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2020 Hindsight

(Warning – This blog post is a little too long… kind of like how the year went.)

When I wasn’t driving the train or asleep, the beginning of the new year found me deep in a home renovation project that My Beautiful Wife and I had taken on for one of our sons, while he and his younger brother were deployed overseas.

Impending War

Right off the bat, the year 2020 looked dismal with the January 8th Persian Gulf Crisis.

Our sons were both stationed in the region, when Iran launched missile attacks against two US/Iraqi military bases housing US soldiers, in retaliation for the killing of Soleimani. It looked like we were headed for war, and two of our sons would be right in the middle of it.

As quickly as this threat subsided, more troubling news took it’s place, including the catastrophic wild fires in Australia followed by destructive flooding, President Trump’s Impeachment trial, and the fatal Kobe Bryant helicopter crash. Underlying this unsettled start to the year was brewing the new virus, which soon became a global pandemic.

Life in a Global Pandemic Begins

Declared a “public emergency” by the World Health Organization on January 30, at first everyone was calling it “The Coronavirus”. Coronavirus is a description of the how it looks under a powerful microscope. But Cronam, the Latin word for crown, describes many types of thorn-like crowned viruses, or coronaviruses out there. So on February 11, our global pandemic virus received it’s official name of Covid-19, which is an acronym that stands for coronavirus disease of 2019.

My earliest lasting memory of how Covid-19 personally affected me was seeing the clip of a March 6th news conference where a California health official emphatically tells us all, “Don’t touch your face.” As she then sticks her finger in her mouth to wet it before turning the page, I am thinking, “I have no hope of NOT touching my always itchy face while constantly handling the doors and railings inside the body of the train. So I’m going to die.”

At the time, I developed the strategy of gloving my normally ungloved hands while walking the train. This change in my normal routine really helped. I would then take the gloves off and use hand sanitizer before doing anything else.   

The Bad News Increases

During this time, the bad news just kept coming in. On March 3rd, 13 tornadoes tormented Nashville, killing at least 25 people.

The March 9th news of Italy placing itself on a nationwide quarantine to slow the spread of coronavirus, was the same day that the US stock market took a major hit. Not too many days earlier, the Dow Jones had fallen 1000 points in a single day, but now it dropped over 2000 points in a single day. This is now commonly called Black Monday 2020. Three days later the Dow dropped another 2352 points, followed by an almost 3000 point drop three days later. This one holds the record for being the largest single-day point drop ever. So in just one month, the stock market went from an all-time high, through a record breaking plunge, and into a bear market.

It was during this time that the World Health Organization declared the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic, the NBA suspended its season, President Trump declared Coronavirus a national emergency, and Breonna Taylor was shot and killed by police in Louisville, Kentucky, setting our nation up for an increase in racial tension. 

Shaken But Not Stirred

It was the morning of March 18th, just a little after 7:00 am, that I was driving my northbound train full of commuters, bound for work and school, through North Salt Lake City at full speed.

Suddenly one of the controllers on duty at our FrontRunner headquarters called over the radio, “EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY.  All trains, STOP! STOP! STOP!” Many times I’ve heard ONE of our trains call out their own “EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY, EMERGENCY.” And I’ve heard our controllers call a single train to called to “STOP, STOP, STOP.” But this was the first time in my five years of driving the trains that I’d heard the call for all 10 trains to stop in their tracks at once in this manner.

One by one, in rapid succession, the radio crackled with, ”Train 4 is stopped and set and centered… Train 7, stopped and set and centered…” Set and centered means the brakes are applied and all propulsion is disabled. After all 10 trains called in, the radio went silent.

I knew of only one thing that would bring all 10 trains along our 88 miles of mainline track to a sudden screeching halt all at once. We must have had a major earthquake. Locomotives weigh many times what the railcars do, and they don’t have the “Air-ride” suspension that the passenger cars enjoy. So in my heavy “leaf-spring” suspended locomotive, riding at full speed on some of the roughest stretch of track on our alignment, I didn’t actually feel any of “the earthquake shake” when it happened. But I sure felt the silent and still aftermath.

After making announcements to the passengers about all trains being called to a stop, and that it likely meant we had just experienced a major earthquake, I sat in the cab of the locomotive and listened to the silent radio, while wondering what was going on in the Control Room right now? We had never had a major earthquake since our FrontRunner service began. The official earthquake response plan, available to us as engineers driving the train, is a very short, concise paragraph. Maybe it is too concise. You be the judge.

TOEP – 3 Earthquake

When an earthquake is reported or felt and it is at a magnitude of 5.0 and higher, all trains shall be instructed by UTA FRC: “Emergency, Emergency, Emergency. Earthquake conditions, all train stop.” Note: Trains may be moved the minimum distance required at a speed less than 5 mph to avoid an emergency situation such as unloading off a bridge, under a bridge, off at a grade crossing, near a fire etc.

Even with the little information that I had, none of which had ever been tested in real life, I knew of possible conflicting instructions for our Controllers back at FrontRunner Headquarters. For example, should they follow the building’s earthquake procedures and evacuate the building, gathering at the outside rendezvous point? Or should they stay in the control room to give directions to the ten (now confused) trains, which are in service, but just sitting on the tracks, all full of commuters. Certainly they were scrambling to contact FrontRunner management for directions on how to proceed.

Eventually my train was given authorization to slowly move forward to Woods Cross Station. We were to travel at restricted speed, allowing me to inspect everything ahead of the train that could cause problems, and to be able stop before I got to it.

As I learned later, our major earthquake was a 5.7. The first major quake to hit the Salt Lake Valley since the city was founded back in the mid-1800’s. It’s epicenter was only 8.5 miles from where I was driving my train when we were all called to an emergency stop.

Now all of the bridges, rail switches, and even the rails themselves, needed to be inspected before we could resume normal operations. Of course qualified UTA inspectors had numerous buildings, our light-rail operations, all the rail alignment, and many other things to inspect as well. UTA Light-rail was really messed up, which shut down all of their services completely all day.

We, on the heavy-rail side fared better and things at FrontRunner moved pretty slowly when we finally started to move, but at least we were moving. I proceeded northbound, the remaining 33 miles to Ogden Station at the same slow “Restricted Speed”.

By the time I was headed back southbound toward Salt Lake, there was sufficient track and bridge inspection, which was now happening in earnest, that I was able to proceed at a little faster rate. No where near full speed, but things were starting to pick up.

About six hours after the initial earthquake, and just as we were given authorization to go much closer to full speed, another 4.6  first aftershock brought all our trains to a stand still once again. The first aftershock (also a 4.6) was about an hour after the initial 5.7 quake, while we were still mostly at a stand still.

At the time of this second big aftershock, I was in the process of bringing my, now out of service, train back into our rail yard at our headquarters. Also happening at this time, when the aftershock hit, two large cranes in front of me were lifting one of our passenger railcars in the air to place it back on the track. (That derailed train from the previous day was a whole other story, but not for this blog.) But seeing the precarious position of this elevated passenger car during this 4.6 aftershock was the icing on the cake for me on this very strange day of an even stranger year.  

Curfews & Lockdowns

Meanwhile, the impact of the pandemic raged on. Our passenger ridership on the trains were now dropping steadily. As I drove the trains up and down the Wasatch Front, I could see that our trains weren’t the only thing abandoned. Virtually all office buildings, and of course their parking lots, were empty. I know this wasn’t just a Utah thing. On March 24th the US Box Office recorded ZERO revenue for the first time ever.

The only place in public with lines were the grocery stores and building supply stores. I experienced this personally as I stood in both lines, trying to get food to eat and building materials for my son’s house renovation.

The pandemic also impacted our two sons, who were still deployed overseas, but now due to come home. On March 25th the military put a 60 day halt to overseas troop travel. Now our sons wouldn’t be coming home for months.

In late March, UTA management made serious cuts to our transit service. Ridership was now just a small fraction of normal. Our now shorter trains and less frequent service was clearly still adequate for the few “Essential Workers” still traveling up and down the Wasatch Front on public transit.

On March 26th the Utah Attorney General’s office issued an “Exemption from Travel Restrictions” for essential workers, like us train engineers, so we could travel to and from our work assignments beyond the now designated curfew hours.

Things continued to look and feel more and more like an eerie sci-fi movie. The streets and office buildings were abandoned. The very few passengers actually riding the trains showed stress as they avoided each other, and anything else that might give them the virus. I felt it strange that I was asked to carry official papers authorizing me to be out in public. All the news and other media constantly reported doom and gloom. By now most citizens were asked to stay locked down in their own homes, “so that by working together we could flatten the curve of new infections”. The threat of overwhelming hospitals seemed inevitable based on the astronomical projections of the experts.

Masks

Early on, I clearly remember watching with interest, advice from our national infection and medical experts that we should leave all “good masks”, such as the suddenly rare N95’s to the medical professionals. We were also told that any other “lessor masks”, such as cloth coverings, were not effective and that the key to survival for the general public was to properly wash our hands and to NOT TOUCH OUR FACE.

Well, on April 3rd the mask focus shifted, when the CDC recommended that all citizens consider wearing cloth or some kind of fabric face covering. Over time, this “recommendation” became more and more mandatory.

I was now haunted, while trying to wear a mask all day, by the memory of my 9-year-old self failing in my upside down escape attempt from a mummy sleeping bag. Now less impressed by some magician act I’d seen on TV, I’d given up near suffocation as a hobby way back then. But now with something  as simple cloth mask on my face all day, that childhood experience was back to haunt me… and make me gag. It’s surprising how much more air is required to pass through that cloth when I’m briskly walking through the train, compared to those quietly sitting and staring out the window.

Incidentally, all those N-95 masks that disappeared at the beginning of the pandemic, never came back. Home renovators, like myself, along with all craftsmen who could once protect their lungs from construction debris while on the job have only a cloth mask that doesn’t filter what shouldn’t end up in the lungs.  

Protests & Riots

Well the summer really heated up, starting with George Floyd’s May 25th brutal demise. The ensuing police protests that then became riots spread across the country faster than the news of the “Murder Hornets” invading.

A May 30th police protest in Salt Lake City turned into a full fledged riot that included a police car flipped upside down and burned, with the approval of a cheering crowd. I was amazed this was happening right here in little ole Salt Lake City, and not just in big cities like Chicago and Seattle.

More protests along the Wasatch Front erupted, including an attack on the Salt Lake County District Attorney’s office, and a broad daylight shooting during a protest in down town Provo.

As I continued to drive my train up and down the Wasatch Front, as an essential worker, marveling at the strangeness of the year, I never had time to wonder what would happen next before it was happening.

Wildfires

Did those catastrophic wildfires from Australia spread across the ocean, like the Covid-19, and hit our West Coast? The California wildfires were much worse than in years past. I didn’t know that was possible, or even that there was anything left in California to burn. But adding the smoke drift from their 10,000 fires to our own 1,500 wildfires, filled Utah’s August air. This added another layer to the feeling of doom and gloom.

With Hurricane Force

I was on my normal work assignment. It was September 8th, a Tuesday morning, and I was driving my early morning train northbound, through North Salt Lake, toward Woods Cross Station.

This was virtually the same place and circumstances I was in a few months earlier for our big earthquake.  This was also the same stretch where a few years before that, during a blinding snowstorm, I had hit a pickup truck that had made a wrong turn onto my tracks. Thankfully I had narrowly missed wiping out the escaping family as I destroyed their family ride.

What would this “Twilight Zone” stretch of track do to me this time? I quickly found out. The windy morning suddenly became violent. In front of my speeding train, a large tree was blown down, laying across my tracks. The trunk, larger in girth than a power pole, exploded into splinters as I blasted through.

Up here in the Rocky Mountains, almost a thousand miles from any sea coast, we were now experiencing hurricane conditions with 100 mph winds in some areas. The winds flipped 45 semi-trucks, knocked out power to nearly 200,000 residence, and knocked down thousands of trees. The State was already operating in a state of emergency because of the pandemic. But now the Governor declared second state of emergency as a result of the storm damage. For many thousands, power was out for days. Downed trees blocked roads and damaged building and homes. Our “pandemic crippled cities” almost became “hurricane paralyzed”.

Needless to say, driving the train on the hurricane morning of September 8th  looked a lot like driving it on earthquake morning of March 18th. “Hurricane Morning” also became a long day of delays and uncertainty.

Pandemic Fatigue

As we finished out the long crazy year (and yes, it was also a crazy long year), we continued to endure the on-going pandemic fatigue, cancelled travel and vacation plans, and muted Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas gatherings.

Hope

But ever so slowly, the ridership is coming back. The office buildings and their parking lots are still about as empty as ever, but people seem to be moving about for other reasons.

We as a people, and individually, have lost much during this past year. For many, there are loved ones no longer with us. For everyone, our human interactions and associations have changed. For some the year ended with loneliness, fear, and despair. But there is hope too. The experience of this past year helps make us better… as a people and as individuals… if we let it.

Like everyone else, I didn’t enjoy 2020 very much. With the theme of losing loved ones, starting very early in the year for our family, and continuing to an ugly exclamation mark on the last day of the year, I am very glad to see it go.

But much good has happened too. My two sons, who were deployed, are back and enjoying close associations with their other seven siblings, along with My Beautiful Wife and I. We are all working, together and individually, to make this world a better place for everyone.

I don’t know what 2021 will bring, but the one thing 2020 has taught me, is ironically what it tried so hard to take away from all of us. “The most important thing to every human being on this planet is our positive interactions with each other.”

Six Deadly Sins

Occasionally, a passenger will ask me something “train safety” related like, “Do they ever inspect these trains to make sure they’re safe?” or, “It seems like this train came into the station awfully fast. Don’t these trains have speed limits?”

The many levels of train safety inspections (everywhere from the many brake safety tests preformed out on the mainline, the inspections completed in the shop every day, and up to the very detailed and involved quarterly locomotive and passenger car inspections that take that train out of service for a week to complete), are far beyond what most would think.

But what about the engineer? What checks are in place to keep the driver of the train in line?

Train handling safety rules, and speed limits are very strict, but with positive train control now in effect on our system, which forces speed compliance, a speeding train normally isn’t a thing here. However, under certain circumstances, it is possible for the engineer to break some rule. When that does happen, the consequences for doing such can be quite severe.

In fact, if an engineer were to commit just one certain operational error, his license is immediately revoked, and when proven in an investigation, he isn’t allowed back on duty for a month. At the railroad’s discretion, this might be reduced to fifteen days with proper retraining and other remedial compliance. A second error within two years will result in suspension of the license for six months, a third within three years requires a one-year suspension, but of course the railroad would have sent that engineer packing long before.

There are six of these terrible rule infractions, and we call them “The Six Deadly Sins”.

In a nutshell, here they are:

  1. Passing a signal requiring the train to stop.
  2. Exceeding the speed limit by 10 MPH.
  3. Failure to complete all required brake tests.
  4. Occupying main tract without authority.
  5. Tampering with any safety device.
  6. Violation of any FRA drug or alcohol regulation.

At first glance, this looks like an easy list to comply with. Just don’t run a stop signal. Don’t speed, don’t do drugs or drink on the job, etc. But its not quite that easy or simple. For example, in the regular routine of the day, checking safety equipment when taking the controls and performing the proper brake tests is second nature, but when things go wrong, problems (and mistakes) can multiply. For example, the possibility of missing a critical procedure increases when taking over a late train in a non-typical location, from another engineer. Was there a proper briefing in the handover? Were proper brake tests completed by the previous engineer for the current direction? Are all records and safety seals as they should be? These non-routine crew changes usually happen after an incident or when there’s major delay anywhere in the system, and thus when there is pressure to hurry and get going.

Even #1 on this list could sneak up on you if you’re not vigilant. It’s not just running a red light. When doing a walk-around while taking over an unattended train, if you were to miss seeing a “Blue Flag” that some repair technician forgot to remove when he finished his work, that’s a de-certification of the engineer for “passing a signal requiring the train to stop.”

It was “Deadly Sin” #2 that got me, and again, it didn’t happen in a way that you would traditionally think of when talking about speeding.

Currently, I drive trains in an early morning shift, including during sunrise. One of the GCOR rules that we follow, is to dim our headlights for oncoming trains in the dark, except when at a crossing. This exception is because we are required to have full-brights on for the crossings. When our headlights are dimmed, our ditch-lights, the ones at the bottom of the triangle of the train’s headlights, are off. If both of these lower lights fail, our maximum speed allowed through the crossing is 20 MPH. So by dimming the headlights, the maximum speed allowed at the next crossing is suddenly reduced from whatever it previously was, to 20 MPH.

Right in the waxing phase of dawn I met my usual Southbound meet, and as usual, dimmed my headlights as we passed each other. Only this time, in the gradual brightening of the morning sky, I missed turning them back up to bright. I wasn’t distracted. I was on my game and very attentive to my job, but somehow, I missed it that one time. A few miles down the track, unaware of my impending doom, I committed that unpardonable sin as I passed the next crossing at the normal full speed.

It was at the next station that I discovered my error and realized my fate. My repentance was now too little too late as the radio calls soon followed. “Train 10, we have reports of a ditch-light out on your train…” Soon after that call the supervisor a few stations ahead of me was asked over the radio to contact control by phone. Sure enough, as soon as I pulled into the station, he was there to relieve me from duty and to send me back to our home offices where drug & alcohol testing, formal suspension, and other instructions on what to expect in the coming weeks if I were to regain my license and job.

I’m not someone who takes shortcuts or who tries to cheat the system, and I have been pleased with my job performance up to this point, so when this first happened, I was in shock. What really happened back there? How did I miss it? Even though I would never figure out those answers, I knew that with the aid of at least five video camera angles (3 on the train with 2 pointed at me, one at the crossing where the unpardonable sin occurred, and at least one at the next station where I discovered my mistake), and also with the tell all download of the onboard events recorder that logs my every flick of a control switch, the management investigating my incident would have all the answers.

After shock came my disappointment in myself for making the mistake, and maybe just a little disappointment in a system that seemed to be setup to foster failure. I pondered over the previous four and a half years when I had done everything right. Didn’t that count for anything? What about those countless close calls, where I knew that my constant alertness and quick response with the train horn and emergency brake system had save lives… many lives.

On one such dramatic incident I was almost at full speed blasting through a driving snowstorm. My windshield had resembled the Starship Enterprise going into warp speed. Ahead in the blizzard, I saw the oncoming headlights of another train on the adjoining track. But in the blizzard those headlights didn’t quite look right. Were they really on my track? Immediately dumping my train into emergency stop mode, I didn’t wait to see what it was. I had been laying on the horn for the last half-mile or so, long before I could see what was actually ahead of me. Only a few seconds before impact I could finally clearly see that the pickup truck had slid off the road and was high centered on my rails. In just the last second, the blur of a man ran around from the far side passenger door, between his truck and my train and off to the side. In the noise and rumble of the crash, I didn’t know if he had made it clear. Did flying debris from the crash hit him? Were there others in the truck that didn’t make it out? I didn’t know until later that I didn’t kill anyone that night. But I did know that if I hadn’t been as vigilant as I was, I would have killed someone. This had been my second similar crash in a matter of only a few months.

I pondered over the many close calls with cars and pedestrians that came just short of actual contact. Yes, my alertness and train handling skills had indeed saved many lives. Yet here and now I felt like I was a captured criminal.

Back at headquarters, I blew the breathalyzer, proving I had no measurable alcohol in my system. Now I’ve never had a drink of alcohol in my life, yet I was thankful that mouthwash isn’t part of my morning hygienic routine or I would have still failed. After providing the required samples to be sent into the lab for my drug test, I was ushered into the small conference room where I was formally charged. I also wrote out my own confession of when I had dimmed my headlights and why, along with when I realized that I hadn’t turned them back up to “brights” again.

After the formalities of this meeting, including handing over my actual engineer’s license, now officially suspended, I was released to find my way home while the formal investigation continued. It felt like I was out on bail.

I don’t consider myself overly prideful or arrogant, otherwise I wouldn’t be telling this story right now, but it was still embarrassing and humiliating to now face my coworkers with my shame. It was obvious to others that I was out of my regular routine. When asked, I just frankly replied, “I just got decertified… Headlights.” That was all that needed to be said. They all knew what it meant.

In a way it felt even more shameful that such a simple thing got me. It was something I had preached to all my student engineers to never do. “Don’t dim for the oncoming train unless it is still dark enough so that you can SEE that they are still dimmed after the train passes… Make sure you have a procedure in place to POSSITIVILY remind you to turn them back up to bright again.”

Well, I’ve now paid my debt to society. With proper retraining and retesting to prove that I can, once again, become a competent railroad engineer, I am allowed back on the rails after only a half a month. Of course, I am on probation. Any mistake within a year will be revisited with vengeance. If it’s one of those 6 deadly sins within 2 years, the penalty is suspension for 6 months… 3 times within 3 years and I’d be out for a year, but of course my employer, FrontRunner, would have written me off well before that.

What’s different for me now? Well for starters, I’m surprised at how much it is taking to rebuild my self confidence that I can do my job perfectly every day, with no mistakes ever. I think about that while I watch the crowded highways along side the track. How many cars would still be on the road if every driver lost his license for not using proper signals going through an intersection? I’m thinking that alone would clear the streets.

Of course, I no longer qualify as a driving instructor for new engineers. So, I now only serve them as the bad example. “Don’t do what he did!”

As I drive the train now, I am continually looking for ways to dot my every i and cross my every t., even when we get knocked out of our regular routines. Before this happened to me, a fellow engineer, and former student of mine, Scott, suggested that we might benefit from the Shias Kanko practice used in Japan by their railroad engineers. Apparently shisa kanko is Japanese for “pointing and calling”. Scott says that research shows that this pointing and calling out of critical operations reduces error by 85%.

So if you are like some of my passengers, who have asked me questions about “…if we take safety seriously when working with the trains, let me assure you that if its safety you are concerned about when traveling up and down the Wasatch Front, you should stay off of the freeway and just ride the train.

I have been completely rehabilitated and am, once again, a safe train engineer. So, no need to worry if you see me pointing at something in the distance while talking to myself as I’m driving your train. I’m just practicing “Shisa Kanko”. So, you can rest assured that I’ll drive you through all public crossings with full brights glaring away. Or as Tom Bodett would say in his old Motel 6 commercials, “I’ll keep the lights on for you.”

Quick Like a Fox

I know that my children, and all my family for that matter, think I’m not a gamer. But they don’t know what I do at work. While one son is at home playing Star Wars Battlefront, and another is buried in StarCraft or Call of Duty Black Ops, I’m immersed in the game I call “Quick like a Fox”. I named it after the last instructor I had before I got my Engineers license.

At the end of my training, I thought I was pretty good at driving the train and managing the Cab Signal System which has a short temper and can stop the train anytime it’s not happy. But Sam Fox inspired me into thinking that “pretty good” wasn’t really good enough. His question, “Do you like to ride the beeps, or are you afraid of the Cab Signals?”, shamed me into not wanting to be afraid of them.

The Cab Signal System is a safety device designed to keep the engineer from exceeding the speed limit. These speed limits which vary up and down our alignment must be followed to exactness. It’s not like driving your car out on the roads and hi-ways, where “five-over” is ok. This Cab Signal System starts to beep a “happy chirp” when the train is approaching the speed limit for that stretch. There is a fine line between this “happy chirp” and the “angry beep” that suddenly shuts off all power to the locomotive while applying full brakes to stop the train.

The problem is, with our single track for trains running in both directions and our very tight schedule from station to station, we can’t afford to go anything slower than maximum authorized speed. Those few seconds here and there add up to minutes, and then five, and ten. Cumulatively down the whole length of our alignment this really adds up. Because we run on a single track, the other trains have to wait at the meeting point for the late train, which eventually makes all the trains late.

So every time I drive the train, the game “Quick like a Fox” is on. I don’t want to be that one engineer that single handedly destroyed our reliability rating for the day.

Riding the beeps

So this is how it works. The Cab Signal beeps the “Happy Chirp” when I get up to it’s approved speed for that particular stretch of track. If I go any faster, the system beeps the faster “Angry Beep”. When it sees that I am not complying with it’s warning, it quickly takes over and the shut down sequence is activated. At this point, there is nothing to do but sit there and wait for the train to stop. Then penance is paid as systems are reset, the radio call of shame is made, and we are on our way, now an additional 2 minutes later than before the penalty.

“UTA Train 6, northbound at south 7.5, to UTA Warm Springs Control. – Over”

“UTA Warm Springs Control. – Over”

“UTA Train 6 was penalized on a 45 Cab Signal. I have recovered and we are proceeding into the station – Over.”

At first, these cab signal beeps and chirps all sounded the same to me. When Sam Fox would try to explain the difference in the sound of the beeps, it all sounded like gibberish to me. Kind of like listening to the popular novelty song “What does the Fox say?” by the Norwegian comedy duo Ylvis.

“What does the fox say?

“Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!
Gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!
Gering-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding!”
What the fox say?

“Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!
Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!
Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow!”
What the fox say?

“Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho!
Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho!
Hatee-hatee-hatee-ho!”
What the fox say?

“Joff-tchoff-tchoffo-tchoffo-tchoff!
Tchoff-tchoff-tchoffo-tchoffo-tchoff!
Joff-tchoff-tchoffo-tchoffo-tchoff!”
What the fox say?

However in time, I could understand what the Fox says… Sam Fox. I learned to distinguish the “happy chirp” of that’s fast enough, from the “angry beep” of “I’m going to shut you down.” He told me that he learned to ride the beeps, because he was too lazy to keep looking at the speedometer. With the constantly changing grade of the track going up and down, going too slow on the “up grade’ is a problem. So when the Cab Signal System isn’t beeping at me, I have to keep a close eye on my speed to ensure I don’t drift slower and slower.

Once I learned to speak “Fox”, it wasn’t hard to also learn the cab signal system algorithms with it’s automated reasoning systems. Once I could think like a the cab signals, it was relatively easy to keep them happy so they could beep at me but not get angry and shut me down.

Some Engineers get nervous when the Cab Signals start beeping at them for fear of being “Shut down”. But now I get nervous when they stop beeping at me.  I do have to keep my head in the game though. The margin of error is too close for sloppiness. Another factor that complicates this is that everything you do when driving a train is time delayed. Trains don’t respond like your car does.

Playing this game is also how I beat the boredom that can cause mistakes when driving up and down the same 88 mile stretch day after day.

The rules of the g25981260ame

Beat at the meet: I give myself the most points for beating the other train to our meeting points. I win at the meet if the other train gets his signal upgrade allowing him to proceed past me before I get my signal to proceed. There is also more method to my madness here. If the other train gets his signal to proceed quickly enough, he doesn’t have to slow down, thus he clears the track ahead of me more quickly and I get out of the meeting point more quickly too. It’s a win, win.

Keep the Beep: I also get lots of points if I can keep the Cab Signals happily beeping all the way from when I get up to full speed until I have to set brakes to slow the train for a slower speed stretch of track or for a station stop. This can be tricky with the elevation of the track constantly going up and down. But on good days, when my  head is in the game, I can do it the whole distance of our alignment in both directions. That’s a lot of “Beeping”.

I also give myself bonus points if I can shave a little distance off of how long it takes to get up to full beeping speed. I have self imposed check-points all down the track where I need to be at full speed for that stretch.

Quick Stop and Go: Additional bonus points are earned by gliding into the station quickly and exiting exactly on the departure time. Braking is challenging when coming in quickly, yet smoothly. Feathering the brakes back to a smooth stop is much harder on a train then in your car. When I do it right… bonus points. When I screw it up, I lose points.

Losing Points: One enjoyable challenge is to avoid taking a “reliability ding”. Even when the system is bogging down, and other trains are making me late, my challenge is to keep my train less than 5 minutes late in leaving each station. With anything more than 5 minutes late, our commuter rail takes a reliability ding. So I’m watching my watch very closely to make sure I can depart in time. If I don’t make it out in time, and incur the “reliability ding”,  I lose all my points and have to start over.

Losing the Game: Sometimes I’m trying to make up for lost time and pushing my luck just a bit with the Cab Signal System. Of course this increases the threat of a penalty. No matter how well I’ve done that day up to this point, if I get shut down I loose the game for the day.

Is it cheating that my opponents don’t know the rules, or even that I am playing against them? Just like my when my children loose all track of time when they are wrapped up in one of their games, my work day playing “Quick Like a Fox” goes by so fast that it’s not really work to me. But don’t tell my Beautiful Wife or she might want me to go out and get a real job.

I Know your Pain

These past few years have been bumpy for me in spots.  The Experience has inspired these thoughts, dedicated to everyone I watch, both far and near.

I Know Your Pain

 

It doesn’t
matter that you are rich & famous or if you are poor & lonely… If your
talents are world class, or if your abilities seem dull and plain.  In one sense, we are the same.

 

Whether
astrophysics is light reading, or simple instructions confuse… There is one
understanding that we share.

 

Even if
you’ve traveled the world, seeing wonders and cultures abroad, or have only
experienced the home of your birth, we share one common experience.

 

For the
rich, famous, and infamous, the drama is displayed, out for all to see and
feel.  For common folk it’s much more
private, but just as real.

 

Suffering
comes when there is much wealth and in extreme poverty.  It comes in spite of good health as well as
in malady.

 

Some pain
is universally felt, experienced and common to all.  Some is unique, known only to you.  Yet, ironically, in this sense, you are
unique… just like everyone else.

 

A lifetime
pattern of intense people watching, coupled with a pattern of deep thought and
contemplation has taught me one thing about you.  Though I don’t know the details, I know your
pain.

 

You feel
pain of body and anguish in soul, both for self and others.  You’ve suffered loss, endured trials and
tribulations, experienced disappointment and defeat.  Fear, doubt and despair have haunted your
soul.  What you are made of is tested and
tried.

 

Whether
glared in the media, or seen in a quite glimpse, when I see your pain, it
reflects on my own.  My pain is personal,
yet I’m not alone.  Seeing your pain
melts my heart of stone.

Time Traveler

Consistent with my
compulsive disorder to gather and preserve anything of yesteryear, I am
embarked on a project to digitize and thus preserve any old cassette tapes of
my past.  I’m afraid that my last
functioning cassette tape player as well as the tapes themselves are getting
old like me. So I can’t pass up the chance to open the shutters of the years
and wipe off the clouded window to the past.

 

Not counting my many Spanish
speaking audio tutors, my collection of old audio cassette tapes amounts to a
box with a little bit of everything. 
Starting with over 50 in all, I didn’t see value in the few “store
bought” tapes of music that I still had lying around and I was soon looking at
maybe 2 dozen tapes.  If I really valued
the music of the 70’s I could get much better copies from modern sources.  So now I was reading the titles of talk tapes
that I had held onto over the years. Assuming that I wouldn’t be able to
replace these little snippets of history, I set them aside to be transferred to
an MP3 format so I could re-listen to them while out biking or jogging.

 

Now what remained were about
a 6 more unmarked, unknown cassette tapes. I spot checked what might be on the
first few tapes.  “Well, this side had
nothing… And the other side is blank also.” 
So deciding that it was just a left over blank tape from an earlier era
recording project, I tossed in into the trash with the old bad recordings of
70’s music. 

 

The next tape had a date
“Oct 26, 1970” penned on the side along with the title “Family Night”.  I had tried to listen to this tape once
before.  The quality was so poor that I
couldn’t understand what was said.  I
wondered if I could some how filter out the noise, and eaves drop on my
childhood past.  I put the tape in and
plugged in my best earphones.  I turned
the volume loud as I tried to adjust out the noise with the treble/bass
controls.  The words never came clearly
enough to understand, yet I did understand. 
We were singing my Dad’s favorite hymn, “Love at Home”.  Then the tone and spirit of a prayer was
unmistakable.  Yes, these were the family
night gatherings of my childhood. 

  

The next unmarked tape
seemed to be another blank.  I flipped it
over to double check the B side before tossing it into the trash can.  Loud and clear, my oldest son, Joshua’s 11
year old voice came booming through. 
This one was a study tape he had made when we lived in Draper, Utah and he had an egg
gathering job after school.  I played the
tape for all grown up Joshua and he smiled with a look of recognition in his
eyes.  He explained that early in the
morning, he would get up and make these study tapes of all his school work so
when he was out and about, especially at work gathering eggs, he could re-play
and thus multitask his studies into his other activates. 

 

There were other tapes
(treasures for me to preserve) of my past. And I documented what was on each
one as now I carefully listened all the way through both sides of each
tape.  I was frequently pleased with a
little snippet of my life’s past hidden between the many minutes of blank audio
tape.

 

Just before I called the
review and inventory phase of the project complete and prior to moving on to
the task of transferring what I valued into the my computer’s audio files, I
wondered once again about the first “blank” tape I had tossed into the trash
can hours earlier.  Digging it out from
the pile of trashed tapes, I put the unmarked tape back into the player and hit
play.  I then busied myself with other
things while the blank tape rolled through the player.  When the tape came to the end, I flipped it
over and started it again. 

 

Through the 60 cycle hum
typical of a poor recording of that era, I heard the newly married voices of My
Beautiful Wife and myself.  Soon I had my
best headphones on as the volume turned up so I could hear the words
spoken.  Immediately, I spun back in
time.  No Hollywood
style time machine was ever as dramatic. 

 

Instantly, I was a fly on
the wall (one of many flies on our old egg farm that I grew up on).  I still lived on this farm in my early
married life.  This was in our 12X55
brown and white mobile home, late in the summer of 1983. My Beautiful Wife and
I had just made our second big purchase together (a new car had been the first).  It was a used spinet piano that we paid $900
for.  Vallerie was seated on the piano
bench in front of the black and white keys. On the piano’s music holder, her
purple and green song book was spread open to a song she had learned before.
She was now testing her musical talents on the new piano.  

 

As a fly on the wall, I
watched as the young married “me” was still setting up the little microphone at
the back of the piano.  Before the final
set-up, I … I mean “he” put the microphone up to his lips and started chanting,
“Vallerie is Beautiful, Vallerie is Beautiful.” 
I then got a little… I mean “he” then got a little R-rated with his
expressions of admiration for this love of my life. 

 

My old self, “The fly on the
Wall”, cringed a little at the words coming out of this young man’s enamored
mouth.  That had been the only time in
our 27 years of life together that little ears wouldn’t be listening and thus
guarding my bedroom talk casually around the house. 

 

Now My Beautiful Wife played
the song all the way through, stopping and restarting several times through the
problem areas.  At the end she sighed,
and said, “Boy I play so lousy… It’s embarrassing!” 

 

Now I… I mean he, the young
married me, kissed that Beautiful Woman as he prepared to go back out on the
farm to finish up the day’s work.  My
Beautiful Wife said, “Bye Sweet Heart.” 
I was … I mean “He” was again a little bit R-rated in how he completed
his good-bye before walking out the door for the last hour of work.  Before he actually left, there was one more
conversation.

 

Beautiful Wife – “What time
is it?  Will you be in at 6 for dinner?”

The Young Married me – “YES”

 

Beautiful Wife – “I’m going
to start in 15 minutes”

 

The Young Married me – “What
did you do with that egg carton” (it had small parts from a repair project in
progress.)

 

Beautiful Wife – “It’s up on
the counter.”

 

The Young Married me –
“Hoped you didn’t throw it away.”

 

Beautiful Wife – “Nope!”

 

He then picked up the grease
stained egg carton and walked back out to work. 
Within a moment, the Beautiful Wife went back to her piano playing.  She played song after song. Stopping
frequently at the trouble spots.  Several
times she sighed in frustration at her struggles. 

 

As a fly on the wall, I just
sat there and watched her play.  I had
forgotten how much I loved listening to her play the piano.  At the end of her 15 minutes, she was true to
her word and stood up clicked the recorder off and went into the kitchen to
start dinner as I was sucked back through the time tunnel to the present.

 

This time travel experience
happened to me over a week ago, but I can’t get it out of my head.  I can still hear, see, feel, and experience
her emotions as she played for me 26 years ago. 
I love great music and talented pianists. But no one will ever hold a
candle to what it does for me when My Beautiful Wife plays the piano.  Even with the threat of being embarrassed by
hearing my R-rated expressions these many years later, this one 17 ½ minute
audio recording is a treasured possession. 
It takes me back to a time before My Beautiful Wife could see all my
faults and weaknesses.  To a time and
place when I really believed I could make all her dreams come true. 

 

 

A Wonderful Life

Norman Victor Haroldsen

March 18, 1928 –  May 12, 2008

 

A Wonderful Life

 

Norman Victor Haroldsen, born Sunday morning March 18, 1928.  His mother told him that if he’d be born 10 ½ hours earlier, she would have named him Patrick in honor of St. Patrick’s day.

 

His parents, George and Kate’s family, appeared complete before Norman came along.  A family picture seems to confirm that idea.  But then Norman and his 18 month younger sister appeared as two trailing cabooses to George and Kate’s family. 

 

Relatives were perplexed at where all his black hair came from.  It disappeared as mysteriously as it came, and by the time he was two, Norman was as blonde as blonde could be.

 

With His little, almost twin sister, Norman’s enthusiasm for experiencing life got him into his share of childhood trouble.  One of many examples, that could be cited, was when their mother was canning grape jelly.  Norman and Helen were trying to be so helpful that Kate put their names each on a quart bottle of jelly, saying “This one is yours Norman, and this one is yours Leone.”  Three months later, neither Norman nor Helen saw a problem with going down into the basement to open their bottles of jelly.  The first few spoonfuls were pretty tasty.  But before it was all over they didn’t know what ached more, their bellies or their rear ends.

 

Norman was experimental as a small boy.  One day, he stretched a rope across their cement walkway about 6 inches above the ground, not sure of what he’d catch.  He “caught” his big brother Ed, who was running to the house to get something he’d forgotten.  Ed’s fast moving foot caught the rope, his nose caught and plowed the cement walk, and Norman caught heck from Ed.

 

In telling of growing up on the farm, Norman said, “Our parents never took us anywhere.  And I literally mean that – never anywhere.  We never went to Idaho Falls or even to church.  We grew up during the great depression.  But we were never aware of being poor or deprived.  We never went hungry, but were never given any money by our parents.”

 

Norman tells of the tedious hours thinning beets or doing many of the other monotonous farm jobs as a child, but he also spoke of the fun times on the farm.  At night, after the farm work ceased for the day, Norman’s favorite activity was to go to the old swim hole.  He said “I was eight or ten – probably ten (years old) when my brother Ed taught me how to swim out there.”  Brothers and cousins all joined in – strictly “boys only” though.  (Dad told me that he never owned a swimsuit until he was 18 years old.)  They built a big bon fire near the swim hole, and when Norman got cold, he’d stand next to the fire.  He’d turn a little and stand some more, and then turn and stand some more, roasting like a hot dog on a stick.

 

Another favorite family activity was more complicated to prepare for.  Everything had to be timed perfectly.  I don’t know the exact order of things, but Norman’s dad, George did.  The first crop of hay cut, the rest of the planting completed.  Cows doctored, pigs castrated, all the crops irrigated, fences repaired, potatoes cultivated, hay hauled in from the field, and stacked with the hay derrick.  And the hay field watered for the second crop.  Corrals cleaned and calf stalls freshly bedded.  The list seemed that it would take all summer of day and night work to finish. 

 

Then finally Pa would declare everything was ready and Norman’s family would feverishly pack up and head for one of their favorite fishing streams for the next two or three days.  Norman’s dad, George, worked as hard at fishing as he did on the farm.  After a few days of R&R along a river bank up in Island Park or somewhere else, the family would beat it back to the farm where everyone was expected to work double-time to catch up on the farm work again. 

 

George’s strong work ethic rubbed off on to his son, Norman, even at a young age.  One of the daily chores that was identified as “Norman’s job to do” was to milk the cow in the morning.  Norman was always so anxious to get going in the morning that he would get up earlier and earlier to go out and get started.  When he was going out to start milking at 3:00 am, Norman’s mother, “Kate” finally put her foot down with the scold, “Norman, if you don’t quit getting up so early to milk the cow, I won’t let you do it any more.”

 

I, along with all of my siblings, can vouch for the fact that George’s son, Norman, retained this work ethic to pass along to the next generation.

 

Even though Norman’s childhood home was less than five miles from the Idaho Falls City limits, this rural area, St. Leon, operated its own school.  Back in the 1930’s, St. Leon was a modern school with 2 rooms – grades 1-4 in one room, and grades 5-8 in the other.  With 4 rows in each class room, Dad said they just moved over 1 row each year.  Going from grade 4 to 5 was a big deal because you got to change rooms.    

 

Like Norman, most of the kids attending St. Leon were farmers who had chores to do after school.  No time for sports like the city kids played.  So when Norman graduated the 8th grade, in 1942, and began attending Idaho Falls High School, the last thing he and his buddy/ cousin Ray wanted was to be humiliated in the required PE classes.  But good the news was, they discovered they’d be exempt from PE if they were enrolled in High School Band.  So Norman’s high school band career was shining, with playing two different instruments as he participated in concert, pep, and marching band.  In his final high school year, Norman beat out popular Donna West as the bands business manager when she caught backlash for saying, “We can’t have the band run by a bunch of country boys from out in the sticks!”

 

While attending high school, Norman learned that many of the kids attended LDS Seminary, and he too was enrolled by the second year.  Ten years before Norman had been born, his dad had become embittered by an unchristian Christian, who was in a position of power.  So with the exception of being baptized at the age of ten, at the insistence of Norman’s mother, their Christianity was practiced at home instead of at church.

 

Norman loved attending the high school LDS Seminary.  It was the beginning of a life of associating with… and learning with… others, who likewise loved God and were inspired by the scriptures which teach of his love for them. 

 

After high school, Norman’s education continued as he pursued a bachelors’ degree in Agriculture.  In his Senior year of attending the University of Idaho, up in Moscow, Idaho, Norman and several of his buddies decided to spend the Thanksgiving Holiday exploring further up north instead of coming back down south to the family farm. 

 

An old high school buddy from Idaho Falls was serving as an LDS missionary in Vancouver, British Colombia.  When Norman and his college buddies met up with Elder Layton, he told Norman that he’d like to show him around town, but that there was a missionary farewell, which he was obligated to attend.  Norman and his buddies were game to go along and attend the chapel meeting, and even more game to attend the dance, which followed in the basement of the church building. 

 

Norman’s buddies watched in amazement as this otherwise reserved (if not down right shy) Idaho Farm Boy competed and ultimately won the attention of the most beautiful girl at the church dance.  Norman forgot all about his other friends as this beauty, Fay Tillack, introduced him to her family and then showed him around the city the next day.

 

Differences in background and distance didn’t separate the Canadian city girl from the Idaho farm boy for long.  The following summer, July 28, 1950, they were married in the Idaho Falls LDS Temple.

 

The first eight years of their married life became a defining time for Norman—Both vocationally and spiritually.  As three sons eventually joined their family, Norman and Fay remained active in church and involved in the family farm.   The stated plan was for Norman to begin to assume management of the farm while his dad, now in his late 60’s eased into retirement.  But working year after year with no pay and no say in any management decisions convinced Norman that he had no future on his childhood farm.  Also tragedy struck even more personally when Norman and Fay’s third son, 18 month old Gary Kent, suddenly became ill and died.

 

Those hard days brought two resolves that Norman kept.   He would never take his faith for granted (the faith that gave him hope that he would someday be where he knew his son’s spirit was).  So He resolved to remain faithful to his faith and to serve God wherever and whenever he could.

 

Norman also resolved to make a new career start—Here he did almost the impossible when, with no money to his name, he moved his family which now included a baby daughter to Rexburg where he developed his own small time egg farm into the thriving predecessor of today’s Agri-business.

 

Norman made those changes in his life, with his father George (still suffering from his own personal bitterness) accusing him, “All you care about is chickens and church.”    

         

Seven of us children grew up on our family egg farm.  This is where we learned from Dad to work and play “Haroldsen Style”.  We didn’t work at a feverish pitch, night and day, for 3 weeks before going fishing.  But none the less, our work load compressed and intensified on both ends anytime we took off for such things as celebrating Memorial Day or the 4th of July “Haroldsen Style”.

 

Growing up on this egg farm, working and playing beside Dad, is where we listened to his classical music and he endured our music.  It’s where we learned from his sense of humor and developed our own.  It’s where we learned that we can love life even when we are working hard. 

 

Norman’s normal workdays were always long.  Always starting before 5:00am, after 12-14 hour long work days, he would enjoy supper together with all of us as a family.   Then frequently Dad’s workday would continue with paper work in his office.  Often his personal time was spent curled up with a geography book- and finally dreaming about places he’d like to visit in the world, until a new day began.

 

He did travel widely – throughout the world – always out on his own – never as a part of a tour group.  He was always too impatient to wait around for the slow pace a tour guide would take.  

 

Dad’s people skills and sense of humor are legendary to everyone who really knows him.  He made the world his friend-one person at a time.  Examples of Dad’s sense of humor continued, even in his devastating illness, even when he was most miserable.  I’ll give examples that each of my three sisters have told.

 

Story #1

Last October Dad’s clothes didn’t fit very well because he had lost so much weight from his sickness.  Catherine told the rest of us siblings about it.

 

          “Just thought you all might want to know about Dad’s first trip back to church after nearly a year.  We get to park in the handicap parking.  We all get out and I stand on the sidewalk waiting for them to come around the other side.  I’m standing there looking at the people walking into the church when I hear Dad behind me saying, “I think I have a problem here”.  He said it pretty calmly so I just turn around to see what the problem was.  There was Dad, standing on the sidewalk with his pants down on the ground around his ankles.  It was quite a shocker to see that.  He had his suit coat on and looked fine from the waist up but his bare legs were just out there for all to see.  If the people walking into the church didn’t notice that on their own, they certainly did when Mom let out a shriek.  All heads turned and got the shock of their life.  I walked over and did my best to block my dear old Dad from the church gawkers while Mom bent over and tried to pull his pants back up.  She tucked his shirt in, scolded him for not cinching his belt tight enough and pleaded for us to all go home.  “We can’t go in there now!!” she cried.   They did go on into church…but afterward Mom and Catherine took Dad home where they made Moon Pie to celebrate his first trip back to church after being away so long.

 

Story #2

When she was caring for him, Laurie told of how utterly uncomfortable and in fact down right miserable Dad was.  He told Laurie to “just shoot me”.  Laurie pantomimed shooting him and he immediately dropped his head to the side with his tongue hanging out like she’d killed him.

 

 

Story #3

Linda said, “One day Mom and I were trying to re-shift Dad in the bed.  She stood on one side and I stood on the other.  Dad’s knees were bent up so I took a hold of one leg and mom took the other and we started to lift him up to shift him.  Dad opened his eyes and said, “make a wish”.

 

 All of these stories are classic Dad’s great sense of humor and positive attitude no matter what.

 

As I pondered a good analogy of my father, Norman’s life, the majestic Teton Mountains which have graced his landscape most of his life came to mind.  Regardless of temperature or tempest they stand firm.  My Dad’s testimony and faith in God is like that.  Even when hidden from the view of all by storm clouds, those Teton Mountains don’t waver or waffle.  My Dad’s character and nature were likewise unaffected by his storms of life.

 

The harsh conditions on the Teton’s leaves a beauty that cannot be created any other way.  It’s the same way in Dad’s life.   The trials in his life have molded his character with beauty that only the master’s hand could create.

 

Norman’s life long love of people, and his faith in the goodness of mankind, has endeared him to very many throughout his life… to almost all who know him now.  This expectation of the goodness of mankind… has become self fulfilling… as his goodness has rubbed off onto those he came into contact with.

 

Norman’s good friend expresses this so well in a card he wrote two weeks ago.  Darwin Wolford’s words (and scripture) sum up Dad’s life better than my words can express.  “Norman, you have always been a man I looked up to as a true Christian gentleman, unselfish, meek, without guile, and thoroughly righteous.  When I reach this point in my own life, I only hope that I will be as prepared to meet my Savior as you are.  I guess the suffering you experience is given to you as a means to refine the steel in your sweet soul even more.  I think Isaiah’s words are much better than mine:  “Behold, I have refined thee, but not with silver:  I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction” (Isaiah 48:10)

 

Last summer, because of his long absence… because he was unable to attend church,  Norman’s friend and leader in his High Priest group, Jim Wilson, invited dad to share his life and testimony via audio recording.  These are Dad’s words from that recording of almost a year ago.

 

“I know that our prayers are always heard and answered.  I feel the Lord has a purpose yet for me in this life. When that is completed then I will be willing to return to him.”

 

Dad, I want to be like you.  As your faithful wife of over 57 years, as your children (all 8 of us – 7 of us mourning your loss… while I know our brother Gary rejoices in your company… as your many friends and neighbors… just as the Savior taught, everyone you came in contact seemed to be your neighbor… as everyone who’s life you have touched (have changed) we love you, we miss you, your life inspires us.  Good-bye … for a time.

Like Pulling Teeth

Like Pulling Teeth

 

Any time my dad wants to express that something is really, really hard to accomplish, he always uses the expression, “It’s like pulling teeth to…” 

The only teeth I’ve ever had pulled are my baby teeth and some teeth pulled as part of my orthodontics work when I was a teenager.  I even still have all my wisdom teeth, in place and in use.  (Probably the only wisdom that I have.)  I do know that it’s like pulling teeth to pay all the “Mouth Bills” a large family has though. 

I’ve always done the bare minimum on my own dental care so I could pay for the rest of my family’s needs.  So when I go to the dentist, I always expect (and get) a long lecture about how this tooth and that tooth need crowns.  I have always politely told them to just repair it with a filling and I’ll get the crown latter.  Well it’s now much, much later and I have one molar that has been taunting me for all those dentists with, “I told you so, I told you so.” 

Fortunately, my Beautiful Wife’s new dental insurance is much better than mine was, I so this week I finally got that long awaited crown on my tender tooth.  And now that my bite feels as good as my bark again, I wonder how they must have gotten along in yesteryear.

My family history tells me a little bit about it.  My 2 greats grandpa, Samuel Webster, had dental forceps.  Folks came from the area to have him pull their teeth.  Now Samuel was a coal miner turned farmer, not a dentist.  Back in the late 1800’s when he was pulling teeth, dental forceps were a relatively new innovation.  I’ve seen pictures of the dental pelican which preceded the dental key.  The sight of either of these tooth extraction tools would have inspired me to live with the tender tooth a lot longer.  These must have been the tools that famed American, Paul Revere, used when he advertised as a dentist back in 1768. 

And then there are the poor folks who had no one to pull the bad tooth at all.  I read one such story of a pioneer family crossing the plains in 1857.  A twelve year old boy had a tooth ache and there was nothing he could do about it but suffer.  At least that’s what everyone told him.  Necessity is a great motivator. And this boy was motivated to get that bad tooth out. 

He decided to pack the large hole in the tooth with gunpowder.  As he was doing it, his father told him, “You had better not do it.  No good can come from it.”  But the painful tooth ache was making him crazy.  Crazy enough to actually light the powder in his mouth.  His family stood and watched in shock as his mouth lit up like a muzzle loader.  The decayed tooth popped out and all was well on the trail once again.

What my ancestors wouldn’t have given to have the fine dental care that I take for granted.  My mouth is happy again I didn’t even have to lose the tooth.  But then again, if my ancestors heard how much my repaired tooth costs, they would probably happily resort to gun powder and tools that look like pelican beaks.             

An Anxious Ride

An Anxious Ride

 

The blazing afternoon sun sucked what little moisture was left out of the air.  The blast of highway wind did the same to my skin. I knew if my puckered lips straightened, they would crack and bleed.  My dry throat ached for a drink, but I didn’t care.  I had four hundred miles to go before I wanted to stop for anything.  Only common sense held me back as I straddled my motorcycle which was capable of so much more speed than I had ever dared to try.

I thought of Frederick, who a few generations earlier, was also traveling in the hot summer weather.  He was on a train.  It was the fastest mode of transportation available in 1914.  I imagine back in 1914, he got a telegram that started his journey.

For me, it was a phone call.  A few hours earlier, I had been sitting in church with my family.  When my cell phone buzzed in silent mode, I thought it would be another problem at my work.  I looked down at the display expecting to see “DEF”, the work abbreviation.  Instead “LAURIE” flashed at me.  This can’t be good.  My dad was back in the hospital.  I bolted from the meeting so I could answer the phone. 

 “Mom wanted me to call and let you know what was going on.”  With that, my sister started right into the report.  The news was not encouraging.  In Dad’s condition, any infection or virus could be life threatening.  After the call, pieces of the report still rang in my head.

“Throat swelling up… A new lump… hard to breath… he can’t talk… they will do an x-ray looking for pneumonia.” 

Now my Beautiful Wife was standing next to me and I tried to relay the information.  As she asked, “Don’t you think you should go?”  I was already trying to figure out the logistics.  I had brought my company pickup truck home that weekend.  But I couldn’t take it to Idaho.  My work was a hundred miles in the wrong direction.  I decided to take the truck back to work trade for my motorcycle.  By comparison, I was lucky.  I was only a half a day away. 

I thought again of Frederick.  Living in Chicago, for him it was a three days journey to Southeastern Idaho.  He must have left almost immediately when he heard that his father, John Everett, had suddenly taken ill.  The frequent stops the steam locomotive must have made to take on water, fuel, and passengers would have been frustrating for Frederick.  Since his siblings knew when he would arrive, it is likely he had left several telegrams informing them of his progress along the way.     

            As I rolled from side to side, taking the hilly curves a little faster than usual, I added it up in my head.  “It would be about 6:00pm when I arrived at Rexburg.”  I wondered if there were any more updates.  There was no cell service through these hills.  When I stopped for gas, I checked my phone for missed calls.  Nothing.  That was good I think.  I didn’t take the time to make any of my own calls. 

Back on the road, my mind raced from one thought to another.  I thought of my dad.  He’d had set backs like this before.  He had always pleasantly surprised family and the medical people alike at his resilience.  However, in the two days since he’d been admitted to the hospital, new developments and complications seems to combine against him.  It was now starting to sound like the worst case scenario.     

Then another image came back into my mind.  I thought of my Great-Great Grandpa, John Everett.  In 1914, he was 93 years old.  The summer heat of the day gave way to night time.  John saw the reflection of the setting sun on his bedroom wall for the last time.  He was on his death bed, and he knew it.  He had been sick for three days.  Seven of his eight living children were at his bedside with him.  The only one missing was Frederick, a doctor who lived and worked in Chicago.  He was traveling back home as fast as the steam locomotive would carry him.  John Everett had lived a full life.  In 1835, at the age of 14, he left his Prussian home as he became a cabin boy on a sailing ship.  At age 28, sailor John Everett claimed to have visited every major sea port in the world except the American West Coast.  This was the year he gave up the sea for another love.  The love of his life was Hellen Tanser.  They pioneered west by ox team and covered wagon.  Now the sailor was a farmer.  John and Hellen had ten children and raised eight of them.  Hellen had died in 1900, fourteen years earlier.  So with seven of his children at his bedside, John had only one thing left in this life to wait for.  He knew that he had asked before, but time had lost it’s relevance to him. So he asked again.  “Where is Frederick?”  “Papa, Frederick is still coming.  He just hasn’t arrived yet.  He’s coming as fast as he can.”   

The thought sent me spurring my motorcycle like Pony Express rider, as I leaned a little more forward and twisted the throttle a little bit more.  Rexburg was close now.  I slowed as I took the exit and started up Main Street.  Madison Memorial Hospital is up on a hill on the other end of Main. 

As I impatiently waited for a red light to change, I thought again of John Everett’s final words.  It was now between midnight and 2:00 am.  John asked one last time, “Is Frederick here yet?”  “No Papa, he’s not.  But he will be here tonight.”  John let the unwelcomed answer settle for a moment and then he said, “Well it is too bad.”  After that, John Everett lost consciousness and soon past from this life.

I now had tears in my eyes when the light finally changed to green and sent me the final few blocks to the hospital.  I was kicking myself now, “Why didn’t I leave earlier, when I first heard Dad was in the hospital?”

When I arrived, I found Dad gravely ill, but alive and surrounded by family.  I spent the night with him, as well as the next day.  His condition continued to worsen for a time and I was very thankful that I had made it when I did.

Numerous doctors, nurses and other medical people have admitted since that they thought we were going to lose Dad that time.  But he pulled through and is doing very well these six months later.  Maybe it’s a throw back to his egg farm days but Dad is now known as “A Tough Old Bird”. 

I’ve been back to visit my parents once since that time, and I look forward to all my visits back home.  In fact, I’ll be headed back this weekend for another short visit.  I thank modern communication, modern transportation, modern medicine, and the God who gave them all to us that I can still visit with my parents as I do.  I am truly blessed that my outcome that day was vastly different than Frederick Everett’s was almost a hundred years ago.    

             

The Reason I Love You

It’s my space and I can do what I want with it, right?  Well today, I want to use it to send a message to my Beautiful Wife.  So please pardon me, everyone else, while I get a little bit personal. 

 

 

The Reason I Love You

 

It’s not because you’re beautiful.  Although you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. 

 

It’s not because you’re smart.  Although your intellect challenges me to keep up.

 

It’s not because you’re perfect.  Although you can do not wrong in my eyes. 

 

It’s not because you’re ambitious.  Although there isn’t a lazy bone in your over-worked body.

 

It’s not because you’re the mother of my children.  Although they, each one, all nine, are beautiful inside and out, just like you.

 

It’s not because you’ve stuck with me all these years, and through untold tears.

 

I love you because you are you.  I love the whole package that makes you, YOU. 

 

Albert Einstein once stated his theory of relativity in terms that even I can understand.  I read that he once said, “If you sit on a hot stove for a minute, it will seem longer than any hour.  But if you sit next to a pretty girl for an hour, it will seem shorter than any minute.  That’s relativity.” 

 

So I’ve known you for only a moment.  But I hope to be with you for a long, long time.

 

Thank-you for being YOU