Kicking and Screaming

A lot of people ask me how a 6th generation native Texan such as myself came to be in Wisconsin. The answer I usually give them is "I came here kicking and screaming". Let me back up and explain a bit more. It's all the fault of my friend Robert Ghormley.

Rob and I knew each other when I lived in Corpus Christi. Our parents were best friends and we became best friends. In fact, Rob has gone beyond the status of "best friend" and has entered the status of being a friend who can lay claim to one of my kidneys and as much bone marrow as he can carry. I only afford this status to a select few so don't ask me if you're in the club.

Rob and I are such good friends that his wife and mine are best friends as well. When we first started visiting the Ghormleys here in Wisconsin, Rob (who was branch president) called my wife and I into his office at the church and laid the classic Ghormley Guilt Trip on us.

I've often said that Jews and Catholics only THINK that they do guilt. They're amateurs when it comes to Mormons and the best I've ever seen it done is in the Ghormley household.

If you ever spent the night there (and I did on several occasions) family prayer at bedtime was a kind of 'round robin' affair wherein everyone said a prayer. It was in these prayers that the guilt trips came out mainly because, if this wasn't said in a prayer, you'd interrupt and talk back. But, seeing as how this was a sincere prayer between the petitioner and The Lord. You had to pretty much shut up and say 'amen' at the end.

The only saving grace in this was that, if you were the last person in line, you got a whack at a rebuttal or two so when Dr. Ghormley prayed, "...and Lord, please tell Tom that he really needs to lose some weight...", when it came YOUR turn to pray, you could say..."...and Lord, please tell Dr. that he needs to mind his own damn business!"

So when Rob closed the door to his office and took out his handkerchief, I could tell that the guilt trip was coming. He first began by rehearsing the fact that we were the best of friends and then he brought our parents into the equation, recalling how THEY were the best of friends. Then he went on about how we were really needed in Wisconsin and would we consider moving up to be here with them. My reply was immediate,

"no"
"no?"
"no"
"why not?
"lots of reasons"
"give me one"
"Okay...I have a lot of metal in my butt and it freezes up here"

But my friend was not to be deterred.

"Will you at least ask The Lord?"
"no"
"no?"
"no"
"why not?"
"lots of reasons"
"give me one"
"I only bother The Lord when I'm not sure of something and I'm sure I don't want to move to Wisconsin"

But Rob would not give up and so, after about six months of his pestering me, I promised that I would take the matter before The Lord. It was one of the shortest prayers of my life. It went something like this...

"Heavenly Father..."
"Yes. I want you to move to Wisconsin"
"Wait...no....lemme get the rest of the question out..."

When I came out of our bedroom, I announced to my wife that we were going to move to Wisconsin and her immediate response was to inquire exactly what I meant by "we". I think her exact phrasing was, "What do you mean, 'we'? Do you have worms?"

After a few minutes of back and forth with my wife's stout refusal to come to Wisconsin, I finally said, "well we have an Adam and Eve Garden of Eden thing going on here because I promised Rob I would ask The Lord and I did and I'm moving to Wisconsin."

My dear wife decided that she would see for herself and disappeared into the bedroom. Her experience must have been similar to mine because she came back out a few moments later and complained, "you just HAD to ask, didn't you!"

But the truth is that, even though we came here kicking and screaming, we love it here. Oh sure, there are drawbacks. Taco Bell is the best Tex Mex around and when you complain about the quality of Mexican Food up here the conversation usually goes something like this.

"what do you miss most about Texas?"
"Decent Mexican food"
"Really? Because I know a really GREAT Mexican food Rest..."
"No you don't"

When we first started visiting, we attended a branch function at Noah's Ark. It is the world's largest outdoor water park in Wisconsin Dells..the place where water parks were invented and perfected.

When we first got there, we sat with the rest of the branch in a small pavillion that we had reserved and ate luch and socialized. Rob's son, Dylan was having a pretty good time with his friends and he had never been to a waterpark and so he didn't know what he was missing. All he knew was that he was enjoying himself right then

SO when Rob grabbed Dylan and started for the rides, all Dylan understood was that he was being taken away from something he liked...and he reacted like any four year old would react, he tugged at his father's grasp and went towards an unknown destination kicking and screaming.

Once he got to the water, he had the time of his life. After a while though, it became apparent that he was getting a bit too cold. He needed to get out and warm up a bit. So Rob dragged his son kicking and screaming back to the pavillion.

As I watched all of this, I realized how the difference in understanding between Rob and his four year old son was a lot less than the difference in understanding between me and Heavenly Father.

I watched a loving father take his son kicking and screaming to a place the father knew his son would enjoy and when it became too much for him, I watched that same father drag his son kicking and screaming away for his own good.

and I wondered how often Heavenly Father had done the same to me.