tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19068666395087766242024-02-21T04:21:20.448-07:00Life...or a reasonable facsimile thereofUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger544125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-85339680284475636972022-08-09T22:35:00.003-06:002022-08-09T22:38:30.478-06:00In the Beginning...<P>I remember, vividly, the ride. The ambulance ride that took me to the hospital. The hospital where they saved my life. I remember the dark haired paramedic leaning over me. I remember the winding drive up the canyon road. I remember seeing the dark storm clouds, and I remember the sun breaking through the clouds. It’s almost like a…dream.<P>
<P>Actually, it was a dream.<P>
<P>It may have all happened this way, but I wouldn’t know — I was only a few hours old. But, as a young child, my mother often told me the story of the ambulance ride that I took, from LDS Hospital, in Salt Lake City, where I was born, to the hospital at the University of Utah. I heard this story so often, that, at some point, I must have recreated the events in my head, in the dreams of the night.<P>
<P>But, I’m getting ahead of myself.<P>
<P>There was nothing special about the day I was born. It was a stormy, cool Wednesday, in early October, 1972. I was born at about 1:30 in the afternoon — the most boring time of the day to be born, on the least exciting day of the week. In Utah. There was nothing auspicious about the occasion, and this is not foreshadowing. There’s no twist to the story here. I haven’t gone on to explore the stars, or cure cancer, or write the great American novel. I’m just an average human being, born on an average day, under average circumstances.<P>
<P>That’s not to say that everything went according to plan, on that rainy Wednesday. I came into the world a little damaged. I was born with a cleft palate and a cleft lip. And one big problem, which resulted in the aforementioned ambulance ride.<P>
<P>A few minutes after I was born, the doctors working on me noticed that I was the wrong color — not pink and healthy, but kind of blue. They rushed me from the room, much to the consternation of my mother. A short time later, they informed her that I was struggling to breathe, and they weren’t sure why. I was being sent to the medical center at the University of Utah where, hopefully, the doctors there could provide more extensive care. I’ve alway liked to think that they turned on the lights and sirens for that ambulance trip. In my dream they sure did.<P>
<P>Eventually, they discovered a cyst in my chest, about the size of a plum. It would fill with fluid, and collapse my lungs. As quickly as they would drain the cyst, it would fill up again. They couldn’t determine the cause so, they did what any doctor would have done — they waited and watched. For two days they drained this cyst, and watched it fill up again, and occasionally updated my parents on the situation. It was the 1970’s. Medicine was different then. Even after the exciting ambulance ride, there was still nothing that they could do for me.<P>
<P>Then, I was healed by a miracle.<P>
<P>My grandfather, and my uncle William, came to the hospital to see me, where William promptly passed out on the floor (he struggled with doctors and dentists offices). After William was revived, he and my grandpa gave me a priesthood blessing. They blessed my small body to heal.<P>
<P>The following morning, when my mom came by for her daily visit, there I was, lying naked on the table. No more wires. No more tubes. And, as it turned out, no more cyst. My mother didn’t know that last part yet, and assumed that I had died. Sometime during the overnight hours, between the hourly x-rays of my chest, the cyst disappeared. It was now late morning. No one had bothered to inform my parents.<P>
<P>The disappearance of the cyst caused no little stir and consternation among the doctors in the pediatric ward. There was no better medical explanation for the disappearance of the cyst than there was for it being there, in the first place. Two doctors, in particular, had been caring for me. One, of the same religious persuasion as my family, accepted and believed that God can and does interfere for good, in the lives of the faithful. He was satisfied. His colleague was more disturbed. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He wanted to observe me, poke me, prod me, and try to understand what had happened. My parents chose to take the miracle, and their son, and go home.<P>
<P>This might be the first time I failed to perform to expectation. It wouldn’t be the last.<P>
<P>(Still not foreshadowing. Still haven’t cured the common cold. Still haven’t been to the moon).<P>
<P>Over the next couple years, as a result of my parents being young and poor, when I was taken to the “doctor”, it was often to some kind of free clinic. The thing about free medical clinics in the 70’s was, there was apparently not a lot of vetting when it came to the “doctors” whom they employed. It seems that these doctors were earnest, though. They earnestly wanted to find something wrong with me. I guess you can’t fix something unless there is something that needs fixing. My mother was told that I had water on the brain; that I would be developmentally retarded; that I wouldn’t be able to speak properly; that I would probably not hear well; that I would struggle all of my life.<P>
<P>At 12 months, I was given a crayon, and told to draw a straight line on a piece of paper. I drew the line on the floor. The doctors looked at me like a hopeless case.<P>
<P>At eighteen months, I rode a tricycle across the floor. The doctors said I shouldn’t be able to do that, yet. They were not pleased. They were irritated. I was still not performing according to expectation.<P>
<P>(Still no foreshadowing here. I still haven’t climbed Everest. I still haven’t solved world hunger)<P>
<P>My mother never left these clinics, except she was in tears. Eventually, my grandmother — a quiet, but simplistically wise woman — told her to stop going to the free clinics. Problem solved.<P>
<P>The cleft palate resulted in a mouth full of crooked teeth, and the small hole in the roof of my mouth, that I have to this day. Thanks to that little hole, I can’t blow up balloons or play a brass instrument, as I can’t maintain air pressure in my mouth — all the air just comes out of my nose. And, once in a while, a potato chip gets lodged in there. Other than that, it’s business as usual. The cleft palate and lip (the hare lip, as my OTHER grandmother called it), were repaired, through plastic surgery, when I was about two years old. Speech therapy taught me to say my “S’s” correctly, and four years of braces took care of the crooked teeth. Mostly. Wear your retainers, kids.<P>
<P>Most of this I don’t remember. The hard parts — the ambulance ride, the surgeries — these were all before memory kicks in. But, as a young child, I was always told the stories: the way the doctors put me in a little jacket with tongue depressors in the sleeves, to keep my arms from bending, and touching the stitches on my newly fixed lip; the time in the hospital where I kept climbing out of my crib, and wandering the halls (they solved this with an old volleyball net from the basement of the hospital, tied over the top of the crib — not the most sanitary thing, but they were still smoking in hospitals back then too, what are you going to do…?); all the quacks at the free clinics, who told my mom that I would never be normal. I heard these stories, and they have stayed with me all my life. My mom never believed those things the doctors said about me, and she wanted me to know that. She wanted me to know that I was normal.<P>
<P>Normal, as it turned out, was never quite me…but, that comes later.<P>
<P>(Go ahead and consider that foreshadowing).<P>
<P>I’ve always felt challenged by those early events. I’ve wanted to prove — mostly to myself, I guess — that I wasn’t those things that the doctors told my mom that I was. I wanted the world to know that it’s first impression of me was wrong. It’s caused me to live my life with the impression that I am on borrowed time. I’ve always felt like I’m living a second chance.<P>
<P>But, of course, this will not be the part of the story where I tell you that I was put on this earth to do something grand. It won’t be where I tell you that the second chance paid off. Maybe my one big accomplishment in life was not dying at the beginning? I don’t really know, but, if that’s the case, then that’s ok.<P>
<P>I’ve had an exceptional life. An exceptionally normal life. Most of the things I have done, others have done before me, and probably better. I’ve learned things without realizing I had learned anything. Maybe that’s the way it is for all of us?<P>
<P>For better, or worse, I’ve followed the wind, like some kind of suburban gypsy. I chase passions and intuition and curiosity. Often it works out; sometimes it doesn’t. But, it’s rarely dull. I am, in the most literal sense, a whimsical person, meaning I am beset by whims. I’ve never known quite what was ahead of me, but my life, and it’s lessons, are much clearer looking back. And, in looking back, I see sign posts — billboards — some announcing what I have done, and some advertising what I have learned. And, what I have learned is probably pretty universal to what everyone else would learn from such situations. I claim no special insight. I just know what I know.<P>
<P>The path of my life has taken me over a long and winding course, through thorns and rose gardens, over a few mountain tops, down into a couple of very dark valleys, but mostly through sunny landscapes, and green meadows. At least that’s how it looks from here.<P>
<P>The stories of those earliest experiences, told to me by my mother, helped to form the core of the person that I would become — acutely aware of the things that were different about me, but determined not to be boxed in to anyone’s mold. And, I think it gave me a compassionate and empathetic nature, for which I am immensely grateful. A lot of times, that nature is the only thing that fights back the very imperfect and impetuous temper that came as an inheritance from my father. And, it doesn’t always win the fight. A good life is hopefully made up of more smiles than tears, and more love than loss, but it’s not a picture of perfection. That’s important to understand.<P>
<P>I have two brothers, but I’ve only had them one at a time. My older brother, Scott and my younger brother, Tim. Scott is, strictly speaking, my half brother, but we’ve never talked about him in those terms. Scott and I have different fathers. He came from my mom’s first marriage — an unhappy arrangement necessitated by a teenage pregnancy. None of which matters. All that matters is that I have an older brother, and after my parents were married, in 1972, my dad adopted Scott. He was no longer Scott Wells, he was Scott Thornblad. My brother.<P>
<P>My very earliest memory is of Scott.<P>
<P>It was Spring of 1975. There was a park, just down the hill from our apartment. It was a typical neighborhood park. There were swings. This was when parks still had swings — in 1975, we weren’t afraid of swings in parks. There were slides. They were the shiny, silver metal slides. They were the kind of slides that seared your legs, and lit your pants on fire, on a hot summer afternoon. And there was a big ladder made out of tires.<P>
<P>On this particular day, Scott had taken me to play at the park. I was two and he was seven.<P>
<P>The scene opens, in my mind, next to the swing set.<P>
<P>I don’t know if we were coming or going from the park, but I remember the crunch of the gravel under my feet, as I walked. This was before parks had rubber pellets, or shredded bark, on the ground. On the tire ladder there were two guys — climbing…lounging…I don’t know what they were doing. In my mind, they look like adults, but they were probably just older kids. And then, suddenly, there was a german shepherd. A VERY big german shepherd, and it was coming right at me. And then it bit me.<P>
<P>More precisely, it bit my pants.<P>
<P>Scott put himself between me and the dog. At the same moment, the two geniuses on the tire ladder started yelling down at us. They were saying that everything was okay, that the dog was nice, that he wouldn’t hurt me. As far as I can recall, they never actually came down and got the dog. I’m sure they called it off, but the damage was done. I was traumatized. For the next ten years, not only was I deathly afraid of all dogs, I was REALLY afraid of them biting my pants. True story.<P>
<P>Scott took me up the green, grassy hill, and through the gate that led to our apartment. Then the memory fades to a bright white light.<P>
<P>The memory recalls, probably, no more than five minutes of my life. But, it was five minutes of life with my older brother.<P>
<P>Scott died that summer.<P>
<P>I know what Scott looked like. He had large brown eyes, and straight brown hair. I’ve seen pictures. But, I have no memory of his face. I remember him from the waist down. That’s how tall I was, in the spring of 1975. I remember his knees and his shoes. And, I remember his left hand because it was holding tight to my right hand. That was the hand of my big brother. That was the hand that was keeping me safe. That was the strong hand that led me safely home.<P>
<P>I have no other memories of Scott. But, I will always be grateful to that german shepherd, and those two guys on the tire ladder, and for the first traumatic experience of my life, because it seared the moment into my memory. And, if you only get to have one memory of your big brother, it should be a memory of your big brother doing what a big brother is supposed to do.<P>
<P>Sometimes destiny turns on a single moment. My life’s story is filled with laughter and adventure, and a lot of smiles and hope. But, after the slightly rocky start, the rest of the story begins with a tragedy when I was two years old.<P>
<P>The course of my life was set on an early summer day, in 1975.<P>
<P>June 22, the day that my brother died.<P>
<P>Coming home from a friend’s house, Scott had been chased on his bicycle, by some older boys, and frantically rode out on to a busy street. He was hit by a car, and three days later my parents made the most heart wrenching decision imaginable, and let him pass into the next world.<P>
<P>Following Scott’s death, a settlement provided my parents with enough money to allow them to do something they had thought was out of their financial grasp — it allowed them to buy a house. They decided to build on a street called Woodchuck Way, in a new residential area of a southeastern suburb of Salt Lake City, called Sandy. In 1975, Woodchuck Way was just about the end of the earth. Major roads, like Highland Drive and Wasatch Boulevard, literally ended in Sandy. They just petered out into dirt paths.<P>
<P>In November of that year, the house at 2508 Woodchuck Way became my home. And that changed everything. Across the street was a beautiful girl, my oldest friend. Up and down the streets, new houses were going up. About every third house looked like mine. Pretty soon, these houses would fill up with dozens of kids my age, who would become my lifelong friends. Everything in that neighborhood was a blank canvas. Foothills filled with adventure in potential, as yet unexplored. Streets un-walked by school children. Memories in embryo. And, up the street, at 2350 Woodchuck Way, lived the redheaded kid who would become the best friend I ever had — Aaron Ball.<P>
<P>Thanks to our friendship, my life has been filled with friendship and adventure and wonder and laughter. Because of Aaron, I did things that I never would have done on my own. Because of Aaron, I survived the breakup of my parents’ marriage. Because of Aaron, I moved to Cedar City, when I was twenty-one, where I met my wife, Sharon, on top of a pile of Aaron’s laundry. In a very real sense, I have no idea where life would have taken me, if I had never met Aaron Ball.<P>
<P>And, if my brother had not died, I don’t know that I ever would have met Aaron. We might have moved to Sandy, eventually. We may have come close, but not to that street, and not to that house, and not to those friends. The entire direction of my life may have been different, if Scott had not ridden out onto that dangerous road, on that day, in 1975. I don’t know what all of this means, if anything. It’s certainly a silver lining to a very dark cloud. It’s one of the surest signs I’ve ever seen, for evidence of a loving God, in my life. And, it’s an interesting dichotomy. I will not — cannot — be grateful for the loss of my brother, but neither could I be more grateful than I am, for a destiny that has led me to life of love and friendship. It’s irreconcilable. But, I guess that’s life.<P>
<P>I sometimes try to boil all of this down to one word, and it’s not easy. When I do, I come up with words like lucky or fortunate or charmed or favored. But, the word that seems to best capture the way I feel about my life, is blessed. For most of my life, even through the times when I’ve felt most undeserving, it has seemed to me that there has been a guiding hand, opening windows when doors are shutting, lighting up the good paths, and contrasting them with the dark corners — all of it coming together, to write an average story about an average life, that, looking back now, just seems…blessed.<P>
<P>This is that story.<P>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-5293487089336397052014-04-30T21:41:00.002-06:002014-04-30T21:46:55.034-06:00Epilogue: How to end a storyIt's been many years since I lived in Sandy.<br />
<br />
I've lived away from Woodchuck Way longer than I lived on that street, and still it has more power than any place I've ever been, to pull me back.<br />
<br />
It's barely recognizable to me anymore. The homes are older. The trees are taller. Even the shape of the streets themselves seem different. Only memories remain.<br />
<br />
Places change, memories last.<br />
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And, I have to figure out how to end my story.<br />
<br />
The story I've tried to tell, is the story of how my life has been shaped. It was formed, in no small part, by my childhood home. It was a magical place and time, and I don't use that word lightly. When I think about the streets I walked, and the friends I knew, and the adventures and experiences we shared, it feels deliberate. It feels like it was meant to be. It feels like it was written somewhere -- maybe in the stars.<br />
<br />
It feels like magic.<br />
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And the most magical thing of all was finding a match and a compliment, to my own soul.<br />
<br />
There are best friends, and then there are best friends. It's a hard relationship to explain to someone who has not experienced it. Aaron Ball changed my life. He shaped my life. He's not my neighbor. He's not just my friend. He's not my brother.<br />
<br />
Those are inadequate terms.<br />
<br />
Best friend is the best we've come up with, but it doesn't scratch the surface.<br />
<br />
It's not enough to say I'd give my life for Aaron. If I get wherever we're going after this life before he does, I'll be saving his place in line, and he'll cross that threshold first. That's the way it should be. I owe him that.<br />
<br />
The story of my friendship with Aaron will never end.<br />
<br />
But, when you write a story, there has to be an ending...<br />
<br />
Are we like Butch and Sundance, going out in a blaze of glory?<br />
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Are we Han Solo and Luke Skywalker, receiving accolades and applause?<br />
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Or, does this story end like the end of a Peanuts Special -- with Aaron and I standing at a brick wall, reflecting on what we have experienced, and what we have learned?<br />
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Or is it like Pooh and Christopher Robin, reticent to to leave, pledging our unending loyalty to one other?<br />
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<br />
Actually, there is a perfect ending.<br />
<br />
It's Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.<br />
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White washing the fence. Or chasing pirates on far away islands. Or lazily dangling feet off of a raft, in a cool river, on a lazy summer afternoon. Pledging blood brotherhood. It's mischief without the mayhem. It's never ending loyalty. It's forever looking at horizons, and dreaming of the next adventure. <br />
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Tom and Huck, barefoot on a dusty backroad...the sun shining bright...the sky deep blue...walking toward the future, and never quite stepping out of the past.<br />
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<br />
Leaving one story behind, just in time to start writing the next one.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-15405244481533788432014-04-29T22:45:00.000-06:002015-03-13T23:52:56.537-06:00Conclusion: GhostsI'm surrounded by ghosts.<br />
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They crowd around me as I write, and whisper about all the things I've forgotten.<br />
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<div>
When I go back to Sandy, they appear to me, and they follow me. The streets fill with children I once knew. I see them as they would appear on a summer morning -- in cut off jeans, striped socks and tennis shoes. I can taste the acrid puff of smoke, from a cap gun. I can smell the pungent odor of a new rubber bike tire. I see a phantom apparition of the street I grew up on -- Woodchuck Way. The trees on our block in this vision are young. The yards of the houses are not fenced. I can feel the warmth of the sun on my face and arms, and the mountain breeze blows out of the canyon, and through my hair. </div>
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I can hear the clink of empty glass soda bottles in garages, and smell that faintly dusty smell of an unfinished basement. All the colors are different. They are sun bleached, and faded. And they are colors we don't use anymore...rust and goldenrod and brown. I don't see any parents. I know they're there, but I don't see them. They're behind the doors and windows, doing things that grown ups do -- worrying, sacrificing, paying...and forgetting about us...</div>
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I can taste the light, empty flavor of Wonder Bread and Oscar Mayer Bologna and Kraft Singles and the tangy zip of Miracle Whip. I breathe in the powder of unmixed Tang -- I drank a lot of Tang, because astronauts drank Tang.<br />
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I can smell the very distinct vinyl smell of a newly opened Star Wars action figure.<br />
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Other times the ghosts are walking our long streets, on a dusky October evening. The western sky fades away, as the darkness in the east is pulled across the sky, like a blanket of clouds and stars. The last of the fallen leaves are kicked up by an autumn breeze. Skeletons and pumpkins and goblins stare down from the windows of the houses, with red eyes, on the hundreds of children letting screen doors slam shut behind them, on the way to the greatest trick-or-treating neighborhood of all time.<br />
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The ghosts fade in and out. Some are holding on to the bumpers of cars, as they slide down the street, on a slushy, snowy day. Others are walking to school, endlessly walking to school, day after day, in their own tribes. I see the apparitions of Cub Scouts and Brownies.<br />
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Houses disappear, and fields upon fields of sage brush and scrub oak grow in their place like the world is spinning in reverse. Kids on plastic wheeled roller skates, whir by on the sidewalk, and boys with dirt bikes jump the curbs. There is still a large boulder near the canyon, painted like an American flag. I can smell the briny odor of the Great Salt Lake, on the edge of a summer thunderstorm. I can feel green shag carpet between my toes. I can smell the tar from a repaved street.<br />
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I see girls and boys playing together. Games in the street. Hide and seek in the backyards. Kissing tag. Kick ball. I can hear the click, click, click of a plastic jump rope, hitting the schoolyard blacktop. I can hear the crunch of gravel, as pretty girls do cherry drops off of the monkey bars. I can feel the wind in my face, and strain of pumping my legs to go higher and higher, in the playground swings. Back when we weren't afraid of playground swings.<br />
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Sometimes the apparitions are somber. Images of families that moved away. Families that didn't stay together. Friends that left our neighborhood and our lives too soon, some for inexplicably sad reasons. The memories are bittersweet, but the faces of these friends are youthful, and smiling -- the way they want us to remember them. </div>
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The scene I see from above, is a constellation of homes, shining brightly. They are the houses that I knew from floor to ceiling. They are the houses where friends lived. The brightest star is the one at the end of Woodchuck Way, where a red headed, freckled force of nature lived.<br />
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The ghosts beckon me to stay, and I think I want to...<br />
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It's tempting to think that things were better in the past. Time softens our memories, and rounds off the sharp edges. We know that we didn't fully appreciate what we had. We thought everyone had it as good as we did, and now we know that not everyone did. We have learned that our neighborhood, and our friendships were extraordinary. We have come to know the worth of our treasure, and we feel it's lost, stuck in a memory, caught between worlds.<br />
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Like a ghost.<br />
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But, the truth is, it's never been far away. Those ghosts that gather around me to whisper about the things I've forgotten, also show me that what is most important never left me. The treasures of greatest worth are the ones that become a part of you.<br />
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We are the sights and sounds and smells of our childhood. We are our memories. We are sculpted by the experiences we have, and even more, by the friends with which we surround ourselves. We are the product of one another and we are each other's greatest masterpieces.<br />
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I like to visit with the ghosts, and I love to hear their stories, but the greatest treasure of my childhood is the story that is still being written. The story of friends who are still friends.<br />
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The story of friends, born in a new world, raised in optimism and innocence, who played and laughed and ran and jumped...who saw the world as a big, wide opportunity.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk_eokgB7Lv0lvPaFf7w6luX7qjfDM9Z8r54IeLaelav-KJJtaD1tx0l4TgxHrtYFyssR8AdvYz7AyGNxNtXhPXywHV2FUQgfETdA3u285IVRe08Lel0_4Mmkp5a1PhEwzpvaTVjH2jLqu/s1600/240447b6a604907dcc41d5e2e19d812c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk_eokgB7Lv0lvPaFf7w6luX7qjfDM9Z8r54IeLaelav-KJJtaD1tx0l4TgxHrtYFyssR8AdvYz7AyGNxNtXhPXywHV2FUQgfETdA3u285IVRe08Lel0_4Mmkp5a1PhEwzpvaTVjH2jLqu/s1600/240447b6a604907dcc41d5e2e19d812c.jpg" height="254" width="320" /></a></div>
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It's the story of friends who will always be friends.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-57707891970723771342014-04-27T18:17:00.004-06:002014-04-27T18:17:56.287-06:00Icons: The Painted RockEarly on, in the history of our neighborhood, there were only two ways in or out -- you could go west to the freeway, or east to Wasatch Boulevard.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvEpaaccUjlEIT4w_Un4JS5eQ5QlI0sFak6adSV8oWk5D8T8UiKvLQOJWAvRe-reAYjx7MBfGw8fAhZWIEY9dvFfLLS3WNZa0C0LcYe5T_d7FaQ76er4l9Hx_8ehyjLJjhH80pZMijtX2O/s1600/flat,550x550,075,f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvEpaaccUjlEIT4w_Un4JS5eQ5QlI0sFak6adSV8oWk5D8T8UiKvLQOJWAvRe-reAYjx7MBfGw8fAhZWIEY9dvFfLLS3WNZa0C0LcYe5T_d7FaQ76er4l9Hx_8ehyjLJjhH80pZMijtX2O/s1600/flat,550x550,075,f.jpg" height="322" width="640" /></a></div>
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Going east, meant climbing the steep incline of 9400 South, which leveled off as it approached the small community of Granite. This was the gateway to the canyons and the ski resorts, and La Caille -- the french restaurant so expensive and swanky that no one who lived within twenty miles of it could afford to dine there.<br />
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Actually, Aaron and I went there for senior prom (not just with each other...we had dates), and all we could afford was desert -- twenty bucks a person. There's quite a story here, but it's rather embarrassing for me to tell, because it involves the awkward hormones of a teenage boy, and the revealing french peasant girl costumes of the female servers at La Caille...<br />
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Incidentally, La Caille means "The Quail." <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBWbGXZABlK-m9ce2PEYcYanK8JtZtgrzobdoqYUHUrjui_XnyuGT0_6iXJdhaXVasAhHEI0MDmIP2hsxb_IoLxoJ9krMftZtRfJYm0kxuLTG8X1p2KTPLZJcoaciRdU4figoATqUvXY3G/s1600/qji2hywvkgks5amj4zu4bfn66xiixnucu0La+Caille.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBWbGXZABlK-m9ce2PEYcYanK8JtZtgrzobdoqYUHUrjui_XnyuGT0_6iXJdhaXVasAhHEI0MDmIP2hsxb_IoLxoJ9krMftZtRfJYm0kxuLTG8X1p2KTPLZJcoaciRdU4figoATqUvXY3G/s1600/qji2hywvkgks5amj4zu4bfn66xiixnucu0La+Caille.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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Go figure.<br />
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But, I'm derailing my own train of thought...<br />
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As you traveled east, before you got to the canyon, and just past the road that led to Granite Elementary, and the little chapel on the right...just on the left, where the road bends, there was a giant boulder. This boulder was not just a rock in a meadow, it was a community sign post.<br />
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You couldn't miss it. It was painted -- not with graffiti (per se), but with pictures and messages. And it changed, sometimes frequently, and sometimes it stayed the same for months. I never saw anyone paint it. I assume that it was done clandestinely at night, but I could be wrong about that. I don't think anyone was necessarily trying to hide the fact that they were doing it.<br />
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It wasn't vandalism, it was a genuine, organic piece of folk art.<br />
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We called it the Painted Rock. Because we were clever like that.<br />
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The images I remember most clearly revolve around the holidays. It was the perfect shape to paint into a giant jack-o-lantern. On Independence Day you would often find a flag. In 1976, it was painted as a flag, with the a 76 in the field of stars. I assume it was probably an Easter Egg and a Turkey too. The Painted Rock was always someone's art project. But, it was more than that...<br />
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The rock was a community billboard. This was where the newlywed and the newly born were celebrated. This was where those returning were welcomed home. It's where important things were remembered.<br />
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After some digging, I found that there is more to the story than I ever knew. Ten years ago, a man from Granite, named Allen Bishop, wrote the story (all of the pictures here are from his article). It was his father who commissioned the first paint job -- while trying to relieve the boredom of some of the young men under his watch, as the bishop of the ward in that area. Bishop and his friends were often the ones who painted the rock, especially early on -- including the Bicentennial Rock. That first paint job was in 1964.<br />
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Allen Bishop was writing in 2002, after the rock had been unceremoniously dumped in a hole and buried by a local developer, with little input from the community. His story was an exercise in civic government, and an attempt to explain to the local city council that the rock was a community treasure, and deserved to be exhumed. More than eighty percent of the locals polled agreed. The county government (as well as UDOT) got involved, and agreed that the rock could be exhumed, provided the people paid to dig it up, and found a different place to put it. All of that was accomplished...and yet...<br />
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Twelve years later, the Painted Rock remains buried where it fell.<br />
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There are no plaques to commemorate the rock, or what it meant to the people of Sandy and Granite. There is no memorial of this treasure, or to the people who cared so lovingly for it, for 38 years. Graffiti was not unheard of on the rock, but it never lasted long. Someone would always make it beautiful again. I wish there were more pictures, or a book to commemorate all that this boulder meant to so many.<br />
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The Painted Rock was as much a part of our community as our homes and churches, our schools and our grocery stores. It was identifiable and unique. Returning from anywhere, it was the Painted Rock that always signaled to me that I was almost home -- including in 1991, when my best friend Aaron, and I assume his merry band of vandals, welcomed me home, from my mission. It was a treasured piece of us, but sometimes treasure is taken for granted...<br />
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We passed the rock every time we went up the canyons. I drove past it every day, on the way to high school. It was always there. It always would be.<br />
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And then, I took my eyes off of it, and it disappeared.<br />
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As the years wore on, the painting became less artistic, and more of a mess. I don't know when I saw it last. One day, it wasn't there anymore.<br />
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Maybe it was right to bury it. Maybe progress has to progress. Homes are built, and streets are widened. Maybe it was a piece of history that lived it's life in a simpler time. Maybe something as quaint as the Painted Rock has no place in our world today.<br />
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And maybe we should have appreciated it when we had the chance.<br />
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And then again, maybe we did.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-49562400198326252502014-04-26T23:36:00.002-06:002014-04-26T23:36:31.611-06:00The SevI know it by the smell. <div>
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If you took me into a 7-11, blindfolded, I would still know where I was. They all smell the same inside, every one of them. And they always have. </div>
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Our little neighborhood in Sandy was a developing residential area. We didn't have a main street, or a shopping district. There were no small town stores or movie theaters or comic book stores or fire stations or barber shops -- just houses, a few churches and a couple of schools. If we needed groceries, there was a Smith's Food King, out on 9400 South -- the main road that bordered our neighborhood on the south side, but that was a little farther than young kids dared to venture -- you had to cross a vast dirt field to get there by foot. </div>
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Which means if we, as kids, had some birthday money, or weekly allowance, to blow, we had only other option....</div>
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Attached to the last street of our neighborhood, like a barnacle, or a growth, stood the 7-11. </div>
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The Sev, we called it. </div>
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In those days, our 7-11 was a small town American Main Street rolled into one location. </div>
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It was our malt shop -- our soda fountain. In the 70's and 80's, malts were Coca Cola flavored Slurpees, and Big Gulps. You could have the 32 oz. Big Gulp, the 44 oz Super Big Gulp or, starting in 1988, the 64 oz Double Gulp. The last one was so big, that at first it came in something resembling a milk carton. 64 oz doesn't seem so big these days. That's kind of sad, now that I think of it...</div>
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It was our corner candy store. And the candy was the kind to catch a kid's fancy -- Fun Dip. Nerds. Wax Cola Bottles. Tootsie Pops -- supposedly the Indian and the Star got you a free sucker (or bag of suckers, depending on which urban legend you subscribed to...I never got a free sucker). Candy necklaces -- it's hard to eat something you're wearing. Pixie Stix. Hubba Bubba Bubble Gum. Bubble Yum Bubble Gum. Big League Chew. Fruit Stripe Gum. Jolly Ranchers. </div>
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And the most taboo candy of all: candy cigarettes (you couldn't pretend to "smoke" for very long, because they were pure sugar, and dissolved instantly in your mouth. </div>
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The 7-11 was our book store. Or at least our magazine store. Ok, our comic book shop. Right there on the rack next to Us Weekly, People Magazine and Soap Opera Digest, sat the latest comic from Marvel -- The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones. Or Spiderman. Or Superman. Or the Archie gang. </div>
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It was also our arcade. There were always two video games in the corner of the store, back by the cooler, just inside the front window. Pole Position. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Pac Man. Galaga. And, my personal favorite, Karate Champ. 8 bits of electronic glee!</div>
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It was our delicatessen, and our bakery -- though I could never bring myself to try one on the hot dog like items, turning endlessly on the heated rollers. I'm not convinced they were actually hot dogs...they were so dehydrated and shriveled that I'm not sure you could actually bite through them. </div>
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And, maybe most importantly, the 7-11 was where we got free air for our bike tires. </div>
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The one thing as ubiquitous as kids in Sandy, was the ever present sticker -- the Tribulus Terrestris, also known as the Goat's Head thorn. </div>
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This weed was everywhere, and it produced a nasty, spiky little thorn. We got them in our feet. We got them in our hands. But mostly, we got them in our bike tires. Every kid in Sandy learned to patch a bike tire, and after you got the patch on, you pumped in just enough air to get you to the 7-11, because there you could inflate your tires to twice the recommended PSI. Even if you didn't need air in your tires, if you were at the Sev, you let some air out, so you'd have an excuse to use the hissing air hose. </div>
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Hey, free air. </div>
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On a hot summer day, a trip to The Sev was almost a given. We'd start out, and often pick up friends on the way, and there was a good chance once you arrived at the 7-11, any number of other friends would be coming or going. You stopped and chatted. Swapped candy and stories. </div>
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The 7-11 was the closest thing we had to a social gathering place. It was where we went to feel like grown ups. It was where we satisfied our sugar cravings and got a head start on the root canals of later years. It was where we drank in the taste of summer, and caught up with the latest news and gossip. </div>
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I've never quite figured out what it is that makes a 7-11 smell the way it does, but maybe, just maybe, that is the smell of small town America, with a suburban 1980's twist, sprinkled with Slurpees and free air, and the tangy metallic taste of a quarter dropping into Karate Champ, intermingled with Grape Bubble Yum, and candy cigarettes, topped off by the fragrance of kids in various states of cleanliness and the odor of ten day old hot dogs. </div>
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Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's it. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-8097427797028384412014-04-24T22:37:00.003-06:002014-04-27T13:22:18.383-06:00Three is a magic number: AmiI've alluded to this, but it's time to put it into words.<br />
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I have a lot of friends. I always have. It's a natural result of genuinely liking almost everyone I've ever met. If you ask me what the secret to a happy life is? It's a simple answer.<br />
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Just one word: friendship.<br />
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Friends celebrate the victories and milestones by your side, and carry you over the crevasses and through the dark hollows of life. The highest compliment I have in my vocabulary is the word friend -- not because it's something special to be my friend, but because of the privilege it is for me to know you as a friend.<br />
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I have one friend, that I've known longer than any other -- even longer than Aaron Ball.<br />
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Ami Quintero (now Jackson).<br />
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It is one of the great privileges of my life, to have known Ami as a friend. Both Aaron and I have talked about this at length. In every picture of the great experiences of our childhood, Ami is there. It was the three of us. It was not right, if it wasn't the three of us. When one of us couldn't be there, the other two just sort of milled around and waited...<br />
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Of all the things we did together, one moment in time became legendary. I suspect all three of us remember it like it was yesterday...<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>The scene: 1980; The Quintero's carport -- it wasn't a garage yet.</b></span><br />
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In these days of Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica and G-Force, our imaginations were fertile ground. We craved adventure, and the greatest adventures we could find were within our minds. At the time of this story, our current project was making up our own radio dramas (for lack of a better term), and recording them on a tape recorder. Very recently there had been a television special called Battle Beyond the Stars, which I don't think any of us saw, but we co-opted the title -- with a twist.<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Title: Battle Beyond Space. </b></span></div>
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All of these dramas were made up on the fly, and stuck pretty close to the same script -- the three of us in a space ship, or on some far away world, battling alien armies. We were going on eight and nine. It was just as good as you imagine it was. We did our best to edit on the tape recorder as we went, but there were a lot of pauses and ums and a whole lot that made no sense at all. Everything we recorded was on a tape recorder that Aaron swiped from his dad, and a handful of Bonneville tapes that we found laying around his house. As you can imagine, despite our earnest attempt at creating believable science fiction, our budget for special effects was non existent.<br />
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<br />
Which is what makes this story legendary (in our minds...)<br />
<br />
On this particular day we were telling the story of a spaceship battle. We were locked in mortal combat with aliens from a distant galaxy. Our little band of three stood between the alien menace, and the loss of freedom in the universe. It was a desperate struggle. Shots and tense glances were exchanged. The outcome was in doubt, and as we fought, high above an unknown planet, our ship took a direct hit...<br />
<br />
At this point, Aaron exclaims into the microphone:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">"OH NO! WE'RE GOING DOWN!"</span></b></div>
<br />
And, at the perfect moment -- as though there was a director of screen yelling "Action!" -- a very noisy motorcycle went tearing down Woodchuck Way, and our little tape recorder picked it up...<br />
<br />
I remember distinctly all three of us stopping, and staring at each other.<br />
<br />
Did that really just happen...?<br />
<br />
Then we all went for the tape recorder at the same time, everyone's fingers going for the rewind button.<br />
<br />
Rewind...<br />
<br />
And...playback...<br />
<br />
<b style="font-size: xx-large;">"OH NO! WE'RE GOING DOWN!"</b><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>REEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!</b></span><br />
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b><br /></b></span>
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<br />
That ship was going down in flames! Never had three people been so happy to be aboard a crashing spaceship. To our seven and eight year old ears, that sounded like a big time Hollywood sound effect.<br />
It sounded like something we would hear in Star Wars.<br />
<br />
We stopped right there. That was the end of the story -- our heroes went down in flames. I don't know that we ever recorded another show, but for days afterward, we listened to that ten seconds of tape so many times, that the moment is burned in my memory forever.<br />
<br />
(Ami, I don't know if we ever told you this, but about ten years later Aaron and I found an old box of Bonneville tapes in his room, and started listening to them. We found this recording. It was as magical to us at seventeen as it had been at seven).<br />
<br />
There are more memories of Ami than I have words or space to write. She was there in the snows of Hoth, and the forests of Endor. She transmuted with us aboard the Fiery Phoenix. She trekked through the scrub oak "jungles" of the Dirt Hills with us, as we played Raiders of the Lost Ark.<br />
<br />
Ami even made up words to the Raiders March (Main Theme, from Raiders of the Lost Ark), and here they are (you know the tune):<br />
<br />
Here comes Indy -- ana Jones<br />
And his wi --ife, Mari -- uh-un too<br />
Not to mention, little tots<br />
And they're off to adventure,<br />
And happiness<br />
Eh-eh-very where!<br />
<br />
I can't listen to the music from Indiana Jones without hearing those words. :)<br />
<br />
My life is infinitely better for knowing Ami. She was a softening influence on two boys, who were all boy. Because of Ami, I am a kinder and gentler person. When I think of her, I think of drinking shasta on my back patio, and jumping on the trampoline with the sprinkler underneath. I think of eating plums off of the tree in her back yard. I think of turning over our bicycles and churning the pedals to make "ice cream." Eating the worst cereal of all time on a Saturday morning and watching The Super Friends.<br />
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<br />
She was the pretty girl across the street, with the brown eyes and the long dark hair, and the exotic name: Aminta Christina...the first girl I ever kissed (when I was all of about six), in my bathroom, with the door shut, on my tiptoes, because she was six inches taller than I was...<br />
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<br />
(Ami, you may not know this either -- Aaron and I used to stage boxing matches in his basement. The prize was always a girl -- and often it was you. No doubt, you're flattered :)<br />
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<br />
In my memory Ami is sunshine and smiles and sweetness. She's Leia and Wonder Woman and Princess. She's softness and sleepovers and space ships. I remember laying out on her back porch, on summer nights, when the only care in the world was making sure that tomorrow's adventure was better than today's. We would look up into the blackness of space -- the place we all longed to go -- and watch the blinking stars. We would trace the constellations in the night sky, and talk late into the night, until slowly, eventually, we'd drift off to sleep.<br />
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<br />
Then morning would come, and we'd start it all over.<br />
<br />
Ami and I have followed paths that have led us far from each other, for many years. But, in the years she lived across the street from me, she became one of my best friends.<br />
<br />
And, in my world, that means that you're never far away.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-1793110938124722752014-04-23T18:47:00.002-06:002014-04-23T18:47:59.866-06:00Mixing it upAnd, while we listened faithfully, hour after hour, for that one song -- the perfect song -- sometimes you just need a certain song, at a certain time...<br />
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The right song at the right time is the difference between a great moment and a legendary one.<br />
<br />
A moment is not simply a measurement of time, it's snapshot of life. It's a memory, and we know that the more of your senses you employ in creating a memory, the better chance it has to last. Think about that dance from when you were a kid. You know the one I mean...<br />
<br />
You see the whirling lights, and the girl there before you (this one is mine, sorry).<br />
<br />
You see the crowded dance floor.<br />
<br />
You see the fog machine.<br />
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You feel the hardness of the gym floor, beneath your feet.<br />
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You feel her close to you.<br />
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You feel her hand in yours.<br />
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You feel her head on your shoulder.<br />
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You smell a potpourri of perfume, cologne, hairspray, sweat and whatever that smell is from the fog machine (I swear they were blowing deodorant onto the dance floor...).<br />
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But it's the song that ties it all together. The melody moves you. The lyrics inspire you. It's the song that takes you back there, even now.<br />
<br />
And that's the power of the right song, at the right time.<br />
<br />
It's immortal.<br />
<br />
Before iPods, before play lists, before itunes and napster, there was the mixtape...<br />
<br />
Let me back up and get a running start at this, for anyone reading who maybe unfamiliar with what a tape is. A cassette tape, to be precise:<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Cas*sette</b></span> (kuh-set)<br />
<i>noun</i><br />
<b>1</b>. Also called cassette tape. A compact case, containing a length of magnetic tape that runs between two small reels: used for recording or playback in a tape recorder, or cassette deck. The word came into usage in the 1950's, and is derived from the french <i><b>casse</b></i>, meaning box.<br />
<br />
Basically it was like carrying around your own reel to reel tape machine. It was revolutionary. It could record music. It could be erased and re-recorded. We didn't buy records, or albums, or CD's -- we bought tapes. It could get tangled, and then things went south fast. It could break, and if you were very careful, it could be repaired. Most importantly, it was portable.<br />
<br />
Recorded sound had been around for roughly a century, but until the cassette tape, it was never more portable than the clunky phonographs of the previous generation. (We're not going to mention 8 Track Tapes -- even though I may, or may not, have spent hours listening to an 8 track recording of Debbie Boone singing "You Light Up My Life." Don't judge me). But the small size of a cassette tape enabled you to carry music everywhere you went -- in your car, in your boom box, in your Walkman (that's a whole other post -- a Walkman was a primitive iPod, for the uninitiated).<br />
<br />
After portability, the next best thing about tapes and tape recorders was the ability to create a personalized collection of music, from all of your individual tapes.<br />
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<br />
The Mixtape was born.<br />
<br />
You could put Van Halen and Kool and the Gang on the same tape. Why you would do that is beyond me, but that's beside the point. The Mixtape could be anything. It was a declaration of independence.<br />
<br />
The Mixtape was freedom, and freedom is the overarching theme of youth.<br />
<br />
The Mixtape was created by, and, in a very real sense, is almost exclusive to, Generation X. Our grandparents had the giant, cathedral-like radio, in the corner of the living room -- it was, literally, a piece of furniture. Our parents had phonographs. Our children have iPods. But anyone who uploads a 300 song playlist on to their MP3 player, owes a debt to the teenagers of the 1980's.<br />
<br />
A mixtape might be a collection the biggest hits of the day, or a mass of songs, that fit a certain mood or style -- ballads, head bangers, glam rock, new wave (gag me with a spoon).<br />
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A mixtape often was a love letter. If you couldn't compose your own sonnet, let Steve Perry and the boys do it for you.<br />
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And when you couldn't depend on the DJ at K-whatever-station-you-listened-to to play the music you wanted to hear on a regular basis, your best bet was the Mixtape.<br />
<br />
And it wasn't easy to make. Here's the problem: Tapes came in basically two lengths -- 60 minutes and 90 minutes, but every song is a different length, and you wanted to fill up as much tape as possible. No one wanted a length of silence at the end of the tape, you wanted the music to end, right as the tape did. This required precise calculations and timing.<br />
<br />
And you thought math would never come in handy...<br />
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It would take hours of rewinding and fast forwarding (remember rewinding and fast forwarding?) and synchronization to create the perfect combination of music.<br />
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A great mixtape is like a great meal -- timing, seasoning, the right ingredients and everything prepared just right. C'est Magnifique!<br />
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And, whether you were breakdancing or slow dancing, rocking out, hanging out or making out, or sitting on the hood of your car, watching the sunset across the valley from Zarahemla Drive, with mixtape in hand, properly queued up to the right song (or combination of songs) you were ready to face the world.<br />
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You were ready to create a moment that would last forever.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-76677950388154026672014-04-22T23:43:00.001-06:002014-04-23T18:58:40.592-06:00Marconi Plays the Mamba: Listen to the Radio!<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>"Lyrics dude, recite 'em some lyrics!"</b></span></div>
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--- Bill S. Preston, Esq.<br />
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Since the invention of radio, the youth of the world have defined their generations by the music they listen to.<br />
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Music is our poetry and our prose.<br />
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It's how we tell our story, before we have words of our own. It's how we express joy and sorrow, rage and love. It's how we celebrate the vibrancy of life, and mourn the unfairness of it all. Whatever the mood, whatever the situation, whatever the reason...<br />
<br />
There's a song for that.<br />
<br />
Radio has been around for about 120 years, and popular radio programming for about a century. In our grandparents' youth, the radio was a cathedral like piece of furniture, that the family gathered around to listen to programs like Little Orphan Annie, and Jack Benny.<br />
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The Baby Boomers took music to new heights (and depths). They plugged in their guitars, and cranked the amps. The artists of that era revolutionized music, and radio took Elvis Presley and the Beatles, into every corner of every home in the world. Music drove the culture, and the tinny sound of an AM radio was replaced by the blowtorch sound of the FM stereo.<br />
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Our own generation was the last of the great radio listeners. Our children live in a world that has been revolutionized again, when it comes to music -- their music is completely customizable (as is so much of the rest of their lives). That seems ideal, but when I really think about it, I wouldn't trade the days of sitting in front of the radio, waiting for the song that I thought I wanted to hear, for anything. There were no iPods, no iTunes, and unless you had the record (or, more likely, the cassette tape) of a certain band, the only way you were going to hear your song, was by catching it playing on the radio.<br />
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And, in the process, you were exposed to a wide range of music. Sure, you could call the radio station and request a song -- one of the great experiences of youth -- but let's be honest, the song got played when it got played. So, while I was waiting for "Faithfully" I got to hear "We Belong", "Come Sail Away" and "Rosanna."<br />
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Our music, and our lives for that matter, had an element of surprise and serendipity. We had something to look forward to and something to hope for. There is real joy in anticipation. Ask any kid in December. Anticipation is why Christmas Eve is more fun than Christmas Day. As long as there is anticipation, hope lives forever.<br />
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The music coming from the radio told us about our world. Right or wrong, the radio was the piper who played the tune, and we danced.<br />
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And what we danced to in the 1980's was unlike anything that had ever come before. The music scene of our youth was strange and varied, to put it mildly, and the voices fighting for our attention were legion, but in our world, in the Salt Lake radio market, there were two voices that were louder than all the rest:<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>KRSP: Rock 103.5 </b></span><br />
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In it's prime, KRSP played straight arena rock and roll -- Journey, REO Speedwagon, Van Halen, Poison, Billy Joel... as well as the genre already being termed classic rock: The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, The Doors.<br />
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And <span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>KJQ </b></span>-- somewhere on the other end of the radio dial -- that catered to a more eclectic sound; the alternative, modern, new wave sound that came to represent the faction of society that believed they were the counter culture. They weren't. They were as emblematic of the generation as the top 40 music.<br />
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The two dominant musical genres of our age -- Rock and Alternative -- were two sides of the same cassette tape. One preferred it's music loud, the other preferred it's lyrics loud. And together they created the soundtrack of our lives.<br />
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The songs on the radio were our voice. Sometimes that voice was happy. Sometimes it was angry. In the 1980's there was good chance that voice was flat out bizarre -- the title of this post, Marconi Plays the Mamba, is taken from the song voted as the Most Awesome Bad Song of All Time: We Built This City, by Starship. (I'm sure the other fifty songs on that list came out of the 80's too). Marconi was the inventor of radio, and a mamba is a poisonous snake. Maybe they meant to say mambo (a type of music) or samba (another musical genre), but they said mamba. The voice booming out of the radio said the creator of radio played with poisonous snakes.<br />
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And we stood up and said "HELL YES HE DID!"<br />
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That was music, and we loved it, despite -- probably because of -- the high weirdness of it all.<br />
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Those voices coming from the speakers also said what we wished we could say -- to our parents, to our teachers, to our crush.<br />
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In my world, three voices were louder than all the rest: Duran Duran, Michael Jackson and Van Halen.<br />
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Duran Duran was the breakout music for Aaron and I -- it was the first music that we listened to, that our parents didn't. It wasn't John Denver or the Carpenters. It was't the Beatles or the Bee Gees. They didn't understand Duran Duran, and that was good enough for us. Frankly, I wasn't sure what Reflex Simon Le Bon was talking about, or why the Union of the Snake was on the rise...but he and the Taylor boys convinced me that it was something I ought to care about, and maybe look into, on my way to Rio. Duran Duran inspired many backyard jam sessions -- on trash can drums and tennis racket guitars.<br />
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The next voice is the game changer. The one that reinvented everything: Michael Jackson.<br />
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When I look back at my life, certain music appears, like sign posts, reminding me of certain times and places. Michael Jackson's "Thriller" is like a billboard.</div>
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Thriller was released in 1982, and it set the world on fire. It is still the best selling album of all time. Thriller changed EVERYTHING. I wanted to look like him. I wanted to dress like him. I wanted to move like him.</div>
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<img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-kG3cOOi4vN1yWPUx5DRdym-zie37ITuHkIKGa-LUJXy3fLWheOyZam8o7PZk7sMEpbk-oAS6qMxxGIfIP3-nikV0xLAVuGJmNZ90TlDKp_wBtVymuWcWPoLXZ0TVse9GZ19-0FiG0rzW/s400/thriller-michael-jackson.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351854566746601922" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; width: 400px;" /></div>
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No one ever moved like Michael Jackson. I have one indelible Michael Jackson moment. It's the moment that everyone knows. The Motown 25th Anniversary television program. I was watching because I knew Michael Jackson would be performing "Billie Jean."</div>
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There was the glove.</div>
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The white socks and loafers.</div>
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The hat.</div>
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The sequins.</div>
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The song and the dancing.</div>
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And then...</div>
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<img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhETkqiaFodkyKcjk2vdlVuLl3GHpmfyztnxM66aNksolVwXcTabbaJ3wroDZW5v438yQF2bCzffOi5z1dKBM_PjWkZOh_oyoPsm4KNE9uht7oSxkeNdSiY9BkHgZEvgS_LbY0MgWMUiMKp/s400/Moonwalking+MJ.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351854564885488034" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; width: 280px;" /></div>
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He moved backward.</div>
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WHAT WAS THAT?!</div>
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That was the first time I had ever seen someone moonwalk. It was surreal.</div>
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The next day I -- we -- everyone -- found a new use for our sunday shoes. I practiced for hours -- days, months -- trying to learn to moonwalk. I remember watching myself in the glass of the sliding door on my aunt's deck. And one time -- only one -- did I move smooth enough to feel like I had done it. It feels ridiculous to say so, but that was a real highlight for me as a kid.</div>
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Then came the jackets with the zippers, the Thriller video, the Eddie Van Halen guitar solo on Beat It. We are the World. Michael Jackson was everywhere. He was a cultural juggernaut that I think, for my generation -- this generation called "X" -- was only eclipsed by Star Wars.</div>
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Michael Jackson was a beacon. He was a pop culture god. He gave us dance. He introduced us to music we had never heard before. He launched, for better or worse, the world of music videos. Michael Jackson was our Elvis, our Beatles. And like they had been for the previous generation, he was our great departure from the music of our parents. Without any exaggeration, he was the King of Pop.</div>
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<img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHMaEJSEcall1cMjTvMDC02fSdGhktTAFujdR9go6-OlqXzv67ssC8KVdN_g3_MHaNGuxZFKYVfnMr7x6aIOTFdjK5hKeS1XoNN1WtdvuBvd9YQNWqcKUrboxqCRjnbxilU_yY95Qx4w5I/s400/Beat_It_Video.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5351854560852977234" style="cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 302px; margin: 0px auto 10px; width: 400px;" /></div>
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There will never be another phenomenon like Michael Jackson. The music world is different. No one can maintain that kind of supremacy any more, there are, simply, too many choices.</div>
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The last voice is the loudest: Van Halen</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0L6xgPhZgYTYqlAxf6kqJPBpNU7PWkNpXqyMfhdzHr25oKCC4p0J_qP77hhyphenhyphenB7b-GVDu4koIxbAa4dyzECuH9ziWEnZ6QbjdtAilzxVVVV-0Hf5acOj_Rmv1qiZmlbK3x5zdNyImfJqB5/s1600/5150_tour.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0L6xgPhZgYTYqlAxf6kqJPBpNU7PWkNpXqyMfhdzHr25oKCC4p0J_qP77hhyphenhyphenB7b-GVDu4koIxbAa4dyzECuH9ziWEnZ6QbjdtAilzxVVVV-0Hf5acOj_Rmv1qiZmlbK3x5zdNyImfJqB5/s1600/5150_tour.jpg" height="386" width="640" /></a></div>
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This is the Sammy Hagar version of the band. I have nothing against David Lee Roth -- well, I do, but that's for another time. Aaron and I came to Van Halen the same time Sammy Hagar did. If Duran Duran was the music that our parents didn't understand, then Van Halen was the music they didn't understand -- very loudly. The guitar work of Eddie Van Halen blew the doors off of rock 'n roll. No one had ever played the way he did, and everyone since is imitating him. All due respect to Neil Peart, Alex Van Halen was the best rock drummer of all time. And Sammy Hagar managed to sing the soundtrack of our teenage lives.<br />
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Van Halen was the pinnacle of the 80's four man arena rock group. One lead guitar. One drummer. One bass player. And one lead singer. That was the formula for success. And they all sounded better when you turned the volume knob to eleven. </div>
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Aaron and I saw Van Halen in 1988, on the OU812 tour. Come to think of it, I think it's the only concert we ever saw together. We were sixteen, we were out without parents and we were ready to do some damage to our ear drums. </div>
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Van Halen was the sound of summer. It was the sound of fast cars, and pretty girls. It was the sound of freedom. It was the thundering beat of the heart. It was the sound of life.<br />
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Music, and the radios that brought it to us, changed our lives forever, maybe like never before. We learned to love what came before, and anticipate what was coming next. We still search for the perfect song. We still thrill to hear the old classic. We still think in lyrics. </div>
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Turn the dial. Tune in. And blow the speakers. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-19156805083179802512014-04-21T23:02:00.000-06:002014-04-22T07:38:33.213-06:00Sanctum Sanctorum: The Drum RoomKids have secrets.<br />
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Kids have rituals. </div>
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And kids have a place, unlike other places. It's not your bedroom...not exactly. It's set apart, maybe a hidden fort, maybe a place in the woods, maybe it's the tent in the backyard on a warm summer night. It's where the big plans are made, and the things that only kids should know of, are spoken. It's a different kind of place. </div>
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It's mysterious. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgWvUvShowKJ_Tcb1GprQEu7wdDPPDdXenURcDQSNkJJA0ZxRyVuKI2aeYavuOdflt89XdETeSfzoKc_0LqFJ-RG-vQ3JxsSt43jELtuY2gbQ9X05nGYd_56MbgOw62-kP9ooLEZ6zGGq0/s1600/SecretHideout.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgWvUvShowKJ_Tcb1GprQEu7wdDPPDdXenURcDQSNkJJA0ZxRyVuKI2aeYavuOdflt89XdETeSfzoKc_0LqFJ-RG-vQ3JxsSt43jELtuY2gbQ9X05nGYd_56MbgOw62-kP9ooLEZ6zGGq0/s1600/SecretHideout.gif" height="424" width="640" /></a><br />
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It's exclusive. Admittance is by invitation only. </div>
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It's the Inner Sanctum. </div>
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It's King Tut's Tomb.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_7kkJG0FmNxQT2TXMDr3UjTli7pWNnxkYsPG-QZyUrIPYiRQ0MXvEB4Ztaijb1jxktLUBuIRbchkfjKGpR9OjZZcJRfHHdBK13pczySHe7jjINz2Y4yQQ-99I5CClyAh4lC2BeDXXShJ0/s1600/king-tut-tomb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_7kkJG0FmNxQT2TXMDr3UjTli7pWNnxkYsPG-QZyUrIPYiRQ0MXvEB4Ztaijb1jxktLUBuIRbchkfjKGpR9OjZZcJRfHHdBK13pczySHe7jjINz2Y4yQQ-99I5CClyAh4lC2BeDXXShJ0/s1600/king-tut-tomb.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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It's the Bat Cave.</div>
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More than that, it's the Sanctum Sanctorum: The place where all is both concealed and revealed. </div>
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At least that's how it feels when you're a kid. </div>
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For Aaron and I, that place was The Drum Room -- which was part Holy of Holies, part trophy room, part clubhouse, part discotheque. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtKau4y6ari0PErD6Hu-LsgCOCqCFygjk736y2hSBp8rEzsCCAMqAX9xB7iqj5Ik9XFR7iK5NPJJcwsMA2SbKFGZk6Fm2XOTGHiLStYadt5lS_q59oV8v3nC192gQPj_CP-fxlFzWwZUdW/s1600/disco_ball_07_7ohl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtKau4y6ari0PErD6Hu-LsgCOCqCFygjk736y2hSBp8rEzsCCAMqAX9xB7iqj5Ik9XFR7iK5NPJJcwsMA2SbKFGZk6Fm2XOTGHiLStYadt5lS_q59oV8v3nC192gQPj_CP-fxlFzWwZUdW/s1600/disco_ball_07_7ohl.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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It acquired this name in the eighth grade, when Aaron received his drums, and placed them in the tiny little room. We were a little short on imagination when it came to naming things -- remember, our clubhouse was called The Hut. In the years since, I've thought that it should have had a cooler name, like The Inner Sanctum, or the Oracle, or The Place That Smelled Like A Dorm Room, but it was just The Drum Room. </div>
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The Drum Room was deep in the bowels of Aaron's house. You had to go through at least three doors to get there. It existed before the drum set, but then it was just known as The Odd Little Room In The Basement Where Crap Was Stored And There Were Giant Speakers And A Reel To Reel Tape Machine On The Wall. </div>
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That doesn't roll off the tongue like The Drum Room. </div>
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I don't really know why Aaron's dad built the room, but, if you know Talmage, quirkiness is not really out of character...</div>
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It was roughly twelve feet square -- though, to tell the truth, for as much of my life as I spent in that room, I'm still not sure what it's actual shape was...like a rounded off square...? -- and it was, mostly (sort of, almost) sound proof. It was sound muffling. The ceiling was about six and a half high, and it was entirely possible that if you spastically jumped up, while filming a semi-perveted video in the ninth grade, you would smack your head on the ceiling. </div>
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I have this information on good authority. </div>
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The Drum Room had two very important features. First of all, it was just big enough to fit a drum set, and still have a little room to move around. And, secondly, there were two giant speakers on the north wall. Good speakers. Loud speakers. </div>
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These speakers were initially connected to a reel to reel tape machine, which no one could remember how to use, since the technology died out when the giant asteroid destroyed the dinosaurs. Later on it was connected to a cassette tape player (this is also a relic of another time...) and, later still, to a CD player. This made learning to drum that much cooler, when you could blast Van Halen, or Bon Jovi, or Motley Crue or Rush even louder than the drums. It made Aaron the envy of all other drummers.</div>
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The silver Pearl drum set was the centerpiece of the room -- it was literally in the center of the room, and our lives, our thoughts, our adventures and exploits were born, and revolved around the beat of those drums. Rarely were we in there, that someone wasn't pounding away; it was like the Wailing Wall -- the drums focused our attention. But, in a lot of ways, the drums themselves were an afterthought. </div>
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In fact, they could easily be removed for it's other major function -- a very intimate dance floor. Giant speakers can be used for two basic purposes -- to blast rock music so hard that you can feel it eroding your eardrums, or to pump slow dance music, that ricochets off the close walls, and swirls all around you...and the girl lucky enough to be brought into the Inner Sanctum. </div>
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The Drum Room had one other key feature: a dimmer switch on the lights...</div>
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It was a room of many moods. It could be a rock concert. It could be a nightclub. It could almost be a dark and starry night. </div>
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Cumulatively, Aaron and I probably spent as much time in that tiny little room as we did in any other room, in either of our houses. The combination of noise, distance, and I imagine teenage boy smell, kept all but the most hearty at a safe distance. </div>
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We once played a game of Monopoly in there, that lasted for two weeks. We ran out of money, and had to rob other board games. When Christmas vacation was over, the game was declared and draw, and we reluctantly put it away. That was the richest I've ever been in my life.</div>
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The Drum Room was too small to sleep in comfortably, although we tried once...this was during our neo-hippie phase, and we thought it would be cool to burn some incense. Two full packs. At the same time. With the door closed. </div>
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If you've ever wondered if incense can get you high, I can tell you this: it can get you pretty close.</div>
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That cured us of our neo-hippie phase. </div>
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And on the walls, we recorded hung the souvenirs of our life's adventures. A broken paddle, from the canoe trip down the Snake River. A Budweiser mirror that Aaron won at Lagoon. A picture of the Coors Light Silver Bullet airplane (that's a lot of beer, for two non-drinking teenage boys). Pictures of bikes and sports cars. Comics from Mad Magazine. Our sixth grade class picture. Bands we idolized. Pictures we drew. A samurai sword in one corner of the room. An electric guitar, that no one knew how to play, in the other. Ill gotten booty -- a giant pink pin that was swiped from the front desk of the Skyline High School office, and lights expertly obtained from certain rides at Lagoon -- back when they kept lights within reach on the attractions. Blue fuzzy dice hung from the ceiling. It was sensory overload. </div>
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Some nights we'd just lay in The Drum Room, on the floor, with the music on, a stare at years of memories plastered on the walls, and talk about the past and the future. We'd talk about girls. We'd talk about school. We'd talk about girls...</div>
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Like so many other things from our time in Sandy, The Drum Room faded into the dreamlike past, and we moved on. Almost imperceptibly the pictures began to come down. The stories ceased to be told. No more loud music. No more dancing. No more dim lights. No more incense. The room isn't even part of that house anymore. And it shouldn't be; each generation -- each child -- needs to find a special place, and make it their own. </div>
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The Drum Room held our stories, and no one else's. And they live on in the time capsule of memories of Aaron and I, and the few we let in to the Sanctum Sanctorum. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-54514557259475550412014-04-20T22:58:00.002-06:002014-04-20T22:58:12.295-06:00Icons: Atari 2600I like to paint the picture of my childhood as one spent outside, running free in the summer afternoon, roaming far over the neighborhood, from sun up, to sun down, breathing the fresh air, exercising, getting dirty, wearing ourselves out in the living of the natural life.<br />
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That's an incomplete picture. </div>
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There is a dark side. More precisely, there were dark basements, with a screen flashing the same image...over and over...and over...the same thing, day after day, night after night...for weeks on end.</div>
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The same sound resonated in our heads:</div>
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WOCKAWOCKAWOCKAWOCKAWOCKAWOCKAWOCKAWOCKAWOCKAWOCKAWOCKAWOCKAWOCKA....</div>
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What was this? Some orwellian dystopia? Some post apocalyptic brainwashing by the Russians? Some tortuous exercise intended to break us of our free will? Some video loop of Fozzie Bear?</div>
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Nope. It was Pac-man.<br />
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And a hundred other games that we played at home, on the Atari 2600. </div>
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There may be nothing more emblematic of the years we were raised in, than the home video game system. Video game themselves were a fairly new item, coming on the heels of pin ball machines, which had been around for decades, and they were confined to places grocery stores, and 7-11's, and, even better, the video arcade. </div>
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Arcades were like casinos for kids. You went in with money, and left with none, and nothing to show for it. Once in a while there would be the odd video gamer virtuoso, who could play like Tommy --The Who's Pinball Wizard -- on one coin, until his mother and dinner called him home. But, mostly, you lost your allowance or lawn mowing or baby sitting money one quarter at a time. Someone was getting rich, twenty-five cents at a time, but it wasn't your typical American kid. We were mesmerized by the lights and sounds and smells of the arcade -- the sticky gum and pop on the floor, the feel of the round plastic joystick knob in our hands, and the firing button below our index fingers. We were willing to give away the bank, for one more shot -- just one more! -- at the chance to put our initials on the leader board.<br />
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It's for this reason that I suspect that the Atari was created by a father of video game playing children -- not because he was looking to fill a need in his children's lives, but because he wanted to stop them from giving away their college education one quarter at a time. </div>
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There were game systems before Atari. The one we had was the Colecovision. This was a deck with two control knobs, and on the screen several different versions of the same basic game -- Pong. In our minds Pong was tennis and racquetball and hockey and handball and volleyball and soccer, all rolled into one. In reality, it was two lines on either side of the screen, with a square pixel for a ball, bouncing between the two lines. It only made one noise:</div>
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Boop. </div>
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Boop. </div>
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Boop. </div>
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It was like a very slow, erratic EKG meter. </div>
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And yet, we played Pong for hours on end. </div>
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So, you can only imagine our joy at the Atari 2600. Frankly, I have no idea where the name 2600 came from. With the Atari, home versions of our favorite arcade games, were plugged right into our television, never costing us another quarter. Some of these games were more like the originals than others, but such a game changer was the Atari 2600 that it was the home version of games that became the pop culture symbols, rather than their older brothers from the arcades. </div>
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The Atari was simple to control. The were two controllers -- both had one joystick, and one reddish-orange button. All the magic happened right there. And if you were a typical right handed American kid, you developed the same malady from playing the Atari, as every other kid: tendinitis in your right wrist, from maneuvering the joystick, and a huge callous on your left thumb, from pressing that reddish-orange button. Sometimes that callous got so big that your thumb started to look like a big toe...</div>
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There were hundreds of games. Some were better than others, but it didn't matter -- if we had the good stuff we played that, otherwise we played what we had. Just so long as we played. But, even then I'm convinced that imagination played a role in the pleasure that we got from the Atari games. I say this because, looking back, there wasn't much to get excited about. Even with the best games, it was the same screen over and over and over again. It never got harder, it never got easier. It never changed. It just wore you down, and eventually the game won. But we played on. </div>
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The best:</div>
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Asteroids.</div>
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<br />
Actually, Asteroids was one of the few games you could change up -- your ship could go faster or slower, and the best way to play was just to go full throttle, blasting as many of those commie asteroids as you could -- just like Han Solo in the Empire Strikes Back. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Pac-Man.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br />
Pac-Man had a voracious appetite for glowing dots, and blue ghosts -- and the odd piece of fruit. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Space Invaders.</div>
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<br />
Protecting Earth from a never ending parade of bug like aliens. Space Invaders was a game with a secret. If you held the Game Select switch down, as you turned the power switch on, you got a double firing missile. Twice the firepower, at half the price. I've never figured out if that was intentional, or just a quirk of the system. You never got a double missile with any other game. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Pitfall. </div>
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<br />
When you were playing Pitfall, you were Indiana Jones, and it was one adventure after another: swinging over mud holes, and quick sand, hopping across a crocodile infested lake (using the eyeballs of the crocodiles as stepping stones (don't stand on the mouth...if it opened it was one way trip to Death Roll City), jumping over snakes that looked like hissing piles of poop...all to get the gold, silver or copper bars, that someone just left laying around in the jungle. Then it was off to more adventure:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Swinging over mud holes, and quick sand, hopping across a crocodile infested lake (using the eyeballs of the crocodiles as stepping stones (don't stand on the mouth...if it opened it was one way trip to Death Roll City), jumping over snakes that looked like hissing piles of poop...</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Well, you get the idea. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
There were a lot of other games that caught our attention: Breakout, Defender and Chopper Command (basically the same game), Combat, Raiders of the Lost Ark (you had to parachute into the side of the cliff...I had to finally call Atari to figure that one out), Donkey Kong (the beginning of all things Mario Brothers), but Pac-Man, Asteroids, Space Invaders and Pitfall, those were the big ones.</div>
<div>
<br />
And there was an innocence to Atari. It hadn't occurred yet to anyone to create games where you steal cars, or beat up prostitutes, or kill indiscriminately for fun.<br />
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<br />
We played until the controllers broke. We played day and night. We twisted and contorted our bodies trying to make the digital representation of ourselves on screen, do what we couldn't get it to do with the joystick. We threw the controllers, and sometimes the game cartridges -- and sometimes the console itself. We played, like unblinking zombies, until tears flowed from our eyeballs...until Pac-Man chomped his way through our brains, and our dreams, while our eyes were closed and we were trying to sleep. And then we got up and played again. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The same screens. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The same speed. </div>
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<br /></div>
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The same sounds: WOCKAWOCKAWOCKAWOCKA....</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
And, despite what our mothers told us, there were no deleterious side effects. We weren't addicted. Video games did not rot our brains, and we all grew up into normal, fully functioning adults. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Right?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
I'm positive that the fact that I can't go to sleep, these days, without playing a round of Wii Golf, is a complete coincidence. </div>
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<br /></div>
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I can stop any time I want...</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-38892459913539826732014-04-20T00:24:00.002-06:002014-04-20T01:00:42.653-06:00Lagoon: Mecca of Wonder and YouthIt smells like hamburgers, cotton candy, and people.<br />
<br />
And, when we were kids, it was like Wonderland and Willy Wonka's factory, rolled into one far away Mecca -- but not so far you couldn't get there. And most of us got there once a year...<br />
<br />
On Stake Lagoon Day.<br />
<br />
Lagoon is a fair sized amusement park, in Farmington Utah (just a stone's throw from my house now), that's been around since 1886 -- roughly the same amount of time as Coney Island. It's primarily a place to ride "thrill" rides, but in the sixties and seventies, it was also a major concert venue for the area. Everyone from the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix, to Janis Joplin, The Monkees and Johnny Cash performed there. The Beach Boys even wrote a song called "Salt Lake City" which references Lagoon.<br />
<br />
It's not their best song.<br />
<br />
But, for us, Lagoon was a place, far to the north of Sandy, that called to us, and spoke of days of almost limitless fun.<br />
<br />
I should back up a little, and give a quick glossary of terms.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Mormon:</b></span> A nickname for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Days Saints.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Ward:</b></span> A congregation of Mormons, and in Utah, because there are so many mormons, the congregations are geographically small -- usually four or five streets in a neighborhood.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Stake:</b></span> A collection of wards -- usually five to seven wards make up a stake. And that geographic footprint -- at least for kids -- basically encompassed your whole world, and contained every person you knew.<br />
<br />
Lagoon, owned by Mormons, offers each summer, to the various stakes in the region, a discounted rate on tickets (not all stakes go on the same day), which means that if you lived far away from Lagoon, as we did, the only chance you might get to go to Lagoon each year was on Stake Lagoon Day.<br />
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It also meant that there was a good chance that almost everyone you knew would be there that day too.<br />
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It was the opposite of school -- you and all of your friends, in one place that you all actually wanted to be.<br />
<br />
Being turned loose in Lagoon, with the vague instruction from your parents, to meet at the Terror Ride at closing time, was a right of passage. It was an exhilarating liberation. It was like parents just vanished, and you were left to roam the park, running the midway, and riding thrill rides, and screaming out loud, and laughing at each other, and flirting with the girls, but even more, the ride attendants -- Lagoon hired a lot of pretty girls.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPpkUIkPAP1MhG72rgE21wZ0NVpyU2MUbPXZcyS997ZcUeZoLO_7PfSSXS97foc0qPS0LiF9d5je1TapPqBxzceGkuAbG2440NN9CAw8VpdkiJxZufbeNAzSCje8t_5UbGwejbr_fkEjff/s1600/IMG_0244.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPpkUIkPAP1MhG72rgE21wZ0NVpyU2MUbPXZcyS997ZcUeZoLO_7PfSSXS97foc0qPS0LiF9d5je1TapPqBxzceGkuAbG2440NN9CAw8VpdkiJxZufbeNAzSCje8t_5UbGwejbr_fkEjff/s1600/IMG_0244.jpg" height="640" width="425" /></a></div>
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To this day, I have no idea where the parents went for six, seven...twelve hours. Logic tells me they must have still been in the park, but I swear we never saw them again. Maybe they liked it that way too -- maybe they were running and riding and screaming and laughing and flirting too? Lagoon was kind of magic that way.<br />
<br />
Living close by these days, my family and I go to often to Lagoon. We went this afternoon.<br />
<br />
As we rode the Sky Ride -- which stretches across the expanse of the park -- I laid my head back against the gondola, and closed my eyes, and it all came back.<br />
<br />
I could hear the clickety clack of the Jet Star 2 track, and feel the wind in my face, and the g-force slamming me against the side of the car -- a car filled with buddies.<br />
<br />
I could imagine the miniature golf course -- where each hole was inspired a different ride in the park. The golf course is no longer there. I often wish it were.<br />
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I could feel the nausea from the Tilt-A-Whirl, and the whiplash from the Boomerang bumper cars...and remember when those were enjoyable sensations.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG9WusHma_Dk_A30vKAC-cuVLIDV-1yByg5zixVyCzNuSNnKZOcboC_cbH5ZzVL_h0ZQ7lw5kquHBXOK2Y0vi8w5UkwZxlHJ2BcRtZW_nAzCVm_1D0N4auB_H2DfpgpORHJy_L067Jfd8e/s1600/IMGP3319.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjG9WusHma_Dk_A30vKAC-cuVLIDV-1yByg5zixVyCzNuSNnKZOcboC_cbH5ZzVL_h0ZQ7lw5kquHBXOK2Y0vi8w5UkwZxlHJ2BcRtZW_nAzCVm_1D0N4auB_H2DfpgpORHJy_L067Jfd8e/s1600/IMGP3319.JPG" height="640" width="424" /></a></div>
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As we approached the middle of the park, I opened my eyes and looked down on the Lagoon of my adolescence. It was that most magical time to be at any amusement park -- dusk. The sun has almost set over the Great Salt Lake, and the lights are coming up on the midway. I can hear the skee balls rolling and the milk bottles toppling. I can see that building of wonders, where we went to exchange the tickets that we won, for treasures. We agonized for what seemed forever over gum balls and erasers, and jump ropes, and plastic bugs, cheap stuffed animals, and a thousand other bits of junk, that were probably lost in the seats of the car on the drive home. We didn't care. We won them and they were ours.<br />
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That treasure trove is no longer there either.<br />
<br />
To my left, I could see the Tidal Wave -- the great pirate ship! Back and forth, back and forth, on the bounding main. Kids yelling at each other:<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>"Tastes Great!"</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>"Less Filling!"</b></span></div>
<br />
Yep, a bunch of non-drinking mormon kids screaming beer commercials at each other. Days never to be forgotten, indeed.<br />
<br />
Next to Tidal Wave, was maybe my favorite ride -- Turn of the Century. This is an old fashioned swing ride, that was added in 1986, the year Lagoon turned 100. This ride had the prettiest girls, and the best music. Large speakers blasted some of the greatest music ever...Jack and Diane...Summer of '69...Livin' on a Prayer...the Final Countdown...Turn of the Century was as close as you got to flying. The swings would rise into the air and you were soaring.<br />
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<br />
Around and around.<br />
<br />
The wind in your face.<br />
<br />
Arms out.<br />
<br />
Fingertips touching other fingertips.<br />
<br />
Dusk darkening the perimeter, tungsten and neon light glowing in a whirl of frenzied, youthful joy.<br />
<br />
As I approached the end of the Sky Ride, and came back to earth, off to my right were the big coasters -- the legendary White Roller Coaster. Not the biggest one in the park, but the oldest -- one of the oldest wooden coasters anywhere. It's a thrill, but the real thrill is wondering if it will hold together until the end of the ride.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu08BeKzEbZDXft1v9kcGGn9rH4vx6zjB798beGAFyP5qSmzi2ciP4mKoQ4nvnQdUlAcCt2JzM8OIzI1sh0JqK5-cv8yrUEsFhBawR4hT7RmSzRf2q9Or2xSBiRlKuswvGhl6G17ssFZZ_/s1600/IMG_0538.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhu08BeKzEbZDXft1v9kcGGn9rH4vx6zjB798beGAFyP5qSmzi2ciP4mKoQ4nvnQdUlAcCt2JzM8OIzI1sh0JqK5-cv8yrUEsFhBawR4hT7RmSzRf2q9Or2xSBiRlKuswvGhl6G17ssFZZ_/s1600/IMG_0538.JPG" height="426" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
Beyond that, the Wild Mouse -- the one that feels like you're going to fall off the track, and the Colossus -- the double looped, Fire Dragon -- the ride you went on for a dare.<br />
<br />
I opened my eyes, and touched my feet to the cement, as the teenage attendant directed me where to go. That teenager used to look like me. Now he looks like my son.<br />
<br />
And, as I walk along there, with my children, I can't help but wonder if they wish I would disappear for a while, and meet up with them, at the Terror Ride, at closing time...<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-54077723196001405562014-04-18T21:11:00.002-06:002014-04-18T21:11:58.599-06:00Star Wars: Part Three (Waiting for Jedi...)<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Warning:</b></span></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
If you weren't born between 1965 and 1980, this might not mean much to you...</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As I've thought about ways to write about my childhood, I've struggled to find a cohesive way of pulling together vastly different experiences into some kind of a relatable narrative. I did and saw so many different things. As children growing up in the late 1970's and 1980's the world was a very interesting place to live. Advances in technology were beginning to make it possible to experience things that no kids had ever experienced before. We saw things, and did things, for the first time. And in a lot of other ways we did things that kids have been doing for as long as there have been kids. We also did things that kids hardly do at all anymore. It was unique a crossroads in history -- the long, traditional past collided with a very rapidly expanding future, in a way that changed the world forever. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The best way I have come up with to describe this world that helped to make me who I am, is to divide it into themes. When I say themes, I mean that term very broadly --- with a lot of subheadings below each title. Many of the themes are related to pop culture (but not all of them) -- things like movies and television and music. For close to a century most children's first exposure to any type of culture has been, for better or worse, pop culture. For my grandparents it was radio programs like Jack Benny and Amos and Andy. It was also the serial movies, down at the local theater on Saturday morning, and comic books of their favorite superheroes. My parents had radio and movies, and also ushered in the rise of television -- the Mickey Mouse Club, Gidget, Leave it to Beaver, The Andy Griffith Show and I Love Lucy, as well as 45 rpm vinyl records -- The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones. We, the generation named "X," had all of the above, and added to the pop culture collage, video games. And MTV. And cassette tapes. And FM radio. For our children it's iPods and instant everything.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There are a lot of other themes too: Friendship, bicycles, neighborhood, scouting, school, divorce...things that affected all of us, to some degree or another. But, today I want to focus on one theme: movies. </div>
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And one movie in particular: Return of the Jedi.</div>
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There were possibly more important movies, and undoubtedly better movies (both of the previous Star Wars movies, in the final analysis, were better), but I don't think, for my generation, that there was a more anticipated movie than Return of the Jedi. And here's why:</div>
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In 1977, Star Wars came out of nowhere. Nobody had ever seen a movie like that. It was a game changer. It affected the whole world, but I would argue that it affected no one more than the kids born in the late 60's and early 70's. One of the ways to tell who these kids were is to listen to what they call this movie -- it's not Episode IV, it's not A New Hope. It's Star Wars. </div>
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Just Star Wars. </div>
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For many of us, this was the first movie we ever saw, and it infected a generation of kids to our core. This is really a post for another time, but I don't think it's possible to convey the effect this movie had on us. It molded the way we think...the way we see the world. If you aren't about my age, you don't understand that statement. </div>
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If you are my age, you know exactly what I mean. </div>
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In 1977, Star Wars shocked everyone, and, at that time, no one but James Bond was doing sequels -- and no one used the word "trilogy" when talking about movies. Now, I can only speak for myself here, but when 1980 rolled around, and brought The Empire Strikes Back to theaters, that was nearly as surprising as the emergence of Star Wars three years earlier. The world we thought we knew had expanded. There were new characters: </div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Yoda </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Lando</b></span> </div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">Boba Fett </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Wampa! </b></span></div>
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There were new worlds : </div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Hoth </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Cloud City</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>Dagobah</b></span> </div>
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There was romance. There was a dead tauntaun. There was carbonite! There was amputation by lightsaber! Darth Vader was Luke's father?!</div>
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That was bigger than Who Shot JR?!</div>
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Most importantly, The Empire Strikes Back was open ended. The story wasn't over. And that meant there was another movie. This time we all knew it. The expectation was off the charts.</div>
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All we did, in our little neighborhood circle of friends, for the next three years, was play Star Wars, and speculate what that next movie would be like. We concocted scenario after scenario, and all of them wrong. We played a lot of Hoth-like scenarios -- which made the winter bearable. We anticipated more of a Han Solo/Princess Leia/Luke Skywalker love triangle -- none of us caught the significance of that conversation between Obi Wan Kenobi and Yoda about another Skywalker. We imagined more worlds. We tried to imagine what Jabba the Hut looked like. </div>
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We heard rumor (first from Joseph Owen's mom) that the movie was to be called --Revenge of the Jedi. </div>
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What a cool name!</div>
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Later it was officially changed to Return of the Jedi, which was not as cool of a name, but ultimately made more sense. </div>
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And we all looked forward to May 25, 1983. </div>
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The closer the release date came, the more consumed my life became by this movie. It was all I thought about. And then one day, shortly before Memorial Day, Kenner released the initial action figures for Return of the Jedi. And there was the Luke Skywalker figure. </div>
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I was Luke Skywalker. </div>
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He was dressed all in black. With a green lightsaber! I didn't dare to hope that his lightsaber would actually be green -- the toys got the color of Luke's lightsaber wrong all the time (seriously, did you ever see ANYONE with a yellow lightsaber?).</div>
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And what was that outfit that Lando was wearing? </div>
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And what the heck is a Biker Scout? I don't know, but it sure looked cool!</div>
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What was a bad case of Star Wars Fever became full blown Malaria. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't concentrate at school. I was in a constant sweat. </div>
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All I wanted to do was not die before May 25, 1983. </div>
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Or May 26, 1983, as it turned out. </div>
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There are a couple of things that don't quite jive at this point. </div>
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First of all, my best friend, Aaron, somehow was able to get the golden ticket. He was getting out of school on Wednesday, the 25th, to see the movie, and Ami and I (the other two thirds of the Star Wars trio of Han Solo, Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker) were going to have to wait until the next day. That was a great imbalance in the Force, and looking back, I don't understand it. Ami and I missed school, just like Aaron did -- we just did it a day later. That makes no logical sense in my mind. We were inseparable. We didn't play Star Wars unless we were all there -- and we were always all there. So, WHY was Aaron going to Return of the Jedi before us? </div>
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But he did. And then he came home and spent a good hour telling Ami and me all about it. I remember it distinctly. He stood in the my front doorway, and regaled us for a good hour about how they went back to Hoth, and how Han Solo and Leia got married and had kids, and on, and on. And after he completely sucked us in, after he had me practically unconscious from anticipation and envy -- he told us it was all a lie. Then he smiled and went home, and left us to see it the next day, unspoiled. </div>
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So Aaron saw the movie on opening day, and I didn't. I didn't like it, but I could live with it. The real betrayal came later that afternoon, when my mom and my little brother came home...</div>
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Tim, my four year old brother, came wandering into the house, looking at a souvenir movie magazine (movie theaters used to give out things like that). I took a closer look at the magazine, when he put it down. It was for...RETURN OF THE JEDI!</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><b>WHAT?!</b></span></div>
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I turned to my mom for an explanation...</div>
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<div>
"Oh," she said casually, "I took Tim to see Return of the Jedi this morning, while you were at school. It was really good, you're going to really like it."</div>
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I can't even type that sentence without my gut tightening up. I was so dumbfounded, the rest of the night is just a fuzzy red raging memory. I do remember wondering briefly if I had been adopted. I probably curled up in the fetal position and sucked my thumb until morning. That is the only time my mom ever betrayed me, and the wound is still fresh thirty years later. </div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">"I TOOK TIM TO SEE RETURN OF THE JEDI THIS MORNING, WHILE YOU WERE AT SCHOOL!"</span></b></div>
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It's a dagger to the heart!</div>
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The most important movie of my young life, and not only did my best friend get to see it before me, but so did my four year old brother!</div>
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<div>
I went the next day, with Ami and Mario and their dad. We saw it in a theater half full of a bunch of geezers. It was everything I had hoped for -- when it was over I wanted to stand up and cheer, but no one else did it, so I kept quiet, and wondered what was wrong with everyone else. But this is about waiting for the movie, not actually reviewing it...</div>
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<div>
Incidentally, my mom made up for her betrayal (mostly) that summer. Nearly every weekend of the summer of 1983, we went to see Return of the Jedi. Eleven times, by my count -- still the most times that I've seen any movie in the theater, by a long shot. </div>
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Of all the movies that mattered to me as a kid -- and this was a great time for movies, it was the heyday of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas -- none had such a profound effect on me, as Return of the Jedi.</div>
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Every year, as the summer movie season rolls around, I still get a giddy sense of anticipation. I admit it, I love summer movies. I came of age at the birth of the summer blockbuster. And I feel sorry for kids today. Shortly after Return of the Jedi, came the rise of the multiplex. With the rise of the multiplex, came the rise of the sub par movie offering, and the cheap imitation. Kids today not only have a lesser quality of movie to look forward too, but the sheer volume of the offerings makes it impossible to obsess about one movie at a time. </div>
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And, if you were born between 1965 and 1980, you know exactly what I'm talking about. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-68530596906324259522014-04-17T23:30:00.001-06:002014-04-17T23:41:51.488-06:00Star Wars: Part Two (Playing Star Wars...)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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A quick trip through my house, reveals twenty things directly referencing Star Wars (plus another dozen that refer to Lucasfilm in general).<br />
<br />
That's not even taking into account the boxes in the garage, full of books and toys and a few "priceless" treasures.<br />
<br />
Star Wars is kind of a big deal around here.<br />
<br />
It always has been.<br />
<br />
And while Star Wars, the movie that started it all, is the focal point, when people my age age speak of Star Wars, we mean the first three movies: Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi.<br />
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The first movie, in 1977, lit the candle but, for me at least, it was The Empire Strikes Back that turned that candle into a bon fire. The first movie was made, with no way of knowing how big it would be, and therefore no expectation of a sequel. We had never heard of such thing as a sequel. All we knew was that Star Wars was the greatest movie ever made...<br />
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And, suddenly, in 1980, along comes this movie...The Empire Strikes Back. Another Star Wars movie! All the characters, in an all new story, with new lands, and new creatures, and more of everything that we loved from the first film. And best of all...the story was open ended...<br />
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In 1977, we had never conceived of the idea of a sequel.<br />
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In 1980 -- after we saw Han Solo get frozen in carbonite, and Luke Skywalker get his hand cut off -- by his FATHER! -- we knew we were getting another one.<br />
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And, while we had "played" Star Wars, since the opening of the first movie, this time between the last two movies was a golden age. It was a time of speculation, and invention. It was a time for the imagination to run wild. And, if you're going to play Star Wars properly, you need three things:<br />
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<br />
A Luke Skywalker.<br />
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A Han Solo.<br />
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And a Princess Leia.<br />
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And we had all three.<br />
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Aaron and I were the best of friends, but we had a third musketeer too -- the only friend I've known longer than Aaron, the pretty dark haired girl across the street: Ami Quintero.<br />
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It seems that everything we played in those days, from Star Wars to Battle of the Planets to The Dukes of Hazzard, had two male and one female lead. It worked out perfectly. In my mind's eye, in those wonderful days, Aaron and Ami and I were inseparable. And when we were together, it was endless playing, and inventing and imagining what new Star Wars adventures lay before us.<br />
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We weren't even close. Return of the Jedi was nothing like any of us had imagined, but what an amazing few years it was to speculate. That was truly what Star Wars did for us, and you have to understand why -- it was a time of fewer distractions, and less to draw our attention away from our one obsession.<br />
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There were no multiplexes in those early days. You didn't have one summer blockbuster movie after another, to think about and to play. You, as a kid, got about one movie a year -- Return of the Jedi played on the only screen at the Villa Theater for an entire year -- so the movies had better be good. And they were. Even today, with the thousands of films that are released each year, nothing matches the run of films stretching from the late seventies to the late eighties. It's the platinum age for movies.<br />
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Aaron and I were so lucky to have Ami in our lives. I don't know how all the other kids managed their Star Wars logistics, but ours was perfect. Ami loved Star Wars as much as we did -- and she was a girl!<br />
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That's what you call a win/win kids.<br />
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Most of the immediate neighborhood kids circled in and out of our Star Wars universe. Aaron and Ami's little brothers, Daniel and Mario, along with other kids their age -- Joseph Owen, Daniel Crapo, David Ives, came and went as fringe figures -- often as the bad guys (what good is it to play a hero, if no one is playing the villain?), and Mario, literally the smallest kid in the world at the time (with the squeakiest voice), liked to play all the really tall characters...Chewbacca...Darth Vader...IG88. David Owen -- who played the little guys like R2D2, and the Jawas -- gave his own twist to the Yoda role. In his universe, the Force was an organic thing, and when when one of us was in need of a little boost, he would just go pick some Force for us.<br />
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My little brother, Tim, who was quite a bit younger than everyone else, was always available as a script consultant -- all he did as a kid was sit in front of that giant VCR, and watch the $100 VHS tape that we had of Star Wars.<br />
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It's because of Star Wars (or, more specifically, The Empire Strikes Back), that we loved the winter. We must have played out scenes from Hoth, for hours on end -- but I don't remember ever being cold...<br />
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...no matter how many times I went face down in the snow, after escaping the Wampa.<br />
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"Yoda...Ben....Dagobah System..."<br />
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As for Aaron, Ami and I, we never switched roles. Ami was always Princess Leia -- partly because there are no other women in the Star Wars universe. Aaron always played Han Solo. I always played Luke Skywalker. There was never any debate. I don't even think there was ever discussion.<br />
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Aaron WAS Han Solo. He was brash, self assured, and cocky -- in all the ways that those qualities can be good.<br />
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Aside from the obvious fact that she was a girl, Ami was no shrinking violet. She was brave. She was MUCH smarter than we were, and she was no token. Ami was committed to Princess Leia.<br />
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<br />
And I WAS Luke Skywalker -- the wide eyed dreamer.<br />
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It was as though the universe had decreed it. It never occurred to us to do anything else. It was perfect casting.<br />
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And, together with the help of the occasional neighbor kid in a supporting role, the three of us lived the greatest adventure of all time. We swung over chasms. We navigated asteroid fields. We trekked the snows of Hoth, and walked the sunset skies of Cloud City. We learned about the Force. We faced down cool looking bounty hunters, and scary looking Sith lords. We traveled though the stars at the speed of light. We fought with light sabers, and stood by as Han Solo was frozen in carbonite. We swam through trash compactors, with walls that threatened to crush us. We blew up the Death Star...<br />
<br />
And then we did a thousand things that we thought Han and Luke and Leia might do, which were never in any movies. It was the happiest way to be a kid -- creating the greatest story ever, with your two best friends, in a galaxy far, far away...<br />
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And we hung on any news of that next story, and eventually we heard the name whispered:<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-82639604361852342432014-04-16T22:24:00.005-06:002014-04-16T22:24:46.451-06:00Star Wars: Part One (Everything changed)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I'm just going to come right out and say it.<br />
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No other movie, in the history of cinema, has impacted a single generation in the way Star Wars impacted the generation known as X.<br />
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Nothing that came before. Not Citizen Cane. Not Gone with the Wind. Not The Wizard of Oz.<br />
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And nothing that came after. Not Twilight. Not Lord of the Rings. Not Harry Potter.<br />
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Unless you were born, basically, between 1965 and 1980, this will be a very hard concept to explain. But, if you were born within that range of years, I could have stopped after the second sentence.<br />
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The words "Star Wars" may define this generation more than any other two words in our language, and now I'll attempt to explain why...<br />
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In 1977, the year I turned five, I had a life changing experience. I sat in a darkened movie theater for the first time, and saw words, that I could not yet read, scroll up the screen. And then my world went ballistic.<br />
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A huge space ship! Robots! A villain in black! A princess in white! A young hero! Crazy creatures! Laser guns! Laser swords! A wizard! A space cowboy, who shoots first, and his giant hairy companion! Battles and adventures and explosions! And the music -- I had NEVER heard anything like it (in all my five years)!<br />
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I'm not sure I exhaled for two hours.<br />
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If I had ever seen another movie before that point, I have no memory of it. My mind was a blank hard drive, and, in that dark theater in1977, Star Wars formatted it.<br />
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Let me get something else out of the way. The movie was, and always will be, called Star Wars. The subtitle Episode IV: A New Hope was added at the time of the movie's rerelease in 1981. The movie that changed my life was titled Star Wars.<br />
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Star Wars redefined the movie going experience for the entire planet. It changed the way movies are seen, the way movies are thought of, and the way movies are made. It's impact resonates right down to our day. Everything you love about adventure and science fiction, spectacle and blockbuster summer movies, has it's roots in that one movie.<br />
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But this isn't about the movie, it's about the impact that this story had on our generation.<br />
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Coming to earth in the soft afterglow of the Space Age, and before the dawn of the Information Age, we were susceptible to stories about heroes, and villains, who traveled through the stars, and strode large across the galaxy, and fought epic battles and visited alien worlds. We were primed for this story. And the heroes of this story were not little green men from Mars. They looked a lot like us.<br />
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They looked a lot like we looked in the 1970's.<br />
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It was a story of adventure, and mystery. It was a story of right and wrong. Of Good and Evil.<br />
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Star Wars changed everything.<br />
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It changed the way we played.<br />
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It changed the way we dressed.<br />
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It changed the way slept!<br />
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Never before had merchandising been such an integral part of a film's success. Everything said Star Wars. With the brilliance of the merchandizing forethought of George Lucas, we were able to bring the adventure, and all of our heroes, right into our homes, and relive the adventure again, and again.<br />
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But, most importantly, Star Wars changed the way we thought.<br />
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This movie was my first introduction to notions of fantastic love and epic adventure. To issues of right and wrong. To the concepts of good and evil. To heroism and villainy.<br />
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Before I knew of the gods of Olympus, or ancient Egypt, before I had ever heard of Adolph Hitler or Nazi Germany, before I found fictional heroes like Atticus Finch and Tom Sawyer, I knew Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia, Darth Vader, Chewbacca and R2D2.<br />
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Everyone that came after, whether they had existed for thousands of years before, was measured, in my mind, by their counterpart in the Star Wars universe.<br />
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The archetypes, by which I understand the world, and the universe, were imprinted on me<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-78550269391421519692014-04-15T16:46:00.000-06:002014-04-15T17:00:41.435-06:00Part of this nutritious breakfastThe 1980's produced certain words and phrases that have entered into the lexicon of the English language.<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Psych!</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Totally awesome!</b></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7dsSU2hbC6I98lNxRJhX3dsGg5YDExerV0Dr8tY7P8xFReQmsdnFXg9yO5HPRGMwrpB6s8GHFUIEU8jgTJVaErZ-5-uyiwQTS0RJTlPma1ehuZJ-qqVIlqkWzuIgg-WS8GNhnSKq2dmIi/s1600/i-pity-da-fool.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7dsSU2hbC6I98lNxRJhX3dsGg5YDExerV0Dr8tY7P8xFReQmsdnFXg9yO5HPRGMwrpB6s8GHFUIEU8jgTJVaErZ-5-uyiwQTS0RJTlPma1ehuZJ-qqVIlqkWzuIgg-WS8GNhnSKq2dmIi/s1600/i-pity-da-fool.jpg" height="316" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsctvQp9yu4xbrmEXIzHi1u3moksiEnFzkXqr86R6IXeFrKwxfandMWvwS5T75CebVKipMCU4LKaBiQhJ_C_2hOeNbUvCT2JYdggqywnouet8FVQ7wXaRYpN1KOHt2SaiHoqn3_rrcGpgM/s1600/I'll+be+back.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsctvQp9yu4xbrmEXIzHi1u3moksiEnFzkXqr86R6IXeFrKwxfandMWvwS5T75CebVKipMCU4LKaBiQhJ_C_2hOeNbUvCT2JYdggqywnouet8FVQ7wXaRYpN1KOHt2SaiHoqn3_rrcGpgM/s1600/I'll+be+back.jpg" height="182" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpoS9bKoch3D0rZIPMWXZ7-hLm2cQTlFV12AMXTA6SN0Os8cLZ4n70iOnjdTT6pOuYUbaxdfFTLTvJSIjsrUEIQYJ1j-DGDA5hzbnkhxg_ibjcpxL80rZd1-YIZPrejaQni0Dd8FqDiCqM/s1600/knowing.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpoS9bKoch3D0rZIPMWXZ7-hLm2cQTlFV12AMXTA6SN0Os8cLZ4n70iOnjdTT6pOuYUbaxdfFTLTvJSIjsrUEIQYJ1j-DGDA5hzbnkhxg_ibjcpxL80rZd1-YIZPrejaQni0Dd8FqDiCqM/s1600/knowing.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOTLSyH7lwYa_h_hxVe_0imlW_VfFxh3zzcQF5_OzBIn7rB7z2xw_NmjYsped6iBIji1vQlu6B0Tis4BbASYu0ukGiJSeW6p5eBPI-LEfAJ747Kb5VHO7EtE109yTi6-oAkAcjgrVHi72l/s1600/makemyday.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOTLSyH7lwYa_h_hxVe_0imlW_VfFxh3zzcQF5_OzBIn7rB7z2xw_NmjYsped6iBIji1vQlu6B0Tis4BbASYu0ukGiJSeW6p5eBPI-LEfAJ747Kb5VHO7EtE109yTi6-oAkAcjgrVHi72l/s1600/makemyday.JPG" height="250" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Go ahead. Make my day!</b></span></div>
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However, there is one phrase that may have slipped under your radar, but, to a typical television watching, cereal eating kid of the 80's, this is the one we heard more than any other:<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b><i>Part of this nutritious breakfast.</i></b></span></div>
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As in, Kellogg's Frosted Flakes, are part of this nutritious breakfast.<br />
<br />
Or, Lucky Charms are part of this nutritious breakfast.<br />
<br />
Or, Trix are part of this nutritious breakfast.<br />
<br />
(Trix were also for kids, silly rabbit)<br />
<br />
"Part of this nutritious breakfast" was spoken at the end of every cereal commercial, when, for the benefit of your parents, you were shown an ideal breakfast table setting. This Norman Rockwell breakfast consisted of two pieces of toast, or a blueberry muffin; a glass of orange juice; an apple or small bowl of fruit; two strips of bacon; a small plate of pancakes; scrambled eggs; and, almost as an afterthought, the bowl of the cereal of the week.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe8nA21JmQ0llIXw5_TPNdGdQCmfBPzoNRgZ-A7x8p8rgcyyXZV2VkI6fj-pgk01U0OtCCWruksKodatcI96b6uG865pCl98RgB_MQRAuD9F9Tp2cHT6Mb-imI1LS1puqG3g2dvv4hSCqW/s1600/healthy-breakfast.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe8nA21JmQ0llIXw5_TPNdGdQCmfBPzoNRgZ-A7x8p8rgcyyXZV2VkI6fj-pgk01U0OtCCWruksKodatcI96b6uG865pCl98RgB_MQRAuD9F9Tp2cHT6Mb-imI1LS1puqG3g2dvv4hSCqW/s1600/healthy-breakfast.jpg" height="250" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />
Right.<br />
<br />
That looks like a Denny's ad.<br />
<br />
Who had that breakfast? Ever? And who has room in their stomach for that amount of food? What did they think we were preparing for, extended arctic exploration? Most of those parts of that "nutritious breakfast" were a meal in themselves.<br />
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And the bowl of cereal that was shown was a moderate sized bowl, filled to a moderate level, with a moderate amount of milk. It was the precise amount of cereal you would pour if you were...shooting a commercial to try to convince moms and dads that they were not bad parents for buying their children a box of sugar and starch and red dye #40.<br />
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The side of the box, where the nutrition label was (which was a wealth of knowledge that only people with advanced degrees in chemistry could understand) also listed the number of servings contained therein: usually 12-16.<br />
<br />
On what planet? The planet where people's stomachs are the size of super balls, and kids don't like sugar?<br />
<br />
If you didn't consume at least half the contents of the box in one sitting, you weren't doing it right. </div>
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There were two schools of thought here: first, was to get the biggest bowl you could find -- this was the hey day of Tupperware, so every house had a supply of yellow, blue or green, large plastic bowls, which held the cereal nicely. In a pinch, you could use a cooking pot.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBV3HHOTqezX0ti7IzdSqLmHbaJg1wKkQ7tTikMgOpeZz9r8RPPtgR7Sj17KPwTlzddE8xK6WdZIHwxSSNAUrAG2nvAYR97B8ZlW1YjFKBzuDmsZ_jqA52kjqgRR9nKvvHSXAF7iqIYMY-/s1600/Corbis-42-24967919.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBV3HHOTqezX0ti7IzdSqLmHbaJg1wKkQ7tTikMgOpeZz9r8RPPtgR7Sj17KPwTlzddE8xK6WdZIHwxSSNAUrAG2nvAYR97B8ZlW1YjFKBzuDmsZ_jqA52kjqgRR9nKvvHSXAF7iqIYMY-/s1600/Corbis-42-24967919.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
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The problem with this method was that there was so much cereal that you physically couldn't get to it all, before the stuff at the bottom of the bowl turned to a mushy goo. No doubt some kids preferred it that way. But as for me, I chose method number two -- a normal bowl, filled and refilled about four times. Both methods had their champions, and both accomplished the main objective -- to get to the prize at the bottom of the box.<br />
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I'm not sure why cereal companies felt the need to bribe children to buy a box of sugar, but this era was the zenith of cereal box prizes. I remember Star Wars iron-on patches. The headboard of my bed was adorned with a Superfriends sticker, that I got from a box of Sugar Crisp. There were wacky wall crawlers, and race cars and watches and a submarine that, when it was filled with baking soda, would dive and surface in the bath tub -- just like a real submarine, full of very seasick sailors.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinpvxRKFhiWa6HbkPFUzwMdF36tIlJ1XBCBOPHKQ1IkkcxyK3QXwbOiWVPHD2PMMmXvxjReq-rMIywT4LelQ1n8WGeiACR454i5T44n-uJ5AA00mpvEWpCYkQmHnjoUhnCbvK3kEkGDOPE/s1600/6a00d8341c85cd53ef011168d34649970c-800wi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinpvxRKFhiWa6HbkPFUzwMdF36tIlJ1XBCBOPHKQ1IkkcxyK3QXwbOiWVPHD2PMMmXvxjReq-rMIywT4LelQ1n8WGeiACR454i5T44n-uJ5AA00mpvEWpCYkQmHnjoUhnCbvK3kEkGDOPE/s1600/6a00d8341c85cd53ef011168d34649970c-800wi.jpg" height="187" width="400" /></a></div>
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I thought I would get in trouble if I got the prize without eating the cereal first, so I would eat and shake the box, then eat some more, and shake the box a little more.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-XKtN-HcZLzKxfEOnU1VVlre6e44m1O7wyCwVmnDn-TgUOzCtLf6hJJgdeJ_iRX0iG83ERXMqozr9j8es-VW_64tA5Ty4Ayuoon6PO5A_KtnGD-ZlBLfFmN6StOHIU__cE9FPQO6-wurN/s1600/cerealprize.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-XKtN-HcZLzKxfEOnU1VVlre6e44m1O7wyCwVmnDn-TgUOzCtLf6hJJgdeJ_iRX0iG83ERXMqozr9j8es-VW_64tA5Ty4Ayuoon6PO5A_KtnGD-ZlBLfFmN6StOHIU__cE9FPQO6-wurN/s1600/cerealprize.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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Eventually a corner of the plastic wrapper containing the treasure would appear and I could justify retrieving it. I'm not sure who I thought was going to be upset (or even aware) if I had cheated, and opened the other end of the box, or dumped out all of the cereal, to get to the toy, but I was sure someone was watching.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdmpO4eQXp1Iy-LuFcbq5Beuq9BVbiATbBtfpOgRYt32F4fctqGSSSzd5wPl3wDQMl2ltVK1xYPGIw0rHGaEbSMWx1nF2OLYp470gurGjwn9xNp73po6-CwSttc8VX2djqr138i8lTpVR8/s1600/Boris_natasha_fearless.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdmpO4eQXp1Iy-LuFcbq5Beuq9BVbiATbBtfpOgRYt32F4fctqGSSSzd5wPl3wDQMl2ltVK1xYPGIw0rHGaEbSMWx1nF2OLYp470gurGjwn9xNp73po6-CwSttc8VX2djqr138i8lTpVR8/s1600/Boris_natasha_fearless.jpg" height="296" width="400" /></a></div>
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Probably the Russians.<br />
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I've always wondered why Kellogg's and company didn't just put the toy at the top of the box? Maybe they were afraid that we wouldn't eat the whole box of cereal, if we didn't have something to work toward?<br />
<br />
Maybe.<br />
<br />
And maybe I'd have a few less root canals if I had limited myself to two bowls of Cocoa Puffs, instead of four or five.<br />
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It's hard to describe to someone who has not experienced it, the visceral joy -- every time -- of finding that treasure at the bottom of the cereal box. The cereal companies don't put toys in their boxes anymore. Today, you might find codes for online games, or movie tickets -- arguably more valuable prizes -- but there is a supreme joy that came from finding a new toy, that you just don't get from a string of numbers.<br />
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I feel genuinely sorry for anyone that has never dug to the bottom of a breakfast cereal box, and been rewarded with scratch 'n' sniff stickers, or bicycle reflectors.<br />
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Breakfast cereal was a major component of our lives and our entertainment. The boxes could be genuine works of art, and when you were eating cereal, you were doing one of two things -- either it was Saturday morning, and you were watching cartoons, or it was a school day, and you were reading the cereal box. This was where all of us came to know words like riboflavin, dextrose, hydrogenated, and ascorbic (not that we knew what any of those things were...though I did always wonder what would happen if you FULLY hydrogenated the vegetable oil...).<br />
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The eighties saw it's share of conflicts: The United States vs. The Soviet Union. Coke vs. Pepsi. Debbie Gibson vs. Tiffany. And in the ever escalating effort to get your breakfast cereal dollars, Post and Kellogg's and General Mills, in addition to offering great prizes, would make their boxes downright irresistible, with mazes and 3D pictures, word searches and hidden pictures and comic strips. Sometimes it could take you several bowls of cereal to get through it all. I don't think I ever had a box of breakfast cereal that I didn't read every word that was printed on the box. It was the full entertainment package -- the kid equivalent of dinner and a movie.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2BwVyMqBlZtNUw7m1ZOTqbutRM5LI1fa7FV9YrMXYAxHxpQBFLM_gm6vTBcWtKr0l5xU3SaFJ6463UNwxUnE6C8FR858Beh3W8eW8kUq9XxVS60arUb425vjOkP1IH8RMrv3CubkPnKXP/s1600/1984+Kelloggs+C-3POs+cereal+box+-+Free+Star+Wars+Mask+-+Stormtrooper+-+Back.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2BwVyMqBlZtNUw7m1ZOTqbutRM5LI1fa7FV9YrMXYAxHxpQBFLM_gm6vTBcWtKr0l5xU3SaFJ6463UNwxUnE6C8FR858Beh3W8eW8kUq9XxVS60arUb425vjOkP1IH8RMrv3CubkPnKXP/s1600/1984+Kelloggs+C-3POs+cereal+box+-+Free+Star+Wars+Mask+-+Stormtrooper+-+Back.jpg" height="400" width="267" /></a></div>
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You cared so much about the cereal that you ate that they could even turn a new addition to an old cereal into a genuinely exciting pop culture moment -- remember the first time Lucky Charms shook things up by adding purple horse shoes?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxTlPQ-ew2uvD2ATt7hTZTaTTsAOjjLp-Fg_1x_icYtcuY_ARSsa2h455HQFktZE1eREw_uVwzq_MuCZSNHvFM1oME4vAYa5slLa9OI2azx6TNNFwQpRLIaSid7aSsBbahBRPmfvTN1RE2/s1600/tumblr_n3hhe2IDNO1s3zerco1_500.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxTlPQ-ew2uvD2ATt7hTZTaTTsAOjjLp-Fg_1x_icYtcuY_ARSsa2h455HQFktZE1eREw_uVwzq_MuCZSNHvFM1oME4vAYa5slLa9OI2azx6TNNFwQpRLIaSid7aSsBbahBRPmfvTN1RE2/s1600/tumblr_n3hhe2IDNO1s3zerco1_500.jpg" height="400" width="282" /></a></div>
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The 1980's were the pinnacle of novelty cereals. The 1980's were the pinnacle of every kind of novelty. Every pop culture phenomenon quickly produced it's own box of cereal. Here is just a small sampling of cereals available: <br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
C3PO's.</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Mr T.</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
E.T. Cereal.</div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Gremlins. </div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Ghost Busters. </div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
GI Joe.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Indiana Jones (I wish I'd known about this one). </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Smurfs. </div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Pac-man. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Donkey Kong. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: center;">
Rainbow Brite. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Barbie.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Strawberry Shortcake.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Shirt Tails. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Transformers. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The Goonies. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpYTDOGkcauYuUQm8BvSrrUYFqIjLgo62dCk-_Pa0tQvbJq9dXCSF7pSXhYbEYh-jIWY5cm5IS0sIJmFRYWnMRtz6-Vkb4-5C4bfjyrBUXpZ1MUuBzCKemqOcLsP5IEL8YO_P0KTbPKxxy/s1600/966323-bigthumbnail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpYTDOGkcauYuUQm8BvSrrUYFqIjLgo62dCk-_Pa0tQvbJq9dXCSF7pSXhYbEYh-jIWY5cm5IS0sIJmFRYWnMRtz6-Vkb4-5C4bfjyrBUXpZ1MUuBzCKemqOcLsP5IEL8YO_P0KTbPKxxy/s1600/966323-bigthumbnail.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
These were awful. Every one of them. That doesn't mean you didn't buy them, and it doesn't mean you didn't eat them. Such is the mania of a kid addicted to sugar and pop culture. <br />
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On top of this, manufacturers decided that kids no longer wanted to eat the traditional breakfast cereal flavors -- sweetened corn and wheat -- and they began to sell boxes of the most bizarre flavors: Oreos. Ice Cream Cones. Nerds. Orange Juice?!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNaz4eK7xvKPuCC0BqyCM-86OSo-NI5C0ko5cLsi5MDkDK2CUAkc0CHBmOQnHezQaU0-S4EhI-993XEMMdw32apiDhC7e2CiqHd-ykZvhkNIE2U4ZOr8VPcl11dZdpYwANCK8a-S_jt1_X/s1600/o-SOUR-WORMS-CEREAL-570.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNaz4eK7xvKPuCC0BqyCM-86OSo-NI5C0ko5cLsi5MDkDK2CUAkc0CHBmOQnHezQaU0-S4EhI-993XEMMdw32apiDhC7e2CiqHd-ykZvhkNIE2U4ZOr8VPcl11dZdpYwANCK8a-S_jt1_X/s1600/o-SOUR-WORMS-CEREAL-570.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Why not just pour a bowl full of candy, add some milk? The result had to be about the same. Besides, as long as you added some toast, juice, bacon, fruit and scrambled eggs, it was all part of this nutritious breakfast.<br />
<br />
For better or worse (my dental bill says worse, but my tingling nostalgia sense says better) my childhood breakfast tastes like pink hearts, orange stars, yellow moons, green clovers, blue diamonds, purple horse shoes, and partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, and that's just fine with me. </div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-91620348385121043732014-04-13T22:09:00.001-06:002014-04-13T22:16:08.214-06:00Going off the map: Big Rock, Sid Vicious and The Woolsey PropertyOne of the advantages of living at the edge of civilization is that you don't have to go very far to go off the map.<br />
<br />
In those days our neighborhood was a small oasis in the foothills below the Wasatch Mountains, and traveling a few blocks in any direction would take you into uncharted territory. To the north, our elementary school was an island, in a sea dust and rocks. To the east was the Woolsey's property. To this day, I don't actually know how much of that undeveloped area belonged to them, but you got the impression that they owned everything to Colorado. What I did know was that going east was trespassing. That doesn't mean we didn't do it, but we knew we weren't supposed to.<br />
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On this property, down in a stream that you could only traverse by walking across a rusted old water pipe, was a giant rock, that the local kids called Big Rock. For the older kids, this was a place of partying and drinking and making out. To those of us who were younger, it was a place of myth and legend. You heard about it in the same whispered tones that you might hear of a home for trolls or a haunted house. Until you made the trek, and eventually everyone made the trek, you weren't sure it was a real place. I didn't spend a lot of time there as a kid. First of all drinking and partying weren't really my scene. And, secondly, one particular summer afternoon, as Aaron and I were exploring (trespassing) we became separated, and I found myself at Big Rock...<br />
<br />
...where I came face to face with the ghost of Sid Vicious.<br />
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It was actually Ike Murphy, the son of one of my mom's close friends. But he was pierced, and snarling, and mohawked, and clad in shredded denim and spiked leather...and he scared the hell out of me! We came upon each other suddenly, and he looked up and growled at me,<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">"Get out of here!"</span></b></div>
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I didn't need to be told twice.<br />
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He lunged (actually, I think he head faked) at me, and I turned into a living cartoon -- my feet turning into spinning wheels, as I left a trail of dust clouds between me and Sid. I probably ran a quarter mile before I stopped. Or breathed. If it weren't for the evidence of the giant smoke screen I left in my wake, you could have convinced me that my feet hadn't touched ground. I was pretty sure I'd die of a heart attack at the age of twelve. As I came upon Aaron, I flew by him screaming something like, </div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">"He's going to kill us!"</span></b></div>
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It was like living in a Scooby Doo episode.<br />
<br />
My other memory of the Woolsey property is another time that Aaron and I had hiked far into the interior, and lost track of time. It was getting late, and we were due home for dinner, and there was no way we would make it on time -- at least not if we went out the same way we went in...Well, Aaron was nothing if not resourceful, and he came up a plan -- Aaron always came up with the plans (and somehow we lived to talk about it anyway). This particular plan involved jumping into the river, and letting the current do all the hard work of taking us home. It was simple. You just jump in the river, float as far as you needed to, then grab on to something on the bank and pull yourself out.<br />
<br />
You're probably thinking that I'm telling you this as a cautionary tale. That one of us came close to drowning. That parents and paramedics were called. That we never did anything that stupid again.<br />
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All of those assumptions are wrong.<br />
<br />
Not only did we do a lot of things every bit as stupid, but in those cases, as in this, it always worked out just the way Aaron planned it. I've never concluded whether it was dumb luck, or chutzpah, or supreme self confidence, but Aaron instinctively knew how to get in and out of every situation. And in this case, we jumped in the water, floated to the end of the property, grabbed hold of the weeds on the side of the river bank, and pulled ourselves out -- Aaron smiling like the Cheshire Cat, me just looking like a drowned cat.<br />
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I'm not sure how we explained being drenched, on a hot summer day, to our parents, but, to be honest, it probably didn't even phase them.<br />
<br />
Weirdly, it seemed that, after a while, nothing phased our parents anymore.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-55508920377745150562014-04-13T00:10:00.000-06:002014-04-13T00:11:40.324-06:00Rites of Passage: Building projects<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">There are certain things that all boys do. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">We all destroy things. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">We all ignore the girls that we like. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">And we build.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">(Sometimes we build just to have something to destroy, but that's beside the point)</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">This is a tendency that goes back beyond recorded time, when someone, struggling to scratch out an existence in the deserts of Egypt, look out on the plains of Giza and said "You know what would look REALLY cool here? Three giant pyramids! RIGHT?! And then we can build giant statues of me, and obelisks. I like obelisks. And call me pharaoh, that's cool too."</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1buYQDF8XpxLPIF_urS00C1NbcQo73qlQO1yqCXm1XmsVfrWedgOYRWT4Q1n9xidAL9W2ibQYRTBfXgDza-JbiiYx5sz-UQ8lulbks-nm414AmXs5W0RXZhghtQhkVfm9BibRlNkTXBS2/s1600/All_Gizah_Pyramids.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1buYQDF8XpxLPIF_urS00C1NbcQo73qlQO1yqCXm1XmsVfrWedgOYRWT4Q1n9xidAL9W2ibQYRTBfXgDza-JbiiYx5sz-UQ8lulbks-nm414AmXs5W0RXZhghtQhkVfm9BibRlNkTXBS2/s1600/All_Gizah_Pyramids.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">That's a loose translation, but it's basically what those hieroglyphs say...I'm pretty sure. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">All over the world, men built, and they built big. Pyramids. Temples. Colossal statues (called colossi). Churches. Arenas. This was more than building the trappings of civilization. This was more than homes and shops. It was a stamp in time. It was a marker left on the Earth that said "I was here, and don't ever forget it."</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihdsiGwhIVu4iO1oom5rkA2xFkDOzEoCKWWQhAkRa_Twy_rOz32yF_ulLIHXnupxnN6hjixV4AYFFZhAq2bhWkEg7BaIS7T7eiuEj0T5M5dsn8G8EeCx0eSLSiUoSOSNHH4cfAYfWQkXDH/s1600/Colossi_of_Memnon_R02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihdsiGwhIVu4iO1oom5rkA2xFkDOzEoCKWWQhAkRa_Twy_rOz32yF_ulLIHXnupxnN6hjixV4AYFFZhAq2bhWkEg7BaIS7T7eiuEj0T5M5dsn8G8EeCx0eSLSiUoSOSNHH4cfAYfWQkXDH/s1600/Colossi_of_Memnon_R02.jpg" height="327" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Boys of the 1980's were no different from the pharaohs and caesars and kings of the past. Boys built things, and they wanted to be remembered for it. We wanted to leave our mark on the Earth. We wanted to be remembered. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">It all starts with Legos, maybe the greatest toy of all time. With legos you are the master of your universe. You construct buildings. And guns. You create spaceships. And guns. You assemble towers. And guns. And even bigger guns.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWAoYJh9t6_S5bQPdvL5grFgQ3bOf_bM56QAly7d4nzwkk_pYzsoYV5uSiBeLGD5IZxTHpwnNYfzyMufPZlugGyPfJVgMxkBKzcb1Q5e59h_IoIwvF0yqbEvXJ1wsQmkICrLQ1-2JZKXMY/s1600/lego+pile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWAoYJh9t6_S5bQPdvL5grFgQ3bOf_bM56QAly7d4nzwkk_pYzsoYV5uSiBeLGD5IZxTHpwnNYfzyMufPZlugGyPfJVgMxkBKzcb1Q5e59h_IoIwvF0yqbEvXJ1wsQmkICrLQ1-2JZKXMY/s1600/lego+pile.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">From legos, you graduated to tunnels and forts made from couch cushions and kitchen chairs, and blankets, or old cardboard appliance boxes. But, eventually, you need to build something more </span></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">permanent. Which brings us to the clubhouse. Every boy worthy of the title, at some point in his life, should build a clubhouse. And one summer Aaron and I did just that. </span></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimfVxsWcFu1_AqMgW-YfBJglOK1uDRRQ5_G90FkIFyOygJ0rjGqlMA57pwa3ek9uGA1wGy3RR62EESK4M-67_Deo6qPbclPLQsp4WJ_Eoc3R0PUB76dk7XGZArHvNT2ED5ScLv5YKNQgWI/s1600/make-fort-out-ofunny-photos-couch-cushions-demotivational-posters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimfVxsWcFu1_AqMgW-YfBJglOK1uDRRQ5_G90FkIFyOygJ0rjGqlMA57pwa3ek9uGA1wGy3RR62EESK4M-67_Deo6qPbclPLQsp4WJ_Eoc3R0PUB76dk7XGZArHvNT2ED5ScLv5YKNQgWI/s1600/make-fort-out-ofunny-photos-couch-cushions-demotivational-posters.jpg" height="328" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">The first step was to find a location. That was easy enough, we'd just put it in my backyard. I was sure my mom wouldn't mind. Heck, it would probably drive up the property value. But, just to be on the safe side, we put up as much of it as we could, while she was at work...we picked the far corner of my yard -- the corner that could be seen from the road...no point in building something this magnificent, unless everyone was going to be able to see it. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">The next step was to find material. Since our resources were limited, we scrounged scrap wood from construction sites, and dumpsters from all over the neighborhood (and beyond). Once we had accumulated our wood, swiped a couple of hammers and saws from Aaron's dad, and procured some nails, we went to work on The Hut. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">That was the clever name we gave to the magnificent edifice that we were about to erect -- which portends the direction of the rest of the story. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">We drew up the plans, measured twice, </span></span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">cut once, and with our very limited understanding of construction, built the ugliest clubhouse ever. It looked like an outhouse built for two. (Thinking back now, I wish we had cut a moon in the door, for the limited time we had a door -- at least it would have seemed like we were in on the joke). But the truth is, to us, it was the greatest thing ever built. And, even better, we were the first. The pioneers. The trailblazers. After we built The Hut, every other kid in the neighborhood decided that they needed a clubhouse for themselves. And all of theirs turned out better than ours. But, there is something to be said for being the first. </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm_LNEUHsHGwn1HUoRLE_GV60IErUR-p726bn3q9s4IHX9vNAHrCRfogmf0zpVGcfxTaW7_d8bO4cDvB2utXTVi4l-Dt2BqmiZUvEh9NbGoLq_4nLKGzR6F99ZvZ8_Sf74fXe88p_Hz9Wq/s1600/30646514.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm_LNEUHsHGwn1HUoRLE_GV60IErUR-p726bn3q9s4IHX9vNAHrCRfogmf0zpVGcfxTaW7_d8bO4cDvB2utXTVi4l-Dt2BqmiZUvEh9NbGoLq_4nLKGzR6F99ZvZ8_Sf74fXe88p_Hz9Wq/s1600/30646514.jpg" height="388" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">The thing I was most proud of was that The Hut had an upstairs. What innovators we were. You would have thought no one had ever thought of building a second floor before. Like I said...pioneers. </span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">We had such big plans for The Hut that first summer. We figured we'd sleep out there every other night or so. We'd hold all of our clandestine meetings in there. We'd be the envy of every other boy in town. Of course, like a lot of big plans we had, it was a lot more fun to plan, than to carry out. It turns out The Hut had two major flaws:</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">1. It was only about 6' x 6' (not counting that innovative upstairs, which was just big enough to lay down uncomfortably, and try not to get tetanus from the nails driven through the roof)</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">2. It was so hot inside. It was like solitary confinement, in some Vietnamese POW camp. You couldn't stand inside for more than ten minutes, much less sleep in there. </span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">But those flaws never diminished, in our minds, the accomplishment of constructing The Hut. It was the biggest, and most enduring thing we ever built. It stood in that corner of my yard, for years afterward (and found real use as a platform for jumping onto the trampoline). </span></span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXrHfgztvt6GwyDe6tGkNV6qxHEW56-eUVVBzdDl0-G63MUIbwB8iREtM48YY-kSkJYVYDqr6uapzrEkn74NtjOJ4zuxTYZncU1XC5FqrKAVL4XubvNlFmCWdqpWkMEbMiS6yit1pTNvut/s1600/Sphinx.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXrHfgztvt6GwyDe6tGkNV6qxHEW56-eUVVBzdDl0-G63MUIbwB8iREtM48YY-kSkJYVYDqr6uapzrEkn74NtjOJ4zuxTYZncU1XC5FqrKAVL4XubvNlFmCWdqpWkMEbMiS6yit1pTNvut/s1600/Sphinx.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Like the pyramids, or the Sphinx, or the Acropolis, The Hut bore testament to a race of builders, with dreams of grandeur, who longed to leave their mark upon the world, and left a monument for those who would follow, to gaze on with awe and wonder. And then, as with those ancient creations, eventually no one could remember how (or why) it was built, and The </span><span style="line-height: 18px;">Hut passed into history and became part of the legend of life on Woodchuck Way.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Trebuchet MS, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">At least that's how I remember it. </span></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-88203103583400058422014-04-11T18:34:00.003-06:002014-04-11T18:34:51.972-06:00Icons of a simpler time: Twinkies<div class="separator" style="background-color: white; clear: both; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 20px; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: medium;">Twinkies taste like a summer afternoon, in 1982, on the back porch of a home in suburban America, where all the neighborhood kids are running through the sprinklers, and climbing the trees, skin burning in the heat of the day, or lying on their backs, staring into the blue expanse, identifying the puffy white clouds as sheep and Volkswagons and dragons, and planning the next sleepover, and all the adventures they'll have, that they won't tell their parents about for years, embracing the day, not worrying about tomorrow -- that's an adventure for the future -- and dreaming big, and loving life.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-67046750575411820762014-04-10T20:01:00.002-06:002014-04-11T13:07:42.091-06:00Ms. DoxeyThere are a lot of names, from Quail Hollow Elementary, that I can still remember: Aders. Olsen. Beckstead (and before that she was Phelps). Shurtleff. Keeley. Stavros...<br />
<br />
But one name loomed largest over education in Sandy, Utah.<br />
<br />
It was a name that struck an inexplicable dread into any kid that heard it.<br />
<br />
The name carried a reputation. This teacher was different than all of the others. It was said that kids that went into this class were never the same again.<br />
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When you went to the school, on a late summer afternoon, to see who your teacher was going to be for the next year, there was one name, above all others, that you did not want to read:<br />
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DOXEY.<br />
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And, on an August afternoon in 1982, I read the class lists, and found my name under...Doxey.<br />
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I started updating my will, then and there. Aaron would get the Star Wars figures and the Atari. Ami would get the trampoline, and the picture of she and I dressed up for Halloween (she was a witch, I was a hobo). The rest of my estate would be divided up amongst my brother, and any of my classmates fortunate enough not to get Ms. Doxey.<br />
<br />
And it was Ms. Doxey.<br />
<br />
Not Mrs. Doxey.<br />
<br />
Not Miss Doxey.<br />
<br />
I learned, unequivocally, in the fourth grade, what the prefix "Ms." meant.<br />
<br />
Ms. Doxey was a towering figure. I'm not kidding. In my mind's eye, even now, she's at least eight feet tall. But it wasn't her height that made her towering -- it was her presence. Ms. Doxey commanded the room. This was not a school marm. This was a school master.<br />
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The day after Labor Day, 1982, the playground bell sounded long and mournful, like doom was spreading across the land. Dark clouds, and rolling thunder emitted from the fourth grade door and I walked with a heavy heart, and heavier steps, into Quail Hollow Elementary. It was like walking to my own execution. No one would ever see me again.<br />
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At least that's what I thought was going to happen.<br />
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Have you ever been part of a club, or let in on a big secret? From the outside, your perspective is informed by ignorance, and, perhaps, misunderstanding. But, from the inside, you can see things as they really are. From the first day, my brain wasn't melted, as I'd feared...but my mind was expanded.<br />
<br />
Ms. Doxey had a variety of tools at her disposal, beyond the training she had received as an educator. They are the tools that set a master educator apart from an adequate one.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Expectation of excellence.</span></b><br />
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In a world that often strives for mediocrity, Ms. Doxey raised the bar for us. From reading, to arithmetic, to classroom behavior, she expected us to be excellent. That doesn't mean that we always were, but, as Thoreau said, "In the long run, men only hit what they aim at, therefore they had better aim at something high."<br />
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I don't believe that excellence is an end goal. It's a matter of being. We don't arrive at excellence, we become excellent.<br />
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Ms. Doxey told us what her expectations were, and then showed us how to get there. She told us, with hard work and effort, we could be excellent<br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Discipline. </b></span><br />
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I don't know how you keep a classroom of fourth graders under control, and doubt that we were always under control, but I know how I felt. I didn't want to goof off. A disciple is a student, but more than that...an eager student. Ms. Doxey opened our eyes to the wonders around us. We were Ms. Doxey's disciples. We sat at her feet, and she taught us about our world.<br />
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Through pictures and stories from her time there, she introduced us to Greece. Words like Zeus, and Athena, Acropolis and Parthenon entered our vocabulary for the first time. The stories of the gods of Olympus fascinated me. To tell you the truth, she should have been working for the Tourism Board of Greece. I imagine every kid in that class was ready to book a mediterranean cruise.<br />
<br />
In Ms. Doxey's class, I learned about the most fascinating man I had ever heard of -- Leonardo DaVinci, and an incredible era in history called The Renaissance. DaVinci was an architect and a visionary. He was an artist. I learned that art was more than a hobby. I learned that art matters. The word art is short for articulation, and our art is what we have to say to the world. I learned that we all have something worth saying.<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Respect. </span></b><br />
<br />
Respect is a two way door. If it's one sided, it's not respect, it's fear. And, contrary to popular notion, you cannot command respect, you have to earn it. It can be given and lost. It can't be demanded or taken. Kids, uninformed and ignorant, sometimes feared the idea of going to Ms. Doxey's class. But, once we were on the inside, we learned quickly that our perceptions were gross misunderstandings. <br />
And, Ms. Doxey taught me a lesson, that stays with me to this day -- that everyone is worthy of my respect, until they prove otherwise. She respected us from the beginning -- it was given, and therefore became ours to lose. And, we learned to respect her.<br />
<br />
I don't know if she ever knew this. I hope she did. I hope she knew how much she impacted not just our education, but our lives. Everyone I know from those days remembers her, and all of the trepidation and imposing reputation, that intimidated us as children, has fallen away. What is left is eternal respect, and undying admiration for living embodiment of the title, educator.<br />
<br />
It turned out that the rumors were true.<br />
<br />
Ms. Doxey WAS different from other teachers.<br />
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And the kids that found themselves in her class were never the same again.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-50589626646395405232014-04-09T20:25:00.001-06:002014-04-09T21:01:35.432-06:00Atonement and a Plea for Amnesty<div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-3628972041697364267" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; position: relative; width: 718px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;">Sitting at this screen, night after night, thinking about my life, </span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">and</span><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;"> my friendship with Aaron, I've concluded two things. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">1. I've had an amazing life.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 21px;">2. I did a lot of things I shouldn't have done, and some of you might just be lucky to be alive, and not realize it.</span></span><br />
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;">Now don't misunderstand me, I never killed anyone or knocked off a bank or voted for a Clinton, but there are a few indiscretions that I would like to request at this time be expunged from the record. In that light, I hereby offer the following apologies/confessions:</span></span><br />
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<b style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;"><span style="font-size: large;">To my mom:</span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;"> There are a more things than I could detail in a year of blogs, so we'll just focus on a couple here. Remember ALL those Star Wars figures you bought me? There were dozens of them, and most suffered the same ignominious fate -- Aaron and I buried them up to their shoulders, and golfed their heads off. I'm a parent now and I buy toys. I am REALLY sorry.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;">And the Relief Society statue on top of the piano -- I'm sorry we played soccer in the living room. (And Aaron, I'm sorry you got grounded for that, and I didn't...but, I'm pretty sure you kicked the ball)</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;">And I'm sorry I was (am) such a know-it-all.</span></span><br />
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And I'm sorry for breaking into your locked bedroom, just because I could.</div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;">And I'm sorry our house had red and green and blue and yellow shag carpeting (this wasn't my fault, but I'm still sorry).</span></span><br />
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<b style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;"><span style="font-size: large;">To the owners of the Smith's Food King:</span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;"> I'm sorry we climbed up on your roof, and threw Oreos at your patrons. But, really you shouldn't have left the cookies by the dumpster behind the store. And you shouldn't put a ladder on the outside of store, for easy roof access. And your customers shouldn't drive around your parking lot, with their windows rolled down. Actually, I think this is pretty much your fault, Smith's. </span></span><br />
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<b style="line-height: 1.4;"><span style="font-size: large;">To my childhood neighbors:</span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 1.4;"> I'm sorry we randomly fired sharp arrows over the houses, into neighboring streets. It chills me to </span>write<span style="line-height: 1.4;"> those words. It started with a little target practice in the backyard, with a bow that could really launch the arrows (because we strung it with a string that was a size too small). They weren't blunt </span>arrows, they were razor sharp hunting arrows. We just rained down destruction on the neighborhood. I always wondered what people thought of the arrows in their yards...<span style="line-height: 1.4;">I'm so glad no one was hurt (or at least no one I ever heard of...) And to the Crapos in particular, I'm sorry I shot an arrow into your roof, and another through your garage door. It was nothing personal, just poor marksmanship.</span></span></div>
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And the slightly less dangerous activity (but only slightly), of whacking golf balls with an aluminum bat. We just homered them into the stratosphere, giving no thought to where they might land. </div>
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Seriously, was there no parental supervision?! How did any of you get out of the neighborhood alive?</div>
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<b style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;"><span style="font-size: large;">To the little bird at Scout camp:</span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;"> I'm sorry I threw that hatchet high up into the tree, over and over again trying to hit you. And to all the scouts on the ground under the tree, I'm sorry I endangered your lives -- over and over again. Obviously I never made it to Eagle Scout.</span></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">To Mrs. Olsen, my sixth grade teacher:</span></b> It was me. I did it. The Respect Book -- that wonderful experiment in discipline that you tried that year, the book that we miscreants had to write our names in whenever we acted up, gradually progressing in stages of severity, until it climaxed in a meeting with our parents and the principal, THAT BOOK -- you may have noticed that it was missing. I stole it. Not only did I steal it, but I ritualistically burned it on our back patio, on the last day of school. The little yellow blob of melted plastic -- the stain of my sin -- remained fused to the cement for many years afterward.</div>
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It was my one great act of defiance, and I do not apologize, but I do confess. I did it for sixth graders everywhere.</div>
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<b style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;"><span style="font-size: large;">To all of you that I snowed into thinking I was a good kid:</span></b><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;"> Forgive me.</span></span><br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-4404076340824472102014-04-08T22:53:00.001-06:002014-04-08T23:43:47.612-06:00Mundus Novus: The New WorldThere were a lot kids in Sandy.<br />
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A. Lot. Of. Kids.<br />
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Our neighborhood was a collection of new, modestly priced, mid-sized houses -- just the kind of place a young family with small children would move into. And that's exactly who bought the houses on Woodchuck and Falcon and Quail Hollow, and all the other streets in this new community. Dozens of young couples, in their mid to late twenties, with one or two young children, came and built a home and a life for their family, nestled in the foothills, in the shadow of the Wasatch mountain range.<br />
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It was Terra Nova - -a new land. It was an unwritten manuscript. The area had no stories to tell. There were no neighborhood memories. There was no old guard to replace. We plowed the ground and planted the seeds of adventure and legend. We wrote the first chapters.<br />
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Like Lewis and Clark, we saw the first sights.<br />
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Like Columbus, we found the new routes.<br />
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Like Neil Armstrong...<br />
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We left the first footprints.<br />
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This was Mundus Novus: A new world.<br />
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And, eventually, all these kids would need to go to school.<br />
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For awhile, kindergarten through second grade for me, we shared a school with the small community of Granite, in an old mining settlement, to the southeast of us, near the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon: Granite Elementary.<br />
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We were the Grizzlies.<br />
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Granite was where I had my first kiss, got in my first fight, and played on equipment made of steel, over a playground covered in gravel. It was a heartier time. There was a small neighborhood cemetery, south of the playground, where we would occasionally kick the stray soccer ball. I was in the second grade when we learned to sing a new song, from a new movie, starring the Muppets. The song was The Rainbow Connection. I still love that song.<br />
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Second grade, at Granite Elementary, was also my first experience with the publishing industry, working on the "yearbook staff" for a quaint yearbook that I still have. And still treasure.<br />
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And it was crowded.<br />
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There were so many kids at Granite Elementary that they were forced to stagger the class times. Some of us came extra early in the morning, others came later, and stayed at school until late in the afternoon. This couldn't last for long, and it didn't.<br />
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In the autumn of the 1981-82 school year, Quail Hollow Elementary opened it's doors for the first time.<br />
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There was only one road that made it all the way to the school -- Quail Hollow, naturally, the world's longest road -- and I assume that that is why it got it's name. That school year we had a contest to name a mascot. The winner? Quail. Naturally.<br />
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What else would it be?<br />
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(There are a lot of quail in Sandy).<br />
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Fear the mighty quail! Yeah, even back then it didn't strike much fear into anyone.<br />
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Aaron and I were in the third grade that year, in Mr. Aders' class. They only put us in the same class every three years. It probably took that long for them to forget why they shouldn't put us in the same class. Mr. Aders' class was as much fun as I ever had in school. I'm not sure what you are supposed to learn in the third grade. I already knew how to read, and do general math. I think we learned cursive in the fourth grade. Third grade must have been a coaster year.<br />
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Third grade stands out to me for five reasons:<br />
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1. That was the year Raiders of the Lost Ark came out. That's a big deal.<br />
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2. Mr. Aders would tell stories to us every day. He just made them up, and incorporated the names of the students as names of characters. I was some kind of a giant sucking monster.<br />
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3. Mr Aders would also let us pick a treasure from his treasure box. These were handy little plastic trinkets, that made great weapons, when tied to a string, for Aaron and I to whip each other with, when we were fighting over girls. Those were good times...<br />
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4. Third grade was where I acquired the four inch scar on my right arm. Sometime that fall, as Aaron and I were half horsing around, half scuffling, at lunch recess, I took a swing at him, and fearing my devastating right hook, he held up his left arm to defend himself. The arm with the watch, with the very sharp corners. It sliced a chunk right out of my arm. Momentarily, I could see the inner workings of my arm, before the blood began to flow. School had only been in session for about a month. Sometimes I wonder if I was the first to spill blood on that playground? And in the classroom. And down the hall. And in the office...<br />
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I wonder if they keep those kinds of records...?<br />
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And finally, that year stands out, because the school wasn't finished. They were still building it when we began to attend. Many of the rooms didn't have finished ceilings. But, mostly, I remember the styrofoam containers. The cafeteria was not completed (who planned this building project?) and for lunch we received a styrofoam container full of food, that we either ate outside, or at our desks, back in the classroom.<br />
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I went back to the school, on a Saturday, a couple of years back, and walked the grounds. The bricks on the building felt the same. I felt like I knew every inch of the property. I could hear the sound of the big, rubber playground balls, bouncing on the asphalt, and the basketballs swishing through the metal nets. I could see the lists on the windows, telling us whose class we would be in for the next school year. The playground was covered in something safer than gravel, but I could still hear the distinct crunch of children jumping from swings, and landing in the nice soft rocks. I could hear the bell, calling us in. I could see the windows that I drew my attention on those days when I daydreamed of standing between my class and a horde of alien invaders...and liking the odds. I could see faces of friends I still know, and kids that are nothing but memories.<br />
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Like everything else in our world, the school was new territory. We broke it in with our voices and our dirty shoes, our sweaty little kid smell, and our laughter. Our blood (or, at least my blood). Our minds were the first to be enlarged in that building. Our stories were the first echo through the halls. Our ghosts have haunted the classrooms the longest.<br />
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It was a new world, and, like the swings on the playground, we set it in motion.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-65680261204438329702014-04-07T21:22:00.000-06:002014-04-07T21:26:53.931-06:00Prologue<div dir="ltr" style="background-color: white;">
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Prologue</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I don’t know if we each have a destiny, or if we’re all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze...but I think maybe it’s both...maybe both happening at the same time.”</span></b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b><span style="font-size: large;"> </span>-</b></span><span style="font-family: 'Corsiva Hebrew'; letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>--Forrest Gump</b></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Sometimes destiny turns on a single moment. The course of my life was set on an early summer day, in 1975. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1689207375" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><span class="aBn" data-term="goog_1689207375" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: dashed; border-bottom-width: 1px; position: relative; top: -2px; z-index: 0;" tabindex="0"><span class="aQJ" style="position: relative; top: 2px; z-index: -1;">June 22</span></span>, the day that my brother died. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">This is mostly a happy story. The tale of my life is filled with laughter and adventure, smiles and hope. But the story begins with a tragedy, when I was two years old. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">While riding his bicycle home from a friend’s house, on June 18, 1975, my brother, Scott, was chased by some older boys. Scott was only seven years old, and frightened. He rode, unaware, out into a busy street, and was struck by a car. Three days later my parents made the difficult decision to let him go, and he passed peacefully from this world to the next. </span></div>
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<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">An insurance settlement provided my parents with an eight thousand dollar stipend, and that money enabled them to do something they had thought was out of their financial grasp -- it allowed them to buy a house. They decided to build on a street called Woodchuck Way, in a new residential area of the southeastern suburb of Salt Lake City, called Sandy. In 1975, Woodchuck Way was pretty close to the end of the earth. The roads -- Highland Drive...Wasatch Boulevard -- literally ended in Sandy. They just turned into dirt paths. </span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial;"><span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">In November of 1975, the house at 2508 Woodchuck Way became my home. And that changed everything. Across the street lived a beautiful girl -- my </span>oldest friend. <span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Up and down the streets were new houses -- about every third one looked just like mine -- and these houses would soon fill up with kids my age, who would become my lifelong friends. Everything was a blank canvas. Streets unwalked by school children. Foothills filled with adventure, as yet unexplored. Memories in embryo. And up the street, at 2350 Woodchuck Way, lived the boy who would become the best friend I ever had. </span></span><br />
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Aaron Ball. </span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">Because of Aaron, my life was filled with friendship, and adventure and wonder and laughter. Because of Aaron I did things I would never have done on my own. Because of Aaron, I survived the breakup of my parents’ marriage. Because of Aaron, I moved to Cedar City when I was twenty one. Because of Aaron, I met my wife, and by extension have the family that I have. In a very real sense, I have no idea where destiny would have taken me, if I had never met Aaron Ball. </span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">And if my brother had not died, I don’t know that I ever would have met Aaron. We may have moved to Sandy, eventually. We may have come close, but not to that street, and not to that house, and not to those friends. The entire direction of my life may have been different, if Scott had not ridden out on to that dangerous road, on that early summer day, in 1975. </span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;">It’s an interesting dichotomy. I can’t be thankful for the loss of my brother, but neither could I be more grateful for than I am, for a destiny that has led me to a life of love and friendship, that few have been lucky enough to understand. </span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; min-height: 14px;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"></span><br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Corsiva Hebrew'; font-size: 18px; text-align: right;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>-- Christopher Thornblad</b></span></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Corsiva Hebrew'; font-size: 18px; text-align: right;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Corsiva Hebrew'; font-size: 18px; text-align: right;">
<span style="letter-spacing: 0px;"><b>Farmington, Utah</b></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-37230144489242772942014-04-06T14:49:00.001-06:002014-04-07T16:16:19.170-06:00Nothin's Gonna Stop Me This Time!Thub thub thub...thub thub thub thub...thubthubthubthubthubthubthubthubthubthubbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...<br />
<br />
That's the sound of a motorcycle.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUjPwA-qosuRG5JPGfGmHCBaY3lBK0gdfumt0RWwAYj31cDVC4baaQ9XJqRWuOFnVTfunm0sMU1KG-22q_yxTD4ksnufVb8mFoeq1JqZVhIrQQtjCaX0sW6Bh3LweQE8n3edGaVqJszGCs/s1600/Fonzie05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUjPwA-qosuRG5JPGfGmHCBaY3lBK0gdfumt0RWwAYj31cDVC4baaQ9XJqRWuOFnVTfunm0sMU1KG-22q_yxTD4ksnufVb8mFoeq1JqZVhIrQQtjCaX0sW6Bh3LweQE8n3edGaVqJszGCs/s1600/Fonzie05.jpg" height="400" width="381" /></a></div>
<br />
Ok, it's not really the sound of a motorcycle, it's the sound of a bicycle, pretending to be a motorcycle.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ6MSRFGyAN9D3b9DLE1R2n6iU4deO_oYpHSHJKa70Q7bigjBlmnyupDowHdJMMjmd6T6XYYZgt2yWblRpssWH8RtTrcGtdU2P2rpy_O9vszA_ddk62xTrF2Z4xGzf1e9uZwNNzCq63x5u/s1600/Mantle-Spokes-Jim-Degerstrom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQ6MSRFGyAN9D3b9DLE1R2n6iU4deO_oYpHSHJKa70Q7bigjBlmnyupDowHdJMMjmd6T6XYYZgt2yWblRpssWH8RtTrcGtdU2P2rpy_O9vszA_ddk62xTrF2Z4xGzf1e9uZwNNzCq63x5u/s1600/Mantle-Spokes-Jim-Degerstrom.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
The problem is, bicycles don't make a lot of noise, and being a kid is about sensory overload -- at least it is if you're doing it right -- hence the baseball card, or the library card, or just a plain old piece of cardboard, taped on to the frame of the bike, and stuck into the spokes of the back tire. And presto! Your bike is now a motorcycle. A loud motorcycle. And the best thing about this curious little innovation was the fact that the faster you went, the louder your "motor" revved, and as you slowed down, the "motor" almost sounded like it was idling.<br />
<br />
When you are a kid, your bike is more than transportation.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis3xRdRK8DwYjOZLA3TapqzXq5A_RlkdDNv_G3MR3bqnJJuulsmfpysQgFFA4NPczRbSBgdeiU47sOZg5IPptFUeKfZyXIBx40BPnKb5xvLIFxBh6xP17qYIVToMmuj6L0PMbkSqs1sOl8/s1600/X-wing_Fathead.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis3xRdRK8DwYjOZLA3TapqzXq5A_RlkdDNv_G3MR3bqnJJuulsmfpysQgFFA4NPczRbSBgdeiU47sOZg5IPptFUeKfZyXIBx40BPnKb5xvLIFxBh6xP17qYIVToMmuj6L0PMbkSqs1sOl8/s1600/X-wing_Fathead.png" height="252" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
It's your X-wing fighter.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTuOQK4sDZZg6uJ7qReMe1ojm5Yzbjza8XwM-al24Ua_cIGOyJFh0R0Un-j9M_VC0-IUogzzdEJahIbIfMyyxGt4bLo6878NY5wZn7mCjEpZMkZoaaOwaaM92xMYkp9dqLbARuSadSYXBH/s1600/f-14-dvic223.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTuOQK4sDZZg6uJ7qReMe1ojm5Yzbjza8XwM-al24Ua_cIGOyJFh0R0Un-j9M_VC0-IUogzzdEJahIbIfMyyxGt4bLo6878NY5wZn7mCjEpZMkZoaaOwaaM92xMYkp9dqLbARuSadSYXBH/s1600/f-14-dvic223.jpg" height="261" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
It's your F-14 Tomcat.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhw4sXIUFRr25Eank8EfHEo2FWNlwH0hsgRmS6O3TDBwMP8d3f7cbljSk9OmnzbcJuEUp438cGfSvH08aUv7NGrggmL9PO8-KSNfn6Eq37iA7E73a6HYqwblFHPzdr8MB_J6CN3m3sFNpo/s1600/Ksc-69pc-442.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhw4sXIUFRr25Eank8EfHEo2FWNlwH0hsgRmS6O3TDBwMP8d3f7cbljSk9OmnzbcJuEUp438cGfSvH08aUv7NGrggmL9PO8-KSNfn6Eq37iA7E73a6HYqwblFHPzdr8MB_J6CN3m3sFNpo/s1600/Ksc-69pc-442.jpg" height="400" width="318" /></a></div>
<br />
It's your Saturn 5 rocket.<br />
<br />
A bike is adventure.<br />
<br />
A bike is freedom.<br />
<br />
The 1980's were the heyday of the bike riding kid, and our town was a great bike riding town -- the last thing you want, when you're a bike riding kid, is a straight road.<br />
<br />
Bicycles greatly expanded the boundaries of a kid's world. It was the key to unlocking exploration. You started small -- a trip to the neighbors' house. Then it was a ride around the block. An excursion to the school -- where you secured your bike with one of those bike locks, coated in the plastic (and very 80's) neon colored gel-like coating -- you know, the locks that you could pick by pulling them tight, and turning the tumblers until the lock released?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqR6i2fobUsUp6wmbDSrM7YMQDfRuH0oIKWvM_F6u3qazZi58rqtt48w4GvXFtTp3sTJIXsUz7c4jYnjCdthT_sK0IzV-3ozpH6v7XdGYiqFqHiTtQb3sKcnUA7BNTQujsn-Ttr_Xe7BBA/s1600/mbz5Wl_7Ye-d9myDqK_k7kQ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqR6i2fobUsUp6wmbDSrM7YMQDfRuH0oIKWvM_F6u3qazZi58rqtt48w4GvXFtTp3sTJIXsUz7c4jYnjCdthT_sK0IzV-3ozpH6v7XdGYiqFqHiTtQb3sKcnUA7BNTQujsn-Ttr_Xe7BBA/s1600/mbz5Wl_7Ye-d9myDqK_k7kQ.jpg" height="357" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
(As an aside, didn't it seem that everything in the 80's was made of that neon, plastic jelly material?)<br />
<br />
Next, you rode to The Sev, for a Slurpee and some candy cigarettes. You were practically a grown up now.<br />
<br />
My bike made it possible to have friends in the far flung corners of the neighborhood -- like a mile away. But the bike I had was not like other bikes. It was a Huffy Bandit. The world's dumbest bike.<br />
<br />
This is the story that Aaron and I affectionately refer to as "Nothin's gonna stop me this time."<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: x-large;">Nothin's gonna stop me this time. </span></div>
<br />
Never have words been farther from the truth.<br />
<br />
This was in the earliest days of Quail Hollow Elementary. Newcastle Drive was not complete, so the school was surrounded by mounds of dirt -- which was really cool for kids with some courage and a cool dirt bike. I had neither.<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I had a great fear of hurting myself, so I generally played it safe -- Aaron took enough chances for both of us. But, on top of that, I had the stupidest bike in the history of boys bikes: the Huffy Bandit. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">(My parents assumed that, because I wore cowboy boots, and a Superman Cape, and a space helmet, and guns, and a lightsaber -- all at the same time -- that I wanted to be a dork).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The Huffy Bandit was a black monstrosity -- supposedly inspired by the Smokey and the Bandit movies </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLTp_ImR89_kc7xP3KrCqQeWWZzPSt8Nygg7B_pBD8EQ4AmdDtig-l1u9WC3fTHIsbS-gEicF_WdQVy7REMr4Q3jaGElgFvftmeYKoAegy-qMjTt1N8fxpzdyMiYxtkuB98rpOSNCw1V5e/s1600/smokey-and-the-bandit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLTp_ImR89_kc7xP3KrCqQeWWZzPSt8Nygg7B_pBD8EQ4AmdDtig-l1u9WC3fTHIsbS-gEicF_WdQVy7REMr4Q3jaGElgFvftmeYKoAegy-qMjTt1N8fxpzdyMiYxtkuB98rpOSNCw1V5e/s1600/smokey-and-the-bandit.jpg" height="332" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">(remember those movies, back when Burt Reynolds was the sexiest man alive?)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The Huffy Bandit bore no resemblance to a Trans Am. It had a long, trapezoidal seat, that looked like a black poundcake. But the killer feature -- the thing that set this bike apart form all other bikes -- was the handlebars. They were bent and curved in this bizarre manner that made it impossible to do the two things that all boys want to do with their bikes: jump and do wheelies. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTPAouCkLLnC7QMJndCDVEIQ17rcINfRxV4wXm_3uRArA7g4PBihcEz-2RoBnR0wmWSsfAd2GWHkJVpVnt0Rc4nPIbmx-wDjI3qgD-64fEpcU_c1Uqw6qEokS556ynwAsQ3BJ2liD4B7yy/s1600/bandit+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTPAouCkLLnC7QMJndCDVEIQ17rcINfRxV4wXm_3uRArA7g4PBihcEz-2RoBnR0wmWSsfAd2GWHkJVpVnt0Rc4nPIbmx-wDjI3qgD-64fEpcU_c1Uqw6qEokS556ynwAsQ3BJ2liD4B7yy/s1600/bandit+3.jpg" height="265" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">It was like riding a drunk moose. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">On roller skates. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibEjbv1zrkWm21F2Qr2wx-kxIzGfDJ0fMbD5ETQqxmoIKZqGcnXy3FxXFHiI8-AL7bfZIIHsmyWj0IUN8p-z_j_MudhbrD4_zAoldnctwjPt8JaMraofUJCoU-erTkQld9HsneK-SKUitV/s1600/moose_and_rollerskates_by_stevethedragon-d47ll83.png.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibEjbv1zrkWm21F2Qr2wx-kxIzGfDJ0fMbD5ETQqxmoIKZqGcnXy3FxXFHiI8-AL7bfZIIHsmyWj0IUN8p-z_j_MudhbrD4_zAoldnctwjPt8JaMraofUJCoU-erTkQld9HsneK-SKUitV/s1600/moose_and_rollerskates_by_stevethedragon-d47ll83.png.jpeg" height="400" width="378" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">But, not as graceful.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Anyway, Aaron and I were riding around in the dirt, through this little washboard area, and there was one hill, which hindsight forces me, shamefully, to admit, was not very high. Aaron could go up and down with ease. I couldn't do it, mostly because, for whatever reason, I chickened out, and bailed before I got halfway up the little mound. I wanted desperately to do the things that brave boys did (like riding my bike up a two foot pile of dirt).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The more I write, the more pathetic I sound. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Well, after one more humiliating attempt, I'd had enough. I looked deep inside, for that bright burning core of manly courage -- the olympian determination to overcome -- and declared, for humanity, and all of the cosmos to hear:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-large;">"NOTHIN'S GONNA STOP ME THIS TIME!"</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I backed way up, to pick up some good speed...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">My breath came in deep gulps, my heart was pulsing in my ears...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And I was off. My legs pumping...pumping...I could feel the tires grabbing the dirt, propelling me toward Mount Everest. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt_yLUI9fVVTw1i3vtiP9dJiqpYn7jlXimfAzzoarealhw6JlaSqet4Kn9sl7HVMgtx_JTOAGo75TpswZDwpMBeXjdcmn2W9NN3eI0Et0ee7I39SpLXJcOX0aaEJmbdVDqcV9XSPxDWy9C/s1600/Mt._Everest_from_Gokyo_Ri_November_5,_2012_Cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgt_yLUI9fVVTw1i3vtiP9dJiqpYn7jlXimfAzzoarealhw6JlaSqet4Kn9sl7HVMgtx_JTOAGo75TpswZDwpMBeXjdcmn2W9NN3eI0Et0ee7I39SpLXJcOX0aaEJmbdVDqcV9XSPxDWy9C/s1600/Mt._Everest_from_Gokyo_Ri_November_5,_2012_Cropped.jpg" height="281" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I was going to conquer this mountain. Closer. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Closer. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I was going to do it!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I'd probably get some good air on the other side too (T jump? What's a T jump?) -- I'd be a real boy!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhprBTF-Dm7gMNsEDmGu3iYs4LQfDtJp-lI58s_NyMriHSjzCLwIlyRaaoMQYp_jWU8cvZSyISVMf4RSMO_Q6pJhF0lrmkV7G0fVQlo1XsIcVc7ssj69FPd4Ru_slNr_FOW1qzWfLDY_wPa/s1600/trails-dirt-jumping-bmx-06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhprBTF-Dm7gMNsEDmGu3iYs4LQfDtJp-lI58s_NyMriHSjzCLwIlyRaaoMQYp_jWU8cvZSyISVMf4RSMO_Q6pJhF0lrmkV7G0fVQlo1XsIcVc7ssj69FPd4Ru_slNr_FOW1qzWfLDY_wPa/s1600/trails-dirt-jumping-bmx-06.jpg" height="266" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">And then I'm a little fuzzy about what happened. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I know this much. As the front tire hit the base of the hill, it stopped. It just stopped. And I (and my tender boy parts) was introduced to Isaac Newton, and his First Law of Motion:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><b>"Every object in a state of uniform motion tends to remain in that state of motion, unless an external force is applied to it."</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Like a dirt hill. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I was laying in the dirt, numb and bewildered. The Bandit lay nearby, in a tangled heap, like the victim of a hit and run. I swear it was chuckling. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3t2VDxnL6S8REJVkZtXHJjQ8Wod16Hx3ihxDyCyoX4aOrPTXoKFbwEb3elcpq-DrrM0g8NeC8TfigEkBeXTsi3RLk83OwC4mUO2L7JsHPhIPKfrWHMzPJqkZaZnA1ZlPNCGeeItJv2b6f/s1600/INERTIA-300x240.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3t2VDxnL6S8REJVkZtXHJjQ8Wod16Hx3ihxDyCyoX4aOrPTXoKFbwEb3elcpq-DrrM0g8NeC8TfigEkBeXTsi3RLk83OwC4mUO2L7JsHPhIPKfrWHMzPJqkZaZnA1ZlPNCGeeItJv2b6f/s1600/INERTIA-300x240.png" height="320" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Aaron finds great humor, in this story of emasculation. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Needless to say, somethin' stopped me that time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-34937061656220491302014-04-05T23:00:00.002-06:002014-04-05T23:00:38.403-06:00When every day was a Saturday morning...I know I went to school as a kid, Monday through Friday. (I didn't start skipping class until much later...).<br />
<br />
I know there were days (weeks...months...eons...) of snow and wintry weather.<br />
<br />
Utah is a four season state, and I've had the allergies, the sunburn and the hypothermia to verify it.<br />
<br />
And yet...<br />
<br />
When I think back on my childhood, every day seems like a summer Saturday morning. The sun is rising, flooding Little Cottonwood Canyon with light, pouring down into our neighborhood. The air is still, the grass is green, and the breakfast cereal is sugary.<br />
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A Saturday morning was a blank canvas, a brilliant, plain white sheet, begging to be painted on, and our art was our lives. Every day we splashed on the color, and the texture, with bold strokes and vibrant colors. And every night we hung the painting in the Grand Gallery of Childhood, and the next morning, another canvas awaited.<br />
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Saturday was freedom -- as free as a kid ever got.<br />
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And it all started with the cartoons. I didn't come to appreciate the value of sleeping in on a Saturday morning, until many years later -- when there was yard work to avoid. The joy of Saturday morning television is an experience that is lost on modern children, who live in a world of unlimited access and instant gratification.<br />
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With the exception of Sesame Street, the Electric Company and Mr. Rogers, and other PBS crap that you were forced to watch when you were home sick from school, there were only two other times where television programmers aimed for the kid audience. The first was the two, or so, hours after school each day, when you'd catch a GI Joe episode, or Battle of the Planets -- or whatever it was that girls watched -- that little window between the time that the soaps ended and the evening news began.<br />
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The second time that advertisers were looking to a younger demographic -- the real kid programming -- was Saturday morning. This was worth getting up early:<br />
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Land of the Lost: so bad it was AWESOME! I now own the complete series. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcgxXct53V9Pi534oB5M5MM_Nc_LalDCf9fCVOWEzYcDEemEYB8CLIgJQFR81eugJ-UBoOfKGW0fCwIa5mnIizQ7ASRdzEAZJST98NI3jEbO2RlfEjtyj15WXFpKJQZ_GGTwhMHVJAti4z/s1600/6a00d8341cf11753ef01156fb31fe3970c-800wi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhcgxXct53V9Pi534oB5M5MM_Nc_LalDCf9fCVOWEzYcDEemEYB8CLIgJQFR81eugJ-UBoOfKGW0fCwIa5mnIizQ7ASRdzEAZJST98NI3jEbO2RlfEjtyj15WXFpKJQZ_GGTwhMHVJAti4z/s1600/6a00d8341cf11753ef01156fb31fe3970c-800wi.jpg" height="296" width="400" /></a></div>
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Scooby Doo: Zoinks! I loved the Mystery Machine. I loved the fact that every villain was some disgruntled old farmer. I loved that Batman and Robin, The Harlem Globetrotters and Mama Cass guest starred on the show. And, mostly, I loved the fact that Scooby and Shaggy were so easily bought off with a dry doggie treat -- it reminds me of my son.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLpTAB75C6mOJ56ueevfF8RWvpHSIssdoeRoBpPZWCFl7rV1325juoWCAbNrnZrvYhCbwi7gxenyGUV1xjeR0YgJR-ZLlZtD_P_u8eyVdqsoAFWhWea5A5fJL7KxILzXQKbQd7eZ-eoMg_/s1600/6661567671_f97c0b14ff_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLpTAB75C6mOJ56ueevfF8RWvpHSIssdoeRoBpPZWCFl7rV1325juoWCAbNrnZrvYhCbwi7gxenyGUV1xjeR0YgJR-ZLlZtD_P_u8eyVdqsoAFWhWea5A5fJL7KxILzXQKbQd7eZ-eoMg_/s1600/6661567671_f97c0b14ff_o.jpg" height="277" width="400" /></a></div>
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Looney Tunes: These were classic cartoons by the time they got to us. They're still classics.<br />
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And, on top of this Hanna Barberra sundae...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf9FfvmPUv_KAmSu-tnrhEMGAW8PgjIn9Qdpt3rpS3Ln-YJIR9AGg_2oqWNJDzki9umtMQ-lvzd5ZrIZbcMn3H1nLVML9hfBkt23Ik1XITKZURJO7XHx_25RC08MrdoHLRZeFxJFxUoFbe/s1600/hannabarbera.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf9FfvmPUv_KAmSu-tnrhEMGAW8PgjIn9Qdpt3rpS3Ln-YJIR9AGg_2oqWNJDzki9umtMQ-lvzd5ZrIZbcMn3H1nLVML9hfBkt23Ik1XITKZURJO7XHx_25RC08MrdoHLRZeFxJFxUoFbe/s1600/hannabarbera.jpeg" height="400" width="283" /></a></div>
<br />
...Drenched in Warner Bros. sauce...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7mcdqzYojbQmTZI1SHQ6xmMlnUUlqa2ikRsahDyATiePolHeBdWxYOOgvJgqSxY5i_i83FsYu2ED36voaSy45lR6zx0QJqRhREscQeEIJR-iypMUqqqqqEWp-YZG0H4lskJNwvVIWUkAZ/s1600/LooneyTunesWallpaper800.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7mcdqzYojbQmTZI1SHQ6xmMlnUUlqa2ikRsahDyATiePolHeBdWxYOOgvJgqSxY5i_i83FsYu2ED36voaSy45lR6zx0QJqRhREscQeEIJR-iypMUqqqqqEWp-YZG0H4lskJNwvVIWUkAZ/s1600/LooneyTunesWallpaper800.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
...With a healthy sprinkling of Sid and Marty Kroftt...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7ANs6gjtpoqL-iBZzxbFvY17W6UtFYpw4OUlLu-6QvWUJck4RgbsDPTvh0kGACdEZlZT3iH0OZ76xM8vT8N7NiVBfLjAd6fB8dtwaTvedptVyFAZ1s9ZsWG2VCYM80dCgAWPudbargEPv/s1600/Krofft.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7ANs6gjtpoqL-iBZzxbFvY17W6UtFYpw4OUlLu-6QvWUJck4RgbsDPTvh0kGACdEZlZT3iH0OZ76xM8vT8N7NiVBfLjAd6fB8dtwaTvedptVyFAZ1s9ZsWG2VCYM80dCgAWPudbargEPv/s1600/Krofft.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
...Was perched the cherry:<br />
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<br />
The Superfriends: Superman, Batman, Wonderwoman, Aquaman and revolving cast of lesser characters, including the worst superheroes off all time, the Wonder Twins. I loved this show, but I could never figure out why the Legion of Doom, with apparently enough power and resources to do anything they pleased (including, but not limited to, time travel, freezing the entire planet, or luring the ever gullible Superfriends into the pages of magic story books) only wanted to steal money. Think bigger Lex!<br />
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Now you may get the impression that I sat mindlessly in front of the television on Saturday, while my brain turned to Jell-O. You'd be wrong. Saturday morning was the very model of educational programming. Among other things, I learned about:<br />
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Anatomy.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTqGfU0wfuV2p96nGfTn0fJ1eRKSpjGhHNSoJjKBeFW_x1WyAZS-r3A6mFg6FXpdN1_Lb3dQQ40On0TRPFRbJIWLoR_L33bdMvxLoYLtv6SeTy_1pHvnsLizMIxCI0cxChHvSo2QIphxgB/s1600/telegraph+line.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTqGfU0wfuV2p96nGfTn0fJ1eRKSpjGhHNSoJjKBeFW_x1WyAZS-r3A6mFg6FXpdN1_Lb3dQQ40On0TRPFRbJIWLoR_L33bdMvxLoYLtv6SeTy_1pHvnsLizMIxCI0cxChHvSo2QIphxgB/s1600/telegraph+line.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Mathematics.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw7r_X_atJIEkySkCEWl3KQHTPG1anJMD5tD6-gb2pJSV-a7BTz-s-dnPocyFqBhME9yqHFo-NeQFegnSI0QPz6RJiFwW1WuPNKH5KNpS-32VCJYwu2q9uxFP9e3J0NyD6ib73GaVGoI9Q/s1600/Schoolhouse_Rock_3_Magic_Red_Shirt_POP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw7r_X_atJIEkySkCEWl3KQHTPG1anJMD5tD6-gb2pJSV-a7BTz-s-dnPocyFqBhME9yqHFo-NeQFegnSI0QPz6RJiFwW1WuPNKH5KNpS-32VCJYwu2q9uxFP9e3J0NyD6ib73GaVGoI9Q/s1600/Schoolhouse_Rock_3_Magic_Red_Shirt_POP.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
American history.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibYXYlLsZDaOEW3N-XPl5xwjFIxh77DRk-pXf2sFcIxWzetk-4dmTZqrzIthbOp2GSaMWrBe0EU-e4tUZZgmu_fgmq1wcSYxsXkF2TXpP9K04iVPZWHvWic3QBH94__ZQUgzLzMqOIVTJW/s1600/shot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibYXYlLsZDaOEW3N-XPl5xwjFIxh77DRk-pXf2sFcIxWzetk-4dmTZqrzIthbOp2GSaMWrBe0EU-e4tUZZgmu_fgmq1wcSYxsXkF2TXpP9K04iVPZWHvWic3QBH94__ZQUgzLzMqOIVTJW/s1600/shot.jpg" height="331" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Government and civics.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3x9im4H7iKtwGXcqyY0DvAsUV4MKyKdoZrffmBkn57TF6kzn3j8afc8a9aRgIsYfokXksD6lE6zIacEMQ-zLDPmExe4NXKhESJdbOYXrr7iiIvcL5LRP4C7yEoNMKi7uW7n_NuOzsyZrW/s1600/159343279_640.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3x9im4H7iKtwGXcqyY0DvAsUV4MKyKdoZrffmBkn57TF6kzn3j8afc8a9aRgIsYfokXksD6lE6zIacEMQ-zLDPmExe4NXKhESJdbOYXrr7iiIvcL5LRP4C7yEoNMKi7uW7n_NuOzsyZrW/s1600/159343279_640.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Astronomy.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7T3NPCadIWWU5rcDSqmviFvpo6LePG0phOqH9N6unvmOtidK799wR47wCOuZrOPCfqkC3y7umzivYis5W1wSTEfLajY_RA0ATLm0mk6uvT9iR9Ez8CA66tmhXnDvGaYne-wvPzNONlIEI/s1600/d93431oy5v0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7T3NPCadIWWU5rcDSqmviFvpo6LePG0phOqH9N6unvmOtidK799wR47wCOuZrOPCfqkC3y7umzivYis5W1wSTEfLajY_RA0ATLm0mk6uvT9iR9Ez8CA66tmhXnDvGaYne-wvPzNONlIEI/s1600/d93431oy5v0.jpg" height="400" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Gravity.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx-Zumx9bZmz0lLL7ZvK8EWkx-Berwb71n8RDXAnPc2n0Ezgf9MuHKxz05g7WyjgqC2EsoQvL7x2M1E9tCFaks-m8EWI_p0bt2uQpkzX-FrpPQMottnnEQeE2RTeOWyQHT2HnbslB8Opar/s1600/newton.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx-Zumx9bZmz0lLL7ZvK8EWkx-Berwb71n8RDXAnPc2n0Ezgf9MuHKxz05g7WyjgqC2EsoQvL7x2M1E9tCFaks-m8EWI_p0bt2uQpkzX-FrpPQMottnnEQeE2RTeOWyQHT2HnbslB8Opar/s1600/newton.jpg" height="276" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
Electricity.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqYza6NKdJxS3967738H_ZMPhhAO0WF5R1Vwd5wpmz5ONetsrkHhLQpdLXFD450nyapNRPP91eAeO81dP0USpnJfD5OkJx8oPbZYoKpqsUVt2oHuUyk7TucXbUb7nSTMhlTdGqaY-PDj4s/s1600/149221.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqYza6NKdJxS3967738H_ZMPhhAO0WF5R1Vwd5wpmz5ONetsrkHhLQpdLXFD450nyapNRPP91eAeO81dP0USpnJfD5OkJx8oPbZYoKpqsUVt2oHuUyk7TucXbUb7nSTMhlTdGqaY-PDj4s/s1600/149221.png" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
<br />
And Conjunctions.<br />
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<br />
Thank you Schoolhouse Rock!<br />
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<br />
Following Saturday morning television, it was six or seven quick bowls of whatever cereal had the best toy in the bottom of the box, and then the day was yours.<br />
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Up and down the street, and all over the neighborhood, screen doors are slamming and wheels are rolling, balls are bouncing and kids are yelling -- the sounds of unbound adventure.<br />
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It was a different time. A time of fewer fears and greater imagination. A time of greater trust. When you left home on a Saturday morning, you didn't plan on coming back until dark. This worked for two reasons. First, I think my parents were generally happy to get me out of the house, and secondly, I knew I had a mother in every other house up and down the street. And a phone call was faster than I was -- even with my fast shoes AND my cape on, so it paid to behave.<br />
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To a point, anyway.<br />
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Maybe the best thing our parents ever did for us, was to let us roam, unstructured, into the world. They let the kids be kids, and children, unbridled, can be remarkably imaginative.<br />
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Children are dreamers, and when they dream, they only dream big.<br />
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Saturday mornings were for the dreamers.<br />
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We left home. Sometimes we left the Galaxy altogether. We reached out and grabbed hold of the world. We touched it, we tasted it. We looked at it minutely and broadly. We conquered it, took it apart, put it back together and disregarded the left over parts. We stood in awe of it, and then we looked the world in the eye and dared it not to stand in awe of us.<br />
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There's nothing like a Saturday morning.<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1906866639508776624.post-13406514251783008002014-04-04T20:04:00.000-06:002014-04-05T00:01:40.788-06:00The "T" Jump<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4;">A summer day.</span><br /><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-7504781495511987006" itemprop="description articleBody" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.4; position: relative; width: 718px;">
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The cereal bowl is in the sink, and I'm outta here!<br />
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I look down our street -- Woodchuck Way -- and all I see are possibilities. The games and the adventures, and the pure American kid freedom to waste the day doing nothing at all. Accomplishing absolutely nothing may be the best way of all to spend a summer day. But not today -- today we have a plan. Today we're building the jump. THE JUMP.<br />
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Screen doors are slamming all over the neighborhood, and wheels are rolling -- skate boards and bikes and roller skates, that's how we roll.<br />
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Up and down the streets, jumping the curbs, you can smell the summer. (Summer smells like dirt and lemonade and Russian Olive trees, in case you were wondering. And hot, summer smells hot). Kids and their plans...do you want to know a secret? It's almost more fun to plan the adventures than it is to carry them out. When you're a kid, your imagination is vastly bigger than your resources.<br />
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But like I said, we had a plan.<br />
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Today, my best friend Aaron and I were going to build the jump.<br />
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This was in the hey day of Evil Knievel, and there was no doubt that only one of us was going to make this jump. And it wasn't me. I was generally opposed to the idea of seeing my own blood any place but where it belonged. No, Aaron was making history today. But first we had to build it. And when your resources are limited, you become resourceful...<br />
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You need two basic items to make a bike jump -- a ramp, and something to elevate the ramp. The higher the elevation, the greater the acclaim -- and the greater the possibility of death, a plus in any situation involving ten year old boys. We opted for an old, red, wooden toy box lid, and a stack of bricks. (This was a new subdivision, and it seemed every house had a left over stack of bricks in the garage or the unfinished basement).<br />
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The sight of the event would be in front of Aaron's house. The sidewalk had a nice upward slope to the West -- it was just long and steep enough to reach optimal speed, the speed of no return. The speed where bailing on the idea of the jump is as dangerous as the jump itself. Boys like to keep their alternatives simple -- in this case potential death, OR potential death with a healthy sprinkling of legend!<br />
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The ramp was up, and we decided to give it a couple of short test runs. I say "we" because Aaron always insisted that I at least try whatever hair brained idea we hatched. So I tried. But, the thing is, when you're talking about bike jumps -- especially jumps held up by a stack of bricks -- you have to be committed. If you hesitate at all, the bricks, that really don't want to be there in the first place, will just fall over. I timidly hit the bottom of the ramp, and the whole thing fell apart.<br />
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The funny thing is, this didn't seem like an omen at all.<br />
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Aaron decided -- he instinctively KNEW -- that you had to be going fast enough to fool the bricks. You had to be airborne before the bricks new what was happening. That requires speed. But, with Aaron there was always a twist. This time it was a "T" made of two spare bricks, placed about four feet from the ramp.<br />
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Aaron got on his bike. The Lone Ranger had Silver, Zorro had Tornado, Roy Rogers had Trigger -- Aaron had Gold Fever.<br />
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It was a disco bike. </div>
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I don't even know what that means, but that's what he said. </div>
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And here, ladies and gentlemen, is THE JUMP, as faithfully and clear as it plays back in my memory, thirty years later:</div>
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Aaron is about thirty feet up the sidewalk. The angle of the slope is about thirty five degrees. The temperature is in the low 80's. My palms are sweaty. Why are MY palms sweaty?</div>
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This was 1982 -- no helmets, no pads. No hovering mothers. No worries. </div>
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I can see his face, nothing but determination. This jump matters. This jump is immortalizing. </div>
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And now he's moving. The distance is closing. Fast. The wind is blowing his red hair -- in 1982 Aaron still had hair. He must be doing ninety! This is for all the marbles. This is for GLORY!</div>
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And then he's there. The bricks are clueless. The ramp holds, and the next five seconds are in slow motion:</div>
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Gold Fever leaves the end of the jump...</div>
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Higher...farther...one foot...two feet...</div>
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The front tire is six feet in the air, but the rear tire is so close to the "T"...</div>
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It's inches away.....and...(I can hear my heart beating in my ears)....he...CLEARED IT! HE MADE THE JUMP LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!!!!!!!</div>
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Well....almost</div>
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A jump -- the verb version, not the noun -- requires two things, a take off AND a landing. </div>
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It never occurred to me that he might not stick the landing. </div>
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I look up from the "T" to see that Aaron is still airborne. He actually seems to be rising, like gravity no longer has a hold on him. And then Aaron and the bike separate. They just split apart. Gold Fever shoots out from under him, bounces on the back tire, and comes to a rest three houses away. </div>
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And Aaron goes horizontal. </div>
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As God is my witness, he was flying. HE WAS FLYING LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! </div>
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Knievel never flew!</div>
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Did he plan this? He would.</div>
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Well, everything that goes up, must come down, and down he came, at about the same thirty five degree angle that he started at -- he came down like an F-14 on an aircraft carrier. With no landing gear. </div>
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He landed on his stomach, in the full Superman position, and slid across the sidewalk, to the end of his yard, and I went for his mom, and the band aids. Not for the first time -- or the last. But, before I reached the front door, I turned back at the sound of screaming. It wasn't screaming in pain, it was screaming for joy! There was Aaron, sitting up, basically bleeding from the entire front of his body, but looking triumphantly back at the "T" -- wobbly from the wind of the passing bike, and the impact of the F-14 crashing into the ground -- but still standing. </div>
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Still standing. </div>
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That's how we spent one summer day. </div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2