Fathers and Sons Campout

Several people asked me where Stewart was (because he always tends the fire). It was a delight to tell them he's been in the MTC for almost two weeks. One more and he's off to Montana!

Max did a great job building a big, HOT fire. He lit it just 2 or 3 minutes before this picture.



Then five minutes later it was just about too hot to tend.



Charlie Crothers (our scout master) told me in confidence earlier this week that Max had been selected to join the Order of the Arrow. Here's a short video of the tap out ceremony.



A good time was had!

Full-time Employment, Check!

*whew*

I have been checking my cell phone for the last two weeks, checking everyday when I left work to see if I had a missed call from a number not already in my directory. I interviewed at the Maryland Environmental Service, and the more time that passed, the more I was coming to believe that I hadn't gotten the job.

But there on my phone today, a missed call and a voice mail asking me to call back. And when I did, one of my favorite phone conversations ever!

"I'm calling to offer you the position of Manager of Contract Administration."

Yippee!

I start in a few weeks. We will have to figure out what to do with the other three part-time jobs I'm currently working. I feel like this is an answer to prayers. A blessing from paying tithing.

The MES does a lot of waste-water treatment and recycling stuff all over the state, but here's an article about one of their cooler projects.

Every Epic Love Story Chapter Nine; One Week In Maryland

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

We planned for Jennilyn to spend a week in Maryland in the middle of the summer. She would fly out to an airport near her Aunt in Virginia. I would pick her up there to spend some time with me and my family, but she’d have her Aunt’s place as a back up in case things didn’t go well at mine.

I was determined that she want to spend as much of her time in the East with me as possible. I actually drove down the day before to be certain I could find my way in and out of the airport without any trouble. I got a parking ticket at the Landover Metro station, took the DC metro to Washington National (before it got renamed) and fully reconnoitered the route in and out. Bought flowers to greet her; I was set to impress!

And despite my best-laid plan, her visit still started with a disastrous, nearly fatal misunderstanding. Do you remember the old days, when everyone could walk down the concourses and actually wait with folks before they caught their flights? Or you could have banners and balloons waiting to greet arriving passengers?

Well, that’s how it mostly was back then. But the summer Jenni flew to Maryland, something, somewhere in the world had security tightened up. When I walked into the airport, I realized that only ticketed passengers were allowed past the check-in area. So I posted myself at the exit, where she would leave the airport concourse, holding my flowers, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

I had a clear view of the arrivals board. I knew which flight she would be on, saw its status change to “arriving” and then “at gate”.


It felt like a LONG time. Had she missed the flight? Had she realized what a horrible idea it was to come see me and stayed in Salt Lake? Had she cut her hair and worn glasses, so that I didn’t see her come out? I began to grow anxious. I wanted go and find a payphone and call her house in Utah (isn’t that cute, a payphone? Because it was 1986, dear reader, NOBODY had cell phones), but I didn’t dare leave my spot, in case she came down the hallway.

Finally, I saw her walking in my direction. Her face was closed, unhappy. Later, she told me that she’d been crying. I saw her, she spotted me leaning on the “NO UNTICKETED PASSENGERS PASS THIS SIGN” sign and came to me. We hugged (somewhat awkwardly), and she wanted to know where I had been?

Why wasn’t I there to greet her?

Oh cursed security and your thwarting of young love! This was my first encounter with something that’s been an interesting feature of the whole rest of our relationship; Jenni’s hair-trigger Worst-Case-Scenario reaction. Whenever something happens, Jennilyn will tend to forecast its meaning to be as dark as possible. So when her plane landed, and I wasn’t there, then I must have met someone else and decided I didn’t want to be with her.

Even though we had talked 18 hours ago!



There was a truly forgettable 8-episodes-and-done TV series a few years ago called “The Unusuals”. It’s a good spot to watch a pre-“Hurt Locker” Jeremy Renner running around being police. Anyway, one episode featured a couple who have a conflict because the girl had a dream where her boyfriend made her mad, and then he was perplexed by the fact she was acting mad in the real world because of something that happened in her dream.

This issue is profound and eternal in considering how people relate.

Things go awry all the time. It’s the nature of the mortal world we inhabit. None of us has the right to evaluate how another person reacts to a negative situation. Like Barney taught us all, feelings aren’t good or bad, they just are. So if ever someone is mad at you and you think their reasoning is unfair . . .

So be it. Love them. Listen to them.

And apologize for whatever it was you did in their dream. Their unreasonable sorrow or anger deserves nothing but your love, your understanding and your patience.


I hugged her. We retrieved her luggage and boarded the metro. We had to make a transfer from one line to another, and sat on a bench for several long moments, talking and holding hands. We metroed our way back to my car, and then on home to Aberdeen.

We went to amish country. Got ice cream. Saw the Atlantic Ocean and ate crabs.

Went to Ocean City. Wisely decided that should be just a daytrip and drove home the same day.

Had crabs.

The week passed. I think it was understood between us that Jenni had to spend some of the time with her family, and not just with me. Three days before she was scheduled to fly home, I drove her down to her Uncle’s house.

OK, not exactly. I left to drove her down late, after dinner. The route was simple, down to the temple and then past to I-66. Now, I had been to the Washington DC Temple before, I-95 South to the DC outer loop beltway. But it was late, dark, raining, and I missed the exit for the outer loop.

And it took me . . . about 2 hours to realize I was way off course. I saw the sign for Quantico and I knew I was in trouble. We pulled over, made some long-distance collect calls for directions, and headed back towards her Uncle’s house. By the time we got there, it was ridiculously late at night, and they insisted I stay tonight on their couch in the basement.

Breakfast the next day meant one more meal together. I realized during breakfast that I had actually met her cousin the Fall previously in a Biology class at BYU (she remembered me making a comment about agreeing to shave my beard before going to BYU, and that my agreement to the term ended any right I had to be indignant about the requirement). I was delighted with every second.

I drove her to the Metro so she could ride in and see some art museums. I knew it was time to let her go, but I told myself (another theme that has presented itself often over the years) that a few more minutes wouldn’t hurt. I hopped the metro and rode into DC with her. We bid farewell on the platform, I shouted, “I love you!” and then rode back to the car, and then home.

I do not remember what we talked about that morning. I barely remember what we talked about the entire week. So much of the time we spend together just fills up with the mundane, the minutiae. This still happens, though now the time fills with scheduling, driving, cleaning. No matter how drab the passing time might appear to others, time with Jennilyn . . . that’s exactly how I want my time to pass.

I still want to spend every last minute with her. And then the five more minutes after that.

Previously, on Every Epic Love Story chapter 8, the first of many long-distance-relationship episodes!

Next, on Every Epic Love Story chapter 9, our first, last, one great science fiction convention story!

Gamers!

I have a whole household of them.

The linked article above makes some interesting claims. Intuitively, I agree with most of them. I think game-playing is one of those wholesome recreational activities.

My versions of some of her points;

1. Don’t play more than 21 hours a week; HAVE A LIMIT! Do other things first, don't let the game take over your living.

2.Playing with real-life friends and family is better than playing alone all the time, or with strangers; I know people who play a lot of XBOX or PS3 or Wii games online against strangers and really enjoy themselves. I don't think it's bad to cultivate the ability to play with people like that. But it's better to play with people you know; develop those already-existing relationships.



3. Playing face-to-face with friends and family beats playing with them online. This is a toughy for me, because I love playing with my kids online. But I am also certain that they are better when we play in person. And the (perhaps not-so-obvious) point should be made; games are not ALL computerized!

(This game seems to involve the person who is "it" sitting in the middle of the trampoline and rolling back and forth, trying to tag someone)



4. Cooperative gameplay, overall, has more benefits than competitive gameplay; that sounds pretty simple, right? Is it more fun to play with someone or against them? I'm not discounting the importance of healthy competition, but emphasizing the importance of team spirit and sportsmanship.

5. Creative games have special positive impacts; have you ever watched kids build a world out of legos? Or created a creature in a game? The thrill as they make something should be one of the goals of recreation!


2 other important rules:

* You can get all of the benefits of a good game without realistic violence – you (or your kids) don’t have to play games with guns or gore; this is a big deal to me. I despise games (and movies, and books, and songs, etc) that are grotesque for no good reason. We can do without that, thank you.

*Any game that makes you feel bad is no longer a good game for you to play. There are lots of "game" events that make you feel bad; measure your emotions when you play, and when you are done. Positive experience? Good feeling? Be a self-aware consumer of recreation!

This Is a Great Day

I know it is also a sad day, remembering some terrible things. There are only so many days in the calendar, so I think it's appropriate to be happy for some reason on each one of them, even if there are anniversaries that are sad, too.

Now, every day is a great day. We are alive in a beautiful world. But for me, today is one of those days of all days.

Twenty-two years ago today, I woke up very early and very wound-up. It was my wedding day!

I was thinking yesterday of the hilarious schedule we followed that day. We were sealed early, and then for some silly reason, Jenni and I were left alone to put our stuff in our car before meeting back up with our wedding party for the breakfast.

We came || close to just running away.



But we managed to hold on. Went to lunch, thanked everyone for their support and drove off.

There are a lot of things that happen, that have to happen for a wedding to succeed. A lot of choices to make. One of the things I am most pleased with was our decision to put off the wedding reception for several days, so we could just get away as soon as the wedding was over and not spend the day exhausting ourselves .

So what did we do with out free time? We went BACK to the temple!

Is that a metaphor, or what?

After spending the morning in the Salt Lake Temple, we drove 2 and a half hours to Manti, and there did another endowment session. I mean, that was us, it was me, and it still sounds unbearably, nearly insufferably pious to ME. But I am glad we did it.

It matters to us. We married in the temple because it matters to us. We went to the temple again because making it a priority matters to us. I can point to our wedding picture, hanging in our home, and the temple is in the background. Going to the temple was a choice that will resonate for the rest of our existance. It is something we still honor by going regularly as a part of our 20-plus years of marriage.



We finished our session in Manti and checked into the Manti House. We spent one night there, and then drove down to Zion’s Park and camped one night.

For our anniversary tonight, we took the kids out to our favorite Chinese Buffet. I leaned across the table and whispered to Jennilyn, indicating our kids on either side of us, "We did this."

Happy Anniversary to us!

Every Epic Love Story Chapter Eight; A Summer Apart

(Jennilyn and I a few days before winter semester 1986 ended)

Do kids these days understand how easy it is to stay in touch? Do they understand why that very easiness makes it perplexing that they don’t stay in touch?

Spring and Summer of 1986 I wrote letters to Jennilyn. With a pen, on paper! Sometimes, the paper I wrote on would be found paper, whatever I could get my hands on the moment I felt the need to write. I made tapes for her; actual, physical recordings on a tape recorder, cassette tapes that I then mailed to her. Used stamps, on envelopes. I learned how many sheets of paper were in an ounce (because anything more required a second stamp).

I made long distance phone calls! I had to budget my time just so, in order to get the weekend and night-time rate!

With my friends’ help, I orchestrated amusing tableaus, then took pictures, developed the film, and mailed the photos!

It amuses me now to remember what that entailed. Nothing was instant, except for the occasional (watched-for, scheduled, and closely timed) phone calls. Conversations by letter were distant, stilted, romantic staged things. Imagine talking to someone where you have to speak in complete paragraphs, but then have to wait a week to hear the response.

Knowing what I know now, this was all just a type of things to come; trans-oceanic written communication turns days into weeks for the turn around. I wonder what it was like when everything took months, seasons, to travel from place to place.

Ah, long-distance love.

It established a pattern I still see present in my approach to my daily occurrence; whenever something interesting happened, I looked forward to sharing it with Jennilyn.

Do you find yourself wondering how something is going to look on facebook, or how it can fit into a blog-post? Yeah, like that, except with just one person. Jennibook!

Somewhere in the talking, the writing, the picture-taking and the cassette-making, a plan formed. Jennilyn would be coming to the East Coast to see me! Well, sort of. She had an Aunt in McClean, Virginia that she could ostensibly be traveling to see. If things went completely awry, that was kind of the back up plan.

When is it appropriate to meet the parents? When is it appropriate to fly across the entire country and spend a week with your boyfriend’s family?

The Summer of 1986, I wasn’t thinking about appropriate, I just wanted Jenni to come and see me. But that’s not all I wanted. I realize now that I was also desperate for her to get to know more about me. In the few weeks before the semester had ended, I met her parents, her siblings, a few of her cousins.

I liked meeting them, it meant I knew more about her.

I wanted her to meet my people. Probably to show off, I guess. Both to demonstrate to “my people” what an amazing girl she was, but to also share my life with her.

Love isn’t just a whiling away of time in the company of someone you enjoy, not in my opinion; that whiling away isn’t love, it’s just … playtime. I know, that makes me sound like an old cranky man. As I have grown older, I have tired of selfishness. Tired of juvenilia. I often feel the weight of my responsibilities, the burden of providing for many mouths, many lives. My children tease me when I forget things, and I have more than once grumbled about them keeping track of their one schedule of tasks, while I (try!) to keep track of a dozen.

I want my kids to be happy. I want everybody to be happy. I really believe that being exclusively focused on your own happiness doesn’t result in actual happiness. The selfish wringing of self-satisfaction out of every moment makes your world so small. It turns your focus too myopically to your “now”, and you lose any hope of willfully directing your “someday”.

Loving Jennilyn that summer made my world larger. It gave me a vision of a future where we could be together, I could make her happy, and together we could do things.

Love does things. It’s an effort, an urge to serve, to build. To work.

I loved her, yes. But she was also *good* for me. She made me better, demanded work and humility and sacrifice from herself, and I felt compelled to be better because of her, to deserve her.

That has never changed.

Previously, on Every Epic Love Story; chapter 7.

Next chapter, the (dramatic chord!) chapter 9, the visit East!.

Quotes from Last Fall's Conference.

I have watched sports fans vilify and demonize their rivals. They look for any flaw and magnify it. They justify their hatred with broad generalizations and apply them to everyone associated with the other team. When ill fortune afflicts their rival, they rejoice.

Brethren, unfortunately we see today too often the same kind of attitude and behavior spill over into the public discourse of politics, ethnicity, and religion.

My dear brethren of the priesthood, my beloved fellow disciples of the gentle Christ, should we not hold ourselves to a higher standard? As priesthood bearers, we must realize that all of God’s children wear the same jersey. Our team is the brotherhood of man. This mortal life is our playing field. Our goal is to learn to love God and to extend that same love toward our fellowman. We are here to live according to His law and establish the kingdom of God. We are here to build, uplift, treat fairly, and encourage all of Heavenly Father’s children.

--Dieter F. Uchtdorf "Pride and the Priesthood"

Mrs. L challenged her seminary class before Conference Weekend last October to ponder what question they hoped would be addressed. That evening, at dinner, she talked about doing it as a family. I remember feeling instantly hopeful to hear something about the level of animosity and personal hostility in political rhetoric. It is disheartening to hear the truly hate-filled language that people on the opposite sides of issues use to characterize their opponents.

So when Elder Uchtdorf said the above paragraphs, I totally elbowed Max and whispered, "This is it! This is the one I was waiting for!"