People Let Me Tell Ya 'Bout My Best Friend

Twenty-Seven Years ago this week, my wife and I went to a Ward Halloween party dressed as nerds. I don't remember if we won the final prize for best costume but I do remember that we placed high in the competition. The reason my mind is a little foggy on the details is that, on the way home, Kerry went into labor and we went to Katy Hospital so that we could witness the birth of our first born son...dressed as nerds.

I was later to find out that this auspicious start in life was a harbinger of things to come as we were to watch our son win accolades and honors and...basically show us that we were now the older generation and...well....nerds.

Those few precious moments immediately after his arrival into this world are, I believe, one of the most sacred moments of my life. I still remember the look on my wife's face as they placed that beautiful squalling mass of multi-colored goo on her chest. She spoke his name and he immediately stopped crying; then she smiled. It was a smile that I'd never seen before or since. It was radiant, serene, God-like...it was a smile that radiated love in the purest sense of the word and it is the smile that is engraved into the deepest recesses of my heart...the smile that adorns her face whenever I picture her in my mind's eye.

I knew in that moment that I had ceased to be the center of her world...and, strangely, that's exactly how I wanted it to be.

They asked my to cut the umbilical chord and, after a few moments of squeamish hesitation, I did. That was also a kind of harbinger of things to come...as I was to learn that my role of father would entail sometimes placing myself between my wife and our son and, while secretly siding with her, making her loosen her grip so that he could learn to fall on his face and make his own mistakes in life.

Then they handed my first-born son to me so that I could give him a bath. As I concentrated on not dropping what was, paradoxically the slipperiest and the most precious thing I had ever held, I set him into the warm water and bathed his tiny face and body. One of the nurses giggled, "Look!". I looked down and saw that, as I was busy bathing my son, he was busy peeing all over me.

Also...a harbinger of things to come.

The salad days of a young family are, I believe, the most magical time of a union between a husband and a wife. That little bundle we held and fed and (she) changed represented a concentration of our combined purpose in life. To this day, when I see a picture of our first born infant, I realize that I did not cherish it enough. That I did not savor those moments enough...We concentrated all we had on pouring as much love and attention on our son as we could and yet, I can't think of anything I wouldn't give for the opportunity to go back in time and do more.

I didn't write this blog to sing his praises...anyone that knows John-Ross knows that he is gifted, talented, and (as they say in Boston) 'wicked smaht'

As he has grown into adulthood, we have had occasion to debate and argue and learn from one another. Politically, there are things on which we both agree and disagree. Political debates are among my favorite things and I've never debated anyone whose opinion I respect more than my son.

There are a lot of reasons that I love my wife. If I were pressed to name the number one reason why I love her, I don't think I'd be able to do it.

But high in the running would be the fact that, twenty-seven years ago, she introduced me to one of my best friends.

According to their desire

There was a time on my mission when I went through a really rough patch. I won't go into great detail because it's really not important why. Suffice to say that I really wanted to go home and nobody would let me. Instead, I was banished to a far end of the mission that required a boat trip and two train trips and over 24 hours to get to. This place had not had a baptism in fourteen years. I told my companion that we would visit members and go to church but that if he even mentioned tracting to me I would beat him up.

Depression was not as big a deal back then as it is now and so, while all of the signs of clinical depression were there, nobody thought I was depressed...they all thought I was just a jerk. In their defense, I really was kind of a self-centered jerk. Also, I refused to bathe and I grew a beard (I was REALLY trying to get them to send me home)

While I wallowed in filth and self-pity, I explored our apartment for any kind of relief of the mind-numbing boredom. I came across some tapes that I hoped were contraband rock and roll. It turns out that they were tapes of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's performance of Handel's Messiah.

I had heard "For Unto Us a Child is Born" and "The Hallelujah Chorus" before...but never had I ever listened to the whole performance. Those two tapes stuck way in the back of our apartment library became the means for me to dig myself out of the hole I had dug for myself.

The music was so beautiful and the performances so wonderful that I began to lose myself in those tapes and listen to them over and over again. As I listened, I realized that every song was taken from a scripture about Christ and I took out my scriptures and looked up all of them and marked them in green. Reading those scriptures while listening to Handel's musical testimony of the divinity of Christ was as powerful an emotion as I had ever felt.

The music became a part of me and it began to lift me up. I shed many bitter tears as I began to realize how little time I had been given to share the gospel in Italy and how much of that time I had wasted. To this day, one of my greatest fears is standing before Heavenly Father and giving an account of that portion of my mission. The music began to renew and strengthen my testimony until I could hardly wait to get out of the apartment. What I desired most of all was the opportunity to share my testimony of Christ and the Restored Gospel with the Italian people.

In the space of three days, I went from a slob wallowing in his bed to a bright and shiny, freshly showered and shaved missionary urging my companion to get up so we could get out the door and go tracting.

Everyone thought I had really gone nuts now and they were starting to seriously consider my request to send me home.

The more I researched Handel's Messiah, the more intrigued I became. I was especially struck by the story of how fast this masterpiece was written and how influenced Handel was. I read about the weeks of largely untouched meals that were delivered to his door as he wrote and how, after writing The Hallelujah Chorus, his servant came to Handel's room only to see tears streaming down the composer's face as he exclaimed, "I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself"

The music became a part of my life and I listened to it whenever occasion would permit. Every part of the oratorio became a part of me...but one part sunk into my soul more deeply than the others...the tenor solo at the beginning.

As I listened to "Comfort Ye" and "Every Valley", I was more and more in awe of how Handel had used the natural timbre of the tenor's voice to emulate a sounding trumpet. I imagined John The Baptist standing in the wilderness and his voice crying forth these words. I thought of Alma and how he desired most to have the voice of an angel that he might testify more clearly of Christ.

And I began to desire the same thing. More than anything, I wanted to sing that tenor solo. That music had become such a part of me that I just knew that I would consider my life incomplete if I could not participate in its performance.

The only problem was that I'd never had any voice lessons and...I was a baritone.

But the desire was much more deep than my voice and I knew that, while I would never sing the tenor solo on a stage, I could sing along with with the music...and I did. I sang along with The Messiah whenever I could. When I got home from my mission, my practice studio was my car and I would often garner strange looks in traffic as I drove along during rush hour. As I sang, I imagined myself in a tuxedo belting out the words...my whole being concentrated upon being one with the music. Every once in a while, I would notice that I could actually hit a note that, up to that point, was beyond my range. When I did, I would strive to be able to hit it again and again until I could hit that note whenever I wanted.

Choristers in church began to ask me to sing in the choir and I learned how to read music. Timmie Debusk was the first such to ask me to sing a solo in church. She was the one who first made me believe that I might actually be able to fulfill my secret desire. When her son lost his battle with cancer, she asked me to sing at his funeral. Although, by then, I had sung at several funerals, it was the first time I had ever sung for someone I knew personally. It was also the last. Although I was able to get through the song, I doubt I will ever again be able to do so. I learned that, what we sing becomes a part of us in a way that what we say never does. I began a new respect and testimony of the importance of primary songs. I began to realize that music conveys emotions that mere speech cannot...which is why people can listen to opera in a language that they don't speak and still understand the story.

I formed the opinion that the Adamic language, being a perfect language would have to convey the meanings of one who speaks that language perfectly...and would, of necessity, be a language that was sung, rather than spoken.

I began to sing The Messiah in singalongs at Christmas time and whenever I could find a performance, I would try out for the chorus. I've sung it so many times that, whenever I hear any part of the oratorio, I can sing the tenor part, words and notes, without having the music before me.

Once or twice I would even be brave enough to try out for the solo part. I never got it, men who were much more talented and much better trained than I was got the part and, as I stood in the chorus and listened to them sing, tears would form in my eyes. It was frustrating to want to be that good and know that I would never be that good. I felt like Salieri in 'Amadeus'...doomed to recognize and desire talent that was beyond my reach. But, while I could hit the high notes required of that part, it was always tentative. It felt like I was riding a bicycle on the top rail of a fence and, if I pushed myself to have the volume and bell-like quality required of a tenor singing that solo, my voice would crack and I would be humiliated. Eventually, I gave up and resigned myself to sing in the chorus forever.

One Fall, Ken Turner called me on the phone. He and I had sung The Messiah several times together and he informed me that a group of churches in Columbus was putting together a performance that was to be sung in The Columbus Opera House. I decided that I would try for the solo part one last time.

I got it.

And an impossible desire that was born fifteen years earlier was fulfilled on a Friday night a week before Christmas when I walked to the podium in a tuxedo, in an Opera house in a small Texas town with family and friends in the audience and a brother in the chorus and I sang the opening solo to Handel's masterpiece.

As I sang, I decided that, for once, I would listen to all of the people who had encouraged me and, as they say in football, "leave it all out on the field". I held nothing back and I was surprised to hear a tremolo that my voice had previously lacked. I was the best I had ever sung and, as I sang, I realized that Alma was right, God truly does grant unto men, "according to their desire"

You Love That Which You Serve

I once hung a jury for the better part of a week. I did so even though my gut told me that the defendant was guilty. But, even though I was fairly convinced that he was guilty, when weighing the evidence in a dispassionate manner, I realized that it was only my gut telling me so. The prosecution had presented the weakest of cases. There were several holes in the case that I could see and which, for some reason, the defense had chosen not to exploit. But still, my gut was telling me that the defendant had committed a crime...then it hit me. The defendant had, indeed committed a crime but probably not the crime of which he was accused...After four days, I finally agreed to convict the defendant on a much lesser charge. I did so because I was convinced both in my mind and my gut that he was guilty of that lesser charge.

During my time in the jury room, I spent eight to ten hours a day with anywhere from nine to eleven people yelling and hating me. The yelling and hating wasn't one-sided either. At one point I had to ask one juror to shut up and not be on my side because the only reason he could give for not believing the prosecution's key witness was that "he looked a little gay". Juror number four will forever hold a special place on my list of people who should die with festering boils. He was a pseudo-intellectual who kept saying, "it's a moot point" only he kept mispronouncing it; saying, "it's a moat point. By day three of listening to that man make arguments that a seventh grade debate student could rip apart, the only thing that kept blood from shooting out of my eyes, nose and ears whenever he spoke was the mental image I had of driving my freshly-sharpened Number 2 pencil through his eye socket and into his brain.

At one time, the following argument took place between me and mister "moat point"

"It was a GUN"

"The charge reads 'fire-arm' and the weapon was never produced so the prosecution could never prove it was anything other than a BB Gun"

"A BB gun is a firearm"

"No...a 'fire arm' as a weapon that uses gunpowder and fire is produced as a by-product of its projectile's means of propulsion...a BB-Gun uses compressed air as its means of propulsion and since no fire is produced, it cannot be called, 'a fire-arm'"

"That's a moat point...I could still kill you with a BB-Gun"

"And I could kill you with a pork chop bone or even this number 2 pencil I'm holding..neither of them is a fire-arm"


At another point, a very sweet looking little old lady complained to me, "Well, I'm going to tell the judge that I don't think you belong on this jury" . It was her misfortune that her particular statement was the final straw that broke my camel's back. "I'M THE ONLY ONE THAT BELONGS ON THIS JURY!", I screamed "Every single ONE of you answered the same questions I did during Voir Dire and every single ONE of you said you would not hold it against a defendant for not taking the stand in his own defense...and every single ONE of you, at some point in the last three days has said that he must be guilty or he would defend himself...so that means that every single ONE of you is a &*##! LIAR!"

(I might have over-reacted a tad).

I saw that little old lady once years later at the Cineplex Multi Cinema off of Grand Parkway and, when she saw me, she had that sweet, I-know-you-from-somewhere-but-can't-quite-place-where, smile. Then I could see the recognition creep into her eyes and that sweet face of hers darkened like thunder clouds as she turned her back to me and went over to her husband sitting on a bench. I stood outside the theater until the movie started enduring malevolent glances and whispering back and forth between the two. The old man looked at me through narrowed bitter eyes and I could tell he was wishing that he was thirty years younger. I vacillated between going over to them and offering the most sincere apologies for my inexcusable conduct or going over to the man and letting him know that the sweet little woman he thought he married wasn't quite so sweet after all. I finally decided that this was one instance when discretion really was the better part of valor.

During my time in the jury room, I could tell that what I was battling were deep-seated convictions. The people on the other side of the argument were all very fine and decent people. But it became more and more apparent, as we argued, that they felt in their hearts that their job as a juror was to convict the person accused of the crime. I had always felt that my job as a juror was to judge, not the defendant, but the case presented to me by the prosecution. If the case presented by the prosecutor was proved to me beyond a reasonable doubt. I would vote to convict. If not, I would vote to acquit. I was to place the burden of proof always with the prosecution and never with the defense and, even if I felt in my gut the defendant was guilty; if the prosecution had not done its job properly and presented a case proving to my mind that he was guilty, I was doing our justice system a greater disservice by going with my gut over my mind.

The basic difference in my philosophy and those of the other jurors was that they felt that their job as a juror was to judge the defendant. I felt that my job as a juror was to judge the prosecution's case against the defendant.

During those four days, I was tempted several times to make nice with my fellow jurors and just go along..I was told over and over again that I was wrong. I was called names, At one point mister moat point called me a bleeding heart liberal.(that was a first for me) But each time I felt the urge to capitulate, my mind kept coming back to a quote by John Adams."There are only two creatures of value on the face of the earth: those with the commitment, and those who require the commitment of others"

What it came down to in that jury room was a battle of values, my basic values and beliefs over the basic values and beliefs of eleven other people. A person's beliefs are based upon their values and, as such, there are many times when a belief is neither right nor wrong...it is right or wrong depending upon the holder's values.

But this wasn't one of those times.

What that experience left me with was the firm conviction that you really ought not to try and get out of jury duty. If you are a rational person who can look at a case without passion...the greatest service you can render your country is to serve on a jury. Unfortunately, most people who think that way are also very busy people for whom jury duty would be a financial sacrifice as well as a sacrifice of their time...and so, when they get the summons, they do their dead level best to not get on a jury. (My personal favorite was the man who showed up to jury selection with a "Nuke Gay Baby Whales For Jesus" T-shirt) Unfortunately, that leaves most juries filled with either people who have nothing better to do with their time or people who, for some reason or other, relish the thought of sitting in judgement of their fellow man...and believe me when I tell you that none of these people is apt to be sitting across from Regis Philbin holding a check for a million dollars with all of their life-lines still unused.

Ask yourself this. If you say you love your country and are willing to die for it...why do you try and get out of Jury Duty?

The next time you are summoned...go and serve

One Last Blessing

It's four in the morning and I've been up for the better part of an hour. I love this time of day. It is my hour of peace and rest unmarred by earthly care. For some reason, my thoughts always seem better honed and more clear at this time. My emotions are more crisp and I can more easily identify thier roots.

For the better part of this hour, I have been feeling an emotion that I didn't remember ever feeling before...it is a mixture of happiness and sadness and anticipation and worry...all of my emotions seem to be mixed with its counterpart; except one...pride.

Today is the day that my last child, my daughter leaves for college. In just a few short hours, she will step out of my door and, when she crosses that threshhold one last time, her status will change. She will no longer be a permanent resident under my roof. At 3:00 this afternoon, my Sarah will take her fledgling flight into this world.

Oh sure, she will return to my home from time to time but these will always be temporary visits. When she returns, I will be painfully aware of the ticking clock that will take her away from me again. Although she will always be welcome here for as long as she wishes, if things go according to the grand design, once she leaves today, she will only have temporary residences until she finds and makes one of her own.

For the last week or so, my wife has been urging me to find the time to give our daughter her traditional father's blessing before she goes off to school. I have, to her vexation, been putting it off. I don't think that she realizes what she's asking me to do or she wouldn't be quite so frustrated with me when I procrastinate exercising my patriarchal franchise.

Whenever I ponder this blessing, the realization hits me that this could very well be the very last blessing of comfort that she seeks at my hands. The possibility is very real that she will meet someone else to whom she will look for comfort in a priesthood blessing and, when I lay my hands on her head this afternoon, I might very well be passing off the baton to someone I don't even know yet but, somehow, don't like very much right now.

Sometimes our thoughts and feelings take us down a path that seems almost pre-determined...as if the course for them has been laid by a divine hand...and that's what is happening to me this morning because, as I sit here and steep myself in this melange of emotions, it occurs to me that these feelings would not be possible were I not a parent...this is exactly the kind of thing that Heavenly Father wanted me to experience...this is what is referred to as "a growing pain".

All for this mixture of emotions that could be experienced in no other way (and others like them) a Heavenly Being created this world and sent me to it. Because he wanted me to return, he devised a plan wherein his First Born in the spirit and Only Begotten in the flesh would take upon himself my sins...all of that effort so that I could sit here at four in the morning and nourish myself with this wonderful bittersweet emotion. And now I have to add one more feeling to the mixture.

I don't know when I've ever felt more loved.

Danny Boy

I've been nursing a feeling of sadness lately and I haven't quite been able to put my finger on the reason. Then, last night my daughter went off with some friends to the David Archuleta concert and my wife and I ate our dinner with our son Daniel. That's when it hit me...in a few short weeks, this is how it's going to be from now on. Except for a few holiday meals and some trips home during the summer, from now on, it will be just us three at the table.

And, even though the emotion was purely selfish, I have never been more grateful to have a child who would never leave and always be at home with his mother and I.

When you first have a child, you pray that they will have all ten fingers and ten toes and be completely healthy and 'normal'. When you find out that God didn't quite grant you all of your initial hope, your next hope is that they won't realize that they aren't like the other kids.

Daniel missed out on both of those accounts and through the years, when the kids his age began to reach milestones like baptism, priesthood, missions, marriage...Daniel would come to his mother and I and wonder when he was going to be able to partake of those blessings.

For years, I have felt like Gepetto with a son I love very much whose only wish is to be, "a real boy".

But even though it's been painful while he was growing up. Daniel has more or less come to terms with his condition and, along with his mother and I, has come to accept that this is the way it will be.

Is it wrong for me to be happy that he will always be at our dinner table? Children are supposed to grow up and leave and parents are supposed to want that for them but I confess that I am selfish in this respect.

I don't want any of them to leave and, while I could do nothing to prevent John-Ross and Sarah from growing up and taking their place in this world...I am going to find a great deal of comfort in Daniel always being here.

I heard a story once about a certain song.

It is the story of an old irishman whose wife had passed and left him with three sons to raise. In those days, his country was at war and when the county levy for young men to enter into the army was to be filled, it was announced by parades and bagpipes calling the young men off to war.

The old man's first son grew into manhood and the bagpipes came, calling him off to serve and, even though he served with honor, he dies in battle leaving the old man grief-striken but finding comfort in his remaining two sons.

As time passed, the bagpipes came once again calling the young men off to war and this time it was the second son's turn to go...and he also failed to return.

After a few more seasons had passed, the bagpipes came once again, calling the young men off to war. And this time, before he let him go, the old man took his only remaining son aside, and sang to him, the world's most beautiful love song

Oh Danny Boy
The pipes, the pipes are calling
from glen to glen
and down the mountainside
the summer's gone
and all the roses falling
'tis you, 'tis you
must go, and I must bide

But come ye back
when spring is in the meadow
or when the valley's hushed
and white with snow

'tis I'll be here
in sunshine or in shadow
Oh Danny Boy Oh Danny Boy
I love you so

When my wife and I heard that story, we told each other that if we ever had another son, we would name him after that song.

We didn't know how ironic it would be that the son we named after that song would be the son that would stay with us always.

Tom Goes to Girls Camp

Blame Shauna Pitcher Anderson for dredging up these rightfully-repressed memories. It was she who sent out a request for Camp Liahona songs. For those who are unfamiliar with Camp Liahona, it was a spot of mosquito-infested, so-humid-you-could-chew-the-air, water-tasting-like-iron, surrounded-by-banjo-playing-inbreds-with-fewer-teeth-than-chromosones ground about fifty miles North of Houston. (We all loved it and went there whenever we could)

Camp Liahona was the offical camp of The Houston Stake and later the region. It was the place we went for Father-Son campouts, Boy Scout Overnight Camps, Family Reunions, and every single Girls Stake Camp. Most of us old-timers in Houston can find the place in the dark since those were the conditions in which we usually arrived on a Friday night. In fact, only about forty percent of the travel time from Houston to Camp Liahona was spent driving about ninety-nine percent of the distance. The remaining sixty percent of the travel time consisted of driving up and down five to ten miles of I-45 with a flashlight, looking for a dirt road turnoff that was harder to find than the entrance to The Bat Cave.

Various versions of the following conversation took place in virtually everyone's car:

"That's it right there, isn't it?"

"No...I'm telling you we passed it about a mile back. I remember because I tied a bandana to a branch so we could find it easier the next time"

"There's no bandana back there"

"Yeah...I know...but the BRANCH is still there"

I sometimes think that we called the place Camp Liahona because only a person with a Liahona could actually find it on their first try. In fact, in the LDS religion, a person whose patriarchal blessing declares him to be of the Tribe of Levi, can claim the mantle of The Bishop and serve without counselors. It was whispered that only such a person could actually leave Houston in the dark and drive straight to Camp Liahona.

To the North of the camp, down a long treacherous path with tree roots waiting to reach out and trip you in the dark, was a small creek which, when dammed with sandbags, filled up to become a fairly decent swimming hole. There was a nearby rope swing of questionable molecular structure that served to provide an airborn means of entry to the aforementioned swimming spot. No matter how dark it was, no matter how late it was...if you were the first to arrive at Camp Liahona, your first duty was to trek down the path with a shovel and start filling sandbags to dam the creek. Failure to do so would result in your becomming a well-deserved social pariah.

Later on, the Stake sprung for an actual swimming pool and Camp Liahona Alumni became thereinafter divided into two groups...those who had used the swimming hole and those who had not (or as I like to think of them, the non-pansies and the pansies)

My family moved from Houston to Corpus Christi when I was twelve and I became lifelong friends to Robert Ghormley and Buddy Murphy. We were all in scouts together, got our life-saver merit badge together, and, in the process, became ceritified Red Cross Life Guards together (this might sound like rambling but I swear it's part of the story)

The year before we moved back to Houston, my mom became Stake Young Women's President. If I were to go strictly by my own observation, then I would have to say that the calling of Stake Young Women's president consisted of a year long planning session of Girls Camp during which your family languished upon a diet of Whataburgers and Swanson's Turkey Pot Pie.

The fly in my mother's ointment, apparently, was in finding a place which was suitable for girls camp. It was my father who suggested she call the Stake President of Houston and ask to use Camp Liahona. She was given permission upon condition that she provide three Red-Cross Certified lifeguards as well. (see? I told you it would become relevant)

There are fewer moments sweeter in a young teenage boy's life than when he realizes that his mom actually needs him for something that is above and beyond the call of duty. Going to Girls Camp was something that every teenage boy dreamed of...you're all alone with every girl in the stake!. Unfettered access to endear yourself to over a hundred young women!...how was I to know then what a huge disconnect there is between fantasy and reality?

But this was no time to let my mom know what a huge plum had just fallen into my lap...nope...my mom was backed into a corner. This was the time to get concessions. Buddy, Rob, and I were to be allowed to take our family's tent trailer as our official lifeguard headquarters. We fashioned a sign to that end. It read:

"Official Camp Liahona Lifeguards...also Philosophers, Bikini Inspectors, and Notary Public...(flats fixed)"

The girls of the stake would have to camp out on concrete slabs...this was before those slabs had roofs on them so they were to be exposed to the elements while we luxuriated in our family's tent trailer complete with mattresses, a refrigerator, and stove!

Within two hours of arriving at camp, we had the swimming hole dammed. Our entire official duties were done for the day and so we sat back and drank root bear and Dr. Pepper from our cooler and played Risk while the girls went about their routine.

There was, over the decades of use at Camp Liahona, a huge mound of garbage that sat right about where the swimming pool sits now. I didn't know it then but, apparently, it was a part of Girls Camp for the girls of the stake to complete a "camp project" . By way of thanking the Houston Stake for allowing us use of the camp, my mom determined that the camp project would be to bury that mountain of garbage.

"She went out to the baseball diamond with a bull horn and announced" This year, the camp project will consist of the girls in the camp digging a hole and burying the garbage pile" She pointed to a stack of shovels and picks and then walked away.

The next day, my mom, again went out to the baseball diamond and, with her bull horn announced, "Okay...the boys will dig the hole and the girls will fill it with the garbage" Then she grabbed the shovels and picks and dropped them at the door to our sanctuary.

We spent the rest of the day digging a hole big enough to fill in that pile of garbage and cover it with a decent layer of dirt. I won't bore you with a lesson on the geology surrounding the Houston area but suffice to say that only about three inches of any ground around Houston is actually topsoil the rest is clay and caliche. We went to bed about eleven that night and slept like the dead anticipating that, when we awoke, the girls at girls camp would be busy filling in the garbage and we could get back to drinking root beer and Dr Pepper and playing Risk. Before we left, however, we stacked the shovels and picks over by the girls' slabs so that they could find them in the morning.

About ten the next morning, we heard, through the fog of our sleep, the clank of shovels and picks being dropped outside our tent trailer door. About fifteen seconds later, we were awakened by my mom's sweet voice coming through a bullhorn, "Okay....the boys will fill in the garbage hole and the girls will cover it up"

When we didn't emerge from our beds soon enough to suit my mom, she came up right to our trailer door, turned up the volume on the bullhorn until it squeeled with feedback and blasted us, "I SAID! THE BOYS WILL FILL IN THE GARBAGE AND THE GIRLS WILL COVER IT UP!!!!"

I got up, locked the door, and went back to bed. About ten seconds later, I was awaked with a loud, meaty "THUNK". I looked up to see the business end of a pick poking through the splintered door. Buddy Murphey's eye poked out from under his pillow. His muffled voice came through the covers, "I think she's serious"

I spent the rest of the day shovelling garbage into a hole while listening to Robert and Buddy invent a new brand of humor that has since become widely known as "Yo Momma So..(fill in the blank)"

By the time we finished filling in the garbage pile, we stunk and we were thoroughly disabused of any notions we had previously held about how neat it would be to spend a week surrounded by all the girls in the stake. For those young men who have not had my experience, let me state that, the moment the young women of the stake hit girls camp any pretense of fashion or hygiene goes right out the window.

They stop wearing makeup, plucking eyebrows, shaving legs, armpits or even wearing deodorant. In fact, just like one of those old black and white werewolf movies, you can actually see them transform into beasts before your very eyes!

It was Thursday and my mom had decided to bundle up everyone's dirty clothes and take them into town to wash at the laundromat. When she came back, all the clothes were dumped on a picnic table in one huge unisex pile.

Buddy, Rob and I had to dig through a pile of girls undies and padded bras looking for our duds. Every once in a while a beehive would come up to us with a disgusted look on her face holding up a pair of threadbare whitey tightys and, stretching the waistband for emphasis on each syllable ask, "are these yours?"

As I looked through the pile and pondered my humiliation, a plan for revenge began to formulate. I stuffed a few bras and panties under my shirt. I could see that great minds thought alike because I caught Rob and Buddy in the same activity.

Later that night, we hatched a plan on getting those purloined unmentionables up the flagpole, which sat directly in the middle of the girls sleeping area. We decided that a diversionary tactic would be utilized.

We gathered up as many pinecones as we could stuff in pillow cases and began a midnight assault on the girls' slab. We had planned a blitzkrieg of pinecones during which I would slip through their line of defense and run the panties and bras up the flagpole.

What we had not planned, was that the girls would see us gathering pinecones, correctly interpret our intentions, and have a stash of their own missles ready and waiting.

About eleven thirty that night, The Great Pinecone Raid of 1973 began. We emerged from the woods, our pinecones at the ready, and announced our presence with the tradional screams and yells employed by pirates and vikings which quickly turned into full-on boy screams once it became obvious that our intended victims were not only waiting for us but armed to the teeth as well.

We had depended upon surprise to be our ally but that notion soon disappeared , we quickly realized that we were outnumbered a hundred to three and we were about to be annialated. It is no shame, under such circumstances, to retreat as quickly as one can. I turned and ran down the path I had come from as quickly as I could; forgetting, in the process, that there was a branch that crossed that path about five feet above ground. (I was, at the time, five foot ten) When I got to the spot of the branch I was in full flight mode. The branch hit me in the throat which had the affect of immediately stopping all forward progress my body was making from five feet above the ground on up.

From five feet on down, adhering closely to the principles of physics Newton had discovered centuries before, my body continued on until it could go no further. At that point all forward motion was transferred to the branch which acted as a pivot, swinging my feet up until I was on a horizontal plane with the branch.

It was at this point, that gravity once again decided to manifest itself and slam me back onto the ground. knocking every minute molecule of breath from my body.

I had heard that Marines will stand over a fallen comrade and fight to the death, their motto being "no man left behind". My own comrades employed a different philosphy, known as "every man for himself" and continued running and screaming away.

In a perverse way, their cowardice had the affect of bringing our plan to fruition; for while the girls passed by me chasing the other two deep into the forest, I had enough time to catch my breath, slip back to the flagpole and complete my mission.

The cherry on top of all of this was that, by the time I got back to the trailer, the boys were barracaded inside while the girls surrounded the trailer, pelting it with rocks and pinecones. My mom was busy calling off the hounds (either figuratively or literally depending upon how one viewed the now more hirusite female youth of our stake)

My mom brought all the commotion to a complete stop by shouting at the top of her lungs, "THE BOYS ARE NEVER COMING TO GIRLS CAMP AGAIN!!!!!" (no bullhorn necessary here)

I threaded my way through the crowd, past my mom, and in as a bewildered and innocent voice as I could muster asked, "I was in the latrine....what's all this about?"

In my fifteen years on earth, I had done many things to incite my mother's anger. I had watered the wisteria bush with a gasoline can. I had waxed the linoleum floor with furniture wax (my mom slipped and broke her tail bone) I had impaled Keven McCreary's hand to the fence with an arrow.....I had NEVER seen her more angry than that night.

As we sat up the rest of the night, we pondered our fate in the morning. We decided that our only hope of salvation lay in retrieving the bras and panties I had run up the flagpole. We drew straws, I got the short one and since I had partially exhonerated myself from the previous night's fiasco, I felt it was my duty to go without protest.

I made my assault just before dawn. I had planned it just when I felt everyone would be asleep and my mom, whom I knew would be up all night keeping vigil, would be most vulnerable. I got safely through the girls sleeping area and got the lingerie down from the flagpole and was almost back to the trailer when my mom's voice called out,

"Tom! what are you doing up so early?"

"Nothing...just couldn't sleep, mom!"

I continued on...Rob came out of the trailer and watched from a few yards away and out of my mom's line of sight.

"You tell the rest of those boys that I expect them to get up for devotional...no sleeping in!"

"I'll tell them mom!" I mouthed for Rob to take the bundle of undies I had secreted under my shirt

"And tell them no more shenanigans or that's it!"

I looked at Rob, pleading with my eyes for help...he just shook his head. Buddy showed up next to him and looked at me standing there out in the open. I made a break for it and something slipped out of my shirt. My mom called after me..

"What did you just dro.........THAT'S MY BRA!!!!"

The three of us evaporated into the woods.

Later that day, my mom marched out onto the ball field with her bull horn. She had set up a table with sandwiches and chips and soda. She then turned up the volume on the bull horn and announced, "THE BOYS WILL NOW COVER OVER THE PIT"

We came out of the forrest, ate our lunch, and grabbed the shovels.

Later on, when we got back to Corpus, my mom got up in church and reported on Girls Camp. She stated with glowing pride how the girls had dug a pit and buried a mountain of garbage for thier camp project.

I had to be physically restrained.

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.