READING ALOUD

The Reading Mother
I had a Mother who read to me
Sagas of pirates who scoured the sea,
Cutlasses clenched in their yellowed teeth,
“Blackbirds” stowed in the hold beneath.

I had a Mother who read me lays
Of ancient and gallant and golden days;
Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe,
Which every boy has a right to know.

I had a Mother who read me tales
Of Gelert the hound of the hills of Wales,
True to his trust till his tragic death,
Faithfulness blent with his final breath.

I had a Mother who read me the things
That wholesome life to the boy heart brings --
Stories that stir with an upward touch,
Oh, that each Mother of boys were such!

You may have tangible wealth untold;
Chests of jewels and coffers of gold.
Richer than I, you can never be --
For I had a Mother who read to me.

~ Strickland Gillilan

For Mother’s Day this year Erika gave me a piece of framed art which included the final stanza of The Reading Mother by Strickland Gillilan. Gillilan who lived from 1869-1954 expressed in that poem the value of reading aloud. I enjoyed that blessing in my childhood, and passed it on to my children, I hope. Now it is interesting to read what the New York Times has to say about the fine art of reading out loud.



THE NEW YORK TIMES
EDITORIAL OBSERVER
Some Thoughts on the Lost Art of Reading Aloud
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
Published: May 16, 2009

Sometimes the best way to understand the present is to look at it from the past. Consider audio books. An enormous number of Americans read by listening these days — listening aloud, I call it. The technology for doing so is diverse and widespread, and so are the places people listen to audio books. But from the perspective of a reader in, say, the early 19th century, about the time of Jane Austen, there is something peculiar about it, even lonely.

In those days, literate families and friends read aloud to each other as a matter of habit. Books were still relatively scarce and expensive, and the routine electronic diversions we take for granted were, of course, nonexistent. If you had grown up listening to adults reading to each other regularly, the thought of all of those solitary 21st-century individuals hearkening to earbuds and car radios would seem isolating. It would also seem as though they were being trained only to listen to books and not to read aloud from them.

It’s part of a pattern. Instead of making music at home, we listen to recordings of professional musicians. When people talk about the books they’ve heard, they’re often talking about the quality of the readers, who are usually professional. The way we listen to books has been de-socialized, stripped of context, which has the solitary virtue of being extremely convenient.

But listening aloud, valuable as it is, isn’t the same as reading aloud. Both require a great deal of attention. Both are good ways to learn something important about the rhythms of language. But one of the most basic tests of comprehension is to ask someone to read aloud from a book. It reveals far more than whether the reader understands the words. It reveals how far into the words — and the pattern of the words — the reader really sees.

Reading aloud recaptures the physicality of words. To read with your lungs and diaphragm, with your tongue and lips, is very different than reading with your eyes alone. The language becomes a part of the body, which is why there is always a curious tenderness, almost an erotic quality, in those 18th- and 19th-century literary scenes where a book is being read aloud in mixed company. The words are not mere words. They are the breath and mind, perhaps even the soul, of the person who is reading.

No one understood this better than Jane Austen. One of the late turning points in “Mansfield Park” comes when Henry Crawford picks up a volume of Shakespeare, “which had the air of being very recently closed,” and begins to read aloud to the young Bertrams and their cousin, Fanny Price. Fanny discovers in Crawford’s reading “a variety of excellence beyond what she had ever met with.” And yet his ability to do every part “with equal beauty” is a clear sign to us, if not entirely to Fanny, of his superficiality.

I read aloud to my writing students, and when students read aloud to me I notice something odd. They are smart and literate, and most of them had parents who read to them as children. But when students read aloud at first, I notice that they are trying to read the meaning of the words. If the work is their own, they are usually trying to read the intention of the writer.

It’s as though they’re reading what the words represent rather than the words themselves. What gets lost is the inner voice of the prose, the life of the language. This is reflected in their writing, too, at first.

In one realm — poetry — reading aloud has never really died out. Take Robert Pinsky’s new book, “Essential Pleasures: A New Anthology of Poems to Read Aloud.” But I suspect there is no going back. You can easily make the argument that reading silently is an economic artifact, a sign of a new prosperity beginning in the early 19th century and a new cheapness in books. The same argument applies to listening to books on your iPhone. But what I would suggest is that our idea of reading is incomplete, impoverished, unless we are also taking the time to read aloud.

Horse Ride, Birthday, Enrichment and Visitors

Two weeks have passed since I wrote, so I need to do a little catch up on what has been happening in our household and in my life.

In my work capacities, it has been a very busy time. This time of year is when the Career Center staff must qualify students who anticipate taking Concurrent Enrollment classes next year. Students who want to take Math 1010, and/or 1050 and/or 1060 and those who want to take English 1010 from Salt Lake Community College must take a College Placement Test (CPT). In order to take the CPT they must be a registered student at Salt Lake Community College. So my colleagues and I have been calling students to the Career Center and giving them instructions on how to register on line and we (actually only I have been doing this part) have been creating a spread sheet with all the pertinent information on it so that we can call students who have Math or English this trimester out of class, and which class, and create assignments for those who will come and test one of three days after school. It has been a long and labored process, and now that I have distributed the assignments to the teachers who will excuse their students out of class to come and test, more students have come in with their completed registrations and so my lists are now inaccurate, hmmm. Testing is what I will be doing Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this coming week: Testing students each period during the day, and after school – an untimed test that may keep me at school until 5:00 p.m. And then I will have to organize the lists so that we will know how many sections of each of the classes we will need to build for next year. Enough of that.

Fortunately my life is made up of other things besides CPT Testing, thank goodness. On March 28, and now that seems like a long time ago, I went with Paul on a day ride with the Back Country Horsemen. We met at mile marker 10 out in the West Desert beyond Cedar Fort, and rode for about 2½ hours to an abandoned cabin in the foothills above the desert floor. We could see part of the Tooele Army Depot or (something like that) from the foothills. In comparison with the ride Paul went on last month, it was much better, there were no “terribly inexperienced” and no “misbehaving” horses and so there were no unplanned rodeos. I am probably the most inexperienced rider among the group, but Indy is the perfect horse for me, he is smart and experienced and accommodating to an “inexperienced” rider like me. When we got to the cabin everyone dismounts and has lunch and visits and then we ride back to the trailers. We got back at about three o’clock and then had to drive back to SLC and drop off the horses and then return home. It is really a full day. We left at about 7:30 in the morning.

Sunday March 29th was Paul’s birthday. Since no children are living at 8786 Oak Valley with us at the moment, there was no one but me to wish Paul a Happy Birthday!, but we had a nice breakfast and went to church. Paul got calls from his siblings and mother and we had a festive occasion at Grannie and Granddad’s on Sunday evening. Mom had organized the regular “birthday” dinner for those celebrating March birthdays, and in addition to the Salt Lake, Utah County contingent, Ben Dailey (recent from his mission) was coming from Rexburg to join the group and reconnect with “Gates” relatives. Because he was coming, Erika joined him. Peter came from Provo, (Philip and Camille were to join us as well, but Philip fell ill on Sunday and they didn’t make it.)So Paul had a nice group of family members to wish him a Happy Birthday. I made birthday cakes to take to the dinner, and Mom served an Italian Dinner with Lasagna, green salad and garlic bread. It was such a large group this time—Grannie and Granddad, Stephen and Steve, Paul and I, Peter and Erika, Emily, Laura, Jon, Gabrielle, and Ben, Merrick, Philip and Landen, and Ted Bushman—that we were divided between two tables. Those born before 1980 were in the kitchen at the kitchen table and those born after 1980 were in the dining room. The “older adults” had a nice visit in the kitchen, while the “young adults” seemed to be enjoying themselves in the dining room. After dinner we all came in the living room where we sang “Happy Birthday”, played by Granddad in F# major complete with glissandos, twice to commemorate both Paul’s and Steve’s birthdays, followed by some gift opening. After some visiting some of the family members departed and Erika, Ben and Peter were left. After some more visiting they left. Erika and Ben had driven nearly four hours to be at dinner for about 2¼ hours and then left to drive home nearly another four hours. It was lovely to have them as part of the events. We gave Erika instructions to call us when she arrived in Rexburg, which she did sometime around 1:00 a.m.

On Tuesday, March 31, I was one of the participants in our Enrichment Evening and annual Relief Society Birthday Party. The Enrichment Leader had organized a “Relief Society Around the World” event. Sisters who had experience with the Relief Society Organization in countries other than the United States were invited to give a five minute presentation about one or more of their experiences. They were also asked to provide a centerpiece on a table for the evening. This meeting was to include dinner and so the organizers had set up eight round tables, each one assigned to one of the participants. Some of the sisters were like me and had lived abroad as adults, others had served missions in foreign countries, and others had ties of one kind or another. The countries represented were: Germany, Belgium/France (that was me), Holland, Saudi Arabia, Peru, Chile, The Philippians, and Micronesia. I told two anecdotes about my experiences in Belgium. The first was about my first homemaking meeting in Belgium, where I learned about spoons. In Europe generally, there are two sizes of spoons, huge and tiny. There are “coffee” spoons, short handled and tiny bowled, designed to stir hot drinks, but not to eat with and “tablespoons” usually bigger than our American soupspoons. I told about how the first meeting, where they were serving macaroni and cheese, I sat my two boys, ages six and three at a table where they were expected to eat with what I thought of as serving spoons. It was a cultural difference, to be sure, and the sisters produced some coffee spoons for the children, but I sat in amazement as I watched refined European sisters eating with huge spoons. Since then I have purchased my own set of silverware from Europe and we have coffee spoons and tablespoons and when friends of my children eat with us, they always comment on what big spoons we have. The other story I told was about the celebration our Liege Ward held in commemoration of the 150 years of Relief Society in 1992. The sister who was president of our Relief Society at the time wanted a deluxe cake decorated in blue and gold for the occasion. She purchased food coloring from England and asked me to come early to help her decorate the cake. I knew that blue food coloring was going to make an obnoxious color dark or light, but she insisted on dark and the bilious blue that was produced was hardly appetizing, but decorating I did, and at the end of the luncheon there were piles of blue frosting on each plate. Some things just don’t work in other cultures. Blue frosting was apparently one of them.

This week produced the delight of having Liza in town from Monday night to Friday morning, and so I got to have a little slice of time with her. We met for lunch on Wednesday and then I went over to Grannie and Granddad’s on Thursday night to visit as well. We had lunch at Paradise Bakery and a nice chat that seemed too short, and so off I went on Thursday evening. Paul and I had planned to go to the cabin for the weekend, and after I arrived at Grannie and Granddad’s house, Paul called from our house saying that there was a huge puddle of something on the floor of the garage where the car had been and that he was coming to get me when I was ready to come home and we were going to take the car directly to the dealership. So I visited with Liza and Grannie and Granddad for a while, we talked about the upcoming Family Reunion among other things and about AP English, and then Paul came and off we went.

With the difficulties with the car and the unsettled weather, we decided to stay home for Conference weekend, and we have watched the sessions in the comfort of our home. Paul went down to Provo on Saturday night, picked up Philip in Eagle Mountain and then met up with Peter at the Marriott Center. He had a nice visit with the boys and I stayed at home and finished up the ironing. We will be going up to the cabin next weekend, probably leaving on Thursday afternoon and coming home on Saturday. We will be bringing Erika home with us. She finishes up school on the 9th and the 10th is her last day of work. She wants to be back home on Saturday evening so that she can see Peter in Humor-U down in Provo. It will be a busy weekend.

Books, Laughs, Quilts and the Carriage House

This week on Thursday night was the monthly meeting of Bookworms. We read Bel Canto by Ann Patchett. I had actually read this about two years ago, for my other book club, Bibliobabes, and found it an interesting read then, but think we had an even better discussion this time. I was impressed with how adeptly the author introduced a huge number of characters that were all meticulously drawn, and that in spite of all the characters, there was no confusion or trying to keep them straight. One of the members brought some information that she had unearthed about the motivation for writing this book, providing extra insight and we discussed many of the elements of this book in minute detail. I had a very fulfilling evening. I am now reading Year of Wonders which is the Bibliobabes book for May, while listening to Ursula Hegi's Stones in the River. I also want to squeeze in The Last Lecture in the near future.

Friday, Paul and I headed down to Provo to see Peter perform in Humor-U. There were eleven comedians on the program which was in the Varsity Theater. Peter arranged for us to pick up tickets at will-call, so we didn't see him when we arrived, but got better seats this time than the last time that we attended and were sitting on the second to the last row. This time, we got seats about seven or eight rows back and in the middle. Peter was the second to the last performer in the series of comedians and so we were able to compare him to the other comics. I expect that I am partial to him for personal reasons, but I think that he is one of the best. He does a certain level of physical humor and he drew a lot of laughs. We were glad that we got to see him perform. Afterward we met up with him to visit briefly and congratulate him on his comedic success and we also saw Courtney again as she joined up with Peter when the production was over. There were two shows on Friday night and we attended the 9:30 p.m. show, which didn't get out until after 11:00, so we didn't hang around too long, but returned home because we are getting to be the kind of people who don't stay out all night anymore.

I finally finished up the quilt that has been languishing for a year waiting for me to complete the hand quilting part of it. This one is for Philip and has T-shirts and sweatshirts from his college days and from when he worked at the Utah Republican Party (his "part-time/full-time job during some of the time that he was attending college.) I have had it sitting in a corner waiting to be finished since last April, and I will hand it off to Philip this coming weekend. It is nice to have another project completed.

Speaking of completed projects, every day this week, Paul has been working on the Carriage House. He began work on this project last fall. We picked up the first load of lumber at a sawmill in Idaho when we made a trip to the cabin in August. We picked up some more lumber when we took Erika to BYU-Idaho. Since then there have been additions to the project purchased at the local Home Depot.

When you look at this impressive and large building it is quite remarkable to consider that Paul has done this project practically single-handedly and without the use of any fancy equipment. He had plans to get the sides up and the roof on before the first snow. He actually got more than he hoped for during the autumn, including hanging the windows and making an alcove on the back wall, but it just had plywood nailed on the openings rather than real doors during the winter. This last week he began working on the doors, one at a time until all four were completed. He got them hung this weekend, and we are really happy with them and very impressed with the look of the building. I include two pictures of the Carriage House in its various stages of completion, (during the framing process and as it looked at the beginning of the winter)
to indicate what a huge undertaking this has been and all the work that Paul has done. While there are still details to finish up, hanging the doors was a big step toward total completion. We have all the vehicles installed on the inside and Paul has moved the tack and horse equipment to this new location.

Entertaining: Dining In

Another week has passed and I am once again writing a few words about what has been going on. It has been a week of company dinners at the Kern household. During the last seven days we have hosted three of them.

The first dinner I put on, was a pre-theatre dinner. As it turned out, between gifts and purchases, there were three sets of tickets to the Hale Center Theatre. I bought the first set of tickets for Paul and I at the Silent Auction during the Back Country Horsemen Christmas Party. Later I decided to buy another set of tickets, this time for Grannie and Granddad as a Christmas present. I called the theatre and asked to get seats next to the ones that I had already purchased at the auction. They had tickets right next to the ones I already had so I was quite happy about that and I thought that it would make a fun double date, Grannie and Granddad and Paul and I. Then much to my delight and surprise, Philip, K.C., Peter and Erika gave me a set of season tickets to the Hale Center theatre this Christmas, so of course I had another set of tickets to that show as well as the other shows in the season. Since Peter was responsible for masterminding the purchase of the tickets and getting everyone else on board, he seemed the most likely to invite to use the third set of tickets, and since there were two, he could bring a date. The night of this illustrious event was March 10, and I invited all concerned to our house for a dinner before the theatre. We went to see PHANTOM! –The New American Musical, not to be confused with Andrew Lloyd Weber’s Phantom of the Opera, even though both were based on the same original novel. This one is also a musical, although I would have to say quite different and much more sympathetic to the Phantom, and darker. Before all that though, we had fun time with dinner. I roasted a pork loin with potatoes and mixed spring vegetables, Caesar salad and spice cake with cinnamon apple slices on top. I served dinner in the dining room with our Dansk dishes, it wasn’t too fancy. We had to hustle like crazy to get to the play on time. When I ordered the third set of tickets I couldn’t get them in exactly the same place as us, Peter and his date Courtney were down a row from us and a couple of seats over. It all worked out just fine.

The second dinner that we hosted was a family event, too. We had Philip and Camille to our house to celebrate Philip’s 28th birthday. Camille and I had been trying to work out a time that fit both of our schedules. She invited us to come to their home on Friday night. (She had to work on Saturday, and we had another engagement so the actual day of Philip’s birthday wasn’t a possibility for either of us.) We didn’t think Friday would work because Paul was giving a presentation on preparing and packing a bedroll at the Salt Lake County Horse Expo on Friday evening at 6:00p.m. And by the time he finished and then we got to Eagle Mountain the dinner hour would have passed and gone. I suggested Monday but that is their anniversary and we didn’t want to infringe on that celebration. Tuesday was suggested by Camille, but Paul and I have to participate in a Stake activity in anticipation of the Trek this summer. So then we went back to Friday. Camille suggested that we meet at a restaurant, but Paul and I thought that home would be fine too, so it was settled. Philip and Camille arrived at about 7:30 and Paul got home shortly after that and we had a deluxe meal of grilled ham and cheese sandwiches, apple slices and Caesar salad. (And why not use the Romaine lettuce left from the salad made on Tuesday?) and I baked a chocolate cake and frosted it with Cream Cheese Frosting. We sang Happy Birthday and opened presents—I got him a new pair of jeans and polo shirt from Old Navy—and had a “celebration”. It was fun to see them and have them for a visit. It is hard to imagine that Philip is now 28 years old.

Saturday night was our third company dinner of the week. This time Paul and I were hosting the dinner section of the Ward Progressive Dinner. We had three couples coming to our home, one couple was bringing the salad, one couple was bringing the green bean casserole and the food committee was bringing a chicken dish and rice. I was to provide the place settings and rolls and butter for the guests. That was a pretty easy call for me. I did make homemade rolls and whipped up some honey butter to go on them. They were some of my better rolls this time. The chicken dish turned out to be chicken breasts with a sun-dried tomato and mushroom sauce and was very tasty. I set the table with the gold edged blue and white dishes from Romania, and used the gold plate silverware to match. We had a fun visit with our guests, much laughter and light exchanges. I always enjoy these events and I was glad to have the opportunity to be a hostess. We served again in the dining room, and I threw together a centerpiece from bits and pieces that looked quite impressive. After our home the guests all gathered at another ward member’s home for desserts—the third couple who came to our house was supposed to take a dessert to that home. Paul and I didn’t go on to the dessert home. Erika was home for the weekend and we visited with her for a little while before Paul and I retired and she went out with local friends.

I don’t have any plans for the next company dinner, but was happy to have a full week of entertaining.

The End of February; the Beginning of March

I used to sit down every Sunday and write a letter to Peter detailing the events of the family and family members over the past week and giving my opinions about the state of the world, nation, state and city. I haven’t done much of that lately. Things are still happening, and I suppose that I still have opinions, but I don’t feel as pressed and another week passes and I haven’t updated my blog. My sister-in-law told me before I even started to blog, that blogspot has a feature that after a year or whatever other period you want to define, you can print out all the things that you have put on your blog into a book. I think that is a great idea to preserve all of this in hard copy, but, of course, if you don’t write anything you don’t have anything to save, so here is the recap of another stretch of time.

On February 24, 2009, our new president Obama spoke to the joint branches of the legislature. I am continually amazed at what a charismatic and dynamic fellow he is, but I couldn’t quite make out what he was thinking. He spoke of many admirable ways that he was going to fix the economy, what programs he was going to develop, fund, create, etc. and how he was NOT going to raise taxes—it was a wonderful speech, but I am still wondering how he will do it. –and now it is two weeks later and all we have seen happen is that the stock market continues to bottom out. Every day I think it won’t drop further than this, but in fact it does. It sits at the lowest it has been in twelve years. Hmmm. Anyway…

Paul continues his recovery from his surgery and the adjustment to having a stent in his back. It is still a journey. He is feeling well. He goes to work every day, and is resuming all the things that he normally does. On Saturday, the 28^th he went on a Back Country Horsemen Trail Ride to Puddle Valley. I have been on this particular ride twice and didn’t go on this trip, but Paul left early and didn’t come home until the late afternoon. He was tired, but not in any particular pain and had a good time, in spite of some of the “stupid” riders who were there. (One lady was such a poor rider and afraid of her horse that she got off and walked part of the way, falling way behind. Finally someone gave her another “less scary” mount and she got bucked off of that horse. Both situations ended up with a loose horse. She’ll probably never come on another ride.)

I didn’t go on the ride because Saturday was the Stake Education Day. I had signed up to work in the kitchen—there was a light breakfast served and then a keynote speaker followed by a choice of four breakout sessions. Each ward was asked to provide one sister who would help with ferrying food out to the cultural hall and various levels of preparation within the kitchen. I volunteered to do that since nobody usually signs up for that job. After I finished in the kitchen, I passed out programs in the chapel in preparation for the keynote speaker meeting to begin.

I remember wondering when I was a young married about older women thinking that there wasn’t that much that directly pertained to them anymore. I had for the first time that feeling in this Education Day. The theme was about teaching children, and teens about reasons to stay morally clean. And the breakout sessions were teaching your children about child abuse, preparing boys to serve missions, talking to your teens and understanding young adults. I went to the break out session on understanding young adults, but it missed my mark. The keynote speaker was interesting and well spoken, but I felt like I was hearing stuff I didn’t need to hear. You were supposed to go to two breakout sessions, but after the first one, I left and went home. I was disgruntled or unhappy, but I had other things to do at home, and I had been there an hour early to help in the kitchen and I was just ready to go home. I wasn’t sorry that I went, and I thought it was a lovely event, but I can understand what older women are thinking now, when they feel that things don’t pertain to them as much as they age.

It was a good job I came home early anyway, because shortly after I got home Erika called. She and her roommates were thinking about a quick trip down to SLC/Provo to “hang out” with some other friends who were already in SLC/Provo for the weekend. They were going to leave Rexburg at about 3:00, then spend the evening in our area and then go back to Rexburg on Sunday morning. I moved into my white tornado mode, changed the sheets in K.C.’s room, they hadn’t been changed since K.C. was home for Christmas. But Erika’s bed already had clean sheets. I spotted the old dog pee spots in K.C.’s room and vacuumed and dusted and generally got the house in order. When Paul got home from his horse ride we made a trip to Home Depot for the final additions to the bathroom that Paul has been working on since Christmas, the fixtures, towel rack, hook, toilet paper holder, new door knob etc.—and I stopped in at Albertson’s and picked up a few items for dinner for the girls when they got here. We hurried home and I set the table and started the cheese and broccoli soup, when the girls arrived. They dumped their junk upstairs, and old friends of Erika’s from Brighton stopped in for an hello!. Then the boys that they were going to hang out with arrived and stayed for a few more minutes and then the whole house emptied.

While they were gone for the evening, I jumped on the computer downstairs and did Erika’s federal and state tax return, copied the documents that needed copies, prepared the envelopes, and got everything ready for her to sign. Then on Sunday morning before breakfast, I was able to have her sign the two returns and put them in the envelopes and closed them for mailing. (I mailed them on Monday, they are gone and off my list of things to do.) It was fun to have Erika here for even the tiny time that she was here. I enjoy her very much and it was nice to meet her roommates and have a table with every seat filled again.

Sunday, after church meetings, I began scanning another of the ‘Kern’ family scrapbooks. When Paul’s dad passed away we got a storage box with about 12-13 scrapbooks in it. Some of them were papers and documents and these I think were originally organized and put in binders by Paul’s mom. Others were just scrapbooks with photographs and stuff like that. Jared Kern (Richard’s son) asked about them recently and wanted to scan some pictures, so that was the incentive to begin scanning them and to post them on the internet so all family members would have access to them. I have been working away on this project for the last couple of weeks, spending a couple of days each week working on them. It takes a long time to scan documents. Some I make into jpgs, and some into PDF files. Either way, the new scanner/printer/copier that we just bought works wonderfully. I finished this week the letters (that remain) that Paul’s grandfather, Alfred, sent when he was serving in World War I. I am now working on the letters that Reese Kern sent to his parents during his early marriage, from World War II and Korean War. It is not a comprehensive set, but a selection of his experiences. These are really treasures and I am glad to be preserving them.

On Sunday evening, I attended a meeting at the Stake Center about a celebration that is being organized for the youth of this area to commemorate the dedication and opening of the Draper Temple. It will be in the conference center on May 29. It will be a singing and dancing extravaganza. Different combinations of stakes will be doing different numbers—each with something to do with the history of Draper, ethnic groups that are in the area, events that happened in the past or present etc. Our stake is part of three stakes that is doing a number about an early in the century baseball team that included general authorities of one kind or another. I want Erika to be involved in this celebration, who knows when there will be another opportunity; the last one was when the Salt Lake Temple was dedicated. They didn’t do one for the opening of the Jordan River Temple and who knows when they will build another temple in the Salt Lake Valley and we won’t have any youth from our family ever again, sooo—I got permission from Teresa Curtis, our stake chairwoman, for her to participate and I volunteered to be a helping person, so that I can participate and attend as well. This might be a fun thing to be involved with anyway.

Working on the family documents on Paul’s side of the family and getting them posted up on our personal family history website has kicked me into motion again on the Gates side of the family history. On Monday, I went downtown to the Family History Library to see if I could get some pictures that I wanted to attach to some family histories that I have been compiling. I have been working on the Gilbert Marion Gates line at the present time, and I was trying to get some pictures from a book that I remember looking at years ago in the library called Devoted Empire Builders. It had pictures of Wellington F. Gates and Emma Forsberry in it. I turned out that the book wasn’t a book but a poorly resolved microfilm of the book. By the time I scanned it, and then brought it home and then looked at the pictures, they didn’t look like faces at all, but grey scale pictures of bowls of rice pudding. Sad. But the day wasn’t a total loss. I came across a book that I had tried to find ten years ago, entitled Hardy and Hardie Past and Present. I was able to get a lot of good information of the Augustus Hardy Line from that book and I was happy about it. I scanned all the pages that I needed to and felt that it was a productive use of my time to find it. It made me want to go and spend time in the library again and I will probably have to when I move to other branches of the family.

Monday evening I was a volunteer at the Draper Temple Open House. Paul and I were supposed to work together on that evening, but Paul ended up having to go to a follow-up appointment regarding his surgery, so he didn’t go. I worked in the foyers of the Stake Center, seeing people who had just come out of the temple—on their way to eat cookies. It was the second time that I have been a volunteer and I am happy that I got to be a part of this experience.

Wednesday night this week was Bibliobabes at Marina Collins’ home. I always have a fun time visiting with these women. The book this time was My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult. This book posed some interesting moral questions and there was quite a bit to talk about, but generally speaking the group didn’t care much for this book. I don’t think it was the debate and ethics that people objected to, it was just kind of shallow writing. It is hard to follow Jude the Obscure and The Story of Edward Sawtell. Anyway, I think Marina felt bad that people didn’t like her book as well as some, but nevertheless there was some lively conversation about this book and the subject. It was generally a medically themed novel about a girl who wants to declare medical emancipation from her sister, who needs to have a kidney transplant and for whom she is a perfect donor match. There are a whole series of subplots as well. Next month it is The Gernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I have begun it and am already enjoying it. Mostly I enjoy being with clever and smart women from a variety of situations and educational backgrounds and ages that have a lot to say and who aren’t afraid to say it. My life is richer because I belong to a book club. (Two actually.)

This week the Productions Class at Brighton High School put on their competition piece as theatre in the evenings this week. I had visited with Phaidra Atkinson, the drama coach and teacher, about this play earlier this month and was curious about it. It is a light piece with lots of physical comedy in it and I was curious about it. The play is called The Rules of Comedy. Paul wasn’t particularly interested in attending so I went on Friday night by myself. It is a competition piece so it is only forty minutes long, and so I was home by 8:30p.m. It was an interesting and entertaining experience, and I always like to see what high school kids manage to pull together. I did have quite a few laughs.

Saturday night Paul and I went on a “date”. Paul had missed his chance to see the Draper Temple as part of the volunteer staff, which I had twice and wanted a chance to see the temple and so we went to the Open House. Because of the demand and the parking available at the temple, visitors began at one of four chapels and then were bused up to the temple for the tour. Visitors were shown a short DVD about the history of Draper and the purposes of the temple, and then shuttled onto buses for the six-minute ride to the temple where a docent on the bus gave another informational chat. The temple is really very beautiful. This temple has two stage endowment rooms, which are quite small and intimate, the first room of the endowment session has beautiful murals all around, one with mountain scenes and the other with fall trees and foliage. Both are very intricately painted and magnificent. The Celestial Room is also relatively small, but is four stories high with a fabulous chandelier, which hangs from a copula in the ceiling. There was a mob scene at the temple with literally thousands of people. We were in line about a half an hour before getting into the temple. Many people want to share in the experience of a new temple. It was a nice way to end the week, and a great preparation for the Sabbath.

February Happenings

It has been an eventful couple of weeks. There have been a lot of things going on, and Paul and I have had a number of experiences both separately and together.




Since the Christmas vacation, Paul has been remodeling the upstairs master bathroom. Our bathroom includes a separate room that has a toilet and shower/tub in it. This is the room that he has been working on. The tub had a fiberglass shell surrounding it on three sides and that was removed, the carpeting on the floor was removed and the floor and all the walls were replaced with a beige travertine style tile, with interest detailing in a layer just under the ceiling and about 18 inches lower again. The detailing was in a terra cotta color and is very attractive. Paul also made a little niche (alcove) in the wall across from the tub, which is just lovely. He worked on it almost every night for nearly a month. He finished up the last pieces of tile and did the grouting the first week in February, and then I spent one whole Saturday working on a final cleaning thoroughly washing down the walls and the niche and cleaning off all the excess grout and bits of glue and plaster. Then I put grout and tile sealing on the whole room and we have begun using it again. It is really nice and we are both really pleased with the way that it turned out. Paul did a really wonderful job. He also replaced all the fixtures in the tub so we have a new spout, water valve, handles and shower head. They are in polished nickel and we also have a new shower rod to match. Paul also put a little corner shelf in the tub wall and also a built in soap dish, so it is a very deluxe place. This has added value to the house and it is very pleasant to use. I have been enjoying it very much.
Paul finished up his work in the bathroom during the same period of time that he was trying to figure out why he had persistent and escalating pain in the left side of his back. The pain although intermittent for a number of years moved to a new level during the summer. Paul was continuously awakened during the night with pain severe enough to keep him awake the rest of night. He finally went to the doctor who recommended that he try a softer mattress to see if that was the cause, since nothing else seemed to be indicated. But when that didn’t work, he went in for a CT Scan. The technician who was reading his results diagnosed him with Nutcracker Syndrome. When his doctor received this news, she didn’t even know what is was—it is rare and almost never discovered in isolation, usually in conjunction with some other difficulty. Here is a little information about it. In medicine, the nutcracker syndrome—also known as nutcracker phenomenon, renal vein entrapment syndrome, or mesoaortic compression of the left renal vein—is a compression of the left renal vein between the abdominal aorta (AA) and superior mesenteric artery (SMA). The popular name “nutcracker syndrome” derives from the fact that from one view, the SMA and AA (with some imagination) appear to be a nutcracker crushing a nut (the renal vein).
On February 13, he went to the University of Utah Medical Center where he underwent outpatient surgery to correct this difficulty. The doctor inserted a three inch metal stent into his renal vein to keep it from collapsing when pinched by the two arteries and to increase the blood flow that had been constricted. The surgery was considered a success. While Paul is not 100% yet, he is feeling better. He did not have invasive surgery, they made a small incision in his groin and did the surgery laproscopically. It is pretty amazing. The surgery took about an hour and he was in recovery for two hours and then discharged. He will see the doctor again on the 2nd of March.
Paul felt well enough on Sunday evening to join with me and many family members for a birthday dinner at Grannie and Granddad’s house. It was celebrating the birthday of Emily Dailey. It was one of the most attended dinners in recent memory with Stephen, Steve, Paul and I, Philip (Camille was working), Peter, Emily, Laura, Jon and Gabriel, Merrick and Philip along with Grannie and Granddad.
We had a really great dinner, Hawaiian Haystacks and a tasty meringue and fresh raspberry dessert. After dinner we sang Happy Birthday to Emily and then we went around the group telling something happy from our life at the moment. It was nice to hear the good in everyone’s life.
On Valentine’s Day, Mom called me and asked me if I would like to attend the Utah Symphony that evening. She and Dad had tickets, but Dad had a cold and Paul was still not up to an evening activity following his surgery, but the two ladies were available so off to the Symphony we went. The guests that night were the King’s Singers. I was exposed to them before I was married and I have always enjoyed them. I have seen them perform quite recently. They were here two years ago as the visiting artists for the Church’s Christmas Concert and they were also here during the Olympics and I saw them in concert both times. They are delightful performers and charming men and they sing so wonderfully that it is always a pleasure to be at one of their concerts. I enjoyed it very much.
Paul and I have made a wonderful new purchase this month. My printer had given out before Christmas, but I hadn’t gotten around to replacing it, and we finally did that with a combination printer, scanner, copier and fax machine. With this new machine we began scanning scrapbooks that Paul had been given responsibility for after his father passed away. We wanted to make the pictures and documents available to family members so I have been scanning and we have been identify the pictures and Paul has been loading them onto a website that he is filling with family documents and pictures. It will be something really wonderful when it is completed. In the meantime we have put five albums up on the site so far. It has been a good activity to keep us busy during Paul’s convalescence.

Target

     It has been a day over a week since Paul and I took Target to South Valley Large Animal Clinic to have him put down.  I can't think of how many times I have cried over this during the last week.  I have cried alone and I have cried along with Paul.  It was a very sad thing.

     We started out to have a fun day sleigh riding in Park City with Bruce Kartchner and his two grandsons, and we ended up barreling down the canyon with Target in the trailer trying to get to the vet as quickly as possible.  In a freak and tragic accident, the sleigh overturned and then Target dragged it empty and on it side for about a quarter of a mile, and in the process damaged his rear leg/hoof beyond repair.

I have many happy memories of Target, who joined our "herd"--usually two or three horses, as an unbroken 18 month old, and turned out to be a fine riding horse.  I haven't been out riding nearly as often as Paul or even Erika, but most of the rides that I have been on in the last six years have included Target in one capacity or another.  In the last few years, I have usually ridden Rory while Paul has ridden Target.  We have had some eventful rides together.  And I have watched Paul train, and delight in Target.  Paul has gotten much satisfaction from working with Target these years and we are so glad that we got a chance to own him.  Our greatest regret is the lost 20 or so years that we would have had with him, without this unfortunate accident.  I pay my respects to him and all that he has been to our family.