Give Thanks...For My Friend Clifford Hughes

 I found out this past week a childhood friend passed away five years ago...

Five years.

And I only found out now.

Cliff and I grew up together. We went through elementary, jr. high, and high school. He was born nine days after me. We did scouts, sports, church (which was basically the same thing...), and if I'm not mistaken, even Dungeons and Dragons. There was a time when I talked about my best friends, Cliff was included in that conversation.

It's strange how people who meant so much to you at one point in your life can basically fade into memory.

Since graduation four decades ago (gads, that's a long time...), I've often wondered what happened to Cliff. After being released from being legally forced to spend time in the same educational building, we all went our separate ways. Most stayed close, but according to his obituary, Cliff moved east, one state over. He worked, had children, who in turn, had children making Cliff not only a father, but grandfather. There are no details as to his passing, other than the date.

As Cliff and I grew up, we made different decisions. I ended up choosing new friends who more aligned with the way I wanted to live my life, but Cliff was never "not my friend," at least, that's how I felt. Whenever we had a high school class together, we'd sit by each other and talk. Cliff had a good heart. He never made me feel bad for not hanging out with him as we grew older. 

Even though I haven't spoken to him for over forty years, the news hit hard. I feel for his children, grandchildren, those who knew him as a child, like me, and those who knew him in all those years in between. I'm thankful I could always call Cliff my friend. Since hearing the news, memories of those times years ago have returned. I'm thankful to have known Cliff. I'm thankful for those memories.

Bumper Crop...? Maybe, Hopefully

 I'm not a farmer, at least, I've never been called a farmer, even though technically, we have grown stuff. We've planted some fruit trees since we've moved here. One tree species that stumps me (pun, intended...) is the elusive apricot tree.

It is, in a word, fickle.

I never know if we'll ever get a crop.

Like I said, not a farmer.

I do know that if there's a late frost, the apricot trees seem to get hit the hardest. This year, our little tree seems to be blowing up with fruit, so much so, we need to thin the fruit. If we do, it looks like we'll get a decent crop this year.

One danger we continually face--or, the tree continually faces--is wind. We could power our house with the winds we get up here. Wind is bittersweet. It cleans the air, but also makes it tough in other ways. Never say never, but I believe the threat of a late freeze is over, so it's keeping the tree watered and hoping the wind doesn't destroy all the fruit.

I'll keep you posted.

Some People Want To Watch The World Burn...And Others Want A Clean Garage

 From my office window, I have an excellent view of my neighbors yard. Not that I'm stalking, but I notice things from time to time. We all have our little things we do, things that may seem perfectly normal to some, strange to others. My neighbor likes to keep his garage clean, and by clean, I mean, at least once a year they unload everything in the garage, clean it, then put everything back.

I'm kind of jealous, really.

I'll bet when everything is put back into place, they know everything that's inside. I'll bet they never have to search for anything--they just go right to the thing they're looking for and pick it up. What a concept. Point is, it's important for them to do this on an annual basis. It's something they do.

We could do the same thing, clear out and clean our garage every year. It would definitely help organize our stuff. I'd love to be able to know not only what's in our garage, but where it is. It would save so much time. And if we continued that same methodology throughout the entire house?

What a concept.

Watching them work, I thought of something. When my neighbor's kids grow up, there's a good chance they'll follow their parent's example and clean out their garage. Their spouses might wonder why they're doing what they're doing as there is a good chance their spouses did not grow up with that tradition. And they'll say, "My folks cleaned out their garage every year...just something we did. I like it, because I know exactly what's in the garage and where to find it."

And the spouse will agree, it's great.

And their children will grow up following the tradition.

That's just how life is, sometimes...they just want a clean garage.

Oh, Arcade...Where Have You Gone?

 

My side gig takes place near a location where I spent countless hours as a kid. Almost every summer day my friends and I would go to the Lagoon pool, swim for a few hours, then walk around the park. We'd inevitably find ourselves at the Lagoon Arcade. I think it was called the Penny Arcade.

It's been called many things since it was built decades ago.

I believe it was first built as a dance hall. There's even the old wooden floor. Can't say for certain, but I think much of the wooden floor might be original where teenagers and parents danced the night away to first big bands, then rock and roll legends. 

Then again, since I know nothing of how long a wood floor lasts, I might be way off.

As a kid, we'd check out the pinball games. We'd check to see if any adult had played a pinball game, earned a credit or two, but left not knowing (or caring...) they had a free game. Finding a credit on a video game was golden, mostly because we had no money to play games ourselves. All three sides of that huge space were lined with nothing but pinball games.

As we grew, the arcade evolved. Video games came into their own and transformed the arcade into a palace of electric entertainment. We were older and had some money at that point. We'd even play a game or two.

The modern arcade turned into a place to earn points to buy stuff, stuff I don't care much about. There's no Asteroids or even Mortal Combat. Why have those games when much more impressive and challenging games are found on everyone's phone?

Still, I miss Tron and Missile Command and Galaga and Dig Dug and Centipede Dragon's Liar Pac Man Donkey Kong and Frogger and Zaxxon and Tempest and Joust and Journey and dozens more.

Maybe it's just a miss my youth. Still, looking at the space I once loved, I can't help but feel bad for how far it's fallen. Too bad...those were great times.

Many Hate Them...But I Think Pigeons Are Cool

 Back in the day, kids had hobbies. I am perhaps jaded by what I think young kids do today. I think they all sit in front of computers and play video games. I KNOW that's not right, and now that we live in a neighborhood with a lot of kids, I see them playing outside, running around, riding bikes, even setting up car washes for money.

Those are the kinds of things we did as kids. Without computer games and the internet (heck, even without VCRs...), entertaining ourselves was up to us. What was one thing I did as a kid?

We built a pigeon coop.

And raised pigeons.

Today, my family and I went to our local county fair and had a blast. I'll be blogging about the experience in days to come, but there was one exhibit I loved...the pigeons. It took me back to when not only me and my brother raised pigeons, but many other kids did as well. We had some beautiful birds, different types of pigeons--I've long forgotten the names of the breeds. I was hoping to see some of those amazing birds at the fair, but they were pretty average--beautiful, but average.

I know many people hate pigeons, and they have some good reasons to do so. Many transmit disease, they're scavengers, among other things. But, I really like them. I miss raising them and seeing them fly in the air above our house.

My wife asked me after checking out the birds if I'd like to build a coop and raise pigeons again. In one way, I'd love to, but in another, no. Maybe, it's something kids w/o internet and video games should do. 

But, I'm not saying never say never...

A Field Of Future Memories...

 This is the view from my office window. It's actually a bedroom, but we use it as an office. It looks directly east, toward mountains that separate Box Elder County from Cache County. I can see Interstate-15, Garland, Deweyville, but what I see the most is an empty field.

A field of future memories.

It's Spring Break here. Kids have played outside when the weather's been good. We live in a new neighborhood...there's lot of kids. It's tough to see in the picture, but there's a little electronic truck parked in the dirt, left by its proud owner because something else caught the youngster's attention and he had to leave the truck to go eat or go to the bathroom. Whatever it was, the truck stayed for a little while. Eventually, it was moved back into the garage with his parents's cars.

I suppose if we lived in a world without video games or movies on demand or the internet, the field might get used more. Still, the kids seem to have fun running in the field, playing in the dirt...basically, being kids. It reminded me of the mountain that served as our backyard. We lived on that hill, both summer and winter...spring and fall. We had adventures, built forts, rode our bikes up and down and all around. Our world was endless and our lives were better because of it.

I think of the kids playing in the field today. Twenty years comes pretty fast. Those kids will grow, graduate from school...many will leave on church missions, some won't. They'll enroll in college, or the military or get a job and begin their careers. 

The master plan of the subdivision is to extend the road east and line it with homes, both on the north and south sides of the street. More parents, more kids will call this patch of the gently rising hill home. They will play in their yards and maybe play in a field farther away.

But those kids I see playing now. In twenty years they'll return from school, from missions (both religious and military...) and look at the street. Maybe the owner of the little truck will recall the beautiful spring days when he piloted his vehicle up and down the dirt road and around the field. Will he wonder how things changed so much so fast? My guess is he will...because that's what happens when fields become streets and homes and there's nothing left but the memories.

Thanks Physics...And My Mom For Saving Us A Lot Of Time And Trouble

We're cleaning out our basement. That's a big task normally--lots of packing and moving of boxes, that is after you've sorted out things you want to keep and thing you don't.

Which brings me to two huge plastic water barrels.

We wanted to keep the barrels, but not the water.

I remember filling them up. We snaked a hose through a basement window and turned on the water, but we couldn't do that to empty them--water doesn't run uphill...

Unless you apply physics.

I remember growing up when we irrigated our garden and trees by siphoning water from a ditch. The ditch was behind our house and most of what we watered as downhill, so no problem. But, we had cherry trees that were several feet above the driveway. As a kid I knew water would reach the driveway, but how would it go up to water the trees? My mom explained the concept of siphoning. 

As long as the water source is higher than where it empties, and there's no air in the tube/hose, the water will drain, even if the tube/hose goes higher than the source. I was counting on this concept to work in order to drain the 100 gallons of water we needed gone.

I filled up a hose, made sure the draining end was lower than the barrels, and shoved the end into the barrel. I checked the exit and we had draining water.

Success!

I could have repeated the process for the second barrel, but instead we used a pump to pump water from the first barrel into the second and had both barrels siphon away.

It was fun remembering something my mother taught me to help us out.

Sometimes...I Miss Idaho

The other day I was scrolling through my Instagram feed and this picture popped up.

Stunning.

Even if you don't understand the significance of the building, the singular structure, the purple hues of the foothills, and the towering expanse of the Grand Teton peak make an incredible composition...it's simply a wonderful picture of what man has made and what God has made.

It also reminded me of my childhood, which is weird, because when I was a child, that building was decades away.

I grew up in Utah, near Salt Lake City. If you're familiar with the area, you know that the state's largest populated area rests in a valley surrounded by mountains--that, and a dead lake. If you're ever lost, just look up. Depending on which mountain range is closer, you know where you're at. If you see (or smell...) a lake, you know you're close to the Great Salt Lake.

But, if you drive north a couple of hundred miles, the mountain ranges separate and I no longer find myself sure of north, south, east, and/or west. That is, until I spot the Teton range to the east.

My mom grew up in Driggs Idaho, under the shadow of the Tetons--the Idaho side (which, in my humble opinion, is the best side...). We visited there many times as a child. As I grew, we visited family in Idaho Falls and Hamer (if you know where Hamer is, you get a gold star...). To get almost anywhere in Southeastern Idaho, you've got to drive. And when you drive, you're able to see the Tetons.

When I see those mountains, I know where I am, mostly because I know where they are.

This picture reminded me of being unsure of my location as I grew up when we visited Idaho so many times. It also reminded me of good times with wonderful people, many of which are no longer with us. Man, sometimes I miss Idaho...and everything that comes with it.

Living In A Small(ish) Town...

There's a tree-lined street that runs north and south in our town, one of several tree-lined streets, actually. The trees on Main Street are sycamores. They grow tall. They're strong...like surviving hurricane-strength winds strong. We know this, because we have had several hurricane-strength windstorms blow through over the years...

And the trees still stand.

This afternoon I attended a memorial service for a friend, someone who grew up in the same small town with tree-lined streets. We both rode bikes on the uneven sidewalks (many buckling because the roots of those sycamores forced them up...). We played in the parks. We picked up candy at the Farmington A/G. We swam at the Lagoon pool.

So much has changed in the almost fifty years since we began grade school in our small town. It's no longer all that small, ever since the dairy and other farms on the west side of town have been converted to homes and a first-class shopping center. 

We're even getting a state liquor store.

But, the area of town, the main and side streets that existed back in 1970 and before, they still remain. Many of the old homes--including pioneer-era homes--are still there. They're a testament to people wanting to live here, people wanting to stay.

There's a lot of insanity in the world today. We are inundated with crap news on a twenty-four hour loop. And even though I came form a gathering where friends and family said "good-bye" to a much-loved man, driving down the main street of a town where I grew up, where friends and I ran and biked and hiked all over, it reminded me of the good that once existed. And as long as the seemingly ever-lasting sycamores stand like sentinels against the wind, I believe much of that good has never left, but is fighting to be seen in a world of confusion.

Living in a small town, or a town that still feels small...well, it's something special.

Then You Come Across An Old Concert Ticket...

Tonight, I was meandering on Twitter (I really shouldn't, the place is kind of a pit...), but every once in a while there's a tweet that gets you thinking. One of the people I follow mentioned him having tickets to an upcoming show of his favorite band--KANSAS. I thought it would be fun to send him a picture of a concert ticket from almost forty years ago.

I found the ripped stub among other old concert tickets I've saved from my childhood. I took a picture, shared it in a tweet.

There's so much of my childhood in that picture of that stub. In the late 1970s to the early 1990s concerts were a big part of my life. I even wore a RUSH concert-T in one of my high school yearbook pictures, my junior year, I think. In order to see our favorite bands, we had to wait months, even years for them to come to town. You had to actually camp out at the Salt Palace ticket office days in advance to guarantee even getting inside the venue to see the show.

That was the first part of the adventure.

Then, once you got a ticket, you figured out where you were sitting, the closer to the stage, the better--obviously. Hard to pack in a decent camera to take pictures, and there was no way you could actually video part of the show. A seat super close to the stage became a status symbol, to be admired by all your other rocker friends. I can't remember exactly if Section 23, Row E, Seat 6 was good, but if I recall, it wasn't that bad.

KANSAS was my first concert. I believe it was the Audio-Visions tour. Great show. It was the first of many that followed. Heck--when a show cost less than ten bucks, you saw a lot of them.

Seeing the ticket, holding it, turning it over...those tickets meant a lot of a geeky skinny undersized teenager who loved the music of the era. And if you were lucky enough to see an act live, you left with the memories, and a ripped concert ticket stub that you can write about forty years later.

Your Own Personal Astroids Machine...Turning Back Time

I spotted the machine a few weeks ago, but the crowds at Costco kept me from it. This morning, however, I arrived early to buy things completely unassociated with this item. Because there were so few people in the store, I was able to draw close, and even give it a try.

Instantly I was a pre-teen in the Farmington A/G store with my childhood friends, lining up quarters, finally able to play my favorite video game.

I mean, I have no idea how many Astroids video game consoles they built in the late 1970s--I would suspect millions. I'll bet if I looked on-line I could find an operating machine from that time, one that requires quarters to work, one that has the original Atari name--the world's first great video game manufacturer--proudly displayed for all to see.

The thing at Costco costs $200. There's a question about who exactly is this marketed for? Is it for kids? Most likely not. For kids this is like preferring a Sony Walkman over their smartphone. No, I'm their target audience. Which brings up another question--if it's for aging video gamers who were born before the invention of Pong, why is it so small? It it weren't raised up a foot or so, I would have had to bend down to play it.

I don't know. Maybe it's for aging video gamers who think it would be a great gift for their kids (or grandkids...), but really they want to play it themselves. And I wonder how many of the units they've moved since it first hit the sales floor.

Of course, I did not buy it. I've got an infinite number of games available on my phone or the laptop on which I'm typing this blog post. Still, there was something about seeing the most basic of computer effects, the feeling of the hard plastic buttons responding to my touch. Turns out there's a price to have a piece of your childhood returned to you.

It's $199.99, plus tax.

...With Presents Neath The Tree

This morning, before I left the house at 6am, I quickly turned on our Christmas tree lights. I wanted to snap a few pictures of it while the house was dark and, more especially, while there are presents lying underneath.

A lot has changed since I was a kid, but that scene, the presents, the tree, the lights--it's one of my favorite childhood memories.

I grew up in a very large house, not a mansion, but large for my mom and us three kids. My dad designed the house and almost saw it completely built before he died. He wanted a big front room and that's what we had. It's a great room for a Christmas tree and we put it in the same place every year, the southwest corner. We sold the house after my mother passed away. The new owners realized just how perfect that corner is for a Christmas tree--it's where their tree is right now. You can't argue with a great place to put a Christmas tree.

The house where I now live is smaller and we've had our trees over the years in various places. And because the house is smaller, we can't have as many presents under the tree, like we did in my parent's house. I don't remember exactly when the presents started showing up when I was a kid, but by the third week of December, there were just so many--or so it seemed.

I loved just looking at the tree. I suppose that what kids did before the internet. With it dark outside and all the lights turned off except the Christmas lights, I would just sit, put on a Christmas album on the HiFi, look at the tree, and wonder what was in all those boxes.

Yesterday my wife and I wrapped presents and put them under our tree. We've only a few days until the 25th so there'll be fewer chances to kick or knock them around. This morning, as I took the pictures, I remembered those days decades ago when lights, a tree, some holiday music, and the mystery of wrapped presents was enough to completely captivate a young boy. If that's not something special, I don't know what is.

It Does More Than Eat Bugs...It Brings Back Memories

I saw these being sold at our local grocery store. It's not just a grocery store, but it's also a pharmacy/bank/hardware/book store that also houses a florist shop. And when I saw the Venus Flytrap, it brought back a lot of childhood memories for me.

As a kid, a Venus Flytrap was like owning some sort of science fiction monster. I mean, it actually EATS bugs! It traps them and then the jaws of death clamp down on the insect while it's still alive. After that, the digestion process begins. It's like letting loose a live mouse into a snake pen. You watch with fascination as the cruelties of life unfold (or fold, in this case...) before your very eyes.

I remember getting one of these plants when I was a kid. I'm not exactly sure where we got it--pretty sure it wasn't at the local Farmington A/P. I can't be sure, but we probably found some ants outside and dropped them into the thing. Or we trapped a fly or another bug and lowered it to its doom. I know we did something else, too. We put little pieces of meat into the traps and watched it do its thing. I'm not sure why we did this--maybe it was my big brother who said it was okay to do it. I don't know.

I remember being excited buying the new one and showing my kids how we could feed it a little piece of ham. They'd watch with fascination, too. But, I was surprised to read on the packaging that feeding it meat was a no-no. I guess it will just have to fend for itself.

I don't know how long we had that Venus Flytrap back in the day or how long it lived. I don't think it survived very long. Then again, if we were feeding it meat, and we weren't supposed to, maybe that's why I don't remember it living that long.