Great Talk

We had stake conference this weekend. Several talks were really important for me to hear. But I want to tell you about the talk a member of the stake presidency gave about pride, how prideful we are sometimes because we are members of the church. We sometimes think we have all the answers and are not humble. We sometimes discount the way other people of other religions worship because we are a little smug or even arrogant. I loved his emphasis on knowing that other people in other religions have qualities we each would do well to emulate.

This concept was brought home to me as I grew up. I remember growing up and hearing school-mates talk about weekends at their family's cabin at the lake, holiday celebrations, and fun traditions they had with their family. I felt like I shouldn't envy them because I had the gospel. But I did envy them. My family of origin was troubled, gospel or not. I would have loved to have had the experiences with my family that they had in theirs. I have nothing but admiration for a co-worker at FWP. She was a devout Catholic and all around admirable person. I loved hearing how she celebrates Lent and other holidays and how close she is to her brothers, sisters, and parents. I liked hearing her stories about how long ago her Dad and his friends had the assignment to ring the bells at the Cathedral when the person who usually did it was on vacation. And when the anti-Mormon movie The Godmakers came to town, who was one of the first people to speak out against knocking the Mormons in this way? One of the Catholic priests in a letter to the editor.

I have often wondered why I am not better than my Baptist neighbor since I have a fullness of the gospel while she doesn't. She never says anything negative about anyone and is not contentious, while I....... Well, I'd rather not get into it. It would take WAY too long and I'd never get through a catalogue list of my faults, even if knew all of them. Below is one of the stories the speaker read to us. It was very powerful to me as he read and not so powerful for me when I read it for myself. Still, I wanted to share:


http://www.the-exponent.com/2011/02/02/a-thousand-ways-to-pray/

Wish list

Because I have mentioned once or twice or 20 times that Wilbur never gives me a clue about what he would like for his birthday, Father's Day, Christmas etc., he was giving me gift ideas a couple of days ago. Here they are:

1) A suit like Iron Man's
2) A plane like Iron Man's
3) A Leer Jet in lieu of a plane like Iron Man's

And I have said once or twice or 20 times that anything the man really wants, I can't afford to get him.

Mining Claim

Yesterday Dad and I went four wheeling to the mining claim where Grandpa R spent a lot of his childhood. We found the site of the house, barn, and garden. We also saw part of the entrance to the old drift mine my Dad referred to on the tape he made. We found a few "artifacts" like an old coffee can with holes cut into the bottom, tin, and parts of old logs where the barn had been. We should go on a picnic out there this summer. Wilbur could bring his metal detector and we could see if we could find anything else. Interestingly, some guys who were panning for gold also drove by while we were out there. I guess they must think there is still some gold. My grandfather found some, but over all my Dad's family was dirt poor.

Time with Prudence's Family

Jumping rope with your grandma has one big advantage: She turns the rope all the time and doesn't have to have a turn jumping.

The party.

Playing with a natural boat at the park.

Hugging a big tree after seeing the "witches."

Speedy with his parachuting guy and cuddles staying warm.

Trip Out

Idaho mist a hop, skip, and a jump from Hermione's place

Swans

Overlooking the Columbia. The sign in this area said watch for rattlesnakes. We did. See blog post about scary things.

Whales

Today I went to the beach for a few minutes with Prudence and family and Hermione. There was a cool breeze blowing. To my surprise a large whale made its way through the bay. I heard whales migrate this time of year, but I never thought in a million years I would get to to see one. It was so cool.

Mining is NOT in My Blood

When considering our family history, I've noticed we have quite a few miners in the past 150 years. My Mom's father's family mined coal near Lanark, Rutherglen, Scotland. My Dad's grandfathers came here for the purpose of finding their fortunes extracting gold from the mountains.

Regardless of family history, mining is not in my blood. The idea of crawling into a shaft in the ground for any reason makes me crazy. If any of my ancestors made any money mining, they must have buried it somewhere. My Dad gave me some of his reminiscences about his mining days. These are only a few:

Me: Well, what did you think about mining? Did you like it?

Dad: Oh, well, mining is hard, dangerous work actually. Then I worked for Ed Webber up Ten Mile. They had a Ten Mile above Rimini, up there, sampling one summer.

Becky: Bet you had to just stay because it probably was far…

Dad: Oh yeah we stayed there. They furnished us.
Herb Schwabe (sp?) and I were working together up there digging holes down in bedrock and sampling, and they weren’t too deep holes. We dug a number of them. Kept a ledger of what the dirt was like all the way down and a pan to show if there was any colors to speak of, which there weren’t. Most of that stuff had been worked out, you know. We did that for most of this one summer. And then up ‘til…well the first day of hunting season which was the 15th of October, we got a big snow storm. I went hunting that day, it was a Sunday, I think. It snowed all day long. I didn’t see a thing. I got back that night. It snowed about, oh, a foot and a half that day. And the next day, when it quit snowing then, it was so deep, we really couldn’t get out with our truck – with that little ole model A Ford truck. And we walked up over the hill. He had another outfit that was settin’ up a washing machine rig up under the head of Colorado Mountain – up near Chessman reservoir up in there. So we walked up the hill in the snow, through the snow, got into snow clear up to here coming up through there. Walked up there. Then we stayed there a few days. Then the snow melted, and they brought us around in the truck and back up. We got the other truck and came back around and up there. And then we worked with them the rest of the fall until Thanksgiving up there. They got that washing rig set up.

Me: What’s a washing rig?

Dad: Oh, a machine, actually it’s just a glorified mechanical sluice box. They had a drag line, you know, that’s what they call these dirt shovels. It was an old one only they had a real long boom on it. They’d bring this drag line bucket out and they’d take and turn it loose and swing it and it’d drop out and drop down in and then they take and drag it full and it get the bucket full and pick it up and swing it over and dump it into the top of this washing machine into the hopper. And the the water was pumped up through there and would wash it. Then they throw the ole rocks in it. Had sort of a trammel that would run the big rocks out and the fine stuff would take and go down and wash through the washing machine and catch in the riffles below. They run that through. They’d clean up every few days. And in that month they took out about.. Well. they had a quart jar and they had about that much gold in it.

Me: About a half or a third of a quart jar?

Dad: Well, about a third of a quart jar of gold. They figured about $2500 at the old price of gold

Me: Did they figure that was worth it?

Dad: No, it wasn’t.

Happy Birthday Eglantine and Hermione!

Life would not be as rich without you in it!

Wherein I Attend a Writers' Group

Over the years, many family members have encouraged me to write. I like to write, but I don’t know if I have enough talent to go anywhere with it. Last week, Prudence encouraged me to think about writing again, in the name of putting together a retirement. The next day the radio blared out that a writer’s group meets once a month at the Library. Was this coincidence? Or was it encouragement from another source? I decided I’d better check out the Library writers’ group.

Now, I’ve always been a little leery of artist groups of any brand. The stereo-typical artists’ group as portrayed by the media always consists of a few brooding members of humanity that spew out dark and profound works in attempts to garner respect from the art world. Their motto seems to be: Let’s find out how disgusting we can be. I am not a “serious” writer. I get nauseated easily, and getting grossed out and depressed listening to a pack of brooding artists seems like a lousy way to spend an evening. However, I decided to put my stereo typical conclusions aside and give the writers’ group a shot.

By the time the third writer began reading his work, I realized being shot would be easier that giving this group a shot. The first writer was a Michael Moore look-alike. Michael Moore is the whiny director who seems to feel habitually ill-used and therefore nit picks at our country. In fairness, the first writer seemed like he had a much more class than Michael Moore. He shared with us his idea for a screen play that he has ostensibly written, along with a letter to Steven Spielberg asking Spielberg to read the script. I didn’t like to say so, but the idea sounded remarkably like the series Stargate Atlantis’ final season.

We moved on to writer Number 2. This man’s countenance reflected that he was a very good, kind man. I think he must have been lonely, or health problems might have fogged his thinking. He wanted to help us all become published. He shared with us his published works: letters to the editor. He had several tips for getting published – in the letters to the editor section of the newspaper.

And then contestant Number Three shared. He was a nice looking blondish, artsy man with cubic zirconium rings on one hand and turquoise rings on the other and a necklace. He was writing a book in the style of Genet and some other off-beat writers. I looked up Genet later to find that Genet was thrown in prison for life at one point being a habitual offender. Genet’s history put Number Three’s offering into context. Even with this work in context, plugging my ears and breathing to drown out his voice was the only way I could get through the ordeal. After hearing that work, I conclude that the F-word is the most versatile word in the English language. It can be a noun. It can be a verb. And it can be combined with any other word in the dictionary to form a compound word.

Meanwhile, the Library staff member assigned to lead the group is acting as cheerleader. And she just LOVES everything!

After a college student read an unexceptional, but difficult to understand, short story he was working on, the last group member unveiled his work. He was a short, slim man with longish dark brown hair and brown eyes. He had played the part of expert, in a kind way, throughout the workshop, giving with dramatic flair suggestions and tips to everyone. Unlike some of the others, I could understand his writing. But it was awful writing just the same. A few parts made me wonder if I had stumbled into the eighth grade boys’ bathroom.

I don’t believe I will be attending that writers’ group again. The moral of the story is: A writers’ group could be a good idea, but not the one at the library!

Sking at Seeley

We went Skiing yesterday at Seeley Lake. It was fun! The snowpack looks good for this year.

Scary

Here is my top ten scary list:

10) Being at the top of an extremely steep road that is on a side slope inside a boulder field. There is snow and ice. You husband is waiting at the bottom for you to follow him down. You wonder if he has insured your life for a lot of money

9) It is winter and night is falling. You have cross country skied all day long and are exhausted. You realize there is no way you can ski back to the trailhead.

8) The Bishop says, “Can I talk to you for a minute?” The nursery leader position is open.

7) You have to venture into your High School student’s room because there are no more clean towels in the house.

6) Flying over the ocean.

5) The Kirby vacuum salesman.

4) Your teenager says, “Will you love me no matter what I do?”

3) You are hiking. Down the trail you see several warning signs: Watch out for Rattlesnakes.

2) You are in the grocery store and can’t find your four-year-old.

1) The biggest gossip in the entire stake has discovered Facebook. She wants to friend you.

The Miracle of the Kitchen Cupboards

Tonight, I started to write about the miracle of the kitchen cupboards. But all the details of the story took up too much room for a blog post. I haven't thought about the miracle of the kitchen cupboards for years. How ridiculous that I allow myself to spend so much time dwelling on negative events, but let years go by and don't think about some of the wonderful miracles and blessings I've had in my life. Here are just a few of my miracles:

1) The kitchen cupboards on Diamond Springs
2) Eglantine's surgery
3) Getting out of debt
4) Miracle blessings from having missionaries on missions
5) Tender mercies associated with Stacy's death
6) Becoming friends with a woman my distant cousin converted while he was on his mission in our area. This ended up being quite a story.

This week I resolve to spend some time everyday writing down some of these stories and thinking about these miracles.

The Skiing WAS Great

My friend and I went cross country skiing Friday, just before the winds were scheduled to hit 30 or 40 mph. The skiing was wonderful. It was even more wonderful that I got new skis. When I took my old skis into be waxed, the technician told me I had worn all the edges off them. Actually, I don't think those skis ever had good edges. Anyway, no edges accounts for difficulty stopping. I learned an unorthodox way to control my speed: put all my weight on one ski while putting the other ski in front and using it like a plow to stop me. I will teach this technique to anyone with edgeless skis. Although, I recommend skis with edges over stopping this way. I love being able to do a normal snowplow to stop and slow down!

The Driving Is Slippery But the Skiing is Going to Be GREAT

Kids & Work

I spent three more hours today transcribing the old tape I found from July 4, 1985. Next time my kids feel picked on because I made them work as children, I want them to think about this:

Dad [Grandpa Robertson]: ...Then we had that big garden down below there which we had to irrigate. It came out o’ that same spring where we got the water. We run it around the hill and irrigated. We raised all our own potatoes and carrots and rutabagas and peas and beans.

And we always had corn, cucumbers and onions that we raised. And turnips. We’d all go down there, all four of us kids and Mom, and we’d weed it, we’d help plant it, we’d rake it after it was ploughed. Dad would plough it. He always had a horse and a plough.

Me: About how old were you?

Dad: That was about seven years old...

And we’d take and hoe the corn. We’d help plant the garden, help rake it. Our job was to help water it. Mom would be there to help us. Dad and John were generally out working on a ranch some place during the summer time or for the Forest Service, or in a mine. So it was up to Mom and us kids to take care of the garden and we did. Then we’d pick and shell peas and have peas and new potatoes and beans and a little bit of bacon on them. Always raised radishes. Mom always made our own homemade bread, of course. She’d bake a big batch and every time she’d bake bread, she’d bake a pan of cinnamon rolls. Sometimes, we’d run out of butter. We’ve used Crisco for butter more than once. A time or two when there wasn’t much else around to eat why I remember that we’d make sandwiches, spread Crisco on ‘em and cut up radishes and have radish sandwiches.

Me: That doesn’t sound very good.

Dad: Well, they were pretty good, actually.

Asian Vegetable-Beef Soup

This probably could be made meatless. It has a kick to it.

1 lb. beef stew meat, cut into 1 inch cubes
1T. oil
2 c. water
1 1/4 c. beef broth
1/4 c. reduced sodium soy sauce
6 green onions
3 T. brown sugar
2 garlic cloves
1 T. minced fresh ginger root
2 t. sesame oil
1/4 t. cayenne pepper
1 1/2 c. fresh mushrooms
1 1/2 c. julienned carrots
1 c. sliced bok choy
1 1/2 c. uncooked long grain rice
Chive blossoms, optinal

Brown meat with oil. Pressure cook until tender. (Pressure cooker should have guide to tell you how long. I cook 35 minutes on high ring.) Cook the rice in rice cooker or separate pan. Add the remainder of the ingredients and simmer until carrots are done. (If carrots are done, everything else will be.) Divide rice among 6 soup bowls - 3/4 c. in each bowl. Top each bowl with soup. Garnish with chives.

Manners

We have a family that just moved in from California at church. The mother is complaining about how AWFUL the schools are here. According to her, her kids will not be academically challenged. I gather she is not pleased to be here generally. Would it be rude to advise her to contact all her friends and neighbors in California and tell them EVERYTHING she hates about being here?

Oh, all right. It would be rude. But she probably wouldn't get where I'm going anyway.

Washing Circa 1920

Not long a go I discovered at tape I made with my Mom and Dad on July 4, 1985. I had zero recollection of making this tape. But it was so wonderful to hear the voices of my parents again. I also heard the voices and piano music of my little kids. I am still not done transcribing it. Here is a section about washing in when my parents were kids:

WASHING

Dad: ....then the next year Dad built the log cabin down below in Kingsberry Gulch where we were there. And we had a lumber floor and so forth: one big room. Outdoor privy. We’d take and screen off the area right behind the stove and took our baths in a tin wash tub.

Mom: We used to do that too. My mother had a big black shawl that she used to put around so that we’d have a private place.

Dad: And we hung blankets and sheets and stuff off to screen it out. It was warm behind the stove!

Mom: And I can tell you that more than one kid took a bath in that water also.

Dad: That’s right. Because where you had to carry water for a hundred yards up in three gallon pails – carry two of ‘em at a time one in each hand.

Mom: Every kid had their hair washed with vinegar water as the last rinse to get the soap out.


AND NEXT TIME YOU FEEL BLUE ABOUT CATCHING UP ON LAUNDRY:

Dad: When it came to washing, we had a big copper boiler. Put all the clothes in that. Put it on the stove and put soap in it and boil ‘em. And then left ‘em out..”

Mom: That’s the way everybody did their clothes. They boiled all their whites.

Dad: And then they washed them on a rubbing board and put them in a little cooler water…” And rub ‘ em on a wash board. And then ring them out through two different rinses to get the soap out of them.

Mom: When I was sixteen years old, when I used to go out and see my sister in Velda(?)
Utah, we were still heatin’ the water outside in the summer over the fire outside and boiling the white clothes over the fire.

The Depression

Although I did not live through the depression, its influence was strong in the home where I grew up. My Mom sewed all the dresses I wore to church. The first time I remember having a store bought dress was an Easter dress purchased for me at the old McDonalds store downtown when I was thirteen. It was a pink, button down dress. I’m sure I looked hideous in it since pink has never been my color.

When sewing, Mom saved the scraps of material from sewing and stashed them in a plastic sack in the closet. Although, most of the material wasn’t the kind of material you can make quilts out of and my mother didn’t quilt anyway. It’s hard to believe now, but quilting was a lost art in the 1960’s and 70’s. Not wanting to waste, Mom cut buttons, which we never used, off old shirts. She strung the buttons together as a set and put them in a button box. If we ever used a button out of that box, it’s news to me. But it was a good lesson in using my noggin to find ways to conserve.

Dad had his own idiosyncrasies from the Depression. He bought canned rhubarb on sale and stockpiled them in the pantry. This choice of foot storage item here is interesting since we had a rhubarb plant in the backyard and years would go by before my Mom would make a rhubarb pie. Dad bought canned oysters occasionally. He would heat up milk on the stove and drop in the canned oysters and serve it with oyster crackers. He called it oyster stew. I’m sorry to say it was AWFUL.

After I left home, I dropped by the house one day, to find Dad repairing an iron tool that had broken. He was using my Mom’s vacuum cleaner as a bellows to get his “forge” hot enough to bend the iron. This event sticks out in my memory since my Dad just loved to buy tools. I don’t ever remember him fixing a tool before this incident. Although, he never threw anything away either. Unfortunately, organization was not his strong suit. He would misplace tools he bought and then find it easier to go out and buy another tool rather than find the misplaced one.

Mom was of an entirely different cut. If she bought something once, it was never to be lost, and if the family was taking appropriate care of the item, it should never, ever break. I mean never. Anything breaking around our place was a testament to what a pack of wasteful, white trash we were.

My parent’s generation was the generation that was forced to march off to war and face the armies of Hitler and Japan. I have wondered if their tough experiences in the Depression prepared them for the war.

Etiquette For Men

1) Never call another guy during the last two minutes of a close pro football game.

2) Never turn down a guy who got an elk and needs your help getting the elk to his truck.

Wilbur tells me there are really no other rules of etiquette for men. Only two rules of etiquette would make life much simpler.