Happy Birthday to my daddy! Wouldn't be here without you. Thanks to Gma Lucy and Gpa Jack for being your parents. My life was strongly influenced by you and your choices with mom--the fact that you chose her to be your wife! Your education, your jobs, where we lived...Wishing I knew more about you, your history. I would love directions, written ones, to understand my family history better. I know it is hard to summarize, squeeze it all in without leaving huge gaps, and hints of longer stories.
I think this is too long for a blog post. Must edit. If siblings or family reading this see mistakes or want to add details, please comment. Idea borrowed from JenBlaylock and this is where she got it: http://www.stephaniekallos.com/about_the_author/directions-to-where-i-live.html
So this is mostly for my kids, in an ambitious attempt to help them have directions to me:
Start in Provo, south of BYU campus in a one room basement apartment. Move east to Fairfax, Virginia, another apartment, but with a swimming pool. Run from one side of deep end to the other, jump on your dad’s back for a ride across the water, climb out and race around pool to do it again. And again. And again, with complete trust that he always catches you safely.
Draw on newborn sister’s head with blue ink pen. Try on sister’s yellow footsie pajamas. Draw on wall behind the couch with white crayon. Watch Grandpa Harold make fudge and divinity. Move to two-story red brick house at Tyson’s Corner. Scream at Halloween. Make mud pies as offerings to wild rabbits. Mix in more dandelion leaves to make mud pies more appetizing for rabbits. Try to get sister to eat mud pies. Burn hand on stove when testing to see if it was really hot. Express wonder at newborn brother’s diaper changing. Watch Neal Armstrong walk on moon, live on tv. Watch Star Trek and think they are real, too. Develop first crush on James T. Kirk.
Move across the country to San Jose. Trade most treasured possession for a broken blue peacock knick knack and instantly regret it. Try to get button necklace back from friend. Vow to make another necklace. Play at Rocket Slide park under the eucalyptus trees. Sing in Sunday school. Wade at Pebble Beach with each siblings’ birth. Wear bright orange bathing suit. Eat glue. Johnny B bites your elbow, so you never believe teachers when they say “He won’t bite!” Take Book of Mormon to Show and Tell.
Move to stucco house on Calero Drive. Play war games with neighbor boys. Pee in pants at neighbor’s birthday party because someone was in the bathroom and you couldn't wait. Walk home with squishy shoes, mortified. Cut arm with long bread knife-sword borrowed from kitchen while playing war games on Big Wheels. Cut chin in Big Wheel accident. Walk to school with neighbor boy when you mistakenly think you missed bus, crossing highway with closed eyes and hearing honking horns. Walk back home alone because your class is out to recess and you think you got there too early.
Start first grade. Hear group of teachers whispering and talking about your picture behind your back as you color in coconuts around Hawaiian girl’s grass skirt, so she would match the girls on Gilligan’s Island. Fly kites with dad.
Love math and art. Learn to tie dye in school. Roller skate on sidewalks. Walk to piano lessons until you witness motorcycle accident and brains on the road. Play piano anyway. Learn how to dance from neighbor’s mom. Eat her chocolate mint facial cream and taste her flavored cosmetics with her daughter. Memorize “Bridge Over Trouble Water.” Buy a gopher snake with dad to get rid of pests in backyard. Help build play castle fort with dad. Get splinters. Plant pansies and marigolds with mom.
Make first quilt! Learn to sew by experimenting. Make Barbie clothes. Visit grandparents in Napa and fall in love with rock collecting. Get baptized. Babysit siblings. Learn to cook by experimenting. Put cookie dough in bowl under bunk bed. Wake up itching to crawling ants.
Move to cornfield Iowa. Fall in love with Charles across the street. Blush when he laughs that you are making faces at your peas during lunch. Feel disenchanted with Charles. Love chorus class. Memorize words to “Annie” and Barry Manilow and Barbara Streisand songs. Sing “Cat’s Cradle” in back of bus to middle school. Take tap lessons. Go to roller skating rink often. Learn to do the hustle at Moose Lodge with best friend. Go ice skating on frozen pond. Travel with family. Sleep in a tent in the Badlands that gets blown down. See snow at funerals.
Fall in love because new kid was tall. Phone stalk love interest. HDF, Jr likes you back, writes you notes. Tries to get you to ride the Ferris wheel with him on Halloween. Go trick or treating but don’t kiss him. He starts to like another girl, and breaks your heart. Listen to sappy love songs of self-made cassette taped from radio.
Play on volleyball team. Sing in small chorus honors group. Learn to crochet. Get glasses. Get braces. Wear head-gear to school. Hate head-gear. Read. Read every book your parents bring home, even if they cut out inappropriate stories from the collection (find the original in library and see what they were editing and understand too late their wisdom). Hang out at public library after school. Read Wuthering Heights with a flashlight under blankets. Go to science and math tournaments. Hang out in Gifted and Talented programs. Give lecture about Joseph Smith to whole 7th grade, at insistence of Social Studies teacher. Invite Mr. McVey to your home to listen to missionaries. Give him Book of Mormon. Talk in stake conference. Twice. Then a third time. Get pneumonia and remember cookie-dough ants and see little people skiing up and down your legs.
Move west. Cry. Miss your middle school friends. Cry. Make plans to meet each summer (that are finally completed ten years later). Feel lonely. Gain weight. Cry. Get made fun of for your three Sunday outfits you switch around. Wear heels. Watch lightning storms across Utah Valley. Cry with the raindrops. Take long walks in Springville.
Move to big city north. Feel very, very lonely as freshman. Hide feelings. Hang out with loner new kids. Eat lunch in cafeteria exactly one time, when pep squad girls stand and leave when you sit down at their table. Skip lunch and hang out in art room. Draw through lunch. Make good friends with art teacher. Join debate team, at insistence of English teacher.
Go to tournament in Arizona. Feel unprepared, but speak anyway. Take long walks up canyon and find perfect place to pray out loud. Drive across country with grandma and little sister and hydro-plane during a storm. Get straight A’s. Make money for preppy clothes with a paper route and babysitting. Pass on paper route to next sibling when you start waiting tables. Proposed to by cook who needs Green Card.
Survive a cousin moving in with your family, fight despair and comparison as she dates every weekend and most school nights, and she joins Pep Club and is popular.
Go on exactly two dates in high school; as a junior, to a seminary regional dance with the student council president because your computer date ditches you when he looks you up in the yearbook. Hate being the pity date. Second date as a senior, junior prom with French class partner because his date got sick. Enjoy rescue date. Feel fat. Attempt jogging. Try shake diet. Try counting calories. Experience a night of terror when a burglar breaks into your room, and whispers “Don’t make a sound” and pushes you into your pillow and you freak out and are convinced he has killed your parents and was looking for your cousin. Dad installs electronic switch to comfort you.
Keep journal every day; draw a self portrait every day for a year. Try out for yearbook staff and make art editor. Gain confidence in abilities. Show art in shows. Do commission work. Apply only to one college. Get scholarship to BYU.
Have first kiss on last day of high school, after getting your hand slammed in his VW bus door. You think at first that it is a please-feel-better-forgive me kiss and are surprised. Date for 9 months, he helps you do family chores. Teaches you to fence with swords. You go on mountain hikes together, watch science fiction films, go to Buddhist temple, bike rides, break up on Valentine’s Day.
Go to many, many missionary farewells. Write to several missionaries. Write to a girl friend at Westpoint. Write to high school friend in Navy. Send him flattering picture that he shows everyone. Join science fiction club. Date. Break a guy's heart. Become more guy-wary and less trusting. Date. Learn how to cook and dress in saris from Hare Krishna friends. Travel with fencing club. Win medal at tournament. Take art classes. Change major three times. Work at country club for better tips. See Santana live in concert. Win tickets to Violent Femmes concert where you lose your flip-flop dancing. Volunteer work as marketing director for "The Leading Edge." Start getting anonymous love letters. Discover writer is one of your staff.
Kiss staff member.
Go on one date and break up, because he is too young for you, and a pre-missionary. Read letter he writes, kiss again, date for three weeks and say good-bye for semester. Write all summer. Make long phone calls. Help pay for long phone calls.
He kisses another girl. Navy guy volunteers to take out science fiction staff member. Plane ticket already bought for a visit, so you go anyway, planning on staying with Virginia relatives. He meets you at airport with flowers. You kiss. You meet his family. You have fun, and meet before next semester in Atlanta at Science Fiction World-Con. You don’t sleep for three days, spending every minute, every meal together. Doze during films, holding hands. Share McDonald’s meat patty because you are trying on vegetarianism. Experience first plane ride together going back to school.
You fail statistics because you are spending too much time with east coast boyfriend. Go to concerts, Loverboy, Journey. You stop kissing for a month. You stay friends, very good friends. You put in mission application papers at same time. He goes south to learn how to make biscuits and gravy, and you go to Europe and learn to make French fries and waffles. Letters pass back and forth for nearly 104 weeks. Testimony grows with hard work. Successful missions!
You are home first, date, go to the symphony, celebrate Jewish holidays, kiss a different guy and realize it is a mistake. Your dad answers the phone and announces you are waiting for staff member missionary. You get engaged two days after your missionary flies out for your little sister’s wedding. You get married two months later.
In ten months you are new parents and living in Springville on a beautiful cherry pie tree farm, with cows and peacocks, no phone, no tv.
You don’t know you are experiencing depression. You try to run away from home, without the baby. One time you take the baby to a hotel but get no sleep listening to fighting neighbors. You keep coming home. Prayers are answered with church songs coming into your mind. You move to grandma’s basement, then closer to campus, twice. Hand off stroller between classes with husband.
More babies, a colicky one, and one born two weeks before you graduate.
Go on trip to San Francisco with husband and leave nursing baby home with lactating friend. Darling as they are, you get more depressed after each baby and get counseling.
Job applications send you north to Idaho. But they hire someone else, not your husband. An answered prayer takes you east to Maryland, to live near your in-laws.
Birth another baby that nearly kills you. You are diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease. Meet amazing doctor through drug trial. Surgery. Survival, and two more miracle babies, more depression. You get medical help and wonder why you didn't seek help sooner.
Quilting and painting murals keep you sane and you find friends. First mural completed while babies watched from bath tub. You never yell at them for drawing on the walls. Just for toy-clogging toilets. Share the gospel with a neighbor. You move into an abandoned, snake-possessed home that is an answer to prayers.
You fix it up and love living in the woods.
You adventure out with a map, lulling van-load of kids to sleep. Play at the beaches, parks, see historic sites, and explore national monuments. Volunteer for patriot program at schools. Chair Reflection Contests.
You glory in your stay-at-home identity. You practice food storage, cooking from scratch, living frugally. Husband graduates from law school, passes the bar.
You live peacefully, watching home improvement shows on cable, experimenting with paint colors and mural techniques, driving kids to bus stop, swimming at club. All is well for years.
You get a horrifying letter in the mail asking you to leave your home in woods. Find a new home as first time owners, settle and move all in one month, with a lot of help from family and friends.
You feel settled, invigorated and your mural clients expand. Portfolio is looking better! Children start leaving home and you forget and keep setting their place at the table. Husband loses job and you start blogging a couple photo each day to cope.
You work full-time for the U S Census. Dream of remodeling, redecorating, gardening, painting anything that holds still. Make bow ties for sale; check out foreign films from the library to watch as you sew. You wake up at 4:30 am to prepare to teach 23 teenagers “Bible Study.” As you thrift store shop you feel the thrill of the treasure hunt. Join quilt internet challenges to force yourself to create under pressure of a deadline. Date husband with no money. Play the piano for family devotionals each night. Funerals, weddings, and paint jobs take you back to Salt Lake City, but home is here in Aberdeen. You're here. Now you give me directions to you.
