Chapter Four: wherein we move south

In this chapter I will discuss how we left Salt Lake for Provo when my dad was made an assistant coach at BYU because Hal Mitchell wanted a Mormon who knew something about the single-wing offense.  I will talk about the birth of my youngest brother who grew up to be one of my best friends.  I will also mention the fact that my grandparents retired and moved from Wyoming to Utah and, in fact, lived a few blocks away from us for awhile.  Once when I was walking to their house, I got beat up by the Jakes' kids who lived around the corner.  They stole my purse with the fake makeup in it.

This taught me an important life lesson.  Never carry a purse with fake makeup in it.  People will beat you up if you do.

Chapter Three: wherein we take a big trip

In this chapter I will discuss how my parents put me and my brother in the back of a station wagon sans seat belts (America was reckless in those days) and drove to the Seattle Worlds Fair.  My brother and I pretended we were smoking cigarettes the whole time.  I was five.  He was three.  On the way there I tasted cherry pie in a restaurant and became obsessed with cherry pie.  When we saw the Space Needle for the first time, I told my dad that I was pretty sure people were sitting inside the Space Needle, eating cherry pie.

While in Seattle we stayed with a family who lived on a farm-ish thing with a donkey who apparently thought he was a rooster, because he brayed every morning at the same time and woke everybody up.

Dude.  That was some donkey.

Chapter Two: more about the earliest years

In this chapter I discuss how my dad coached football and wrestling at Granite High School.  He also taught Drivers' Ed.  Irony!   On weeknights and on the weekends he sold shoes at Sears and worked for the County Rec and also Pete Carlson, teaching kids to swim.  (Side note:  he taught the McCarthy brothers, former owners of the Trib, to swim when they were kids.)  He taught me to swim after hours.  I have memories of him tossing me into the pool and me screeching with laughter.  He also taught me wrestling holds.  He was the holder.  I was the holdee.  All of this was muy hysterically fun as far I was concerned.  I loved me a rough-and-tumble dad.

Cliff Notes of My Life: a story told in tiny chapters

So my fabulous friend Shelley who loves Kate Middleton the way I loved Princess Diana has just read her biography (Kate's) (not Diana's) and was disappointed, because (as it turns out) up until she started dating a PRINCE, Kate's life was kind of boring.  And Shelley thought her own life would make a better story (she's right), so on her blog she gave brief sketches of the different chapters of her life.

Genius!

So for the next few days I am going to give brief summaries of my life story chapters, too.  Thanks for the idea, Shelley.


Chapter One:  The early years

Born in Salt Lake.  My dad complained of a headache the whole time my mom was in labor.  MEN!  We lived in a teeny tiny white house on an acre lot in Holladay and I thought it was paradise.  Grass! Trees!  Pansies and marigolds!  Vegetable garden!  Orchard!  Chicken coops!  A view of Mt. Olympus from our living room window!  My best friend was a dog.  My mother put the two of us outside to play all day when the weather was good.  I ran away (to the basement) when my parents brought my brother home from the hospital, but no one came looking for me.  BABIES RUIN YOUR LIFE WHEN YOU'RE TWO YEARS OLD.

JFK and a column

I wrote this and then read Kirby's column, which had the advantage of running before mine--and also the advantage of being written by my friend Kirby.  But I still went with it because it would be weird not to write about the assassination as the 50th anniversary nears.

Fifty years.

So much time.  So many changes.

Football

It's Sunday, which means I'll have the TV on all day so I can drop in on an NFL game here and an NFL game there.  (Right now the Eagles are playing the Redskins, for instance.)  I'm looking forward to tonight's game between the undefeated Chiefs (go Andy Reid!) and the Broncos (oh, Peyton, I love you so--why did you have to go and break my heart by signing with a Denver team?).

Anyway.  There's this attitude about football these days that lots of people have.  Like, if you say to them that you follow football, you might as well say you also follow gladiator matches and you absolutely CANNOT wait until the next truckload of Christians gets dumped into the nearest coliseum.  Honestly, I'll be surprised if football is here in another 100 years.

I understand where this is coming from.  For sure.  As I've said before when we went back to South Bend for my father's induction ceremony and watched various honorees hobble up to the podium,  it was like viewing an instructional video in Health Class about why you SHOULDN'T play football in your youth.

Still.  I enjoy.  And will enjoy.  And if I'd been a guy you can bet I would have been out there playing the game myself.

Johnny Cash American recordings

Al gave me the JC American recordings recently, and I've been listening to them whenever I get into the car.  While I like some of them more than others, there's something about Johnny's voice as an old man that goes straight to my gut in all of them.  Even when he can't buy a note, JC's voice is so real, so raw, so full of nerve and sad wisdom and a wondering faith that I just have to shake my head and go wow.  What an artist.

I'm giving these to the Coach for Christmas.  He doesn't read my blog so I can say that.