another trip to Utah, notwithstanding the fact that it will probably be our big "vacation" for the summer. (Sometimes I really miss the Las Vegas of old!) My mother is flying up to Utah on Monday to attend the wedding of my brother Jeff's daughter Jamie, although air travel (especially getting in and out of the airport) is becoming a greater ordeal for Mom all the time.

Darren has received a transfer to the Honduran city of Comayagua, which I believe is about 50 miles west of metropolitan Tegucigalpa / Comayagüela. He's also now a senior companion, and his companion's name is Elder Guymon -- I wonder if he's related to Jim Guymon, a local Albuquerque high-school basketball legend from the mid-1960s (about whose Pistol Pete-like skills my brother Roger still raves just about every time he and I talk). I hope Comayagua turns out to be a good area for them!

We've found out that the Albuquerque Youth Symphony (AYS) will indeed be taking a tour to Australia next summer -- of course, it will be winter there -- which, where Kiley is concerned, means we have our fund-raising work cut out for us. The tour will entail several performances, including one at the Sydney Opera House (!), a stay of several nights with an Australian family (selected by a local youth or school orchestra), and, I think, three nights in a beachfront hotel on the Gold Coast. It should be the trip of a lifetime for Kiley, and thus I'm excited for her.

Tubing on the Rito Blanco

This photo shows Kiley, Devery, and Easton innertubing on the Rito Blanco, right at its confluence with the larger Rio Blanco (which confluence is near Pinegrove cabin). Right now the "Rito" is running higher than I've ever seen it before (some years it's completely dry at this time of year). The main river not only has diminished flow due to the San Juan-Chama Diversion Project (which channels water across the Continental Divide into the Rio Grande for use by the City of Albuquerque), but it also has numerous rock structures, intended to deepen and narrow the river channel, that impede any kind of rafting. In contrast, the 300-yard stretch of the "Rito" between the first upstream bridge and the confluence made for very fun (if cold) innertubing on this trip. The kids hit on the idea of lashing three tubes together, which made it easy to avoid running into tree branches and the bank.

At Pinegrove Cabin

I'm posting this from Pinegrove Cabin, the timeshare near Pagosa Springs, Colorado in which my in-laws invested almost thirty years ago. (See my earlier post about it from January.) It will be an annoyingly short stay--we drove up last night and will drive home tomorrow afternoon--but, well, we're here. The kids have been in the river, which is running higher and colder than normal, and we'll be going into town this afternoon for our usual extended shopping jaunt--food store, candy store, outdoor store, Alco, and the malt shoppe. (Thankfully, we'll be skipping our usual drive to Treasure Falls and the overlook located up the road from the falls.) This is actually Dorine's brother Don's week, but he and his wife Margarita invited the rest of us to come up. Kristy and Chris (and kids) are here, along with Devery and Easton, Kiley, and Don and Margarita's daughter Rosita. This photo, taken a half-hour ago, shows me (and Chris) on the deck. I look forward to taking a long walk later with Dorine, and maybe we'll put together a puzzle and watch a movie tonight.

Next week is girls' camp -- oh, joy!

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.)