One Hundred Years Ago Today...A Great Man Was Born

 On this day in 1924 my father was born in Harlem, Montana...one century, one hundred years, Harry A. Taylor, my father.

When I think of amazing men, amazing Americans, I think of my dad. When the Great Depression hit, he was old enough to understand things were bad, and if not, he definitely knew by the time it ended a decade later. Imaging going from a depression economy to a nation at war, which is exactly what happened. Dad had to wait until he turned eighteen in1945 to enlist, but when he did, they sent him to Germany and placed him behind a tail gun in a B-17 because he was an expert marksman. His family sent five brothers to fight in WWII...they all survived.

When he returned, the man who never graduated from high school earned a four-year engineering degree in three years, an incredible feat even then. He married my mother and after years of trying for children of their own, they adopted other's children, and they did it three times. He worked as an engineer for several companies finally ending up as a civilian worker at Hill Air Force Base. My parents bought six acres of land on the mountain in Farmington, Utah, where he designed and began building his dream home. 

He never saw its completion. 

The law of averages says reaching your one-hundredth birthday is rare. My father was months shy of reaching half that. He passed away at forty-nine, leaving a wife and three children under eleven-years old.

One hundred years is a milestone. Buildings have celebrations when they reach that mark (at least they do in the Western United States because that is considered old...). When people turn one-hundred local news do stories on them and families gather to celebrate.

For my father, this blog post may be the only thing written about him, the only mention the world will know of his birth and a little about his short, but important life. It's a shame, in a way, that we're not holding celebrations, no gatherings, no parties. Of my father's eleven siblings, only one remains, and of my immediate family, only my brother and I are left to remember the man we barely knew.

From what I know about my father, I doubt he'd be upset that this may be the only acknowledge of his birthday. It's not when a person is born that's important, it's what you do with the time you have, and my father...well, he's my Gold Standard on how to live a truly special life.

Happy birthday, Dad. I cannot thank you enough for everything you've done for me. Love you and miss you still.

A Little History Book...

This past year I've been working in our basement. I mostly stay at my desk, which is my assignment, but at times I find myself looking around the room. The other day I spotted a red binder. I'd most likely checked out the binder before, but this time I took particular note.

It's an old book.

It's from the 1960s.

And it has information about our town, our church, and my dad.

There is information out there about our town--not a lot, but some. The same can be said for our church in our town. In fact, our little community is somewhat famous in our church because a worldwide church program began in our little town August 25, 1878, and is still going strong today.

But there's not a lot of information out there about my dad, so when I find something--even something small--for me, it's special.

The binder is a collection of notes, meetings, and other information from the Farmington Utah 1st Ward circa 1968 through the early 1970s. For a person living in this town since the early 1970s, many of the names were familiar. It was a notebook for the men's organization so I read about dads of some of my childhood friends. It also details how things have changed as far as the administrative functions of the church back then. For example, they raised money from the men to buy things the church needed. Fast forward five decades and things are done so differently today.

I dare say if this book were picked up by a casual observer, they might just toss it in the garbage. After all, almost all the men mentioned on the pages have died (including my father...). But, for others, the information means more.

And I'm one of them.

A Photo Of My Dad's Family...

Yesterday, as I sat in a booth at a Denny's in Orem Utah, my cousin Mark--from literally half a world away--posted a picture of my father's family.

I look at a lot of pictures. I take a lot of pictures. I appreciate the art of photography. I like, when I see an incredible photograph, to enjoy the experience that view provides. The photo my cousin posted wasn't high art, no effects were used, no filters. But, even without all that, I found it one of the most amazing photographs I've seen in a long time.

It was a photo of my father's family, the only child missing was the one not yet born.

And, incidentally, that child not in the picture is the only member of the family still alive.

My father's in the picture, Harry, fourth from the left on the front row.

I didn't know a lot about my father's family. Growing up, we visited my uncles and aunts on my father's side. My father's parents passed away decades before, so long, in fact, my mother never knew her in-laws. They were gone before she met my father. And since my father passed away forty-three years ago this February, we spent even less time visiting his side of the family. I doubt it was intentional, just the way it was. 

My cousin Mark, who currently lives in Russia and is on a LDS mission with his wife, has been posting interesting family stories for the past couple of days (his father, Jack, is the baby of the photo--second from the left on the front row...). I remember spending time with his family growing up. We had good times with Jack and Lova, even though my cousins were several years older than us.

I don't have a lot of memories of my father, and unfortunately, there are fewer and fewer people around who knew him or remember him. Now that my mother has also passed, my main source of knowledge of the man left with her.

Growing up without the advantage of having a father in my life was not ideal, especially when I would like to have had his wisdom and council as I try to navigate life with all its challenges. I am grateful to the man who, with is parents and siblings, posed for a photo in a field in Idaho around 1930, and who grew up to be someone I still admire, who I look up to, and who I look forward to one day getting to know a lot better.

Waiting At The Airport...

I work near the Salt Lake City International Airport, but unfortunately, from where I sit in my cubicle can't see any of the planes land or take off. Probably a good thing--that way I can focus more on my work and keep my job. When I take a break and walk around outside, that's when I see them. There's something about seeing one of those massive machines race into the sky that's mesmerizing. It's almost hypnotic.

I don't have many memories of my father, but I think there were times when we used to drive out to the airport and watch the planes take off and land. Back then, you could get closer, or even park your car by the side of the road and watch. I'm not sure you can even do that anymore. Like I said, these memories with my father might not have even happened, but I think they did--I'd like to think they did.

Even though I work close to the airport, I don't find myself at the airport very often. It's been years since I've been on a plane. I have, however, been asked to pick up people when they fly into town--something I'm happy to do. 

Such was the case earlier this week. We had family fly in from California. Luckily, I was able to work my full shift then afterwards, pick them up. I arrived a few minutes early and so I waited for them to deplane. When you wait, you do certain things, at least I do. I listened to the radio, memorized more of Frank Sinatra's My Way, and took a few pictures of the beautiful sky that sounded both fliers and non-fliers alike. Spring storms have been rolling into the valley as of late which makes for incredible cloud formations and amazing skies. My simple pictures don't even come close to doing them justice.

Tomorrow I'll return to the place where people can be transported to virtually every destination on the planet. And because I'm dropping off, I won't have an excuse to look at the sky and watch the planes. Of course, I could do it anyway, which would be a pretty good excuse, if you ask me.

Taking A Picture With The Lens Cap On...In Our Times

I don't have a lot of memories of my father, he passed away when I was pretty young. Maybe it's because I love taking pictures that one memory of him refused to leave me.

My dad dabbled in photography. When I was younger I snooped around our house and I found several of his cameras. Boy, they were old. I don't know if my dad fancied himself as a serious photographer. I think he loved the mechanics behind the whole thing. From what I do know about the man, that makes sense.

The one memory I have of him and photography was a time when we traveled north to spend some time with my mom's parents in Idaho. If you know the Teton Valley, you know there are vistas of the famous mountain range that literally take your breath away, and my grandparents had the best view of the Tetons hands down. My dad decided to take some pictures of the range--he snapped an entire roll.

Turns out, he left the lens cap on his camera and so when he got back the developed pictures, they were completely black. The camera he used did not have a direct line-of-sight from lens to viewfinder. So when my dad looked at the small glass window at the scene he wanted to capture, what he was seeing what not what the lens would see. He ended up completely wasting that roll of film and denying all of us the chance to see what the Teton mountains looked like from the Idaho side on that day back in the early 1970s.

My first quality camera was my Olympus OM-10 SLR. I LOVED that camera! So much so, I still have it. My dad would have loved it, too, and not just because of the lens cap debacle, but because that little thing was so amazing. When you look into the viewfinder of that camera, that's what would transfer to the film--the amazing Single Lens Reflex in action.

And cameras today are light years ahead of my OM-10. You don't even have to look at a viewfinder anymore. With most cameras, you look at the little video screen to see what the picture will look like. So I thought the days of "forgetting to take the lens cap off" were gone forever.

Turns out, that's not completely true. This week after work, I passed a small patch of flowers with amazing color. I took one with my iPhone one day thinking I would use it as my "Pic Of The Day." I didn't get a good shot of it, or at least, I felt I could do better. So the next day I took out my Nikon and snapped a picture. The problem was, I didn't check out the finished product. The last pictures I took with my Nikon were in a darkened theater so the settings were stuck on Manual. When I downloaded the shot to use for my "Pic Of The Day," the picture at the top of this blog is what I saw.

It was my own lens cap moment. And I didn't think those existed anymore.

49 Years And 13 Weeks...

49 years and 13 weeks...that's how long my father lived. "How old was your dad when he died?" people would ask me when they found out he passed away when I was young. I remember thinking he was 50 because he was born in 1924 and died in 1974. Even with my limited math skills, I knew that totaled 50 years.

But, like me, my father was born in the month of November and he passed away in February so he was in his 50th year, but he was only 49 years old.

49 years and 13 weeks.

I don't know if it's like this for everyone who's father passes away when they're young, but I alway wondered if I would live as long as my father, because when you grow up without a parent because they died, a fairytale existence where everything works out isn't guaranteed. Bad things can happen and people can die young.

Of course, at the time he passed away (I was eight...) I thought 49 year old was OLD! I mean, he was so much older than my friend's dads. They were all in their 30s. My father was older when he got married. Well, older for Mormon culture. Then he and my mom tried for years to have kids of their own without success so by the time they ended up adopting three kids, my father was into his 40s. Now, when I think of people in their 40s, they're no longer old. In fact, they're pretty darn young.

As I grew and got older, I often wondered if I would live as long as my dad. Again, because I know it happens, I wondered if it would happen to me. Would I reach 49? I knew that if I were to pass away in my late 40s my kids would be older than his kids were, even though I got married a little older than some. 

The reason I'm thinking about this, and more specifically, writing about this is because as of today, February 26, 2015, I have lived exactly 49 years and 13 weeks. Which means, as of tomorrow, my time on this planet will have eclipsed that of my dad. 

Because we're human, we compare. We compare salaries, home sizes, car models, even talent levels. I've sometimes thought of all my father accomplished in his life and it's staggering. The man helped raise his younger siblings during the depression. He enlisted in WWII and was stuck in the back of a B-17 as a tailgunner--arguably the most dangerous place to be on a plane that had a greater chance of being shot down than finishing the war unscathed. He was a deputy sheriff, an expert marksman and a justice-of-the-piece. He completed his undergraduate degree in three years. He built a radio, a television and even the house where I grew up. He also married a wonderful woman and adopted three pretty cool kids. I can't think of a better example of a man to emulate. 

Tomorrow I'll wake to a new day, one day more than my father had--49 years, 13 weeks and one day. And because of who he was and what he did for me, I can only hope to honor him by being the best man possible. Thanks dad...for everything!

The Wonder Of White Chocolate...

Unlike Sheldon Cooper, I do not have an eidetic memory. I can't remember when I first ate white chocolate, but I think I remember that it might have been the best thing I ever tasted--to that point--in my life. Regular chocolate we ate a lot. White chocolate...it was a rare treat.

My father brought home white chocolate for us kids, at least I think it was him. Some of my earliest remembrances are of him working on base. He was a civilian engineer and remained so until he passed away. I remember the base being a big mysterious place for me, the few times I went there as a child. He would bring interesting things home from the base. Was white chocolate one of those interesting things? Probably not, but I'd like to think so.

Today my son gave me a couple of Lindor's chocolates. I tried the first--regular chocolate. It was good, but the gold wrapper contained white chocolate. For an instant I was transported back to when I was about five years old (maybe younger...) and experienced that incredible taste for the first time. And in that moment, I thought of my dad. Funny how memories work...