The Curran Cosmos

I'm on a "New York" high - and other stuff

2011-02-11T23:15:00.010-07:00

Couldn't wait to write tonight because I had a musical high like no other. My youngest, Conn, a jazz singer, told me earlier today that New York Voices was in town at Salt Lake Comm College tonight and would I go with him. I wanted Colleen to go, but she was too tired and wanted to stay home - and so I almost stayed home with her. But Conn wanted to go so bad and not alone. And although I had seen them before a few years ago, I wondered if I should go. I'm so glad I did and so wish I could have shared the experience with Colleen and more of my kids!

I can't describe the feeling of watching and listening to vocal group jazz perfection like these guys. Even though Conn and I listened to their latest Album, A Day Like This, on the way up, having them sing some of the same songs live was too much!! Heavenly harmonics, jumpin, jivin upbeat swing and soft but powerful vocal ease. They've been singing for 23 years and I just heard of them a few years ago on nighttime jazz on KUER-FM here - and then the ensuing Christmas concert at Abravanel. And this time they were again amazingly amazing - especially from just three rows from the stage. Their musicianship is incomparable!

And wonderfully unexpected was what preceded them - 45 minutes of SLCC jazz choir, and then some selected choirs from high schools and colleges. It had been a day of workshops for many kids from around the state, with NYV giving classes and adjudicating performances. So this was the culmination of all that too. And I was frankly knocked out by the talent and ability to sing jazz and modern chords by these young people.

Yes, I was doing it when I was 15 in a jazz quartet with Buck Farley, Russ Marriott and Margie Benson. But no one else was doing it in school. That was my intro to it all and I'm forever grateful to Buck for teaching me chords and singing that must have been with me from my former life - it was like an epiphany and a revelation. I had music in me always from childhood, and then it went full bloom harmonically. I would never be happy singing straight chords again. And tonight made me feel musically young again. Haven't really sung any real jazz since Buck died in the early 90s', although my kids have all the talent and ears to do it. Just need another Buck Farley who can hear all the parts and teach them as well.

Well, and to top it all off, Egypt's Mubarak resigned today! How's that for a segue'? But there's so much to be resolved there, and who knows where it will all lead. But it was sure all over the news and making history for another oppressed people in the Middle East. I am dubious when I see people celebrating that much. I know I can't appreciate their oppression and lack of freedoms over Mubarak's reign. Just hope all their celebrations aren't for naught and that no radical leaders take over and create more problems for Israel especially, though we all know that things have to happen there before the Second Coming. So we want peace on the one hand, but we know it can't come till Jesus ushers it all in. What a quandry!

And of course, it is the end and aftermath of Super Bowl week, another nice segue'. Know what happened to me? We got home from blessing our little granddaughter Elizabeth last Sunday - nice job Shane by the way. I knew Colleen would take a nap, so I went down to watch a little of the big game - though it's really not that big to me, not on my calendar, not a signal for me to go out and buy wings and other party food. In fact I was alone. And after the first touchdown, the next thing I heard was "And that's the game, the Packers win." What???

I had dozed off and missed the whole thing. But I did see enough of the celebration that I questioned again, what's the big deal? Why do people get in such a frenzy and think that this is the greatest event in the world and they are obligated to throw their whole selves into worshiping it and the players, as if it should be the most joyous experience on earth? I don't buy it, sorry. It's a game, and I'm not investing one iota of false emotion or happiness into it. The musical high I'm on right now can't compare to any athletic contest - well, maybe a BYU or Utah Jazz win...maybe. Thank's again, NYV! You're in my will!

On turning 69, the Challenger and Eqypt...

2011-01-31T18:39:00.010-07:00

Ok, on turning 69, not much to say about that, except the day didn't turn out as I had wished. It was Friday, Jan 14th, by the way, and I was tired of too frequent bladder issues, so decided to go to the Instacare and check my blood sugar. It had been normal a few months ago, but I had a too sweet Christmas and I didn't trust some offshore generic meds I had gotten because my American made ones were too costly lately.

Turns out I had a lot of glucose in my urine and my blood sugar was 457! Yikes! What's going on? The doc gave me some brand name Actos samples, my most important diabetes med, and told me to call my regular doc on Tuesday. He started me on insulin when he tested me again at 428. So it's been a week of much testing and at this point, I've gotten the sugars down to 268. I'm doing a major food overhaul and weight loss again to try to fix this if possible. Not a great birthday present, but obviously a necessary attention getter.

And speaking of space shuttles, Thursday was the 25th anniversary of the Challenger blowup on lift off. Yes, I remember it too. I was laid up in a hospital in Kahuku Hawaii, trying to recover from a strep infection in my lower right leg, which I since have identified as cellulitus from several recurrences of it here in Utah this past decade. Very painful and thank goodness for antibiotics! But lying there watching that amazing take off and then seeing that explosion take a dozen dedicated lives so soon after heading into space, was a wrenching and numbing experience. It has since made me wonder if our incessant quest for outer space is worth it in lives and dollars over so many years, something we are told is important and in our national interest, until we experience such a loss. Or whether we had such a loss or not.

And speaking of challenges, Colleen had accepted an assignment to direct a youth choir for our Orem Stake Conference Sunday meeting yesterday. It took four weeks of rehearsals once a week with some fairly challenging kids, good volunteers but some not good singers. So we had to get the good singers to sing louder than the weak ones without the weak ones singing too loud too. Confused? As it turned out, they sounded good collectively - a little soft, but able to finish out well. I had a little gliche with some of the hymns, some late changes I never got, so had to push the panic button and alert the music people last minute. Colleen is still mentally and phyically worn out from that and work this week and sleeping 12 hours a day since.

And our conference speaker Kevin Pearson of the Seventy, was riveting in his rhetorical strength and spiritual depth. As he especially talked about Lehi's Dream and the Tree of Life Saturday night, one of the most important things to remember was just to..."stay close to the tree", which symbolized the love of God. That was his theme on Sunday too, to remember all the many ways our Father shows he loves us - individually.

And now to the Middle East, starting with unrest in Tunisia, and then all hell breaking loose in the streets of Eqypt this past week. There they were, some of my favorite pyramid builders' children's children, taking out their frustrations from 30 years of dictatorship under Pharaoh Hosni Mubarik and his military machine. Some rioters even looted their own museum and tore off the head of a mummy. Man, that's cold. Eventually people will rise up when oppressed too long though but seemingly some democratic process might come out of it - or another despotic regime, who knows?

But it raises a lot of questions about that geo-political area, especially among the Israelis, who do not want another "let my people go" moment with Eqypt. How will it all end? Is there anything about this and other events that signals the great second coming of the very Jesus these people rejected there? That's my main focus and am always looking for signs of that event - so I will stay riveted on cable news, as they monitor that as well such mundane things as another predicted crippling winter snowstorm from the midwest to the east coast this week and whatever will be its aftermath. Might even seem apocalyptic for a few days. And I love snow a lot, but would I feel the same way after so many big white dumps. All I can say is...YES! I'm old man snowman and never ashamed to admit it.

Sunday Morning Epiphanies and "Inception"...

2010-09-22T01:11:00.010-06:00

It was in that quick transition from dream state to waking up last Sunday morning, that I somehow felt a kind of realization and release. Release from guilt that I have from buying and enjoying so many books! It felt like a moment of vindication, perhaps elicited by some disdain I felt from my wife the other day, asking to see a little stack of books I had on the fold-out table beside the chair in the family room. When I showed them to her, she said nothing upon looking at their titles. Just stony, baffled silence.

But to me, they are what keeps my mind alive and active, giving me hope of discovering new ideas and insights. . I've often talked about having a life of the mind. I am constantly defining myself by my books and the important ideas their authors share. Since I never really had a successful career or job identity, and so much of what I did was an eclectic hodgepodge of this and that, it helps me to keep looking for a life identity perhaps, something I can hang my searchings on, my sometimes desperate desire to know who I am and still do something significant with my life with an ongoing project of fitting life puzzle pieces together.

Lately, I've been reading Lou Marinoff and his philosophical counseling movement expressed in books like "Plato Not Prozac" and "The Middle Way". Here's something I could get into and do if I could get certified. . I have a minor in philosophy. I love philosophical questions, though they don't always engender answers I can always agree with. I'm guess I'm just more of an LDS/Christian/Thinker I think, seeking ideas and connections with scripture, history and the present, with the good, the true and the beautiful...kind of like Mulder's "The truth is out there" but with no conspiratorial focus. I'm nowhere near the level of a Hugh Nibley or Truman Madsen, but they are some of my religious and philosophy heroes, as are some of the General Authorities of my church like Neal Maxwell, Jeff Holland, scholars, teachers and men of God..

I have also gotten some books by renowned scholar Joseph Campbell recently too, because he has explored cultural history through myth and the meanings of our collective unconscious and symbols. I like to read his writings without sacrificing scripture or anything which affirms the marvelous life and atonement of Christ the Savior. I'm just seeking meaning and purpose and fulfillment and self-actualization, that's all. And I'd like to make some money while I'm at it! It's been such a curse for me to have to make money at one thing, while always wishing I was doing something else. Now Colleen takes up that slack for as long as she can, an inspirational teacher to the disabled and mentally impaired at Riverton High School.

That "something else" I refer to for me though was probably teaching, while I had the chance at BYU-Hawaii...in English. But I was always so distractible, so interested in so many things, filled with creativity to try different things, filled with ideas to try out in different ways - just couldn't settle on teaching, especially when I got flattered out of the classroom by our VP who told me I was a great writer and could really make use of that as University Relations Director, working directly under the President. And the money was better too. But the job security wasn't. It was a hot seat and I didn't last that long, as some of my management and administrative flaws were exposed, though my creativity flourished for four years.

So I surround myself with good books, shelf friends with great ideas and conversations going on inside them, since they seem to be the only ones who want to engage me and me them in discussion and idea exchange that makes me want to keep living. No one else in my life is very interested in what I'm thinking or studying it seems. I can't live in the mundane very long. And I really do feel as one philosopher said, "The unexamined life is not worth living". So to keep living, I have to keep examining...and writing about things that don't mean much to anyone else, but which in some way help me sift and sort and try to make sense of my my world....does that make sense?

And oh yes, I saw the movie "Inception", previewed it the other night before taking Colleen. Don't know if she would like it though, as convoluted and confusing as it was. But it was, after all the hoopla and special effects, about the power of ideas and how to get a great or important idea into the mind of someone through getting into their dreams. And so I come back to dreams, as I said. I may have been at the end of a dream, when I woke up Sunday morning. But it felt empowering to feel that my love of good books, having them around to pick up and scan for an interesting idea, using them for resource and research, expanding my fields of knowledge while trying to make more connections and at the same time know who I am better... was somehow ok to me, as much as others don't understand it and may even think I'm crazy for it.

Surf's Up...But I Was Never Up for The Surf!

2010-08-27T01:55:00.034-06:00

Yeah, while channel surfing the other night, I happened upon some extreme surfing movie. It's fun to watch but I could never actually get into it. I even had my chance when I lived in Hawaii for ten years. There I was, living on Oahu's famous North Shore, a few minutes drive from Sunset Beach and Waimea Bay - and the BANZAI PIPELINE!!! Can you believe it, we could go up the road a few miles and catch some of the biggest waves in the world.

As if!! Can you say "undertow"??? What do you think Banzai means in Spanish anyway? Suicide, that's what!! We would go there sometimes just to watch the waves crash over the road and see helicopters trying to rescue stranded surfer wannabes out there in those giant undulating walls and towers of treacherous salty brine. But actually try to surf out there myself?

Come on, really, not with this white-skinned, flabby, haole body! First, I wanted to live. And B, there was no time. I had a lot of responsibilities at BYU-Hawaii where I taught and administered programs, many of which were on the weekend. And three, I was also the father of a growing hoard of kids which sometimes needed me - we brought four kids to Hawaii and had four more at Kahuku hospital - but not all at once. Colleen was good at delivering babies, but not THAT good!

Sure, we'd take them to the beach for a little scratchy sand and sunburn fun, but it was not cool to get squashed and crumpled and mutilated by a monster wave right in front of my little kids while pretending to be a beach bum surfer dude with a big ego. And what's more, I didn't even own a surfboard. Ok, I bought a beat up one once just to see if I could stay on it - but it wound up being a play thing for the kids, me giving them rides on it in shallow water, while I watched for blue bubbles and manta rays and hoped I didn't die from the stinging sickness like that "krikes" Aussie guy from "down under" - not under the surf, under the equator - whatever.

Hawaii has a great surfing tradition of course, including that famous surfing legend, Duke Kahanamoku, who could put all those other guys to shame if he were still alive - even if he weren't alive too I think. I'm just glad I can pronounce his name...Ka-ha-na-mo-ku! But this dumb haole didn't need to get any dumber by attempting stupid heroic deeds on a surfboard for traditions' sake. Not that I couldn't have hung ten - my toes were as long as some people's fingers. I had plenty of toe length. But that's where my qualifications ended.

I also had this big yellow streak down my back that caused me to lean over too much and not maintain proper surfboard balance. Even body surfing and using boogie boards didn't work for me. I would have had to go out too far to catch any decent waves - like 10 feet at least. Luckily my wife didn't require me to be a showoff for her and attempt any macho nonsense. She also had that same local haole disease, bigwaveophobia.

Even snorkeling was a trial for me. One time we were with some friends at our local beach and the men wanted to snorkel out to the reef. I had my trusty mask and snorkel, but no fins. They didn't make them for my size feet though some would say my feet WERE fins! And without fins would make all the difference. But I thought I'd be one of the guys and follow them out there anyway, at least attempt a small feat of daring for my kids.

Pretty soon, I was sucking down salt water and choking and gasping half way to the reef - and decided to swallow my pride instead of any more water and turn back, barely making it to the beach without calling for my wife to give me mouth to mouth. As if!!! Naaah, jes' kidding, deah. Anyway, nothing for my kids to be proud of, but at least I'm still around to write about it.

Surfing? Obviously an addiction for some guys and gals around those waves. And I admire their feats of skill and ability in the water, those amazing and thrilling rides through those giant water tunnels. Yes, some get wiped out and crash, some hit their heads on boards, some don't make it up from under the water and go to surfer heaven. I haven't found a sport or adventure that I was willing to risk my life for, just for the thrill - especially surfing those famous, killer waves of Hawaii.

So it's been some 25 years since we've been gone from those magical beaches. I still prefer my Utah snow-capped mountain scapes and clear lakes though, that high, dry air and those cool nights. And I've yet to do that surfing thing even on a snowboard. Call me crazy, call me nuts, but now that I'm in my late sixties, I'll stick to no-risk channel surfing and a little action on the Net - that's about my speed, no broken bones, and I'm not too proud to admit it...right, kids? As if!!!

Advice To Shannon On Taking A Hike!

2010-08-22T00:58:00.008-06:00

No really, my fatherly advice wasn't that strong - just answering her email regarding her excitement about hiking the "Y", and something for all you BYU fans out there too.

"Good luck! Last time I did that was in the early 60s when I was young and gaunt and game. It's quite a climb - be prepared to stop and gasp for air a lot and bring lots of water. The earlier or later in the day the better but not without some light. Take a flashlight in case night falls on top of you or you encounter an unexpected solar eclipse. And watch out for ankle sprains too. Wear good shoes of course, so no blisters and foot problems happen when you're not looking. Better bring a crutch in case. And a first aid kit with an ankle brace. I think there are tarantulas and rattlesnakes up there too, so bring a gun, a knife and a bow and arrow - in case of Cougars, you know, BYU and other kinds - and wild indians too, Utes mostly. Shoot them on sight, no questions asked. Our football team climbs it sometime soon this Summer as a big test of endurance in their current Camp, so don't get run over in the stampede..

Bring a can of whitewash to throw on the "Y" for good luck, or again on any unlucky Utes you might find up there - and might as well pack a four course brunch too with a table and chairs so you can picnic as long as you're up there. It's a nice view, so bring plenty of heavy cameras and tripods to take pictures with. Get a foto of our house while you're at it, ok? Hmmm, can't think of anything else. Maybe a beach towel for sunning - and wiping off all that sweat. Shane has hiked it most recently I think and could give you some tips. Maybe take a few flares in case you get lost and we have to come looking for you. They make good fireworks too. Make sure your cell phone is charged too. Yeah, that about covers it. And a compass. Dad"

No Money Singing...Or Drinking For That Matter!

2010-08-22T00:50:00.009-06:00

Ok, finally figured out why I never made any real money signing...I mean singing. I was sitting in the bathroom see...no it was the doctor's office...ok it was the bathroom...no it was the dentist's office...ok, ok...and the newspaper on the floor was advertising the next big SCERA concert down the street, a big lovely outdoor theatre in the neighborhood. It was John Michael Richard or Richard Michael Bob or John Billy Bob Michael or some such country singer. And there he was smiling with his guitar and a whole list of his hit songs next to him to entice me to the concert, most of which...no, all of which I'd never heard of... ever. But we're going to have to hear him anyway just from living a few blocks away. The sound carries quite well on these cool Summer nights.

And I started thinking, no wonder I never made any money singing! If I had ever had a hit record, I'd have had to go around the country to as many places as I could to get people to spend their money to listen to me sing my songs over and over and over and over and over and over...and over...and...hey wait a minute, that's what I did when I had a hit record in 1969 with The Lettermen. And I was done by the third traveling show! Done, I tell you, D-U-N, done!!! I was a freaking robot after that, on remote control or auto pilot or whatever being a smiling singing zombie is! I don't know if making money that way is worth it. I really don't. Unless I just write them and someone else sings them over and over and over...

Colleen and I used to sing for our supper, yes, in dinner theatres, lounges, military bases, wherever we could make a buck in our younger struggling married years. She had come from doing a folk duo with Dave Webber out of Omaha, loved the crowd and singing those same songs over and over and over. I think the fact that she was a drinker in those days and could handle the monotony with a little light inebriation sure helped. Whereas I, a non-drinker, hated singing the same songs and stopping one after another so much that I started putting our soft rock repertoire into medleys we could sing without stopping for 15-30 minutes sometimes. She had also became a teetotaler like me too. But it was just another way for me to avoid the stop and go, the over and over, and sing ourselves into yawning la-la land until the night was mercifully over.

To me, singing a song is a possibly one-time experience, not something to be sung over and over and over and...unless it's like some scriptural truth you want to repeat over and over and over to really drill it in there. Now those songs might bear repeating a few times. Even Christmas carols, for example, which are like heavenly revelations to me. But some sloshy, gooey love song? Now I'm so glad I've only written Christmas songs so I only have to sing them once a year, questionable as they are, unless most of you forget and give me a reprieve and then maybe I skip a year or so and get by with only doing one of them. Unless it's at a 40th anniversary show and someone actually wants to sing one of them for old time's sake.

Do you know that the word "sake" and the Japanese alcoholic beverage "sake" look like the same word? So the Japanese say "For old time's sake" and have a big old toast I guess? And if you put an "h" in it, it's "shake" which I happen to be drinking one of right now. And no, there's no sake in it to cause these inane ramblings. Just writing things down - like I asked my kids to do sometime, ok? Even if if sucks, right it down. I mean "write" it down. See how spell check doesn't work on words that are homonymish to some degree? I'm on this new med to help take nerve pain out of my face and it makes me drowsy and stupid at the same time. Singing off - check that, signing off.

Bikes And Back Pulls...

2010-08-21T14:06:00.008-06:00

We bought our oldest grandsons used bikes this summer from DI and a neighbor, thinking we would give them a little more mobility and more inclusiveness with their friends. Kalin's bike was almost stolen at his school. He managed to catch the perp in the act and retrieve it. But then he broke a pedal and hasn't used it since. Our neighbor Dave Rader who sold it to us, keeps telling me to bring it back so he can fix it. He has a bike fix-ation...get it? Fix-ation???

Moving on, Kai has used his more this Summer, with minor wear and tear. But Megan got a call from Joanie over at the bike shop, who she also happens to Visit Teach, reminding her that we paid for a new tire for Kai's bike and it was now in. So I put it in the car with some minor back strain and took it over for the replacement. As I watched the kid put it on and add some new rubber handles that had come off, I was taken with the sheer bikeness of it all - and how I have no talent or inclination to learn how to fix bikes or know much about them for that matter. And they are so much more complicated now, with all the wires regulating the brakes and gears. How can anyone keep up? Especially if you could never fix them in the first place?

The last time I rode a bike I think was back when my brother Dick and I had paper routes and would fly around the neighborhood throwing the papers as near to the front porches as we could without breaking a window or glass door. But once in a while, we had a lot of daring for two pre-teens and would ride these bikes all the way from Silver Spring down through Rock Creek Park to the Washington DC Zoo. What an adventure, taking our cameras for some cool animal shots, crossing fords that ran over some of the roads on the way back.

My bike daze have been long over, although my wife wants us to get bikes - but only secure and uncomplicated ones like we used to ride as kids. She forgets we've gained many more pounds since then than these bikes would hold. She actually wants an adult trike - yikes! - so she doesn't fall over and break some more brittle bones. Maybe she can pull me along behind her.

And oh yeah, I got a nice back pull I'm nursing right now, just putting Kai's bike in the car. Bikes can be real banes sometimes...

Movies For Schmucks...

2010-08-21T13:41:00.004-06:00

I am often constrained to believe what the movie critics say...too much. Some of the ones they have panned lately, my wife and I have liked. But do you think I can think of one right now? Maybe later.

But I do get very peeved when one is given a fairly high rating, and is promoted high and low, on talk shows, on national rado, in the newspapers - and it turns out to be a bomb...for me at least. One such lately was "Dinner For Schmucks". I had enjoyed Steve Carrel in "Evan Almight" and "Dan In Real Life". "Date Night" was going pretty well until he deteriorated into inane sexual humor at the end, as if looking desperately for an ending. What I saw of "The 40-Year Old Virgin" was also disgusting in its appeal to the lowest common denominator - raunchy sex references throughout, while trying to make us feel sorry for him that he had retained his virginity.

But when we out to see "Dinner For Schmucks" recently, we went with some high hopes of a repeat of Carell's better not his seamier side, having read a review that gave it a B. As we watched, and I waited for something funny I could at least muster up a chuckle for, having told my wife that the review I read said it would be a little slow going until the funny dinner part, I was sorely disappointed.

The dinner was a disaster, a total reduction into silliness and blatant sexual references that were just not funny. And as I thought about how the movie got there, it seemed to me to an utter self-indulgence on Steve's part, a poor attempt to try to make us laugh just because it was him. And he must think he's so funny now that any little sad story line or facial expression is going to get us to laugh and find him appealing. Big mistake.

And I thought then about the promos I had seen him do on Lettermen and other shows, actually trying to make us believe that he was trying to make this a believable character, someone worthy of our compassion and pathos, as well as our laughter. What a joke! The joke is really on him in this one, sorry, but I found nothing redeemable about this mousey little guy who collects dead mice to stuff them into little characters we're also supposed to find adorable or tragic or something totally unemotional. And then he ruins the other guy's life as if he's not really trying to but is too cogent to be unaccountable.

I felt like a schmuck for going to it and sitting all the way through, waiting patiently for something real I could say was enjoyable and worth my time and money. Don't waste yours!

Hiatus Over...Let's Talk Opera!

2010-08-02T22:44:00.013-06:00

Yeah, yeah, I know, I've been missed...not! No one reads this but me anyway, so what if I took a few months off? Who cares - nobody! But I did have a memory I'd like to write down.

I was channel surfing the other night and caught that part of "Moonstruck" when Cher and Nicolas Cage go to the opera - not just any opera, but "La Boheme", The Bohemian. That's me, a Bohemian of sorts too, I guess, with my dysfunctional mind that jumps on all kinds of ideas, that revels in new things, tries to create music and writing, and is always looking for some new truth or connection - and oh yeah, there's that beard thing.

But it also took me back to my college daze at BYU when after taking some voice lessons, I thought I'd try to do an opera. Crazy me! I had been gravitating toward more classical music lately, getting more power and confidence in my singing voice, which had only been focused on a pop orientation thus far. I was a crooner, ballad singer, loved jazz and bossa nova standards. But I was trying to stretch.

So in the Winter of 1965, I auditioned and got a minor lead, the baritone Shaunard in La Boheme, coincidently. My good friend and Brazilian Mormon Mission singing buddy, Jim Smith, was double cast in the same role, only he was on the first string of all voice majors, and I was on the second team of wannabees, doing alternate nights. I was lucky to even be there, because I wasn't that good, and my acting was atrocious, for an English major too.

But I did fall in love with the music, so majestic, sweeping and romantic, poignant and tragic too, with the death of Mimi overshadowing the whole drama. In fact, after it was over, I continued to sing all the music in my mind, even through that summer of traveling in the Far East with a BYU USO-type show for the DOD and the men in uniform. Yes, I was a versatile song and dance man, jumping at the chance to travel free ala the US Military - and jumping at every yelled command of our hyper but super talented leader, Janie Thompson.

We had lots of long bus rides and plane junkets to various outposts, during which I would often bring out my guitar and sing my Brazilian bossa nova and other jazz favorites to take up the time and do some quiet entertaining for our own 12-man troupe. But on some long trips too, my mind would go back to the music of Puccini and his glorious opera "La Boheme" and I would sing it again in my head!

Yes, I was 'moonstruck' by that music, as were Cher and Cage's characters - another memory from the past as I grow older and reflect, reminisce and record a few thoughts for a posterity that I'm afraid isn't too interested in my past right now. But I still am I guess, what I can remember of it...

Eye health, mini-strokes and other updates!

2010-04-30T14:24:00.019-06:00

So I was just sitting down to a little mid-afternoon news catch-up after some chores on Monday April 19 and this grayish black shade dropped down in my right eye to a straight line in the middle. I tried to blink it away, but when that didn't work, I hurried in to our office, got online and started looking up various eye phenomena - but found nothing just like this. By this time, it started dissipating until it was just a little grayish quarter circle in the corner of my eye, then gone all in about 15 minutes. I got right on the phone with my Ophthalmologist's office and got an appt for the next day.

Not having seen Dr Nelson in a while, it was good to get an exam for all the possible causes - diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration, detached retina - and get an all clear on those. He also said my Glaucoma levels were normal and my very minimal cataracts were also still very minimal. I wasn't even aware I had those. So what then? Ever heard of a TIA? Transient Ischemic Attack? That means mini-stroke, a prelude to a bigger stroke, if that's what it even was. Usually it has other more glaring symptoms, but eyes can also be indicators. I felt nothing with this episode however, only saw that little shading for awhile.

Nevertheless, he suggested and ordered an echocardiogram and a carotid artery scan, both ultrosonic, which I did in the next few days, and since have shown nothing out of the ordinary, a little irregularity here, a little abnormality there, a little plaque in the right carotid - but nothing momentous or cause for extreme measures. This prompted me to have my kidneys and prostrate checked - all ok - and get my blood sugar and pressure checked - all ok, even better than ok, because my A1C was down from 7.0 to 6.6 and my bp was 106/60 at IHC. Just need to get that colonoscopy done still, after Colleen's out of school for the Summer so she can drive me home during the wooziness after.

I also saw a neurologist, and he said an MRI of the upper carotid under my jaw might be an option, but that the ultrasound showed good blood flow to the brain, so it appears that there is no real blockages going on. I'm always conscious of clots in my legs from sitting too long, since losing two good friends around here to blood clots from recent traveling without walking enough. I've also been having some facial nerve pain called trigeminal neuralgia, and an MRI might show neuromas, but he didn't really think there would be any - and the other has been minimal since my blessing from Stephen O'Bryant and Steve Hansen back a few weeks ago at Wendy's baby blessing.

So where does all this leave me? I'm still pretty healthy for a big old heavy balding bearded guy, am losing weight at about 4-5 pounds a week on Isagenix, and those weekly cleanses may be helping my sugars and pressures. My urologist said that initial kidney tightness was from adjusting to the extra protein and water consumption - and after a few weeks, I am having less bladder urgency but still need to drink more water to overcome the occasional backup, if you get my crass "TMI". More roughage, you say, more roughage?

I need to exercise more of course to see more results on Isagenix, which is really a whole body cleanse program with weight loss as a side effect. But I'm feeling better mentally and physically, have more hope and confidence, more creativity in eating the right foods, with only a minor relapse now and then. Now if the world would stop falling apart with volcano eruptions and oil spills and earthquakes, I could sleep a little easier, though I am actually sleeping better lately anyway. I may even be nodding off right now, in fact, and not even know it...Oh yeah, and today marks the 55th anniversary of my baptism, of no small import in my life of course, but almost glossed over in all this other health hullabaloo.

Shane Family Birthdays And Other Weighty Matters...

2010-04-19T00:47:00.005-06:00

Had a big Saturday party of birthdays, all in the Shane Curran family at his condo in Pleasant Grove. His youngest Aidan Douglas turned 4 on the 11th, a funnier and more precocious pixie boy I've never met! He's got a face like Thumper and a mop of black hair that curls all over the place - and can he make screwed up faces! His dad Shane, our third child, is no child at 36 on the 18th and his teeny little bride Sharon turns ? on the 20th. She wouldn't tell me. A big week for all of them though. Colleen and grandson Kai made nearly 100 deviled egg halves Saturday morning for the party, and the rest of the fare was barbecue/Cranberry chicken on buns, with mac salad and veggies. Birthday cake was strawberry short!

It was tough meal to eat after doing Isagenix for almost two weeks, mostly two shakes a day and a meal of lots of salad and fish. Tough because I could have eaten a lot more. I've had to be a little flaky at times to adjust my blood sugar to the fructose in the shakes and may have to go to more protein added. I did lose 12 pounds the first week, but was drinking so much water, and flushing it out, it was probably a water loss mostly, not sure. Finished a second all day cleanse today, eating only some celery and almond butter at midday, but had to eat again after all four cleanse doses, because of blood sugar worries - some low-fat cottage cheese and kalamata olives. I will probably gain some weight back this past week but again, blame it on the blood sugar ups and downs I think. I will be happy with ten pounds a month loss, though it could go quicker if I can control things better. How heavy the weightless thoughts of man, eh?

Ye Gods And Little Fishes! And Isagenix! Say What?

2010-04-11T16:57:00.011-06:00

Yes, that first line is what my mom used to say to express her preposterousness at something. And her mother before her...and who knows how far back that colorful but antiquated phrase goes. So that's what I have to say as I watched a little of the PGA Master's Tournament today and watch how far this idolatry goes. Honestly folks, why do we let ourselves be fooled into thinking these guys are gods because they can wield a few iron sticks with skill and concentration to get a very little ball into a very little hole? And people actually go and watch this stuff with reverent awe, applaud with adoring emotion and grovel at the feet of their feet! It's a self-perpetuating media and money driven exercise in modern day idol worship.

It's the same with so many athletic contests and the well-developed bodies and amazing physical prowess displayed, often again having to do with mastery of some kind of ball. But as we've seen, a lot of those who do it are no models of morality or lives well-lived in service and kindness and love. The entertainment industry is the same, providing us with larger than life, big screen idols to worship and adore and try to emulate and hang on their every word about beauty and fashion and polititics, though many of their lives are skewed and flawed and over indulgent. Ah the hubris!

We saw little Michael Buble on stage a week or so ago, and I emphasize little, because although I like his voice ok and do appreciate that he's revived a lot of the good old vocal standards, I honestly gagged at the ear-crushing din of screaming and applause at his diminutive appearance. He had a big stage of musicians and special effects to back up his tiny body, otherwise he would have had little impact. And yet, we accept all these amplifications in sound and visuals as real, because we love spectacle, love things that are loud and flashy and big!

I was there once, singing with The Letterment in 1969-70, enjoying but more being baffled at the adulation I received for merely walking out on a stage and singing some already recorded top 40 hits, as a stand-in who could fake the real guy for awhile while he recuperated from a psychosomatic voice loss. Yes, I was idolized by screaming and mindless fans, but never felt comfortable with it, got bored with it after the first weeks of show, and found I could live without it when it was over in a year or so. Not that I didn't enjoy it of course - but I wasn't obsessed by it.

And then there's the real God, one of a trinity of Gods, the man whose victory over physical and spiritual death on the cross, in the garden, gave us eternal gifts, supernal gifts, love and forgiveness, a real model of life and courage and patience and compassion and charity. I tried to quietly celebrate His life last weekend, Easter weekend, with contemplations and supplications and rededications to keep His commandments, so I can live a full life here and with Him someday in the kingdom of His Father.

To me, more and more, that's what my live should be about, especially when every day's a countdown in my late 60s. Sure I love to watch a good athletic contest and attend a great concert. But deify the participants and honor them above the Savior of the world? I don't think so, in case that's what going on by what I see in these fawning and ingratiating celebrations of man-made celebrities who we too often substitute for the real thing.

And by the way, I'm on the seventh day of trying Isagenix, doing my deep cleanse today, trying to shed the burden of weight I've accumulated by lackadaisical living and forgetfulness and non-attention to my body and health. I have obviously used food as a comfort and neglected healthy activity, gradually growing larger and larger till I have come to my breaking point and need to change. So by replacing two meals a day with two nutritious and good tasting shakes, I am taking the guesswork out of choosing those meals everyday, am saving money I spend on them, and am not allowing myself to choose otherwise whatever suits my fancy in a fit of hunger pang. I hope it works and will report my progress as I go.

Easter Rise and Shine!

2010-04-04T01:51:00.006-06:00

Wow, three whole weeks without a blog...I'm getting rusty. Easter coincided with my church's General Conference again this year, so it's two exciting days of great spiritual messages from Apostles and other Church leaders. But as for me, here's my little Easter piece I email everyone each year, but haven't blogged it yet, so...

"Now that I’m older and “wiser”, I have a lot more questions than answers. Like what do we really mean when we say “Happy Easter”? I mean, it’s not like saying “Merry Christmas” is it? We don’t give presents, although I know people who get new clothes and give each other strange unrelated gifts – any excuse for using that plastic. It is a major Christian holiday like Christmas, but do we really have Christian sentiments behind that greeting? Or do we really just mean things like Happy Spring Cleaning? Or Happy Daylight Savings Time? How about Happy Egg Boiling? Bunny Hopping? Bonnet Buying? Parade Chasing? Cadbury Chocolate Gorging? Or Diabetes Recovering? Flower Fertilizing? Ham Basting? Spring Breaking?

"And when will we really ever get past that Easter bunny/egg-laying paradox and all its candy spin-offs? For most people today, it’s a celebration of Spring, flowery dresses and weird women’s hats, and planting seeds, and yeah I get the egg-fertility-rabbit connection. But I still think it’s a very forced and mixed metaphor we continually push upon our kids without ever resolving the psychological ramifications that are very confusing and totally unrelated to the Christian reality of it all - and no, rabbits don’t lay eggs – well, maybe there’s some distant convoluted connection. But isn’t that how we get traditions anyway, from so long ago that people forget why we do them today?

"Aren’t we really supposed to be celebrating something that may be just too difficult to wish someone? Do we even believe it? Do we really believe that Jesus died and came back to life? The Resurrection? One man said that that was the biggest question of life - “If a man die, shall he live again?” And that because of Jesus, we will all live again too? I say “Amen” to that! But are we even thinking about that at all when we way “Happy Easter?” Maybe we should be coming up with something more creative and definitely related to the real meaning of this international Christian holiday more than just a sometimes predictable “Happy Easter”. How about something like, “Good Resurrection!” “Rise and Shine Forever! “ “Happy Undead Day!” Now that does it for me.

"But could we actually say that and be politically correct? “Have a nice resurrection!” Doesn’t that say way too much about death and dying for us to feel comfortable? Even though we are talking about the ultimate solution to dying - the ultimate reason to not be afraid of it? The ultimate miracle of life is the afterlife! Isn’t it a bit presumptuous and maybe too premature to be wishing someone something that will directly relate to their having to die first? And if we wish them a happy resurrection, shouldn’t we first wish them a joyful death, or a painless passing or a quick demise - that maybe they’ll get hit by a car rather than having to suffer with agonizing toenail cancer? And THEN wish them a nice resurrection? No really, I want to finally get this out on the table so we can get past these sometimes inane wishes we make at Easter without knowing what we actually mean, and come up with something that works!

"Shouldn’t we really focus on the changes in our bodies that our resurrection is going to bring? Forget all that plastic surgery and liposuction and tummy tucking and face lifting and Collegin and Botox injections! Yes, forget about it because you are going to get a brand new body anyway, right? A heavenly makeover to the max! So why spend your kid’s college money and your life’s savings on stuff that you’re going to get later anyway? And continually pad the pockets of those surgeons who should be out there transplanting livers and hearts and eyeballs!. It’s ridiculous! Unless of course you don’t believe in it, which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not going happen, right? Doesn’t Paul or someone like him say something like " …if we believe in this life only, then we are all of men most miserable"? That would sure sink my boat.

"So maybe when we wish people a happy resurrection, we should also throw in something like – “…and a tight bottom too!” Or “…and a head full of great hair!” Or “…and an amazing new schnozz! Or “…and a 38 DDD!” Maybe we won’t even recognize each other, we’ll look so young in the hereafter – that is if we have only known each other as older people; because I know in my case that people don’t recognize me from my 40-year-old fotos. “Hey, who’s that stud with your wife?” Yeah, I get that a lot. And I also hear that a good resurrection will take us back to our 25-year-old body, unless of course we have already corrupted it at that age with booze and tobacco and Skittles and Big Macs. I heard that people who lose their children while they are young will get to raise them still, because they will resurrect as children. I just hope there are lots of little kids around.

"So I think we need to get past the colored eggs, the yellow peeps and the burnt honey-baked ham and get to the other meaty stuff – like what kind of resurrection are we going to have anyway? Yes, it’s not all just one big happy reunion of body and spirit, even though it is a free gift from Jesus – and He did pay an awful price so we could have it. But because of Him, we also get to choose our own personal resurrection! Say what? Paul says in I Corinthians 15 that we won’t all resurrect alike. He says we will have different resurrections, comparing it to the difference between the sun, the moon, and the stars, as we perceive their differences from earth, I assume. He calls one Terrestrial, like the moon, and one Telestial, like the brightness of the stars.

" I know from some modern sources that the sun is called Celestial, and that they all represent a degree of glory that God will provide to all of his children, depending on how they’ve lived on earth. Yes folks, there is still some earning to do here. But the highest degree is a Celestial resurrection and those who inherit it will come forth in the morning of the first resurrection and live with Him right here on this celestialized earth. So will there also be an afternoon and evening resurrection? I’m a late morning kind of guy myself and not too anxious to just burst out of my coffin for an early breakfast. But I’ll do early if that’s what it takes.

"And will it be all that easy getting out of those boxes anyway? No one wants to be conscious and still in the coffin. We don’t want any fingernail scratches messing up the inside of the lid, right? We’ll get some help digging through that dirt, right? I have a problem just getting off the bed each morning. And I keep seeing images of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and hoping that at least I’ll have time to clean up before I go see anyone. I don’t think I’ll be doing any dancing right away. Of course, the first person I’ll look for is my wife, to see if she’s still that good looking babe I married, just to see if this resurrection stuff really works. Hey, what am I saying? She still looks good to me right now! I know she’ll be hoping that I am back to that coiffed hair and that flat six-pack stomach and marathon-runner physique I never had before.

"And what will we do while we’re waiting to resurrect? There has to be a waiting place, a place for our spirits to keep busy too. I hear it’s called spirit prison for those who didn’t know Jesus or lived badly by His light and who are still receiving His word through His servants, who just might be some of us when we get over there. You remember when Jesus told Mary Magdalene not to touch Him because He hadn’t ascended to His Father yet? Was that because she was only seeing His spirit body – not his resurrected body yet? Or maybe He was resurrected but too glorified to touch. In Ephesians, it says that after Jesus died, He went and preached to the spirits in prison while in the spirit, to people who had died but hadn’t known or believed in Him yet. He gave them a chance to accept His Gospel there too. Remember on the cross he told one of the thieves that he would be with Him in Paradise?

"Well, I think Paradise is the waiting place for those who believe in Jesus and who don’t have to wait to be taught about Him. Since baptism is an earthly and necessary ordinance as Jesus said, “Except ye be born of the water and the spirit, ye cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven…” – people who accept the gospel in this spirit world after they die can still have baptism done for them by proxy on earth as mentioned in I Corinthians 15 again, when people were asking Paul about the resurrection. They said in passing, “Why are they then baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all?", as Paul was trying to convince them of the reality of the Resurrection. Baptism for the dead is being practiced today all over the world in special Temples – and no, it doesn’t mean exhuming dead bodies and baptizing them. Remember that word, proxy, ok? Go look it up! It’s doing for others today what they might not have been able to do for themselves in a time when baptism and the Holy Ghost weren’t available or not bestowed by legitimate authority.

"Yes, so come on resurrection! Can’t come too soon for me – unless I have to die first, of course, in which case I can hold off for a little while, no big hurry. Actually, I’m hoping for that “change in the twinkling of an eye” kind of rapture they talk about, no pain, just levitation without hesitation. I want to put in my order for that right now. Yes, that’s Curran with a C not a K, then U – two R’s, A not E, and a big N-ding. Yeah, it will be nice to see my folks again and visit with other relatives I never knew except by their pictures. Can’t remember my two grandfathers, I was so young when they died. And one grandmother was killed in a car accident while I was a nursing baby. I only knew my father’s mother, who helped us get into a home and who lived with us till she passed away. And so many of their parents and grandparents I’ve come to know through doing family history – nobody likes that G-word much…Genealogy. But it’s still fun.

"I’m sure they’ve been very busy on the other side though, with time to cheer my family on here and hang around to help us, their progeny, and get through this life so we can all get on the next stage in our progress – together! Angels? Could it be that this mystery is so simple? They’ve been our ancestors all along? I’ve been trying to do their saving ordinances like baptism too, so when I do see them, I don’t have to go skulk about guilty and hide in some cloud because of shame for not doing that work for them .They did so much for me in just coming down here first and laying a great foundation of freedom and peace through their blood, sweat and tears.

"And I’d really like to meet Abe Lincoln, a childhood favorite of mine. Oh I guess there are a lot of other people I’d like to meet – James Stephens, a tiny Irish poet, the subject of my masters thesis. And William Wordsworth, the sublime English Romantic poet I love to read. C.S Lewis of course – but he’ll have such a crowd around him I bet. Maybe I’ll see some of the people I served in Brazil as a missionary, like Ignacio Morais. Now there’s a guy with a story. His dad was a river boat captain on the Amazon, who jumped in the water to save a passenger who had fallen, and they both got eaten by piranha fish! Yikes. I’m sure he is thankful for the resurrection! And his son barely lived to tell me the tale, because he showed me an arrow wound in his shoulder from those crazy Yanomamos using him for target practice. I got to teach Ignacio the Gospel and baptize him and his wife, so I hope to hear some more of his tales someday. Their daughter Iolanda called from Brazil some years back - what a treat!

"So how about that eternal life – God’s life! And eternal progression! Now that’s what Easter’s all about to me anyway - and celebrating the life of the only pure and sacrificial Lamb who could make it possible through an infinite atonement, paying a price we couldn’t for our sins that we might be clean enough to enter God’s holy presence. Christ only asks for our sincere repentance, that broken heart and contrite spirit – and then He makes up the difference. It’s about freedom from not only the first death, the death which Adam and Eve brought providentially into the world so we might have a probation – but also freedom from the second death, that separation from God that comes through sin and rejection of His plan of happiness. Salvation from the physical death is free to all men – all will be resurrected. But salvation from the death of the spirit, we have to earn, for it is “by grace are we saved, after all we do.”

"And one other thing before I tie this all up into a nice little Easter basket. I am baffled by those who say God is a spirit and God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost are all one person. The New Testament is replete with evidences of their separateness. “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” John 17:3, for instance, when Jesus is so painfully praying for release from His Father in Gethsemane. How does Jesus give us the free gift of the Resurrection, claiming His body first – and then disclaim that body and become a spirit if, as some believe, He is the Father as well as the Son? Doesn’t work for me. And we have glorified bodies but He doesn’t? The Holy Ghost, a spirit, yes - but Jesus and His Father? Two people, two bodies. For me, that makes it a Happy Easter. And an egg with a little salt and pepper."

Getting My Irish Up ...

2010-03-18T00:12:00.021-06:00

Spent the evening watching PBS and it's fund raiser all about Ireland, hosted by Patty Duke and Nick Clooney. So much nostalgia with American Irish heritage in song and dance and historical highlights of former Irish/American actors and their music. The show was written by Malachy McCourt, brother of Frank McCourt, now deceased, who wrote that powerful and poignant book, "Angela's Ashes", a tribute to his Irish mother and her enduring spirit with their poverty. I couldn't finish it, it was so haunting and tragic, about his growing up in Ireland's terrible impoverishment, so gritty and gosh awful. But Colleen and I enjoyed the PBS show anyway, talking about our Irishness and how we've tried to integrate it all into the fabric of our marriage and family. So here goes another related reminiscence, while the potato soup is still hot...

"Now that I’m older and “wiser”, I have a lot more questions than answers. Like what does it mean to wish someone a Happy St Patrick’s Day? Have some luck of the Irish? Cheat your fate, defy your destiny, win the lottery anyway? How about find a four-leaf clover? Where did that get all its power, if the three-leaf one is supposed to represent the Holy Trinity? What’s that fourth clover leaf all about? Who’s that supposed to be? St Patty himself? Would make a great story - The Fourth Clover Leaf. Or now there’s that salacious innuendo, to get lucky? Hey, get married, then get lucky! So many unwitting people wear that t-shirt without even knowing it's intended naughty reference. So clean up your act, citizens!

"I didn’t really get into the Irish celebrations or even realize my surname Curran was Irish until I met herself, Colleen Fitzsimmons. I was singing with The Lettermen in 1969, and she was singing as Dave and Colleen in Amarillo, TX. (Dave Webber is a sportscaster at WOW-TV in Omaha). I came through town while doing some shows in the area, and stayed at the Holiday Inn where she was singing. Some of the road crew invited her over to our lounge table to hit on her, but she only had eyes for me – and my sautéed mushrooms. Who would eat that stuff? The grill was closed and that’s all they had, ok?

"And because she was a good Catholic girl and I a returned Mormon missionary, we sat and talked religion all night. And 40 years and 8 kids later, the rest is history. But much of her identity was all wrapped up with her being raised a Midwestern Irish Catholic Democrat, with the Irish being at least as dominant as the others. And when she reminded me that I was Irish, I began my love affair with the auld sod - had even written a masters thesis on James Stephens, a Celtic Renaissance poet/writer from Dublin who was only 4’8” and extolled little things – an unwitting prelude I think to meeting my Irish Colleen.

"So within weeks after that first encounter and courting long distance, Colleen and I were sharing children’s names, since we were already talking about families and the “M” word - yeah, I know, pretty cheesy, but I was 27 and she 25, a Mormon and a Catholic with big family ideas. But interestingly, one of my favorite girl names had always been “Colleen” which means literally "Irish girl" - and she didn’t mind “Doug” that much either. But we really had a lot of kid’s names in common and with Quinn being one of our favorites, we chose it for our first child when he was born a year after were married, which was six weeks after we met. Huh?

"We ultimately wound up with Irish/Celtic names for all our kids including Megan, Shane, Erin, Shannon, Caitilin, Sean and Conn (named for an old Irish king, Conn of the Hundred Battles) And little did we know that Quinn and Conn were actually root cognates, or derived from the same name – as were Shane and Sean. It was fate then? And all our girls I wanted to have "Colleen" as their middle names, much to my wife's chagrin - but I couldn't pass up the symbolism.

"And marrying Colleen meant we would thenceforth and forever celebrate St Patrick’s Day as a day of veneration of our Irish ancestors and roots, though there was a secret German and Scotsman in there somewhere we don’t mention much. And we would henceforth also be known as those Irish weirdos down the street, always flaunting their green stuff – no not that green stuff – just anything green we could stick up or hang or display to show our pride. But as Kermit said once, “It’s not that easy being green”. Not everyone was as into it as we were, but we nevertheless abandoned all pretenses and humbly showed our Irish pride, a true Celtic contradiction in terms.

"St Pat’s Day usually began with Colleen demonstrating how the Leprecauns must have been in the house, because as she stirred the morning oatmeal, that little drop of green food coloring she put in the bottom of the pan made the porridge magically turn a shamrock color and thus began the fantasy. “Lucky Charms” was a favorite cereal too. Later in the day, our little brass bowl we bought from Pier I that said “Made in India” became our pot of gold, filled with gold-wrapped chocolate coins, and was hidden in the yard or in the house for the kids to find and fight over. We even called the weatherman and asked for a rainbow to hide it under – which is another reason we have no faith in those guys.

"And what would March 17 be like without a little Riverdance (my Michael Flatley imitation sucks), and watch 'Darby O’Gill and the Little People' for the kids, and then maybe watch 'Angela’s Ashes' or 'The Field' for some good old adult Irish angst. Of course, we loved the funny 'Waking Ned Devine', the tear-jerker 'Evelyn' and the joyful 'Dancing At Lughnasa' - and so many others being made in Ireland, including a new one, 'The War of the Buttons'. All of this would follow one of Colleen’s wonderful potato soups in green bread bowls, even corned beef and cabbage, with a few “arsh” potatoes. She visits her brother Tom in Ireland now and again in the summers, who married a former nun, Catherine McKenna, when he was 36 and she 38 – they retired to Ireland to raise their four amazing kids, but have since returned to the new sod and are at present enduring big bad winters in Bismarck ND.

"Our son Quinn was also an LDS missionary in Ireland for two years, which has galled this good Catholic uncle Tom who says he baptized Quinn Catholic as a baby, unbeknownst to us or him – and then there Quinn was in Ireland, preaching to his own. Oh the tangled web we weave! On his first day in Dublin, Quinn took the phone book and found pages and pages of Currans and Fitzsimmons, and decided he was in the right place. There was even a market chain there called Super Quinn, and he felt honored for the namesake. On slow days, he even invented a game with Guinness Stout beer lids he'd find on the street, little cork mini frizbee's he'd manipulate between his fingers called Guinno-Friz. He and his comp even created major tournaments with this pasttime. Missionary work must have been really slow.

"So we are obviously a very sick family and have had to have hours of counseling just to address this Irish obsession – until we realized it was everyone else who was missing out and were just jealous because we were Irish and they weren’t! Nah na na nah nah! But the only little hitch we have found in all this Irishness is that maybe we aren’t as Irish as we thought! First of all, the name Curran seems pretty legitimate, going back to that Conn of the Hundred Battles I mentioned. But Fitzsimmons? I’ve got to whisper here because there’s a lot of sensitivity on my wife’s part, and she can really get her Irish up. You see, Fitzsimmons is likely a Norman name that came up from northern France as Fils Simons, or illegitimate son of Simon. Yeah, so we don’t really talk about it.

"But then I also have to admit something about the name Curran. I was reading a book called The Lion of Ireland, by Morgan Llewellyn, about how a great king of one of Ireland’s divided provinces, Brian Boru, helped unite the other kings against the Viking invasion of the 10th Century, when they made Dublin their Viking capitol. Those marauders were quite a violent group of gents, probably all bi-polar and not taking their meds, who plundered and pillaged and raped and sacked and got brain damage from eating too many rotten potatoes. No wonder there was a famine! But Brian died fighting the Viking king in the last battle that finally drove them out – well at least down the street. And what was that Viking king’s name? Olaf Cuaran. What? Cuaran? Curran? I’m a Viking, am I now? See Colleen, you got me back!

"No, the Vikings did not leave Ireland entirely and for sure their DNA was all over the map. And no, red hair is not Irish, it’s Viking too. My 6-ft tall sister-in-law, Kathleen, is a flaming gorgeous redheaded proof! My wife’s other brothers and sisters are tall strawberry blondes. She’s the only dark-haired one. I have three daughters who are 6 ft tall and one 5’10” – and sons all 6-2 to 6’6” – alas no redheads however, except maybe a hint from Conn and some red highlights in Quinn as a toddler. The original Irish were darker and smaller, probably more the size of guys like Mickey Rooney and Gene Kelly.

"Oh yeah, I found out that Gene’s middle name was Curran and wrote him a letter to probe a family connection. His terse post-carded reply just said “Thanks for the note. Up the Irish!” So much for the Curran connection. I think he was fed up with the IRA conflicts between north and south at the time. Well, there’s always more I could say – but I’ll let it be for now, unless my wife comes along while I’m typing this, then you’ll never hear the end of her blarney! Yeah, I’ll have to get over there someday just so I can kiss that blarney stone and learn to keep up with her jabber…uh, gab… from her gob. Colleen, you know I'm kidding, right? Right? Put down that frying pan and kiss me, I'm Irish! Colleen? Colleen? She can really get her Irish up."

Pizza Consciousness and Family Tradition..

2010-03-13T23:26:00.009-07:00

Last Friday night was another in a long line of Curran pizza nights, nothing special, just one of thousands we've had for about 30 years or so. We always get two, for ourselves and whoever might drop by anymore, though we can count on the kids who still live with us off and on. It all started in Hawaii, when we tried to have a family night each Friday consisting of pizza and a video. Pizza was pretty outrageous for our family of eight kids and Hawaii living was so expensive anyway; but that's where our tradition started. And each Friday night since, we've been having pizza, with a very few exceptions. But what kind of pizza is the question.

After we moved to Utah, and not having much money most of the time we've been here, we've tried all kinds of pizza, depending on how much money we had. And videos? Well, forget that after a while because as the kids grew, it became increasingly hard to find one video everyone liked, let alone find one that was decent enough to show in a family setting at home. So videos went out the window. We turned to tv watching of any sort we could all agree on while eating whatever pizza we could decide upon too. You had to have something to watch while eating pizza, eh? And usually it was all gone before much watching took place. And of course, we've kept the soda pop industry alive with all the drink we've washed it all down with.

For many years, we had to do the frozen kind from Smiths or Albertsons. Usually it was Totinos, little teeny pizzas we could buy cheap and in bulk so each person could actually have his own. When that got old fast, it might have been Red Baron or some such cardboard crusty kind to try to make up for the real deal. We even discovered we could almost make our own brand, something close to real, using toasted French bread with spaghetti sauces first, then pepperoni and mozzarella cheese we cut ourselves, until cheese started coming out in bags already shaved. We burned too many of those kind under the broiler though before we finally got the timing of ingredients and heat in balance. So many smoky memories.

We eventually discovered a mom and pop pizza shop in south Provo which made its own pizzas with fantastic dough which came ready to cook. We would on special occasion drive all the way down from Orem and buy a few and treasure them all the way back. That became an obsolete option however, once we discovered that Papa Murphy's new chain did the same thing and was only a few blocks away. And when we tired of that, we could order from a new Papa John's that took over from the Taco Time that went our of business right down our street. And they had litle green chilis and garlic butter with theirs! Of course, I've always preferred Pizza Hut's crust over the years, and have even tried a Dominoes of two, once they finally got their act together and made something worth eating.

But I question why we made some pizza compromises with these new chains. Take Papa John's for instance. When it first came out, I envisioned Papa John as some wizened old Italian pizza master finally bringing his recipe from the old country so we Americans could appreciate real authentic pizza. I never questioned why his name was John and not Giovanni. His real name is John Schnatter or something very un-Italian and he's about 30 years old. He doesn't deserve the title "Papa" at his age, let alone try to convince us he's Italian and could know anything about pizza making!

And what about Papa Murphy's? When was the last time you saw an Irishman making pizza? I mean hey, I'm Irish myself, but when did the Irish come up with pizza? Maybe if it had corned beef and cabbage on it, yes, but no, I'm sorry, pizza and Paddy don't mix in my book. Yet I got suckered in by it because it offered oven-ready pizza I could bake myself and it also had a great taste. And Pizza Hut? Huts are for jungles or tropical islands, aren't they, but not pizza! And a karaoke bar called Pizza Doc's? Take two pizzas and call me in the morning? I don't think so. But now there are big dine-in pizza places, exorbitant and pricey, just because someone brings it to you. Does that make it better? Without the box?

I remember when I made up a name for a pizza place called "Eatsa Pizza", just for the rhyme of it, envisioning my own place someday. And then to my amazement, saw a place open up in Orem a few years ago with the same name, a cheap pizza buffet with salad and fast food pizza, and I could care less whether it was Italian or not - but just cheap! But it went out of business after only a year or two. Probably lost too much money and people just didn't support it for some reason. I don't know, I'm feeling a little ambivalent about pizza, though I keep ordering it from these aforementioned chains, without thinking anymore, just by tradition.

My mind goes back to one of my first pizza memories in Falls Church, Virginia where we were living with our youngest two, Quinn and Megan. We took them out to eat once at a place that advertised Sicilian pizza. We didn't know what that was, but were intrigued, hoping it wasn't a cover for some Mafia business. We found out it was a deep dish pan pizza, smothered with tons of mozzarella, no pepperoni or anything else, just cheese! It was delicious! They brought us six huge squares of pizza, of which I ate two, Colleen ate two, and the kids ate one each. We were stuffed. As the waiter came over to the table, we thanked him and told him how great it was. He only said, "Are you ready for the other half?" What??? Now that was pizza heaven to the maximus and we took it home, thanking the pizza gods all the way for an unforgettable feast of leftovers!

Winter Games in Vancouver and SLC Oly Redux...

2010-02-22T23:25:00.010-07:00

I don't know...as I watch all the thrills and chills of the Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, and how global warming only seemed to hit there and not in the snowbound East, I still can't dismiss my feelings about how much we idolize the athletes and their feet feats! How much we make celebs out of people who can snowboard and ice skate and fly down ski slopes and sled tracks at breakleg speeds, who brave death and have great muscles and skills - and who are awarded with prestige and international adulation and medals galore.

But they're not gods, people, no matter how much the media wants us to adore them, how much teeth and giggles they show on Oprah and other shows and breakfast cereal boxes. Sports are elevated to such heights, yes Olympian heights. I for one just love the snow and wish I could go play in it. But I hate the interviewers who ask the same questions of the winners, hoping for different answers - or maybe just to get the same answers all the time and hear the word "awesome' a thousand more times! Yes, congrats to all the players and I hope the rewards are worth it for the years of preparation and toil. But as high as they fly, I hope they keep their feet on the ground - and I for one won't be worshiping any of them.

Now, having the Olympics in Canada meant we got to hear things in two languages, English and French. As I reminisce about the Winter Games in Salt Lake City in 2002, I bring to mind that we almost had them in two languages there too - English and Utahna. Forgive my little jibe at a state I've come to love for 23 years, being born and raised myself in the East. I just have a few problems with the linguistic regionalisms of the locals here, per a little essay I sent out to all the papers at the time but updated here for later publicaton ...

Winter Olympics 2002 Was The Rill Dill (My Utah-Speak Daze) – By Doug Curran

"Now that I’m older and “wiser”, I have more questions than answers. Like why do I love Utah so much when they talk so crazy? I'm a Maryland boy myself with a midwest non-accent. With the 2002 Winter Olympics distant history and the 2004 Summer Games already past, it's nice to know that my concerns with its political success have been basically unfounded. If there really were any terrorist jihadists around, I hope they mistakenly wound up in some ice cave in the high Colorados, trying to bomb the 'Avalanche Venue.' The fear of traffic problems in Salt Lake City turned downtown into a ghost town, we became the porta-potty capital of the world if just for two weeks, and our arsenal of green jello is still intact to share with the a starving world out there. And I think we can safely say that we have impressed the world with how many times we can use the word "venue"(can a porta-potty be a venue too?).

"No, what I was really worried about was an even greater threat to the Games and to world peace than those visiting protesters against rodeos, abortion, the Mormons, global warming, the Mormons, valley pollution, and the Mormons. I was more concerned with the potential for significant international misunderstanding every time a local folk might open his mouth in well-intentioned gushes of good will, not knowing he might be some poor visitor's only English manual. Did it happen? And I’m not talking about the Utah-speak of years ago, still pleasantly alive in some of our older generation's more memorable lines like 'Let’s go horness the harses down on the form in American Fark befar we read the Book of Marmon at the wahrd house.' And what about all those more youthful generational 'Dangs' and 'Oh my hecks' and 'My words' and 'Fer neats'!

"No, no, this is something far more recent and insidious and makes the Great Vowel Shift(or is that Movement?) pale in significance to another linguistic anomaly. What I’m talking about friends is what nobody has yet protested and I want to do it before the world gives us the powder. I call it the 'Demise of the Diphthong!' What’s a diphthong, you ask? Well it doesn’t take a diphstick to know what a diphthong is. It’s one of those things in language that…well, it’s when you’re talking and you…ok, it’s like this, see.

"Let’s take the word “real", for example. There are two vowels together in that mono-syllabic…uh, single syllable wonder - 'e' and 'a. In more midwest English, they are each given a separate sound value akin to something like 'ree-uhl'. That is how most people say it - except in Utah. In Utah, it is pronounced 'rill'. No kidding! Rilly!! Have you listened to your local radio commercials lately? Or to your neighbors kids? Or to yourself? Ever?? Hey, this is serious stuff!

"And what about the two vowels together in the word 'mail', 'a' and 'i', or its homonym 'male'? The word in every English class I’ve ever been in (MA English , ESL certified, but seriously considering changing careers to becoming a curling sweeper) sounds like 'may-uhl'. There are supposed to be two sounds there - two together. It's a diphthong, people! We can actually pronounce those two sounds separately!

"But what I'm hearing is something like 'I’m going to the Post Office to pick up the mell.' No, that’s exactly what I’m hearing. Mell! Mell? Like ‘through rain, snow, sleet and hell(not hail) the mell will get through?' And I used to deliver the stuff as a sub postal carrier in the East to earn money for an LDS mission in Brazil.) And it seems to be only those specific diphthongs used with 'L'-sounding endings. So what the 'L' is that all about? Help me out, here! And I know some wiser-than-thou linguist out there will! Are we just getting too lazy to use those poor little vowels?

"But what if someone visiting from another country had gotten sick on fry sauce, let's say. It could happen! Would the attending medical person have said something like 'How do you fill(feel)? You look pretty pell(pale). What was in your last mill(meal)? If I can’t hill(heal) you, maybe I can get you a good dill(deal) on a coffin.' Or what about the tourist who was shopping Utah for some souvenirs? Did some retell (retail) store say something like 'Hi folks, come on in, we’re having a sell (sale) on fishing rills(reels) and shingle nells(nails).' Nice target marketing. Doesn't anyone else see some serious international implications here? Is it just me?

"And finally, how did we do helping all those brave Olympians who had a rill ordill on the ice and slopes, hoping they'd prevell over their competition, not well in anguish if they lost, or who had to go to jell for felling the dope test? Did we just smile and say 'Happy trells, pardner! The devil's in the detells!' And I’m not trying to be pompous or coy here - much. I've just gotten so used to those little 'ea's and the 'ai's, that I don't want to see them disappear. And they ARE disappearing! And I didn’t want our guests to leave Utah filling confused and felling to see us as we rilly are, out standing in our filled. Ooops.

"Hey, don’t get me wrong, I love Utah! It’s been home for 18 years as a transplant from the East Coast via Hawaii. So I'm really not affected by local regionalisms so much. But I do love selling on Deer Creek and riding the rells on the Heber Creeper. I just hope that when President Bush was in town, nobody sang 'Hell to the Chief!' But hey, those Winter Games were the rill dill, weren’t they? How did you fill about them, rilly? Nobody went to jell. Will never know if the terrorists were here because if they felled in their plans, or didn’t still any money, then they didn’t sill the dill. Yes, happy trells, partner, as I sell into the sunset...oh boy, gimme that midwest linguistic makeover already."

Can you say "Happy.....'"?

2010-02-15T04:57:00.022-07:00

It all started Friday night with a mesmerizing opening ceremonies for the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, BC, with amazing winter images and Canadian ethnic welcoming celebrations - so I guess I should have said "Happy Winter Olympics!" But I was alone because Colleen felt too tired and was coming down with a cold. My young grandson Kai joined me for a few minutes, while I tried to make it a significant event for him for as long as I could keep his attention. But he was involved with his uncle Sean and brother Kalin, doing some recording in the next room, way more interesting for all of them than watching Olympic history. But then the NBA All-Star festivities and multiple shooting contests started that night too, going through Saturday and Sunday night, with a totally dazzling idol-worship intro of these players, making them gods to whomever was watching - so maybe I should have said "Happy All-Star Weekend!" But there was more Olympics to compete with and of course it was pizza night and nobody cared.

And then along came Valentine's Day on Sunday, with Colleen and I scampering around the day before to find some kind of chocolate goodies for our single grownups and grandkids too, while trying to find a good celebratory dinner and movie we could enjoy for our "sweetheartness" instead of indulging it on Sunday. We both got up late Saturday though because she was still nursing a cold and I've been having attacks of facial nerve pain from as yet undetermined sources. When we finally left the house late Saturday afternoon, we thought we had outsmarted the other local folk and got to the restaurants early - but as we drove by our first dinner alternative, Olive Garden, it was packed with people standing outside. We had gotten ourselves up for some Italian - but as we turned ourselves towards Provo and another possible lasagna option, we drove by TGI Fridays and decided to check it out. It was virtually deserted, so we prided ourselves at finding a place no one else had thought of yet, got a table and ordered some great vittles with hardly any competition.

Our movie option fell through however, as it turned out our newspaper had wrong info and the show "Extreme Measures" wasn't actually playing at the Provo Mall after all, or anywhere else for that matter. Every other movie option and time just didn't appeal to us. So there we were at the mall with nary a thing to do but walk and window shop, something we don't find that appealing anymore with our bad knees and legs and lack of money. So we got those aforementioned goodies, headed home to see if we could find a movie on Comcast OnDemand. I just paid the past due bill today so we should have had selection options, but a message kept coming up that we couldn't order any pay-per-view movies - and their offices were closed to try to find out why. (Found out later they're supposed to be open 24/7 so there was a hiccup in the works somewhere) The Free Movie selections sucked, so we watched news and pooped out before we could find any visual entertainment to mark the day as a pre-Valentine's success.

So here it is, the twilight zone between two holidays, and I watched news all day, neither of us attending church for health reasons. It was interesting to hear all these news interviews on Fox, with each one ending in "Happy Valentine's Day" wishes from commentators to interviewees. What does it all mean anyway? What are we really wishing to each other? For sweethearts, yes, another way of saying "I love you". But for news makers and other tv personalities? "I love you"? "Have a nice loving day with your families"? "Eat a lot of sweets and don't get too much diabetes today"? Are we just so needy to wish people something good that a holiday of sorts like this one is just another excuse? Not that that's bad, but is it really meaningful or necessary in any way? How about today now? I know it's early and I'm having another insomnia attack. But what should I say to anyone today? Happy President's Day? Why? What would I be really wishing anyone? It's really just another big shopping day, a day of celebrating our rampant consumerism and materialism, of finding good sales as a reason to spend money. Would all our past presidents be all over that? Is this the best way to honor our Presidents? How about dinner and a movie? Honest, Abe, I'd like to know!

PS - Oh yes, and we can't forget saying "Happy Chinese New Year!" to all our many Chinese friends of whom we actually have none that we know of. But "Happy Chow Fun" anyway just to be sure. And to all my Brazilians and other N. O. Saints who will be celebrating Carnaval and Mardi Gras, Happy ...Happy...Happy what? Happy Ash Wednesday? Isn't that when it starts? I just hope those festive folks don't make ashes of themselves! I was in Brazil in 1962 for my first Carnaval as a young LDS missionary, walking the streets trying not to feel the incessant pulsations of drums and dance, trying not to react to being squirted with all kinds of perfumed intoxicants, trying not to notice the scantily and non-clad - but instead keep my hands on the "iron rod" and keep from being crushed by the tumultuous, heaving crowds as we tried to get from one end of a block to another without falling down and getting stomped to death. Finally we gave up and stayed in our apartments for three days till it was safe to hit the streets again to do the Lord's work and pick up the pieces left by the Adversary. But I still loved that infectious samba beat.

PPS - Ok, and I guess I should wish everyone a Happy Westminster Dog Show in NYC this week too. Best In Show, right-o, eh what?

Saints be praised - and birthdays too!

2010-02-07T21:42:00.004-07:00

Yes, who else but us Currans could combine a Super Bowl party to watch the N.O Saints upset the Indy Colts tonight, 31-17! And then celebrate three birthdays at the same time, Erin 34 today, James 40 on Wed and Mom Curran, 66 on the 16th! We squeezed it all in somehow, at Megan's tonight with her salad and rolls, Italian Zitti ala June Briggs, the constant din of 8 kids under 10, a few teenagers, football commentary by James, June, Conn, Sean, non-football commentary by Shannon and Ryan, Shane and Sharon, with Colleen leading the charge with commentary on anything and everything - while I sat silent, ate and observed, per my assigned role as stoic family patriarch, and tried to enjoy the ads, mostly drowned out by all the other cheering and chatter!

And a mostly good time was had by all, by the time the Saints spoiled the Colts' hopes for a repeat, but put themselves in a storied category, giving new hope to a city still struggling from Katrina's aftermath, and to a team which had never been to the Super Bowl! Drew Brees and company and their rookie coach did what they had to do, overcame much adversity and jitters, made enough big plays, and stole the show! I was kind of rooting for the Colts only because they had a BYU grad, rookie wide receiver Austin Collie and a former BYU defensive standout from Hawaii, Aaron Francisco. But I vowed to root for the underdog in the game, that is, whoever got behind, I was mentally cheering, while retaining my patriarchal composure. Yeah, when it comes to that, I'm a real saint!

Punxutawny Phil has his day...

2010-02-02T23:29:00.005-07:00

Hey, I'm all for Phil's shadow and six more weeks of Winter, I don't care what anyone says. If it were my decision, I'd have snow right up till the 4th of July, take a week off, and then bring it on again! I still have my Christmas lights on outside tonight, in honor of Candlemas, the real reason Feb 2 is important. At least all over northern Europe, they celebrate Candlemas with mid-winter lights and candles, more of a Christian light remembrance of Christ and Him being the Light of the World. Look it up on Google! There's a lot about it. We got stuck with the agrarian part of the celebration, looking forward to planting season and celebrating that with a creature of the earth to symbolize it. I think I wrote about it in a previous blog.

So I guess I'll turn off the lights outside now, make my wife happy and less embarrassed, and admit that we have to put Christmas away finally. I've been taking it down still, slowly, laboriously, a little here, a little there, with more boxes and organization this year, so I can find it all easier next year, assuming I'm still here, here in this house, here on earth, just here. I love the cold and the snow anyway, though I find that with most of the kids gone from the house, the fire in the fireplace doesn't mean as much when there's no one to share it with except my wife - which is fine, but just enjoy knowing we can provide a warm house for a lot of people. And now, it's just Erin and Conn, who have moved back for economic reasons and we're happy to provide that temporary place - if they'd just stop acting like kids and leaving their food and stuff around, and not doing the dishes or cleaning up much. Young adults!!! Will they ever grow up? You've gotta love 'em though!

In honor of MLK and Haiti...

2010-01-18T18:54:00.004-07:00

It's not a day that you say 'Happy Martin Day' or anything! How do we actually celebrate such a day? Not a day for well wishing necessarily, unless you are one whose civil rights have been made better because of MLK and then you have great cause to praise him and rejoice because of your freedoms, rights which are supposed to have been inalienable by virtue of our Constitution - but long denied by the actual dominant populace until the tragic martyrdom of this great civil rights leader.

I for one could wish someone well if that were politically correct I guess. I am ashamed every day for the racism that existed then and still does in my country among some of its citizens. I decry it, deny it, pray it will cease and that all men will be judged for the intent of their hearts and the intelligence of their minds and not their skin color, creed, gender or belief. The 60's were a decade of horrible assassinations, MLK being one of the most tragic because of race and a fight for the rights we all enjoy.

So. while Haiti languishes today after a week of cruel earthquake aftermath, and the American people have been polled 42-58 for sending donations while so many brave Americans and other internationals have gone there to offer medical and humanitarian assistance, I sit in my warm house on a cold wintry day and count my blessings of comfort and food and relative peace for now, knowing a big earthquake is talked about as imminent in Utah. I watch the tragedy of Haiti on tv, cry inside for the victims, donate what I can, hope and pray for some solution that will end this misery and save the children and rebuild such an already impoverished country - and remember Martin Luther King too.

Happy Hooter's Anniversary too!

2010-01-08T03:16:00.011-07:00

Everyone's got a new calendar for the new year, even that crazy organization of owl lovers called "Hooters". I haven't seen it yet, but I'm sure it has a great collection of fine feathered "birds". So in honor of their 20th or 25th anniversary(I've seen it both ways on Google), either in October or January (I'm so confused), I give you my own aviary tribute...

"Now that I’m older and 'wiser', I have a lot more questions than answers. Like what impact will a Hooters anniversary have on American life? I think I heard it was celebrated on January 20. Well first of all, I didn’t know owls celebrated anniversaries. The anniversary of what? Becoming a full-fledged owl? A fine-feathered friend? I for one just think we already have a lot more respect for owls than we used to. I know I do, whether it be for the Barn Owl, the Screech Owl, the Great Horned Owl, or that great Grey Spotted Owl of the American Northwest, so protected a species that even big tough loggers who need big tough wood to build big tough houses cower at the idea very of fowling up an owl habitat and getting their big tough logging licenses revoked by the EPA and reviled by Green Peace.

"Of course I would respect that Grey Spotted Owl more if I could only find it, since I haven’t 'spotted' it yet. But I know it’s out there winging it somewhere. It could be that decoy on top of our church in Utah to scare all the seagulls away so they don't poop on the roof. Now there’s a tussle I’d like to see – an owl and a seagull! What about the owl and the pussycat? Edward Lear was a little deranged when he thought up that one, because I’ve never seen an owl and a cat even get close to getting married. A whimsical fairy tale? If the owl was the father and the mother the pussycat, and the pig was the ring-bearer, it’s no wonder the Brits lost the war to us. Why are kid’s stories so childish?

"But how can you dispute the owl’s penchant for asking one of life’s greatest questions? Constantly! Repeatedly! Perpetually! Who!!! Because, come on let’s face it, don’t all things eventually boil down to that one critical question anyway? Who??? The great Who of life? Who is it? Who dunnit? Who wants to know? Who knows the answer? Who, did you say? Who cares? See, you just can’t ask those questions with a what or why or where or how. How cares? Where dunnit? What wants to know? It just doesn’t work. So that old hooter is wiser than we give him credit for. I think it is pretty obvious then that we owe a debt of gratitude to a bird that only says 'who'!

"He doesn’t get all cluttered up with a bunch of other extraneous questions, and who has kept us in the battle against ignorance by reminding us just who’s on first! And who is your neighbor? And who is your greatest listener too? Yes, you, that’s who! You who, anybody listening? No it’s not 'Yoo Hoo'. That’s a bunch of 'Whoey'. No, that shouldn’t be 'Hooey' either. 'Yoo Hoo' must have started out as 'You, who is listening…' – yes, like 'Hey, you! Who is there? You, who is there? You who…! Hello!' But they still haven’t mastered the 'whom' word yet and that’s a shame because of it’s ultimate effect on the English language. And whom cares anyway.

"And as for why we have made the owl a symbol for wisdom – like the wise old owl figure in our folklore? Well, I’d like to know who is going to prove that one. Is there someone out there who has measured the IQ of an owl and come up with some real scientific data? Has an owl’s intelligence been tested and compared with an Orangutan for example? Has the owl family got one up on the apes lately? I don’t see too many owls taking screen tests. No I think it’s because they sit there and say nothing but that one little word – and we call them wise because they don’t open their mouths and put their talons in it like men do with their feet. The less said the better and silence is golden and a 'percher' is worth a thousand words. So if an owl starts talking like a parrot, then I think it will lose it’s reputation for being wise and will become just like any other talking bird – caged and stupid for imitating humans.

"But you’ve got to hand it to these little hooters for the way they have become such an integral part of our culture today. They fly in and out of our ghost stories, their big wings flapping in the moonlight as their giant yellow eyes search the ground for tiny helpless wood mice to munch on and help deplete the surplus rodent population. Shades of Scrooge! They haunt the hillsides and forage the forests of our primeval collective consciousness and then land on some branch in the middle of nowhere and just give us that proverbial wink! Can you believe that? What a bird! And yet it is a fearsome enough predator to be the mascot for Temple University. I know it sure puts the fear in me – both school and bird. I don’t want to be hooted to death.

"And regarding owls on tv, I never quite understood why Al Bundy found hooters so fascinating either. He was always talking about them but I never saw one owl on his show. And I always wished we could change that last line of Clark Gable’s in “Gone With The Wind” to “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a hoot.” I think that would have gotten us talking about owls a lot sooner instead of dams, although I guess they both have a common ecological connection. I just don’t know what that is yet. I do know that out here in Utah, if you make someone laugh a lot, they say, “You’re a hoot!” Not a hooter, just a hoot. I’m not sure if they are calling you an owl in some off-handed but well-meaning way, or just saying that you make them hoot like one. So can they be called hooters then? And would I be the hootee if I make them hoot?

"Oh yeah, and there’s that restaurant chain called Hooters (or should that be Whooters?) that must be dedicated to raising owl consciousness, because it is really growing in notoriety and giving owls a new image. I’ve never seen their menu, but I don’t think they have owls in any form on it - like owl burgers, or country fried owl or owl under glass - so that helps with important owl preservation, I guess. Do they call the waitresses chicks? Do they hoot out their orders to the cooks? Do the customers have to hoot their orders to the waitresses? I know they’re not bunnies. Are baby owls called chicks? Or owlets? So many owl questions. Well, happy anniversary to all you owls and owl watchers out there this winter, and may you continue to give us all a good hoot… which should really be spelled “Whoot”, I think."

Happy Epiphany Y'all!

2010-01-06T13:12:00.014-07:00

Epiphing we will go, Epiphing we will go, Hi Ho the Merry-i-o, Epiphing we will go! To Epiph or not to Epiph, that is the question! Yes, it's Epiphany once again, January 6, that day in Christendom that nobody really knows about or observes except for a few of us who are looking for anything to celebrate after Christmas and New Year's, anything to keep the flailing festive spirit alive - and keep up those Christmas lights.

It's supposedly the 12th day of Christmas too, if you count Christmas as the first day, not the last, not the culmination, but just the beginning of the fun and frolic! We had friends in Hawaii who had a party and epiphed all night long, with an epiphany here and an epiphany there, here an Epiph, there an Epiph, everywhere an Epiph, piph.

And of course, the meaning of the word itself is to have an earthshaking realization, a momentous revelation, an "ah-hah" moment or other important and unexpected happening - like Paul had on his way to Damascus when an angel scared him half to death by telling him to stop persecuting Christians and join the club. So you could go scare someone into being good! It's kind of like that head slap you see in the commercials - "Should have had a V8!"

But then you know it is an ancient remembrance of the day the Magi visited Jesus, right? Why it's in all our Christmas creche scenes! I'm surprised you didn't remember it, really! And what do you on this date? Well, you could break out the gold, frankencense and myrrh - but that might also break the bank! You would wish everyone peace, love and health, supposedly three ancient friendly wishes from those three lovely wise guys!

You could also have three Burger King-like guys knock at the door, sing "We Three Kings" and present fun gift cards to the family! You could just feast yourselves silly and have a lot of symbols of threes among the food - three cakes, three fish, three little pigs, three blind mice - threes are big on Epiphany! Like Hip Hip Hooray, repeated three times! So go for it and Epiph my friends, Epiph! At least three times!

The New Year and Christmas Lights...

2010-01-01T22:35:00.010-07:00

No, it's not what you're thinking. I am not going right into that old trite and cliched "resolution" talk. I used to have lots of resolve and willingness to change, but got tired of trying to psyche myself into new habits when I really hadn't worked on breaking the old and worn out ones during the year. Change just doesn't happen overnight or from New Year's Eve to the next day, no matter how loud we yell or get wild or toast the most or smooch the pooch - no, it might take an all-nighter like Scrooge had to really affect the repentance we all need. Just takes a lot of work, slow and steady, enduring to the end. So I'm not giving up or giving out! But let's get to the real priority of the New Year - the Christmas lights! And so I give you "Christmas Lights, Fights and Rights"!

"Now that I’m older and “wiser”, I have a lot more questions than answers. Like, when is it ok to take down the Christmas lights? I am not happy about it every New Year, because I want to start out the year right - but it is always a bone of contention, whatever that means, among the family and neighbors as to when it’s ok. Well, let’s go back to the beginning to get some needed perspective on this annual dilemma -the hanging of the lights in the first place! They go up the day after Thanksgiving and they stay up as long as I want them to – or so I thought.

"Actually, we weren’t always the first on our block to get them up. One year, we got beat out by a young couple across the street with little twin girls. All of a sudden, I look out the window and there this guy is, on the roof, of all the nerve, with his wife holding the ladder – and the twins dancing around the yard, getting their glee in before us. Right then, I told everyone to drop the turkey leftovers and head for the front of the house, that the lights were going up, ready or not!

"But, to our humiliation, as we pulled out last years lights, half of them didn’t work. Shannon is usually the one who is on top of this, but who could blame her - we did! But we got over it and we started with the tall stuff on the front eaves first to soothe our guilt, and make it look like it had just slipped by us. Soon Sean, number seven child and all 6’ 6’ of him, was standing on a ladder that was shorter than he was, stretching those shot-blocking arms in pain while Shannon held on to the ladder and his shoes, and while I took my esteemed directorial place in my lawn chair out front to make sure that the lights were going up evenly and politically correct across the front of the house and wouldn’t embarrass us throughout the coming season.

"So, after Sean got those red and white dangling icicles up across the top of the eaves, from the highest rafters and beams, we decided not to light the carport – too much junk accumulation that did not need any more illumination. Next I found a strand of white lights and delicately wove them in and out among the shrubs which grace the front walkway. I also bought some of them there net lights in red, a new touch from last year, and laid them carefully across the other thicker bushes to the right of the front door. Are you getting all this? Can you see it? Ain’t it purty? Will anyone really care?

"Ok, so while Shannon and Sean were highlighting the front window ledge with fake Poinsettia in the planter boxes, and placing the green garlands aesthetically about the top of the front door, I ran out to Rite-Aid and got two red hanging “peace” and “joy” banners to put on the wood panels on each side of the front door. Wow, things were shaping up! And when night came, it was magic! Just never had any real snow yet to make it look more authentic! Shannon did the tree the next day all by herself - sorry, we’re into fake trees too after many years of trying to keep real ones alive from Thanksgiving to Christmas! More pine needles on the floor than on the tree! But back to the New Year issue at hand.

"So my first challenge of the New Year is not resolutions! It’s fighting for my rights to keep up the lights? My lights rights are inalienable – or unalienable – or alienating – or maybe alien-attracting. I want them up – the first ones up and the last ones down! But once we’ve shown our invincibility at keeping them up the longest, then why not just leave them up till…Valentines? They’ve got hearts and candy in the stores already.. And our lights are red and white! Why not? Ok, Epiphany! January 6! The last of the 12 days of Christmas? Yes? No? My January 14 birthday. Can we negotiate? Or maybe till Candlemas?

"Now there’s an idea that you who lament with me can grab onto. Candlemas is a Northern European celebration of lights, halfway through Winter, to recognize an old Hebrew tradition of Mary having to wait to be clean from birth before entering the temple – and to look forward to Spring – but I like the one that celebrates Jesus as the light of the world, and extends the Christmas celebrations till then. And when is it? Febrruary 2! But that’s Groundhog Day, you say! Yes, we bumpkins over here in America adopted that one mid-winter tradition that became what is now Punxatawny Phil seeing his shadow or not. This tradition also originated with some northern Celts, only I think theirs was a rat.

"But if you really want to resolve the lights issue, I say leave them up till Candlemas, light some candles on February 2, enjoy the dark and chill of January a lot more by leaving up the decorations and letting Christmas slowly fade out instead of that abrupt day after New Year’s demolition derby most people do, while the kids cry and the parents try to overcome their guilt by getting sloshed. Not necessary! Just let it ride a few more weeks till February 2, burn those scented candles a little more, and sit down and watch Bill Murray’s classic 'Groundhog Day' movie – and forget about any neighbors who storm your house clamoring for your head because your Christmas lights are keeping them up at night. Just tell them you’re observing that ancient religious holiday of your forefathers called Candlemas, and you’ll call the ACLU on them for defamation and bigotry and discrimination if they keep up their persecution. Then be nice later and take them a candle and blow it out in their face."

Christmas Eve and more....

2009-12-25T02:06:00.013-07:00

Had another great gathering of the Curran Clan for Christmas Eve at the big brick bi-level homestead! The tradition goes like this - Colleen and I bust our humps all day finishing the presents, taking out gifts to friends and neighbors, cooking the annual potato and French onion soups, making Caesar salad and keeping the kitchen hot enough to open the windows and assuage the chef's menopausal hormones! The kids and grandkids and any others arrive around 5:30, there is mass chaos for a few minutes until we bribe the wee wild ones with food and threats of no Santa Claus.

After the feasting and much jawing and juicing on cranberry punch, we read Luke, open Pixie presents, try to keep the little grandkids from opening everything else, then march out into the frosty, frigid air and croak out a few carols to widows, single mothers and other neighbors who can stand us - and then it's back to the warm house to defrost and thaw and try to find feeling in our faces and fingers again! The fireplace is blazing and cozy and the evening is another success, though our backs are aching and we have to retire early to get ready for the big day of present opening on Christmas Day! And so it goes, and too quickly too! We try to make it all linger longer and it seems like just yesterday we were just all doing this. And here's another little Christmas essay of sorts to fill more space here and in oblivion with a wish for the merrierst, the merriest!

"Now that I’m older and “wiser”, I have a lot more questions than answers. Because it’s Christmas again, I wonder how many of these holidays I have left! I’m starting to count my remaining days in Christmases. And they keep coming faster and faster, although I can’t wait till the next one already, which is a pretty sick thing when I consider I am hastening my own mortality. But I love Christmas! I love wearing my Santa Claus hat when I’m out and about in the malls and stores and highways and byways. I’m just a big giddy goofy guy at Christmas – that’s 6’3’ and over 300 pounds big, with a gray-white beard. Not that I’m proud of being over 300 pounds, but Christmas is the only time I can feel ok about it - if I’m also wearing my Santa hat. - and my red shirt. - and my big green coat – and my green sweats..

"People really look kind of funny at me most of the time, though. Most don’t laugh or even give me a second look, like they don’t want to encourage such behavior in a grown man. Or maybe they’re afraid I’m a little demented and they don’t want to catch my eye, in case I pull out a donation cup – or Santa bag. Or maybe they think I’m a Santa serial killer and will ask them to sit down on my lap and tickle them to death. Maybe they just don’t know what they want for Christmas and are too embarrassed to admit it, in case I ask them. But a few people humor me – some even try to be my elves. But that’s where I have to draw the line! Especially the ladies who want to be Mrs Claus! I already have one hot Mama!

"But I love this season so much, I wouldn’t mind dying on Christmas – but that could be a bummer for the family. Not that they’d be so sad about me, but it would sure mess up opening presents, with ambulances and coffins and having to identify me as THE Santa Claus. My wife’s dad, Ed, died on Christmas day, later in the day, in his sleep, before he got up to go to work as a big motel night auditor (the motel was big not him. He was only 5’8”) He was 84 and still working at the time, because he loved his job. Never showed up for work that night and they found him in bed, guarded by old Duke, his big black dog. I think Duke was older than Ed in doggie years. (How do they know what a doggie year is?) Duke had arthritis in his hips, but could always run fast enough to hide when Ed told him they were going to Mass. Duke didn’t like to wait in the car. I also think he was Protestant.

"So it was nice of Ed to wait until we had already opened our presents before he decided to 'cash it in' – or 'buy the farm' – or some other inexplicable euphemism for 'biting the big enchilada'. That’s just the kind of guy he was. What a day and way to go! We all knew he was a blessed guy, but how good was that? He could have died on Christmas Eve. So after the well-deserved lamentations at home from all who loved him dearly, my wife flew out on a plane to Omaha, because that’s where he was when he died - and me and the six kids at home all drove out from Utah - because that’s where we were when he died. We did it in two cars and two days and drove that thousand miles in record time, walkie-talking all the way. Anything to get through that big boring Nebraska cornfield as fast as we could. (This was 1993 pre-cell phones)

"We walked in on the wake in progress, in time to offer some heartfelt words of respect, travel-weary though we were, and glad to see our mom. She was taking it all pretty well. That wake stuff by the way comes from the 1500’s when they’d sit around and see if the dead would wake up, in case they weren’t really dead and might be buried alive in their coffin. They opened too many of those lids with fingernail scratches on the inside. There’s a happy holiday thought. Anyway, the service was the next day, and all in all, it went pretty well for a Christmas funeral. My girls sang and other grandkids did their things. I think Ed liked it, anyway. But enough about dying at Christmas. I’ll save that till later - much later I hope.

"But just to finish the story, Ed left us his little Dodge Rampage mini-truck, an’ 86 with only 26,000 miles on it. Maybe he should have been buried in it, he loved it so much. So we had three cars to drive back to Utah after the burial. But we still only had the two walkie-talkies. My oldest daughter Megan had taken her Mazda, and loved to drive fast and out of range. So when we got to Denver, she took off with Shannon and Conn, out of sight, no walkie-talkie, and took a powder in real snow. Yes, it had started snowing and it was getting dark and we ran into a blizzard at the Eisenhower Tunnel and down the four-hour descent to Grand Junction. I had Sean with me in the Rampage, Colleen had Erin and Caitilin, in the Nissan Stanza wagon and we were literally crying and praying all the way, knowing Megan had no gas money, and we had no way to reach her.

"We imagined the worst, of course, and made many stops along the road to see if that was her buried in big mounds of snow or off the highway in some ditch. We checked with the Highway Patrol, called neighbors back in Utah to see if she had called them. Nothing! And she had our youngest with her, a very high-strung 10-year old boy. And we knew he would be giving her fits, and reading her her rights! “You have the right to remain stupid, you have the right to get me home in one piece,,,”, those little kid rights.

"As we coasted into GJ, we got off at the first exit and took a look around. Nobody! All was dark and quiet! It was the night before the night before New Year’s Eve. We went on to the next exit – and as we were coming down the off-ramp, we looked at the service station at the bottom of the hill, and there Megan was, at a payphone, calling her brother at school in Hawaii, crying and ranting and chanting – and served her right too! But we were too happy to see her to get too mad. We were too busy trying to calm Conn and Shannon down too, though the relief we felt was better than a potty break - which is why Megan said she left us in a hurry in the first place. So it was another four hours to home over some pretty desolate terrain, and it was after midnight – and as much as we wanted to get home, we gave our money to Motel 6 and thanked Tom Bodet for leaving the light on for us, took two rooms, a boys and girls split, and made it through the night.

"And Grampa Fitz must have been up there laughing all the way – or maybe it was him who got us through this ordeal, just to save his Rampage. But it was his leaving on Christmas that got us into this predicament anyway. Hey Ed, maybe next time you could choose a better time to kick that proverbial bucket? I don’t know, though - I kind of liked it – a crazy fun adventure! Hope yours was too, Ed. Thanks for a great life and for an unforgettable passing. Wish we could all go so peacefully, after a life lived so well."

Ok, it really is Christmas this time...

2009-12-22T01:12:00.004-07:00

Yes, it's the early morning after our 35th Temple anniversary, and we would have gone to SLC to see the Temple Christmas lights, but we're still in the throes of getting ready for the "big day" and with half our kids not able to go, we wimped out. But Conn took his girlfriend Lauren up there on this Winter Solstice, so we're good!

It must be Christmas because I cry at everything. I was watching a late night "Groundhog Day" in a recent insomnia attack and cried when he saved the beggar and took him to a diner to eat. And I always cry when he carves that ice statue of Andy's face and she is so touched. Me too, darn it! And I was even watching another late nighter, "Shakespeare in Love" and I cried because I could recite the last lines of Romeo and Juliet with the actor doing the lines - and I cried because I knew it was about the Montagues and the Capulets, and I knew my kids didn't know enough Shakespeare to even know that! And if I could remember the name of that corny Christmas movie with Mickey Rooney when he dies and comes back to spread Christmas cheer - I cry when he tries to get everyone to sing carols in Central Park. Geez, I even get teary watching "Home Alone"! What is wrong with me?

Ok, so I'm a very sentimental old slob. I just want everyone to be happy and get a present(and like it) and not be cold and have enough to eat and have world peace! But I have been most recently doing the sending Christmas card thing, since Colleen works so hard teaching and hasn't had much time to do Christmas herself, except for her great scarf knitting. So here's a little column I wrote about that unique seasonal writing/sending experience, for what it's worth. I call it "Stamping Christmas!"

"Now that I’m older and “wiser”, I have a lot more questions than answers. Like one of the major concerns I had one Christmas was what kind of Christmas stamps to buy for my late-again Christmas card and family letter, which sometimes comes as an afterthought, until I see how many cards we get so far and from whom –then I get very guilty and start feeling bad that we forgot so-and-so and they remembered us – so I rush out to Kinkos with the latest family pictures, create some kind of midnight classic, scribble a few words, put it into the color Xerox, and right away I’ve got 30 finished color copies ready to be included in the cards I just bought on sale – as if I’ve been slaving over this thing for weeks.

"But I’ve still got to stamp it – and it has to have just the right stamp. Why? Well, like one year, the Post Office had coordinated cards and stamps- so I bought some, but never used them all. So this one year I had some leftover “Santa Claus” cards but no matching “Santa Claus” stamps to go with them. This was the year I actually wanted to BE Santa Claus and the stamps were so thematic. But can I put Santa Claus stamps on non-Santa cards and get away with it? Another year all they had was “Snow Men” and I didn’t want to be one. And when I asked what else they had, all that was left in my mad dash to get my letters out the day before Christmas was “Madonna with Child”, which seemed a little too classical for my “Christmas Tree” card – though I had nothing against Mary and Baby Jesus on a stamp – or in a tree for that matter. So why the stamp anxiety?

"Was I worried that I might send some mixed message here with such a stamp? Would there be a confusing “rockabye baby in the tree top” connection? Was it too serious or did it seem more like I was sending a painting instead of a stamp? Stamps can say so much that is personal and revealing about the sender, although I’m still working on what that is. But conversely, maybe Mother Mary was the best vanguard for my Christmas missile, since she is still “blessed among women” and carries a lot of weight with female postal workers. And maybe the Snowman would have been too wimpy anyway, because they tend to melt a lot.

"But really, choosing and using that particular stamp that year was a little trying. It left me with a hesitant feeling – or was it just because I didn’t really have a choice? I could only take what they had – and though it was a beautiful Christmas icon, did I just want something of my own choosing? I had to settle for the “Snowman” anyway, when I sent out my second batch of even -later cards, and I was told that it would be more generic winter seasonal and that it should work with late cards. I felt good about that after all was said and done, and bought a whole book to use for the colder months ahead.

"And I had such a good feeling about the office worker who suggested it too. How did she know that what she told me was just what I needed at the time to alleviate my holiday stress and guilt at being late with my cards? And even having any kind of concern about that stamp. Boy, those guys are good! It amazes me that anyone would want to come in and shoot them! But I still wonder if they will bring back that “Santa Claus” stamp next Christmas. I’ve still got a few coordinated cards left and I need those stamps.

"I wish someone would invent a personalized customized stamp someday - like you walk into the Post Office or mailing place and they take your picture – or take a foto you give them and put it on a stamp and away you go, a very personal greeting that starts with the stamp and carries right over into the card! Maybe the stamp could have a mini-chip in it that plays music and says Merry Christmas just by scratching it someplace. Maybe it could act as a preview to what’s in the card, alerting them that there’s no money but a really nice warm and fuzzy message. Or maybe a stick of gum. A breath mint? But if it’s a surprise, you wouldn’t want to say too much. Because maybe after you open it, there could be another audio/visual saying “Surprise!” or just something holiday-ish. I’ll suggest it to the Postmaster General next time I see him. (Actually since I wrote this, I think they now have the technology, so I'll shut up."

"This year however, I will probably not send many cards at all, although I bought stamps for that very purpose – but now don’t have enough to answer all the cards sent to us and put some on all the bills as well. Christmas stamps on bills are important I think, because they send a message of patronization, because you want to scratch your creditors’s backs as much as possible and send a happy message in hopes they will catch the spirit of the season and reduce your credit interest by half – or maybe give you an extra decotherm on your heat allowance or maybe not shut off your water till you’ve stored enough 2-liter soda bottles and filled up the bathtub.

"No this year, I will probably use my stamp-less American Greeting Card online service or attach some of my weird Christmas memories to a hastily thought-up email message of intended good will, but will probably end up with me droning on about my misery and misfortune and that’s why I can’t afford a stamp – and half my receivers won’t be able to open my attachments anyway, which will be an unexpected blessing to them I think because my stuff really isn’t that good – or worth a stamp at least. But they’ll still be mad at me for not being able to open it. But the ether is free and I am a compulsive memoir writer as I plod into older age trying to leave a few lighter memories for my kids – and anyone else who gives a stamp."

Mourning for Monk...

2009-12-07T13:22:00.010-07:00

Yes, it's over - Monk is over. We've spent the weekend in mourning, wearing black, a lot of sackcloth and ashes, crying and gnashing of teeth. We said goodbye to Adrian Monk Friday night with the last episode after seven years of waiting the whole week for that 10pm pizza slot on USA tv to be filled with our favorite obsessive-compulsive crime stopper. How could we get so attached to a fantasy guy, an actor, the whole ensemble and the sometimes silly, sometimes stupid plots? Tony Shaloub just played it so well, as did the other cast members.

Now to the final episode however, the final resolution, the denouement, the fin, how it all played out, after he spent all those years looking for his wife's killer while solving all of San Francisco's major crimes with a stroke of OCD genius! How could it all unravel so uniquely and simply, when on Christmas he finally decides to open a present his wife Trudy gave him that last Christmas before she died by car bomb! The video that revealed she had had an affair with a lawyer before she married Monk, had a child she thought had died. Wow, we with Monk never saw that coming, and with such emotion on his part. Oh yeah, he was also being poisoned by Trudy's killer while finding all this out, and everyone was looking for the cause to make an antidote before he kicked off. But how that fatal poison was introduced by a lackey who later gets killed before he can reveal what it is, that was a little out of left field.

So Monk is dying. And certain people were introduced in those last two episodes that should have given us a clue - but we were speculating all along. First, Natalie gets this new boyfriend we've never seen before, so we can't assume she and Monk are going to get together after years of her being his loyal assistant. Then they have to get a court order from a judge who turns out to be too big of a star to be just incidental to the whole plot. There's a murder at a birthing center of the head doctor - and the midwife who delivered Trudy goes missing.

But after seeing the video, Monk and Natalie learn that the cheating lawyer is actually this judge now getting ready to ascend to the California Supreme Court. They go to his confirmation hearing and accuse him right there. Monk is taken to the brig and then the hospital after attacking the judge. Natalie starts to come down with the same symptoms Monk has and realizes the poison is in his hand wipes she just used! Where did that come from? And who was the six-fingered man who supposedly set the bomb for Trudy? Never resolved or brought up again and a flaw we hadn't expected.

But Monk escapes the hospital before they can get him the antidote to chase down the judge himself, because he remembers the last time they went for the court order, he saw a sundial under a tree. No sun! So the midwife must be buried under it - of course! As Chief Leland Stottlemeyer and Det. Randy Discher arrive and Monk is about to shoot the judge, he is ordered to put the gun down. But the judge grabs it and before he shoots himself, says "Take care of her!" The daughter he and Trudy had is alive? He had killed the midwife and doctor to protect his rep and the daughter's identity before his big promotion!

So Monk finds Trudy's daughter, they wind up spending lots of time together, because the poison antidote is created from the wipes and he recovers. But he also recovers his own life again, stops being that big OCD we grew to love, and the episode ends with slices of past episodes. He and Natalie are back on the case with the newly married Captain while Discher takes a police chief job in NJ so he can marry Sharona, Monk's former assistant, and they live happily ever after - no Monk funeral to attend, no Natalie being his long lost daughter, no pristine past for Trudy, no more Monk on Friday nights! Now what? We're supposed to get a real life? Sorry, I like this mourning gig better. I might even obsess about it.

'Twas the night after turkey and this turkey's stuffed...

2009-11-27T01:21:00.006-07:00

Another annual feast of the Curran pilgrims has come to pass, this time with two kids traveling to our East Coast Summerhays clan for hosting. We had our new Tucker son-in-law and his three kids to help make up the difference - and good belch was had by all! Colleen and I were counting the dishes we crowded all on one designer paper plate and eight was enough! Let's see...Sweet Potato surprise by Shannon and Ryan, Turkeys by Tucker/Currans(one smelled bad so that one was shot), String Bean Casserole, Mashed Potatoes and Stuffing by Colleen, Steamed Corn and Butternut Squash Cubes and Pecan/Maple Glazed Baby Carrots by Yours Truly and Frog-Eye Salad by Nos Dois! Chega, basta!

Then came the desserts! New Zealand Trifle by Darlene and Quinn, Baked Apple Pie by Shannon and Ryan - and Pumpkin, Pumpkin Cheesecake and Pecan ala Costco! Deeeeelish! But we forgot to invite the Indians! Dang! Hope no one goes on the warpath. But we are thankful, truly thankful for family, faith, friends and so many blessings - and now here's a little essay on my version of where we get some of "Thanks/Welcome" language traditions...

"Now that I’m older and 'wiser', I have a lot more questions than answers. Like why do we say 'Thank you' and 'Your welcome'? Or is it 'You’re Welcome'? And who or what is welcome anyway? These are two of the most commonly used phrases of appreciation and courtesy in the English language, but yet the way they are used almost defies reason. I know you’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, so let’s get into it.

"Yes, let’s talk about these phrases literally, what they might have been before they got into our language as abbreviations, and whether digging into their histories might take the mystery and even a little tiredness out them. And who cares anyway? Look, language is dynamic; but in being so, maybe some former meaning can get lost, and lost meaning is like a hot dog without a bun.

"Maybe when we say “Thank you” or just “Thanks” or even “Thank you very much” – (and there are other variations like “Thanks a bunch”, “Thanks ever so”, “Many thanks”, “Thanks a lot”, “Thanks Muchly” if you get my drivel) – there is a small linguistic incongruity. The way it is written, it literally could be an imperative, a command, by which we are telling someone to “Thank” themselves? “Oh go thank yourself!” “Thank You(rself!” Ludicrous, yes, because the other meaning has been with us for so long.

"So how did we get the phrase 'Thank you'? That may be pretty self-evident if you think about it. Somewhere along the progressive line of language development, something got left out. How about an 'I' or a 'We' on the front end, that after too much use just got dropped as being an understood pronoun. I know people who leave out pronouns all the time in my local church culture. 'Grateful to have you here today.' How hard would it be to put those pronouns back into the phrase and say 'I thank you'? Wouldn’t we feel like we were talking antiquated English, the language of cabbages and kings? So we have shortened it to 'Thank you'. At least it’s not as confusing as being in Hawaii, where the Hawaiian word for “Thanks” is written on the flap of every trash receptacle – 'Mahalo!' Tourists think it’s the local word for 'Garbage'!

"But it’s the reciprocal response to the thanks that really gets me. Is someone really 'Welcome' for saying 'Thanks'? How does the word 'Welcome' get into the response? 'You are so welcome' or 'You are very welcome' or 'You are most welcome'! Many people use these phrases unwittingly, yet so fervently gushy, thinking they are really emphasizing and underscoring their recognition of the thanks being given to them. It all tries to be so genuine – but is so gosh-awful gooey when you think about it. And it makes no sense either. But then is all language supposed to make sense? Can we say just about anything and have it be ok as long as we all agree on its shared meaning? I'd just as leave think so, say many a Canadian. See?

"What might have been lost or dropped from this phrase to make it what is today, a weird and wacky, though oh-so-typical response? How about 'Your thanks are welcome', with the 'thanks are' left out? This way there is no more confusion as to whether it’s “your” or “you’re”. Surprise!! It’s the possessive 'your', not the contraction of 'you' and 'are'. So nobody is really 'welcome', right? But somebody’s 'thanks' are.

"Remember Mr. Miyagi of 'Karate Kid' fame? When Daniel-san thanked him, he only muttered that subdued 'Welcome'. But it isn’t the same 'Welcome!' we use when inviting someone into our house. Does anybody say that very much anyway? Unless you’re a greeter at Walmart? Well, it is kind of warm and fuzzy. Or maybe we confuse the 'Welcome' response with 'You are welcome here!' How about 'Much obliged'? Now there’s an abbreviated form of 'I am much obliged or obligated to you.”' In Brazil, they say, 'Muito Obrigado' or just 'Obrigado', from which 'Obligated' comes. Wow, bet you're impressed now!

"And then there’s always the occasion when I thank someone, and they say 'You bet.' Now where did that come from? 'You bet your welcome?' What’s up with that? Or maybe it’s a shortened version of 'You bet your life!' from that crazy tv show of the ‘50s. I don’t know for sure, but when I moved to Utah from Hawaii, nobody said the “W” word. 'You bet!' has got to be the State idiom! One day after making the great voyage across the Pacific, I was in the local thrift store shopping for some cheap mainland duds for my transplanted waifs. I walked by a big old friendly clerk-type guy, who, after we made eye contact, just grinned and said 'You bet!' And I hadn’t even said anything yet! I’m still trying to figure that one out. And then there’s the Latinos with their 'De nada!’ 'It’s nothing.' Yeah, that still works.

"Now I know you had all this figured out long before I got here, instead of following my convoluted theory trail. And what’s my point anyway? Maybe just a greater recognition of the language we use everyday that we never think about and which has become more idiomatic and less literal. We shorten language in so many ways. Do we lose anything by doing so? Doesn’t language just represent thoughts and emotions anyway, a sequence of sounds and scratches that stands for things we all agree on, as I mentioned before? And maybe the most important thing we can get out of this silly little linguistic exercise is that we feel and express our 'Thanks' at all, and often, and from the heart. We can’t lose by thanking others for the many little things done for us – and to the Creator for the many big things, including life itself on this beautiful planet. It’s a gratitude attitude. Oh yeah, and Happy Thanksgiving! I thank you."

Real Salt Lake's MSL soccer champs and "hocker"!

2009-11-24T00:33:00.010-07:00

I haven't watched a full professional soccer game ever in my life, either on tv or in real life. But I was constrained to watch it all Sunday night, even enjoyed it with two OTs and game-deciding penalty kicks, as my home state Utah's pro team Real Salt Lake beat the highly touted Beckham-Donovan tandem and LA Galaxy for the MLS championship. This victory was even more personal because three of my kids, Erin, Shannon and Conn, work for RSL's corporate sponsor Xango, and Conn even got to go on a Xango bus to Seattle to catch the victory at the stadium and even relive a few memories of a family trip there when he was a kid. Erin watched the final kick with me while we enjoyed a warm, crackling fireplace.

Conn was our only soccer player as a kid, the only one in the family who even wanted to do that running and kicking thing, so we supported him till he got too tall and lead-footed to look natural out there among the shorter set. Soccer has always been hard for me to watch. I was also reminded of my soccer daze in junior high and other related memories, and my epiphany one night listening to the radio - how could I make soccer more interesting for me? And hockey too, since I had a daughter Caitilin marry a Swedish-speaking hockey puck, Kurt Summerhays, who had grown up on the ice. So I combined the name and the actions to come up with what follows...

"Now that I’m older and “wiser”, I have a lot more questions than answers. Like why is sports talk radio so lame sometimes? So I’m riding down the street one day after work listening to my favorite drive-time end-of-work-day ad nauseum local sports roundup/talk-show/trivia show. It’s open-phone Friday and anything goes. He suggests people call in about the local college Spring football scrimmages, will Tiger Woods win another (ho-hum) Master‘s tournament, anything related to hockey or soccer, and what is your favorite Campbell’s soup. Since I couldn’t decide on my favorite soup, or maybe just didn’t want to reveal something that personal to the listening audience, I had an idea for a call-in about hockey and soccer.

"Since I really hate hockey and was never very good at soccer, my mind shifted gears as I picked up freeway speed, and I wondered if there was room in the galaxy for a new sport, a hybrid of hockey and soccer. I pondered. I mused. I went back to those painful days in Junior High when as a budding soccer fullback, I couldn’t kick the ball 20 feet while guys much smaller and faster than I could make it sail a mile. And it was so embarrassing to come flying at that ball and miss it completely with one leg up in the air as I watched someone else kick it past me. And those grassy face burns! I never got the hang of a head butt on a flying ball either.

"I don’t mind watching a World Cup game or so every four years. But I get so exhausted watching those guys run that field, that I have to get up for a drink every five minutes – yet I’m afraid to leave the tv because someone might actually score a goal and I might miss the only point in the whole game and hear some sportscaster get his shot at fame by yelling GOOOOAALLLLLL!!!! A goal is almost anticlimactic and antithetical to all that running around, though. And this is the most popular sport in the world? If you count how many countries deem it their primary sports pastime, yes. But I don’t get it. I lived in Brazil for a few years and it was big. Pele big! World champs big! Kids started kicking things in the air before they could walk. My oldest son spent a few years in Ireland and it rivals beer drinking there. Pub ball they call it. He now flies to any big match in the world to be a part of it.

"But I think that the difference between Americans and the rest of the world with regard to soccer is this - we are not raised kicking a ball around with our feet, no matter how nimble or dainty it makes us. But rather we learn to play ball with our hands – baseball, football, basketball, where we make connections with people in a game of catch, or where we see points scored more quickly. And maybe there’s a message in there about the world’s greatest industrial power – we didn’t do it with our feet!

"We’re a hands-on society where we knuckle down, get a handle on things, don’t fumble the ball, throw a touchdown, pitch a strike, or shoot a basket with nothing but net. We are the supreme ball handlers – and dropping the ball or having to punt the ball is a metaphor for messing up. The only thing we do with our feet is dance – and yes, you guys that dance the samba and tango and rumba – well, I’m sure it helps your soccer game, but mostly shows off your hip swivel. And while swiveling is not our forte, we can do it in a pinch in the games of football, basketball and baseball – that IS our dance!

"And hockey? Canadian, eh? No comment. OK, I’ll comment. Once in a while I might accidently and unavoidably glimpse a game while careening though the tv channels – but I move on as quickly as possible. And my youngest daughter married a hockey player, to boot!!! I might give it five seconds – the game, not their marriage. But I really don’t get it at all. It’s just pummeling and clobbering to me, and that’s why they need all that gear. Just way too much uniform for the size of that little black thing.

"Where’d they get that game piece anyway? And why the name PUCK? Isn’t that the name of some Shakespearean character? I can’t even follow it. I never see it go into the net. And the rink is just too small. I think that’s why they fight so much, the way animals act when they get all caged up and live in too small of an area, right? And I think a goal in this game is really just incidental to the fighting, because it seems to me that that’s what the fans really want to see. I think the guys should just wear speedos and make it more graceful and gracious out there – just see how much fighting they’d do then!

"So my response to a topic on hockey and soccer, though I was too chicken to call in at the time, is to suggest that they create a new sport and call it HOCKER! My game of hocker would be played on a soccer-size ice rink so the skaters can really have room to move around and thus eliminate the claustrophobic need to battle each other. They wouldn’t get so tired running up and down the field either and I could watch it longer without getting so worn out too. I would retain the sticks, do away with the puck, which you’d never see anyway, and just keep the soccer ball, maybe make it red so you could actually follow it around the rink. A soccer ball being maneuvered with a hockey stick on ice could be fun and freaky too if it started bouncing around. It would be a lot faster than running, unencumbered with heavy gear. Just soccer uniforms with helmets and shin guards. Yes, maybe speedos with knee pads.

"And instead of pummeling to express their machismo, there’d be a lot of spitting. Thus the name Hocker – because I’m sure these guys could hock up some big ones! Maybe even use the biggest one as a tie-breaker! Maybe a distance spit for extra points. At least there’d be a lot more scoring. Hocker. Now there’s a game I could get into. I get all choked up just thinking about it. Excuse me while I hock up a big one - “Oh, sorry, Officer, didn’t see your car out the window there. You’re going to give me a ticket for hocking on your windshield? I think I've got some hocker cleaner in here somewhere...”

Veterans' Day ponderings and Vietnam...

2009-11-11T14:34:00.009-07:00

Many sobering thoughts today as it marks not only a day of solemn Veteran remembrance, but also a week of military mayhem at Fort Hood(where I happen to have a nephew, Owen Fitzsimmons stationed by the way), all ala Allah Akbar fanatic Nidal Malik Hasan - and the execution last night of former soldier gone crazy, John Allen Muhammed, DC sniper, where I grew up and identified with all the deadly locations seven years ago. Senseless loss of life, perpetrated upon innocent citizens by deranged and to me Satanically evil people.

Forgive my lack of political correctness, but I do believe in the existence of Satan and his demon unembodied hordes, cast out upon this earth from a pre-mortal council where they refused to comply with God's plan of salvation and free agency, rejected the pre-mortal Savior Jehovah and his willingness to die for us, Lucifer wanting to save us all by force and have the glory for himself alone. And so they are here to try and tempt and test our allegiance to the right, instilled in us by the Light of Christ, which we were all given to lead us to truth. These men mentioned above gave in to other evil voices and drowned out that light - and justice will be meted out - but with too many good lives cut short and hearts broken.

It was also the 20th anniversary of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, a major victory over Satan and his attempt for so long to try to control and subjugate many people's freedom with the old Iron Curtain, no longer there, thanks to President Reagan and many others who put the pressure on Gorbechev. But Satan doesn't stop trying to kill people's spirits and agency as well as their bodies in retaliation for not being able to have a physical body himself. I was in Berlin in 1967, part of a BYU show group, visiting bases in Europe. It was something to wake up and look out the train to see armed Commie guards with their German Shepherd dogs, sniffing around my window outside while I was entering the only free zone in East Germany to do a performance for the troops.

But without trying to demean the solemnity of the aforesaid remarks, well meant and intended, let me turn now to a little lighter subject matter, still military-minded. I never served, though in college I did do two tours of duty, those singing tours, one to bases in the Far East and then that one I mentioned to bases in Europe, two different summers while I was finishing my education in English at BYU. What follows is my take on that unique kind of military experience I call "Almost Vietnam"...

"Now that I’m older and 'wiser', I have a lot more questions than answers. Like what happened with me and the military? They never wanted me. Well actually, during the Vietnam War, I was in school and my draft board was loaded with eager boot camp wannabees in Montgomery County, Maryland, so I never got the call. I just stayed in school and took my legal deferments, got a masters degree. But I did serve in another way. And I don’t want to recite yet one more Vietnam story; there have been so many. And mine won’t make the big screen nor be called anything heroic. No, I was never there – but almost. Hey, maybe I can start a new genre of narrative, the “Almost Vietnamers”.

"It was in the Summer of ’65 and a sweltering summer it was where I was going. I was part of a 12-person performing group from BYU in Provo, Utah, selected to entertain troops at US military installations throughout the Orient for three months , kind of a USO type show, but sponsored by the DOD. (But that’s on the QT, FYI, OK?) Vietnam was on our itinerary when we got our initial invitation and travel orders. I especially enjoyed the Bubonic Plague shot we had to have, among the other hypodermic invasions we were subjected to. I would rather have had the Plague frankly, instead of the recovery from that shot – the fever, the stiff and sore arm, the knowledge that I was now carrying a centuries old disease in my body, started by rats.

"But as our departure date got closer, the fighting escalated into the famous Tet Offensive, and Vietnam got cut from the schedule. It was a sad day for us all, of course, but we got over it in about three seconds, still remembering the sting of that one shot we would live to tell our grandkids about. We should have gotten a medal just for taking that shot. But maybe our beautiful girls would have been too distractive to those guys over there anyway. I mean, after all, they did have a war to fight and we didn’t want them to lose an ounce of concentration. And then we guys in the show might have gotten shot just for being too ugly. Glad Bob Hope was around to fill in for us.

"So while we didn’t get to put our faces in the line of fire, our pride in our troops and our gratitude for not being in their foxholes increased everywhere we went on our tour of other Pacific bases. We always encountered men who were either going to or coming from Vietnam, whether it was at a missile base where we were changing clothes in the cafeteria freezers or on a hillside makeshift stage where we swallowed flies and mosquitoes to the tune of “Lida Rose” from Music Man

"For example, we were doing a hospital show at Clark Air Base in the Phillippines about half way through our tour. The audience was a very appreciative group of GIs with cool casts on, dapper head bandages, and some were in very souped-up wheelchairs. Since our show was straight out of Disney, they were totally respectful. No skuzzy skin show here. No barroom cat-calls. One of our girls, Patti Peterson, went on to star in a “spic and span” tv sci-fi, “Land of the Giants”. Two other singers in the show, Sally Flynn and Sandi Jensen, became an integral part of the Lawrence Welk Show for the duration, with squeaky clean bubbles and all. And I joined up with The Lettermen a few years later, a conservative, middle-of-the-road singing group also known as America’s most romantic trio, thanks to a recommendation from Janie Thompson, our show producer, director and pianist - and a BYU legend. I even got to record a #1 hit, "Hurt So Bad" in 1969...which didn't hurt too bad.

"Anyway, after the show, we all visited with individual members of the audience, to shake hands and show them how humble, down to earth, and self-effacing we really were. Then we were invited to come up to the hospital itself and talk to some of the guys who were so wounded, they couldn’t attend. Now Vietnam was getting up close and personal. We were going to talk to the very guys who had just been there, who had almost made the ultimate sacrifice, who had taken the hits and put it all on the line – for me, a student with a draft deferment! But I told you about that already. College was a battle ground enough for me!

"So with this guilt trip firmly in hand, I took Patti with me, as we all split up to walk down the halls and peek in some rooms to see if we could lift any spirits - a daunting task when you don’t have piano accompaniment. One of the rooms we went into had four guys in it, all in beds, with varying degrees of bandages and arm slings and legs raised in those…leg-raiser things. They were pretty beat up. What could we possibly say to them? We felt so puny and inadequate in our efforts to comfort and cheer. “So how’s it going?” Great opener! We could see how it was going! Of course they only had eyes for Patti, so the pressure was off me and she did all the talking.

"After a little more small talk, we both gushed our meager patriotic thanks, knowing we didn’t have the words to cover this kind of encounter. We were speaking for all of America, and we were doing a pretty sorry job of it, stumbling and bumbling and mumbling along. They must have thought so too, because the more we searched for the right words, the more their polite smiles became tight-lipped winces, until they couldn’t stifle their laughter any longer. Patti and I looked at each other, feeling like fast-fizzling failures, wondering how to exit gracefully.

"Finally, one of them relieved our awkwardness with some of his own. 'We appreciate your visit very much,' he half-choked. 'But maybe we ought to clear something up. See the guy with the head bandage? He fell off a truck here on the base while delivering laundry. Those two guys with the arm and leg casts got banged up in a base football game. Me, I got in a fight with a parachute. None of us has been to ‘Nam’ yet.'

"We listened in mute humiliation, and then in slowly mounting frustrated realization. We should have laughed along with them, but we had just bared our souls and left our proverbial guts out on the floor. The best we could do was to back out of the door without another word, heads down with appropriate bowing and groveling, but still leave them with a memorable little ditty that goes kind of like this: A one and a two and a… “Oh say can you see by the dawn’s early light, what so proudly…..” . Their shuffles and grunts and attempts to stand up for the National Anthem was worth it all. It's ok guys, we still love you!"

Fruity stories and Grampa's Grapple juice...

2009-11-03T15:17:00.007-07:00

I spent an interesting day outside last week, anticipating below zero temps, and in that last minute panic seeing so much unharvested fruit in the yard, apples and grapes mostly. So in addition to unhooking the hose and sweeping some leaves up, I decided to pick whatever apples I could get off the trees and then pick all the green grapes that were hiding under those leafy vines. And there was a ton!

After an hour or two of gathering, I spent the rest of the evening in the kitchen, steaming and juicing grapes, and juicing red and yellow apples. Got about six pitchers of a mix I call Grampa's Grapple juice - and it really is good. Now it's been in the fridge for a week, with only Shane's taking a pitcher full, I hope it doesn't ferment and I get in trouble for illegal beverage distilling. We hadn't done much with the apples in the past, but did do more of the grape harvesting. But this year, the trees were so full, and still are, just had to try to make something out of them, inspired by Colleen's efforts with some of them on Conference weekend with apple sauce.

When we were in Hawaii, I loved harvesting and planting, usually in that order - because we always had coconuts and breadfruit in abundance. But had to plant papaya and bananas, even tried mangoes once, but were told they would take seven years to mature. Will never forget my efforts with bananas, fantasizing about my own big leafy plants and finding out we could buy them at the BYUH farm. So one Saturday, I headed over in my station wagon and came home with some big banana plants hanging out my back station wagon door. Forget those high-priced Chiquitas we got through many middle men from South America!

Our next door neighbor, Aaron Lim, was the farm manager, so he was the first one I went to to show off my fruity trophies, though of course there were no bunches on them yet. But I could dream, couldn't I? He came over to see how I had dug deep holes for these thick trunks and put enough water in them to start the growing process. And while I was admiring the new look in my garden, with those wondrous big leaves just greening up the place, Aaron asked for my machete. Ok, I thought - but why? The next thing I knew, he was whacking and hacking at my big leafy beauties like a mad man, chopping every last leaf off, till all that was left were ugly and non-picturesque stumps. I was all about plant aesthetics.

As I looked at him in disbelief, not knowing whether to get my own machete. assume the fencing position and shout "Engarde!" or just slump to the ground and blubber like a baby, he gave me some fast farm expertise, free of charge. He said that the plants would not root well if all the nutrients had to feed the leaves at the top, and that the leaves had to be chopped off so the stumps could take root, grow the leaves back, but also produce nice bunches. Which made a bunch of sense to me, after I got over my initial urge to kill. So eventually, the plants flowered and fruited nice bunches, and our papayas also did the same. And while we lived there in that Garden of Eden, we able to at least enjoy the "fruits" of our labors for a few years, once we got the hang of that Adam and Eve thing.

But back to our Orem yard for a big finale. We have had our fruit loops! We used to have apricots, three sprouting trees of them right out our front door - making such a mess in the front yard, we had to take them out. But I loved them. Then there were the cherry trees next to the carport - good for climbing on the roof and fixing the swamp cooler, but producing cherries so full of worms, we couldn't eat them. But we have burned many a cut-down branch in the fireplace in memory over the years. We had plums too, which stopped growing except for this year, when one small plum tree pretending to be a bush produced a gazillion. Our one good peach tree also gave us some gorgeous, tasty orbs this year, before the pesky birds could put their beaky marks on them.

Ah the harvest! What a great time of year. We did little to plant over the years, and didn't have much luck at that, spraying and praying now and then. But though we have been harvesting more than planting. I'm grateful for the chance to grow and harvest. "Whatever ye sow, that shall ye also reap." Well, we're still mostly learning how to sow when possible, hoping our harvest won't be rotten and sour - metaphorically speaking. Because if "we are sowing, daily sowing, countless deeds of good and ill", I don't have much hope for a great harvest - don't think I've sown much good but have certainly reaped from the efforts of others. Of course, my kids are my best products, a big joint effort with Colleen, who did all the work - and fortunately they got her good looks as a bonus. As for me, it's back to the briar patch to see if I can salvage anything to eat.

Tender mercies and family history...a letter.

2009-11-01T19:59:00.011-07:00

Hey family!

Don Fenn gave a good lesson in Priesthood I wanted to pass along, with some related family history too, about how to heal the wounds of life we all have from time to time, some more serious than others, referring to the recent losses of John Montrose and Dorine Jesperson. And He first quoted a scripture in Helaman 5:12, to emphasize who the real Healer of our wounds is:

"And now my sons, remember, remember(interesting he says that twice), that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, Who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build, they cannot fall."

Don emphasized that it isn't just the devil that causes us wounds in life, but life has its own tests for all of us, allowed by God to challenge us and strengthen us, so we can be more refined to live with Him. But if Satan is in our lives in any way, we also get the message here how we can withstand him, because although he is a part of our existence, we don't have to live with him or his influence if we choose to follow the Savior and accept His atonement in our lives. Light and darkness can't exist together.

Then he asked us to share how the Lord has intervened in our lives in tender mercies, the little things or maybe bigger ones by which the Lord has blessed us in some way. He shared one about his recent thought that he should have a burial plot, since he's getting on in age(but doesn't look or act it yet). He was out driving around in Provo and had an impression that said "Stop at the cemetery." He ignored it, but after it came more times, he stopped at the Provo Cemetery, to find they had been trying to reach him because they had some plots under the name of Thomas Fenn and wanted to know if he was related, because the plots were going to be sold otherwise for $1400. Donn Fenn said Thomas was his great grandfather - and with verification, he got both plots for $25 instead of $1400. He listened to the still small voice. But we hope he won't need those plots anytime soon.

(I was talking to Celestia Montrose outside church today, asking her how things were going without John. She looked radiant and happy, but said it was so hard. She said, maybe they needed him over there for some work to do, but she thought he was doing a lot of good work here too. I told her that's why I don't work so hard on this side of the veil so they won't take me too soon or need me over there right away. Ha!)

Mom has often said how she had impressions to go home or act quickly about some of you kids at times, which eventually spared you physical harm or even death at times. One was when Conn was eating a bottle of Fluoride and she felt she had to go home from teaching at BYU-Hawaii to get there in time to make him choke them out and save him. She said she saved Conn and Sean from killing each other in a machete fight because of a prompting too. I told her to write down the other times for you to read someday soon.

Incidently, I was up late watching Channel 21 last night and the BYU-Hawaii women were playing Hilo in volleyball. It took me back to when I was there and used to write sports stories about our women, especially a national championship game with Hilo on the mainland, when I traveled with them. I often catch BYUH-related stories now and then, Jim Smith's chorus performances, a recent labor missionary story, special talks and ceremonies at PCC. Lots of nostalgia. And with what inspiration did we get to Hawaii?

While watching tha game, my mind went further back to when I was working in Falls Church, VA at ADS Audio as a writer and producer of radio and tv public service spots for government agencies and national associations. We were struggling financially as always, and I was praying for answers - and one night as I stayed late in the office working on something, I heard a voice in my head say, "You must struggle but I will sustain you." From then on, that helped me make more sense out of my struggles.

I had also been praying a lot about my future with that company and thinking I should really be working in an environment of ethnic groups and different cultures. I had been reading a lot about cultural anthropology at that time, was really interested in that area of study, but didn't know how to get into it. It was shortly after that that a call came from my old friend Taylor Macdonald, then at BYU-Hawaii, wondering if I knew anyone who would want to interview for a job in student activities at BYUH. I said" Yes, me!" I had just lost my job there too, because of a cutback in BiCentennial spending. I passed the interviews, among many other candidates, and got the job in short order, a real answer to prayer, to live and work among 30 different cultures and languages.

But we had only been in our townhouse for 10 months, our first house, and wondered how we could sell it that fast when there were others in our little complex in Centerville, VA that had been on sale for months. We fasted and prayed - and a week before we had to be gone to Hawaii, one of the Sterlings who had lived across the street from us in Pimmit Hills/Falls Church area had just gotten married and was looking for a house - and while driving around our townhouse complex, saw our "For Sale By Owner" sign in our window and caught me as I was crossing the street coming from a going-away party for us by a neighbor.

We showed them the house right then, they loved it, and bought it within the week - and though we only made a small profit on it, at least we didn't lose anything, sold it fast, in time, and to friends to boot - another answer to prayer. Mom was in a minor car accident at that time too, right when we were giving our neighbors little Church BiCentennial presentations about the Book of Mormon every week or so. She was not hurt seriously and we were able to get all packed and on our way to Hawaii in August 1976, and take a job in there that answered a prayer and helped us grow in ways we never would have otherwise. Yes, we had challenges too - and things weren't always easy there.

But it changed our lives, taught us so much about the world Church and I had the chance to serve as a bishop and help over 50 members get to the temple - and maybe that's why I was there, who knows. We all grew in some way, some in many ways. But we feel there were a lot of tender mercies and a lot of intervention from the Lord in our lives to bless us in time of need, because we trying to do the right thing, flawed and failed humans that we were, dealing with our own weaknesses and shortcomings - but still trying.

And finally, getting into this house in Orem where we've lived for 23+ years was another answer to prayer. Our belongings were coming from Hawaii, it was the end of the summer, and we had no place to live yet - and no one would rent to a family with eight kids. We prayed and fasted. I had seen a house available earlier in the summer in the paper while we were living in BYU housing, but they wanted too much down. Then one night, I walked the streets of Provo, praying out loud, crying, desperate for help. I took a paper out of the dispenser and saw the same house, now available for nothing down. I called the next day and the realtor's wife answered and verified it was nothing down, and showed us this house. It looked perfect, 5 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, especially compared to our little cinder block Moana Street house - and we said we'd take it,

Then Steve Black, the realtor, called back and said there had been a mistake and it wasn't nothing down, but $2500 down. We cried again, feeling lost - but mom called her dad, who said, bless his heart, that he'd give us the $2500. We did a lease option with Harvey Black the owner, and started moving in. Then Harvey's wife, Susan Easton Black, tried to throw us out, thinking we had duped her recently widowed husband(Anne died in this house of cancer and that were just going to be squatters of some sort. But son Steve Black intervened, told us not to worry because we had already given him the money and to move in, that things were ok.

A few years later when the lease option was up and we couldn't buy the house yet, our good friends Ivan and Judy Keller from McLean Ward days bought the house for us, let us stay until we could buy it, using some of Grampa Fitz's inheritance money when he died - and then buy it at the original market price rather than increasing the price. Ivan had been befriended by my mother when he lived in DC, an older bachelor who had found comfort in my parents' home until he found his wife. Once again we were blessed so much by good people - and here we are still, having struggled mightily to keep the house, and now blessed with mom's job and hard work mostly which allows us to keep it and furnish it and have it for you kids to gather in or live in at times. (And a big thanks to Shane and Sharon and boys today for raking up apples in the backyard - and to Conn for raking leaves recently too - still lots to do yet though)

Hope that gives you some food for thought, some inspiring family history maybe not written down yet for you, and to remember, as Brother Fenn mentioned Brother Bradfield, our wonderful patriarch, used to tell him - "I just do the little things - pray, read the scriptures, go the church, serve others, keep the commandments - and listen." Thanks Don for a good lesson - and thanks kids for your lives and your love, to our mom especially. Let's hold this team together and make any corrections and adjustments we need to - and remember, the Savior is the Rock upon which to continually build and rebuild our lives, with broken hearts and contrite spirits, with joy and gladness, with gratitude and service - and not let Satan win by distracting and deceiving us, or robbing us of time or virtue, or... "And others will he pacify and lull them into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well -- and thus the devil cheateth their souls and leadeth them away carefully down to hell" as Nephi warns us in 2 Nephi 28:21. No, let's really not let that happen.

Love, Dad

Tempus fugit...and time flies too!

2009-10-26T23:44:00.009-06:00

I didn't used to think about time much, until I took a time management class. That was going to solve all my time problems and really get myself organized. It was required when I was a fledgling administrator at BYU-Hawaii. I think it was sponsored by Daytimer at the time and for me, it didn't take. Then along came the Franklin Planner a few years later, and we were all required to take that one seminar too - and actually use a planner, with goals and everything. I tried it - but when you're a daydreamer instead of a daytimer, it's hard. But I did start writing down goals - until I realized that I could never keep them very well and really got discouraged. I was supposed to prioritize them into A, B and C categories, in order of importance. Just couldn't do it, because everything seemed important at the time.

I'd write down a lot of stuff - but forget to look at it again and didn't use it half the time. Then I used it as a journal for awhile, getting maybe 10-15 years of journal writing for posterity and storing it in my closet in annuals, never to look at it again. Nor will my kids either, I'm sure. Now my desk is full of yellow sticky notes, stuck all over my computer, all over my printer and all over my desk, in piles, in my drawer - manageable in size but hard to keep from floating all over the place after the sticky wears out. But that was the purpose of the planner, wasn't it? To eliminate all the floating little pieces of paper?

I was really into Edward Hall's books for awhile, because they helped explain how differently certain cultures look at time. Americans are very time-based in their thinking, and being on time for whatever is a high cultural value. In other cultures, like in Hawaii when I lived there, time was not such a big deal, and you were supposed to float with the occasion, lay back and relax, not worry, take it easy...Hawaiians had their own Hawaiian time for starting things, which was usually 10-15 minutes after the appointed time. Even church started 10 minutes late in honor of Hawaiian time, which took precedence over God's time. But now, I can probably count the years I have left on my two hands...though it really is in God's hands.

Insomnia and BYU-Hawaii...

2009-10-25T03:40:00.004-06:00

It's a little after 3:30am and I'm fighting my usual insomnia by sitting up in my big leather chair - and now that we have a little flat screen $99 tv we can watch upstairs on the dining room table, I can try to make myself fall asleep that way maybe. But as I channel surfed, I just caught the tail end on KBYU of a talk by Eric Shumway, an old friend and colleague from Hawaii days, giving a tribute to the labor missionaries who built the first buildings of that campus where I and my family spent 10 wonderful years, 1976-86, when I worked there in various capacities.

It was nostalgic to watch and listen to a video portion of Shumway's talk, that featured little clips of testimony and tribute from some of those early missionaries, all now retired...men like John Feinga, Tony Haiku, David Mohetau, Pupi Toelupe, and others I remember by name but never knew personally. But seeing these good men get emotional about their service, mentioning how their testimonies grew of the Gospel, how they saw the Priesthood in action so many times when workers would get hurt, how they never tired physically from the work because of their commitment and dedication - it stirred me and renewed my faith.

How I love these men, men I esteem so highly for their humble faith and lives well lived, all sitting therein their aloha shirts,, interviewed individually, reminiscing quietly upon a time when they could make a sacrifice to the Church they loved so much. They bore witness as to how their labors helped create an institution in the South Pacific of higher education and spiritual power that has touched so many students' lives and sent them out into the world, as prophesied by David O. McKay, to be an influence for good and instruments in building up the Church in so many parts of the world. It was such a privilege to be a small part of that in those days, as I also went back in time and reflected on the blessing I had to associate with so many of those men.

My mascot can beat up your mascot...

2009-10-18T01:01:00.012-06:00

Now that football season is in full swing and basketball not far behind, here's one of my related columns I couldn't resist...

Now that I’m older and “wiser”, I have a lot more questions than answers. Like where did they get those college mascots? And those sports announcers to spout them out like they are household names. The arrogance! Every time football or basketball season rolls around, I am always struck, my intelligence insulted, my cognitive faculties assaulted and barraged by sports announcers’ arcane references to teams and their mascots as if they are something we deal with everyday. Just what is a Nittany Lion for instance? I have lost sleep over this because I am expected to know. I thought about attending Penn State once, but I just couldn’t square my collegiate identity with being a Nittany anything? Is it indigenous to the rolling hills of PA? Not that I ever saw in my several forays up the river Susquehanna to my dad’s hometown Williamsport as a kid. Doesn’t sound Native American to me. Almost sounds like a ninny lion and therefore a little too pansy for me.

What does Nittany mean and why do those sports guys throw it around like they know, they expect us to know, and if we don’t, well tough, they’re not going to tell us on the air. Honestly, how can some announcer try to inflate his ego by expecting me to have done my research on each team’s mascot? All I want is a clarification before each game on tv, something in writing on the screen while the announcers are giving their pre-game hype, that gives a simple definition and history of the mascot and how it was chosen. Then I could really get into the identity of it, the culture and the history of it, and stand in front of the screen and yell “Go Nittany’s!” Like the Vermont Catamounts, for example. I have to do a whole library and Google search – and I still don’t know what it is! Do I therefore want to yell for their team? Or even be one? They couldn’t recruit me with a mascot I can’t tell is animal, vegetable or mineral – and I don’t have time to play 20 questions.

And how about those Fighting Illini? Is that the plural of Illinois? What does Illinois even mean anyway? I’m guessing Indians, but maybe it’s French trappers fighting over some skunk pelts. And that other team from Illinois – the Salukis? The what? And then there’s those Indiana Hoosiers. What the heck is a Hoosier? Or a Georgetown Hoya for that matter? No, I’m just supposed to accept hearing about them without question, like I’ve been dutifully doing most of my sports-watching life, and act like I get it and know who these guys are talking about and play along to impress my other sports watching comrades!

Odds are they themselves probably only know because of the script they’re reading for that game, but they act like it’s all common knowledge, like we’re supposed to buy into and connect with some state’s nebulous and deep-rooted traditions! Give me a break! I just can’t be at a computer looking it up so I can stay with these guys. They spout off this school stuff because it’s supposed to pump up our juices and tap into some lost nostalgia now recalled and repeated annually, to really get us into the game, produce some artificial sports euphoria, and sell product for the station, the real bottom line. Sorry, not buying!

And there are so many more mascots now. And where did the need for mascots come from anyway? I’ll bet those announcers don’t even know where the word mascot comes from – a French word meaning “talisman”, usually an animal that becomes a symbol for any group wishing to associate itself with that animal’s power or other qualities and derive some magical or mystical power from it. What was the first one in collegiate annals? The Harvard Hamsters? I don’t know - but I’m sure you’re not supposed to use someone else’s either, though it seems to be allowed by the mascot screeners. Like the Washington State and BYU cougars? Especially when they play each other? Now there’s an announcer’s nightmare. “And the cougars win the game!” Happy now?

And I bet they love to call the games for those non-count mascots, like the Stanford Cardinal, which is a tree, not a bird - one tree. How is a team one tree? And the Golden Hurricane of Tulsa – one hurricane, especially in Oklahoma where they don’t have hurricanes, and more so, golden ones. Miami is rightfully the Hurricanes, because they have so many of them – duh! But maybe the Golden Hurricane hasn’t happened yet and that’s why it’s golden and singular – it’s a myth waiting to happen! Works for me.

But they do have Sooners in Oklahoma? And sooner or later someone is going to tell me what that is. And don’t tell me it’s a tornado. Actually I think it derives from prairie schooners, in which people ran over each other trying to stake a land claim. So why not the Squatters then? But that still doesn’t explain what “schooner” means. I don’t know of any schools in the Midwest with a tornado mascot, though my Omaha-born wife used to hide from them all the time. To me, that’s a lot more intimidating than a Cornhusker. Aren’t you afraid of being husked to a pulp? Or a cob? And I love the mixed religious meaning of those Wake Forest Demon Deacons. Are they demons? Or deacons? Are they enticing you to pray and then prey upon you? Those hypocritical oxymorons!

There are of course those wimpy mascots trying to be scary, like the menacing Horned Frogs of SMU? Or those terrifying Terrapins of Maryland, snapping turtles to you and me, to tear your toes off in a pileup. And they are called the Terps for short, another crazy name-shortening just so they don’t have to say Terrapins – which has no referent in the real world. And I would not like to be hooted to death by those Temple Owls either, or put in a ring with those angry South Carolina Gamecocks and get pecked to pieces.

And I love those politically incorrect references to the original natives of our continent who, because they were fighting for the land we were taking away from them, we choose to try to make it up to them by giving some of our schools names - like Florida Seminoles and Utah Utes. They are still fighting us about it. But why not those really bloodthirsty ones that are always in the movies, killing our cowboy ancestors mercilessly, those cunning and clever ones that used to ambush and annihilate and scalp us and leave us tied to stakes up on anthills in the hot sun? Or legs tied to two different trees and let fly? I don’t see any schools revering them with mascots - like Pawnees, Apaches, Mohawks, Commanches, and Sioux. Shades of Little Big Horn! Or maybe we could get more ancient and mysterious with the Anasazi or Mayans or Incas, to spook teams into defeat.

Then there are mascots for those who work the land and sweat in the factories – like the Aggies if you’re an agricultural college, which I think is a real mascot cop-out. I mean, will you really cower before an “Aggie”? And we have other farmer types like the Beetdiggers, Cornhuskers, Lumberjacks and Boilermakers, who try to intimidate us with their big muscles from toiling and tilling. I know I’m shaking. I wish there were more high-tech mascots that reflected the information age we live in instead of the past industrial one – like the Programmers, or the Telemarketers, or the Stock Brokers. Why are there no everyday guys like the Coroners or the Grocers? What, not scary enough?

Of course, you could just try to creep your opponents out with crawlers like the Earthworms, the Scorpions, the Army Ants, the Centipedes, the Killer Bees or Mormon Crickets. And we could get down and dirty with the Las Vegas Strippers or One-Armed Bandits or Mustang Ranchers! How about the LA Scandals or the Hollywood Pimps? There could be some more picturesque mascots like the Niagara Falls or the Smokey Mountains or the Mount Rushmores - or the Mt St Helens Lava Flows!

But I think the way to really get more threatening and ominous and go beyond the zoo dwellers or house pests is to create mascots that strike real fear and would cause people to wear surgical masks to games, that represent the real terror-filled world around us - like the Ebola Virus for instance - or the Hepatitus A’s , the E Coli’s , the Anthrax? Or how about the Hanta Virus Flesh Eaters , the HIV’s, or the Bubonic Plagues? Some mascots could actually be some of the wonder drugs to do battle on the field with these incurable diseases, like the Penicillins or the Polio Vaccines or the Antibiotics! Now we’re getting somewhere! Forget all attempts at propriety and tradition – let’s go for what’s in the news, like the Freaking Al Qaedas, or the Iraqi Insurgents or the Taliban Terrorists !

We need to bring more of the outside into our little provincial games and show everyone that we know what’s going on around us rather than keep glorifying these antiquated little mascots nobody really knows anything about. I used to be a sports editor in high school. You need a good mascot that you can write descriptive language about. We were the Montgomery Blair Blazers, and though it looked like a red devil, how does that translate to Blazer? Hard to describe what we did in victory – fork them to death? Of course, like most teens, I was oblivious at the time. I also did some sports writing at BYU-Hawaii many years later - and though I helped develop the long canoe and paddle guy logo existing today, it was hard to translate that into a Seasider, the longtime benign, amorphous mascot name that just wouldn't go away. We tried other more indigenous names like Paddlers, Long Canoes, Oarsmen, Outriggers, and such - but no takersl.

I think we should have a national college mascot referendum and evaluation day so universities can finally change their names shamelessly and opt for something more real world, more pertinent, more conciliatory or pugilistic? A lottery perhaps! But get over those golden days of a century ago when mascots were gentlemanly and irrelevant. And I have to mention the time when I was singing with The Lettermen at the University of Arkansas in 1969, and we got a big, long “Sooooey Pig” that nearly “p”- popped us off the stage with that labial wind blast from 10,000 students. Wow! That’s how I found out what a Razorback is! I was impressed. But I still want to know what a Nittany Lion is. Nittany, Nittany boo boo!

Some thoughts on death and dying...

2009-10-14T23:19:00.012-06:00

We've lost two good friends lately, within the last several weeks. John Montrose and Dorine Jesperson were neighbors and close church-going family with whom we have had many years of serving and socializing together in our Orem 1st Ward. John 79 died of a stroke, though appearing fit and active the night before. He had just been on a long car trip up and down the Alcan Highway with Celestia to visit a daughter in Alaska. He had served so long and well in so many capacities, the most endearing for us being as a missionary couple to Ireland with his wife, when our son Quinn was there from 1989-91. We'll miss his jovial manner and his wild ties, some of which Celestia put in a box and gave to our High Priest Group to be passed around and taken as a remembrance of him.

Dorine was even more of a shock at 70. Where did blood clots come from in her lungs, one going to the heart and shutting off blood supply to her kidneys, causing renal failure and loss of blood pressure? Just like that, though she had complained of being excessively tired the past few weeks, according to family. She was tall and thin and active, a half foot taller than her stout basso profundo husband Oscar, a fellow choir singer with Colleen and I over our years together. But he was the less healthy one - and if anyone was supposed to go, everyone thought it would be him first, when and if. They had visited with us many times as our home teachers, conversations that often centered more on family and current news than on just a Gospel lesson. We loved her and will miss her too.

The impact? Of course we feel these losses deeply. And we come closer in thought if not body to that brink they have now crossed and we have yet to. But these were immortals to us, standards of goodness we thought subconsciously would be here much longer. We never put a time limit on our friendship - and we know it will endure beyond this life, but the timing is bad for us too. It's just not supposed to happen - not so soon, not like this, just not. We've felt the same with losses in the past few years of Bud Herring, Paul Sabin, Russ Logan, Jane Mangum, Phoebe Thomas, Gary Anderson and more. But it's not our timetable and someone else is in loving charge. And these good folks had their lives in order when they left. Will we? We're so much works in progress!

But as I viewed Dorine, so lovely and serene in her coffin and tried to convey tender feelings to Oscar and family, I went back to when my mom died in 1990, the first time a close loved one had passed since my dad's mom died in 1960. I walked up to her casket, frankly numb and emotionless, having just flown in from Utah to DC and maybe in shock. My dad was very emotional - but I just touched her face, so beautifully cold and hard, pristine like alabaster. It was her mortal shell, the tabernacle of her eternal spirit which was now not there. I knew that, but somehow it was still profoundly mysterious to me.

I accept the resurrection of Christ and His gift of that to all of us. It's all on faith. And though that's not tested when I attend a funeral viewing, it is still a bit incomprehensible. I know it will happen for me, though I always thought I would be caught up to meet Jesus when he came - and I'm still holding out some possibly vain hope, though I'm not sure how I'd handle the heights. My wife definitely has that fear and if we go up together, she's going to be clutching me as if we were hang gliding, and hopefully not dragging me back down to earth so we miss the whole "rapture" thing.

But I'd rather deal with that than death itself, because we are so indecisive about coffins (can they make me a double wide?) and we have no plots yet and wonder if we should just go with cardboard to save money - or do the cremation option and start picking out some exotic Celtic urn, Irish to the end. But who would want to keep it around the house? We're still supposed to get a plot for that? I'm all for mixing our ashes together in some macabre romantic rite - but then how will we be resurrected, all tangled up and possibly getting the wrong limbs? Or should we both be scattered to the four winds - but where? Together or separate? Because I know she's going to choose downtown Omaha and I'm more partial to Mount Timpanogos. So many questions, so little time, literally. I guess that's why we try to avoid thinking about it until it is thrust upon us unexpectedly by a close friend's early demise. Then we realize it's still around the corner, down the hall, second door to the left.

And one more footnote. I got an email today from a girl I had sung with in high school choir, Carolyn Hill Couser, whose family I had taught the Gospel back in 1974. That happened because she and her husband Dyrk had seen a marquis with my name on it when Colleen and I were singing at a Holiday Inn in Beltsville MD where we lived at that time. We all got talking about religion when they came in one night. They weren't happy with their church, had known that I was LDS and had gone to BYU after hight school, and wondered if I would tell them more. I got permission to teach them, and they eventually all joined and I was able to baptize all but the youngest kids - or did I do it at all instead of the missionaries? Memory freeze!

In the past year or so, she had been emailing me about her life as I tried to keep track of how they were doing in Church. They had been very active in the College Park Ward after we left and moved to Virginia, she becoming the ward organist for some time. Then he retired from NSA and they moved back to his hometown, Punxsutawny, PA - and started going ecumenical and attending other churches. I was concerned for them and wrote to them off and on. He eventually left his wife for another woman, left the Church - and now she has stomach cancer and is under hospice care.

She called me today and we talked about it. She is resigned, but with a lot more faith, having returned to the LDS church in the past year, partly by being reactivated by a missionary couple, Bob and Connie Rose, whom Colleen and I knew well from DC and who have lived in Bountiful these many years we've been here too. Smallness of worlds! I am strengthened by Carolyn's faith in the plan of salvation and for being able to be calm and courageous in the face of death. I know it is a door and passage to the spirit world, where she will be free of pain, be reunited with loved ones and wait for her eternal assignment and continual resurrected progress in the mansions of the Savior she so believes in! I hope I have as much courage when my time comes. Right now, there's more work to be done and a messy house to still be put in order! It would be nice to have more time to work on that, hint hint.

Saints alive!

2009-10-12T00:22:00.016-06:00

No really folks, I was watching Fox News this morning before church, and heard that Father Damien had been sainted by the Catholic Church! In other words, his life had been lived so well and he had at least two miracles attributed to him, he made the grade. Well, I have a little something more to add.

First, I lived in Hawaii for ten years and visited Molokai and the Leper Colony there, even took a performing group of kids from BYU-Hawaii down for a visit and a little show. Going down and then up that 1000 foot mule trail to get there and back, right after a rain and amid some fresh animal poop, was one of my great life's funny memories. Father Damien really did a great service there and helped these pariah's feel loved and cared for, and then contracted Hansen's disease himself(formerly called leprosy) and died there. I don't take anything away from him for that though my sister Carol Hansen might take exception to the disease's new name.

I just have an issue with how so many people reporting on this sainting process just take it for granted and never question the whole idea of sainthood. In the early church, all of the members were called saints. If you read about so many of Paul's journeys to the early branches of the fledgling church through his letters, he almost always hails the members of those churches as "saints", i.e. "...to the saints at Ephesus". This other idea of sainthood came much later and became specific to just a few good people. And I don't take away from some very rare deeds and lives well lived on their parts. But what about the everyday folk and their sacrifices and good deeds?

I belong to a church which calls all its members "saints" - or "Latter-day Saints", meaning members of Christ's church in these latter days. And I've seen many a miracle of healing and comfort and service given freely and by and through the holy priesthood which every worthy male can have, without fanfare or self promotion, but in quiet acknowledgment and acceptance. Jesus used to do this himself saying things like, "Go and tell no one...", keeping it as a quiet testament to his Father's power.

He gave that Priesthood and the Holy Ghost to his Apostles before He left, so they could run the Church without Him and pass it on. Unfortunately, it was lost with their untimely deaths and the disappearance of the Priesthood keys which the Apostles held last. The simple church ordinances and structure changed too. But that same power and keys have been restored and exist today, used by common people for uncommon purposes, quietly and without any worldly recognition, from the administration of the Church by new Apostles down to the least of the members. If you don't know about it, you ought to check it out. True "sainthood" is really for everyone!

(Oh, and by the way, there was a Google ad on my blog the other day for "True Church", the "Restored Church of God". Uh, Not my church. That is a new version of the Herbert Armstrong's old Worldwide Church of God, using some our Mormon terminology, but not the same thing, by a long shot - albeit they have some good things to say)

Saturday...one big sandwich that ended in sleaze.

2009-10-11T23:43:00.011-06:00

We try to sandwich in so much on a Saturday that s supposed to be a respite from the workweek. Well, I'm not actually working yet, but I follow my wife around, and that's a workweek all in one day for me. Started with an 8:30 am football game, way cool and wayyyyyy cold - grandson Kai is 8 and pushing the NFL envelop. There were other games of our step-grandkids we were supposed to attend, but after our weekly breakfast out, it got too late, so we had to get in a little apple picking and juicing, a little napping - and it was time to eat out with our widowed Karen friend, who we try to go out with once a month or so.

By the time we finished that and did a little Halloween shopping, it was time for some real football ala alma mater BYU. But it was also a rock band reunion for son Shane and we said we'd go - but we thought we had it timed so we could watch most of the game and get in the last of his performance at Velour in Provo with Chump! We left in time, but they finished sooner than expected, and we wound up with egg on our face - we said we'd stick around and cry and feel bad for hour or so, but they had to get their two little boys home for bed. It was already 10:30pm! Shane's wife Sharon was visibly disappointed, rightfully so - if we had left a tad earlier from the game, we'd have at least seen him playing his bass and singing, talented guy that he is. He was gracious about us missing it, but we still hurt about it! REALLY sorry, son!

We had also planned to see our daughter Erin sing in her band, Five On The Fly, an amazing pop rock combo playing this weekend at Club 90 in Sandy, and stay till 1:00 am because we have late church. Though my former Catholic wife did her share of socializing in bars before we were married and we had our singing days together in bars right after we were married, times have changed and so have we. While Erin sang her heart out and was amazing to watch and listen to, we had to endure all the dancing going on in front of us - if you can call it dancing anymore. It was more a combo of leaning, slouching, off-beat gyrating and a really vulgar display of erotic and sleazy humping and bumping and groping ...the worst was a guy in a wheelchair with his moll all but having sex with him right on the floor. A lot of girls dancing with girls too, and it wasn't all dancing - and just sad people trying to have some kind of kinky relationship and validation right in front of everyone without any qualms, their quiet desperation flowing out in an assortment of moves and grooves that was anything but dancing.

I felt sad for so many of them, their alcohol getting the best of them, loosening their inhibitions, causing them to do things they'd never do sober - at least I want to give them the benefit of the doubt. Colleen and I had to almost laugh, it was so tragic - and I'm not trying to be condescending or judgmental. There but for God go the both of us, who come from alcoholic roots and genes, who could be there were it not for our commitment to a higher law, knowing there is more, glad we know about it and trying to live it, albeit imperfectly. But it's easy to see how the Adversary works on people, controls them like puppets, deceives them into thinking they are having fun and are doing something meaningful. I call it being suckers for Satan, dupes for the Devil, lackeys for Lucifer. And this is just one of his active arenas. We left feeling a little slimy ourselves, looking up at our active LDS daughter and her band of good Mormon guys, knowing they were doing it for the fun of playing together - and the money's not bad either. Lucky they didn't have to take in the visuals and take any of it home with them.

My karaoke kids and singalong family...

2009-10-06T23:10:00.019-06:00

Was chatting with my youngest, Conn, 26, till 2am this morning, mostly listening to his evening's antics in a karaoke bar. He says he tried not to sing, but his buddies made him get up...says he gets self-conscious singing, because he's a serious singer and he doesn't want to intimidate those for whom karaoke is just good fun, forget the actual singing part of it. But of course he got up anyway and sang "New York, New York" ala "old blue eyes" and got the usual plaudits and swoons. It's fun for him too, of course, especially the applause!

But when he mentioned how he doesn't like to sing to show off or show up anyone, because he doesn't want people not to get up after he sings because they might not feel they are as good, he wasn't being boastful. But he did reveal what karaoke has always been for most people, a chance to sing with a recorded band, get a moment of stardom, feel the high of the stage and the audience, sing with friends, usually sing badly but not care that much - unless they have serious social or mental issues, and then everything comes wailing out for all the world to hear.

But we Currans have taken it pretty seriously ever since we discovered it way back in the late eighties here in Utah, when we had just moved here without work from Hawaii in 1986. Our mom Colleen valiantly set up a singing studio to try to bring in some money, teaching voice students with her music degree, while I papered our walls with rejection letters from not being able to find work with my two masters degrees. We found that a local music store had just gotten a Singing Machine line to sell and after Colleen talked to them, they were willing to let her use one in our family room studio for free and we would refer students to them for a possible purchase.

It didn't take long to realize, however, that maybe we should be selling these singalong machines ourselves, so Colleen got us in touch with the wholesaler of the machines in LA, a Phillippine group called Zenasia. Their president, Albert Nini, came and met us once he heard that I had sung with The Lettermen(famous in his country), and set us up as retailers at home, and singing demonstrators of his line, Denonet, at Consumer Electronic Shows in Chicago and Las Vegas. Soon after that, he hired me to wholesale to music stores all over the West, to set up new accounts, traveling at first in a Dodge van and then eventually in my own Karaoke van.

After many a long and weary road trip, setting up new dealers from Washington to New Mexico, I got to stay home more and do phone follow ups with my own 800 number, 225-SING, which happened to also be our same number for our local Utah market. We struggled trying to make it work though, all the while enjoying the personal uses ourselves and especially watching all of our kids singing and gaining so much poise and repertoire with the many different popular songs available on tapes and eventually cd-rs. They were musical anyway, but this just enhanced their learning so much, gave them so much confidence and increased their singing abilities, that we felt it had been a boon to try this as a business, a great investment in their musical futures. I too love to sing with a good band arrangement that sounds like the original hit - and Colleen and I did many a gig ourselves with just a portable system to back us up.

But alas, we weren't very good with the bookkeeping and we were driving Albert and Max Villarin(the VP) crazy with bad accounting and money management on the business end of things. And the market was changing all the time too, with the Chinese developing little $100 units that were constantly undercutting our higher end units from Denon and Panasonic that sold for $500-700. So were losing money and finding it harder and harder to market what we had retail as well as continue wholesaling to the music store accounts I had set up before.

So Colleen kept doing the vocal teaching for a little while, trying different names like Singing Unlimited and Vocalife. But she finally got a teaching job in Special Ed and Music when teaching at home became too hard to do for much longer. I found odd jobs over the years in sales and telemarketing, market research, ESL/English teaching and doing some editing for a phone directory company. But still nothing steady and stable to date.

We don't do karaoke much anymore either, unless we have a wedding or anniversary, and then we rent out a full blown system with the mikes, monitors and big speakers, that have thousands of songs available to sing. Of course, Sean put his own studio in his old bedroom downstairs, and has recorded some pretty nice stuff from there, including two cds of his own, and vocal demos for Conn and Erin. Those guys and Shane have done the most continual singing and music as an extension of the karaoke we started with 20 years ago.

So now Conn has his own website, www.conncurran.com to market himself as a jazz singer. And Erin sings with a band that has demos online at www.fiveonthefly.com. Sean sells his cds but I'm not sure where - maybe on Google or YouTube? Shane has his own website too at www.singingbirthdaycard.com, where he has demos of his various written and recorded musical versions of original birthday songs you can give to loved ones. Check them out! They are all awesome - and so is karaoke for what it did for us financially and musically, and still does whenever we get a chance to do our sing thing.

You wanna talk peeves? I'll give you peeves!

2009-10-03T00:34:00.019-06:00

I can't watch a night of tv without finding some peeves - not even pet peeves either. I love the History Channel, but I watched with some skepticism an episode called The Mountain Meadows Massacre", supposedly documenting a true version of a terrible event in Mormon Church history, to this day still unclear in all its facts, about the massacre of about 100 settlers going through southern Utah in 1857. As they made their way across that barren land, allegedly some Mormon leaders down there along with some Paiute Indians they hired, decided to kill everyone execution-style, except all children under 12 for whatever unknown reason. The innuendo throughout was that they were commissioned by Brigham Young, LDS prophet at the time to do this, though John D Lee was the only one ever found guilty of this terrible deed.

It happened. How and why is still a mystery, but the speculation was rampant that it was a setup and ok with the Mormons, based on the words and records of a few, who could have had some ax to grind and wanted to blame this church. And there's no question, there could have been some maverick LDS, still full of hate toward outsiders who contributed to their early heinous persecutions in the East, who might have done this. I've heard mention that some from this wagon train might have either been associated with former persecutors or may have stirred up these Mormon settlers down there and incited them to revenge.

But what was missing was any reference to the terrible treatment of the Mormons by non-Mormons in Illinois and Missouri, including an extermination order against the LDS members by then Governor Boggs of Missouri. Thousands of new converts lost their lives in this land of supposed religious freedom because of blatant bias, prejudice, hatred and harassment, even the their prophet, Joseph Smith, who was martyred defenseless while he was imprisoned. This ultimately led to their exodus from their beautiful city of Nauvoo and their perilous trek across the wilderness to the Great Salt Lake, with Brigham Young as their leader and new prophet. Many lost their lives on that journey too. Not mentioning that more balanced perspective peeved me - a lot!

Another peeve? I watched an episode of Cold Case in which a young baby had been taken from its crackhead mother by some people who wanted to give it a good home. But when the mom sobers up, she goes out to find her son and ultimately prosecutes the people who saved her kid from herself. So those Cold Casers bring the kid back to her, now 5 or 6 and already bonded to his nurturing parents, and return him to his sobered up mom, and make it look like this is supposed to be one big happy reunion, like the kid is supposed to be happy to be reunited with a mother he doesn't even know??? Outrageous! And while current laws support that kind of action in favor of the rights of the original parent, I think they should be changed.

Whoever the child bonds to should be the parents, so the kid isn't wrenched away from them to be with someone he doesn't know, doesn't care about and now will probably have permanent trauma because of all his life. Kids need stability and love without any disruption in those early years, staying with the family that brought them up and protected them, rather than giving them back to parents who spawned them but didn't ever parent them. What a sad jolt to any kid who has to go through that. Rethink that law, please, for the child's sake!

And yet another peeve? I happened to turn the tv on to a roast of Joan Rivers the other night. I thought it might be funny. I didn't watch much of it, because what I saw was one of the most vile and filthy- mouthed rips on someone I've ever heard, with all these "stars" feeling they had total license to call her every name in the book, all in fun of course, while she just sat there with this weird smile affixed on her face, probably put there earlier by one of her plastic surgeons, so she couldn't react. Just to listen to these famous names indulge themselves in coarse vulgarities at her expense and think it was all so funny? It was pathetic and tasteless and ugly and sad - and she just sat there, emotionless. Maybe she was dead and we just didn't know it. If so, I don't think she died laughing.

Ok, one more - not tv related, but I listened to a radio interview with Heather Armstrong a while back on NPR's Radio West. Here's a woman who writes about motherhood in crass terms and foul language, a former Mormon who thinks she's so liberated because she decided in an English class at BYU once that she could have thoughts independent of her parents - so she throws away her religion and family connections. And because so many sad people with no life of their own just adore mavericks and rebels, no matter what they are against, but just because they are turncoats, she now makes thousands a month on her blog because some women think she's so cool for leaving her faith and snubbing her roots and even speaking out against it all. Not cool. I know I won't go there to get any child-raising tips. She really peeves me! So there!

Ok Dan Brown, let's talk!

2009-10-01T13:11:00.016-06:00

I just finished "The Lost Symbol" and I want to read it again, because I did get a little lost myself. I liked it of course, as I did all your other ones, all nail-biting, wild rides until the end! But in all your hoopla about "Apotheosis", man becoming like god, divine, and reaching his full potential, are you just pushing humanism again, that when man reaches his highest self-actualization, he is like A god? Because Katherine's Noetics is so much about the possibilities of the mind of man, the power of thought, man the ultimate creator? Or do I deduce too much by thinking you are touching on something else, the doctrine Christ taught in Matthew 5:48, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect", becoming like THE God? You quote a lot of biblical scripture around this theme, but left that one out. Maybe I'm extrapolating from my Mormon cosmology again.

But you bring in the idea of "Elohim", not just the name of one God but a plurality of Gods, as in "And God said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness..."(Gen1:26). Who is "us" and "our"? Who were the creator Gods? If Jesus was with God in the Beginning and said he was foreordained BEFORE the foundations of the world, God's Firstborn in the spirit, could he have been there with his Father, God, making the world, or at least doing it under his Father's direction? Two gods? So Joseph Smith's vision of two gods, the Father and the Son, isn't so far- fetched after all, but actually a confirmation of what the New Testament's Apostle Paul says so many ties in his journeys? He's always talking about the Father and the Son, yet that simple concept got so screwed up after the Council of Nicea, as you so ably implied in "The DaVinci Code." Good on you!

But then, in Genesis 1:27, "So God made man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, MALE and FEMALE (my caps) created he them." So is God male and female then? Androgynous? Or does God have a female partner, an eternal creator companion, a wife, after whom all women are created, who is also part of that pantheon plurality of gods known as Elohim? And the other one you quoted, "Know ye not that ye are gods? (Isaiah?) Can't that mean we are all gods in embryo, like earthly children can become like their earthly parents, as eternal spirit children of God(Heb 12:9) can become like their eternal Father/Mother Gods who have perfect, exalted bodies? Could it not be that as their spirit children, we had to come to earth to obtain physical bodies to become like them eternally, made in their image on earth, perfected in their image forever? So, sorry Katherine, I'm not buying being made in just in God's mind image.

I go back to when I was working at a CES show, showing karaoke for a company I worked for. With our staff was a preacher with his own church, also a biker we called Biker Bob - and a beautiful Latino lady hired to market to the Hispanic market. They were both Protestant Christians and had issues with me because I was a Mormon Christian, which they thought was a mutual exclusion. I asked Bob, as we were there working on a Sunday, "Does Jesus have a body?" "Yes, he was resurrected." "Ok then, does God have a body?" "No, God is a spirit". "Ok then, is Jesus the same as God?" "Yes, Jesus and God are one." "So Jesus has a body but God doesn't?" Silence. Bob had no answer, nor did the other lady. They walked away mumbling. But my answer is - yes, there is a plurality of gods.

Jesus was in the beginning with his Father. They are both Gods who created the earth and intiated a great plan of salvation in the heavens before Jesus came, so he could do his appointed and foreordained work of salvation for us as our Savior. And Satan was there too as Lucifer, wanting to be like God and a savior too, but proposing to save us all by force rather than through our choice. His egotistic and self-serving plan was rejected and who with a numerous host of his spirit siblings, some of God's spirit children, was cast out of heaven upon the earth, and who all are allowed to tempt and try us today so that our eternal free agency can be in effect and valid, so that we can make choices that show our love for God and man - or reject him and take the consequences.(Rev.12:7-9, 20:1-10) Sounds a little like Solomon's wayward son you created, who gave himself over to evil in so many awful ways.

So Dan Brown, I am expanding upon your theme somewhat in hopes that you might see how far you could have taken it if you knew what I and other Mormons know - and to quote a man whom I accept as a latter-day prophet, Lorenzo Snow, "As man is, God once was - and as God is, man may become." That's how far I am taking your ideas, good ideas all, just stopping short of what is for me in my Mormon theology the logical extension of "Laus Deo" inscribed on top of the Washington monument. I was born in DC and grew up around there - your amazing book has made me want to return with more insight into its fascinating history.

Growing up in Silver Spring, MD, just seven miles from the White House, we had a framed copy on our dining room wall of a famous painting of Pierre L'Enfant looking over the land that was soon to be Washington, showing his vision of how he would lay it out and how it would look. I've been downtown many times in my young life, never realizing all that went into the creation of such a marvelous city, built with so many symbols and references to principles and ideas that remain so important to the free society we enjoy today. Thanks for a great read, DB, and I will continue to study and understand better the unique history you have brought out in the open, the powerful confluence of ideas and connections you have made - it's an exciting tapestry to unravel and to ferret out God's truths from man's - forgive the presumption.

Sean is 28...and still driving!

2009-09-28T18:12:00.025-06:00

Hey, have to say a few words about my 7th child, Sean, 28 on the 24th, with whom we partayed last night with the family, eating his favorite meal, Chinese Sundaes, with an oreo cake for dessert! Always fun to gather with the kids and g-kids, reminisce, laugh, catch up - though we see each other every month or two, so don't lose track much. But Sean deserves some big kudos for changing his life in some big ways, staying clean and sober from pain pills for five years, for getting his act together, for expressing himself in music in creative ways, hip-hopping and recording his own "recovery" cds. He's an amazing guy, all 6'6" of him, a truly cool dude and pretty good basketball player- though he did give us some major angst as a klepto kid and OCD-er of everything! Here' a little reminiscence of him during his ap for a driver's license 12 years ago, which I shepherded as best I could, but later wondered how I survived it...

"Now that I’m “older and wiser”, I have a lot more questions than answers. Like, how did I get through my kids’ licensing rituals? It ‘s a rite of passage for fathers as much as it is for the kids. Yes, I accompanied 16-year old Sean, my seventh child, to the DMV to stand in line for an hour and get him to the right counter where I could finalize his new driver’s license and guiltily put yet another teenage menace out on the highways.

I thought back to when I got my first license – and second license. I think I repressed all that because no thought came back. Actually, I was 18 and a freshman in college before I got my license, borrowing a friend’s car. I’ll never forget the look on the examiner's face when he told me to try driving in reverse and I did – and backed up without ever looking in the rear-view mirror or over my shoulder. He recovered nicely and told me to come back another time.

The long line now awaiting us was just the first stage of the licensing ritual, the line that looked like we’re going to a soup kitchen, based on the gaunt looks of those waiting – or maybe it was a real line-up and we were all being sized up and picked out as the one who did it. 'I'm innocent, I tell ya, I didn't do it!' No, but rather I just waxed philosophic and thought about how my son must get used to the long lines of life which snake their way through our daily survival and from which he’ll get his first real test of the concept of being first and last in line, and how the last shall be first, and the first shall be last, whatever that means.

Here, parents were consoling their moping kids, telling them it’s ok if they don’t pass the test for the fourth time. Other parents with little kids were correcting them out loud and unembarrassed, one even yelling across the room to her kid to give back the toy she took from yet another toddler. The cries of the victim bounced off the walls - and the little toy thief bounced off the wall too. Ah the living, breathing, toy-stealing lines of humanity! “We are the world, we are the children!”

After an hour of Sean building up the anticipation that can only come from knowing that his life and identity hang in the balance, after he hits on every young thing that can help him pass the time, after saying hello to a neighbor who just turned 16 and is getting his license 6 months before Sean because Sean's grades suck - and before anyone else can get bounced off the walls, we hear the cry “Next!” This signals a very important part of the journey – getting out of the line because we are finally at the end of the line - the front end, or salvation!

This is what lines are all about once you are in them –figuring how to get out of them as fast as you can. No wonder we cherish our place in the line and bristle at the mere thought of anyone trying to butt in. It’s not just our sense of outrage and fair play at being cut in on, but we don’t let anyone in because it threatens the very idea of our getting out of the line as soon as possible.

Next comes the task of finding the right counter with the right service person. All through the line, while my Sean is talking and cavorting, I am wondering if all this waiting will be for naught, because no one will be there to direct us to the right place and someone will tell us we’ve been in the wrong line all along, and why didn’t we read the directions which I didn’t see, and then make us go back to the end of the line!

But we did find our way to the counter, after all, to the part of the ritual where my son is grilled about his social security number and birth certificate which are right in front of him, and why he has so many zits, and how many times he has bleached his hair, while I perspire profusely waiting for him to go into a brain freeze, possibly forgetting what he is there for and not having the proper documentation – and going back to the end of the line!

At this time I am asked to affix my signature next to his, to take upon me all the repercussions of any dorky driving he may ever do as a minor, to be the responsible guardian I am supposed to be till death do us part, which I can see happening if I ever let him drive my car with me on the passenger side.

I flash back to the time when my daughter Erin was driving in the new car of a friend, daughter of local millionaire Allen Ashton, founder of WordPerfect. When Alison asked Erin if she wanted to drive her new birthday ride, Erin, 16, took over the wheel, drove three blocks and promptly totaled the week-old red Firebird on a slow left turn where the oncoming car was trying to beat the yellow light. They survived with some bruised bodies and egos, gracas a deus. I have since cautioned her to never make a left turn again. You can read the full account in my column called “No Left Turns” which I might subject you to someday.

After wincing at the $20 I had to fork over to the State to end this torture, I prepared myself for the final stage of the rite – the shooting of the foto, the foto op, the candid camera, the affixed smile. He had been practicing his smile since we got there, turning often to look at me with a goofy spread of his uppers, “Is this ok, Dad?”. But the time of reckoning was at hand, where he had to answer to his own name, and walk John Wayne style to the front of the camera, place his feet behind the line and let his body follow, face the firing squad, find the camera lens, listen to the instructions and smile at the same time.

This was harder than he thought, because the first one didn’t take. The second time was a keeper however, and after looking at the beaming faces, his and the foto’s, I began to realize what this was really all about. It was about the foto! How did he look in the foto! It was yet another imprint of the image with which he might go out and conquer the world – and the chicks! Identity is everything! I wanted to warn the community – there should be a section of the local paper where parents can alert their neighbors and prepare people for a new teen stud driver!"

Well, fast forward and he's still trying to get the chicks...he's got leather seats in his hot Lexus, has a good sales job, still obsesses about shoes and has a ton of new ones to show off or sell on eBay, has the biggest room in a shared condo, goes to 12-step meetings almost every day, is trying to finish a degree in Phys Ed so he can teach and be a coach, and he's not bad looking either - come on girls, what's not to like about this guy?

Getting my kicks from football...

2009-09-22T00:16:00.017-06:00

Ok, so my #7 BYU lost to unranked Florida State big time at home last Saturday, toppled and humbled - and so did arch-enemy and nationally ranked #17 Utah to unranked Oregon! And USC? Yes, and even 3rd ranked USC lost to unranked Washington and former BYU quarterback/now coach Steve Sarkisian! Lah-dee-freakin'-dah! Overranked and overrated, obviously. So let's go back to former times, when I was just an innocent football neophyte trying my wings and pads out on the high school fields of glory and see if we can douse this past week with a little personal nostalgia, part one of a column/essay on my measly attempt at being a three-sport athlete, the rest to come later...

"Now that I’m older and “wiser”, I have a lot more questions than answers. Like, what is it like to be a three-sport athlete? Was I one or did I just dabble in three sports? I always admired those guys in high school who were so skilled they could earn letters in football in Fall, basketball in Winter, baseball in Spring,, just move from sport to sport with an automatic skill set for each – and wear those letters on their cool letterman jackets. I never got one of those, though I did earn at least one letter (And I did sing with The Lettermen. And I love David Letterman, even have a niece who works for him. And I was a letterman myself – some people call him the postal carrier. Does all that count?)

I played high school football with a guy, Tommy Brown, only about 6 feet tall and 180 pounds, who was a three-letter star. Later he became an all-American at Maryland in football and played for the Green Bay Packers under Vince Lombardi at defensive back. He got traded to Washington, where he got hurt and then it was over. But for me, did it ever really get started? Yes, I did try to play football because my dad was pushing on me to fulfill his lost childhood and football-playing fantasy – because he was a little guy at 5’10” and 150 pounds and I was a lumbering 195 pounds and 6’3” tall – at 14!

I have to admit, I did read a lot of books as a kid about the Knute Rockne days at Notre Dame and winning one for the Big Dipper …or the Big Griper…or the Big Dufus… and I loved the glory of Big Ten football and wanted to go to Michigan State and sing “On Wisconsin”. I had futile visions of becoming any woman’s dreamboat on the field of battle in helmet and pads. That’s what sports is all about, right? A combo of gladiator and jouster, playing for the crowd, while hoping there are some adoring women out there, watching their hero win some imaginary battle or trophy – though I would have a hard time wearing that hanky on my helmet? I was just lucky not to fall all over myself, turn my helmet 90 degrees while still looking forward, and become the court jester.

So I tried out for the junior varsity team at Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, Maryland and by sheer size I made it – besides being one of the few who wasn’t puking his guts out all over everywhere when the 3-hour practices were over. If you could make it without the upchuck, you were in. But as a dumb kid who didn’t know his helmet from a soda can, I also didn’t know that you were supposed to have kneepads on both knees. I just thought because I got stuck with an old pair of pants without a pad in the right one, that I should tough it out. Football was for tough guys.

So after playing a few games without a pad, I didn’t need one, because my knee was the size of a cantelope, which gave me plenty of padding. It also gave me a trip to good old Dr Little (no, not Dolittle), who had seen our family through many a crisis and was very capable when sticking a giant needle into my knee and giving me a shot of cortisone. Oucheee! But it worked - and no problems since, knock on knee. ( I lied – my knees are killing me as of this writing – but I’m 67 and overweight, so bring on the cortisone shots!)

My junior year almost didn’t happen. I just didn’t want to play. I had gotten pretty banged up as a sophomore and wasn’t a glutton for pain if there wasn’t the glory I had read about in books. But “you know who” put the pressure on me and pretty much almost disowned me as a son if I didn’t play. He even told big Bob York, our massive fullback, who cornered me in the shower one day and said he heard I wanted to quit. “Who me?? Not me, no way, never, no how Bobbo... Bobby... Bobbykins ... Bubba”. I think I also avoided a good towel snapping that day. I was now 15, the same size as a year ago, not much more developed physically however and pretty intimidated by all those senior jocks.

And of course, my dad was watching from the sidelines all the time at practices, giving me pointers, telling me to keep focused. He would chide me for not getting right under the coach’s nose when he called everyone into a huddle to talk to us, while I would rather hang out in the periphery because I was big and didn’t want to block anyone’s view. I was also timid and didn’t really feel I had that killer instinct– but I hung in for the “glory” and the experience - and the pa-pressure.

It was fun sometimes to get in and block for Tommy on a touchdown run or for a phenomenal black kid named Charley “Reds” Pryor – yes, he was red-headed with freckles about 5’8” - maybe he was Irish - who could start and stop on a dime, one of the best backs in the state of Maryland that year. We won a lot of games with those guys – good for my ego, though I didn’t have much to do with it because smaller-but-tougher, senior Don Jensen got most of the reps at right offensive tackle and I was his bigger-but-wimpier backup.

In my senior year, I still had a few reservations about playing. But I was a senior! I had made it this far, though our team wasn’t as good. And maybe some chicks would notice me this year! But to keep me focused and lift my spirits one day, my dad slipped one of my mom’s Benzedrine into my tomato juice before practice to give me some extra pep. She took them for narcolepsy. He said I was throwing guys right and left and sideways in practice – and I wasn’t even playing defense. I could have been canned for using a banned substance – or banned for using a canned substance. But they didn’t do drug testing in those days – and I didn’t do drugs. Just that one shot deal.

And then my younger brother Dick, all 5’5” and 120 pounds of him, was now in 10th grade and a team manager and my dad wanted him to have someone to look up to – figuratively as well as literally. And of course, my dad, the photographer, volunteered to take movies of the games, so the obligations for me to play kept piling up. And as the sports editor of the high school paper, I could justify my position by saying that I could report on the game from under the piles of brawling, bouncing bodies every time we had a scrum – no wait, that’s rugby. Yep, every time there was a pileup, I had time to pull out my notebook and jot down some cogent notes and some fancy new cuss words.

So I played out the year with no cheerleaders who had a crush on me. I made it through one more year of those awful drills which ended with running up and down the stadium steps after practice, urged on by the intimidating yells of backfield coach Vince Pugliese - endured the ridicule of being called a bungle-dee-boob by head coach Joe Good when I’d miss a block - or being asked if I REALLY wanted to play football by my line coach, Paige Johnson, an OCD with a southern drawl and a little man complex.

He had to prove himself by punching us hard in the solar plexus when we had our heads and our feet on the ground and our stomachs arched upward in the air - to build up neck strength. Or there was that red-headed jock coach who looked like a WWF wrestler who made us do those crabbing exercises for better line stance and movement. And I was only 16 when I played my senior year, wouldn’t be 17 till the year was half over. I was still undeveloped muscle-wise, I had definitely lost my taste for the 'glory'."
(End Part One)

Ok, my biz cards are in, so stand back...

2009-09-17T15:45:00.006-06:00

Yeah, my new blog biz cards came in yesterday and they have a nice look, a big shot of the earth in space on a black background with my basic blog blather next to it, who I am, what I'm doing, how you can access me and an unabashed plug to click on my Google ads and make me some money so I can keep blogging instead of flipping burgers. On the back of my card I am also self-promoting, listing a few other things I can do, like writing and editing and teaching esoteric things like guitar and Portuguese and how to speak American English...with some interesting credentials for credibility. Yeah and I'm humble too. No, but you've got to get yourself out there if you not only want people to know who you are, but more importantly see what you've got to say that can make a difference, not just make a little coin. Can I do that? That's all I want to do, honest, just do the write thing...

What A Week I'm Having!!

2009-09-13T02:42:00.003-06:00

I love that little quote from that great Tom Hanks movie, "Splash!" - yes, what a week I'm having, starting with BYU's unexpected win over #3 Oklahoma in the new Dallas Cowboy Dome last Saturday, 14-13. And then Monday, got to see one of my favorite all-time vocal jazz groups, Take 6, at our open air SCERA Shell! Two of my former Mormon Melodaire Brazilian quartet buds, Ken Nielsen and Gordon Ridd came too after I let them know about it, which made me feel good that I could open their ears to these guys. Two of my boys, Quinn and Conn also came, with Quinn's girlfriend, Darlene Hawea - and my oldest daughter Megan made it too with her new hub James and all their kids. They were all raised on this group, from 20 years ago when they made their national debut. I wish Take 6 had done more of their earlier classical gospel/jazz , but they provided an entertaining show, and I even met them after for a program signing and cd buying. That Alvin Chea's bass voice is worth the whole show! Their was a cool nip in the air, and combined with getting infected by my wife's cold, I have been coughing and sniffling all week - enough to take me out of an important musical commitment to my Orem Stake Choir today, and I feel guilty, but can't muster the vocals right now and don't want to infect or blow my nose among friends. But it has been good basking in another BYU football win yesterday, Saturday, 54-3 over Tulane! Two wins on ESPN in two consecutive weekends, national exposure and a number 9 ranking? That's a rare start for us and hopefully a portent of things to come! Florida State is next at home and I hope we run the table! Go Cougs!

What's the big idea?

2009-08-30T21:28:00.014-06:00

With all the Kennedy hoopla in the news lately, I thought I'd add my two cents. I've never cared for the Kennedy lifestyle or politics much, but I did watch Teddy's funeral and felt touched by the many tributes, by his kids' and grandkids' comments, by the glorious music and the interesting gathering of distinguished guests - and I do feel he was a much beleaguered guy as the youngest of nine, had a bigger adversity load than most ever have to carry with all the tragedy in his life, and I salute him as an American who gave a significant part of his life in public service to his country.

As I listened to his niece, Maria Shriver Schwarzenegger, on NPR tonight talk about her uncle and the Kennedy legacy, only recently having lost her own mother, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of the Special Olympics, I was impressed by what she said regarding the early Kennedy expectations by the family. Their parents would ask them if they had any ideas. Ideas? Yes, ideas for change, for bettering their station, for improving their society and the people around them, big ideas - like changing the world! Ever had any big ideas?

I know some of my kids have good creative ideas and have expressed them in significant little business, musical and artistic ventures. Very techno savvy! Some ideas are borne of their education, some from just their struggles and tensions with society. I hope they continue to grow intellectually though, read more, be on top of the news and be able to study ideas more - and not acquiesce to some of the shallow, mind-deadening aspects of this brave new world they live in that can deprive them of freedom if they are not vigilant. I appreciate my wife's intellect too, her great work ethic and compassion for her special ed kids.

I didn't use to think I had any ideas in my early life. I was an ADD kid whose mind wandered in class alot - so I must have been thinking of something, but it wasn't usually what the teachers wanted me to think about. As I grew and matured, started having some bigger life experiences, traveling the world as an LDS missionary to Brazil and then to the Far East and Europe as a performer for BYU shows, getting masters degrees in English and American Studies, having some success in the entertainment world, my mind expanded, my questions started forming better, I started having larger interests - and now, at 67, while my body is having more pain and slowing down, my mind races with ideas, too many to write and think about sometimes, almost paralyzing in their volume, some from books, scripture, poetry and prose, newspapers and news magazines, from tv news, from listening to talk radio a lot, though not too many people around interested in discussing them with me.

So I heartily subscribe to the Kennedy prescription for full lives and public service. Get some ideas! Try some ideas out! Think and ponder and write good ideas down - something I learned from an essay by Sterling W Sill many years back, having an idea bank, like a planner or journal or anything you can write on and capture ideas that continue to germinate or jump out at you and save them, think about them, use them. Some may be worth a lot of money, I thought. But at least, it can give you a "life of the mind", something many Americans today seem to be without, abdicating to toys and technology instead of a mind-expanding study of history and ideas, among other things.

Yes, I have read a little of Susan Jacoby's book recently, "The Age of American Unreason", in the intro of which she talks about the whole problem of anti-intellectualism in America. She makes mention of John Kennedy, coincidentally, who though an educated Harvard man, had the common touch in his quest for the presidency over Adlai Stevenson, who was a little too polished and even "snooty" to connect with the people. She continues, "The public was right:Kennedy was no intellectual, if an intellectual is, to borrow Hofstader's definition, someone who 'in some sense lives for ideas - - which means he has a sense of dedication to the life of the mind which is very much like a religious commitment." But if most presidents didn't live up to that definition, I want to! That's me! I love ideas, thrive on new ideas, always have my antennae up for new ideas and my radar ready! So think big - what's the big idea today? I'll keep them coming as long as they keep coming to me!

The sucker punch...

2009-08-13T22:57:00.005-06:00

It can come out of nowhere. You think all is well, everything's fine, nothing can go wrong, go wrong, go wrong...you get kind of cocky about life even. You are so self-assured, so self-confident, so willing to accept the planets in their orbits, God is in his heaven and all is right with the world, so we want to think. Then something happens. Anything can happen to unsettle and uproot and disturb our quiet and predictable universe, the life we keep trying to make perfect, the totally special life we think we deserve, the good life, the American Dream, whatever kind of life we imagine to be without flaw or blemish. I like Scott Peck's book,The Road Less Traveled, for its opening line especially. "Life is difficult". He found as a counselor that there would be more people able to cope with life and not go crazy if they just accepted the fact that life is not nor ever will be what we want or expect or hope - it will be hard and we will be dealt curves and twists and convolutions like we never imagined. And what will we do about it? No, we don't have to live in a shell to avoid it. And no we don't have to just take it either. For me, life is a test of faith, of living for an unknown but benign future, of getting up after we fall, of praying and seeking answers and asking for divine as well as earthly help, not trying to make it alone - and not having so much pride that we either think we are above adversity or don't have to accept help to deal with it. We are here to serve and to be served - to learn and grow and understand that we are in a refining process that never ends, a journey of eternal progression that is fraught with pitfalls and stumbling blocks and joyful successes too. So when the sucker punch comes, and it will many times, we aren't so proud that we deny it and are humble enough to roll with it and come up fighting, not each other, but whatever adversarial influence is out there to maybe take us off our path briefly, that path we are trying to forge out of life's wilderness, that will show itself as we keep struggling....and oh yeah, our daughter Megan ran off to Idaho and got married the other night. But it's ok, it's a good thing. She's 37, divorced, needs a good man and we think she got one in James "Kimo" Tucker! Congrats you two. The Hawaiian reception comes in a few more weeks! And we refinanced yesterday and got a 5.375% rate instead of the 7.75% rate we've been living with for years. So see, persistence pays off and some adversity can be overcome in time. But it will always be there in one form or another...so don't try to avoid it or it will hit you like a sucker punch!

That's about the size of it...

2009-08-05T14:11:00.011-06:00

I was thinking about tall and short people in the shower today, how size isn't always fair, but that all the advantages don't always go to the tall, in fact maybe rarely so, unless you play in the NBA. There's that song by the King Singers, "Short People Got No Reason To Live"(tongue in cheek)...but hey, even though I'm tall and so are my kids, look at all the short folk successes: so many famous actors probably average 5'8" and under and yet they look so big on the screen - Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, even Robert Redford...Danny DeVito is probably famous because he IS so short. And then there's Martin Short. And what about actresses like Elizabeth Taylor...and Elizabeth Taylor...and. uhh(total blank) - well my wife rode down the elevator with Barbara Streisand once at the Plaza Hotel... teeny weeny! I'm sure you can think of more. I remember my BYU President when I went there as a freshman, Ernest L Wilkinson, a famous lawyer before that for winning big Indian settlements against the Government ...about 5'6, but tough? He'd shake hands with every student as they came through the registration line - thousands of them - and give a shake that felt like he'd milked a lot of cows. Then when we were all assembled, he'd do 100 pushups. Little man syndrome? Maybe, but I wouldn't want to tangle with him. So of course, it's all relative - talent can come in all sizes, shapes, colors. It's the size of the heart, the spirit that really counts, eh? And I was talking to a nephew this past weekend who had a lot of that as well as talent in high school as a 5'7" quarterback. But after getting no playing time, he finally asked his coach when he was going to get his chance and was told, "When you can see over the line." When I got my chance to sing with The Lettermen in 1969 and 70, it was partly because the tallest of the guys at 5'9" retired and was replaced with a guy who was 5'11". I had been considered before but was too tall. But when another one got sick who was 5'8", I was now considered as his temporary singing replacement, because I was 6'2" and the remaining original singer could wear elevator shoes that would put him up to 5'10" to create more uniformity in height. Plus, I think he enjoyed the view. Crazy. It's only when size is a deterrant to mobility that it matters - and right now...it matters. Yeah, we're talking about girth here... and oh, my aching knees! And that's about the size of it...

Fish oil and crossword puzzles...

2009-08-02T18:01:00.020-06:00

My chiro guy said to take more fish oil, a lot more, and that fish like anchovies and some others I can't remember right now are great Omega 3s that are supposed to be excellent brain food ...and oh yeah, a good crossword puzzle ever hurts either. So I give you a previous column I wrote when Colleen and I were fixated on puzzling and have only recently returned to this intoxicating pastime whilst she is enjoying her teacher summer vacation for a few more weeks and I'm still job hunting, not having had a vacation in years...

Always a Crossword! (My Puzzle Daze) – By Doug Curran

Now that I’m older and “wiser”, I have a lot more questions than answers. Like what is one of the ways to save your marriage from infidelity and Alzheimers?. No, it’s not watching CSI, because all those versions are starting to look like one big gross cadaver party just to keep you transfixed. No, even doing family history can bog down in the mire of correspondence and research standstills, though we are always up for filling in another family group sheet. So, my wife and I have discovered a boon that has revived many a dull evening or outing or dinner or drive, and has virtually eliminated a cross word between us – and I’m talking about…the Crossword Puzzle!

All of a sudden, we have a new interest in life and all that vast array of trivia it provides, because now we can gather it all into one little crossword puzzle and capture it and mull it over and cogitate and deliberate and scrunch our faces and furrow our brows with good reason. We are now in hot pursuit of the answers to the darnedest verbal quagmires we have encountered since trying to understand our eight kids’ first words. No this is heady stuff and we are on the verge of an addiction for which there might have to be a new 12-step recovery program! It is even starting to affect our dreams and cause us to refer back some days to word problems we couldn’t solve then and now can remember an answer for – without even having the puzzle in front of us!

I don’t know how it started exactly, that’s how sly and insidious an addiction it is. We were just into it before we knew what hit us. But now, instead of seeking the Sports page or the Food page or the TV programs or the Movies first – we go right to the crossword puzzle at night, hidden in the Classifieds in our Orem/Provo paper or on other pages sometimes, and can’t feel totally fulfilled and self-actualized until we have given it our best shot. Usually one of us starts it first, then hands it over to the other, like it is some kind of tag-team wrestling match. We can feel the pressure mount to finish it in one night, because we know there will be one waiting in the next day’s paper. And we relish the anticipation more and more. But if we really can’t finish it, or if we get lost in CSI or now NCIS lab intrigue again, trying to solve their mystery before they do, we will leave it by the tv chair in case we actually finish one and need another to keep us busy till we finish that one too .And now we’ve gone so far as to buy a book of puzzles because we can’t wait for the ones in the newspaper.

And as we build up a residue of uncompleted puzzles, we start leaving them around the house to finish, wherever we might park, like in the bathroom. But we can’t forget to keep a pen or pencil handy or it will be very frustrating just looking at it and not being able to write. And we also leave them in the car so we have one to do while we’re driving or to take with us into any restaurant we might be stopping at or into the doctor’s office. But we don’t throw them away either, because if we actually finish one, it’s a trophy – and if we can’t finish one, it’s a challenge to overcome. We actually spent our last anniversary dinner at a restaurant doing separate crosswords, because we found one in a USA today in the waiting room, in addition to the one we brought - and telling our young recently-engaged waitress that this was what she had to look forward to in aged married life.

Recently, we ate out at a little greasy spoon we had a “twofer” coupon for and just by chance found a copy of the same paper there that had the puzzle we had brought with us. This was a double bonus, because now instead of just competing with the puzzle creator, we could now also compete with each other, eating and competing, competing and eating, chomping and scrawling and trying not to cheat by looking at the other’s puzzle. This worked out pretty well, because I finished just a few squares ahead of my wife. But we did miss the conversation and the teamwork, which is half the fun. It was actually a little too quiet and pensive – yet, I didn’t mind doing it on my own too, because I didn’t have to keep asking her to repeat something or other to help her find the answer.

It’s really more difficult for me to give her my answers when she gives me verbal clues than it is to just see it, because I can play better off the other visual clues, go quickly to the Across and Down and cross references to try to solve it faster. And we start learning a lot about each other too as we do just one puzzle together. Like she will often go for the first impulse she has for an answer – and it’s usually wrong. She’s so impulsive. But she’s already written it down – in ink! So then when she gives it to me and I see a better answer, the right one of course, then it is very hard to correct it and it make a big inky mess and is usually very hard to decipher clearly. But she often sees an answer I don’t too, before I do, and it’s crazy how giddy and overjoyed we get with each other at getting it right. It’s pretty sick.

And it’s amazing how validating to my manhood it is for me to be able to finish a puzzle she just couldn’t figure out. She’ll go off to bed leaving me with the scars and wreckage of a puzzle she’s worked and worked at and fretted and fumed over for awhile. And when I go through it and correct a few mistakes and actually get it done, I like to reverently leave the completed puzzle by her nightstand as she sleeps, so she knows in the morning there was a way to finish it, and that all her iffy guesses that were giving her such frustration could actually be resolved and left without loose ends. There’s nothing more calming than that in this universe, eh? I can’t fault her for trying though, for her tenacious problem-solving attitude. But if I can make her world just a little more peaceful and coherent, I’m all over that. And she’s certainly smart enough too, with a masters degree in Special Education, and teaches classes in English and Math.

And though I have masters degrees in English and American Studies, I don’t like to seem like I’m trying to show off or show her up in any way. And I’m not trying to be smug or cocky either – much. But I might have a little more patience and unwillingness to just throw my first thought down on the page and try to make all the other words fit around it. And I might do it in a lighter pen or erasable pencil so I can clean it up before it gets so inked up it can’t even be deciphered anymore. No, I think I take a little more time, check the cross words that integrate with it, search my mind for more possible meanings, get those Acrosses and Downs working more in harmony with each other, before I commit everything I have in my mind to that page. Yeah and I’m humble too. But I can still get as frustrated as hitting a bad golf shot, which is why I don’t play golf, when I can’t figure something out, though it’s so obvious – or it’s something I’ve never heard of and I want to sue whoever put that puzzle together.

In any case, doing the crossword puzzle has been a way for Colleen and I to join forces against a common adversary rather than quibble and quarrel adversarily ourselves over the usual unimportant things. We can tax our brains to the max and practice more patience with each other when we are both dumbfounded and mystified. We’re getting better at skirmishing with words, finding out that there are some tricky phrasal verbs to contend with, and that there are still definitions of things we have never heard of in this miraculous world of things and thoughts. How long will we stay on this kick before we find something else to occupy us? As long as they don’t repeat too many clues and we keep having grandkids to play with as alternatives – and if, like life, we don’t have too many Acrosses and Downs. No strain, no brain - and take about 3000 mgs of fish oil every day too...

The question is the answer...

2009-07-28T17:06:00.015-06:00

I discovered late in life that having a good question to ask is one of the keys to learning for me. Some religious people don't want their kids to question too much for fear they might question themselves out of their faith. I think if faith and testimony are correctly taught and modeled, good questions will only expand true knowledge and not threaten it, especially when there is real conversion. True religion should circumscribe all truth and not be afraid of it. I was always afraid to ask clarifying questions in class when I was in a learning situation, from grade school to college, for fear of revealing my roving mind. I know I was an ADD kind of kid, daydreaming when important things were being taught, then realizing I had missed something but too afraid to ask what I'd missed.

Some kids seem to be like sponges and soak up and memorize everything they're taught. I am one who doesn't learn well unless I have a question in mind which is answered by what I'm taught at the time. If I have a question that I'm not being given an answer to by someone at the time, I'll lose the question and never pursue it - or ask it by happenstance later perhaps. Or sometimes I have the wrong question for the right answer. To learn a curriculum, I can take a lot of notes, but they will mean little if I haven't engaged myself in the subject matter along the way and always have continuing questions in mind as I study that subject. But note taking does enhance memory and at least record important ideas.

I think my kids' learning has been like mine - not much stuck early in life, but later has become more important as their life questions occur and they seek and find answers to deeper questions on their own from the best sources. And then it is really important to connect that knowledge to other knowledge so it's not just random facts about a myriad unconnected things. But as to life's greatest mysteries? You've got to ask the right questions to get the right answers - and therein lies the greatest challenge...asking the right questions, knowing what it is you don't know and how to know it...so I read a lot, talk to others about their lives, not just for knowledge but to stimulate questions that lead to more knowledge ...now does that make sense? Or am I up in the night? See, I'm asking more questions, which I have a lot more of than answers...and some of my "Doug Daze: More Q's then A's" is all about that very phenomenon. More of that next time perhaps...

Literacy and the elephant's trunk...

2009-07-22T14:09:00.003-06:00

After listening to NPR today and an interview with a guy named Chris Hedges, I feel the need to write, if only for my kids, to confirm my dire feelings about the loss of literacy in our land, not just reading skills but reading at all, reading the right stuff, reading to find out what's up with our world! Hedges was mesmerizing to listen to, a former newsman for the NY Times, but also an astute cultural critic! His book is new, The Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and The Triumph of Spectacle, addressing how much deterioration we have in our society because we only look at the image of things, not the depth - the outside of things but not the deep down inside, because we don't know history and its problems and are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past unless we see more than just what's on the surface of our lives. We are also doomed to be manipulated by despots and those who have no motive other than to deceive, to get power, to change things without any thought of the future or consequences.

I have long been an advocate of cultural literacy, starting with Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, then Hirsch's laundry list of things we should all know in his Cultural Literacy. Recently I picked up a copy of something called An Incomplete Education: From Plato's Cave to Planck's Constant...Einstein to Gertrude Stein..Twelfth Night to Twelve-Tone Theory...Half-Life to the Afterlife PLUS how to tell The Iliad from the Odyssey. (Whew!) I love these kinds of books - I call them gap-fillers, because they fill in gaps in my education - and after all, a good learning process tries to connect the dots, make connections of knowledge wherever so we can see the whole, not just the pieces. Otherwise we're like those twelve blind men trying to describe a whole elephant while each is touching only a certain part of it. Sorry, I'm not interested in just the trunk...

Sorry, still basking, still basking...

2009-07-15T23:06:00.006-06:00

Yeah, haven't posted in a few days because that 40th anniversary program our kids put on for us went so well, have had to bask for a while amid handling all the letters and emails of adulation and congrats! It was a fun program, full of surprises from the getgo, including an appearance from Colleen's two sisters Kathleen and Eileen from out of town; visits from Serge,wife Peggy, and Jan Benson( I recently had a post about the untimely death of his wife Laura) from Logan and Russ Marriott and wife Dava from SLC, the guys being dear friends that predate Colleen and go back to my teenhood in Maryland; Gordon Ridd and wife Susan from Orem, my old Mormon Melodaire singing comp in Brazil; the Bob Roses from Bountiful and DC daze; our old standbys, Taylor and Kathy Macdonald and kids; and many friends of the kids, friends from Hawaii and our LDS ward and surrounding areas! What a treat to have great Hawaii cakes made by the mother of one of Caiti's best friends, a good Samoan lady who is an artiste when it comes to guava, passion fruit and coconut pastries to go with our Aloha theme! Thanks to James "Kimo" Tucker and Darlene Hawea for their Polynesian touch with the food and cleanup too. The show was so great, such talented children we have, and has been uploaded to Conn's Facebook and will soon be on YouTube we hope. Missed a lot of our ward friends who we thought would be there, but had a nice crowd that really enjoyed it. After seeing the video of us singing one number however, we have a new motivation to start a weight loss program like no other. 41 years needs to show a marked difference in appearance and health, starting... tomorrow...

Tweet Tweet Tweet Michael...

2009-07-09T18:14:00.018-06:00

Sorry, being facetious, don't tweet, though I may have been called a twit in my time - and the only twitter I know about is from Bambi when that wise old owl talks about everyone being twitterpated in the Spring - and I blushed even then as a kid, though wasn't sure why. But nope, sorry, not buying into all the titter about Twitter, one more online concoction I don't need - and I don't use MyFace or Spacebook or WhoTube or any of those other pathetic outlets for posting my poor self all around the universe and creating more needless drama among the people of the earth. The only tweet I know about is in that song "Rockin' Robin" by Chuck Berry that takes me back to the 50's era of absurd lyrics (You Ain't Nothing But A Hound Dog and How Much Is That Doggie In The Window and Yip Yip, Yip, Get A Job). People actually sang those words??? Not this hip cat. And speaking of Michael Jackson, and aren't we all lately, I guess The Jackson Five did have a hit on it too.."Rocks in the treetops all night long.....Rockin' Robin, tweet, tweet, tweet..." Guess that tweety bird won't be singing anymore. I liked his song though...

Freedom of books...

2009-07-04T00:19:00.011-06:00

It's the early am morning of I-Day and all through the house, not a soul stirs for freedom 'cause we're addicted to the Wii...yes, we're almost choked by so much freedom, freedom to pollute our heads with mindless stuff - and the rest of the day we'll do celebration-like things, but how much will we be really celebrating how hard-won the freedom to do all this was for some sacrificing patriots and still is for those serving in distant, desolate or destroyed lands. Yes, there will be parades and floats here in Utah Valley, some with their tributes and some with their "royalty", a throwback to Europe and our wish to still have our own queens. There will be endless booths hawking their wares and foods and fun. There will be mind-blowing fireworks at the nationally acclaimed Stadium of Fire at BYU with the Jonas Brothers, Shedaisy and Glenn Beck- "I'll bet my firecrackers can beat up your firecrackers!" I still don't know what to wish people on this holiday! "Enjoy your freedom, it may be short lived." "Salute the flag while you're scarfing that hotdog!" "Happy holiday" just doesn't cut it. Me, I think I'll read a good book by Benjamin Franklin or Thomas Jefferson, those guys who actually founded our republic. I might even crack the D of I and read it through, that "We the people..." document that Nicolas Cage had to steal from the Library of Congress to protect it from being stolen from the bad guys who wanted the treasure map on the back...as if. But I'm so grateful for good books and for remembering the right reading glass prescription. I love this week's Newsweek that has as its focus, books we need to read now - a list of 50 of them, most of which I haven't read yet but am now committed to with a definite maybe. Hey, if anyone with any reputation gives me a list of books they think is important, I'm on it boss! Jorge Luis Borges is quoted as saying "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library." Amen to that - I know I'm in heaven with mine! And let's use more of our freedom to read more reality, not just escape, and be good cultural critics with "eternal vigilance" and not just obsessed consumers of every good barbecue that comes down the pike. I have to have my daily news quick fix, but I need to read more relevant books too. I accumulate them and surround myself with them as if they were future friends to get to know, with every good intention of doing so. I actually even get started with a lot of them, because I know knowledge is power and can set me free! I just need to be a finisher! So Happy freedom of books...

Me And Channel 33...

2009-07-01T16:46:00.018-06:00

Ok, it's the Disney Channel on Comcast, (he says with a blush) . I watch some grandkids at times and all they want to watch is that real cheesy, corny, fluff stuff. With my daughter Caitilin visiting from NC this week with her boys Gavin and Ryan, we were watching a Beethoven (the dog) movie amid other scintillating conversation the other night - and I started thinking, I have to admit it, I kind of like this stuff. My kids are getting worried but, yeah, I find myself laughing along with grandson Kai on Zack and Cody's Suite Life, Wizards of Waverly Place, That's So Raven and the newer Jonas - and that Hannah Montana? Not a bad little comedienne along with her majesty's pop stardom. Then there's those High School Musicals made right here in Utah - had to watch those because our good friends Boh and Charlene of Johnson Mill in Heber had a son Bart who played Zach Efron's father/coach - and we've watched him grow up over the years, so there was a lot of loyalty there too. Heck, I even get into Phineas and Ferb now and then, an actual cartoon! And now that they're putting a lot of those kid stars together on a cruise ship for an episode? Talk about your escape tv ...uh. ok, what am I saying? Is this that regression into second childhood thing they talk about happening when you enter geezerhood? Hey, I'm there. No, I'm also a news and NCIS junkie to the max just to stay well rounded. But I will turn off the PG-13 stuff and defer to Disney when the grandkids are around. Probably even helps me stay more grounded too. No really, try it sometime...hey, put away that binky, I'm sleeping just fine..with my thumb ...um ...um... zzzzzzzz...

Busy family night of music and BB...

2009-06-27T22:08:00.007-06:00

It was one of those evenings last night where the family was spread between two major events - either watch Erin perform with her new band or watch Kalin play in a big BB tourney at BYU. Since we had already checked K out the other day and saw some great moves and points, and knowing Sean and Megan were there, we opted for Erin's gig, not having heard what she's been doing lately. The band is Five Guys On The Fly - and she's the new "guy", a girl singer among four fantastic musicians. It was a fundraiser for deployed military personnel and their families left here - but not attended very well unfortunately. Well, it didn't help that even if it's the end of June, it felt like Fall had "fell", along with a few trees in the 50 mph winds, rain and chilly temps - so only us hardy ones stuck it out. All 30 of us were finally forced into the pavillion to listen while the band turned its instruments and mikes toward us and gave us an earful. (Maybe this will be the group that will play at our 40th anniversary party our kids are giving us July 11, 8pm, 80 S 280 E, Orem - you're invited)

Anyway, Erin was top notch in her delivery and range, a great repertoire too, among which I especially liked her Bonnie Raitt rendition of "I Can't Make You Love Me", Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" and Credence Clearwater's "Proud Mary". Then Shane got up as an invited guest singer, having auditioned also but getting beat out by his little sister - and knocked the roof off the place singing "Play That Funky Music White Boy" - our quiet creative guy who turns into a gyrating whirling dirvish whether the audience is small or large. It's been a while since his own band broke up, but he was right on the money tonight. So Colleen and I, Quinn and his girlfriend Darlene, Shane's wife Sharon and their boys and Shannon were all there, in addition to other close friends. Besides taking pictures, Shannon also did a duet with Erin on 'Killing Me Softly.

I talked with members of the band after, sharing congrats on a very fine sound as they made a kind of debut with some new members. Several had heard that I sang with The Lettermen 40 years ago and that that was my occasion for meeting Colleen, a great singer in her own right. And even though we take a little credit for these kids genes and some early karaoke experience, they are their own unique entertainers. We salute our next generation of Curran talent, whether on stage or on the basketball court, where some of my kids have also had some athletic prowess, much better than I ever had. They get it from their mother, like most good things they've inherited. Yeah, she was a lady jock among other things - but just enjoyed being the mother of her little singing darlings last night.

My Numberology...does it really add up?

2009-06-25T17:35:00.007-06:00

My Days Are Numbered (My Counting Daze) – By Doug Curran

Now that I’m older and “wiser”, I have a lot more questions than answers. Like do we live by numbers? I bought a chicken salad sandwich and a drink the other day while browsing at a local bookstore. The total was $6.66. I immediately winced. So did the cashier. We both looked at each other and I looked at the sandwich as if it had cancer. I laughingly asked the girl if I she could charge me $6.67 instead for it and she laughingly told me to choke on it. We both knew what 666 meant, as does any good Bible reader of the Book of Revelations. Or maybe she just thought I was hitting on her.

But do we depend on numbers for some of our decisions? How many people are still playing the lottery with their lucky numbers - their birthdates, divorce dates, the first day they fell off their bike, the day they swallowed a fly, the tax refund that never came – it’s ridiculous! When are we going to stop living by numbers? I ate in a Chinese restaurant recently and the placemat was a Chinese Zodiac. My oldest son’s birth year is totally incompatible with his girlfriend’s. Should I tell him or just shut up and eat my Egg Too Young?

Why do we say “Your number’s up?” What does that mean? What number? Like “Take a number” when you walk into the DMV and hope they renew your driver’s license and don’t check your eyesight? Or isn’t it something more sinister, more final, more fateful, like biting the big enchilada? What number is up? And what if it’s off by one? Do we all have some secret number given to us when we are born into the world, the number of years, months, days, hours, minutes, seconds we will live, and when we get there, that number is up? Someone is going to call our number and awaayyyy we go?

And if you live long enough or survive a disaster, isn’t it called beating the odds? What are the odds anyway? The un-evens? Nobody likes the odd numbers. What’s so good about 2-4-6 and not 1-3-5? Why do we say “The odds are if you keep on smoking, you will die of toenail cancer”? Why not “The evens are…”? Some people are really addicted to numbers in the old gambling halls too, when they do the roll of the dice or the spin of the wheel or just trust fate and chance more than choice. Bingo! You get all the right numbers in a row, you WIN! Win what? What do numbers have to do with winning? And why do they have to be in a row? And why is it called Bingo?

I hear sports guys talk about “the over and under”, betting on games. I don’t get it. There’s another arena for betting - game scores! Winning and losing by numbers again, or how many goals you can score. Whatever man can bet on, you can bet he will…bet. Numbers are a measure of winning and losing. And winning is everything, right? Or when you lose, we say, “Somebody’s got your number.” There it is again, that illusive number. What number? And how come they can get mine and I can’t get theirs?

It’s a numbers game. Go through enough numbers and someone will reward you. It’s the old sales job, right? Talk to enough people and someone will buy. Mail out enough letters and 3% will respond. I used to do that, but the secret is that you have to talk to enough people the same way, using the exact same pitch – and I couldn’t do it. I had to change the wording and the inflection or I’d go nuts. That must be why I’m not in tele-sales. Or if I ever do it again, I will just have someone else read my pitch so it never changes, and then maybe the numbers game will work for me. I’ll split the commission.

We live by numbers. We ARE numbers! We are our social security number, our birth date, our driver’s license number, our street address, our student ID, our registration number, all our myriad consumer account numbers and credit card numbers – and we are number- crunched throughout our lives till our number’s up, right? But what if our number doesn’t come up? How do we keep our number from coming up? But what’s our number??? Should that be my life quest, to find my number? Am I being counted by someone? We also want to know if we count - while trying to see if we can count.

That’s one of the first things we learn, right, how to count? We use our fingers and little kids often show their age with their fingers because…they don’t want to say it. Why? “I am three” Maybe they’re not sure, because they don’t trust older people. Years mean nothing to little kids anyway, right? Until they’re older. Then they want to be 16 to drive, and 18 to vote and 21 to drink. We are our age! Why not our age in months, not years? Or some other measurement? And why don’t women want to reveal their age? Maybe if they just used decades, not years. We men are too stupid to figure that one out. There’s that number calculation phrase – figure things out. Math! Go figure. I hate math. And then we talk about things not adding up. What things?

I used to play a game I made up with my kids when they were younger. They’d all sit in front of me and pick a number I was holding invisibly in my head. And I’d pick a silent number. And if they got the number in my head, they got tickled, because I was THE TICKLE MONSTER! And yes, sometimes it was picking a number between 1 and 10 and sometimes it was 1 and 20 to make the game longer. But I could mess with the numbers so everyone got a chance to get tickled, although, they were never quite sure if that was a reward or penalty for guessing it right, depending on whether you like being tickled. I always hated getting tickled. But if they guessed it? “That’s the number!”

Manipulating the numbers? Do we try to do that with our money? We really need those numbers when we try to figure out our money and our income and expenses and taxes and investments. Watch the numbers and make them grow, and if you accumulate enough one’s, they will become millions. But only if you use them exponentially, not just collect them and stick them in a box. I just can’t remember which box I put them in.

I’m ok with numbers on a 5th grade level, like adding and subtracting and dividing and multiplying. But beyond that, who needs them? I almost flunked out of Algebra in the 9th grade – I got a gift D-. And my C- in high school Geometry saved me to play on the football team because my teacher was my football coach. I see my poor right-brained kids struggle through basic college math two or three times - and I thank my lucky starts I didn’t have to take math to pass college in my day. Stars? Now there's a counting nightmare.

So whether it’s 666 or lucky sevens - lucky why? And why is 666 the number of the beast anyway? What beast? As far as I’m concerned, numbers ARE the beast! Like Trig and Calculus? They are like foreign languages and totally useless to me. And I still don’t know how the Chinese and Arabs count with those funny other little hand things – the abacus? What’s up with that? Come on, stop showing off and just use your fingers like normal people! And toes if you need them. So far, I haven’t had to take my shoes off, but if I’m at the checkout counter and I need to, I will. I’m not proud.

And is zero a number? Or a non-number? Or a cipher? A big nothing, nada, zero? And you can’t use “O” as a number. It’s a letter, hello! So when you’re giving your phone number to some girl, guys, if there’s a “0”, say zero. Not “O”! Get it? Do you want to score points or not? See, we're counting numbers again. Now you got me going in circles. Wait a minute, is a circle an “O” or a “0”? At least we could ask out little kids..”Ok, do you have to do number one or number two?”

Sean's Sobriety...

2009-06-23T16:19:00.007-06:00

Went to an AA lunch meeting with Colleen and Conn today, to support and celebrate Sean's five years of being clean and sober from pill addiction, something I mentioned in my recent post "Basketball Twists And Turns". Though pain killers were his downfall and he does attend NA, he likes this particular AA group. The recovery process is virtually the same 12-Step program though. These are sobering meetings too, no pun intended - lots of love expressed towards each other and hope to meet the everyday struggles against addiction. Sean shared first and was very emotional, as were we, realizing what he does to maintain his new life. Others shared from the depth and honesty of their hearts. It truly is a lot like attending an LDS testimony meeting we have at church once a month.

There was so much confirmation there of how powerless we all are against our addictions and compulsions and the need to turn it all over to a Higher Power if we are to overcome. And though we relapse at times, it's all part of the recovery and we all need support and acceptance, never judgment or rejection. For any addict, it's a lifelong project and whatever intervention is needed to get to the point where denial is overcome and total acceptance of the addiction is admitted, that's the most important start to a clean and sober life.

I admire Sean for his determination and perseverance, for the strength of his will - and though five to seven years is the most dangerous time for relapse, I feel Sean will stay strong. He has many admirers for his sobriety at his age - but he is always aware of pride and never being complacent, because it only takes one pill to put him right back where he left off. Kudos anyway Sean - we're all so happy for you!

I have to tell on him in one regard, though. He recently got another car, probably his third this year already, and each time he gets a better deal and a better car by trading up. But I couldn't help reminding him the other day that this is starting to look a lot like the sports shoe addiction he had when working in many different shoe stores as a younger man in the local mall. I think he had over fifty pairs of basketball shoes in his closet at one time. Later that same day as he left the house after doing some recording in his studio he has set up in our house, he said laughingly, "By the way, Dad - thanks for calling me on my crap." That's what addicts do in meetings if they feel someone isn't sharing honestly and really owning up to their addictions and the problems they cause. I guess we could all be called on our crap in some way or another.

Sean is an amazing musician too. He has learned how to write music and beats with a computer, a keyboard and a Garage Band program, as a way of supporting his recovery, something that is therapy for him, a way of writing down his experiences and thoughts about his struggles. But he also knows how to record all of this, has already released two cds and is continually writing and teaming up with other guys. He performs locally at times with his brothers and other musicians, not the least of which is his supportive younger brother Conn, also an amazing talent, a singer in the Sinatra/Connick/Bubles mode, but willing to do a little hip-hop with Sean so they can still hang out and stay close. Just put their names out there on YouTube and see what comes up!

Father's Day...

2009-06-22T14:25:00.005-06:00

Had our annual family gathering Sunday around this old father and one father/son, Shane. I appreciated the gifts and cards of kind remembrance. I could say it was one more exercise in guilt for all the fathering I didn't do out of bumbling trial and error and ignorance, but got better at with my grandkids than with my own kids perhaps. I could say fatherhood is a gift I didn't deserve, though I always wanted to be one - and got lucky when a beautiful woman who married me also wanted to have kids with me and be a mother many times over. I could say that having kids is not the same as fathering kids, that it's not as instinctive as mothering, but equally as rewarding when given a chance. I could talk about the encroaching fatherless in today's sick society where over a third of all kids are being raised without a father - and it's getting worse. I could talk about my own father who worked two jobs to support us and who I should have honored more. I could talk about a successful man who said that his greatest title in life was father and that his work titles and degrees were insignificant when compared with being called "Dad". I'm just glad I've had the experience and probably will never stop fathering my kids, though not in the same way. Thanks to Colleen for the amazing c0operative effort and to our mortally clothed eternal spirits, made blessedly more in her image than mine - Quinn, Megan, Shane, Erin, Shannon, Caitilin, Sean and Conn, who have taught me more about fathering than any book ever could.

Basketball Twists And Turns...

2009-06-18T19:43:00.016-06:00

Watched my second grandson Kai, 8, play his last game of a week long summer basketball camp this morning. After many drills, his group of ten scrimmaged each other. He's a great little dribbler and outside shooter and is following in his older brother's footsteps in natural ability and desire. Kalin is 14 and 6'2" - and has already been recruited by several local high schools.

Kai's coach this week was the camp's director and ironically had been the coach of my youngest sons, Sean and Conn, when they were trying out for high school ball at this same school almost 10 years ago. It was also this same coach who had these guys doing deep knee max weight squats for training - something we thought unorthodox - and which eventually resulted in both of them blowing out their knees. Sean has had three knee operations since because of it and eventually got into pain pill addiction for several years before getting clean and sober, celebrating five years this Saturday. He has to attend 12-step programs almost every night to maintain his sobriety. Conn just recovered from his second knee operation a few weeks ago.

I've never said anything to that coach. Not sure what it would have achieved. But there he was teaching basketball to a second generation of Currans, my daughter Megan's son, Kai. Kalin made his decision to go with another high school largely because this man was coming back to coach at the high school where all my kids attended and where Kalin always thought he would play. Not anymore, sadly. The tradition is broken. But he needs those knees.

Laura Benson...

2009-06-16T22:29:00.011-06:00

I had only met Laura a few times. She was the wife of my childhood friend, Jan Benson, and easy to know. I spent some time with her and Jan recently, also his brother Serge and sister Margie and spouses too. It was last September at my sister's home in St George, UT - a reunion of Currans and Bensons, old friends from our early teen years, church friends too and as close as family. My brother Dick had even come from the East to be with us. We had had a fun first evening of eating and laughing and taxing our memories for past treasured times together.

Next morning, Laura and Jan were up early, enjoying the warm desert dawn and checking out the arrid landscape, even shooting a few putts on Steve's putting green by the pool. I noticed her rubbing her lower back and seeming to try to get a kink worked out. Jan said she had been complaining of a pain there for a little while, thought she had pulled it dancing. I suggested Celebrex, an anti-inflamatory, which he hadn't heard of but which I had found some relief with for tendonitis.

The warm day had been full of activities and swimming, good food and catch-up conversation. It had been many years since all of us had been all together and we were savoring the time. That evening, we played scrabble on a giant board built into my brother-in-law's upper patio off their enormous country kitchen. Laura and I were teamed up as partners. She was quick witted, sharp with the game, had a teenage giggle. Wish I could have seen her dance and hear her sing. She and Jan had been quite a performing pair at Utah State University, she around eight years his junior, with a fit, petite dancer's physique and youthful beauty which belied her 57 years.

A few months ago, my sister called me and told me that Laura had cancer. Those back pains she was having back in September had been tumors and had now gotten into her pancreas. The prognosis wasn't good but she and Jan were positive and welcomed our faith and prayers in her behalf. We have since been waiting for good news of recovery and a hope that they would be able to enjoy that house they were building for their retirement, which would be a place of welcome for their kids - and where she would play with her grandkids.

Laura died today - and a great sadness is in my heart for her family. She was brave and wanted to live. We knew from the life she had lived that she was in the hands of Heavenly Father and it would all be up to Him whether a miracle was in order or she had finished her mission here below. Our hearts go out to Jan and his loved ones for their loss of Laura today and we pray for the healing, comforting influence of the Holy Ghost to bear them up and give them peace.

Jan is a wonderful performer, has a real cowboy sense of humor, having lived in Logan, Utah most of his life. He has ventured into old west kinds of businesses on the side and done well for himself. I couldn't help but think he might be reminiscing on some of the lyrics of an old western tune we all used to sing an arrangement of by Norman Luboff - The Colorado Trail..."Eyes like the morning sun, cheeks like a rose; Laura was a pretty girl, God Almighty knows. Weep all ye little rains, wail winds wail..." Laura, we'll miss you. I'd like to dedicate something to her here, something that typifies her life and how she lived it and that gives us something to think about...

WHAT WILL MATTER

Michael Josephson

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.

Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations and jealousies will finally disappear.
So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to-do lists will expire.

The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won't matter where you came from or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.
It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not what you bought, but what you built;

not what you got, but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success, but your significance.
What will matter is not what you learned, but what you taught.
What will matter is every act of integrity, compassion, courage or sacrifice that enriched, empowered or encouraged others to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence, but your character.
What will matter is not how many people you knew,

but how many will feel a lasting loss when you're gone.

What will matter is not your memories,

but the memories that live in those who loved you.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered, by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn't happen by accident.
It's not a matter of circumstance but of choice.
Choose to live a life that matters.

Fireworks...do they work for me anymore?

2009-06-15T15:40:00.018-06:00

Had our first fireworks of the season the other night, during the rain at the end of the annual Orem Summerfest Parade in our hometown. We were actually listening to the big booms from inside the house, debating whether or not to even go out and watch, remembering our deceased Ginger dog who would run and hide under the beds at the first rumble. Seen one, seen them all? I mean what's the point anymore?

I did feel a little guilty about all the hard work these guys were going through to paint the black sky in multi-colored splats. Maybe that's why I left my comfortable family room to venture out into the June drizzle and sneak a little cuddle with my wife while skywatching. That was good. There will be more of these fireworks of course throughout the Summer in our little Utah Valley, what with Strawberry Days, Steel Days, Onion Days, Pioneer Day and more celebrations coming up. The real test for us us will be whether or not we'll attend any July 4th celebrations. It's not that we're unpatiotic. But might as well face the question now. How much allegiance do we owe to fireworks? Do they really work for me anymore?

Ok, is it the ka-booms we are supposed to react to? Or do we continue to look for some starry formation never seen before and at which we can add a new ooooh or ahhhhh? I know I sound cynical and I'm not trying to make fun of someone else's fun. But there we all were, neighbors out in our yards, sharing a joint transfixation on the sky as if ET was coming back, huddled in quiet awe or respect for the power of the powder, maybe just a common assent to it, admitting it's part of our life - but how important a part? Important enough to go outside and indulge the presenters? Would they ever know if we were watching or not? Were they hoping to give us some new memorable thrill that would bind us more together as humans?

Was this what Francis Scott Key had in mind for our future when he wrote about the "rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air"? We were getting pounded by the enemy but our "flag was still there". So we celebrate a good thrashing from those ornery Brits. Or are we giving more homage to some ancient Chinese inventors, another "Made In China" reminder from the land of a billion rice makers? Isn't it just another quick fix, another mindless entertainment we have too much of already, trying to be bigger and better than last year - and yes, there were some new explosions I haven't seen before. Should I be grateful and giddy and feel that all is right with the world? Boy, I really am cynical.

And so I go back into my house after it's over. Will I talk about this at dinner? Will any of this stay with me or should it even be a subject of conversation? Yes, it was pretty for a fleeting few minutes - too fleeting, nothing lasting, even those flaring formations coming and going so fast you can't enjoy one for more than a second till it's gone and another takes its place. Why can't they be frozen up there for a little longer so you can enjoy them, that phenomenal starburst, that amazing fanfare of light and sound, going from one to the other with such speed - and maybe that's supposed to be the intent, to leave me dizzy, reeling, lost in the kaleidoscope, the pounding, the frenzy, till I'm exhausted. Everyone cheers at the end. For me, it's always over too fast - like life. Whoa, Dude, get a grip! We're only talking a few firecrackers here, right?

A Kiwi Burger? Beet's the heck outta me...

2009-06-12T13:14:00.016-06:00

I had my first life experience cooking beets the other day. It was so easy - just cut off the greens and drop those purplish orbs in the boiling water and stand back! After 30 minutes or so, I took them out and peeled them, cut them into nice warm chunks and was downing my first ever self-cooked, blood-red beets! No kidding, I felt a little like Dracula, it was such a bloody feast. I was still bragging about my beet feat when my oldest son and his Maori girlfriend from New Zealand came over for a visit. These guys have been dating so long, they should at least be considered engaged by common law by now. So we were making Reubens for all of us to eat and I offered her some fresh cooked beets as a side dish.

She graciously accepted my simple offering and then told me an astounding thing. In New Zealand, they make a Kiwi Burger(Kiwi is the national bird and a nickname for people from NZ) with a fried egg and a slice of beet on top! Huh??? You could have knocked me over with a boulder! I'd never heard of such a thing. I was stunned, got that glazed look in my eyes and wondered how I had lived so long without knowing about that one. Even this traveling son of mine had eaten one down under and had never told me! Fie on him! I thought I had eaten burgers every way possible in this old life. But the idea of a burger with beets just breathed new life into the burger portion of my brain. Having a fried egg on it was a new enough twist - but a slice of beet??? Outrageously delectable!

So I started ruminating and considering all the other healthy possibilities...a watermelon burger, a shredded coconut burger, a celery and carrot burger, a banana burger(nice alliteration too), a ramin noodle burger(we called it saimin in Hawaii), a calamari burger(very chewy), or any kind of fish or seafood on top, like oysters maybe... a peanut butter burger, two patties acting like the bun with french fries in the middle...man, I am so hungry just thinking about it, I'm going to boil some artichokes and see if I can get that heart smeared all over the top of a patty, Now, if I only had some patties...

Getting my fruits and veggies...

2009-06-10T13:58:00.009-06:00

Since I'm a carb addict, it's hard to think of getting my daily dose of fruits and veggies, though I do love them all. I'd rather drink juice than soda, also addictive, and I always remember my fellow men starving wherever when I'm about to eat a big piece of pie - and scrounge around the fridge for an old carrot just to assuage my guilt. But I never think of Fs & Vs when I'm hungry - maybe only when I'm doing my Weight Watchers tracking or watching some kiddie show with my grandkids when they teach some five-a-day program.

So I'm getting more fruits and veggies, where else, through my shampoos and shower soaps! Yes, I am getting coconut, kiwi/strawberry, mango/pomegranate, apple, peach, tangerine and any number of other fruits - even cucumber and watermelon are in the mix. And I come out of the shower smelling like a fruit salad! The only one I miss in the whole group is pumpkin, and I'll go into that more around Halloween. But I'm still waiting for that my first deluxe pumpkin shampoo if anyone out there knows where I can find one!

With the economy in shambles, more and more folks are turning to gardening - which we would do more of if we had the backs and knees for it. But last weekend, we did in get a few tomato and squash seedlings, and because of Colleen's fast green thumbs, they are now growing where all the world can see, in out flower planters in front of the house, subject to jealous eyes and thieving hands if things go bad. We hope we'll get to those big beefsteaks before anyone else does. I'm being moderately melodramatic here, because we have really good neighbors - it's just the passersby I'm suspicious of.

Our good friend Ron from Hawaii daze brought us our first seedlings a few weeks ago, which we gave to daughter Megan who already had a planter box and who has two great kids to help till and plant and fertilize. Ron is a gardening wonder - in Hawaii, he had his whole front yard dug up and producing taro and yams and any number of amazing yummy indigenous veggies, in addition to huge banana and papaya trees. It may get to that for us here in Utah - no, not growing banana trees. But people who treasure their precious lawns may be recycling the turf for edibles instead, which would sure solve my lawn mowing headaches.

Well, I hope I'm going to be juicing soon and reducing my fruits and veggies to pure fresh juice, more easily digestible and immediately absorbed. So come on carrot and apple and broccoli and beet and cabbage juice...so I can stop drinking my shampoo!

Taking a vacation? Here's one for the books...

2009-06-08T00:03:00.021-06:00

The 24-hour Vacation(My Seattle Daze) – By Doug Curran

Now that I’m older and “wiser”, I have a lot more questions than answers. Like, is it possible to take a vacation in 24 hours? And feel like it was a week long? When our oldest daughter Megan worked for both Marriott and Morris Air(now Southwest) one year, and a four-day weekend was coming up for my school teacher wife, we got the crazy idea to fly to Seattle for a day with our four youngest– and do it on about $100 and Megan’s benefits, which gave us free flight and discounted hotel. Yes, we didn’t think it was possible either. But it took some careful planning and rising early Thursday morning to fly standby – always stressful and potentially strand-ful. It was October and we were up for it.

So off we went, sitting in separate seats because of our standby status, but while soaring over Oregon, indulging our jocular pilot while he passed over still-smoking Mount St Helens, promising not to dip a wing into the bubbling cauldron. I just wanted him to keep it going down the road between the lines and not get off on the shoulders. I don’t fly that much and am not all that comfortable doing it, but with my wife Colleen and Shannon 14, Caitilin 12, Sean 10 and Conn 8, I felt a little safer. Funny how a grown man needs his wife and kids for a security blanket. Within an hour or two, we were angling for the Seattle airport, looking down on a city that was half enveloped in a big dark rain cloud and half drenched in blinding sunlight. We wondered which weather we would experience.

After a slap happy landing, we took a cab to our Marriott in Tukwila, then ditched our light luggage in the lobby so we wouldn’t have to check in till later and not spend money for an extra day. Then we hit the streets and caught our first-ever electric accordian bus, the kind with the bend in the middle, separating two whole buses. The kids were restless and didn’t know they were actually supposed to sit down on the bus, so we tried not to act like we were their parents as they ran restlessly back and forth, looking for different seats, never staying in them very long, fighting for windows, playing hide and seek, getting thrilled by standing in the “bend” – all while commuters patiently tried to read their papers and listen to their Walkmen...uh Walkmans...uh Walkthings (I’m talking pre-Ipods here).

We didn’t see the electric arm go up and hit the wires until we were ready to go under the city – and then we were “electrified” by the new world we discovered underground. It was only about 10am now and we were ready for the big city. And that meant a lot of walking. We started from the city center after we eventually found it right above our heads. We went for the Space Needle first, one of Seattle’s best known markers, invigorated by the fast pace and smell of sea in the air. But alas, climbing the Needle was a little beyond our meager budget, and no one would throw down ladders, so all we could do was look up and drool at the folks in the revolving restaurant. The kids were ready to eat.

So we headed for the wharf, me with the vision of unending seafood to consume, all this without a plan or purpose, just meandering, but now with more panic as the kids’ tummies rumbled out loud. As we approached the street where the open fish market was, everyone suddenly lost their appetites, seeing the fish catch out on display and smelling strange stinky aromas wafting across their noses. Nobody wanted to eat fish, while I could have gone into any number of places opening for lunch and devoured a big halibut whole. But looming on the near horizon right next to the wharf was the ferry port. There were ferries everywhere and we had finally found something to divert the kids' attention with and get them to get on board – literally.

Although we had lived in Hawaii for ten years, we had never gone out to sea. We were always sitting right in the middle of it. Now here we were, sitting on the edge of Puget Sound and ready to ride the water. And we were tired of walking too. Well this turned out to be an amazing experience we’d never forget. The day was beautiful, the storm clouds had dissipated, and the kids were making friends with seagulls which flew along side of us. They were also transfixed by the waves and wake made by this very large floating thing. My wife was a little squeamish at first, never feeling secure on the open water. But it was only a half hour ride to and from the nearby island we were charted toward, so we had time to lose ourselves in the fantasy and even finally indulge in a little light lunch at the snack bar.

The ride was over too fast and so memorable for all of us. How we’d love to go back and take longer rides and see how the other half lives on those beautiful islands. But the kids were already getting tired and we had a lot of walking to do to get back to the underground and find that electric bus again that would take us back to Tukwila. Back to Tukwila - sounds like a song title. The kids didn’t run around the bus either – still hadn’t lost their sea legs and the bus was rocking and rolling. But no barf bags needed. It was only three o’clock and we felt we had had a magical vacation already.

Once back at the Marriott though, the kids got renewed energy and wanted to hit the pool, which we were happy to encourage, while Colleen and I just lounged poolside in relaxed reverie and rested out tuckered feet - more walking than we had done in a long time. Water soaked and hungry, these now-famished little travelers didn't take much time to settle for some tv and pizza in our double suite room and everyone was ready for bed by 8pm – done! No I mean they so were exhausted, it took nothing for us to get them to sleep – no, they fell asleep without us even mentioning it – no, they were falling asleep with unchewed pizza sticking out of their mouths. And it didn’t take much for us to follow very soon after.

The next morning, we were up early for the first Morris Air out of town, enjoyed more unique captain banter and sightseeing talk as we flew back over the sights of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Nevada before finally landing in Salt Lake City Friday morning. We got to our house in Orem before noon, worn-out but seasoned travelers and vacationers with a memory together we’d never forget and haven’t enjoyed the likes of since. Not a bad little 24-hour out-of-towner. Cheap too - but priceless..

Summer's coming and I'm already cooked...

2009-06-06T00:57:00.021-06:00

Can’t Take The Heat (My Snow Daze)

Now that I’m older and “wiser”, I have a lot more questions than answers. Like why do people literally run after the sun, worship the sun, bathe in the sun, or can’t live without the sun in their face? I do not chase the sun! You know, like some seniors are always going where it’s hot and trying to get out of the cold? I’ve been suspected of howling at the moon a few times and I do have a problem with too much facial hair and longer than normal eye teeth. But the sun? I can’t take the heat. And why do a lot of people think it’s so romantic to be all salty and surf-beaten with sand in their shorts on a hot, humid beach? Where do they come up with this stuff? It's all ad hype. Most people don’t tan well anyway, especially us northern European types with our white skin and freckles. Cancer alert!

Some time ago, I went with some friends to the Scottsdale Arizona area and stayed with them in their resort, the Marriott Camelback. It was March and a little cool for the season. The tourist season is March and April when it’s supposed to be in the 70’s. It went right from the 50’s to the high 80’s within a week and that did it for me! I am not a sun bunny. But some people chase the sun in their old age, while I will chase snow. I will look at the local or national weather maps and find the snow and go, whenever and wherever it takes me, like tornado watchers but the white stuff instead. My wife Colleen is all over that and has the same cold blood as I do, so that will help us weather the storms of old age. No, I don’t snow ski or snow board or snow jump or snow skate or snow slide or snow blow. I just don’t like to be hot!

I am just a wacky, wintry kind of guy. I love cold and cloudy and snowy days in the winter. When it’s Winter, I want it to act like Winter. Don’t even tell me it’s going to be warm, Mr Meterologist, and apologize for the snow! That’s traitorous and an affront to your profession. It drives me crazy when I hear these guys say on the radio or tv that it’s going to be bad weather for awhile when they forecast a storm - even in Spring! They’re always assuming that everyone wants warm, sunny days. Not me, weather dorks! I hate it when they call these days dismal and they can’t wait for a sunny forecast. I say fire the whole lot of them for presuming that I personally can’t wait for the sun. I like it to be Winter in the Spring. I have no problem with it being Winter in the Fall. And I know I could handle Winter in the Summer. Bring it on! Apologies to all the SADD’s out there of course.

See, when I create my own world, my ideal year would be a cool September right after Labor Day, assuming we have such a holiday. I do love to see the leaves turn. And what makes that happen is cool wet weather. I like living in Utah because I can see the leaves turn on the mountains and snow happen on the peaks while it’s starting slower in the valley. I would like snow right after Halloween so the kids can have a cool but dry trick or treat time. But by November, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow – and do it right through Thanksgiving so we can go over the river and through the woods , and of course, it has to snow on Christmas Eve, on top of existing snow, and on New Year’s Eve and all the way through January, February, March, with a little tapering in April with more cool showers into May and June.

By July 4th, if there is one, it can warm up a little for variety and food growing of course - but nothing over 70, which should feel pretty warm after a long winter. Heck, I might even go outside for a parade or two, with my head well-covered of course. I can allow for a little sun in July and August, but clouds and warm rain would be best. Middle August should start to cool down. So where can I chase snow and get me some cloud? I can always put on enough clothes to get warm or warm myself by a nice cozy fire. But when I’m hot, I can never take off enough clothes or find a nice cozy block of ice to cuddle up to. Sorry, folks, while you are chasing sunny days, I will be looking for a snow bank to burrow into, an igloo to hibernate in, or at least a cool storm in the forecast.

Did I tell you my Hawaii Christmas stories of trying to close the windows and curtains on Christmas Day and gather the kids around the fake fireplace while everyone else was at the beach? The beach on Christmas Day? That’s sacrilege!! I was grateful for the breezes in Hawaii that made that year-round 75-80 degrees tolerable. But when August rolled around into September and Kona weather set in with nary a wisp of wind, I’m sorry, but that was sticky and soggy. I remember one night playing ball at a camp out on the beach with my kids. I had been swimming first, then played wet and sweaty in my jeans, then went in and fell asleep in the tent with my clothes on. When I woke up the next morning, I had a red rash from my waist to my thighs in a bathing suit distribution. The dermatologist called it some unknown name and gave me some water pills and other stuff. But to this day, I have a heat itch that pops up at all the wrong times and places.

But even Hawaii wasn’t as bad as my summers growing up in Maryland, when the temps and the humidity both reached the high 90’s! My only form of air conditioning in those days was to strip down at night, put a wet towel on, turn on the fan, and pray for sleep. I’ve seen the red and raw lobster skin of the bathers on Waikiki, the cracked leather skin of the golfers on the Arizona links – and I’ve felt the tight burn of the Atlantic and Pacific, that cruel mix of sea, salt and sun and have even gotten over baked under the high desert sun of Utah. I even fell asleep under a sun lamp once in my dorm room at BYU! Woke up with a big red circle on my chest. Ouch! - a lot! It doesn't work for me, sorry. I'm not a human barbecue anymore.

No, I’m a converted mountain man, folks. Give me the high mountains, the snow-covered Pines, the clear salt-free lakes, and a cabin in the deep woods with a fireplace on constant burn. I must have the cold blood of Irish Viking Bear ancestors in me that tells me the sun is to be feared, not worshipped, before my lilly white skin picks up some melanoma or carcinoma or some other kind of "noma". I do not need a perpetual tan, my sun block is in the hundreds, and excuse me while I hitch up the dogsled or one-horse open sleigh for the winter or any of those other wintry pastimes, because I am old man Winter, who likes his hot shower and hot tub and hot chocolate and hot sweetheart by his hot side in front of a hot fireplace – but only when it’s cold outside.

Thank you Colleen for feeling the same way! You are the snowstorm of my life! Let’s start picking out our retirement cabin in Maine or Montana or Minnesota, as close to the northern border as we can – or better yet Alaska, even if it doesn’t start with an “M”. Aurora Borealis, here we come, because I like it dark too, even in the daytime, so my fireplace can keep me lit. I don’t drink, so can’t get lit that way. And while all those wimpy seniors are heading south for the winter, we’ll be seeking refuge from the sun. “Snowbirds” they call themselves! That’s an insult to the word “snow”! But the opposite would be sunbirds and I don’t even want to be called anything but a snowman! And if they find us as two frozen skinny lovers in the snow someday, well, what a way to lose weight! And if there is any last breath in me left before I pass, I hope the kids are there to say, “Dad, Dad, go to the snow, go to the snow.”